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0000017c-60f7-de77-ad7e-f3f739cf0000Arts & More airs Fridays at 7:50 a.m. and 4:20 p.m.Theme music: "Like A Beginner Again" by Dan Barry of Seas of Jupiter

Northside Art Hop Grows, Inspires New Gallery

If you missed an artist's work last Art Hop at the Northside Association for Community Development, it’s unlikely that you saw it there the next day. Director Mattie Jordan-Woods says there are too many things going on at the center to leave the art up all month. 

But that’s all about to change, Jordan-Woods says.

“We have so many events - meetings, wedding receptions - that we was like we can’t just leave it up because they have different color themes. So we thought, you know, why not create a gallery that we’ll be able to hang the paintings, transpose them and they’ll be up all month. And people if they missed it, they can come see it."

A closeup of Nicci Fields ballerina drawing with graphite
A closeup of Nicci Fields ballerina drawing with graphite

Jordan-Woods says the hop has outgrown the community room. When the NACD first participated in February, only about 20 people came. Now she says about a hundred people walk through NACD’s doors every hop.

Jordan-Woods says the organization wants to recreate the rich arts community that was in the Northside when she was a kid: 

“When we were younger, there was always some type of festival, dance. There was art around the neighborhood. They were in buildings, they sold paintings - especially black art. You would go into one of those small businesses and they would have black art you could purchase. You don’t see it anymore."

 Jordan-Woods says she thinks that the people who facilitated the arts in the Northside at that time have since moved away - and that tradition was not passed down to other generations. 

A mirror along the wall of the NACD community room
Credit Rebecca Thiele, WMUK
A mirror along the wall of the NACD community room

  To get that next generation involved, Jordan-Woods says the NACD is planning a six-week long art camp for kids. The NACD also hopes to bring new, unknown artists out of the woodwork.

In the community room, a large mirror fills most of one wall. It’s tagged with a small sign that says “Do you see a Northside artist?”

“The inspiration behind that is there are a lot of people who know how to draw, but to themselves they think, ‘oh I’m not that good’ and somebody else sees their work and is like ‘wow,'" says Jordan-Woods. 

Nicci Fields says showing her work at the NACD has 

Fields' interpretation of "The Hand of God" by Auguste Rodin
Credit Rebecca Thiele, WMUK
Fields' interpretation of "The Hand of God" by Auguste Rodin

 exposed her to talented artists and poets in her neighborhood that she might never have known about.

“Like a lot of people say, ‘Man, Nicci I didn’t know you could draw like that.’ I don’t really show my stuff but now you have a place where the neighborhood people can come and see your stuff and even put their stuff up,” she says.

The new gallery at the Northside Association for Community Development will be unveiled in August. The NACD is looking for new artists to show at their Art Hops.

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