Inside the carefully constructed neighborhoods of Fearrington Village, neighbors have a lot more in common than their intricately manicured lawns and favorite dinner spots. Many share a collection of paintbrushes, clay, canvases and a passion for unleashing their artistic side.
Artist Studios at Fearrington Village is working to form a symbiotic relationship for both the creative minds and the visibility of village attractions.
Chatham County, already home to a large number of artists, the Chatham Arts Council and Chatham Arts Guild, ran into trouble when the gallery in downtown Pittsboro that sold members’ works closed. Artist Studios was born out of a need for a new home base to showcase all of the arts and crafts that Fearrington residents create on a regular basis.
Enid Handler, wife of artist Murry Handler, called the first Artist Studios meeting in April, which about 35 interested artists attended. Artist Studios now has roughly 50 members who will be listed in databases distributed around Fearrington and will be available for studio tours by appointment. The tours, scheduled to begin in the fall, will introduce visitors to the artists and their creative process. On tap for early October is the Art on the Lawn Festival, featuring live music at The Roost and members of Artist Studios showing their arts, crafts and photography on the green lawns of the Village Center.
Surrounded by the Triangle, Greensboro and Pinehurst, Fearrington is a central, easy-to-reach point for both artists and tourists.
“Those people who are art and nature lovers who live in these three areas can make a day of it, come see art, go to a great lunch and see the beautiful village with all the gardens in them,” says Forrest Greenslade, Fearrington artist and webmaster for Artists Studio. “It could be a really nice day trip.”
Meet Greenslade and two other artists making Fearrington a destination for a whole new reason.
An Experimental Year
Murry Handler has been painting, writing and creating since his days as an art student in New York City. His paintings range from acrylic abstracts with his signature dynamic brushstrokes to expressionistic pieces and ink paintings on paper and canvas influenced by Chinese calligraphy. But Handler calls 2011 his “experimental year.”
“I’ve been trying different things, different mixtures,” says the former Parsons School of Design and Fashion Institute of Technology teacher.
This year, Handler, a member of Frank Art Gallery, certainly does have a lot of different things going on. University Mall will be showcasing some of his experimentation with aluminum foil and acrylics in October, and, in the same month, the Durham Arts Guild will show, for the first time, paintings and drawings of his that focus on a political and social commentary.
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