ChART painting the town in Avondale

A collaboration of artists and business owners in West Ashley's Avondale area has just added another reason to visit the Holy City.

Organized by Lava Salon owner Geoff Richardson, the Charleston Art Outdoor Initiative aims to work with the City of Charleston, business and property owners, and artists to find suitable outdoor spaces for artistic projects.

"The first piece we did was on the (Children's Cancer Society) Thrift Store tower," Richardson said. "We held a contest for the mural and got a grant to put it up."

The popularity of the mural contest combined with a trip to Barcelona, Spain and the state of Alicia Alley, which runs behind Richardson's salon and several other businesses along Savannah Highway, provided the inspiration for ChART.

"[Outdoor art] is big in Philadelphia and Atlanta and L.A. and in California and in Europe," he said. "My wife and I went on an anniversary trip to Barcelona and it was there, two years ago, where I really got the idea for this."

ChART held a street festival in the alley last Saturday to celebrate the project, raise money for supplies and give people an opportunity to meet some of the half-dozen featured artists, many of whom spent the day working on their pieces and chatting.

Molly Rose Freeman has been commuting from Asheville, N.C., to Charleston over the past few weeks working on her wall. With a background in fine art she has only recently begun working on large-scale pieces like the geometric waveform she is painting in Avondale.

"I thought I'm going to Charleston, they actually have an ocean, I should do something beachy," Freeman said. "It's just a different take on it."

Freeman got involved through her friend Ishmael, who has been producing work in the Charleston area for several years, including a large piece in the alley as well. His work went up about six weeks ago though, according to Richardson.

Other artists whose work now appears on the walls in Alicia Alley are Ben Sellers, Mollie Howey, Scott Debus, Haley Hobeika and Patch Whiskey (who is not affiliated with Patch.com).

"There's not a lot of public wall space in Charleston, so it's great to get this opportunity," Whiskey said.

The West Virginia native moved to Charleston last October and has been working in and around the area ever since, including at Triangle Char and Bar's new Mt. Pleasant location and at the Holy City Bike Loop. He's been painting for more than 15 years.

"I went to college in Pittsburgh and was around a lot of graffiti and street art," he said. "A bunch of buddies and I would go under bridges and paint, after a while I got better at it."

These days he paints many of his murals without sketching anything out first.

"I've been doing it for so long now I can just envision it in my head and lay it on the canvas, or brick or cinder block."

Richardson said support from the City of Charleston is a major factor in bringing ChART from idea to reality.

"The city has been great to work with," he said.

Richardson said ChART will continue to look for opportunities to install additional works around the city. It is posting the QR code boxes with each mural that can be scanned with smartphones and provide people with links to the ChART website, artist websites and eventually a digital map of all the works installed throughout the city. He hopes it will become another big tourist draw for the Holy City.