A Charlotte Student Met a Public Artist 10 Years Ago. She's Now Helping Him Bring More Public Art to Her Neighborhood.
By Unique Patton
Bus Shelters for Tom Hunter Road
In 2019 we began a project with the City of Charlotte Northeast Corridor Infrastructure Program project for Tom Hunter Road and the Hidden Valley Community. Our part of the project was a public art component managed by the Arts & Science Council. Our goal was to create a link between Tom Hunter Road and the Tom Hunter light rail station on North Tryon.
If the project was to be true public art for Hidden Valley, the voices and experiences of that community needed to be central. Tom Stanley, the artist commissioned for the project, looked back to 2013 to find an energetic student he had worked with on the Tom Hunter light rail. That student from MLK Middle School was Unique Patton. She helped provide a voice from Hidden Valley. And in many ways her work on the light rail station, and then the continuing work on the soon-to-be-installed Tom Hunter Road bus shelters is Unique’s journey. It is a journey from a teen in middle school to a senior at NC State majoring in design and business.
Stanley and Patton’s partnership has provided a curious student at NC State with a unique experience in public design and storytelling that has carried her through this journey.
This is her story…
2013
Tom Hunter Station
Like the other MLK students pictured here, I first met Stanley as a middle schooler attending MLK Middle school. There Stanley enlisted help from students within the citizen schools program at MLK and Hidden Valley Elementary to consider words and images of how they see their neighborhood, and their homes. These words and images would become part of the design of Tom Hunter Station on North Tryon.
2016
Installment & Reunion
- After several years the Tom Hunter Lynx Blue Line Station was complete along with the words and images used by students,
- Stanley reunited with the students to commemorate this event together!
- During the reunion, Basic Cable created a video about what this moment meant for us as kids and how it might impact us in the future.
- In one line from the video, I actually say that this opportunity has given me the hope that one day I too can be an artist.
2019
Bus Shelters
Fast-forward to my senior year at Vance High School, now called Julius L. Chambers High School, Stanley reached back out to me to see if I would be interested in another public art project in Hidden Valley. By the way, I was on the committee to consider that name change to Julius L Chambers High School.
During my transition from high school to NC State University, I accepted and took on the role of the Community Design Liaison for the bus shelter public art project.
With the help of my mother and grandmother, I reached out to community members to hear why Hidden Valley is HOME for them. These testimonies were used to capture text for the side panels on the bus shelters. The above photo is Tom Stanley and me on Tom Hunter Road.
2020
Hidden Valley: The Lived Experience
As designing and word selection for the bus shelters continued, I was introduced to UNC Ph.D. Candidate Barbra Lash who was working on a documentary project about Hidden Valley that highlighted the stories of community members and their experiences living here. It shined a positive light on the community.
Since I was not only interviewed but also narrated the Lived Experience documentary, I learned even more about the history of the rich community as well as the issues it’s facing due to gentrification.
You can watch the documentary video below.
2021
Silent Streets: Art in the time of the Pandemic
As the pandemic shut everything down, arts provided hope in visually displaying one’s stories and experiences about how the pandemic has evicted not just the artist but also their Charlotte community.
I participated in the Mint Museums exhibit titled: Silent Streets (April 17th- November 28th, 2021) by providing words and paintings that captured how I processed the pandemic and the work I was doing in Hidden Valley,
My words and images are currently being held in the J. Murrey Atkins Library at UNC Charlotte UNCC archive collection.
2022
Artist in Residence Intern at the McColl Center for Art + Design
While living up to my hope of becoming an artist, I attempted to branch out and create several personal artworks that adhere to my mission of designing for the unheard voices in my community within my artwork. Here are some below:
My passion for art landed me an Internship at the McColl Center for Art + Innovation that allowed me to work with another artist, Jackie Millad.
Read about my internship at McColl and my partnership with Jackie Millad here.
2023 + Beyond
Future Prospects
As I approach graduation from NC State in May of 2023, Tom Stanley and I are anticipating the installation of the bus shelters on Tom Hunter Road in spring 2023.
Our partnership has grown tremendously over the years. I want to let young creatives in the community know the value of this work. Never shy away from telling your story because people want to hear it and it can have an impact on an entire community.
As we all wait to see the final installment of the bus shelters, here is what the final design will look like with designs assembled by Tom Stanley from Hidden Valley Elementary, the Hidden Valley Neighborhood Association logo, and the words and thoughts of the Hidden Valley Community that I helped gather.
Unique Patton
To stay updated on my future designs and projects or to connect with me, please follow my socials posted below:
