“The first went up on Sunday right across the street at Carolina Square and I was like, ‘It’s real? It’s happening! It’s happening!’”
That’s Katie Murray – Director of the Orange County Arts Commission and event planner behind the Uproar Festival of Modern Art.
Murray and the large team of people, supporters, and artists who made the festival possible all gathered Friday night at the CURRENT ArtSpace + Studio off Franklin Street to celebrate their hard work.
As the evening cooled down, a DJ mixed music, bright lights scattered across the walls and attendees poured outside. The artists who made up a majority of the electric crowd stood out, wearing necklaces with pink badges.
The event not only marked the start of the Uproar but celebrated the festival meeting its funding goal.
Katie Murray receiving flowers at the Uproar launch event in Chapel Hill.
Murray said the festival was created to celebrate what artists in the area have to offer while tackling the economic lull local Orange County businesses typically suffer in the summer months.
“When I first got here seven years ago, one of the things I kept hearing over and over again was that the summers here are really hard, especially for our downtown business owners so I started kind of thinking about what could we do in the summer that would be, you know, impactful, and then at the same time I started noticing how Orange County kind of gets overshadowed in the Triangle,” Murray said.
David Hinkle was one of the many artists at the kickoff party on Friday. Hinkle is a sculpture artist and craftsman whose piece was initially made to celebrate the 10th anniversary of UNC’s Center for Galapagos Studies. Now, his sculpture of a blue footed booby can be found in the front lawn of the Carrboro Town Hall near the Farmer’s Market.
He installed his piece earlier in the morning but still made time to come to the celebration.
“It’s really neat whenever you do these type of installations just the amount of people that come and talk to you,” he said, “and it’s actually kind of hard to get work done but it’s super cool to talk to everybody and everybody is super excited.”
Hinkle said his favorite part of the Uproar Festival is how it directly incorporates art into public spaces.
“What’s amazing about the public art part of it is to see the reaction to the community like, for instance, when I’m installing the stuff, how people come up to talk to you,” said Hinkle, “and like so many of the people will say thank you, and I’m getting emotional telling you this but, they’ll thank you for doing it.”
Attendees at the Uproar Festival launch event on Friday in Chapel Hill.
Potter Russell Knop was another artist at Friday’s event. He and other local potters who make up the Clayworks Pottery Guild gathered around a table and discussed their collective piece in front of the Hillsborough Arts Council.
“All of the potters got together, and we decided to make a project that represented all of us individually in a single piece,” Knop said.
The 60 different art pieces sprinkled throughout Orange County don’t only include sculptures. Durham-based muralist and graphic designer Sarah Bordner painted a sign on 150 East King Street in Hillsborough. It displays different messages as you move from the left to the right. Bordner said that being part of this festival is an honor.
“As a muralist,” Bordner said, “I get to do a lot of exterior work but not as much as I would like so here’s another opportunity to say we exist, and I can produce something really neat if you want to take the time to look at it.”
Not only can the pieces be found in public spaces, but picking a winner will be a community effort. QR codes can be found on or next to each art installation and anyone can nominate their favorite pieces until 9m of Friday night, August 11th.
That means the art installations will only be around for a month. Murray urges everyone to make time to explore before the festival ends.
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