(gentle music) - [Bea] Driving around the Queen City, you may have seen them.

Billboards displaying incredible artwork that more than catches your eye.

What you're experiencing is the culmination of an effort to support the arts.

That's called Simply Art Pop.

So just what is Art Pop, you might say?

It's creator and originator.

Wendy Hickey describes it this way.

- We're here to make art accessible to every single person who lives in this community, who goes outside of their door.

- [Bea] 11 years ago, she started this concept.

As one who had worked in the billboard industry, her aha moment was to utilize those billboards as a springboard for supporting artists.

- And those judges change every year.

And those judges select 20 artists each and every year.

And we support them for an entire calendar year through showing their art on billboards, through business education classes, through events and selling opportunities.

We do absolutely everything imaginable for these artists for an entire calendar year.

And then they are always a part of our community.

- [Bea] For all the artists who become a part of this effort, the change in their lives and their careers has been monumental.

- It changed my trajectory at the time.

I planned, since I got into Art Pop, I made a plan to get back into my business.

- [Bea] The former illustrator says the one year specific development of her business plan, wider exposure of her art, all have provided a major assist, but the biggest assist for the Houston transplant was having a community of artists around her.

- I cannot do this alone and I don't want to do this alone.

I need that community and I need that support.

And to be seen means so much in the interaction I'm getting with the public and the way people are responding to my work has been incredible.

And it does make me feel, yes I can, I can do this.

- And without art, without our ability to feel, to think, to interact, we don't have much.

I learned that I could take an idea or visual in my brain and I could communicate that onto paper.

And after that it was like I was kind of like a scientist.

So I was, and then I learned about Alchemy and from there I just couldn't let it go.

So I kept going with it.

- [Bea] Each artist has their own space where they create the pieces that Art Pop helps to promote while assisting that artist with everything from business plans to exhibit spaces.

In the 11 years of Art Pop, 207 artists have been through the program.

Now a new program called Inspiration Projects has aided an additional 60 to 80 other artists for serving as project managers.

It is the next step to aid the artists.

- We act as the project management firm and we take care of every detail and deliver you back your project.

But we do that by hiring a local artist to make sure that that project gets completed.

- [Bea] Over the past three years, those projects have made a major financial difference for the artists.

- We have paid local artists $665,000 so far.

- Yet for most people in this region, the billboards may be the only tangible thing they see for many of these emerging artists.

- We have 16 billboard partners.

So our artists are seen locally here, they're seen regionally here, they're seen nationally, and sometimes internationally.

Like this year, our artists were in Times Square for an entire month on a 97 foot tall digital billboard.

in the heart of Times Square.

- Art Pop has been a wonderful opportunity for so many artists for so many years for exposure, exposure, exposure.

- [Bea] And for many artists like Brett, making a commitment to his art meant changing his life.

- Being a ceramic artist was aa mental decision.

And I was a roofer for a few years and I decided to be an apprentice.

And what better to learn what to do, how to do it from a master potter.

So I was a ceramic apprentice for two years.

- [Bea] For these artists, Art Pop has changed the direction of their craft.

And yet Art Pop wants you to know there are still more artists who need support.

- Local artists need support.

They are talented.

They make our community a more beautiful place to live.

They create opportunities to speak about things that are difficult to talk about.

They bring together communities, they must be supported.

- And the ultimate triumph for the artist, having their work seen on that billboard in Times Square, New York.

- Through Art Pop, I've been able to see my billboard in Times Square, New York.

I'm just a little girl from the east side of Charlotte.

I never in a million years thought that I would be standing in Times Square with my mother beside me seeing something that I created myself.

- [Bea] To simply be seen is the dream of many a little girl and boy and the hope of every artist.

For "Carolina Impact," I'm Bea Thompson.