Hilda Willis was in transit Friday afternoon to pick up artists who are flying in from out of state to help her celebrate one last weekend of art, music, singing, and laughing inside Hilda’s Place at 127 W. Main Street, Unit B, in downtown Pilot Mountain.
Starting Friday, she has been in the midst of hosting three final nights of events featuring some favorite artists of hers while still highlighting new talent.
She said that she started Hilda’s Place as a place for anyone to come and share their talents with the wider world. Not everyone has the experience or the name recognition to be given a shot to perform and she wanted to help solve that problem for local artists of all stripes.
“As a citizen, I saw a need to showcase talent and to give
“It is bittersweet,” she said Friday. “It’s the end of a decade in Pilot Mountain.”
“When I first came here, one of the things I wanted to do was help facilitate bringing art and culture to the area. I wanted to be able to enjoy art without having to go more than 15-20 minutes away if I didn’t want to,” she said.
Willis said she has enjoyed the diverse nature of art and culture in this area and wanted to add to that. “As an artist myself, I saw a need for another venue that could showcase the talent that lives here. I saw a need to give artists that were local and maybe pitted as a hobby and not necessarily be at a level where some of the other venues would recognize them a room where they could grow and develop their talent, their brand, their creativity,” she said.
While music is one of the key art forms in this area, she said there is a wealth of other talent waiting to be discovered. Willis said, “There are more creatives here that had other expressions that needed to be heard. Music is certainly important in this area, but there are spoken word artists, visual artists, and craftspeople that there was not really a space for them to display their work unless there was a street or craft fair.”
Hilda’s Place has been a refuge for artists and patrons of all ages. She expressed a great passion for younger creatives but also for the aging community. “I saw that once I opened my doors that a lot of the aging community were telling me that they felt safe. They enjoyed having a place to go close to home where they could socialize outside of the normal offerings.”
She made sure they always felt at home and were never in the way or monopolizing a table that needed to be turned to make more money for the owner.
“Hilda’s Place became an extension of people’s living rooms and that became the beauty of it. When I saw people get comfortable and take their shoes off, you just can’t do that anywhere, that’s not part of social decorum,” she laughed. Inside Hilda’s Place, the rules were a little more lax. “People treated it like it was their home.”
To celebrate the end of an era, she is hosting the three-night farewell to Hilda’s Place. While she will not be going anywhere and will continue to produce events locally under her brand, Living Your Art, she wants to end things on a high note.
Friday night from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. she featured Eddie Carter opening for the Not Bros., “because they’re not brothers,” she explained.
On Saturday night Hilda’s Place will be hosting open mic night from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Following that will be an evening of dancing with DJ Bubba Bass from 8:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.
Sunday is the finale and she will feature Kinston Nichols who got an early start on her stage. “He first showcased in the Living Your Art Showcase when he was 11, he is now 17. He will be accompanied by John Rees and will perform from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.,” she said.
Following will be Sally Barker, a contestant from the United Kingdom’s version of The Voice where she was on Team Tom Jones. Willis said Barker did her first ever United States concert at Hilda’s Place. Michael C. Wiley, a jazz trumpeter, flugelhorn player, and vocalist will take the stage as will guitarist Vicki Genfan. All three will join in with Willis as she performs on Sunday as well.
While one door is closing, her home remains in Pilot Mountain, and she hopes to produce events around the area. Willis proclaimed, “What’s happening is now that in closing people are reaching out to me saying can you help us do things in our community, and I’m saying I most definitely can.”
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