The ‘front porch for fine art’ opened this week. Here’s what happened

The McEachern Art Center opened to the public Friday with its gallery filled with work from professors and former students from Mercer University in an exhibit called “Foundations.”

“This represents essentially the family tree of studio art faculty at Mercer,” Eric O’Dell, an associate professor at Mercer.

The renovated building at 332 Second St. is the new home to a fine art gallery on the ground floor with student studios upstairs.

Ben Dunn, the gallery director, said the next exhibit will host the work of seniors from Mercer, and then, the gallery will branch out to bring in contemporary art and artists from all over the world.

He said he wants Macon to be a place where people come to do art instead of leave to make art elsewhere.

“I think we could punch up to that level artistically,” he said. “Macon’s on a scale where you can have that impact.”

Christen Holloway, a resident of Macon, said she really appreciated the art displayed in the center on Friday, and she plans to visit the gallery again.

“It’s really cool. They’ve got like a big selection of artwork pieces by different alumni and students, and there’s lots of different colors and rhythms going on in the paintings. It’s really interesting,” Holloway said.

Michael Serls, who spent most of his life in Macon, said he thinks the center is exciting for the city, and he wants it to be successful.

“Hopefully, it’ll broaden some horizons and give people, you know, something new, something different,” he said. “With new and different things you can find a way of kind of building bridges and gaps, and people maybe come together and have something interesting to talk about.”

O’Dell said the center is the result of years of planning in the art department, and he said he is very grateful to the Griffith Family Foundation of Macon and Teresa McEachern, after whom the building is named, for their generous contribution to make the plans a reality.

He said the developers have worked hard to build up downtown, and the art department wants to do the same for fine art. He wants to work with other departments as well to bring different types of art to the gallery such as literature and theater, he said.

O’Dell said the space will be a laboratory, but instead of studying science, the students will be researching art.

“I think first and foremost it’s really a teaching space,” O’Dell said. “It’s not only a great space for them to sort of privately work, but they’re going to do it in an important context in the middle of a vibrant community.”

O’Dell said the upstairs space is dedicated to giving students place to work and learn.

“That’s the fuel, the energy, that will drive this,” he said. “All of us hope that it sort of improves their strength of being an artist in the larger world being in the center of a real downtown.”

O’Dell said the gallery downstairs will be open to the public, and there is currently no intent to charge people an entrance fee to make the gallery as accessible as possible.

“It is our hope and our plan to bring in very contemporary art, very challenging art and to do it in such a way that people feel comfortable coming here. We want it to be sort of the front porch for fine art,” he said. “We feel that art is something that is not done isolated. It has to be shared with and in a community, and so we’re emphasizing that our doors are wide open.”

This story was originally published February 1, 2019 at 8:20 PM.