Student Artery to relocate for third time

For Chapel Hill’s only student-run art gallery, home is where the art is.

Due to lack of a permanent space, UNC’s Student Artery has had three rent-free locations since it was founded in Fall 2009.

Although constantly searching for new space can be challenging, co-founder Gavin Hackeling, who graduated in 2010, said the Artery was founded with mobility in mind.

“It’s the model we intended — that wherever space is available, we set up,” he said. “We never intended to pay rent or occupy a permanent space.”

Though the founders intended for the gallery to move, they did not include moving costs in the original budget. Often the spaces require the Artery to pay for paint, wiring and lighting.

But current co-director Kate St. John said it’s still cheaper to move to different rent-free spaces than to have a permanent space.

“We usually have to do quite a bit to clean up spaces, but in most cases, it’s nothing that a mop and a coat of paint can’t fix,” she said. “We aren’t trying to make a dingy basement into the Metropolitan.”

The Artery moved into University Mall in July, after Jennifer Collins-Mancour — the mall’s arts initiative director — read an article about the students’ search and offered them space.

Near the end of September, the University Mall space will be occupied by the Chapel Hill Public Library. The current co-directors — St. John and Sheridan Howie — said they have already resumed their search, this time looking along Franklin Street and in Carrboro.

“Our ideal gallery space would be somewhere close to campus,” Howie said.

Although the gallery was originally intended to move from place to place, Howie said a permanent location would be an asset.

“It would help us to maintain our presence in the community,” she said. “It would allow for a greater stability and more frequent programming.”

But St. John added that a permanent space is not possible until they secure more funds.

The gallery’s first location — 137 E. Rosemary St. — came relatively easily, gallery co-founder Hallie Ringle said.

Students wrote letters to local property owners, explaining their vision for a student-run art gallery.

“We thought it was going to be impossible,” Ringle said. But then the manager of the Bank of America space at 137 E. Rosemary St. offered it to the students.

“We were surprised that someone with the property would allow us to use the space,” Hackeling said.

When novelty store Expressions chose to open a hookah bar in the space, the gallery relocated into the vacant bar space next door at 136 E. Rosemary Street.

In April, the group found out they would have to move the gallery yet again, this time because of fire code violations. Their next stop was University Mall.

Ringle said she is happy the Artery still exists, but a permanent location would be a departure from the founders’ original plan.

“We always envisioned it moving around,” she said.

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