Carolinian

Issue date: 2/27/04 Section: Campus News

Josh Fox, co-founder of the artists´ collaborative Elsewhere on Elm St., which hosted a work-study programlast week.

The walls of the Elsewhere arts collaborative are lined with thousands of books, toys and clothes dating back to 1939. It seems messy, but everything is in its place, until someone needs it for their art piece. "It's a mix of spontaneity and planned action," says George Scheer, 23, one of the project's founders.

Scheer, a recent University of Pennsylvania graduate, and his high school friend Josh Fox have established a little gallery in downtown Greensboro on Elm St. called Elsewhere to give the community "an indoor playground," as they call it.

The idea is to get people involved in spatial movement and to view how people are affected by their relationships with people and with the things around them, Scheer and Fox say.

The building that houses Elsewhere opened in the 1939 as a furniture store; over time it was an army surplus store during WWII and eventually it became a clothing outlet. The store was owned by Scheer's grandmother for years and when the family didn't know what to do with the space after his grandmother died in 1997, Scheer and a team of volunteers stepped in.

They have created an art space out of thousands of pieces of junk. The toys, clothes, books, fabric and furniture are all there for the artists to incorporate into their works. Once completed, however, it stays in the space. Nothing leaves the gallery. "We're not a store, but we'll play store with you," says Stephanie Sherman, one of Elsewhere's volunteers.

Elsewhere has been around since May 2003, and it received a boost last week when nine students from the University of Michigan came to work in the space on an alternatative spring break. These students chose to come to Greensboro instead of places like Cancun or Daytona Beach, and their school funded the trip.

"This offers them a new interpretive environment," says Scheer. "It's a watermark idea; the plan is to see what happens when artists leave their watermark on the space and the effect it has afterwards."

The focus behind this indoor playground is to get people to come inside, participate in the program and leave their mark and develop a personal relationship with the space. Elsewhere's unique resources, which include everything from bolts of old fabric to piles of Legos, give artists opportunities they wouldn't normally have. Re-applied thrift is a main theme for this project, and because nothing ever leaves the space, there is always the opportunity to try something new with something old, according to volunteers.

Elsewhere is currently receiving funding from the United Arts Council

and is pursuing grants and other outside funding. Most of Elsewhere's volunteers have other jobs, which makes fundraising an extra challenge.

"It's the best full time job that we don't get paid for," says Sherman.

Elsewhere is hosting an exhibition tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. to showcase the visiting students' work. The space is downtown at 606 South Elm Street.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools