In years past, Charlotte’s creative arts scene seemed of little importance to the city’s power structure. With the dawn of the 21st century, that energy began to change. Today, the Queen City is a place alive with arts and culture, and who better to address that and share their stories than members of our community?
Join us and learn more as we talk with and share the stories of the executive director of the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art and the president of Charlotte’s Arts and Science Council.
Todd Deshields Smith
Arriving back in Charlotte as the world was contending with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Todd Smith had his work cut out for him as he took on the role of the Bechtler Museum’s executive director. But Charlotte was like an old friend to Smith and his partner, Ben Hood.
Twenty-five years ago, Smith was a curator of American art at the Mint Museum’s Randolph Road location, already helping cultivate the touchstones of culture that locals and tourists visiting the area could find only in Charlotte. In the years that followed, Smith experienced different cultural scenes at other centers of art throughout the nation, including Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee and California.
Even when working at various museums in those locations, trips back to Charlotte were common, as Smith’s family made the decision to relocate to the Queen City. That allowed the future executive director to experience the city’s cultural evolution first hand.
While Charlotte had its fair share of operational turbulence in 2020, Smith was enthusiastic about the prospect of bringing visitors back through the Bechtler’s doors that fall season.
“I think from the museum’s point of view, we were able to open back up fully,” Smith recalls. “We’re seeing our attendance now surpassing what it was prior to the pandemic, and that’s due to a number of reasons we can go into. But, you know, I think the museum is in an exceptionally strong place.
“We’ve increased our exhibitions. We’ve started to actively acquire works for the collection. We are expanding our educational outreach into the community. And we’ve expanded our benefits for our members and our donors. So all that together, I think, shows an organization that took advantage of a rethinking during the pandemic that many organizations did to come out of it much stronger and much more focused.”
Under Smith’s watchful eye over the last five years, the Bechtler has seen an increase in how many special exhibitions could be available to the public at any given time. At the same time, much focus was given to bringing in artistic works that complimented the pieces on display already and in the permanent collection.
One of the biggest challenges the museum has faced is making each exhibit relevant to new generations just discovering art and finding what they identified with. For Smith and company, the solution was to connect the present with the past, linking contemporary artists to historical works and making every piece on view that much more relevant.
An example of this dynamic is evident in an exhibition that is currently on display, Virginia Jaramillo: Principle of Equivalence. Smith is exceptionally eager about the opportunity to have Jaramillo’s lifetime of work on display for Charlotteans old and new to discover. Born in 1939, she is 85, still working in her craft to this day. That’s a fact that clearly connects the past to the present.
“She was born in Texas, Mexican American heritage, lived in LA, lived in New York, lived in Paris, moved back to New York, and just this amazing story of her art, and her dedication to creating throughout her entire life,” Smith explains. “And we’re the only East Coast venue for this exhibition that was at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and at the Kemper Museum in Kansas City. We’re fortunate to be able to showcase this collection.
“I want people to have an opportunity to come in and see an exhibition of just incredible paintings that are smart and quiet, and allow themselves a chance to step away from what’s happening outside in the world.”
If you’re looking to make a visit to the Bechtler Museum, Wednesday nights from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. are free entry for anyone looking for a short getaway.
Adam Santalla Pierce
For artists and arts programs the world over, it can be a bit stressful trying to find ways to make things happen. Thankfully, in Charlotte, there are organizations that lead the charge in helping relieve crucial parts of that stress, whether it is financing or being able to find locations to exhibit. For Adam Santalla Pierce, the newly minted president of the Arts & Science Council (ASC), those processes are some of his main concerns when helping creative individuals in the city.
Hailing from the D.C. area, Pierce has been involved in performing arts in the Southeast his entire career. Starting off by working at a summer stock theater in Charlottesville, Virginia while attending school, the “truly all hands-on deck kind of effort” that production environments thrive upon wholly captured his own creative sensibility.
From there, his career pivoted back to D.C., working at the Mead Center’s Arena Stage for a year. Since his departure from D.C., Pierce made his way to Charlotte, where his introduction to the city started as part of the Blumenthal, which he described at the time as “one of the busiest performing arts centers in the country.”
Since that point a decade ago, Pierce has been immersed in various roles at the Blumenthal and at ASC, where he has spent the majority of his professional life, while also making Charlotte a home for himself and his partner, the Reverand Jacob Pierce. From his first role as a program director, he has served as a grant manager, director, and vice president over community and artistic support, all before taking over as interim president in June of 2024 and now serving as president.
During our conversation with Pierce, it became extremely evident his time in the Charlotte arts and creative scene has been a continuing inspiration that drives him to give back to those communities. Since he has been with ASC, the grant programs he has overseen at the organization have more than tripled in returns, allowing more investment potential for creative organizations and individuals. Take a look: $446,000 in 2021 to $1.7 million in 2022. As a result, programs like the upcoming BOOM Festival and Charlotte’s Pride Festival are able to provide artists and performers with stages and displays for their ongoing work. While ASC isn’t the only hand in these programs, the organization is one of the key tools in Charlotte that allows the general public to be able to access creative spaces all over the city and throughout the year.
“I think as transient as the city is, as many new people are coming to it, day in and day out, there are lots of different kinds of work that could bring somebody to Charlotte,” Pierce told QNotes. “And then I got to come to Charlotte and be an arts worker and work with artists and arts organizations, day in and day out.
“It has been really rewarding in the last three years, especially while ASC was a partner of the Infusion Fund [a Charlotte-based public-private partnership that supports arts and culture] and working with the city and the foundation as a partner in administering the Infusion Fund resources. We were really able to turn up the volume on a lot of the work that we were doing with individual artists.”
For 2025, Pierce, along with all-hands at ASC, have hit the ground running with supporting independents in Charlotte’s art ecosystem. Already in this fiscal year, in direct comparison to 2017 when Pierce first arrived at ASC, the organization’s artist support grant program has gone from 30 to 40 grants within set periods, amounting to around $40,000, to establishing 97 grants to the collective tune of $279,000, giving more than double the amount of opportunities for those who otherwise may not have them. There is a new venue and rental assistance program in the works, which will help artists and art organizations alike find ways to bring their visions to the wider world.
Those are just a sampling of what’s to come from ASC this year, and Pierce couldn’t be more excited for the rest of what is coming up.
“We’re building something that is for this community and all of its nuance, and its crazy rapid growth in the deep roots across this community. So, on an intellectual level, I’ve always been an arts worker and an arts nerd, and coming from [that] background, getting to learn about every artist’s different passion and work has made what we do a great learning journey.”