Hotel Emeline on Church Street is expanding its new artist residency program with quarterly artists and special events. After launching the residency in July 2022, the hotel has opted to make the program quarterly rather than annually, largely due to positive feedback from hotel guests and the surrounding artistic community.
“One of our goals is to embrace the community, so that the experience staying at Emeline really speaks to Charleston and what it has to offer,” said Shannon Hartman, the hotel’s director of sales and marketing. “I think art and culture is so much of what makes Charleston so unique, so us being able to celebrate that at Emeline is really exciting.”
The residency’s second installment in January 2023 offered a weekend of special events with poet Marcus Amaker. The events hosted by Amaker, including a poetry reading and book signing at Emeline’s coffee shop, Clerks Coffee Co., and a self-portrait writing workshop, were well-attended and well-received, Hartman said.
The next artist-in-residence is Jenan McClain, a local painter, who will host an intuitive painting workshop during her residency weekend, May 19-21.
In between artist residencies, Clerks Coffee Co. will stage monthly open mic nights beginning this Friday with an event hosted by Kalyn Oyer.
“We want to give artists an opportunity to share their craft with the community, and also get in front of different people to showcase their art, or books or whatever they are trying to promote,” Hartman said. “It’s a partnership with artists to give them a unique platform to share their talents.”
Right now, residency artists are mostly chosen by word of mouth, Hartman said. Though there is not yet an official application, interested artists may reach out to emeline@louhammond.com for more information.
“We hope as it continues to gain traction, more people might reach out to us and we can continue to grow this program,” Hartman said. “It’s developing in real time. We just love the concept of embracing artists. So we will continue to grow with this concept and see how the community embraces it.”
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