It was a joy-filled day in Hillsborough on August 7, where a massive crowd enjoyed live music, food, and packed the inside of the renovated Eno Arts Mill — despite the somber reason behind its year-long closure.
“I lost about eight years worth of drawings,” Hillsborough and Durham artist Amanda Blanchard said. “It was just devastating. I’ve got video [of] when I first walked in, so I know exactly what it was like. You can hear my voice shaking. It was heartbreaking.”
Blanchard operated out of the mill last year when Tropical Storm Chantal’s major flooding devastated much of the space and the art pieces inside it.
Hundreds of people gathered at the Eno Arts Mill on Friday to celebrate with live music and food. (Image via Emma Cooke/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
Chantal did present an opportunity to make needed and major improvements to the mill, which first opened in 2020. The updated space notably features new flooring, furniture, and the town’s first ceramic studio, in addition to its artist studios and gallery. But Blanchard said a lot of the artists still cannot talk about the storm without forming tears.
“That was me for a year,” she said. “I came back, but still, I lost pictures of my kids. It’s tough.”
Now that she has returned to her work space, Blanchard said she feels even more determined to create. Her studio at the mill is now filled with crochet dolls, crowns, and paintings that she has created in the past year — and she said they are more colorful and fun compared to her work in the days before Chantal. Artwork hung by her and the mill’s other artists in residence also highlighted themes of resilience and recovery from the flooding.
The painting Blanchard had been working on when Chantal’s floodwaters destroyed much of the work inside the Eno Arts Mill. She picked the name for the Aug. 7 art show: “Chrysalis,” meaning recovery and transformation. (Image via Emma Cooke/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
Describing them as the “soul” of the space, Katie Murray said she is thankful how most of the artists who operated out of the mill prior to Chantal decided to return. Murray leads ArtsOrange, the newly-created brand unifying the Orange County Arts Commission and Orange County Arts Alliance. The two programs operate out of the Eno Arts Mill, and she said OCAC being an agency of Orange County Government is a big reason behind why it got back on its feet so quickly.
“If we were a nonprofit arts council like most arts councils are in North Carolina, we probably wouldn’t be standing here today,” Murray told last week’s crowd. “It’s because of the county’s backing of the arts that we were able to immediately start replanning, refurnishing, and getting things together so that we could get back operating.”
A major addition to the mill is its new ceramics studio. In high demand in Orange County, community ceramics classes will be offered through the art space. (Image via Emma Cooke/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
Murray also thanked the hundreds of community volunteers who immediately worked to clear the space in the days following the flood. Thousands of donors also helped raise enough funds to fully reimburse the artists for their losses. The event particularly provided an opportunity for those returning creatives to reconnect with the community, and for others like James Huang, connect for the first time.
A rapper known under the artist name SAKY, Huang had only been based out of the arts mill for a month before Chantal’s floodwaters devastated the space. A Chapel Hill native, he began his rapping career in LA before returning to North Carolina. In Chantal’s aftermath, he said he was able to form bonds with the local artists.
“Them accepting me as an artist here meant a lot,” Huang said. “It’s given me an opportunity to feel more like a part of the community here in Orange County. Even though I grew up here, I wasn’t really seen as an artist, at least to the capacity of with music. [The mill] helps you feel more accepted as an artist and gives me a great place to develop my craft.”
The Orange County community, arts commission board members, and elected officials made up the evening’s crowd, and Orange County Commissioners Board Chair Jean Hamilton opened the event by emphasizing the mill’s contributions to the larger community. With its classes, events, and programs, the community arts space pays hundreds of local artists, provides about half a million dollars in household income, and serves more than 120 youth, many of them receiving free tuition or scholarships.
“Those numbers reflect that investments in the arts help strengthen our local economy, support creative careers, inspire the next generation, and build the vibrant and active community that makes Orange County such a wonderful place to call home,” Hamilton said.
“So thank you all for being here to celebrate this exciting new chapter,” the board chair continued. “Please enjoy the evening, explore the exhibitions and studios, and join us in celebrating the enduring power of the arts.”
Image via Emma Cooke/Chapel Hill Media Group
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