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Start at ImaginOn: The Joe & Joan Martin Center
Title: ImaginOn Courtyard Mural
Location: 300 East 7th Street
Artist: David Theissen with student artists
Date: 2006
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: www.davidtheissen.com
Story: Welcome to ImaginOn: The Joe & Joan Martin Center! This is a one of a kind facility that “brings stories to life through extraordinary experiences that challenge, inspire, and excite young minds.” Upon the opening of ImaginOn, former Charlotte-Mecklenburg art teacher David Theissen worked with students to paint this mural in this courtyard at the corner of the new building.
Key Formal Elements:
- Polychromatic color scheme
- Repetition of the story prompts
Make the Connection:
The artist and his students designed the mural using first lines and images from a variety of familiar fairy tales and children’s stories. Do you remember any of these stories? Do you have a favorite book? Do you remember its opening line?
Walk to corner of 7th & Rail Trail
Title: “The Writer’s Desk”
Location: 300 East 7th Street
Artist: Larry Kirkland
Date: 2006
Media: Granite, marble
Artist Info: www.larrykirkland.com
Story: When Charlotte Observer publisher Rolfe Neill retired in 1997 after a distinguished career in journalism, a community group raised funds for a public art piece to tell the story of his career, commitment to civic responsibility, and writings. Washington, DC based artist Larry Kirkland creates large scale public art installations all over the world. “The Writer’s Desk” won the Public Art Network’s Best New Public Artwork award when it was completed.
Key Formal Elements:
- Freestanding installation
- Explore the different textures
Make the Connection:
Books. Reading. Writing. Kirkland nails it. In a deeply thoughtful installation, Kirkland manages to bring the important and serious ideals of a much beloved writer and patron of the arts to a playful and interactive outdoor space. The stack of books, typewriter keys – Neill was a manual typewriter journalist, the quill, and the quotes all point to Neill’s influential career. But at the same time these elements provide a fun, engaging space for performances, sitting, and the telling of new stories. Sit a while and read some of the quotes. What stories do you think they are trying to tell?
Walk to your left and stop at platform
Title: 7th Street Station Art
Location: 7th Street Light Rail Station
Artists: Shaun Cassidy, Leticia Huerta
Date: 2007
Media: Steel and aluminum, acrylic, tile, pavers
Artist Info: www.leticiahuerta.com
Story: Federal Transit Administration Circular 9400.1A encourages the inclusion of art in transit systems. According to the circular, "Good design and art can improve the appearance and safety of a facility, give vibrancy to its public spaces, and make patrons feel welcome." In other words, design matters. For the CATS Blue Line, up to 1% of design and construction costs was set aside to create public art. CATS Arts in Transit program hired artists as part of design teams. The resulting art is often functional and integrated into the architecture.
Shaun Cassidy, a professor of art at Winthrop University, designed the leaf patterns for the station track fencing. Artist Leticia Huerta designed the windscreens and column mosaics.
Key Formal Elements:
- Organic shape of the leaf contrasts with the strict geometry of the fence and tracks
- Repetition of patterns in the mosaics and windscreens
Make the Connection:
One of the design themes of the public art on the Blue Line is a focus on nature. Cassidy fabricated 40 sculptural leaves to be inserted into the track fencing. A different species of tree that is native to this area is featured at each station. At the 7th Street Station, Cassidy sculpted gingko leaves. The gingko leaf is unusual in that it is uniquely shaped like a fan. Look closely at the leaf. The interior vein pattern is a street map showing the location of the station and its surroundings. Can you find your spot on the leaf?
Huerta also uses the image of the gingko leaf. The leaf pattern appears on the windscreens and a combination of leaf designs adorn the column mosaics.
Stop at Platform
Title: “River Rock” Seating
Location: 7th Street Light Rail Station
Artist: Hoss Haley
Date: 2007
Media: Steel and concrete
Artist Info: @hosshaley
Story: Asheville-based artist Hoss Haley designed the large seat along the edge of the light rail platform.
Key Formal Elements:
- Smooth texture
- Organic shape
Make the Connection:
Haley titles his work “River Rock,” as though it is a rock sculpted to softness by centuries of rushing water. Much of his work requires the viewer to question what they know about the material they are viewing and how they think that material looks. His work transcends the material of steel and concrete and creates a weightlessness that suggests you could pick it up and toss it into a river.
Cross Light Rail Tracks
Title: “Touch My Building”
Location: 215 East 7th Street
Artist: Christopher Janney
Date: 1998
Media: Stainless steel, acrylic panels
Artist Info: www.janneysound.com
Story: This parking garage is a musical instrument. Sound artist Christopher Janney designed “Touch My Building” as part of his “urban musical instrument” series for Bank of America and the Arts & Science Council.
Key Formal Elements:
- Scale – the entire building is art
- Color – cool blues, warm pinks, and yellow at the top
Make the Connection:
This public artwork is meant to be experienced at different scales. First, 416 brightly colored panels animate the sides of the entire 9-story building. Don’t forget to catch the sun oculus at the top of the cornice. At the pedestrian or human scale, there are 36 thirty-foot-tall “light fins” that circle the building. If you touch them, the fins light up and play a sound. On the hour the building plays a song. And there’s a secret riddle. Find the plaque where the riddle is posted. Solve the riddle and touch the fins in the correct sequence and the building will do something special. Go!
Look Up
Title: “Wind Silos”
Location: Along light rail between 5th Street and 6th Street
Artist: Ned Kahn
Date: 2006
Media: Stainless steel
Artist Info: www.nedkahn.com
Story: California based artist Ned Kahn is interested in the intersection of art and science and the forces of nature. Commissioned by Bank of America, Kahn completed this project to provide ventilation but also to screen an unattractive side of a parking garage. The artwork is 80 feet tall and 450 feet wide and there are 18,500 six-inch disks in the upper quarter of the panels.
Key Formal Elements:
- Kinetic art – which means it moves
- Scale
Make the Connection:
Kahn designs projects that interact with the weather and conditions of a site. Here the 18,500 disks may flutter wildly if it is windy. As they turn and twist they may reflect the sunlight or the blue sky or the city lights at night to create a dazzling display of light. What are they doing right now?
Walk to Tryon, Cross
Title: “Mother of Invention"
Location: 301 North Tryon Street wall along East 6th Street
Artist: Rosalie Torres-Weiner
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @redcalacastudio
Story: Artist and activist Rosalia Torres-Weiner is a native of Mexico and one of the leading mural artists and community builders in Charlotte. Her mural on the side of Discovery Place is a Charlotte Shout project. With murals in NoDa, Plaza-Midwood, and South End, this marks her first mural uptown. The artist is known for her female subject matter, bold and colorful designs, and political statements.
Key Formal Elements:
- Symmetrical balance
- Use of white outline
Make the Connection:
Torres-Weiner presents a colorful and decorated “Mother of Invention.” So many symbols are here to help you make the connection to both place and story of the mural. Some scientific symbols like the solar system and DNA helix iconography are combined with more mystical symbols like a dreamcatcher. What do you think this may suggest? Did you know that female scientist Rosalind Franklin helped discover the double helix structure of DNA?
Walk along Tryon Street, Turn Left at 7th
Title: Discovery Place Mural
Location: 301 North Tryon Street side wall down 7th Street at Discovery Place
Artist: Alex DeLarge
Date: 2019
Media: Acrylic paint
Story: Alex DeLarge is one of the original founders of Talking Walls, a city-wide mural festival, and he is a founder of the Southern Tiger Collective, a cooperative group of local artists supporting the street art scene. DeLarge wants Charlotte to become a destination for mural art and the celebration of public art.
Key Formal Elements:
- Warm colors in sunset and fiery tracks
- Implied motion
Make the Connection:
Remember Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett Brown? Back to the Future came out in 1985 with its DeLorean Time Machine allowing for travel back in time. DeLarge brings this fictional story to life with the fiery tire tracks and electrical currents surrounding the car to signify its landing at another time. However, the artist made one change from the original. Here the license plate reads “704.” Do you know what the original license plate said? Also, how is this mural connected to its place?
Walk back to Tryon, cross, walk right, past Spirit Square
Title: "Strange Fruit"
Location: N. Tryon Street on side wall of Duckworths
Artist: Dammit Wesley
Date: 2018
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @dammit_wesley
Story: The artist who goes by the name of Dammit Wesley is a community leader, social and political activist, and outspoken supporter of creatives of color. His art sheds lights on the Black experience through the lens of popular culture. Wesley is a founder of BlkMktClt, an artists collective highlighting the work of artists of color. This mural was completed during the inaugural Talking Walls mural festival.
Key Formal Elements:
- Strong use of outline
- Secondary colors of green and orange
** For parents/caregivers who want to continue the conversation with their children about the subject matter of this piece, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library suggests the following titles:
For Children:
- Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday and the Power of A Protest Song by Gary Golio
- Ida B. Wells by Diane Bailey
For Young Adults:
- Ida B. Wells-Barnett and the Crusade Against Lynching by Alison Morretta
Make the Connection:
Without knowing at least something about the reference here by the artist, it is easy to miss the entire story of this work. At the top, “Strange Fruit,” written in bold green letters is a reference to the song of the same name performed by Billie Holliday. The song was based on an original poem written by Jewish-American Abel Meeropol, which protested American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. Connect the figure and the words to explore how this artist uses our past and recent history to inspire his public art.
** Note that access to this mural is difficult due to construction.
At intersection of College and 7th, look left
Title: First United Presbyterian Church
Location: 400 N. College Street
Date: 1894
Story: First United Presbyterian Church houses the oldest African-American Presbyterian church in Charlotte. Former slaves bought the land at this site in 1873 and worshiped in a small wooden church. In 1894, the present building was constructed by church members. During the 1960s, this congregation merged with Brooklyn Presbyterian Church when that church was destroyed during urban renewal.
Key Formal Elements:
- Asymmetrical balance
- Repetition of windows
Make the Connection:
The great Gothic churches built during the middle ages in Europe influenced church building for many centuries. In this Gothic Revival style church, the soaring vertical architecture of the corner tower creates a focal point at the main entrance. Pointed arches, an important style of the Gothic church, are repeated in the front façade. This building is a Designated Historic Landmark.
Follow Rail Trail to 8th
Location: 8th Street and Rail Trail
Title: "Chandler the Chair Monster"
Artist: David Furman
Date: 2023
Media: Wooden chairs with steel support
Artist Info: @centrocityworks
Story: When art pops up on the Rail Trail, you can bet David Furman has something to do with it. Furman is an artist and architect who led a lot of the placemaking efforts along the Rail Trail in its early development. Many of his fun, quirky, installations are included in the South End area and this is his first in the Uptown area. This sculpture was sponsored by US Bank and brings a sense of play and whimsy to this corner of First Ward Park.
Key Formal Elements:
- Highly saturated yellow
- Repetition of chairs
Make the Connection:
When David Furman got a phone call about a warehouse full of old chairs, he said yes! For a while all of these chairs sat in his studio and he pondered what to do with them. As he studied their forms and played around with them sculpturally, he came up with the idea of making a monster out of them. Almost like the Loch Ness Monster.
The bright yellow color suggests a sense of play and fun in an urban environment which is largely gray steel and concrete. How else does the sculpture contrast with its urban setting?
Left on 9th cross walk to College
Title: "Equity"
Location: 618 N. College Street
Artist: Nick Napoletano
Date: 2018
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @napoletanoart
Story: In this super-scaled mural completed for the initial Talking Walls mural festival, Nick Napoletano features a female mural painter carrying her can of paint and a roller. The figure overlaps blue and pink painted dots arranged in a pattern similar to the Ishihara Color Blindness eye test. In the far-right corner, a man in a gray suit uses grey paint to cover up the mural.
Key Formal Elements:
- Scale
- Symmetrical balance
Make the Connection:
Napoletano’s mural is dripping with symbolism and message. As an avid supporter of women’s empowerment, the artist gives us a larger-than-life size woman artist as the heroine of this mural. How does seeing the woman artist impact your understanding of the word “Equity” written in the color-blind test dots? What do you think of the actions of the gray-suited man in the bottom right?
Located to the right of 9th Street Platform
Title: “Night Driving”
Location: 301 E. 9th Street at Charlotte Lab School
Artist: Wall Poems
Date: 2016
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info: @wallpoems, design by @cffrank, painting by @themuralshop
Story: Wall Poems of Charlotte is an effort to integrate poetry into urban areas of the city. The organization has completed over a dozen installations featuring North Carolina poets. “Night Driving” is a poem by William Matthews, an American poet who received his MFA from the University of North Carolina. This installation was funded by the Knight Foundation with support from the building’s owner.
Key Formal Elements:
- Symmetrical balance along the corner wall
- Implied motion
Make the Connection:
How important is the corner of the building here? Matthews’s poems are often described as understated and graceful and at only four lines that is true for this poem. His themes of life cycles and the passage of time are perfect for this corner location between a school and the light rail line. Why?
Walk back on Rail Trail, take first walkway into park
Title: “Ainsa III”
Location: 301 East 7th Street in First Ward Park
Artist: Jaume Plensa
Date: 2015
Media: Stainless steel
Artist Info: www.jaumeplensa.com
Story: Queen’s Table, an anonymous group of art patrons, commissioned this artwork as a gift to Charlotte to celebrate UNC Charlotte’s commitment to the center city. Jaume Plensa is a celebrated Spanish artist who has won numerous awards and works internationally. His work is also on view at the NC Museum of Art and Davidson College.
Key Formal Elements:
- Negative space between the letters
- Freestanding sculpture
Make the Connection:
Queen’s Table has demonstrated an affinity for artists who work with the human form. Here, Plensa’s work is grounded in the humanistic figure but embraces modernity at the same time. The form of the figure is made up of individual letters from different alphabets including: Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Japanese, Cyrillic and Hindi alphabets. Each letter was chosen for its shape, and was hand-assembled by the artist. By embracing the diversity of different cultures, the figure is complete and whole.
Continue through park or along Brevard to 7th
Title: Wall Poem
Location: 328 N. Brevard Street
Artist: Wall Poems of Charlotte, Scott Nurkin, The Mural Shop
Date: 2015
Media: Acrylic paint
Artist Info:@wallpoems, design by @cffrank, @themuralshop
Story: Wall Poems of Charlotte is an effort to integrate poetry into urban areas of the city. The organization has completed over a dozen installations featuring the work of North Carolina poets. “Bus Stop” is a poem by Donald Justice, a Pulitzer Prize winning poet and educator who studied at the University of North Carolina. This installation was funded by the Knight Foundation with support from the building’s owner, Levine Properties. The Treolar House, as the building is known, is a rare residential building in uptown Charlotte. It was built in 1887 by a prominent business man who came to the area from England to work in gold mining.
Key Formal Elements:
- Installation
- Repetition of key phrases of the poem on three walls of the building
Make the Connection:
Much of the writing by Justice centers around memory or reimagining the past in some way to create a story. In beautiful language the poem invites the reader to linger for a moment. Imagine those “black flowers.” Engaging with this building, one of the few remaining historic structures in uptown Charlotte, encourages the viewer to both slow down, and to anticipate the future a block away at the light rail stop. If the poet was painter, he would be Edward Hopper.