Bree Stallings Discusses Blume Studios and Its Impact on Local Arts

Speaking to Bree Stallings, director of artistic experiences with Blumenthal Arts, in the days leading up to the launch of the 2024 Charlotte International Arts Festival (CIAF), things were a bit hectic at Blume Studios.

Located at 904 Post St., in a former Charlotte Pipe & Foundry warehouse just outside of Uptown’s Third Ward, Blume Studios will serve as Blumenthal’s newest venue for continuing immersive experience series such as the Immersive Van Gogh show the organization hosted in 2021.

The new venue will kick off programming amidst CIAF with Space Explorers: THE INFINITE, an immersive outer space adventure that will use VR technology to place visitors in various locations inside and outside the International Space Station.

With just two weeks until the premiere of Space Explorers: THE INFINITE, scheduled for Sept. 20, Stallings and her team emptied out the entire warehouse for a visit from the fire marshal, then waited for the folks with PHI Studio in Montreal, Canada to arrive with trucks full of everything that was needed for the installation.

“[PHI Studio] told us it’s a really quick install, and we were like, ‘Okay, we believe you,’ and now it’s all happening,” Stallings said over the phone from Blume Studios. “So there’s a lot of hurry up and wait, and then when it’s time to go, it all happens at once.”

But the opening of Blume Studios didn’t all happen at once — it’s been in the works since January 2022 when Immersive Van Gogh ended its run at Camp North End. We talked to Stallings about that process and what impact the new facility could potentially have on the local arts scene.

Queen City Nerve: How is the facility coming along?
Bree Stallings: My job specifically has been to, as always, activate the local artist community. So we have this huge wall in the building that’s like 80 feet long and 34 feet tall at its tallest, and I had [local muralist] Cheeks just go to town on it. So he created this gorgeous cosmic mural for us as a backdrop to [renowned international installation] “Gaia.”

And so it was just really sweet in this empty building to finally have something go up that feels tangible and permanent. And now, of course, all this stuff is happening around it, but it was just this first denoted moment of being like, “Oh, okay, this is an artful place, not just a warehouse anymore.”

You mentioned your work in activating the local arts community around this event, as you did with Immersive Van Gogh. What does that work look like this time around?
We’re replicating what we did on a smaller scale with Van Gogh by having local artists come to help with selling merch. So we have the international sculpture pieces and the local artist merch, and then the way that we’ve artified the space, all of that’s free and open to the public. People can come get a drink or maybe buy something from the merch area. Maybe they’ll convert into ticket buyers, that’s the goal, but you don’t need anything to go to that space. You can just enjoy the space. I’m grateful that we get the opportunity to host this external exhibit again.

Read more: Immersive Van Gogh Charlotte Exhibit Surrounds Itself with Local Talent (2021)

So with Van Gogh, we ended up licensing a bunch of [local artists’] work to go on to other cities. We hope to replicate that again with these shows, that they’ll take local Charlotte merch onto other places. And so my job is really to hold the hand of artists and act as a kind of client in that way. We explore those things.

And so my goal is that, through the years that I’ve been trying to do this, I’m softly working with these artists through these big, new, maybe scary opportunities for them, whether it’s making 10,000 stickers or to make this giant sculpture. They’ve never made anything like that before, but I can work as that kind, gentle client in between so that they can up-level to the next part of their career. That’s my goal. I see all of this almost like a video game. It’s like, let’s get to the next level, and we can do that for each other.

From the time when you first learned that Blume Studios was a possibility to now seeing it become a reality, about how long did that process take?
I know the exact date. It was when we closed Van Gogh [on Jan. 2, 2022]. We knew immediately that we wanted to keep doing this work. It’s part of the privilege of my job that I get to travel and meet all these other immersive producing studios and see all these cool shows all around the world.

So you can feel this tangible percolation of all this stuff being made, all this content being made … it’s all happening at once, and people want a taste of it. We knew that we wanted to continue to present these kinds of things, especially while the audiences were still interested. So it just took a really long time to find a building that fit our specs. We had a lovely real estate agent who worked with us, and we had all of these requirements and qualifications that we needed.

But even all these buildings that he looked through, it was hundreds of buildings, and we ended up touring like 25 to 30 with our team and with our board. And it was just this really long process, and we felt really hopeful and excited about a few of them. It was really close on some of them, and then for whatever reason or another, it didn’t work out.

But then the folks at Charlotte Pipe & Foundry reached out to us and started that conversation, which is so funny that we were searching, searching, searching in that way, and this is the best fit, this warehouse is gorgeous, and they called us.

They own this prime real estate right there on Morehead [Street], across from the stadium that they’ve not given to anybody. They’ve not given it to the city or to [David] Tepper or anybody else. They have the power to make the choices about their land that they want, and they’ve been really incredibly thoughtful about what they want to do to develop that land to create generational change. And so it’s just really sweet to work with them and be a part of that process, too, because they really see us as Tenant No. 1 in this development process for what they want to do at the Iron District.

And they really feel strongly about it being anchored in the art. And so the fact that we’re the first thing to go there and to bring audience members into this space that people drive by all the time … It’s this huge plot of land right in Uptown. And so I think there’s a lot of curiosity about that space, but nobody ever really knows about it.

So the fact that we get to almost put our flag on the ground as the first thing and then they ask us, we’re part of these conversations about how the development should go and what makes something livable. How much green space should there be? How do we create festivals over there? How do we create programming that keeps multigenerational people excited about coming to this space? Or if they live there, what happens then?

Because all of that stuff’s coming. And so it just feels like an honor to be a part of that conversation while also seeing the first thing happening in that space.

And what is it like for you to now be physically standing there after all that time searching and working to make this happen?
It’s joyful. I think that’s my job in general to be like, “All right, team, trust me. It’ll be cool. I can see the vision.” I fully understood what it would look like in the space as we were talking about these elements. And it’s the same way with the festival. I’m just like, “Come on, y’all. Six more months to go. It’ll be really cool, I promise.” And so there’s something about having an idea and then it coming into fruition.

I mean, that’s what an artist does, right? We think this thing up, and then it physically exists beyond our bodies. This is a very large-scale artistic process, and it’s just a joy to be on with my team, and just all this hard work, and it’s so abstract.

We’re on our computers, on our phones all day, and then there’s this tangible aspect to it and people get to come to enjoy these things. They get engaged at our venues or they’re making memories at the festival and they’re bringing their grandparents to Van Gogh. Just watching people enjoy and make sweet memories in this place that once only existed in our heads is just something that I can’t get enough of.

And you mentioned it already just a bit, but this was such a hot piece of property that has been speculated about for years. So what does it mean to you to get to win that contest and let this be an arts-activated space after so many rumors about what it would become?
We really owe that to Charlotte Pipe & Foundry and the guys there. They’re the ones who held out against all of them. Sure, that was very tempting to make those big sales on that really precious land as they’ve watched Charlotte grow around that land for as long as they’ve been in business for all these generations. And so it’s cool to see that there’s people who have the power of patience to make a choice for the city, because I don’t know if that’s always the case.

And I think it’s just really nice to see the arts and entertainment aspect, and we’re talking about this being an entertainment district and renaming this part of Uptown and thinking about that. It’s just really sweet to think that things are changing in that way, because I think for so long, we were just trying to cater to the banks and the workers for the banks, and it’s like, no, we have to create culture in the space to make Charlotte more cool and livable and interesting.

And so the fact that the development process can have the brakes pumped a little bit so we can be more thoughtful is, I think, just an overall good sign for everybody in the city. I think, like it or not, this is something that I think overall has a positive return for everyone. It could be a model for other developers across the city to think, “Wait, let’s slow down a little bit and think. What do we really want? Who are we catering to?”

What do you think the impact of this new Blume Studio’s opening can be for the local art scene?
It’s always this marrying of international and local artists. So the international show plus international installations plus local artists selling merch. I think the power of being around those things, I think It validates the international artist in a local context … and I think it also uplifts the local artist in an all-ships-rise way. I’ve worked really hard over the last couple of years of being at Blumenthal to create opportunities for artists to learn these things together.