Artist Susan Harbage Page, Chapel Hill, NC
Coming Home To Cherry
Shelter glass, porcelain tile
2008

Photos by James P. Karner

Strong family ties shared by long-time Cherry residents and a scarcity of historical imagery inspired Coming Home To Cherry, a series of portraits on five passenger shelters in Midtown, a mixed-use development adjacent to one of Charlotte's oldest surviving African-American neighborhoods.  Susan Harbage Page, working with the Cherry Community Center, collected images from neighborhood residents to rebuild the community archives and integrate art into the shelters.  Portraits of current and former Cherry residents represent family, community, and education.  The cherry design by the artist refers to the original wild cherry trees for which the neighborhood was named.  Four blue tiles integrated into the concrete reference the traditional use of blue as a protective color, often seen over doorways in older African and African American homes.

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