WILMINGTON — An interactive arts event is debuting in October along Castle Street, with the goal to to bring local artists into the spotlight and highlight the businesses in the district.
“We thought that publicizing the businesses on Castle Street, as well as the local artists we will highlight, is a great way to expand the art scene and draw people to the Castle Street District,” Erin Jones of The Roasted Bookery said.
Jones, along with River’s Edge Art Supplies’ co-owners Sara Edge and Dave Sylvester, as well as Kathy Lindenmayer of Home Plate Provisions have been planning the art walk for the past year. Called “Creative Castle,” the first art walk will debut on Oct. 2 and recur the first Friday of every month.
Thirteen Castle Street businesses are participating, featuring artwork from local artists, such as Tiffany O’Brien, Katherine Barnes, Astra Tattoo’s owner Henry Gaßner, and River’s Edge’s co-owner Dave Sylvester, among others.
“Each participating business is showcasing creativity, whether it’s hanging art on the walls, hosting a live musician, presenting live poetry readings or having a live painter,” Sara Edge said.
During the debut, River’s Edge Art Supplies will also host a blacklight art show throughout the month of October. Artist Kim Barr will have work on display, including both mixed-media, neon and fluorescent paintings. Barr is a multimedia artist whose work blends realism with bold colors and vibrancy.
One of her displays at River’s Edge features portraits of Jean-Michel Basquiat; they’re created with spray paint, Mod Podge, oil, pastels, and paint markers.
“I have a full body portrait of him,” Barr said, “but they haven’t been showing it with the black light, so I’m excited for people to see it under new lighting.”
Four years ago, Barr accidentally discovered the power of a black light on her work when her roommate put one in their living room; it enhanced the tie dye and colors on her paintings more.
“I just happened to be a natural black light artist because I love using neon,” Barr said. “I loved tie-dye so much because you get to see so many colors.”
Barr also will be displaying a mixed media piece of a skeleton and may display a black-light octopus, similar to the 5-by-6-foot one she has at Wilmington Distillery currently.
Barr’s neon paintings will also be reactive to 3D glasses, provided at River’s Edge.
“I want it to feel like people are falling into the painting,” she explained. “And that’s why I like to pull in the 3D glasses, too, because if you use the colors the right way, it can really look like they’re coming out at you.”
One 3D painting she plans to display is a girl with sunglasses licking a lollipop; it features warm tones of neon pink and orange. (3D glasses also work when looking at Barr’s work on her Instagram account).
She has shown her art all around Wilmington businesses, such as Ree’s Social Club, Cloud 9 Rooftop Bar, and The Bend. Her work at River’s Edge has been on display for about a month.
Also on display at River’s Edge will be work from doodle artist Grayson Davis, known as HP Fangs. Davis teaches art at GLOW Academy; his signature cartoon-style features toothy faces in pastel acrylic pens. While he’s unsure what will be shown in the black-light art show, it will be expressive and convey emotion he feels at the time.
“It’s like a Thanksgiving plate of artwork, whatever’s on the table is gonna wind up on a plate,” Davis said.
Good Lie, a mini-golf bar on Castle Street, will show Sylvester’s mixed-media of rock musicians. Sylvester uses watercolor, ink, splosh (abstract paint-splattering or liquid-pouring techniques), and acrylic paint.
“You can almost hear the music in his art from the way he does it because he extends the paint out onto the frame, so it’s almost moving when you’re looking at it,” Edge said.
Edge is married to Sylvester and both owned a space in California for 10 years called 3Dot Art Gallery before moving to Wilmington. They relocated to the East Coast to be closer to family two years ago and opened River’s Edge in May this year.
Both had visited North Carolina — Asheville and Durham — and were considering a move to Raleigh, but after more research stumbled across Wilmington.
“We went to Wilmington to see houses and explore the city and once we got here we were like: ‘Yeah, we’re not looking anywhere else,’” Edge said.
Sylvester designed the art supply store logo and handles social media, while Edge does the sales floor and inventory.
Edge has a background in environmental biology and biochemistry, focusing on the marine environment: “I established the very first marine molecular ecology lab in Florida, years back, and that’s where I met my husband, who’s always been an artist, and I’ve always loved art.”
Her first major in college was art history, but she changed it because of her parents. They worried she wouldn’t find a well-paying job.
“So it just goes to show you when you’re drawn to something, you’re going to full circle back around to it,” Edge said.
Her return to the art industry was sparked when Edge lived in Georgia in the 2010s; with a colleague from Georgia Tech, they opened the Discover Science Center for children in Roswell. At this camp, students dedicated half the day to write observations in their notebooks, making hypotheses, and taking measurements. And then the second half of the day was hands-on, interactive, and art-focused.
“So it was fun for me, too, because it made me think very creatively about scientific concepts and come up with art projects and hands-on, fun kinds of things that drove home the concept we were learning, and that just really sparked my creativity.” Edge said.
During this time, Edge also decided to teach herself how to paint and draw, inspired by the camouflage artwork they were doing at summer camp.
She taught biochemistry at Florida Atlantic University, UC Santa Cruz, and Hawaii Pacific University, and was a research assistant at Charles University in Prague with the Department of Genetics and Microbiology. She also was a project manager and scientific consultant at AMEGEN Consulting, LLC.
“But all along, I was still doing art,” she said, noting she and Sylvester also oversaw 3Dot Art Gallery while working their day jobs.
Sylvester and Edge’s 3Dot Art Gallery was a collective of two other galleries, where they first hosted a black-light art show. That inspired the Wilmington exhibit.
“I love glow-in-the-dark and fluorescent art that’s reactive to light, and I just think it’s a fun experience,” Edge said.
Before even opening River’s Edge Art Supplies, Edge began attending Castle Street Collective Group meetings in order to engage people in the area and see what was happening in the business district. At the end of last year, she brought up the art walk idea to a few people since she helped plan similar events for her gallery in California.
Trying to avoid competition against Fourth Friday Gallery Nights, hosted by the Arts Council of New Hanover County and Wilmington — which includes businesses from Castle Street to the central business district to Brooklyn Arts District — Edge chose the first Fridays to feature opening receptions for artists showing works at the dozen or so businesses.
Creative Castle will launch on Friday, Oct. 2, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Castle Street between Third and 12th streets.
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