PASSING THE CROWN BY HANNAH HASAN

NEWS & OPINION FEATURE serve? What happened in their lives to cause them to give back to others? When we understand their stories, we understand all of the small and huge PASSING THE CROWN things that create the people who create change. These are stories of five impactful Black women who have supported and stood in for our community Five community heroes of during the time of COVID-19, in their own words.

the pandemic From Rich Soil: J’Tanya Adams, BY HANNAH HASAN founder and executive director of Historic West End Partners

We have all experienced the collective trauma Our family is from Steele Creek. It was called the associated with the COVID-19 pandemic this BlackJacks because the soil was rich. It was a rural year. It’s been challenging, and for the Black sharecropping community. There was a lot of richness community, it’s hit us harder than most as we’ve tied to being from the BlackJacks. It was where a suffered through disproportionate rates of infection lot of families knew each other, married into each and death due to the virus. There are also many other, and a great lineage between the folks who suffering Black businesses, families without food lived there existed. These people were great friends and basic necessities, students without access to the who came from sharecropping to manufacturing technology needed for virtual schooling, massive and they insisted that their children be educated. In our early years, we lived in Brookhill. I’m part of the Brookhill legacy. That’s where, when you left home, you would move and buy your first house and you educated your kids further. I was schooled by people who were daughters and sons of the enslaved. My great-grandfather understood what it was to have land taken from you because someone changed the tax law and took J’TANYA ADAMS PHOTO BY GRANT BALDWIN it from you. My uncle knew what it was to have a white job-loss numbers, and so much more. This could be man buy a property for you because you couldn’t buy enough to break many people, but if there is one it for yourself. I’m once removed from this and may thing that we know about Black people, it’s that have been born during part of it. So, I understand the we know how to survive. We understand what we Charlotte way. need to do in the beautiful moments and the brutal There is nothing new under the sun. So I understand moments: take care of ourselves. the need for good relationships. I understand how to

At the center of that care is, and always has make deals in our community with people who do not been, Black women. Grandmothers and mothers, subscribe to the Charlotte way because I understand aunties and daughters, sisters and strangers who relationship building.When we lived in Steele Creek, the hold us up and hold us down. While we could never land of milk and honey for Black people was Beatties name all of them or begin to shed the deserved Ford Road. It was where our people were allowed to be love and light on all the stories of those who have after Brooklyn. In the mid-’60s and ’70s, everyone was stepped up for our community during this time, we trying to get there if they could. They aspired to get to understand that when we speak the stories of one, Johnson C. Smith University or Carver College or get we pay respect to all. their kids to West Charlotte High School. Anything you

More than sharing the stories of their projects could want or desire to be was on Beatties Ford Road. and programs, we seek to share the truths of their From an early age, I’ve been enamored with the area. hearts and spirits. It’s so important to understand I saw the value. When I saw that it might become like the people behind the projects. What drives them to Brooklyn, and it was becoming popular to those outside of the Black community, I knew that we needed to act. I was moved to cancel the contract on a home in Quail Hollow and buy a home in the area that I really believed in.

Just because we’re in the time of a pandemic the deals haven’t stopped. If anything, its been more of the reason for me to continue making sure that businesses can thrive on the West End. I’ve been able to broker deals for a strip mall that was under contract. Our goal at West End Partners was to help the owner get the right tenant blend that could meet the needs and wants of West End stakeholders. The building is now being renovated and ANTRIECE MITCHELL we’ve brought folks to the table and that deal was done. COVID doesn’t stop the work. We’ve got a community to continue to grow and nourish.

To Whom Much Is Given: Antriece Mitchell, founder of Breakfast Conversations

I’m a proud Charlottean. I originally started out my baby years in Grier Town [known officially as Grier Heights]. At the time, that area was dealing with a lot of crime and drugs, and my mother wanted something different for us. She moved us to the Charlotte Country Club area. I had the privilege of attending a few different schools in Charlotte. I attended Shamrock [Gardens Elementary] and Oaklawn [Language Academy]. I also went to a private school. But my last couple of years were some of the most impactful.

I went to Garinger High School. While at Garinger, I attended a magnet program for media. That’s where I was truly introduced to television and radio. And I was in pageants. The first pageant that I won was Ms. Junior Teen Charlotte. That introduced me to being on television, but it was in high school that my passion would deepen.

And as my career blossomed, and my talent and love for media had me in rooms with everyone from celebrities to community leaders, I never forgot the value of seeking guidance of being a helper. I know that I have a spirit of helping because there are people who mentored me along the way.

One person that has helped me is Michelle Thomas. She is the VP of Public Citizenship for Microsoft Southeast. She is the epitome of a professional woman. Just being able to sit back and watch her was life-changing. By giving so much of herself to me, giving me so many nuggets of wisdom to apply along with my journey in business, she has been such a powerful mentor.

PHOTO BY GRANT BALDWIN

While I have been blessed to travel many, many miles away from home to do the work that I love, I have never forgotten my roots and I have never lost the desire to build relationships and give back. I am only as strong as the people and community I am blessed to serve. This year, I took it upon myself to make sure that other small business owners, just like me, understood that there were opportunities for funding and support for small and minority-owned businesses during the time of COVID. I’ve shared the resources about grants and funding and I’ve watched those business owners win, because we’ve got to take care of each other.

On Showing Love: Jewel Hayden, co-founder Project Bolt

I wasn’t shown love in the way that many kids are growing up. My mother was a drug addict. She dealt with addiction my entire life. Thankfully, all was not lost. I had my father in my life, who was able to provide me with love and support and motivation to go to school and complete my education and set goals. If I didn’t have that, who knows where I would have ended up.

Dealing with a parent that had substance abuse issues, my self-esteem was extremely low. It made me feel like she decided to do drugs as opposed to being a mother or provide me with the love and support that I needed. Now that I’m older, I understand that it isn’t that simple, but as a child you just understand that your mother isn’t there. You know that when you go to the refrigerator to get food, there’s nothing there. And you know instinctively that your parents are supposed to provide food, shelter, and clothing. Your parents are supposed to provide your basic needs. When that isn’t

NEWS & OPINION FEATURE to explore and look for the answers. I asked myself over and over again. I realized that and had conversations with people. I knew in that moment that it felt right. being a Black woman artist has a power It meant more to me than the work I there, it damages your self-esteem. It damaged my in and of itself. That intersectionality is was doing at the time at UNC Charlotte self-esteem. super important. It’s unique to me and it’s in their research department. I know

As the co-founder of Project Bolt, everything something that can be seen and ingested that research helps people, but this felt that I do is about showing up, meeting needs, by other Black women. At that point, I more important for me because it gave and doing right by my community. This year we started noticing the representation and me the opportunity to help people on a have focused on addressing basic needs for the identity in most of my pieces. direct level. I knew this was it. community. We have consistently provided meals For Untitled, the residency/showcase When I finally started working for for 85 children from March through September at the Black Lives Matter mural in Hope Vibes, I realized this is what I was every Monday through Friday. One time we went September, I decided to paint a woman made for. It was like an aha moment. that I had drawn MAKAYLA BINTER PHOTO BY GRANT BALDWIN The work that I do is meaningful. It’s in my sketchbook. purposeful. I gladly work on a few hours A Black woman. My group people. I knew I wanted to help people. I didn’t have of sleep on a regular basis because my work gives talked about making our piece a full scope of what I was created for. As far as careers me a sense of fulfillment that I’ve always longed for. about self-love and self-care went, I definitely wasn’t engaged in something that I’ve always had a passion for the homeless through hair. I drew a Black was meaningful for me. community. I’m not sure where it came from, but woman — from her head to I came to Charlotte in 2001 for college at UNC it’s always been there. Even on my first date, my her shoulders — she had on Charlotte. I went to school to be a teacher. I knew husband and I were walking on the sidewalk in a crown and a ’fro. She was from the beginning that it wasn’t really what I Uptown Charlotte. I stopped in my tracks and began super futuristic and I painted wanted to do, but so many people thought I would to weep. It was a first date and there I was crying. I three versions of her. It was a be good at it, so I went along with it. I taught for four was moved to tears looking at the huge, immaculate linear timeline of her journey years and I hated it. The fourth year I quit midway buildings lining the backdrop of one of our neighbors JEWEL HAYDEN PHOTO BY GRANT BALDWIN of discovery on three different panels. That alone was a into the school year and then took some time off. From there I worked for the police department for a sleeping on the street. I was overwhelmed with the weight of wanting and needing to do something statement. But the biggest statement was made year. I absolutely hated that too. I then went to UNC about it. to make a delivery, and I remember the look on the when the people came. Charlotte to work in an administrative role in the This year, our neighbors need us more than ever. kids faces when we pulled up with the food. They When we were out there, I would see other research department. It didn’t feel like it fit either, Since we are all seeking to prevent the spread of looked at us like we were superheroes. Black women taking pictures with the panels. The but bills have to be paid. When I fell into starting COVID-19, we work really hard to make sure that our

Now, I get to show up on a regular basis. I get to pure joy that filled my heart in those moments was Hope Vibes with my husband, it changed everything. neighbors have the ability to wash their hands and remind these kids that someone cares and that their astronomical. It was so intense of how happy I was. I often reflect on one of the initial moments that prevent passing germs with our portable solar sinks. I’ve life is valuable to me. It makes them feel seen, and To watch these young girls, with no knowledge that I knew this was my purpose. The first time we did a spent quite a bit of time at the tent camp communities. it makes me feel like I’m bigger than life. The feeling they are the ones that I was creating this work for, serve day was definitely huge. But even before that, I’ve been uniquely impacted by the grandmothers. It that I have truly made a difference makes me know find so much joy and connection in my hurts to see grandmothers living on the that all that I have gone through has prepared me pieces ... it was unreal. Showcasing our street. It breaks my heart. Some might see to be a difference maker in the lives of others. Just beauty and journey and watching other it as audacious, but I believe that we can showing up is enough to make a difference. It’s just Black women and girls experience it end homelessness for all who want a home. showing love. I know what it feels like when people was really a humbling moment for me, It’s a part of my mission, my journey in life. don’t show up for you. I won’t let that happen to our especially when it’s in public places and Maybe part of our journey is to walk towards kids on my watch. This is all about showing love and received by the people that it’s meant to the things that break our hearts. And I’m no showing up. What could our community be, if all of reflect. It was and is a reminder of why martyr. I’m simply a woman who has found us would just show up? I make what I make. Within creating art her purpose, and made the choice to follow like this, through every project I define the path that has been laid out for me.

What Are You Trying To Say: my voice and my point of view and I Makayla Binter, artist, teacher answer over and over again with clarity To read the full stories and hear Throughout middle school and high school I took all of the art classes that I could. But it wasn’t who I am and what I am trying to say. ADRIENNE THREATT PHOTO BY GRANT BALDWIN directly from these dynamic change makers as they discuss the work that they until I went to Davidson College that I realized that this was something I could do. Things really began to change for me internally when my professors started to question me. “What are you trying to say?” They wanted to know what I wanted my message to be through my art, and I didn’t know yet. So I needed A Hope Filled Purpose: Adrienne Threatt, co-founder of Hope Vibes Adrienne before Hope Vibes was dissatisfied. I hadn’t stepped into my purpose yet and I didn’t know what it was. I knew that I wanted to encourage I couldn’t wait for the official date of the upcoming serve day. I just felt compelled to be with the people. So one day after Bible Study, I had my husband and a friend accompany me Uptown. I literally had gone in my pantry and got all of my snacks and bottles of water and we went Uptown and distributed items have done during the COVID-19 pandemic, visit QCNerve.com for special audio additions to this article and unedited versions of their texts as curated by Hannah Hasan. INFO@QCNERVE.COM

AN ASTROLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF CHARLOTTE Our banking history was written in the stars, but where’s the art?

BY JOHN DELANEY

Astrology a cionados require but a cursory glance at the data. When one reviews the planets within the three astrological charts that comprise the founding of both Charlotte and Mecklenburg County in the late-18th century, a pattern sharply emerges: Capricorn trines (90 degree) Taurus — or in unusually clear layman’s terms, Charlotte rules (Capricorn) banking (Taurus).

Those familiar with the Queen City’s history and reputation know how that’s played out, but it’s not just nance that’s at the top of Charlotte’s astrological charts — and we use the plural “charts” for reasons to be explained below. Taurus also symbolizes a strong aptitude for the arts. So why has Charlotte gone so far toward one of its fates written in the stars more than 200 years ago but struggled with the other?

Let’s take a deeper look.

Mecklenburg County’s and Charlotte’s respective natal horoscopes

Because three events comprise the founding of Charlotte, the city’s astrological analysis requires three di erent charts.

Is this normal? No. Normally, somebody shows up — Henry Hudson lands in Battery Park, William Penn lands at Penn’s Landing — and the astrologer runs the corresponding date, time and place into an astrology chart. Usually, just one chart is required.

Perhaps such information will one day be available about Charlotte. For now, however, this is how Charlotte was born.

The North Carolina colonial legislature o cially founded Mecklenburg County on Dec. 11, 1762 (“Founding”) to honor Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg, Germany — the recent fair bride of King George III of England — and simultaneously asserted that the Founding would commence on Feb. 1, 1763 (“Commencement”). After considerable surveying work plotted the grid for the city, Charlotte became o cially incorporated on Dec. 7, 1768 (“Incorporation”).

The elegance among these three astrological charts connotes the hand of a court astrologer: Retrograde Jupiter at 1 degrees Taurus conjunct the North Node in late Aries at the Aries/Taurus cusp during the Founding conjunct Direct Motion Jupiter at 3 degrees Taurus during the Commencement trines (90 degree) the North Node at 4 degrees Capricorn during the Incorporation.

Favorable placements of latter-day astronomical discoveries, Uranus and Pluto, among others, which embellish these three charts — but also invariably complicate their integration. For clarity’s sake, the three separate charts in question represent three concurrent trines of Capricorn and Taurus, listed numerically below: • Pluto at 1 degrees Capricorn trines Retrograde Jupiter at 1 degrees Taurus conjunct the North Node in very late Aries at the Aries/Taurus cusp during the Founding; • Pluto at 3 degrees Capricorn conjunct Urania at 4 degrees Capricorn trines Direct Motion Jupiter resides at 3 degrees Taurus during the Commencement; • Elatus at 3 degrees Capricorn conjunct the North Node resides at 4 degrees Capricorn trines Retrograde Uranus at 4 degrees Taurus during the Incorporation.

Bottom line? Again, Charlotte rules (Capricorn) banking (Taurus) — among other things that Taurus rules, including art.

By that measure, Charlotte should also rule art (among other things).

And yet, the city’s not known for its art scene. In fact, the local arts have struggled especially hard in recent years.

So what gives?

Will we ever see the renaissance of arts appreciation that appears to be in the stars for the

NOT A LOT OF POPULATION DENSITY IN UPTOWN, BUT PLENTY OF PARKING.

PHOTO BY RYAN PITKIN

Queen City, and why hasn’t it come yet?

The rise and fall of NoDa as an arts district

Local painter Cheryl Johnson moved to Charlotte from San Francisco as an unemployed artist in 1983. Johnson, who currently lives in Plaza Midwood, found no speci c home for the arts within the city limits. Within the next few years, she would witness the rise of NoDa as the city’s rst arts district.

“In the late 1970s, NoDa didn’t exist as the neighborhood it is today,” Johnson recalled. “It was just called North Charlotte back then — a strip of vacant and mostly dilapidated textile mills, along with some low-income housing.”

In 1985, painter Ruth Lyons and sculptor Paul Sires established the NoDa Arts District by buying the Lowder Building and opening the Center of the Earth Gallery.

They slowly began reimagining the neighborhood around them.

“Charlotte Art League and other full-time galleries established themselves on NoDa’s outskirts,” Johnson said, “but Center of the Earth was carved out in a building next to the re house near the [North] Davidson-[East] 36th [streets] intersection.”

The gallery became the neighborhood’s nucleus.

“When it rst started, it was a bohemian scene,” recalled Jared Melberg, owner and patriarch of his eponymous Cotswold gallery.

The transition began a process that has occurred in far too many neighborhoods around the country: struggling artists move into an a ordable area, and when that area becomes naturally beauti ed by the presence of said artists, it becomes hip to hang out there, then to live there, after which developers set their sights on the location, capitalizing on the “cool” vibes so hard that they eventually price out everything that made it cool in the rst place. Over the span of about three decades, this process played out in NoDa. The gallery scene did not survive. “It has become gentri ed and all the galleries are gone,” Melberg said. Lyons and Sires closed the Center of the Earth Gallery in 2010. Some galleries moved to South End, where Hidell Brooks now represents Lyons. Others shuttered for good. The rise of NoDa as a Charlotte gallery district demonstrates a contemporary formula (encapsulated, astrologically, as Pluto opposite the North Node between 4 and 7 degrees Scorpio and Taurus, respectively, from December 1985 to February 1986) of using art to induce an increase in real estate value.

While property values rose all around it, NoDa produced little, if any, artwork that accrued signi cantly in value. The neighborhood produced no powerful Charlotte art galleries with signi cant enough secondary market artwork to underwrite annual excursions to nationally known art fairs like those held in Miami in December each year. With developers doing what they do, the artists could not maintain their own creation.

City planning and population density

During my rst trip to Charlotte in the spring of 2019, it surprised me how much land sporting largescale historic buildings surrounded the EpiCentre, which opened in 2008 with the goal of becoming a hub for Queen City nightlife. The complex also serves

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as the center of the roughly 12-by-12-street grid that makes up Charlotte’s “Uptown.”

Particularly striking to me upon my visit was the scale of the Little Rock African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, straddling the southeast border of Uptown’s boundary in the First Ward — not only of the building itself but its enormous parking lot.

This confused me. No such free parking lot exists anywhere near where Henry Hudson founded New York City near Battery Park. In Philadelphia, while copious parking exists for all public events hosted along Penn’s Landing on the western banks of the Delaware River, the location of William Penn’s original arrival, expect no public parking lots anywhere 15 blocks west to Philadelphia City Hall. There are many in Uptown, and much closer to Center City than the Little Rock lot that rst grabbed my attention.

Let’s go back and take a deeper look at the two 17th-century colonies I mentioned in the previous paragraph: New York (Sept. 2, 1609; [Julian]; 5 p.m. LMT) and Philadelphia (Nov. 7, 1682; [Gregorian]; 1:08 p.m. LMT; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). Dutch West India Company employee Willem van Hulst designed the New Amsterdam grid, ending at Wall Street across the width of lower Manhattan, soon after the New Netherland arrived at port at Battery Park in May 1624. Surveyor Thomas Holme, at Penn’s behest, drew the Philadelphia street grid, which extends to the site of current day Philadelphia City Hall, in 1687.

From the onset, New York’s and Philadelphia’s designers de ned and limited land use so as to create population density. To this day, no such population density has manifested in Charlotte.

The railroad comes to town

Charlotte did not become a banking powerhouse — or, in fact, anything — immediately. Even after the founding of the Charlotte Mint in 1835 following the discovery of gold on the Barringer Farm in nearby Stanly County, Charlotte’s population in 1850 barely exceeded 1,000 people.

The most signi cant event that helped bring about Charlotte’s population expansion in the 19th century did not involve banking, but did bring about its eventual rise: The launch of the Charlotte and South Carolina Railroad on March 23, 1852. A powerhouse of outer planets through the Aries/ Taurus cusp and early Taurus from 29 Aries to 5 degrees Taurus (Pluto, Uranus, Saturn, Deucalion and the Moon) and early Capricorn at 3 Capricorn (Chiron) built muscle on Charlotte’s latent capacity for capitalist infrastructure.

Thereafter, the Commercial National Bank, fourth-generation predecessor to Bank of America, commenced business in Charlotte on February 18, 1874.

Seven years later, a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction occurred at 1 to 2 degrees Taurus on April 18, 1881 at 1:38 P.M. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The 1881 Jupiter-Saturn conjunction empowered hegemony for all entities with planets at 1 to 2 degrees in earth signs, including Charlotte, for the subsequent 20 years. God turned a switch in the factory, the farmers planted and harvested cotton, transacted business with the bank and hauled cotton to the railroad. boomed. masses designed by New York’s van Hulst and Philadelphia’s Holme decades earlier.

After Founding Fathers Robert Morris and Alexander Hamilton founded the rst U.S. central banks, both in Philadelphia in 1781 and in 1791, banking began to proliferate. Hamilton established The Bank of New York in 1784. Philadelphia merchant trader Stephen Girard bought all remaining assets of the First Bank of the United States to found The Girard Bank in 1811. Finally, the 24 original members founded the New York Stock Exchange by signing the Buttonwood Agreement on May 17, 1792. New York City had developed a nancial instrument promoting speculation.

Astrologically, while Philadelphia’s Natal Horoscope contained no planets in Taurus, New York’s Natal Horoscope in its second house of money New England agreement called the Southeastern Regional Banking Compact. Even the enormously con dent North Carolina National Bank’s (NCNB) Hugh McColl knew that victory was a long shot.

McColl lamented, “I guess I had the worst day of my life on my 50th birthday, June 18, 1985.” It was that day that McColl woke up to discover that rival John G. Medlin Jr. had merged Wachovia with First Atlanta Corporation.

“I was out in the cold, and our company was out in the cold,” McColl said. He lacked the capital to compete. He needed a power play.

McColl’s opportunity arrived on March 16, 1988, when Texas’ largest bank, First Republic Bank Corp. of Dallas, announced (as Uranus conjunct Saturn from 1 to 2 degrees Capricorn trined Jupiter at 1 to 2 degrees Taurus during the Jupiter Return of Mecklenburg County’s Founding) that it sought FDIC bankruptcy protection. It was like a gold pen on a silver platter for McColl and Charlotte’s future as a banking hub.

Summarizing NCNB’s and First Republic’s merger into NationsBank, Sun Sentinel reporter Lane Kelley wrote, “The First Republic purchase will double NCNB’s size — from $28.6 billion in assets to about $54 billion — making it the eighth largest U.S. bank and the largest in the Southeast.”

THE JERALD MELBERG GALLERY IN COTSWOLD. PHOTO BY RYAN PITKIN

Concurrently, civil engineer D. A. Tompkins, contained Retrograde Pluto between 2 and 3 degrees experimenting with cotton mills, induced the spin- Taurus — a genius for accruing wealth not only via o of Charlotte’s textile industry from Charlotte’s banking, but, in fact, by transforming banking. cotton industry in about 1889. The Pegram- Not yet manifest, harmonious astrological Wadsworth Land Company plotted out a mill town aspects between NYC and CLT, another nascent, for textile industry laborers in North Charlotte, burgeoning American metropolis, made a banking precursor to NoDa, circa 1907. From there, Charlotte partnership seem almost inevitable. McColl was winning.

Like a gold pen on a silver platter

U.S. banking before Charlotte — In Northeast Bancorp, Inc. v. Board of Governors New York and Philadelphia of Federal Reserve in 1985, the U.S. Supreme

Both New York and Philadelphia became Court declared that the rst regional interstate bigger dots on the world map at the end of the bank compact founded between Massachusetts Revolutionary War. Philadelphia’s population stood and Connecticut in 1982 and 1983, which allowed at 20,000 in 1775, while New York’s population of mergers between banks from these two states, 26,000 in 1776 more than doubled to 60,000 in was legally valid. Concurrently, about 10 Southern 1800. All growth occurred within the same land states were developing their own version of the

“The Charlotte Portfolio”

No sweeping fact about art history, or the history of the relationship between New York City’s nancial sector and art history, exists for Charlotte to emulate. But Charlotte can, as a rst step, develop itself as a city with an aesthetic by studying early 19th-century Philadelphia.

While Philadelphia at that time only had 20,000 residents, those early-19th-century Philadelphians oozed sophistication to a degree that the 19,000 early-20th-century Charlotteans could not fathom – but which many of the 730,000 early-21st-century Charlotteans seemingly crave with all the talk of becoming a “world-class city.”

Quaker Philadelphians manufacture one product better than any other city in the country, including their rivals, the Puritanical Bostonians: history. In early pre-Revolutionary War Philadelphia, among a crowded eld of portrait painters, stood the giant of the Colonial era, Benjamin West, who, with his deft brushstroke, created history.

Charlotte should start right here: Fund contemporary artists to create an oeuvre of masterpieces about Charlotte’s history, “The Charlotte Portfolio,” designed for the secondary market from the beginning.

West’s portraits and historical paintings of America, Quebec and Britain, including “The Death of General Wolfe,” the most important painting in the history of Canada; “Robert Monckton,” a portrait of the major British military officer and American colonial official; “Treaty of Penn with Indians;” and “Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky,” link Philadelphia, America, the indigenous American, Britain, Quebec and Canada, not yet in existence, politically, psychologically and spiritually in myriad complexities that confound natural prejudices.

Within “The Charlotte Portfolio,” the wise, moneyed Charlottean patron intends, as a structured investment, that painters in “the West model” — highly capable portrait painters with a flair for painting history as history happened — paint important Charlotte historical events for the secondary market.

Significant history exists that is strictly Charlotte’s – including, arguably, the gold rush at the Barringer farm circa 1825. A painter in “the West model” could paint “Tragedy Precedes Victory,” in both Atlanta and Charlotte, depicting NCNB’s McColl learning of the Wachovia-First Atlanta merger on his 50th birthday in 1985, to link Charlotte to the South. A painter in “the West model” could also paint “The Hunter Evangelist,” depicting McColl addressing Merrill Lynch’s Banker’s Conference at New York City’s St. Regis Hotel in 1995, to link Charlotte to the North.

The financial instrument of “The Charlotte Portfolio” can create art that eschews the intellectual detachment of modern abstraction while cultivating engagement in civic history that underlies opera. There is no shortage of artists in the international art world who could take on this mission — but the key is to induce these artists as mentors to the talented, diverse visual artists in Charlotte to ascend to the necessary level of artistic mastery.

Meeting Melberg

I recently discussed Charlotte art galleries’ ongoing dearth of representation at the Miami art fairs with Sarah Grace Jones and Lillian Harris, native Charlotteans who represent the Miles McEnery Gallery in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. I asserted that Jerald Melberg Gallery’s perennial attendance at Art Miami constituted Charlotte’s sole representation before Jones countered that her former employer, SOCO Gallery, had attended Art Untitled in both 2016 and 2017.

I consulted Google Maps.

In Charlotte, Jerald Melberg Gallery in Cotswold to SOCO Gallery in Myers Park represented a sevenminute drive of 2.8 miles along Providence Road.

In Manhattan, Paul Kasmin Gallery on West 27th Street to Friedrich Petzel on West 18th Street in Chelsea represented an 11-minute walk of one-half mile along 10th Avenue in Manhattan. Each crossstreet between 10th and 11th Avenue represents .2 miles that require three minutes walking. Skipping 23rd Street, this represents 1.9 miles total.

I counted five galleries between Jerald Melberg Gallery and SOCO Gallery along Providence Road. I regularly, on and off, attend 50-57 galleries in Chelsea.

Looking back, in all my years traveling and attending art galleries, the Jerald Melberg Gallery is the only gallery I recall which had direct, immediate access to a large parking lot. Ahhh, anti-density in Charlotte.

Melberg, a straightforward businessman, will answer when his name is called, and will then speak his peace because one called it. I introduced myself and I asserted that I was writing an article about how Charlotte’s astrology bespeaks an aptitude not only for banking, but also, for art.

“Astrology,” Mr. Melberg stated wistfully. “That stuff is more than silly.”

Melberg spoke forthrightly thereafter.

“A couple of times a year, each of the galleries do get together, and we do sit down and talk about what we’re up to,” Melberg informed me. “Charlotte does not have a specific locale where galleries are assigned. There is no Charlotte Art Dealership Association. There is a lot of difference in the philosophies that they represent.”

I interpreted this statement in veiled Marxist terms, based upon economic interests, well-defined or otherwise. Melberg waived that idea off.

“Any city like Charlotte — Minneapolis, Dallas, Phoenix — is going to have somewhat of an art scene,” Mr. Melberg observed. “I think it’s just a fact of growing. I have more interest in long-term representation of a specific group of artists that have a significant secondary market presence.

“Light rail would not bring people to me,” Mr. Melberg concluded. “The type of client I expect is one who pulls up in their BMW or Lexus, buys artwork, then puts it in their car and leaves.”

Nothing prepared me for when I attended the Miami art fairs for the first time in 2015. I had attended art galleries in SoHo, the Upper East Side, Chelsea, TriBeCa and the Lower East Side for 29 years in New York City. Although I only attended two art fairs, which represent galleries in cities around the world — Art Basel and Art Miami — I saw more quality artwork there than I had since the heyday of art museums in the ’80s and early ’90s. The artwork from both shows perpetually dazzled me.

I have no doubts that Melberg’s ideal client fits snugly into Melberg’s business model. Still, I harbor significant doubts as to how his ideal client fits into how an ideal urban arts district — let alone Charlotte’s arts district — should be.

All three cities to which Melberg compared Charlotte, including two major gas guzzler cities — Minneapolis, Dallas and Phoenix — all have light rail. Such light rail can deliver pedestrians to an arts district for an art crawl any night of the week.

But, in light of what happened to NoDa — and in light of the fact that what happened in NoDa was destined to happen — skeptics must honor that Melberg represents economics that will not go away.

New York City, like Charlotte, has placements in their astrological charts that favor banking and art. But it took 190 years for banking to manifest in New York City, and 335 years for New York City to become the capital of the art world, after various European

Charlotte art galleries, now and tomorrow

Surrealists escaped Nazi-held Paris to inform and to energize Jackson Pollock, Willem deKooning, Arshille Gorky and all the New York City Abstract Expressionists.

Progress does not occur overnight.

I would expect a gentleman and a patriarch like Melberg to assert that, when all Charlotte galleries meet to coordinate and discuss a variety of art- and civic-related issues, he joins them. Melberg is not bereft of civic responsibility; he honors his duty to the city of Charlotte.

Then again, Melberg does not need another Charlotte gallery, or a collective of Charlotte galleries, to participate in these art fairs.

A moneyed art district leads to artists such as Eric Fischl, David Salle, George Condo, Julio Larraz and Robert Longo. A popular art district leads to artists such as Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Jean-Michael Basquiat and Kenny Scharf. In New York City, back in the day, this was called “Uptown/Downtown.”

Charlotte needs both. Once Charlotte establishes both, however, that does not promise success; both must endure. The spirit of McColl then emerges, patient and alert, gun poised. The Hunter Evangelist awaits his opportunity.

INFO@QCNERVE.COM

MUSIC FEATURE open to the public — and all artists that want to come work.”

“Grind together. Grind better,” reads the motto on the studio’s website. It’s an encapsulation of Jet’s concept of GrindHaus as a reasonably priced plug-and-play facility for musicians.

“When an artist or producer comes in, they’ll bring their laptop and we have everything else — microphones, headphones, speakers and a cool work space that’s not your living room,” says Jet.

He feels the GrindHaus experience can spark creative ideas for his target market, musicians who don’t have the optimal situation or the right gear to create at home, and who can’t afford to cut tracks at high-end Charlotte studios.

“[You can] spend $90 an hour to do a recording that you may or may not get to sound the way you want it to, because you couldn’t spend enough time,” Jet offers. In contrast, GrindHaus offers monthly memberships on their projects at affordable rates.

“The final day, January 23, we’re going to be Because GrindHaus is launching in the midst of GRIND TOGETHER a pandemic, private tours are scheduled throughout opening day with no more than 10 guests per hour, with 30-minute cleaning sessions between tours. Jason Jet opens new music studio patterned after coJet’s also keeping his eye on coronavirus infection rates, which have continued to rise sharply in North Carolina and Mecklenburg County, and is prepared working spaces to switch to an online launch if he feels it’s necessary. It’s been a whirlwind effort for Jet, who first BY PAT MORAN made waves in the Queen City and regionally with

Soulful R&B artist, songwriter and educator collection’s title song, Jet created and launched a Jason Jet is adding a new occupation to his genre that he coined electric soul — smooth and prodigious list of accomplishments: studio owner. tuneful pop that tethers Afrofuturism’s digital pulse

GrindHaus studios, Jet’s new recording facility to the organic heartbeat of gospel. that’s set to open on Jan. 23, has been described as Success came swiftly. Jet opened for Anthony a creative oasis for all, a concept inspired by the co- Hamilton at the Fillmore Charlotte. Six months after working spaces that have shot up around Charlotte. releasing his debut, he garnered accolades including

where artists can come in every week to work JASON JET WENT DIY IN BUILDING HIS STUDIO.

“Say you want 20 hours a month, that might the New York Urban Music Explosion Award and the look like $200 or $250 a month,” Jet says. “You Carolina Music Award for Best New R&B artist. can do the math in your head. That’s hella savings Jet also branched out into education, compared to going anywhere else.” spearheading Young Icons, a series of workshops

In addition to catering to artists’ recording needs, and summer camps he launched to mentor youth the multi-purpose facility will also host events like and teach them how to create music and write production classes and songwriting workshops. songs.

All of this will launch between Jan. 16-23. It’s this kind of energy and dedication that once

“That’s opening week” Jet says. The first day will prompted R&B artist and Charlotte native Hamilton welcome family and friends, and the following days to call Jet the “next best thing to come out of will host press and industry personnel. Charlotte.”

his debut album Love Boulevard in 2010. With the

Jet, who turned 34 in July, is continuing his musical and mentoring pursuits, but he has added a new facet to his artistry as owner and operator of his community studio, working steadily to get his new venture up and running

“I’ve been a full-blown construction worker for the last six months,” Jet says with a chuckle.

Welcome to GrindHaus

It’s a crisp Sunday morning in east Charlotte as Jet takes Queen City Nerve on a tour of GrindHaus, which is taking shape amid a buzz of activity. A group of Jet’s friends are tidying a sunny room at the end of a long and narrow arched hallway.

“This is one of my favorite rooms,” Jet says. “We call it ‘the calm.’”

The cozy space is the facility’s podcast room, and it’s getting spruced up before artist and Emmy Award-winning poet and author Boris “Bluz” Rogers arrives to interview Jet for Bluz’s “Poetitup” podcast. hallway. Just past the front lobby is the gallery, a room designated for small projects.

Acoustic panels line the chamber to baffle sound but otherwise the white walls are bare. Jet hopes to fill empty spaces in this and other rooms with works by Charlotte’s visual artists, making work spaces do double duty as galleries.

Far more fanciful is the jam room, just down the hall. Above a work desk is a framed Chicago Bulls basketball jersey, Michael Jordan’s iconic No. 23. Nearby is a Nintendo console and an old-school cathode-ray tube TV. Soon, the underside of the work desk is going to be lined with neon lights.

“We wanted this room to feel like a 1980s teenager’s bedroom,” Jet says regarding the jersey. “Now I’ve got to get [Jordan] to sign it, don’t I?”

We enter the live room across the hall. “This room is going to be where we cut vocals,” Jet says. The space, separated from a control room by a pane of plexiglass, resembles a studio floor with mic stands and inputs for audio cables. The room is dedicated for live-streaming concerts and is large enough to accommodate a band. “You see all the online concerts that people are doing? The one thing that a lot of them are lacking is good sound quality,” Jet says. The live room, designed to be a virtual concert venue, is wired to alleviate that problem. We head next door, to the other side of the plexiglass, into the control room, which Jet calls the main skybox. All the rooms we have visited are routed back to the skybox and its 64-channel mixer, he says. “If I wanted to cut a big band, I could put several musicians in each room. They could play at the same time, and we could record it,” Jet offers. “This is where the music happens. It’s the mothership.”

PHOTO BY JESS DAILEY Producing results

There’s still much to be done before then. The live room and skybox can also be used Photographer Jess Dailey takes a short break from for cutting vocals. For the past decade, recording documenting the studio build and relaxes in a professional-sounding vocals has been a hallmark of hammock chair suspended in the calm room. Jet Jet’s production style. discusses construction details with friend and That wasn’t always the case. Jet started making collaborator Cupid Omalari. The two men, along beats when he was 10 years old, after his father with their construction team, have built GrindHaus gave him his first computer and his first digital from the ground up, Jet says. audio software, Cakewalk Pro Audio. Beats and

“Cupid is the brains behind the design and the songwriting came easy, but Jet says vocals were his curves,” Jet says as he points to the corridor’s arched Achilles heel all throughout high school. ceiling. “This tunnel right here, that’s all Cupid.” “I was producing music, but I never really

Several co-working spaces branch off from the trusted my voice,” Jet remembers. “I [didn’t] allow

myself to sing freely.”

Then he left Charlotte to attend Full Sail University in Orlando, Florida, where he studied the technical side of music making. Jet’s extracurricular activities involved playing keyboards and singing in two bands. Playing live, he started to build confidence in his voice.

“[The bands] were good,” Jet says, “but I felt like I could do something a little spicier and funkier on my own.”

Jet’s father, who wrote, produced, recorded

JASON JET IN THE NEWLY BUILT GRINDHAUS.

and released several gospel, R&B and smooth jazz albums as Terrence Jones, encouraged and inspired his son.

“Watching him do [his] albums — that sparked a lot of initiative for me,” Jet remembers.

With his first EP, The Great Escape, Jet further developed his electric soul sound — futuristic-butorganic tunes that suggest the love child of Pharrell Williams and SZA. By 2014, Jet’s smooth grooves made him an in-demand producer.

Out of 20 artists he produced that year, only four or five were cutting songs, but they weren’t releasing the tunes. That concerned Jet. As a producer, and an accomplished pianist, guitarist and drummer, it was easy for Jet to create whatever sound he wished, but it wasn’t what the artists wanted. “I learned how to figure out what story the artist [is] trying to tell,” Jet says. “What do they need from me to help them tell that story better and clearer?”

A producer creates trust when he listens to what the artist needs and tries to give it to them, Paying it Forward “All the artists I’ve worked with in my home, Jet asserts. But at the same time, the producer can The studio’s opening has pushed some of Jet’s they specifically came to me because of the energy contribute their own style to the product without other projects to the back burner, but he hasn’t that I had in my house,” Jet says. “I want to bring overpowering the artist. abandoned them completely. that same energy here to a professional space where

Jet cites his recent work producing R&B crooner In 2020, Young Icons switched to nonprofit I can market what I do.” Dexter Jordan’s two albums, Blue and follow- status, but the program didn’t operate over the As long as his heart and mind are in the right up Dexterity. While Jet kept the songs’ focus on summer due to COVID-19, Jet reveals. In 2021, Jet place, Jet feels the marketing will be successful. Jordan’s limpid melodies and velvety voice, he also will bring the program back. “In creating a community, we’re allowing introduced the singer to different types of vocal There will be summer sessions, as well as creatives to share their experiences and their harmonies, and created new melodies that hadn’t additional programming throughout the year in knowledge,” Jet says. “That makes it a lot more occurred to Jordan. which children will learn about production and organic.”

“I wanted to hear everything Jordan had to say writing and recording songs. Although Jet would And organic things are much more liable to first,” Jet says. “I wanted him to put himself into it prefer to run the program live because it excites and grow. totally, and then I went in and did all the extra stuff.” motivates the children, he’s also prepared to present PMORAN@QCNERVE.COM it virtually. Although the nonprofit Young Icons and the for-profit GrindHaus are two separate entities, there is some spill-over, Jet admits. Some former Young Icons students are planning to intern at GrindHaus. “It’s really cool to see them progress,” Jet says. “They’re coming back to pay it forward.” Jet had also recorded and completed an album that he planned to release in May, before studio preparation ramped up. Now the album is slated for a May 2021 release. “I think it’s going to be better because I get check out our to revisit the songs,” Jet says, adding that the improved facilities will only mean improved new website songs. order for pikcup Jet decided to release one track off the album in June. “Numb,” accompanied by a video or shipping shot on Lake Wylie, features Dennis Reed Jr. and Johnny Abraham J. The song addresses how Black men react to rampant racism and violence PHOTO BY JESS DAILEY CELEBRATE THE HOLIDAYS Jet will bring his experience to production classes, but says he will not be the only one heading in America. “Black men and Black fathers are being numb WITH THE up workshops and seminars at GrindHaus. In fact, until recently, Jet was doing most of his production to society and the way it’s been all these years,” Jet offers. He feels retreat and escape from strife G GLORIOUS SOUNDS OF work in the house where he grew up. Sharing the home with his wife Diyasha, son Asayah and daughter Aniyah, it became clear that it was time and systemic oppression is understandable, but unhealthy. The song points to a deeper motivation Jet has VINYL to move on. for launching GrindHaus. Opening up avenues of

As the family prepared to sell the house, Jet expression can help us deal with fractious times, and started looking for a single room to work out of. As the ensuing conversations can point to solutions. luck would have it, he found the future GrindHaus space while picking up product for Say It Ain’t Vegan, his wife’s company located in the building next door. Although he wants the GrindHaus concept to grow into a “YMCA for creatives,” housing 15 to 20 workspaces in facilities spread across the country, thanks best r for voting u ecord store! s Jet fell in love with the space. Even though it was more than he needed, Jet had wanted to open a multi-purpose studio since he was in middle school. Jet’s not just spurred by that sort of ambition. By creating a local space where artists feel comfortable enough to create, Jet feels he’s lunchboxrecords.com 825 CENTRAL AVE. He took the discovery as a sign to follow his dreams. addressing flawed perspectives and stigmas about CHARLOTTE, NC The money Jet got from selling his house went the music industry — and Black artists. He plans to 704-331-0788 toward paying for studio construction. make the studio a professional and inspiring facility.