Ties That Bind: Portraits by Mitchell Kearney

McColl Center

Twenty-five years ago, the dream of creating an urban artist's colony in a fire-ravaged church in uptown Charlotte became a reality. Since 1999, McColl Center's artist residency program has been a haven for artists—a place where they have the time, space, and resources to make their dreams a reality.

Photographer Mitchell Kearney was there from the start. Founding president, Suzanne Fetscher, an artist herself, asked Kearney to capture the creative process. His charge was to offer a glimpse into how art is made by each resident artist, and to show a place that connects the community to the artist at work and not just the finished artwork.

Often, artists are not comfortable being the object of our gaze, and yet Kearney is able to hold space for them and give us more than a portrait. Through his lens we gain insight into who the artists are, the moments of creative energy, and the beauty of the historic building in which it happens.

Ties That Bind: Portraits by Mitchell Kearney of Artists at McColl Center, 1999–2008 reveals an intimate and collaborative approach. Both the artist and the photographer are at work, doing what they love. Although McColl Center is no longer a church, there is still something sacred in the act of creativity.