How a North Tryon Anchor Invites a Unique Art Experience in Uptown
By: Taylor Bowler
On a recent Tuesday evening in Uptown, a dozen people sit quietly behind tabletop easels in a studio inside the McColl Center. Charcoal and conté crayons move across textured pastel paper as a model holds her pose. The weekly Draw McColl figure drawing class is open to everyone from first-timers to seasoned artists who’ve been at it for 40 years.
When the timer buzzes, the room relaxes. People trade tips, compare sketches, and swap stories about gallery openings and new projects. These spontaneous break-time conversations have led to collaborations, jobs, exhibition opportunities, and friendships. It’s the kind of creative cross-pollination that’s become a defining feature of Uptown, and exactly the kind of energy that Asa Jackson, Doris Kapner, and Meredith Connelly want more of as they take McColl into its next chapter.
Asa stepped into the role of President and CEO at McColl last January. Doris became Senior Creative Director in July. Meredith joined as Senior Director of External Affairs in December. All three are former artists in residence at McColl and consider themselves artists first. One of their collective goals is to help the Center feel less like a residency that operates behind closed doors and more like a creative hub for the community.
“We’re solidifying (this neighborhood) as an arts district, and putting the branding and initiative behind it,” Asa says. “We’ve got banking and sports and entertainment, and I think art is that natural third genre.”
McColl Center opened on North Tryon twenty-six years ago inside a long-vacant church building. The space retains much of the original character of the soaring structure and itself is an inspiration. The Center hosts one of the country’s most prominent urban artist residencies. Through a competitive process, artists from across the country as well as the Charlotte area come to McColl for multiweek studio residencies.
On Fridays from noon to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., McColl Center hosts Gallery Hours. Visitors can talk with artists that are present and experience the work as it’s being created. The Center also hosts monthly Talk & Tour events with the artists, so patrons can be in the studios and hear directly from the Artists-in-Residence. It’s something that sets McColl apart from traditional museums. “If the door is open, you’re welcome to poke your head in and say hi,” Doris says. “There’s no pressure to buy the work. That’s the energy we’re trying to push.”
As artists themselves—Asa works in fibers, Doris is a sculptor, and Meredith is known for her immersive, illuminated public art—they want to help their residents avoid the starving artist trope. “We want to wrap them in support,” Doris says. McColl’s Beyond the Studio workshop series teaches artists to write about their work, apply for exhibitions and residencies, and price and install their art—skills many don’t learn at traditional art school.
“We’re breaking down the barriers between artists and curators, artists and patrons, and all those intersecting pieces so it’s one community of contemporaries,” Asa says.
A long-term goal is to make McColl a destination that matters to locals, not just a place for insiders or a box to check for tourists. And in a city that’s long been defined by banking and business, Asa and Doris would love for Charlotte to host its version of Art Basel or the Dallas Art Fair. Asa says that Uptown’s art community “hasn’t had its heyday yet,” but feels a responsibility to carry out the Center’s namesake Hugh McColl’s charge: to be a place where the city can see creativity in real time. The energy coming from this new leadership team is palpable.
“It really feels like a moment in history,” Doris says. “Like how everybody looks at Paris in the ‘20s—that magic is happening right now. The way I look at it is 50 years from now, people will be looking at what happened in Charlotte at McColl at this time. These artists are working together and creating movement and change.”
