McColl Center

Help the next generation leave its mark.

This year, McColl Center continued nurturing young artists through our Summer Apprenticeship + Internship Programs. These programs provide high school and college-aged artists with compensation, private studios, and direct support from working artists. This hands-on experience, mentorship, and immersion in an artist residency environment helps apprentices and interns develop their practice, expand their skills, and explore new possibilities for their future.

More than a learning opportunity, the program welcomes artists into a community that spans generations, becoming part of an artistic lineage built on shared knowledge, creative exchange, and mutual support. Throughout the program, apprentices gain insight into both studio practice and the broader arts ecosystem, learning firsthand how artists sustain their work, build careers, and contribute to their communities.

As one cohort completes its journey and another prepares to begin, we are grateful for the community that encourages, empowers, and believes in them. With $20,000 in support from the Arts & Science Council of Charlotte-Mecklenburg (ASC), we're already on our way.

Now, we're inviting our community to help us raise $20,000 in matching funds by June 30 so we can deepen and extend this work together.

Help the next generation leave its mark.

Donate now: https://secure.qgiv.com/for/fyea2026/?blm_aid=60516

FlopHAUS behind the scenes: 'Je ne t'aime pas ( I don't love you)' by Kurt Weill, sung by Amber Rose @‌amberrosecoloraturasoprano.

FlopHAUS Cabaret: Ballads of a Dark Horse
June 17 -20, Wednesday – Saturday 7:30pm
McColl Center
721 N Tryon Street, Charlotte, NC

Tickets: McColl Center website (see the link in our bio!) and at the door.

FlopHAUS CABARET is inspired by the famously provocative 'ThreePenny Opera' and the legendary Kurt Weill, Lotte Lenya and Bertholt Brecht.

For this edgy, cabaret style social satire Moving Poets has transformed McColl Center into a cabaret club theater and will take you on a thrilling time travel from the 1920s until today.

Defiantly sharp as Mack the Knife's blade, the dark comedy includes nineteen original and contemporary adaptations of Weill's music such as 'Pimp Ballad ’, 'Moon of Alabama', ' Je ne t'aime pas', and ‘Pirate Jenny’.

In the tradition of the witty yet politically dissonant 'ThreePenny Opera', FlopHAUS Cabaret not only entertains, but cunningly challenges hypocrisy, corruption and moral ambiguity in society - with a sharp sense of humor and a wink and nod “Happy End”.

Expressed through theater, dance, jazz and opera, this multi-media music production is performed by national, regional and Charlotte-based actors, dancers, musicians, and singers.

FlopHAUS Cabaret is a Moving Poets and McColl Center collaboration.

Intended for mature audiences.

For this edition of Artist Unscripted, we sat down with Spring 2026 Artist-in-Residence Kandy G Lopez to talk about process, persistence, and the evolution of a practice rooted in representation, experimentation, and curiosity.

Originally from New Jersey and raised in South Florida, Lopez reflects on the unexpected path that led her to art - from dance and theater to painting, fibers, printmaking, and beyond. Throughout the conversation, she speaks candidly about learning through experimentation, embracing failure as part of the process, and the importance of continuing to challenge herself across materials and mediums.

Known for her large-scale portraits that elevate Black and Brown subjects through both grandeur and vulnerability, Lopez discusses how her work pushes back against historical depictions of marginalized bodies while creating space for humanity, dignity, and power. What began as painting eventually expanded into fiber-based works almost accidentally - through material experiments, motherhood, and a desire to keep learning.

Lopez continued that spirit of exploration at McColl Center, experimenting across studios and processes while developing new work in fiber, painting, and print. At the core of the conversation is a belief that art is less about innate talent and more about commitment: showing up consistently, staying curious, and allowing yourself to evolve.

As Lopez shares near the end of the conversation: “Once you understand where you go wrong, you understand how to get to the next thing.”

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About the series:

Artist Unscripted is a new video series that invites you into artists’ studios for relaxed, candid conversations. Each episode features a sit-down between an artist and our Marketing Director, Makeia Carrier, offering an unscripted look at process, practice, and the realities of making art work.

Kandy G Lopez on Representation, Material, and Persistence For this edition of Artist Unscripted, we sat down with Spring 2026...

Applications are now open for McColl Center’s Summer 2026 Apprenticeship Program!

Designed for aspiring artists who are rising juniors, seniors, and recent high school graduates ready to step into the arts, this paid, five-week program (July 6 – August 8) offers hands-on experience, mentorship, and real-world insight into creative careers.

We offer two tracks:

1. Studio Artist Track – develop your own work, access professional studios, and work alongside Artists-in-Residence

2. New Professional Track – learn exhibition planning, art handling, marketing, and how arts organizations operate

All apprentices will collaborate as one cohort, connect with working artists, visit cultural spaces across Charlotte, and contribute to a final exhibition.

Apprentices are required to attend weekly, Mon–Thurs, 10 AM–3 PM (on-site), and will receive a $1200 stipend. Transportation support available.

Application Deadline: 11:59 PM on May 31
Notification: June 12

Learn more about this opportunity and apply here: https://mccollcenter.org/programs/summer-apprenticeship

In this episode of Artist Unscripted, Winter 2026 Artist-in-Residence Mahari Chabwera invites us into her studio to share the evolution of her practice - from drawing and painting to the intricate, meditative process of beadwork. As she works on a fully beaded geometric moon, Chabwera reflects on her growing interest in color as concentrated energy, experimenting with single-color fields to create depth, movement, and visual transformation across a surface. Rooted in intuition, her practice resists rigid structure, instead unfolding through feeling, repetition, and discovery over time.

About the series:

Artist Unscripted is a new video series that invites you into artists’ studios for relaxed, candid conversations. Each episode features a sit-down between an artist and our Marketing Director, Makeia Carrier, offering an unscripted look at process, practice, and the realities of making art work.

McColl Center 1 like. "Mahari Chabwera on Intuition, Process, and Navigating the Art World"

McColl Center has been named the East Coast’s sole Visual Arts Host Residency for the European Union’s inaugural Transatlantic Rising Stars Project (Transatlantic Stars), a three-year international cultural exchange initiative led by the EU Delegation to the United States. The program expands access to the U.S. cultural landscape for European artists while fostering collaboration with American peers through residencies, public engagement, and shared creative development.

Transatlantic Stars brings European artists into U.S.-based residencies, connecting them with American artists, local communities, and industry leaders to encourage co-creation and long-term collaboration.
The program spans three disciplines: visual arts, music, and film. Each strand combines independent artistic exploration with structured mentorship, professional development, and opportunities for public presentation. Participating artists join a cohort and alumni network designed to sustain relationships and expand opportunities across the Atlantic.

With a 2026 focus on fiber-based practice as a catalyst for cultural dialogue, McColl Center’s Spring and Summer residency season welcomes Transatlantic Stars cohort EU-Artist Ally Nolan and U.S. Collaborating Artist Nastassja Swift for immersive, research-driven residencies rooted in community exchange. In collaboration with Charlotte-based fiber artist and Residency Mentor Beverly Smith, their textile-based practices extend into sculpture, installation, and image-making.

For the third Reveal of The Contemporaries: Year 2, McColl Center became the site of Who All Over There?, a living, immersive performance and community activation by Charlotte-based multidisciplinary artist Dammit Wesley Dammit, Wesley.

The evening unfolded as both exhibition and performance. Music, movement, and community blurred the line between audience and subject, artwork and environment. Cyanotype tambourines - each stretched with images of figures from Wesley’s community who you see in this behind the scenes video - served as the commissioned works for The Contemporaries, extending the experience beyond the event as objects to take home. Surrounding these were a series of paintings drawn from past Boileryard Brunch gatherings at Camp North End - recurring community events that form the backbone of Wesley’s creative world.

Many of the individuals depicted were present in the space, invited alongside Contemporaries members. For some, this marked the first time seeing themselves reflected in the work. That moment of recognition - of encountering your own image within a historic gallery setting - collapsed the distance between art and life, bringing the work fully into the realm of lived experience.

The energy of the evening echoes iconic artworks like “The Sugar Shack” by Ernie Barnes, where movement, rhythm, and the expressive force of Black joy take center stage. Here, that lineage is not quoted directly, but felt - activated through the bodies, gestures, and relationships present in the room.

In Who All Over There?, Dammit Wesley positions art not as a static artifact, but as a way of being - one rooted in community, celebration, and self-representation.

We are honored to have hosted this experience. McColl Center serves as a vessel for artists to expand the boundaries of their practice, where the work extends beyond the object and into lived experience.

Documentation by @‌mrlo__ Jalen A. Marlowe

McColl Center 1 like. "Dammit Wesley: Who All Over There? | Performance, Community, and Collective Presence"