Chromatic Roots
fight stagnation, make art, climb a treehouse, take a nap
Hello friends!
I have a lot of catching up to do, last year was… a roller coaster, to put it nicely. I wrote a lot of thoughts down, but never clicked send, something always pulling me off track. So let’s catch up!
This is officially Part 1 of the WTF happened to 2025? Series.
This is a long one, but it literally touches every day of the year, so buckle up, we’re going to Chromatic Roots, or, as we like to call it; what happens when two artists get trapped in a basement and decide to fight stagnation with art.
Chromatic Roots, the immersive art exhibit created by 30 visual artists, 5 soundscape artists, and a brilliant meda team. Everyone involved was local to the area, donated their time, skills, and resources to this fully-self funded endeavor.
I had the privilege of being on the creative leadership team as project manager. The six of us (The Super Daft Bros, Rebecca Lipps, Arko, and Luvly Moon) got the gears moving, meeting every week starting in January. We ran through countless concepts, edited and honed our vision to a point that could be communicated to the artists we wanted to invite (this was always going to be a group effort, beyond the leadership team).
In these early days, my primary role was to keep us on topic and moving forward, taking notes, working out priorities and troubleshooting any issues that bubbled to the surface. Prioritization was huge; how to balance out our Big Dreams with a short timeline was tricky business.
In order to meet our initial opening date, our goals were organized into rough categories:
Before We Open
After Opening
Nice to have but we can save it for ‘next time’
Maybe a wealthy philanthropist will fund that
Lol, Absolutely Not
Construction started in late February.
I expected to support the build management, but that wasn’t in the cards (that’s a post for another day). I shifted instead to support the creative leadership team directly. Luckily, the rest of the team had clear visions for each of their biomes, and were able to direct a brilliant group of artists together to create an overwhelmingly cohesive final result.
I kept the meetings running, sent emails, chased answers down, met with my counterparts individually if they needed help sorting through priorities, and other necessary background tasks. This ended up working well; when the other 5 were rightfully exhausted on all levels by the time we were scheduling our VIP night, I was able to keep track of what HAD TO GET DONE.
In retrospect, having one brain slightly outside of the chaos of creating, flood mitigation, and looming deadlines helped keep whirling emotions to a minimum when nerves were fraying. I was able to mediate our shifting priorities better, and help translate exhausted frustration into feasible goals. This included pushing our initial opening date out a few times, to give the artists more time to really show Charlotte what Chromatic Roots was all about.
Good is better than perfect, and we wanted it to be REALLY GOOD.
We made the right choice, pushed the date out and officially opened on August 1st.
The response was amazing. The public loved it (except for that one guy who wanted us to provide gummies (yes, the grown-up kind, no we did not, can you IMAGINE the liability insurance on that? BYOG, my dude)), we loved the feedback we got, and it kept us motivated to keep adding layers of narrative to the exhibit (scavenger hunt, anyone?) and a merch section that was stocked 100% by our artists. In addition to the general opening hours, Chromatic Roots hosted several events, from music performances and yoga to a Glow Party with Play More Charlotte.
Throughout, the leadership team met weekly, kept a never ending to-do list moving, and were in constant communication via text as issues/amazing things came up. Now that the books are closed on Chromatic Roots, we rest, and maybe, if you’re lucky, we’ll find another opportunity to bring artists together again.
Quick Stats & Learnings
2,500 square feet of church family room transformed
6 months of construction
Over 2,000 visitors in 3 months
5 star ratings on Eventbrite
Wow, event insurance is expensive
Wow wow wow, people are INTO this kind of exhibit
Last but not least, massive thanks to Arts+ for donating the space on their community campus. We literally couldn’t have done this without their generosity & trust!
If you want a peek at what Chromatic Roots looked like, click here and give us a follow, we’ll announce any updates there!
P.S. Feel free to reach out directly if you know of any spaces with nice people who would want to sponsor/host exhibits like this. Likely we would be looking to open sometime in 2027, our crew needs time to rejuvenate and pursue personal projects for now.