Support for this program is provided by the Weldon F Osborne Foundation.

The Schillhahn-Huskey Foundation.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.

on today's episode will learn about two unique nonprofits.

One supports the artistic ecosystem of Chattanooga's visual arts scene.

The other is dedicated to cultivating a community of accessible learning and art experiences for adults.

We are stronger together.

Chattanooga Stay tuned to learn more.

Welcome to Chattanooga Stronger Together.

I'm Barbara Marter.

Jen Lewis is the executive director of the Association for Visual Arts.

The goal of this organization is to build a thriving art scene by supporting visual artist in our community.

Jen, welcome.

Thank you so much for coming on today.

You for having me.

Tell me, what is Ava?

What's his passion, What's its mission, and why are you so involved in loving what you're doing?

Oh, wow.

So AVA's been around since 1987.

We are located on Frasier Avenue, and our goal is to promote visual arts programs here in Chattanooga.

So we work with artists, we work with collectors, and we work with other community organizations to help promote and build a cohesive art community.

Right?

So when you said you're you work with art collectors, in what capacity.

With anything from helping them purchase art to connecting them to artists In our community, we have over 290 artists that are members with Ava, and we have a whole website that has pictures of what they do and ways to connect with them.

So we work to really connect the collectors and our artists together and help build those relationships.

We'll even go to their houses and help them hang their pieces.

We've done that before.

Oh, I love that.

That's fun.

Yeah, that's.

That's a fun part of it.

It.

It really is.

I love it.

Yeah.

So how long have you been with them?

I have been with AVA almost six years since I've moved to Chattanooga and just absolutely love it.

I fell in love with the organization the moment I got here.

And my whole career has been building towards this position and this organization.

And I'm excited to be here.

Yeah Yes and no.

In my own mind, yes.

In my head, no.

I love being an artist and but I don't sell my stuff.

I just kind of do it for me.

And every now and then I will sell it, which is why I feel I'm really able to connect with the artist because I understand their side as well.

But my job is really just to promote them and get those artists out there.

And what, I'm retired, I'll work on my career.

Well.

I work for yourself.

Yeah, I think so.

What is the White Room photo studio?

So we have a large space at Yvonne Frazier downstairs.

We have a photography room.

We call it the White Room.

Our member artist can go down there and take pictures of their work.

We have all the lighting equipment.

I and cameras and ways to hang their pieces so they can get the best picture of their work and send it off to festivals across the country to gallery used to open calls for their art and so it's a really great way for them to get experience photographing their work and getting a cohesive product out.

And so on.

The last Tuesday of the month, you have art critique.

Oh, I love art critique.

Okay, what does that?

So the last Tuesday of every month we have an art critique group.

It started pre-pandemic and we were able to keep it going by doing it virtually.

And we're now back live.

We have anywhere from 10 to 20 people show up on the on that Tuesday.

It's free program for anybody that wants to be involved.

You come you bring two pieces and we work together to help solve any problems that are working, that are happening with your work.

So it might be maybe the colors off or the perspective is off.

And as artists, we all get together and talk about it.

Sometimes when you're in the midst of doing your own work, you don't really see the issues.

And so this group really kind of helps work it.

James Courtney James is the one that created this idea and he really took off with it.

We have people from the age of 16 to in their eighties and it's fantastic to see them all come together and work at solving each other's problems with their with their pieces.

So it's it's peer to peer.

It's peer to peer, Yes.

All of that artistic peer to peer.

To peer to peer.

Yes, that's true.

So so let's talk about Four Bridges Art Festival.

That is the coolest thing.

Oh, I love it.

So if anybody hasn't gone to that, I really encourage them to go to that.

That is a festival in itself.

Yes.

So the Four Bridges Arts Festival happens every April.

Okay.

We spend all year building up to this festival.

It's 100 anywhere from 140 to 145 artists from around the country that comes in anybody that wants to buy art and start a collection can go and get pieces.

And even the experienced collector can come and buy artwork.

There is $5 to get in.

It's accessible.

It's fantastic.

We love it.

we start Friday night with our preview party, which is a party for our sponsors.

And then Saturday and Sunday and all day long.

Yeah.

And so the location.

So it's at first Horizon Pavilion.

The best part of that is that we bring in visitors to Chattanooga from all over the area.

So we have people from Nashville, from Atlanta, from Knoxville, Birmingham coming in for the Four Bridges Arts Festival.

It's fun to see that.

So you're also helping tourism?

Yes, in a big way.

Yes.

Yes.

And the Chattanooga tourism company does support us often, especially for Four Bridges.

Okay, that's cool.

That's cool.

Yeah.

And then there's a Between the Bridges festival.

And what is that?

Between the bridges is in October.

So we started to notice that it was sometimes hard for emerging artists or local artists to get into the Four Bridges Arts Festival because they hadn't done the festival yet.

And so we created between the Bridges, which is a one day festival.

It is done at Coolidge Park to help kick start artist local artists and make it a festival booth.

So we help them design, not design their booth at the around word, but get their booth created, set up.

We take pictures of their booth for them, and then we do a festival just to kind of get their feet wet so they can say they've been in the festival.

So this is just the very start, the very first of the baby steps that they take before they can actually get to a real festival.

Yeah, a lot of festivals across the country require that they have previous festival experience and they also want a booth shot of their of their booth.

And it's hard to get a booth shot if you've never done a festival before.

Right.

And so this gives them that opportunity to kind of think through their booth and build it that way.

And so how many participate do you usually get in that?

We get about 30 participants.

Last year, Scenic City Clay partnered with us and they have a whole potters alley, which is so much fun as a we able to build more artists that way and we'll be doing that again in October.

And so we're excited.

Oh, that is really cool.

So really any of the local artists say the Hart gallery or, you know, Clay or any of those out there that have the artists that are coming in and they really think at some future date, I'd like to be a part of a bigger festival.

They can really come to this.

You can go to festivals and you can actually see how it's all set up and everything, but when you're doing it yourself, it's very different.

It is very different, yeah.

Where do I place this or where should I have this?

And you just, you know, do I need this?

Do I need that?

So.

Right.

So you're giving them the tools, The training.

Yeah.

And we love working with the other art agencies to help build their artists.

And we just kind of consider that's our job.

Were there to build the community.

Hmm.

Hmm.

So do you.

Do you have an internship or anything like that?

We do offer internships every now and then.

It's really about anybody that wants to intern with us coming to talk to us.

We don't really open it up.

Okay, But come talk to us.

And if it's a good fit and if there's something that you want to learn, that we have an opportunity to sit there and work together, we will make that happen.

Currently, our curator and education director was our intern five years ago and he's now our curator.

So that's fantastic.

That's cool.

So do you have an incubator?

We do have an incubator, so we worked with the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce.

Okay.

And we started the AVA at the incubator program.

We it's a rotating program.

Every three months we're going to be getting three new artists in there.

The artists come together, they work together, creating their show.

So that looks cohesive.

So you don't have random pieces all over together.

The artists don't work together to promote the show, to build the show, to hang the show and they also work on goals.

So they'll sit down with Tim Goldsmith, our curator and education director, and talk about where they want their career to go.

And so within this incubator program, they'll work on the goals that each artist has created.

But one might be that they want to start a studio at Clear Story, Clear Story Arts.

Yeah.

So well talk to them about, Hey, this is who you need to get in touch with.

This is the supplies that you might need, and they'll take those steps to do that.

That was like a business plan.

It is.

Yeah, it is.

Especially with the marketing.

Okay, so we're going to direct everyone to your website.

But tell me, are there volunteer opportunities?

There are always volunteer.

So we need volunteers for Bridges Arts Festival and for between the bridges.

If you're looking to do a one day volunteer opportunity, we also accept volunteers to come and help us at the gallery on Frasier.

When you volunteers to help sit at the desk so that it frees up Tim, Sarah, our festival director, and I to have meetings and do stuff like this.

So we need we need people Wednesday through Saturday and you can sign up from our websites.

Oh, that is so cool.

So are there any tours or anything like that for people who like, Well, I'd like just to come and see your studio and see what all you have and everything.

Well, we're open to the public.

Okay.

Wednesday through Sunday.

Uh huh.

I'm we're closed Monday and Tuesday.

So anytime from 11 to 5 six on Friday, we are open and we have amazing exhibits.

We rotate those exhibits about every 6 to 8 weeks and it is absolutely gorgeous.

And we highlight other agencies, artists.

We have group shows like right now we're getting ready to have our all member juried show, so we're really excited about that.

And I have love talking with you and learning more about Ava.

I kind of knew the surface of Ava, but you really helped me learn more about it.

And also our audience too.

So thank you so much for coming in today.

Thank you for having me.

You're welcome.

Up next, we'll talk to Shawanda Mason, co-founder of the Chattery.

Stay with us.

you serve your community.

Send us photos or videos of you or your family volunteering, and we may feature it on a future episode.

Email stronger at WTCITV dot org or use the hashtag stronger WTCI on social media.

Welcome back.

Shawanda Mason is with us.

She's the co-founder and creative director of the Chattery, the organization is dedicated to cultivating an expansive community of adult learners and teachers through fun, affordable and accessible experiences.

Welcome, Shawanda.

I'm so excited to have you here.

Thanks for having me.

I want to know what the heck is the Chattery?

Luckily, I get that question a lot.

So we are a nonprofit organization founded nine years ago that, as you said, focuses on finding affordable and accessible learning experiences for adults.

My business partner and I believe that learning doesn't have to stop once you leave a traditional education system and that we should just continue earnings.

We're a huge advocate for continued fun, lifelong learning.

So learning in what capacity?

What do you teach?

What do you bring to the table?

Yeah.

So learning for the sake of learning.

So learning to grow your business, learning to be a better employee, learning just to be a better artist.

We really our classes run the gamut so you can learn anywhere from cocktails and calligraphy to financial planning and business management.

Honestly, I mean, we've hosted classes on cigar smoking, one on one.

Just really anything that focuses on fun and enjoyable learning.

Yeah.

So where do you come up with all of these creative ideas?

Do people come to you and go, Oh, I'd love to learn this.

And you're like, Well, you know, if we get a handful of people, we could probably get our program.

Absolutely.

So in the beginning of our business, it was a lot of Jennifer and I, my partner, my business partner of us coming up with ideas and reaching out to potential teachers.

But now that we've sort of established ourselves, we get a lot of requests.

Our tagline, our unofficial tagline is for the community by the community, which means we take a lot of requests and suggestions from our community here in Chattanooga.

And so if there's a class that we can host and we get a suggestion, suggestion for it, we'll do it.

So.

So where are you located at?

Yeah, so we're on the south side on Rossville Avenue is where our classroom space is.

And how much space do you occupy?

We have 2500 square feet.

Yeah, that's so.

Cool.

When we started it, we just popped up in different businesses.

So coffee shops, different boardrooms.

And then we moved into the Chattanooga workspace for a couple of years and realized that if we wanted to grow, we needed a bigger space.

And so we did a crowdfunding campaign in 2019 and raised $30,000 in four weeks to help us get to this 2500 square foot space.

So yeah, so now we're able to do two classes at once, which our previous space didn't allow.

Yeah.

And so your teachers are going to be people from the community that want to come in and teach classes.

And so now you have the available space to allow them to do that.

Yeah, a lot of our teachers are small business owners.

Some of them are just hobbyists who are just experts in something and they want to use the creative side of their brain to teach.

Like one of our art teachers.

She by day she's a chemical engineer, but she teaches a lot of vision board classes and book making classes.

Just because, you know, oftentimes in that industry you don't get to be creative.

So she comes to the chapter and we can sort of help her do that.

And so these are going to be, what, evening classes?

Yeah.

So most of our classes are in the evening after work, we found that our audience best responds to the evening classes.

But because we have a space, we do offer some during the day classes.

We've done morning classes.

We have a series of classes where it's called Arts Arts for older adults, and that's 65 and over.

And a lot of that audience are retired.

And so they said that they want classes in the morning so we can host classes in the morning.

So I mean, that's pretty flexible.

But most of our classes are in the evening.

But we, you know, our space is open all day.

Wow.

So where did you come up with the name?

The Chattery?

Yeah.

So the Chattery actually means to talk incessantly about nothing.

And so.

So.

That's what we're doing.

You know, we're chatting.

So a lot of people think that it was because of Chattanooga.

And sure, I think for branding purposes it works that, you know, we are located in Chattanooga and we're called the Chattery, but it means to talk incessantly.

And that was we went through a lot of iterations of what our business would be called and finally landed on the Chattery.

And luckily nine years and that it worked, I think.

Okay.

So right Excel classes.

Yeah.

So you teach you some of that.

Yeah.

So lots of business focused classes.

Mastering Excel.

We also have a lot of bookkeeping for creatives.

We do just do a lot wherever.

I think Chattanooga's an awesome city to build and start a business.

And then after you have after you get a business started, we still need resources on how to maintain the business.

And so the Chattery offers a lot of classes on how to keep your business.

Wow.

Yeah.

And so you're doing this nine, almost ten years now.

Yes.

But you feel like your keep evolving there.

There's more things that pop up.

But it's interesting that we actually I think youre a gem, youre a hidden gem after nine years know we need to surface and everything but there's a space for people to come to that is just very inviting.

Yeah it's focused on the one area, but you offer so many other things too, which I think is just amazing.

Yeah, that and we do that on purpose.

Part of the reason why we started the Chattery is because it's difficult to make friends as an adult, especially after if you've already gone through undergrad or you've already experienced your first job or whatever it may be, it can be really hard and awkward to make friends as an adult.

And so I was new to Chattanooga when I met my business partner, and we decided to do this because we're having trouble making friends as an adult.

And so our classes are set up and design.

There's a social aspect to it too.

We hear lots of stories of people who came to a calligraphy class and met really great friends.

And so that's also why we exist.

We exist for learning but also to make friends.

Mhm.

So do you do webinars or anything like that?

We do.

So the, the good thing, if I can say a good thing about the about 2020 was that it forced us to sort of redesign our business.

You know, a.

Lot of people got to where we.

Did the infamous pivot and so, so that we could still reach our audience.

We took everything online and then luckily we have a great community of teachers who agreed to do that, but also agreed to let us record the webinars so that we can then sell them.

You know, if someone couldn't make the class live.

And that's something that sort of stuck around.

So even today we have, you know, we have different webinars from art classes, calligraphy that people can just purchase and download and watch it.

Yeah, So, so the so these are purchase things.

So it's like if I wanted to start buying a book and downloading it and reading now I have a program so I can actually.

And how long would a program, lexical calligraphy, how big of a file is that?

Yeah.

So it's not too bad because our class of the webinars are recorded on Zoom and then we upload them on to YouTube.

So you have like a special link where you can go and as long as you have the supplies, you can take your time with it.

I think that's the other benefit of the webinar is that you're not you don't have to go along with the rest of the classmates.

You can sort of hit pause and go whenever you want and sort of learn at your own pace.

But our that's that's one of the things from 2020 that we've decided to keep around.

So.

And this is all on your website.

Yes the chattery dot org.

Okay And then that that so all your classes, whether they're face to face classes or zoom classes or whatever, like that, there's always like a price list or cost to everything.

Yes we do try to offer some free things throughout the month.

Part of our mission is to be accessible, but we also understand that we pay our teachers as well.

And so sometimes we have free classes, but it's also an opportunity for other businesses in Chattanooga to sponsor classes so that they make it low cost or free for students.

But typically there is a price.

It can range anywhere from $10 and go up just depending on the supplies needed for the class.

Do you have any yoga classes or.

Oh, look at you girl.

Sometimes we do yoga classes.

We've done yoga outside at sculpture fields.

Yeah, I know.

We we love we luckily, we now have another subset of classes that are outdoor classes.

So we have a partnership with Reflection Riding.

We've been helping Lula Lake and doing some programing there as well.

So just a little bit of a mixture of inner classroom space, online and outdoors when we can.

It's fun to get outside.

Well, it is fun to get outside, especially in the summertime, right?

But it's I love the fact that you are also working with other nonprofits, you know, because while you're doing your thing, you're also bringing them in to your space and educating.

Right?

You know, your clients or whatever, that here's another opportunity that you can even branch out.

And if you really like this program that we offered, identifying flowers or doing this or doing that, then they could go out and participate in some exact stuff like that.

Yeah, collaboration is a huge part of our existence and so we have a lot of partners and other nonprofit partners that we work with.

Yeah, we couldn't do what we do without those partnerships, we have a really robust volunteer program right now that is going really well for us.

And it gives volunteers an opportunity to also take free classes.

And so we've been able to we launched that the beginning of 2023, and that's been going really well, so.

Oh, cool.

Yeah.

We found a way to have a volunteer program that works best for our mission and our organization.

Well, especially when it's just the two of you.

You and your partner that's just overseeing everything.

And then all of your teachers are, Ill call consultants.

They're the ones that are coming in.

They're providing, you know, the oversight, the the training and everything like that.

And then they're bringing their their classes or their groups with them, which is giving you more exposure.

Yes.

Which is really good.

Yes.

But yeah, I can I, I can see that you would need a lot of volunteers because that that would be very hard to manage all of this.

And it.

Is currently and luckily we have a great board of directors who volunteer and good and they make our lives easier, which is.

Nice.

That's cool.

So what's your background?

Yeah, so my background I grew up in Virginia.

I went to George Mason University and with the intentions of becoming an attorney, I studied government and international politics with a minor in public policy and Spanish.

And so.

Well, all righty then.

And then moved to Atlanta and started working at entertainment PR.

I was really in my twenties.

I was really trying to figure out what it is that I wanted to do.

And so, yeah, I landed in Chattanooga at my now husband, but then boyfriend was born and raised here and that's how I met my business partner who was actually my property manager.

Oh yeah.

And so we just really connected and we're like, Hey, let's start a business together.

So yeah, she's one of my closest friends.

I love this about the Chattery.

You know, it's like when I knew you were coming on.

I'm like, I don't know anything about Chattery And then you tell me you've been here for like nine or ten years.

I know it's I still can't wrap my head around.

You are a well-kept secret.

I know.

Well, you're not anymore.

I love that.

I know.

Hey, I'm sorry I exposed you.

So now.

Now everybody's going to know who you.

Are and what you're.

Doing and everything like that.

But.

But it's not just one or two classes.

I love the fact that it's just multipurpose.

Yes.

If if there's somebody that really wants to do something and put something on, they can reach out to you.

They can go to your website, they can see what's already being offered.

Do you have a calendar or something?

Yeah.

So we have a whole calendar of all of our classes and events that are coming up.

We have if you have a suggestion for a class, have a form for that.

If you want to teach a class, you have a forum for that.

So yeah, we've we have, we have it all covered.

Good job, Good job.

I want to thank you so much for coming in today.

This has been so exciting for me to learn more about another nonprofit in our community.

Thank you.

So much.

and thank you for joining us.

We hope Chattanooga Stronger Together provides a new perspective for viewers like you who are looking to make a difference in our community.

So let us know what you think.

Email us at stronger at WTCITV dot org or use the hashtag Stronger WTCI on social media.

I'm Barbara Marder and we'll see you next time.

Watch even more of the shows you love any time.

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Support for this program is provided by the Weldon F Osborne Foundation.

The Schillhahn-Huskey Foundation.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.