Growing the Guild

Ellen Patterson talks about the Mooresville Artist Guild

by Connor Roberson   |   photography by Glenn Roberson

The Mooresville Artist Guild began in 1955, as collaboration between six local artists who wanted to share their love of the craft, and has since grown to approximately 200 members. Ellen Patterson has been involved with the Mooresville Artist Guild for 30 years, and now serves as the president of the guild’s board of directors. To her, the guild is more than an organization; it’s a family.

Patterson recently sat down with us to talk about her origins with the guild, its current renovation project and what events we can expect out of the growing organization in the coming year.

How long have you been involved with the Guild?

Off and on for 30 years. For the last 10 years on a consistent basis. I live here in Mooresville, and I’ve lived here for 31 years.

How did you first become involved with the Mooresville Artist Guild?

I knew that there was an art guild here, and I did metalwork  ó I made custom gold and silver jewelry, enameling and worked art shows before we moved here. Once we moved here, in the house we bought, there was no place for me to do that type of work. So I joined the guild.

How has the guild grown since you’ve been a part of it?

In the last 10 years it has grown enormously. We have close to 200 members. We have a strong core of volunteers, and that’s what keeps us running. The Mooresville Artists Guild is 100 percent volunteer. We have no paid staff, although with the renovation weíre getting close to the point where we need someone. We depend on our volunteers because if someone doesn’t show up to open the doors, weíre closed. We get a lot of traffic. Outside the restaurants and the Charles Mack Citizen Center, we get more traffic than anyone else.

We have a very wonderful core of volunteers, and that’s what it takes. It takes the volunteers. And it isn’t a volunteer who just comes and opens the door and stays here all day, you need people who you can rely on to do the phone calling, the office work and you need volunteers who can bring food. Weíre trying to bring the art guild to the community and interact with other groups within the community, like the homeschoolers and the clubs. In September the business and professional women’s network will be here for their breakfast. We’ve had the Chamber of Commerce here. We’ve found that word of mouth is the best advertisement.

What sort of art do you create personally?

I did metalwork prior to moving here. When we moved here in 1980, I went to work. Starting in the mid í90s, my parents started getting to the point where they needed to go into a nursing home. As a stress release mechanism, I went back to painting, instead of metalwork. So I’ve been painting ever since and not doing any of the metalwork. I prefer watercolor, which comes from working with the silver and enameling. In enameling, you layer one transparent layer over another, and you do the same thing in watercolor.

What sort of events is the guild working on?

The second Friday month of every night, we try to host three artists. Each artist will have a gallery, and on the second Friday we have a gallery opening. The public is invited, anyone who would like to come. People get a chance to talk to the artists, the work is for sale and we usually have a large turnout. And when I say large turnout, we get 250 people ó we have had as many as 500 people. A lot of people have discovered us this way, and we try to encourage this.

We also have classes and groups for live model drawings. We have watercolor, oil and mixed media/pastel classes. We have classes for children and classes for adults. They’re open to anyone, members or non-members. Weíve brought in nationally known artists for workshops. In the past couple years, we’ve had artists such as Frank Webb. Coming up in May, we have Steve Rogers, one of the top watercolorists in the country.

We have a youth exhibit in March, which is our youth month. One year we had 188 children exhibit their work here for a whole month. We also have two judged shows each year. The shows are artists from the piedmont area, so although our name says “Mooresville,” weíre really more regional. The judges come from all over. This coming September, weíre having our first pottery exhibit.

We just had a summer camp. One day, the campers went out to the instructor’s horse farm and painted. And another, they went down to Brawley Company and toured the flowers there. Today, with the last of the summer program for the children, we had a mud class. We went through 200 pounds of cement. That was a lot of fun, and the kids had a ball.

What do you enjoy about the organization?

What I enjoy is the friends that I’ve made here, probably more than anything. You get out of an organization what you put into it. One of the nice things is that I’ve made a lot of friends through the Mooresville Art Guild, and not just with the people from the guild. It’s given me an opportunity to go out and meet people in other areas of town. A lot of people that come and participate make good friends. And a lot of times, the people are from out of town, so they don’t have family in the area. If someone gets sick, they have a core of people to look after them. That’s what I enjoy the most.

Are there plans to renovate the Mooresville Depot, where the organization currently makes its home?

We just got our package designed to go out to prospective donors, large and small. We even have naming rights for rooms. We just started the capital campaign process, so weíre looking for it to last at least a couple years. Grant money alone will take a year. So a lot of the time at my desk, I’m doing paperwork.

How do you become a member?

It is $40 a year for an individual, and they need to come in and fill out the membership papers. That’s it. Once you’re a member, it is up to you how much you want to participate. Some want classes, some want to just hang work, and some just want to jump in and help out. It is up to each individual. We are trying to keep the cost of membership down so that everyone can afford it. Our goal is to be a place of destination. It is just a matter of getting out and letting people know weíre here.

Would you recommend joining the guild to any aspiring artists?

Painters, sculptors, ceramic people, yes. We do have potters, although they can’t work here. But to be able to show their work, to put it in the gift shop, they join. Or just for people that enjoy the arts. We try, for the children, to make it more educational. The schools don’t have time to teach the arts, so this is an added attraction for our youth to come to the art guild and learn these things. Weíre very fortunate that the town has supported us wholeheartedly. The community and our neighbors in the area have supported us as well. We really have a good relationship. It is a good situation.