Article from Chapel Hill Magazine: http://www.chapelhillmagazine.com/articles/more-from-the-artist-studios-at-fearrington-village
In our September/October issue, we sat down with three artists of The Artist Studios at Fearrington Village to learn about efforts to make the neighborhood a fine arts destination. Rita Spina makes three-dimensional pieces from used materials, Murry Handler writes poetry and prose and creates signature acrylic paintings and Forrest Greenslade makes nature-based sculptures and acrylic and relief paintings. Enid Handler is in charge of organizing the project. Here’s more from our Q&A.
On Fearrington Village’s Future
CHM: Where do you see Fearrington Village in five years? What’s your goal?
Enid Handler: Well, we want to be well known in the area surrounding Fearrington Village. Chapel Hill being the primary [and] Pittsboro, Durham.
Forrest Greenslade: If you look at where we are on the map, we are right square in the center of where the three major population areas are. You have the Research Triangle and Raleigh on one side, Greensboro on the other side and Southern Pines. So we are an easy day trip.
Enid: We want to take advantage of Fearrington House as a resort area and we’ll be working with the village people with out of staters and out of towners who come to stay here.
Rita Spina: In the past history of North Carolina, there are places that are art centers. And I think that what’s been happening over the years is on one side we have Siler City that has the Incubator, and on the eastern side we have Apex that has the Cultural Center. And we’re located right in between. That feeds, I think, a tremendous number of people.
Enid: Here’s another aside. We’ve been approached by the director of the Chapel Hill CVB. They’d like to link up with us. So we’re very much interested in expanding and bringing people into this community.
Murry Handler: When people come here there will be art tours, and they will be able to visit several destinations.
Enid: We expect the art tours to become available around the time the [September/October issue of CHM] comes out.
Forrest: One of the things that people can expect to do when they come to visit Fearrington Village and the artists is a bit of insight into the creative process. All of our artists look forward to talking about how they go about producing their work, the special influences in the lives and what led to what their doing now creatively and demonstrations that people can observe. Quite often I get kids coming to my garden, sometimes we’ll even work up a little project that kids can do and take home with them. I think there’s going to be a really educational component to what we want to do.
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