By Jordan Lawrence
Staff Writer

When students walk into the first classes of the ArtSchool’s spring semester next week, they may not realize the history they are about to be a part of.

The school is the teaching branch of the ArtsCenter and holds classes in several kinds of arts, including painting and dancing.

“There’s something there that would appeal to anybody in the community interested in taking classes in the arts,” said John Wilner, executive director of the ArtsCenter.

“For the folks that take classes it’s a safe environment for them to be able to learn art and practice art without the pressure of a degree program. It offers programs to all ages.”

Wilner added that the ArtSchool is a well needed employer for the Carrboro arts scene.

“We employ about 70 artists from the community,” he said. “We give them work, and that’s really good.”

The ArtSchool has been in Carrboro since 1974 when Jacques Menache founded the ArtSchool after recognizing a need for an arts educator in the area.

“He started teaching a painting class,” Wilner said. “All of a sudden he had a one room arts center.”

Menache, now an electrician and still a resident of Carrboro, founded the school when he encountered trouble finding employment.

“I was looking for a job everywhere,” he said. “I decided to create my own job.”

Menache advertised drawing and painting classes in the Village Advocate, a local publication, and rented a loft above what is now the Armadillo Grill on West Main Street.

“It was very cheap,” he said, describing the space as “just one large room and some wooden floors and some office space that overlooked Carr Mill.”

Menache said his business was successful from the start, quickly attracting 30 students to the program. Classes were held mostly at night using easels that he had fashioned out of old barn wood.

Soon Menache saw there was a market in the community for dance lessons, so he began classes in that, as well.

“That very same room looked like it would be a great dance studio,” he said. “I hired a dance teacher and had a dance school.”

Menache played the music for the square dance classes.

Quickly after the dance school was established, Menache was approached by a local theater group that was interested in using the space for community productions. At its urging, Menache began a drama program called Gallery Theatre.

“I borrowed folding chairs from the community church,” he said. “I was just lugging chairs across town continuously.”

Next, Menache felt compelled to begin showing films in the space.

“I cut a hole in my office at the back of the room and put in a 16 mm projector,” he said.
By 1979, Menache had also added a photography class to the curriculum and was in need of more space.

“It kind of snowballed between 1974 and 1979,” he said, adding that by the end of this time he had between 11 and 15 classes.

It was at this point that the town of Carrboro began funding the ArtSchool. Menache used the new funding to form a true board of directors for the school and to move into a new space in Carr Mill Mall.

Thanks to his help with the Save the Mill campaign, which was a movement resisting the town’s decision to demolish Carr Mill to make way for a shopping mall, Menache developed a relationship with the man who became owner of the mall and cut a deal with him to rent the warehouse space for $1.50 per square foot.

The ArtSchool did well in its new location, expanding enrollment from 310 to 700 during its time in the mall. The school expanded its educational and performance programs during this time as well.

In 1980, Menache and his board decided that their operation was more than just an art school and decided to change the name. After a transitional stint as the Center for the Visual and Performing Arts, the organization was renamed the ArtsCenter.

By 1986, Carr Mill Mall was sold to a new owner who was not willing to continue leasing the ArtsCenter its space at the same rate.

Menache began looking for new spaces and approached the owners of the Piggly Wiggly on West Main Street. The owners of the space were willing to give the ArtsCenter the space at the same $1.50 per square foot but really wanted to sell the shopping center for $600,000.

When he asked the board of directors to buy the building, they voted him down. However, Menache was not willing to give up the idea, and he formed a partnership with three others called Main Street Partners, and together they were able to purchase the building for the ArtsCenter.

“I and others people built it,” he said. “It was a great groundswell of volunteer effort to do that.”

In 1988, however, Menache said he was put under investigation when the board became convinced that the ArtsCenter owned the building and not Main Street Partners. Menache resigned his post as executive director immediately after he was confronted.

“People thought I was a crook,” he said. “Eventually nothing came out of it.”

The ArtsCenter then went through a rough patch until Wilner became executive director.

“Four years ago the ArtsCenter was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy,” Wilner said. “We turned it around, though. We’re still not raising near enough money.”

The ArtSchool remains a vital part of the center, and its staff continues to expand its academic programs.

Wilner said the school and the ArtsCenter itself have grown a great deal since he has been in charge, so much so that they are in the process of raising money to erect a new building. The new facility, which they hope to have broken ground on within three years is planned to include a magnet school for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools.

“I’ll tell you what’s kind of exciting about that,” he said. “We need a new building because we’ve outgrown the one that we’re in.”

“We’re just plain out of space.”