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Ellyn Visits Dixie - Part Duex: NODA

Dec. 6, 2008

Linda Gardner's encaustic

Charlotte is trying valiantly to nurture a neighborhood for artists to live, work and exhibit – hence NODA. It stands for North Davidson, the commercial street that forms a spine through the area. I am willing to cut them some slack for the inane name since I suspect that some misguided city planner came up with this 734th variation on SOHO. (Can we get a moratorium on any more? Please?? This needs to end now.)

detail of Charles Walker's grid

The area is very much a work in progress, but there is lots of ongoing activity: a few blocks of galleries and design shops, restaurants, a couple of streetwear boutiques, a theater, a live music venue, what looks like a very cool artist live-work project almost completed and a big mill that has been converted into living spaces. It’s attached to a neighborhood of funky and affordable bungalows and the place would be very attractive to artists. The bad news is, as we all know, that these are molto crappy times to be in the art business, so one has to hope that the bud isn’t crushed.
We visited several worthy galleries, including Beet Gallery, showing both fine art and craft and Center of the Earth, a large space showing mid to high range fine art. I’ve reproduced some of the work we saw.
Charlotte has an adundance of big old empty mill buildings that made me salivate. If we just had a few of them in DC, what we could do!

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