How Cayce’s River Arts District emerged from the pandemic with a different look
If you haven’t been on the lower end of State Street since the Midlands came out of its COVID-induced hibernation, you might see something different in Cayce’s River Arts District.
The city on the west side of the Congaree has been busy this past year, with a half-dozen murals, public art installations and new businesses cropping up, preparing a revitalized district to welcome visitors back.
Actually, “revitalize” might be the wrong word. Cayce Mayor Elise Partin calls the city’s efforts in the River Arts District an attempt to “previtalize” the space — creating the kind of artistic atmosphere Cayce hopes to foster in its main downtown attraction.
“A decade ago, a lot of storefronts were shut and vacant, except for Henry’s,” the restaurant and bar where State Street turns onto Frink Street at the train tracks, Partin said. Transforming that space into an arts district turned out to be something “low cost that could be replicated in a lot of other cities and towns.”
Partly that’s due to a pair of grants from the Central Carolina Community Foundation and the Knight Foundation to complete the explosion of public artwork. Members of the local, nonprofit Cayce Arts Guild reviewed proposals for the murals.
Last summer, Columbia’s Ija Charles completed the psychedelic mural “Cayce Wonders” on the side of a two-story building on Railroad Street, the latest in a series of public art installations the young artist has produced, including a big new mural on Columbia’s Main Street. Based on a similar design she did for the State Fair, Charles’ work features visions of emblematic Cayce scenes like the Guignard brickworks and W.J. Cayce store.
“I did it in about a week and a half, working from 3 a.m. to 3 p.m.” to avoid the summer heat, Charles said. “The guys working on the railroad said their boss would get on them, because I was here before they got here and stayed after they left.”
All of the murals show some link to the city. Further up the block, the local artist Michael Geddings completed the “Creative Chameleon” last year, an excuse to use a lot of color in the giant creature that looks like it just painted a Cayce river scene.
Geddings remembers State Street being “desolate, like a ghost town,” but the time it took him to paint the mural showed him how much foot traffic came through the area, and how many people wanted to engage with the art.
“It took me 75 hours to finish, but I only spent about 55 hours working on it,” Geddings said.
Besides the murals, the city used the opportunity to turn an empty lot into an outdoor performance and community space that doubles as additional public parking, complete with sculptures and a memorial to a police dog from the Cayce Public Safety Department.
The area has also attracted new business since Piecewise Coffee opened there in 2019. Next door, Levi Wright opened State of the Art gallery and pottery studio in February to connect with the growing art community. He hopes the studio can expose local artists to a wider audience, while the in-house kiln can fire the creations of Cayce residents inspired by the streaming series “The Great Pottery Throw Down.”
“It gives them a chance to do what they saw on TV,” Wright said.
Jayson Busbee is another new business. He’s been operating his bicycle repair business out of his house for three years, but then he opened Dialed, his physical location, in July in a 1930s municipal building. The bay doors opening to his shop once served the city’s fire department.
“It’s added legitimacy to the business,” Busbee said. “If you’re a mobile business, people think it’s just your hobby. That’s changed. I’ve expanded my clientele, I’m taking in more bikes because I have a physical retail space.”
Opening during the pandemic has meant some disruption to his supply chain, but the nearby entrance to the Cayce Riverwalk means he gets a steady stream of bike riders.
City officials hope that atmosphere can keep young people moving into the fast-growing community. They’re looking at ways to accentuate the connection between the Riverwalk and the River Arts District, drawing more foot traffic from the river into the downtown corridor where they can find more beautiful scenes to ponder.
.jpg)