CHAPEL HILL -- Every year, art students at UNC create original, bold and innovative works - most of which never see the light of day.
Thanks to a new student-run art gallery in downtown Chapel Hill and a one-day art and print sale set for Friday, many of those pieces are now available not only for public viewing but for purchase.
Students in UNC's Kappa Pi Art/Art History Honors Society opened The Artery at the beginning of November on East Rosemary Street. The gallery, which is open seven days a week (well, six days and one evening: Friday's hours are 5 to 9 p.m.), features works by a dozen or so artists on a monthly rotation.
This Friday, the gallery's regular exhibit will be complemented by the third annual Holiday Student Print and Art Sale. The one-day holiday sale will feature etchings, screen prints, photographs, drawings, paintings, digital works and ceramics by dozens of UNC art students.
"This, in a perfect world, is the next generation of famous artists," said Mike Sonnichsen, a lecturer and print and photo labs coordinator with the UNC Department of Art. "Everybody knows the Ackland Art Museum, but not a lot of the public knows what goes on in the art studios on campus. This is a chance for people to see what the artists of the future are doing.
"It's a valuable lesson for the students, too, to get a handle on the commerce side of art. They learn a lot about theory and technique, but if you have any serious desire to make a career as a creative person, you need to learn commerce, too."
'A great idea'
The Artery grew out of a discussion several students with art professor Jeff Whetstone. He mentioned that several years ago a small group of students had opened their own art gallery in a temporarily vacant space on Franklin Street.
"We thought, 'That's a great idea,'" said Hallie Ringle, a junior art history major. "So a few of us started looking into what it would take to do the same thing."
As students are trained to do, they started by doing research. "The town of Chapel Hill posts vacant properties on their Web site," said studio art major Gavin Hackeling. "We contacted some of the property owners of those places to see whether anyone might be willing to let us use a space at a discounted rate."
They scored even better than that. The owners of the Bank of America building happened to have a suitable empty storefront, home to a succession of restaurants and bars over the years.
"They were very generous," Hackeling said. "They let us use it for free until they find a permanent tenant."
The students cleaned and organized the space and selected the works to be shown during the first month. The contributors are all university students, but they aren't all art majors. A striking painting in "acrylic/graffiti" is by Devin Coley, a journalism major. Adam Wertz, a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in biology with no formal art training, has two large pieces on display, blown-up antique photographs he has accented with acrylic paint.
The Friday art sale, Sonnichsen said, is good for the gallery artists and for the students whose works will be offered only that day. University rules preclude holding the sale on campus.
