By Leslie Strauss, head of family and studio programs

For the fourth consecutive summer, visitors had the chance to meet animals up close and try out creative art activities at Wild Wednesdays. Artists of all ages enjoyed making homemade bubble wands, drawing North Carolina’s state mammal the Eastern Gray Squirrel, and crafting snakes out of clay. Families especially loved the free-choice activities in the Art Room at Mint Museum Randolph.

The highlight of the events continues to be the Stevens Creek Nature Center booth where one can choose to touch a corn snake, learn about the habits of the yellow-bellied slider, or hear the story of a box turtle recovering from a forest fire. Nature center educators, and their animal counterparts, did an amazing job of helping museum visitors develop a deeper appreciation of the natural world. In addition to making art and learning about species native to the Piedmont region of North Carolina, families used scavenger hunts to explore museum galleries, played on the lawn, and observed insects in the pollinator-friendly flower garden in front of the museum.

Wild Wednesdays launched during the summer of 2021 when circumstances required the museum to program outdoors for the safety of visitors. Four years later, the initiative has grown to include both indoor and outdoor experiences and continues to resonate with visitors who love celebrating the natural world.

The medium is a metaphor 

By Page Leggett 

Kenny Nguyen is both creator and destroyer. The native of Vietnam, who now lives in Concord, explains, “If you want to do something new, you have to destroy something and rebuild it.”    

His elegant, ethereal art made from paint-soaked silk looks serene. There’s no trace of the demolition involved in making it. The reason he tears down only to build back up goes deeper than aesthetics. The deconstruction (and reconstruction) mimics his own seismic cultural shift.

Nguyen and his family left Vietnam for Charlotte when he was 19. His use of silk is an homage to his homeland; Vietnam produces some of the world’s finest. Once he arrived in the United States, he felt as though he had to start everything all over again. “It was like I was being deconstructed,” he says. “I had to reconstruct my identity. If you move somewhere and don’t know anybody and don’t speak the language, it’s very isolating. I didn’t know who I was anymore.”

Portrait of the artist as a young child  

Nguyen grew up in a small village in the Mekong Delta. Its size and remoteness forced him to make his own fun.

“We were very isolated,” he says. “There was no road connecting us to anything, so we traveled by boat. I didn’t have access to a playground or toys. If I wanted to play with something, I had to make it myself. My mom and dad introduced me to watercolors when I was 4 or 5, and I spent much of my childhood painting and drawing. It never left me.”

At 17, he moved to Ho Chi Minh City to study fashion design. But that wasn’t the biggest culture shock he’d experience. That happened three years later in 2010 when the family moved to Charlotte. Nguyen switched course and studied fine art, earning a bachelor’s degree in painting from UNC Charlotte in 2016. After graduation, he pursued art while also working part-time at a nail salon. The pandemic, while devastating for many, brought Nguyen good fortune. Thanks to social media, that is when he made the leap to full-time artist. Social media has no geographic boundaries, so when he shared his work online, collectors all over the world took notice. Prestigious galleries found him and he sold more in 2020 than ever before.

Nguyen is now among Sundaram Tagore Gallery’s artists, all of whom, according to the gallery’s website, “produce museum-caliber work.” The contemporary gallery, with locations in Singapore and London, specializes in “work that is aesthetically and intellectually rigorous, infused with humanism and art historically significant.” He’s exhibited in France, Iceland, and South Korea and recently returned from Büdelsdorf, Germany, where he was part of an international group show.

A melting pot of materials  

There’s a lot of physicality to Nguyen’s art-making process. He creates his large-scale work on the floor of his studio. He cuts the silk and soaks the strips — often, hundreds of them — in acrylic paint. While those strips are still damp, they’re affixed to a canvas. The wet, thick paint acts as an adhesive.  

The finished work has three layers: silk, paint, and canvas. Although they are tightly integrated, it is hard to tell where one piece ends and another begins. The fabric maintains its character while also becoming something new once he assembles the strips with pushpins, a holdover from his fashion design days. Once he finishes a work on the floor, he hangs it on a wall in his studio for more tinkering. The painted silk strips can be placed in different configurations on canvas. Pushpins allow him to gently sculpt the pieces into undulating folds. “One piece can take many different forms, just like our identities, which are always changing.”

Performance art  

Nguyen’s collectors often tell him they have never seen anything like his art. His installation process is as labor-intensive as his creative process. It is not uncommon for a collector to film him working. One New York collector, born and raised in Vietnam, tells him it reminds her of home. “It’s always meaningful when collectors connect with my work,” he says. “These aren’t typical ready-to-hang paintings,” he explains. “My work is much more complicated. It needs to be installed. When I do an installation, it’s sort of like a performance. My collectors witness the art come alive as I rebuild it on their wall. I think it adds to the joy of collecting.”  

When Nguyen invented the process he uses to make his “deconstructed paintings,” he wasn’t sure others would get it, but Sozo Gallery founder and owner Hannah Blanton did. Shortly after Nguyen’s graduation, Blanton’s now-closed uptown gallery began representing him and did so until Blanton closed Sozo and opened her art consultancy business seven years later. Today, she serves as studio director for Nguyen. Nguyen credits Blanton with promoting his work and helping explain its complexities to potential patrons.

Indeed, his work is mysterious. “People always want to take a closer look, because it’s almost an illusion tricking you,” he says.

The artist who once felt like a stranger here now considers Charlotte his second home. (Vietnam is still first.) “I’m grateful for the large art community here that encouraged and supported me,” he says. “When I talk to young people who want to start an art career here, I’m happy to tell them they don’t have to move to New York to make it.”

Page Leggett is a Charlotte-based freelance writer. Her stories have appeared in The Charlotte Observer, The Biscuit, Charlotte magazine and many other regional publications. 

Image: Photo from QC Metro by Photographer Lillyanna Sum

Qcity Metro recently named Rubie R. Britt-Height, Mint Director of Community Relations, as one of “The Great 28”, “honoring 28 Black Charlotteans shaping our city”.

Tenured at the Mint for nearly 16 years, Britt-Height is also the Co-leader of DEIAB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility, and Belonging). She is among those considered instrumental in making the City a better place to live, work, and play; for her, it’s through community servant leadership and the arts. Britt-Height also is a member of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Arts Commission, the Mecklenburg County History Latta Place Reimagining Committee, and mentor, advocate, and collaborator/partner with over 100 diverse and emerging artists, church, civic, and community organizations.

She has been recognized with numerous awards this past year: The Latino Excelente’ Award for the Most Supportive Non-Latino of the Latin American Community (La Noticia Media); the CBJ Power 100 Award (DEI), the Arts Empowerment Project Award and Charlotte NAACP for Outstanding Community Leader, and the Who’s Who in Black Charlotte for one of its Most Influential Leaders.

Passionate and humble about her role arts role in the community, Britt-Height’s mantra is “Greatness is measured by service and selflessness. In that with humility, anyone can be great,” says Britt-Height. “I was raised in a family of public servants (over 150 years in my immediate family along) and compassionate community leaders. Some things just come naturally for me. My great-great grandmother was enslaved, and all sides of my family are connected to a solid foundation of wisdom, education, outreach, and selflessness. That makes me an heir of that.” Britt Height says she invests in the region by using art as a springboard for conversation, dialogue, and transformation by using art education via numerous art forms: music and dance, poetry, quilting, painting, basketry, jewelry and clothing design, photography, decorative art, wood, and glass.

This year’s winners include entrepreneurs, volunteers, business executives, community leaders, and more. Among them honored is Community Leader Jeanette Price, the Grier Heights Youth Arts Program community liaison, and Artist-Educator Naomi Rankin, who accepted the Great 28 Award posthumously for her late husband Nelson Rankin.

Read more here https://qcitymetro.com/2024/02/01/the-great-28-black-charlotteans-who-are-shaping-our-city-2/

Mint Board Member Charlotte Wickham and Charlotte Ballet dancer Humberto Ramazzina will dance together at the 2024 Dancing With the Stars of Charlotte to support The Mint Museum and Charlotte Ballet.

‘Take more chances, dance more dances’

Mint Board Member Charlotte Wickham is stepping out to support The Mint Museum

By Michael J. Solender

After Charlotte Wickham relocated to Charlotte from New York City with her husband in 2008, she knew she wanted to get involved with supporting the arts and cultural community in Charlotte. While she couldn’t know it at the time, her enthusiasm for, and recognition of, how arts engagement impacts the development of children and young adults in her newly adopted community would lead her to dancing her heart out in support of The Mint Museum. 

Wickham, a Mint Museum Board of Trustees member, is one of six local community leaders paired with a professional dancer from the Charlotte Ballet in its annual Dancing with the Stars of Charlotte Gala. The event will take place March 2 at the Knight Theater to raise funds that support the Charlotte Ballet and the local leader’s charity of choice. Wickham has selected The Mint Museum and earmarked funds raised to support museum admission for Charlotte-area K-12 school children and post-secondary school students.

Cast your vote for Charlotte!

A passion for arts education

“I’ve always thought that arts and culture are an important part of learning for children,” Wickham says. “I grew up in Raleigh. My family often went to the ballet, the symphony, and to the museums. That was such a rich part of our life. Many studies show how art, dance, and music help develop children’s brains and help them to think in different and more critical and creative ways.”

Since 2020, Wickham’s role at the Mint is fueled by her passion for arts education and community engagement. She is a believer in exposure and access to the arts for all ages.

Wickham has seized upon the metaphor of taking positive steps and enthusiastically allowed herself to be “hotboxed” by her husband and a good friend into performing with the 2024 group of dancers to support The Mint Museum and the Charlotte Ballet.

“I believe life is often done best by embracing the places our steps take us,” she says in an email to friends. “This journey is going to be a bit different, and it makes the thought of participating that much more exciting.”

Different means physical for Wickham whose pre-dance assignment exercise routine has been primarily weekly Pilates classes.

Wickham is paired with Charlotte Ballet’s Humberto Ramazzina. The São Paulo, Brazil native began his formal dance training at age 8 and is in his fifth season with  Charlotte Ballet. The two share a love for salsa, contemporary and classical dance, though Wickham is keeping close to the vest the pair’s ultimate three-minute dance and music choice a surprise.

“I don’t want to give away too much and prefer to tap into what I know will be high energy from the audience at the gala performance.”

Choreographing support

Dance pairs receive support online at Charlotte Ballet’s Dancing with the Stars of Charlotte Gala site in the run up to the event with top vote-getter ($1 per vote) receiving the People’s Choice Award. Dancers who wow the judges with the “best moves” are awarded the Judge’s Choice recognition. Since 2013, Charlotte Ballet’s Dancing with the Stars of Charlotte Gala has raised more than $10 million including nearly $4.5 million for local charities. Funds raised via ticket sales per dance pair are divided equally between the pair’s designated charity and the Charlotte Ballet.

“That our [community] star dancers have the opportunity to generate financial support for charities of their choice has such tremendous impact for our city,” says Alysha Brown, Charlotte Ballet’s special events and volunteer manager. Brown coordinates all things Dancing with the Stars of Charlotte Gala for Charlotte Ballet and is the liaison between company dancers and their community dance partners.

“Historically we’ve had a variety of charities chosen for support alongside the ballet from housing nonprofits to other arts institutions in Charlotte. Charlotte Ballet is honored to play a role in this level of community development. The event is unlike any other in the city and shares an incredible amount of pure joy for those involved.”

In addition to identifying funds to support student access to The Mint Museum, Wickham is hopeful to encourage arts outreach beyond the walls of the museum buildings, especially into area hospitals. Her passion and enthusiasm for community collaboration aligns well with the goals of the Mint.

“Charlotte is one of our most dedicated board members,” says Todd Herman, president and CEO of The Mint Museum. “She is also an avid collector and incredibly involved in so many things that we do. I’m thrilled she shares one of the goals that our museum has, which is to collaborate with other arts organizations here in Charlotte. Her being part of Dancing with The Stars of Charlotte Gala fits her enthusiasm and her love for the arts. This event underscores the Mint’s role as a cultural hub partnering with organizations throughout the city and encouraging everyone in our community to embrace the arts.” 

For Wickham, expanding her reach to embrace and support arts impact in the community is meaningful and more than worth the extra effort. “Museums are places of culture and conversation where we can think deeply and be empathetic,” she says. “We need places where we can appreciate and learn from others.” 

Cast your vote for Charlotte!

Michael J. Solender is a Charlotte-based features writer. Reach him at michaeljsolender@gmail.com or through his website, michaeljwrites.com.

Hnin Nie’s response to Picasso’s Landscape of Juan-les-Pins (1920), 2023.

Playing Pablo

10 Local artists create murals in response to works in Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds 

By Jen Sudul Edwards, PhD 

Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds, organized by the American Federation of the Arts, is a major initiative for The Mint Museum. It not only brings major Picasso paintings to Charlotte from all around the world, but also offers an opportunity for the museum to bring together multiple cultural entities in collaborations and partnerships. One of these projects is a mural series enlisting 10 artists and collectives (some of whom will be familiar to the Mint audience from past projects) to create murals around the city. 

The initiative is a partnership with Carla Aaron-Lopez, curator of the Local/Street exhibition series that was on view at The Mint Museum in 2021 and 2022; and Talking Walls, the organization that has been supporting mural installations across the city for the last five years.  

Together with Aaron-Lopez and the Mint’s Curatorial Assistant Jamila Brown, a group of local artists were invited to paint a mural in response to Guernica — Picasso’s powerful, mural-size antiwar painting — or any of the landscapes included in the Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds. The result is a diverse range of styles and images that will dot Charlotte’s urban landscape and the two Mint museum locations beginning mid-February 2023.

Involving Charlotte contemporary artists was always central to the Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds. As Aaron-Lopez and local artist ARKO have pointed out, Picasso continues to be a major influence on contemporary artists both as an inspiration and as a foil. The exhibition allows local artists to study the works up close and in person, to break down the structure, and analyze the compositions and brushstrokes to further their own education and experimentation. This partnership reminds us that one of the museum’s primary goals is to preserve and present art’s history so that the next generation can push it forward.  

The Picasso Mural project is generously supported by a grant through the North Carolina Arts Council and Infusion Fund. 

Mural artists and locations 

ARKO and Dammit Wesley
Mint Museum Uptown 

Brand the Moth
Mint Museum Randolph

CHD:WCK!
Mint Museum Uptown 

HNin Nie
Optimist Hall

Emily Núñez
Queens University 

Kalin Reece
Elder Gallery 

Mike Wirth
Camp NorthEnd 

Frankie Zombie and 2Gzandcountin
Optimist Hall

Jen Sudul-Edwards, PhD, is chief curator and curator of contemporary art at The Mint Museum.