McColl Center

05/01/2026

Applications are now open for McColl Center’s Summer 2026 Apprenticeship Program!

Designed for aspiring artists who are rising juniors, seniors, and recent high school graduates ready to step into the arts, this paid, five-week program (July 6 – August 8) offers hands-on experience, mentorship, and real-world insight into creative careers.

We offer two tracks:

1. Studio Artist Track – develop your own work, access professional studios, and work alongside Artists-in-Residence

2. New Professional Track – learn exhibition planning, art handling, marketing, and how arts organizations operate

All apprentices will collaborate as one cohort, connect with working artists, visit cultural spaces across Charlotte, and contribute to a final exhibition.

Apprentices are required to attend weekly, Mon–Thurs, 10 AM–3 PM (on-site), and will receive a $1200 stipend. Transportation support available.

Application Deadline: 11:59 PM on May 31
Notification: June 12

Learn more about this opportunity and apply here: https://mccollcenter.org/programs/summer-apprenticeship

04/30/2026

In this episode of Artist Unscripted, Winter 2026 Artist-in-Residence Mahari Chabwera invites us into her studio to share the evolution of her practice - from drawing and painting to the intricate, meditative process of beadwork. As she works on a fully beaded geometric moon, Chabwera reflects on her growing interest in color as concentrated energy, experimenting with single-color fields to create depth, movement, and visual transformation across a surface. Rooted in intuition, her practice resists rigid structure, instead unfolding through feeling, repetition, and discovery over time.

About the series:

Artist Unscripted is a new video series that invites you into artists’ studios for relaxed, candid conversations. Each episode features a sit-down between an artist and our Marketing Director, Makeia Carrier, offering an unscripted look at process, practice, and the realities of making art work.

1 like. "Mahari Chabwera on Intuition, Process, and Navigating the Art World"

04/27/2026

McColl Center has been named the East Coast’s sole Visual Arts Host Residency for the European Union’s inaugural Transatlantic Rising Stars Project (Transatlantic Stars), a three-year international cultural exchange initiative led by the EU Delegation to the United States. The program expands access to the U.S. cultural landscape for European artists while fostering collaboration with American peers through residencies, public engagement, and shared creative development.

Transatlantic Stars brings European artists into U.S.-based residencies, connecting them with American artists, local communities, and industry leaders to encourage co-creation and long-term collaboration.
The program spans three disciplines: visual arts, music, and film. Each strand combines independent artistic exploration with structured mentorship, professional development, and opportunities for public presentation. Participating artists join a cohort and alumni network designed to sustain relationships and expand opportunities across the Atlantic.

With a 2026 focus on fiber-based practice as a catalyst for cultural dialogue, McColl Center’s Spring and Summer residency season welcomes Transatlantic Stars cohort EU-Artist Ally Nolan and U.S. Collaborating Artist Nastassja Swift for immersive, research-driven residencies rooted in community exchange. In collaboration with Charlotte-based fiber artist and Residency Mentor Beverly Smith, their textile-based practices extend into sculpture, installation, and image-making.

04/27/2026

For the third Reveal of The Contemporaries: Year 2, McColl Center became the site of Who All Over There?, a living, immersive performance and community activation by Charlotte-based multidisciplinary artist Dammit Wesley Dammit, Wesley.

The evening unfolded as both exhibition and performance. Music, movement, and community blurred the line between audience and subject, artwork and environment. Cyanotype tambourines - each stretched with images of figures from Wesley’s community who you see in this behind the scenes video - served as the commissioned works for The Contemporaries, extending the experience beyond the event as objects to take home. Surrounding these were a series of paintings drawn from past Boileryard Brunch gatherings at Camp North End - recurring community events that form the backbone of Wesley’s creative world.

Many of the individuals depicted were present in the space, invited alongside Contemporaries members. For some, this marked the first time seeing themselves reflected in the work. That moment of recognition - of encountering your own image within a historic gallery setting - collapsed the distance between art and life, bringing the work fully into the realm of lived experience.

The energy of the evening echoes iconic artworks like “The Sugar Shack” by Ernie Barnes, where movement, rhythm, and the expressive force of Black joy take center stage. Here, that lineage is not quoted directly, but felt - activated through the bodies, gestures, and relationships present in the room.

In Who All Over There?, Dammit Wesley positions art not as a static artifact, but as a way of being - one rooted in community, celebration, and self-representation.

We are honored to have hosted this experience. McColl Center serves as a vessel for artists to expand the boundaries of their practice, where the work extends beyond the object and into lived experience.

Documentation by @‌mrlo__ Jalen A. Marlowe

1 like. "Dammit Wesley: Who All Over There? | Performance, Community, and Collective Presence"

03/04/2026

In this episode of Artist Unscripted, Preetika Rajgariah reflects on the body, belonging, and the importance of nurturing. Drawing from her upbringing between New Delhi and her adult life in the American South, Rajgariah speaks about how care, once modeled in her mother’s kitchen, has become central to her artistic practice. Working with her own figure, yoga mats, and textiles sourced from the women in her South Asian family, she examines visibility, performance, and the repackaging of culture within the wellness industry. Her work navigates queerness, lineage, and art history, reclaiming space for brown bodies that have long been marginalized or “othered.” Through fabric, memory, and self-portraiture, Rajgariah creates a practice that is both deeply personal and expansively communal, an act of nourishment, connection, and embodied presence.

In this episode of Artist Unscripted, Preetika Rajgariah reflects on the body, belonging, and the importance of nurturing. Drawing from her upbringing betwee...