I just added several new images to my web gallery.
Photos by Justin Pearson Photography
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Guys and Dolls - Opening Night
The opening night for "Guys and Dolls" was a fabulous hit! We all had a ball, and especially enjoyed the opportunity to dress up at ACME. I even had a chance to do some glamour shots with photographer Justin Pearson, before my curtain call. Check out my Picasa Web Album for more photos of the reception.
All dolled up: Exhibit explores fear and laughter, domesticity and womanhood
Published: Tuesday, October 7, 2008
A new courageous body of work from local sculptor Sandra Ihly and an introduction to British import painter Michelle Connolly opens tomorrow at Acme Art Studios with a reception from 6 to 9 pm.
Ihly and Connolly chose the title "Guys and Dolls," as Ihly was using actual dolls in her work and Connolly was far into a series of portraits of British comedians: funny guys not without a little psychosis like Peter Sellers and Benny Hill. Connolly paints fun in thick, fast swaths of medium yellows and cadmium reds. Fun at seedy cabaret clubs. Fun at a carousel in the sky. "We have fun, don't we Sandy?' Connolly asks rhetorically during an interview last week. Connolly adds a little fear to her fun. Her characters emerge out of blackness and like a mirage, seem just as likely to merge back in and abandon the viewer. You can't trust a comedian.
While Connolly likes to play with the boundary between a laugh and a scream, Ihly unapologetically calls it as she sees it. Ihly plays the straight-man in this duo. She is the Laurel to Connolly's Hardy.
In a vocabulary of antique articles of womanhood - dress patterns, birthday cards, baby-dolls, barbies, high heels, milk bottles, and ironing boards - Ihly spells out some universal experiences by being specific about her own. Ihly's three-dimensional metaphors show what it's like to be a daughter and a mother: a baby bottle filled with painted white nails inside the breast of a dress form. Others show what it's like, as a woman, to grow older: a bathroom cabinet stocked with curling irons and high heels spray painted black, with the words "You're nobody's baby anymore" etched inside the metal shelves.
Ihly blows the top off the idolatry of dolls and subsequent doll-behavior expected from women. Unsympathetically, Ihly speaks outside herself in "Pageant" - a suitcase of multicultural Barbie dolls prettily fight for the crown. The piece is not exaggerated, so a person can really examine the oddness of dolls and their misguided desperation in the context of our society.
"As a child I was sort of frightened by dolls," Ihly said, " because they came apart." She explained that WWII had just ended in her doll playing years and soldiers began to come home missing limbs. Ihly still cringes while dissembling a doll to drill the eyes in bedposts for "Bedroom Eyes" or while putting a doll's head in an Easy Bake Oven for "Bun in the Oven."
Often these honest, blameless portraits are of actual women. Ihly reenacts their lives and relationships with doll-playing to conquer the prison guards of a womanhood she wants to shatter: body image, jealously, housewares.
Ihly's piece "Thou Shall", to counter the Bible's "thou shalt nots" is a portrait of Conolly and a tribute to self-expression. The doll's hair, like Connolly's, is streaked with red and both arms are locked in the up position, as if to say "Olly olly oxen free!"
An ACME Family Celebration
Yesterday our dear friend Mio Reynolds turned 70 and we had a surprise birthday party for her. What a great little family we have at ACME.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Gallery talk for the Wilmington Art Association
tomorrow night at Acme Art Studios.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Little Rascals
ACME artists create some real characters for October
By: Lauren Hodges, journalist for Encore Magazine - October 7th, 2008
Why are children so drawn to cartoons, dolls and action figures? Since the time of the caveman, there has been evidence of animated drawings and handmade figurines, designed to keep their creators company. Of course, those lucky enough to carry this love into adulthood know that the magic of a playmate, drawn or handheld, is rooted mainly in the element of fantasy.
By: Lauren Hodges, journalist for Encore Magazine - October 7th, 2008
Why are children so drawn to cartoons, dolls and action figures? Since the time of the caveman, there has been evidence of animated drawings and handmade figurines, designed to keep their creators company. Of course, those lucky enough to carry this love into adulthood know that the magic of a playmate, drawn or handheld, is rooted mainly in the element of fantasy.
“My work is experimental, playful and whimsical,” British painter Michelle Connolly says. “My love of humor is evident in the open-mouth figures in my paintings, [which] could be laughing or screaming, walking a fine line between sanity and insanity.”
Some of Connolly’s favorite, and most famous, subjects are emus. Each subject in a Connolly painting, human or not, is required to be caught in a dramatic moment, whether the moment is surprising, hilarious or maddening.“I just like to paint things that make others laugh or smile,” she says.
The emotions of her subjects, however, are more than just entertainment for her viewers; they are an outlet for the artist, as well. “‘The ‘Screaming Emu’ is how I felt at the end of the day when I realized I had burnt the dinner—again!” she says.
Nothing inspires her more than the drama involved in being a performer of any kind: theater, comedy, dancing, singing and even showing emotion. Some of her more recent works have been focusing on the men in her life, specifically those who perform.
“It all started with some portraits I had done of a few British comedians,” Connolly, who paints from her studio in ACME Art Studios on North 5th Street, says. “I was reminiscing on my British background and having a laugh! It developed from there.”
The resulting collection has cameos from the likes of Peter Sellers, as well as some more localized figures. “There are a number of theatrical-type themes inspired by my social life, my children, music, theatre and [much] more,” she says. Paintings entitled “A Night at the Reel Café” and “Friends at Folks Café” represent her local social scene, while works such as “Little Rascals,” “Naughty Boy” and “Rory the Cowboy” are loving portraits of her playful sons, who perform for her on a daily basis. Connolly’s love of theatrics and theater itself can be seen in works such as “Luck Be a Lady,” “A Bushel and a Peck,” and “Dance Me to the End of Love.” “I am inspired by many things,” she says. “My children, daydreams, happy accidents, the responses to my artwork, and laughter, just to name a few. My British background has provided me with a profound appreciation of comedy and irony. ‘Always look on the bright side of life’ is the Connolly philosophy.”
Some subjects tend to be a little more random. “I came across an image of an Israeli man laughing,” Connolly says. “He was 125 years old, according to the reference. I was just drawn to the image and the one tooth!” She has made a few paintings inspired by the man, who some might argue is certainly performing for the camera, as she believes his spirit contributes to the delightful hysteria of her work.
Though few artists match the uproarious frenzy of Connolly’s paintings, she has found kindred spirits in the walls of ACME. One in particular is mixed-media sculptor Sandra Ihly. “Sandra and I first met when I joined the ACME group of artists last year after moving to U.S. from Australia,” Connolly, whose sons were born in Sydney, notes. “I am a big fan of Sandra’s work; there is a story behind every piece of hers. I think we are on the same wavelength.”
Ihly specializes in found-object sculptures, starring pieces like Barbie dolls, amplifiers, old irons and birdhouses. “Sandra has got some great assemblage works that incorporate dolls,” Connolly shares excitedly, explaining the playful tie-in with her own guy-friendly work. “We’re going to be doing a show together: ‘Guys and Dolls!’”
Theater-obsessed even in the titles of her personal art shows, Connolly puts the final dramatic touches on her exhibit with Ihly at ACME Art Studios. “We are almost done hanging everything.” She proudly points to walls of the space, which have come alive with her hollering, open-mouthed subjects and Ihly’s come-hither dollhouses made of household supplies. “It’s going to be a great show with lots of dramatic works—some more serious than others—and we hope to capture the imagination of the viewers and let them be entertained by the art.”
Connolly and Ihly present: “Guys and Dolls” on Friday, October 10th, with an opening reception from 6-9pm at ACME Art Studios, 711 N. 5th Ave. Call 910-763-8010 for more information or visit ACME’s blog at www.acmeart711.blogspot.com to learn more about the artists.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Guys and Dolls :: Opening October 10th
Sandy at work on a "Guys and Dolls" sign. Power tools...You go Girl!!
Friday, September 26, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Masonborough Island
What a great evening with friends out on Masonborough Island. The full moon was beautiful and the water was perfect for paddling. See more photos of the kayaking trip.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
9/11 We Remember
Collaborative project by Sandra Ihly and Karen Paden Crouch. Installation at ACME Art Studios, Wilmington, NC.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
The Power of Self
February 1, 2006
Sculpture on display in February at UNCP gallery
The Art Department Gallery will host an exhibition, “The Power of Self: Sculpture by Sandra Ihly” during the month of February.
The exhibition will open Wednesday, February 1, at 10 a.m. There is an “artist talk” at 1 p.m. in the gallery in Locklear Hall.
Described by Bruce Weber in the New York Times as “disturbing” and “sexually charged”, the artist’s work suggests a confrontation with pain and issues of power and control, said Gallery Director Dr. Richard Gay.
“Today we usually think of it in a sentimental greeting card way,” Ihly said. “The word nostalgia comes from the Greek words nost, meaning to return to and algia, meaning pain. An old iron may recall memories of a grandmother’s patience, or it might be a weapon. I use irons as a personal power symbol of patience, steadfastness, and strength.” For Ihly the freedom of making art gives her a voice.
“I express myself visually as perhaps a poet or novelist might verbally,” she said. “It is all about communicating and connecting.”
During the morning reception, the artist will be available to comment on her work. In the afternoon, Ihly will present a gallery talk about her work Feb. 1st at 1pm. “The Power of Self” will be on view through March 1. The exhibit is free and open to the public.
Located in Locklear Hall on the UNCP campus, the A.D. Gallery is open Monday – Thursday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Fridays 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. For more information contact Dr. Richard Gay at extension 4045 or the Art Department at extension 6216.
Sculpture on display in February at UNCP gallery
The Art Department Gallery will host an exhibition, “The Power of Self: Sculpture by Sandra Ihly” during the month of February.
The exhibition will open Wednesday, February 1, at 10 a.m. There is an “artist talk” at 1 p.m. in the gallery in Locklear Hall.
Described by Bruce Weber in the New York Times as “disturbing” and “sexually charged”, the artist’s work suggests a confrontation with pain and issues of power and control, said Gallery Director Dr. Richard Gay.
“Today we usually think of it in a sentimental greeting card way,” Ihly said. “The word nostalgia comes from the Greek words nost, meaning to return to and algia, meaning pain. An old iron may recall memories of a grandmother’s patience, or it might be a weapon. I use irons as a personal power symbol of patience, steadfastness, and strength.” For Ihly the freedom of making art gives her a voice.
“I express myself visually as perhaps a poet or novelist might verbally,” she said. “It is all about communicating and connecting.”
During the morning reception, the artist will be available to comment on her work. In the afternoon, Ihly will present a gallery talk about her work Feb. 1st at 1pm. “The Power of Self” will be on view through March 1. The exhibit is free and open to the public.
Located in Locklear Hall on the UNCP campus, the A.D. Gallery is open Monday – Thursday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Fridays 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. For more information contact Dr. Richard Gay at extension 4045 or the Art Department at extension 6216.
Monday, September 1, 2008
New York Times Article
THE ARTS IN: Wilmington, N.C; Where Movies Take Root, All the Arts Flower
By BRUCE WEBER
Published: May 18, 1998
In 1983, Frank Capra Jr. came here in search of an antebellum mansion to burn down. As the producer of ''Firestarter,'' a film being financed by Dino De Laurentiis, he had already been to Virginia, Texas and Louisiana looking for just the right house. Then, on the cover of a magazine, he saw a picture of the Orton plantation in nearby Winnabow, built in 1725, with a chapel on the grounds and 20 acres of landscaped gardens.
Mr. Capra liked the house so much he used it to film in and the company built a replica on the property and burned that instead. By the time filming was done, he and Mr. De Laurentiis had recognized that the temperate weather, the inexpensive labor (North Carolina is a right-to-work state) and the combination of riverfront, oceanfront and countryside settings (Wilmington is inland, on the Cape Fear River, but just 12 miles from Carolina's southeastern coast) were all conducive to movie-making. So they decided to stay in this city of 65,000 people and build a studio. And though that studio has changed hands several times, it is now resurgent, and Mr. Capra is back, having returned two years ago to run it for its latest owner, EUE Screen Gems.
''The only thing it didn't have back then was support services, a crew,'' said Mr. Capra, who at 63 has the cheeriness you might expect from a man whose father directed some of the greatest feel-good movies of all time. ''If you wanted to film here, you had to bring in everybody.''
That is no longer true. And as a result, virtually everyone in Wilmington credits the arrival of the movies with invigorating the city's arts community, making the town notable for something other than sending Michael Jordan into the world. As show business celebrities have come to town (some, like Dennis Hopper, bought property here), it has developed a reputation in the Southeast as hip and happening. The alternative music scene, for example, is small but tenacious, with a handful of clubs in town and at least one local record label. The third annual Wilmington Exchange Festival, a seven-day event featuring 36 bands, some independent film showings, microbrew beer tastings and a comic book and fanzine exchange, is scheduled to start Thursday and run through May 27.
Perhaps most striking is Acme Art, an artists collective begun in 1991 when five local painters and sculptors bought a warehouse in a run-down part of town for $100,000. The idea was to avoid the bureaucracy involved in setting up a nonprofit entity. The five use part of the warehouse for their own studio space and rent out the rest to pay the bills; at any given time, 16 or 18 people may be renters, filling the building with a rare vibrancy.
''This place has changed my life,'' said Sandra Ihly, who is using rolling pins, ironing boards, corsets and other artifacts of the 1940's and 50's to create disturbing and often sexually charged pieces on the subject of women's traditional roles in marriage and society. ''My art has gotten bigger. I think bigger thoughts. I set my sights higher. I think it's incredible to have a place like this in North Carolina.''
Downtown, by all accounts a wasteland a decade ago, has begun to flower. It isn't exactly a cultural mecca yet, but cafes, galleries, music bars and crafts shops bring visitors to the waterfront, where the retired battleship North Carolina sits imposingly in the middle of the riverscape.
After a healthy political fight, the City Council recently approved the renovation of a dilapidated church in a struggling neighborhood to turn it into a cultural center with artists' studios and performance spaces. And the Mayor, Hamilton Hicks, is pushing for construction of a $14 million downtown convention center, financed by the private sector, that would also hold a concert hall.
''We want to do this on a regional basis, a building to serve all the neighboring counties,'' Mr. Hicks said.
The movies brought arts-minded people to town and arts-related jobs for the local labor force. Carpenters and construction workers have become specialists in set building; local artists and artisans have been commissioned to design sets and create pieces for use in films.
''What I find unique about Wilmington is the movies,'' said Al Frega, a sculptor and one of the founders of Acme Art, who works with discarded machine parts and other industrial material, and has rented several of his pieces to film companies. He and his wife, Donna Lee Frega, a writer, sleep in the bed that was used in the horror film ''The Crow.''
In the last two years, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, a school of 9,400 students that is known primarily for marine science, has begun putting together a film studies department (Mr. Capra teaches classes there). Its newly created M.F.A. in creative writing, which stands to bolster a tiny writers' community in town (it has brought the poet Philip Levine to Wilmington this year and will bring the novelists Alison Lurie and Tony Hillerman soon), includes screen-writing workshops.
With eight sound stages and an urban back lot, Screen Gems has become one of the largest studios in the country east of Hollywood. Currently it is the home of the WB network's television series ''Dawson's Creek,'' and the new Muppet movie, ''Elmo in Grouchland,'' is in preproduction. Wilmington Film Studios, a smaller company, has arisen as well. Altogether, some 230 features, mini-series and television movies have been filmed in the Wilmington area in the last 15 years, including ''Billy Bathgate,'' ''The Hudsucker Proxy'' and, infamously, ''The Crow,'' during the filming of which Brandon Lee was killed.
The Good Fortune Is Spread Widely
''We do more filming in Wilmington than they do in 45 states,'' said Mark Stricklin, the director of the Wilmington Regional Film Commission. More than 900 technical crew members live in the immediate area, and some 500 members of the Screen Actors Guild live within a day's drive. And then there are the related businesses like cameras and camera supplies, costuming, catering, and aircraft rentals, 1,000 enterprises with substantial ties to film production, Mr. Stricklin said.
The influx of film people has given a lift to the many community arts groups, including a blues society and a ballet company for teen-age dancers. The most notable impact has been on the theater; there isn't a single Actors' Equity company in Wilmington, but these days fledgling troupes are appearing and disappearing with some regularity, as actors and techies seek to fill in the gaps between movie paydays.
''This is a town where the local actor you see on the community stage tonight you might turn on your TV and see on HBO tomorrow night,'' said Tony Rivenbark, the executive director of Thalian Hall, a historic theater that is the city's primary showplace. ''Because of the film industry, we have a higher caliber of actor here than in maybe any other community this size.''
Actually, Wilmington has a theatrical history of some prominence. In 1759, the playwright Thomas Godfrey wrote ''The Prince of Parthia'' here, which, when staged eight years later in Philadelphia, became the first play by an American playwright ever produced on an American stage. ''It lasted one night,'' Mr. Rivenbark said. ''Dreadful play.''
Thalian Hall, a building in Italianate Revival style that holds both an elegant 682-seat theater and City Hall, dates from 1855. And the town has connections to contemporary theater as well; Linda Lavin, now starring in ''The Diary of Anne Frank'' and Pat Hingle, in ''1776,'' are longtime Wilmington residents who occasionally appear on stage here and teach master classes.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the most successful arts organizations in town are still the most mainstream.
One, the St. John's Museum of Art, which houses a modest collection of North Carolina regional art and several color prints by Mary Cassatt, will double in size when it moves to a new building being designed by the North Carolina-born architect Charles Gwathmey.
The others are three symphony orchestras: the Wilmington Symphony and the Cape Fear Symphony, both local amateur groups, and the Raleigh-based North Carolina Symphony, which plays six concerts a year here. The community support they have is at least partly behind the new convention center and concert hall; they now play in a 1,000-seat auditorium on the university campus, where more often than not they sell out.
Sound of Jazz, Too, Enlivens the City
''We have 39 serious musical events a year in Wilmington and no proper venue,'' said Don W. Fishero, a transplanted Texan who is the executive director of the Arts Council of Lower Cape Fear, acknowledging that classical music garnered more support locally than any other kind. Jazz is becoming more prevalent, he said, ''but that's the influence of the new Northerners.''
''Before that,'' he added, ''we just had a bunch of bubbas down here, and I can say that because my neck is red and my pickup is dustier than yours.''
Lou Criscuola, a New York actor who founded the Opera House Theater, the city's most prominent company (and maybe the only one that pays its actors consistently) 14 years ago, said musicals like ''Man of La Mancha'' and ''Annie'' were his bill payers. Dramas don't do terribly well, he said, and any stage production where the Lord's name is taken in vain is doomed.
''You can say anything but the G-D word,'' he said, adding that he left in all of David Mamet's profanity in a recent production of ''American Buffalo,'' but excised the one ''God damn.'' It didn't help much; in spite of creditable staging and acting, at one performance there were only eight people in the audience.
Most oddly, given the city's newest cottage industry, moviegoers here are not the most discerning. Though there are plenty of theaters in town, all focus on Hollywood studio products. Perhaps that will change if Mr. Capra's expansion plans are realized. He wants his studio, which is basically a rental operation for other producers, to begin churning out its own product. To that end, this fall he will be the host at a symposium in town with experienced film producers and financiers for local banks and other potential investors whom he hopes to interest in locally made films.
''Can you mount films here, create, write and finance them?'' he said. ''We don't have that yet. But that's the critical step for creating a real film community in Wilmington, one that can rival New York or L.A.'' He paused for a second, a little chagrined at his over-enthusiasm. ''Well, we'll never quite do that,'' he said.
By BRUCE WEBER
Published: May 18, 1998
In 1983, Frank Capra Jr. came here in search of an antebellum mansion to burn down. As the producer of ''Firestarter,'' a film being financed by Dino De Laurentiis, he had already been to Virginia, Texas and Louisiana looking for just the right house. Then, on the cover of a magazine, he saw a picture of the Orton plantation in nearby Winnabow, built in 1725, with a chapel on the grounds and 20 acres of landscaped gardens.
Mr. Capra liked the house so much he used it to film in and the company built a replica on the property and burned that instead. By the time filming was done, he and Mr. De Laurentiis had recognized that the temperate weather, the inexpensive labor (North Carolina is a right-to-work state) and the combination of riverfront, oceanfront and countryside settings (Wilmington is inland, on the Cape Fear River, but just 12 miles from Carolina's southeastern coast) were all conducive to movie-making. So they decided to stay in this city of 65,000 people and build a studio. And though that studio has changed hands several times, it is now resurgent, and Mr. Capra is back, having returned two years ago to run it for its latest owner, EUE Screen Gems.
''The only thing it didn't have back then was support services, a crew,'' said Mr. Capra, who at 63 has the cheeriness you might expect from a man whose father directed some of the greatest feel-good movies of all time. ''If you wanted to film here, you had to bring in everybody.''
That is no longer true. And as a result, virtually everyone in Wilmington credits the arrival of the movies with invigorating the city's arts community, making the town notable for something other than sending Michael Jordan into the world. As show business celebrities have come to town (some, like Dennis Hopper, bought property here), it has developed a reputation in the Southeast as hip and happening. The alternative music scene, for example, is small but tenacious, with a handful of clubs in town and at least one local record label. The third annual Wilmington Exchange Festival, a seven-day event featuring 36 bands, some independent film showings, microbrew beer tastings and a comic book and fanzine exchange, is scheduled to start Thursday and run through May 27.
Perhaps most striking is Acme Art, an artists collective begun in 1991 when five local painters and sculptors bought a warehouse in a run-down part of town for $100,000. The idea was to avoid the bureaucracy involved in setting up a nonprofit entity. The five use part of the warehouse for their own studio space and rent out the rest to pay the bills; at any given time, 16 or 18 people may be renters, filling the building with a rare vibrancy.
''This place has changed my life,'' said Sandra Ihly, who is using rolling pins, ironing boards, corsets and other artifacts of the 1940's and 50's to create disturbing and often sexually charged pieces on the subject of women's traditional roles in marriage and society. ''My art has gotten bigger. I think bigger thoughts. I set my sights higher. I think it's incredible to have a place like this in North Carolina.''
Downtown, by all accounts a wasteland a decade ago, has begun to flower. It isn't exactly a cultural mecca yet, but cafes, galleries, music bars and crafts shops bring visitors to the waterfront, where the retired battleship North Carolina sits imposingly in the middle of the riverscape.
After a healthy political fight, the City Council recently approved the renovation of a dilapidated church in a struggling neighborhood to turn it into a cultural center with artists' studios and performance spaces. And the Mayor, Hamilton Hicks, is pushing for construction of a $14 million downtown convention center, financed by the private sector, that would also hold a concert hall.
''We want to do this on a regional basis, a building to serve all the neighboring counties,'' Mr. Hicks said.
The movies brought arts-minded people to town and arts-related jobs for the local labor force. Carpenters and construction workers have become specialists in set building; local artists and artisans have been commissioned to design sets and create pieces for use in films.
''What I find unique about Wilmington is the movies,'' said Al Frega, a sculptor and one of the founders of Acme Art, who works with discarded machine parts and other industrial material, and has rented several of his pieces to film companies. He and his wife, Donna Lee Frega, a writer, sleep in the bed that was used in the horror film ''The Crow.''
In the last two years, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, a school of 9,400 students that is known primarily for marine science, has begun putting together a film studies department (Mr. Capra teaches classes there). Its newly created M.F.A. in creative writing, which stands to bolster a tiny writers' community in town (it has brought the poet Philip Levine to Wilmington this year and will bring the novelists Alison Lurie and Tony Hillerman soon), includes screen-writing workshops.
With eight sound stages and an urban back lot, Screen Gems has become one of the largest studios in the country east of Hollywood. Currently it is the home of the WB network's television series ''Dawson's Creek,'' and the new Muppet movie, ''Elmo in Grouchland,'' is in preproduction. Wilmington Film Studios, a smaller company, has arisen as well. Altogether, some 230 features, mini-series and television movies have been filmed in the Wilmington area in the last 15 years, including ''Billy Bathgate,'' ''The Hudsucker Proxy'' and, infamously, ''The Crow,'' during the filming of which Brandon Lee was killed.
The Good Fortune Is Spread Widely
''We do more filming in Wilmington than they do in 45 states,'' said Mark Stricklin, the director of the Wilmington Regional Film Commission. More than 900 technical crew members live in the immediate area, and some 500 members of the Screen Actors Guild live within a day's drive. And then there are the related businesses like cameras and camera supplies, costuming, catering, and aircraft rentals, 1,000 enterprises with substantial ties to film production, Mr. Stricklin said.
The influx of film people has given a lift to the many community arts groups, including a blues society and a ballet company for teen-age dancers. The most notable impact has been on the theater; there isn't a single Actors' Equity company in Wilmington, but these days fledgling troupes are appearing and disappearing with some regularity, as actors and techies seek to fill in the gaps between movie paydays.
''This is a town where the local actor you see on the community stage tonight you might turn on your TV and see on HBO tomorrow night,'' said Tony Rivenbark, the executive director of Thalian Hall, a historic theater that is the city's primary showplace. ''Because of the film industry, we have a higher caliber of actor here than in maybe any other community this size.''
Actually, Wilmington has a theatrical history of some prominence. In 1759, the playwright Thomas Godfrey wrote ''The Prince of Parthia'' here, which, when staged eight years later in Philadelphia, became the first play by an American playwright ever produced on an American stage. ''It lasted one night,'' Mr. Rivenbark said. ''Dreadful play.''
Thalian Hall, a building in Italianate Revival style that holds both an elegant 682-seat theater and City Hall, dates from 1855. And the town has connections to contemporary theater as well; Linda Lavin, now starring in ''The Diary of Anne Frank'' and Pat Hingle, in ''1776,'' are longtime Wilmington residents who occasionally appear on stage here and teach master classes.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the most successful arts organizations in town are still the most mainstream.
One, the St. John's Museum of Art, which houses a modest collection of North Carolina regional art and several color prints by Mary Cassatt, will double in size when it moves to a new building being designed by the North Carolina-born architect Charles Gwathmey.
The others are three symphony orchestras: the Wilmington Symphony and the Cape Fear Symphony, both local amateur groups, and the Raleigh-based North Carolina Symphony, which plays six concerts a year here. The community support they have is at least partly behind the new convention center and concert hall; they now play in a 1,000-seat auditorium on the university campus, where more often than not they sell out.
Sound of Jazz, Too, Enlivens the City
''We have 39 serious musical events a year in Wilmington and no proper venue,'' said Don W. Fishero, a transplanted Texan who is the executive director of the Arts Council of Lower Cape Fear, acknowledging that classical music garnered more support locally than any other kind. Jazz is becoming more prevalent, he said, ''but that's the influence of the new Northerners.''
''Before that,'' he added, ''we just had a bunch of bubbas down here, and I can say that because my neck is red and my pickup is dustier than yours.''
Lou Criscuola, a New York actor who founded the Opera House Theater, the city's most prominent company (and maybe the only one that pays its actors consistently) 14 years ago, said musicals like ''Man of La Mancha'' and ''Annie'' were his bill payers. Dramas don't do terribly well, he said, and any stage production where the Lord's name is taken in vain is doomed.
''You can say anything but the G-D word,'' he said, adding that he left in all of David Mamet's profanity in a recent production of ''American Buffalo,'' but excised the one ''God damn.'' It didn't help much; in spite of creditable staging and acting, at one performance there were only eight people in the audience.
Most oddly, given the city's newest cottage industry, moviegoers here are not the most discerning. Though there are plenty of theaters in town, all focus on Hollywood studio products. Perhaps that will change if Mr. Capra's expansion plans are realized. He wants his studio, which is basically a rental operation for other producers, to begin churning out its own product. To that end, this fall he will be the host at a symposium in town with experienced film producers and financiers for local banks and other potential investors whom he hopes to interest in locally made films.
''Can you mount films here, create, write and finance them?'' he said. ''We don't have that yet. But that's the critical step for creating a real film community in Wilmington, one that can rival New York or L.A.'' He paused for a second, a little chagrined at his over-enthusiasm. ''Well, we'll never quite do that,'' he said.
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