4
Thursday, May 26,1994
UNC Alumnus Creates Town Murals,
Invites Schools, Public to Participate
BY JOHN MCLEOD
STAFF WRITER
Using the sides of buildings for can
vases, Michael Brown has made Chapel
Hill and Carrboro an art gallery as well as
an art class for the masses.
Brown said a visit to Mexico after gradu
ating from UNC in 1977 had inspired him
to do mural work. He used skills he had as
a set designer, house painter and artist to
begin his work in a community outreach
program sponsored by the Guggenheim
Museum in New Y ork.
“It seems like it is so difficult to get
people to see what you are doing,” said
Brown, who has painted many murals in
the area. “There is a stranglehold of ex
pense and pretense with the galleries that
interpose themselves between art and the
people, and it has always bothered me.
That is why I got into painting murals.”
The art major returned from Spain six
years ago and painted a mural of a building
outlined by an evening sky on the back of
the Nationsßank Plaza.
“It was always the most popular.”
Brown said. “Everyone loved it.”
Home Health Finn to Lease Old Breadmen’s Building
BYNANCYJANE JOYCE
STAFF WRITER
The old Breadmen’s building, which
has been vacant since the popular restau
rant moved across Rosemary Street eight
months ago to the old Western Sizzlin
building, will soon take on anew role.
Med Visit, a home health care organiza
tion serving North Carolina, has rented the
space and plans to move there in July from
its current location on South Estes Drive.
Of the prospective tenants who consid
ered the prime downtown location,
Med Visit was the most professional group,
said Roy Piscitello, one of Breadmen’s
owners.
“We felt they were very stable and very
professional and would make the best ten
BCC
FROM PAGE 1
the provost was about to announce a search
committee.
“I was within a day or two of naming a
committee, and the advisory board met
and recommended (that we delay the
search),” McCormick said.
“We’re likely to do better with more
money in hand.”
Matt Kupec, associate vice chancellor
for development, said the Bicentennial
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Brown’s newest creation, which is al
most finished, is located behind the plaza
next to his first work in Chapel Hill. It
shows a ladder-high view of people walk
ing below, casting long shadows on the
ground.
“The concept of the mural is what I see
while I am working,” he said.
Splattered in different colors of paint,
Brown works as he talks to curious people
who stop to ask him questions about his
work.
“This person walks by. That person
walks by. It goes on all day,” said Brown.
“Someone is talking to me 50 percent of
the time I work.”
Brown said he enjoyed this interaction
and had even sought community partici
pation for many of his projects.
The hand mural located on the side of
the Yates Motor Company is the most
popular mural among teachers and social
workers because of its obvious element of
community involvement, he said.
According to Brown’s master plan, lo
cal high school students and children placed
their individual handprints on the wall,
creating one giant hand.
ants,” he said. “Some people looked at it
for a club, but then we thought of the
problems it would cause for our neigh
bors.”
Also considering the building were a
laundromat owner and several restaurant
owners, Piscitello said.
MedVisit’s president and founder, Jack
Pleasant, worked for the UNC School of
Public Health from 1980 to 1983.
The new building will provide more
space than the old one, said Sue Clifton,
Med Visit service coordinator. “We’ve defi
nitely outgrown our bounds here,” she
said. “We need more room.”
MedVisit’s services include physical,
occupational and speech therapy; social
work; patient care services; intravenous
therapy and skilled nursing.
Campaign had already raised $500,000 in
commitments. “By the end of the summer,
we’ll have a dearer picture,” Kupec said.
The fund-raising campaign for the BCC
could take anywhere from one to five years,
but Kupec said he was reluctant to predict
how long it would take to reach the $7
million goal.
“We’re still looking for a couple of lead
gifts,” he said.
Leadership gifts are individual commit
ments of $500,000 or more. Kupec said he
was hoping to finalize a few gifts which
would allow the fund raising to take off.
The BCC fund-raising chairmen have
been selected and will be announced soon,
Kupec said.
McCormick said that, depending on the
pace of donations, a permanent director
could be in place by July 1,1995.
The advisory board hopes the new per
manent director of the BCC will be “na
tionally prominent,” Amana said.
“We asked the provost to consider de
laying because we felt it would be difficult
to get the kind of thing we wanted before
certain things were in place.”
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Art classes from local schools come to
help him paint, as well. “Chapel Hill school
kids are great, ” said Brown. “They are easy
to work with, and they are smart.”
Brown, who attended Chapel Hill High
School, also has painted murals in local
schools. “Most of the public schools either
have one, or they are waiting in line to get
one.”
His designs must meet the approval of
the Chapel Hill-Canboro Downtown Com
mission, which disperses funds that Glaxo
donates for a student arts festival.
Students from local high schools show
their own work and help Brown with his
murals during the festival.
The artist said his personal tastes tended
to lean toward the avant-garde and ab
stract, but that his murals were intended to
have more mass appeal.
An exhibit of Brown’s paintings is on
display in the N.C. Arts Gallery in
Carrboro, he said.
A design for a mural in the new Student
Activities Center, which formerly served
as UNC’s indoor track, has just been ap
proved, and Brown will begin that after the
budget has been worked out.
Yvonne Cothran, intake coordinator for
MedVisit’s Chapel Hill office, said services
were available to anyone with physician’s
orders.
“Anyone may call us, and we will be
able to get to them right away. We have no
waiting list,” she said. “And, contrary to
popular belief, it doesn’t have to be a doc
tor who calls it can be a family member
of the patient, a pastor, a friend.”
Med Visit nurses will come directly to
the patient’s home, Clifton said. “Home
care is an alternative to nursing homes,”
shesaid. “People would rather stay in their
homes if someone is available to care for
them.”
Med Visit’sheadquarters are in Durham,
but the group provides health care for 14
North Carolina counties. “We have served
CRIME
FROM PAGE 1
said lowering the crime rate was not the
sole purpose of gun control.
Ifthe ordinance prevents one child from
accidentally being killed or prevents one
suicide, the ordinance has served its pur
pose, she said.
Kawalec, along with Barbara Schutz
and Lisa Price, wife of U.S. Rep. David
Price, started organizing NCGC a month
before Lodge-Miller was killed.
The group probably received more sup
port than it would have otherwise because
of the tragic event, Kawalec said.
“The whole community wanted to do
something in response, something posi
tive,” she said. “And that was to decrease
the number of handguns on the street.”
Price said that although enacting gun
control measures had been unsuccessful in
the General Assembly’s crime session this
year, she was encouraged by the increasing
number of organizations supporting the
measures.
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CITY
DTH/DAVID ALFORD
Local artist Michael Brown works on completing the final figure in his latest mural, which is located behind the
Nationsßank Plaza. Brown says this mural was inspired by what he sees while he works.
Orange County since 1985 but did not get
an office hereuntil August 0f1992,” Clifton
said.
MedVisit’s other locations include
Burlington, Henderson, Louisburg, Ox
ford and Boone.
Home care is a growing field, Clifton
said. “People are now being discharged
from hospitals sooner, therefore, home care
nurses are in greater demand,” she said.
This demand makes home health care
nursing a good field for students to con
sider, Clifton said.
Med Visit is open Monday through Fri
day from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., but someone
is on call 24 hours a day.
Services will be available at the South
Estes Drive location until Med Visit moves
to Rosemary Street.
appointed a committee to look at existing
state, local and federal ordinances and make
its recommendation, if any, to the board by
late summer, said committee member
Jacquelyn Gist.
Lodge-Miller’s murder was also one of
the reasons that residents formed the Buy
Back the Hill task force, which collected
100 guns in two buybacks held this month.
Since the murder, people who never
met the 26-year-old woman continue to
decorate the site with flowers and artwork,
so no one forgets the tragedy.
A permanent marker is planned for the
site. The Orange County Women’s Cen
ter, the Orange County Rape Crisis Center
and the property owners plan to mark the
site with a brass placard giving Lodge-
Miller’s name, her date ofbirth and the day
she was killed.
Local self-defense classes have been
overcrowded since the shooting, said
Safe Skills owner Kathleen Hopwood.
“July and August are usually slumpy
months because everybody goes on vaca
tion. But last year, we were filled to capac
ity and put two extra programs in.”
Council Allocates $30,000
For Local Visitors Bureau
BYKATHRYNHASS
STAFF WRITER
The Chapel Hill Town Council made
two decisions regarding the hotel-motel
occupancy tax and the bus fare increase in
its 1994-95 budget work session Tuesday
night.
After almost an hour of deliberation,
the town council voted 6-3 to allocate a
fixed amount of $30,000 to the Chapel
Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau.
The debate was over whether to give the
bureau 20 percent of the occupancy tax
collected on hotel and motel stays by visi
tors.
In the 1993-94 budget, 20 percent of the
$335,000 collected by the tax amounted to
$67,000.
Several residents representing local ho
tels had requested in Monday night’s coun
cil meeting that the money be allocated to
the visitors bureau, stating that the money
would be used in marketing to draw even
more tourists to Chapel Hill and Orange
County.
Council member Joe Capowski said he
had a problem with allocating more money
to one specific group in town when cultural
groups such as the Arts Center were asking
only for about $25,000.
“What we’re looking at here is an abso
lutely massive request in comparison with
what we’ve ever done before,” Capowski
said.
“Why should we make a special case
out of this one request?”
But council member Lee Pavao said
that the visitors bureau had less funding to
draw from than in the past, which created
a need for the council to allocate sufficient
funds.
“The visitors bureau has been in exist
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The town manager’s proposed budget
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$50,000 to the bureau and to cultural orga
nizations requesting grants, such as the
Arts Center.
Mayor Ken Broun proposed a compro
mise that involved increasing the amount
of money donated to these groups by using
the council contingency fund.
The fund is reserved for the council to
use if unexpected costs come up during the
year.
Broun’s solution was to add $16,000
from the contingency fund to the town
budget allocation of $50,000 for a total of
$66,000.
The council voted to give $30,000 of
that amount to the bureau and to disperse
the remaining $36,000 to other groups ask
ing the town for aid.
The council also voted unanimously to
pass council member Mark Chilton’s plan
to increase the price of bus passes and to
cut some route services instead of the
manager’s plan to increase single bus fares
from 60 cents to 75 cents.
Chilton proposed cutting three of the
four midday runs of bus route A, cutting
Saturday services on the G route and in
creasing the price of bus passes by 17 per
cent.
Chilton said his plan would save the
town about $94,000.
“We could offset that by not having a
fee increase (to 75 cents),” he said.
Town Manager Cal Horton said the
biggest downside to the plan was the de
crease in services to the northern side of
town, which was primarily a low-income
area.