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The ArtsCenter

The ArtsCenter is a Carrboro arts organization that Jacques Menache opened in August 1974 as the ArtSchool, offering art classes. After years at 300 East Main Street, it opened its new home at 400 Roberson Street on August 26, 2023, with a black-box theater, a ceramics studio and a youth education center.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.

People in its history

People named in events about this site, ordered by number of mentions. Each example links to an entry with a source citation.

Sites linked through the same people

Indexed works

Books, articles, records, and images about The ArtsCenter. Each has been reviewed for relevance; materials held at OCPL appear first.

About the site

The artist as a collaborator in the community : working with Latino youth in Carrboro, North Carolina

Almirall, Katie R. · 2007

Katie R. Almirall's senior honors thesis statement, written to accompany her exhibition in the Center Gallery of the ArtsCenter in Carrboro from April 2 to 28, 2007. Twenty one leaves with illustrations, describing collaborative art work with Latino young people in the town. Topics include community arts projects and Hispanic American youth in Carrboro.

Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.

UNC

Government funding of the arts : how funding affects arts programming

Bish, William · 1992

William Bish asked in 1992 how government funding shapes arts programming, drawing on the ArtsCenter in Carrboro, and considering arts fundraising in the town and across North Carolina. A typescript of 66 leaves, closing with a bibliography on leaves 65 and 66.

Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.

UNC

Published by or for this institution

A calendar of events for ...

ArtsCenter (Carrboro, N.C.) · 1995 · The ArtsCenter

Event calendars issued by the ArtsCenter in Carrboro, recorded from 1995 and printed in illustrated volumes at 35 centimeters. The title varies from issue to issue. The series gives dates and listings for the center's performances and classes.

Included because: Published by or for this institution.

UNC

Artscope : coming events at the Art School and in the arts community

ArtSchool (Carrboro, N.C.) · 1988 · Art School

Events bulletin published from 1988 by the ArtSchool in Carrboro, listing its own coming events together with those of the wider arts community. Issued in illustrated volumes of varying size. Covering the arts in Carrboro, the run gives a close picture of the town's arts calendar from the late 1980s onward.

Included because: Published by or for this institution.

UNC

ArtSchool at the ArtsCenter

ArtSchool (Carrboro, N.C.) · The ArtsCenter

Course catalog of the ArtSchool at the ArtsCenter in Carrboro, listing the classes the arts organization offered. Issued in illustrated volumes at 28 centimeters, with a note that the title varies slightly between issues. Topics include the study and teaching of art in Carrboro, so the run shows what local students could sign up for term by term.

Included because: Published by or for this institution.

UNC

A monthly calendar of events

ArtsCenter (Carrboro, N.C.) · The ArtsCenter

Monthly event listings from the ArtsCenter in Carrboro, covering performances and other activities. Issued in illustrated volumes, 35 centimeters, with a title that varies.

Included because: Published by or for this institution.

UNC

Season

ArtsCenter (Carrboro, N.C.) · The ArtsCenter

Season brochures from the ArtsCenter in Carrboro, the performing arts center whose programming these volumes announce. The title changes with the year, so catalogs record it with an ellipsis, and the issues run to 22 centimeters with color illustrations. Topics include centers for the performing arts in Carrboro. A season by season announcement of what the center had booked.

Included because: Published by or for this institution.

UNC

Surveys and maps of the area

Not about The ArtsCenter alone: the architectural surveys that cover its town or the county, and maps drawn while it stood. Several of the surveys can be read free online at NC Digital Collections.

Map of Chapel Hill-Carrboro, N.C.

Gove, John R. · 1958 · Chapel Hill-Carrboro Merchants Association

Robert J. Ayers drew this folding map of Chapel Hill and Carrboro using data gathered by John R. Gove; the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Merchants Association published it under a 1954 copyright. The 1958 printing shows the towns, the University, streets, creeks and country clubs. On the back is text for the Chapel Hill School Art Guild house tour of 30 October 1960, with eleven houses marked in red.

Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.

UNC State Archives of NC

Found a book OCPL doesn’t own? You can often borrow it through interlibrary loan at OCPL.

Start at OCPL

    Where to look on the shelf

    These books don’t necessarily mention The ArtsCenter, but they cover where it stands, its kind of building and the land, family and burial records behind it, and they are where a search for a place like this usually goes next. All are at OCPL, most in the Wall Collection.

    Histories of the town and county

    • Rebecca Wall Collection · 975.656 OTTO Carrboro Otto, David · 2011

      Pictorial history of Carrboro in Arcadia's Images of America series by David A. Otto and Richard Ellington, published in 2011. Its 127 pages of photographs, maps, facsimiles and portraits cover the town's history, social life and African American community, with a bibliography and index.

    • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 975.656 OTTO Carrboro Otto, David · 2015

      Second Images of America volume on Carrboro by David A. Otto and Richard Ellington (Arcadia, 2015). Chapters follow the town from mill village to growing urban center, then turn to its merchants, the arts, festivals, changing demographics and changing architecture, in 95 illustrated pages.

    • Foundational · 975.656 RYAN Orange County Trio: Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, and Carrboro, North Carolina, Histories and Tour Guides Ryan, Elizabeth Shreve · 2004

      Elizabeth Shreve Ryan's combined histories and tour guides for Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro, the three towns of Orange County, with the University of North Carolina treated alongside Chapel Hill. Each town gets a narrative history and a tour of its streets and buildings. Published by Chapel Hill Press in 2004, 369 pages with illustrations and maps.

    Buildings and surveys

    • Foundational · NC 720.975 BIS A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Piedmont North Carolina Bishir, Catherine W. · 2003

      Catherine W. Bishir and Michael T. Southern's field guide to the historic buildings of the North Carolina Piedmont, arranged county by county from Wake and Franklin in the east to Mecklenburg and Gaston in the west. The Orange County section takes in Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro along with the rural county, with entries on individual buildings and maps for finding them. Published 2003, 596 pages with illustrations and maps.

    • Start here · NC 720.975 BRO Carrboro, N.C: An Architectural & Historical Inventory Brown, Claudia Roberts · 1983

      Architectural and historical inventory of Carrboro by Claudia Roberts Brown, published in 1983 by the Carrboro Appearance Commission and the town. The 48-page survey, with illustrations and maps, documents the town's historic buildings and their conservation.

    In the chronology

    1. The ArtSchool is founded Jacques Menache, who had earned an MFA at UNC the year before, began work on the ArtSchool in Carrboro in August 1974, and its first painting and drawing classes started about two months later in an upstairs studio on East Main Street. He said he opened it after UNC's evening school stopped offering art classes; in 1980 the Daily Tar Heel called him co-founder of the school with his wife, Amy Menache. By 1978 the Carrboro ArtSchool also ran a gallery theatre, and the organization later became The ArtsCenter, which moved to Roberson Street in 2023. Town of Carrboro: The ArtsCenter Day proclamation (August 15, 2024) · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, December 6, 1974, p. 7; The Daily Tar Heel, September 8, 1978, p. 12; The Daily Tar Heel, September 12, 1980, p. 5; The Daily Tar Heel, November 24, 1981, p. 1; The Daily Tar Heel, November 6, 1984, p. 2; The Daily Tar Heel, March 29, 1985, p. 3; The Daily Tar Heel, August 18, 1986, p. 26; The Daily Tar Heel, October 1, 1991, p. 1
    2. The ArtSchool moves across the street into larger quarters at Carr Mill Mall Having outgrown the single room across the street where Jacques Menache began teaching painting and drawing to 36 students in 1974, the ArtSchool began moving into larger quarters at Carr Mill Mall in 1979. By that fall it had 550 students, a professional mime troupe, poets' and actors' cooperatives and a theater, the Daily Tar Heel reported in 1981. The Daily Tar Heel, November 24, 1981, p. 1
    3. The Transactors Improv Company begins at the Carrboro Arts School The Transactors Improv Company began about 1983 at the Carrboro Arts School, now the ArtsCenter, at first producing scripted children's theater and turning to improvisational comedy after 1987; by 1993 it was heard on public radio three times a week. The Daily Tar Heel, October 28, 1993, p. 5
    4. The Sunday Jazz Series begins at The ArtSchool in Carrboro The ArtSchool in Carrboro began a Sunday night jazz series that marked its third anniversary on the weekend of February 1, 1986. When the series nearly ended in the spring of 1984, Jane Reineck and Anne Fleming held a benefit that drew 300 people and then took over its booking and publicity; performers included Charlie Byrd, Carol Sloane and UNC jazz director Jim Ketch. The Daily Tar Heel, January 31, 1986, p. 3
    5. The ArtSchool leases the former Piggly Wiggly on East Main Street, Carrboro Director Jacques Menache told a press conference that the ArtSchool, which had outgrown its 7,000 square feet at Carr Mill Mall, would begin leasing the former Piggly Wiggly supermarket on East Main Street on April 6. He planned a theater, classrooms and offices, later a 500-seat auditorium in the warehouse behind, with initial renovations estimated at $250,000; the school held an option to buy the 33,000-square-foot shopping center for $600,000. The Daily Tar Heel, March 29, 1985, p. 3
    6. The ArtSchool opens Changing Traditions, a program on North Carolina folklife The ArtSchool in Carrboro opened Changing Traditions: North Carolina Folklife, funded partly by the North Carolina Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, with a screening of films on traditional medicine shows. The program offered classes on Afro-American quilts, grave decorations and food traditions, a tour of Orange County folk houses and a Seagrove pottery tour led by UNC folklorists, and exhibited Leroy Person's art and Daniel Patterson's photographs of Bigham family gravestones. The Daily Tar Heel, September 27, 1985, p. 5
    7. A partnership with the ArtSchool buys the former Piggly Wiggly shopping center in Carrboro A partnership formed with ArtSchool director Jacques Menache bought the whole shopping center around the former Piggly Wiggly on East Main Street for an arts-centered development; the ArtSchool had to leave Carr Mill by December and was $45,000 short of its moving costs. The Daily Tar Heel, August 18, 1986, p. 26
    8. The ArtSchool names its planned theater for Earl Wynn At a reception at Chancellor Christopher Fordham's house for the ArtSchool's capital campaign, board chairman Richardson Preyer Jr. announced that the theater in the school's new home, a former supermarket at 301 East Main Street in Carrboro, would be named for the late Earl Wynn, the ArtSchool's chairman from 1980 to 1985 and founder of UNC's radio, television and motion pictures department. Glaxo gave $20,000 toward the $936,000 goal, and the school's new concert grand piano, bought with benefit concerts and a $10,250 gift from the Town of Chapel Hill, was dedicated that night. The Daily Tar Heel, October 13, 1986, p. 4
    9. Carrboro aldermen let the ArtSchool's renovation go forward The Carrboro Board of Aldermen widened a limited permit so the ArtSchool could keep converting the former supermarket at 301 East Main Street into its $936,000 new home, adding rooftop air conditioning, skylights and new doors on condition that the skylights met fire-district rules and engineers confirmed the building could carry the load. The board also let general renovation continue before the site's conditional-use permit was amended to include the school. The Daily Tar Heel, October 30, 1986, p. 3
    10. The ArtSchool closes its Carr Mill home to move into the old Piggly Wiggly The ArtSchool closed its home in Carr Mill as its lease ran out and moved its office to Nice Price Books while the former Piggly Wiggly grocery on Main Street in Carrboro, bought by friends of the school, was rebuilt as a hall three times the size with a theater, gallery, studios and an expanded senior citizens center. Director Jacques Menache said the school still had to raise $400,000 and hoped to move in that spring. The Daily Tar Heel, December 3, 1986, p. 8
    11. Carrboro's ArtSchool becomes The Arts Center The ArtSchool Center for Visual and Performing Arts in Carrboro took the name The Arts Center, with a new logo, as it prepared to move into a new building of about 21,000 square feet at 300 East Main Street, where construction had begun in fall 1986 and the first classes were to meet that spring. On March 20 an anonymous donor offered $75,000 if the center raised $150,000 from the community by June 30, toward a two-year goal of $936,124. The Daily Tar Heel, March 26, 1987, p. 4
    12. The ArtsCenter raises a steel gable over its new Carrboro building to mark a $30,000 Burroughs Wellcome gift The ArtsCenter hoisted a 1,500-pound steel gable topped with an evergreen over the entrance of its 21,000-square-foot building at 300 East Main Street, marking a $30,000 gift from Burroughs Wellcome, its largest donation. The gift left the center within $50,000 of meeting an anonymous donor's $75,000 challenge in its $936,000 campaign; the opening had slipped from June to July for lack of money. The Daily Tar Heel, June 11, 1987, p. 11
    Show all 31 dated events
    1. The ArtsCenter opens in its renovated building on East Main Street in Carrboro The ArtsCenter officially opened its renovated 21,000-square-foot building at 300 East Main Street on July 13, 1987, with its first event in the Earl Wynn theater; the sixth season of Monday Night Live opened there that night. The building was not yet finished; Lambda, reviewing an Indigo Girls concert there on September 18 in the center's first season at its new location, called it newly constructed and noted that permanent chairs and carpeting were still to come. Lambda (Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association, UNC), October 1987, p. 10 · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, September 3, 1987, p. 12; The Daily Tar Heel, July 9, 1987, p. 16
    2. Jacques Menache resigns as head of the ArtsCenter in Carrboro Jacques Menache, the former UNC art professor who began the ArtSchool as a painting class and moved it to the former Piggly Wiggly on East Main Street in 1987, resigned in April 1988 amid what the paper called a storm of controversy. The Daily Tar Heel, June 22, 1989, p. 8
    3. The ArtsCenter in Carrboro names Aubrey Bowie its director The ArtsCenter chose Aubrey Bowie, former executive director of the Fine Arts Center in Camden, S.C., from about 60 applicants as its director, effective October 15, 1988. He succeeded interim director Giles Blunden, who took over after founder Jacques Menache left in the spring; the center said it was holding three times as many events as before and up to 100 classes a semester. The Daily Tar Heel, September 19, 1988, p. 7
    4. The ArtsCenter in Carrboro reorganizes and cuts its debt after nearly going bankrupt After a 1986 fund drive fell about $500,000 short of its $840,000 goal, the ArtsCenter came near bankruptcy early in 1990. A task force working with the Chapel Hill Public-Private Partnership raised money over the summer, the board was made smaller, and by October board chairman Fred Good said the debt was down to $240,000; Chapel Hill had given $6,300, Carrboro $3,300 and Orange County $3,000. The Daily Tar Heel, October 18, 1990, p. 16
    5. The ArtsCenter asks Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County to buy its half of the West End building Pressed by its landlord, Main Street Partners, to pay more than $28,000 in back rent by Feb. 21 or lose its lease and face a $150,000 loan call, the Carrboro ArtsCenter proposed to area officials that the three governments form a nonprofit to buy its half of the building and lease it back. Council member Nancy Preston, on the center's board, called the request appropriate. The Daily Tar Heel, February 19, 1990, p. 3
    6. The ArtsCenter board votes to sue its landlord and to negotiate to buy its Carrboro building Behind on rent, the ArtsCenter board voted 20 to 2 to file suit against Main Street Partners, the partnership that owned the West End shopping center building, claiming the center was the rightful owner because the original purchase option had been in its name, and approved a letter of intent to keep negotiating a purchase. Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County officials were weighing a plan to buy the building jointly for about $491,000 over 15 years; the center had raised $90,000 of a $150,000 goal in a month. People: Ellie Kinnaird The Daily Tar Heel, April 3, 1990, p. 3
    7. Banks foreclose on the Carrboro ArtsCenter's $150,000 loan Seven local banks foreclosed on a $150,000 loan to the ArtsCenter in Carrboro, leaving its 36 guarantors to pay the debt; the board set up an escrow account at NCNB for their payments and on July 3 elected Fred Good interim chairman. By late August the banks had collected about $100,000, and NCNB's attorney sent letters demanding $5,000 each from guarantors who had not paid. The Daily Tar Heel, July 5, 1990, p. 3
    8. Studio Five photography gallery opens at the ArtsCenter in Carrboro Studio Five, a gallery at the ArtsCenter set aside for local photographers, opened on Sept. 22; its coordinators said photographers had mostly shown their work in restaurants before. It planned portfolio viewings every six weeks and a juried contest in November. The Daily Tar Heel, October 18, 1990, p. 17
    9. Chapel Hill Town Council votes 5 to 4 to give the ArtsCenter part of a hotel tax grant The council voted 5 to 4 on Oct. 29 to give the ArtsCenter $8,751 of hotel-motel tax money and hold the rest of a recommended $15,000 until it saw the center's audit, and gave $35,000 to eight other groups, $10,000 of it for new holiday decorations. Joyce Brown, Nancy Preston, Arthur Werner and Joe Herzenberg voted no; Roosevelt Wilkerson said an organization led by an African American would have been closed by now, and Mayor Jonathan Howes ruled him out of order. People: Jonathan Howes The Daily Tar Heel, October 31, 1990, p. 2
    10. Carrboro aldermen vote 4 to 3 to hold a hearing before deciding more money for the ArtsCenter After Alderman Frances Shetley reported that Carrboro had given the ArtsCenter $120,301 since 1978, the Board of Aldermen voted 4 to 3 to hold a December 11 public hearing on the center's request for $11,250 toward its rent. The ArtsCenter, which had just hired general manager Eileen Helton, also asked the Chapel Hill Town Council to keep paying $2,033 a month through the fiscal year. People: Hilliard Caldwell, Jacquelyn Gist, Ellie Kinnaird The Daily Tar Heel, November 29, 1990, p. 3
    11. Glaxo gives the Carrboro ArtsCenter $25,000 and offers to match town money Glaxo Inc. gave the ArtsCenter $25,000 and agreed to match any town grant up to $25,000 as the center, recovering from its 1990 foreclosure and back-pay suit, asked Chapel Hill for $14,000; Carrboro had granted it $15,000 for 1991-92 and Orange County $5,000, and it had formed a 17-member teen council. The Daily Tar Heel, August 29, 1991, p. 3
    12. Chapel Hill Town Council grants $14,000 to the ArtsCenter in Carrboro On September 23, 1991, the Chapel Hill Town Council gave the ArtsCenter in Carrboro $14,000, half of the town's hotel-motel tax money for cultural services, for a community film series, as the center worked off a $14,528 deficit. Council members Joyce Brown and Roosevelt Wilkerson voted against it, saying other groups should have been told the money was available. The Daily Tar Heel, September 25, 1991, p. 3
    13. The ArtsCenter adds two students to its board The ArtsCenter in Carrboro appointed a Chapel Hill High School junior and a UNC sophomore to its board of directors on January 22, 1992, raising it to 14 members, after forming a Youth Council the summer before. People: Jacquelyn Gist The Daily Tar Heel, January 27, 1992, p. 3
    14. Activists launch a petition drive charging the Carrboro ArtsCenter with neglecting minority artists In July 1992 Freda Ramey began organizing North Carolinians Against Unfair Spending in the Arts and a petition drive charging that the Carrboro ArtsCenter did little for Black and other minority artists or poor and young residents. ArtsCenter general manager Eileen Helton and board chairman Fred Good answered that about a third of its performances featured Black artists and three of ten board members were Black. The Daily Tar Heel, July 16, 1992, p. 1
    15. The ArtsCenter in Carrboro begins a weekly Renaissance Coffee House The ArtsCenter opened its Thursday evening coffee house for performance art, music, poetry and talk with the audience, growing out of a poets' corner it had begun the previous fall. The Daily Tar Heel, March 4, 1993, p. 2
    16. Chamber of Commerce review board approves the ArtsCenter's $900,000 drive to buy its Carrboro building The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce's Major Campaign Review Board put the ArtsCenter on its approved list for a $900,000 drive: $575,000 to buy the East Main Street building it leases, whose owners had agreed to sell by April 1996, $200,000 to retire debt and $125,000 for operations. The Daily Tar Heel, January 26, 1994, p. 3
    17. Carrboro aldermen pledge $15,000 a year for 10 years to the ArtsCenter The Carrboro Board of Aldermen approved on September 27 a nonbinding resolution pledging $15,000 a year for each of the next 10 years to the ArtsCenter, to show banks the center was a sound investment as it tried to buy its space at 300 East Main Street. Mayor Eleanor Kinnaird called it a vote of confidence that could not bind future boards, and Alderman Frances Shetley cast the only vote against; the center had raised about $215,000 toward a $575,000 goal and was renting month to month. People: Ellie Kinnaird, Jacquelyn Gist The Daily Tar Heel, October 3, 1994, p. 3
    18. Frank Heath tells the Carrboro Board of Aldermen that the Cat's Cradle has outgrown its building At the second public hearing on a proposed arts and innovation center and hotel at East Main Street, Heath said the Cat's Cradle and the ArtsCenter were both too big for their buildings and that expansion had become urgent. He called it a dilemma for a small town with two successful arts organizations. People: Lydia Lavelle Chapelboro: Cat's Cradle Owner to Carrboro BoA: Growing Arts Scene Presents 'Dilemma'
    19. The ArtsCenter moves to Roberson Street The ArtsCenter opened its new home at 400 Roberson Street in downtown Carrboro with a parade and ribbon-cutting on August 26, 2023, after moving from 300 East Main Street. The renovated former office building, nearly 18,000 square feet, added a larger ceramics studio, maker spaces, a black-box theater and a youth education center. Chapelboro: The ArtsCenter Opens, Celebrates its Upgraded Home in Downtown Carrboro (August 28, 2023)

    Open these in the chronology →

    Research sources

    Sources cited in this site’s history, National Register documents, and places to get research help. Research guide: Investigate a school or community institution.

    Background

    Historic sites, markers, and maps

    Records of the time 28

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    Collections and databases

    Local help 5

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