blvd. | creators of n.c.
Rising STARworks ART FROM THE GROUND UP by Wiley Cash • photographs by Mallory Cash
T
he town of Star is the artistic center of North Carolina. I mean that literally, in that Star is the geographic center of the state. And I also mean it figuratively, as the town is home to STARworks, where artists from the around the world have been working in fire arts like glass blowing and ceramics since 2005. “We love to set stuff on fire around here,” says STARworks Executive Director Nancy Gottovi, who, in a single decade, led the transformation of an abandoned hosiery mill into a destination for artists from around the globe. In 1993, a nonprofit called Central Park NC formed when leaders from six central Carolina rural counties came together with a common vision of creating a sustainable economy. The group formed an initiative to focus on art as a way to capitalize on the natural and cultural assets of the rural spaces located between the urban centers of Charlotte and the Research Triangle. That was when Gottovi began asking herself questions about what a working artist truly requires. “They need to have a really good space to work with good equip 60
|
SOUTHPARK
ment,” Gottovi says. “They also need a community of other artists to feed off of. And they need a way to make a living.” In 2005, Gottovi and Central Park NC found a space — nearly 200,000 square feet of space, to be exact — when they accepted the donation of a former hosiery mill in Star that had been abandoned in 2001, leaving more than 1,000 local residents unemployed. Enter STARworks Center for Creative Enterprise. In the early days, the organization was grossly understaffed and overwhelmed by the nearly 4 acres of aging factory it had inherited, but Gottovi soon realized that in order for the fledgling organization to survive, the building itself had to start generating income. “Our biggest asset is this amazing space,” she says. “We needed to get the best artists we could find and then set them loose in the building.” The artists Gottovi invited set about creating glass pumpkins as one of the first ventures to raise capital to sustain the organization. Suffice it to say that it worked, and that Gottovi proudly witnessed the former factory evolve into an artistic and cultural center where
