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The Fine Art of Hopping
Filed in: Newspaper features | The Pulse
AVA’s annual free tour of downtown galleries and studios brings art face-to-face with the community
By Bill Ramsey | Sept. 8, 2011
The Pulse | Chattanooga’s Weekly Alternative
Confronting art can be a challenge. Most meet visual art in the look-but-don’t touch, library-quiet confines of museums, where brief placards, docents or pre-recorded introductions leave one to dutifully nod in understanding or arch a quizzical eyebrow in confusion. The gift shop is usually the fun part. Galleries can be slightly less formal, but the art-for-sale element can present a potent distraction for the casual observer.
Not so during Gallery Hop, the annual daylong, pressure-free—and free—tour of downtown Chattanooga galleries and artist’s studios designed to both demystify and delight.
Much has been written about the city’s burgeoning arts community and the Hop connects the loosely defined district. Hoppers follow a route that flows from the district’s North Shore core on Frazier Avenue, jumps the river into the heart of downtown and winds its way down East Main to the growing enclave of studios and galleries sprouting up as a result of economic incentives offered to artists who relocate to the city’s once downtrodden Southside.
“It’s the only time of year when every gallery and studio gets a marker on a map,” says Katie Boerema of the Association for Visual Arts (AVA), which introduced the event six years ago as the Chattanooga arts community began to take shape downtown. “There’s a real social aspect. It’s an interactive experience you can share with friends.”
Indeed, developing an “arts district” has been central to the cultural and economic success of inner-city revitalization in communities across the country. Where art and artists thrive, an air of rejuvenation seems to follow, creating a social center and restoring a sense of place in cities where the tentacles of urban decay once spread like cancer.
“Most people experience art at public festivals such as 4Bridges,” says AVA’s Executive Director Anne Willson, where, she says, the cautiousness of entering a museum is removed. “People experience art all the time in their everyday lives,” she says—they just don’t make the connection, and the Hop helps cement that link. “This is art not on the streets, but it’s open to the streets.”
The Hop is not unlike a pub crawl—sans the alcohol-induced exhaustion—a light, fun, focused excursion where inclusion usurps pretension, there’s no hard sell and people have the opportunity to encounter the relationship between art and their community.
Participants vary from year to year, but no fewer than 18 galleries will open their doors from 2 to 9 p.m. on Saturday in an open invitation to explore a variety of media, from paintings, photographs and sculpture to crafts, pottery, furniture, jewelry and blown glass. Most galleries and studios are offering refreshments and snacks, and this year’s new AfterHop party at Good Dog (adjacent to AVA on Frazier) awaits avid art mavens who want to extend the evening and discuss the day’s discoveries.
“Last year at the end of the Hop, lots of folks ended up on the North Shore,” says AVA’s Jerry Dale McFadden, director of the annual 4Bridges Arts Festival. “There was a lot of energy and they weren’t ready to stop, so we added the AfterHop as a central gathering place to end the day.”
But before you jump to conclusions, you need gather the evidence. Grab a map (in print at AVA or online at avarts.org), don your ears (if the spirit strikes) and, well, take a leap.
The Hop’s logical jumping-off pad is AVA’s own gallery on Frazier Avenue, when its annual “Fresh” exhibit debuts on Saturday. “Fresh” is a competitive, juried exhibit designed to showcase artists that display artistic promise, commitment to their work and fresh ideas.
Among these emerging artists is Amy Johnson, a 27-year-old Virginia native and graduate of the University of the South in Sewanee who has called Chattanooga home for the past two years.
“It’s exciting to be able to work on my own and the AVA exhibit is a great opportunity,” Johnson says. “Aside from school, this is my first opportunity to show my work. I’ve done the Hop for the past few years and it’s one of my favorite events.”
The opportunity to meet artists in their studios is another “doesn’t happen every day” element of the Hop that takes visitors behind the gallery walls and allows them to “take down the Wizard’s curtain,” as AVA’s Boerema puts it.
“It’s an opportunity to meet working artists,” adds Willson. “It demystifies the process, breaks down the rules and lets you ask questions.”
Miki Boni, an artist who took advantage of an ArtsMove grant three years ago transplanting her from Bradenton, Fla., where she operated an open studio, is among the five artists who will pull back that curtain to give Hoppers an opportunity to peek into the rabbit hole, so to speak.
“I was in an artist colony in Bradenton and my studio was part of my gallery,” says Boni. “I was always painting in the gallery when people would walk in, so I’m used to that. In Chattanooga, I decided that my studio is more of a showroom. I don’t paint on the night of a showing, but I do take a work-in-progress and share the process. You’d be surprised how many people give you good ideas.”
Boni, an outgoing artist who helped organize the Southside Arts Stroll, says she loves the Hop and the opportunity to meet the public.
“I’m a visible kind of girl,” she says, “and the Hop gives us a lot of visibility.”
Now in her third year in Chattanooga, Boni says it takes time—a good two or three years, she reckons—before an artist becomes settled and established in a new community, and events such as the Gallery Hop help artists and the community form a bond.
“A lot of it is pioneering,” she says. “There wasn’t always a big arts community here, and I’m a pioneer from way back. As long as people are willing to work, put that extra time in to be part of a group, that’s when the magic starts to happen.”
By Bill Ramsey | Sept. 8, 2011
The Pulse | Chattanooga’s Weekly Alternative
Confronting art can be a challenge. Most meet visual art in the look-but-don’t touch, library-quiet confines of museums, where brief placards, docents or pre-recorded introductions leave one to dutifully nod in understanding or arch a quizzical eyebrow in confusion. The gift shop is usually the fun part. Galleries can be slightly less formal, but the art-for-sale element can present a potent distraction for the casual observer.
Not so during Gallery Hop, the annual daylong, pressure-free—and free—tour of downtown Chattanooga galleries and artist’s studios designed to both demystify and delight.
Much has been written about the city’s burgeoning arts community and the Hop connects the loosely defined district. Hoppers follow a route that flows from the district’s North Shore core on Frazier Avenue, jumps the river into the heart of downtown and winds its way down East Main to the growing enclave of studios and galleries sprouting up as a result of economic incentives offered to artists who relocate to the city’s once downtrodden Southside.
“It’s the only time of year when every gallery and studio gets a marker on a map,” says Katie Boerema of the Association for Visual Arts (AVA), which introduced the event six years ago as the Chattanooga arts community began to take shape downtown. “There’s a real social aspect. It’s an interactive experience you can share with friends.”
Indeed, developing an “arts district” has been central to the cultural and economic success of inner-city revitalization in communities across the country. Where art and artists thrive, an air of rejuvenation seems to follow, creating a social center and restoring a sense of place in cities where the tentacles of urban decay once spread like cancer.
“Most people experience art at public festivals such as 4Bridges,” says AVA’s Executive Director Anne Willson, where, she says, the cautiousness of entering a museum is removed. “People experience art all the time in their everyday lives,” she says—they just don’t make the connection, and the Hop helps cement that link. “This is art not on the streets, but it’s open to the streets.”
The Hop is not unlike a pub crawl—sans the alcohol-induced exhaustion—a light, fun, focused excursion where inclusion usurps pretension, there’s no hard sell and people have the opportunity to encounter the relationship between art and their community.
Participants vary from year to year, but no fewer than 18 galleries will open their doors from 2 to 9 p.m. on Saturday in an open invitation to explore a variety of media, from paintings, photographs and sculpture to crafts, pottery, furniture, jewelry and blown glass. Most galleries and studios are offering refreshments and snacks, and this year’s new AfterHop party at Good Dog (adjacent to AVA on Frazier) awaits avid art mavens who want to extend the evening and discuss the day’s discoveries.
“Last year at the end of the Hop, lots of folks ended up on the North Shore,” says AVA’s Jerry Dale McFadden, director of the annual 4Bridges Arts Festival. “There was a lot of energy and they weren’t ready to stop, so we added the AfterHop as a central gathering place to end the day.”
But before you jump to conclusions, you need gather the evidence. Grab a map (in print at AVA or online at avarts.org), don your ears (if the spirit strikes) and, well, take a leap.
The Hop’s logical jumping-off pad is AVA’s own gallery on Frazier Avenue, when its annual “Fresh” exhibit debuts on Saturday. “Fresh” is a competitive, juried exhibit designed to showcase artists that display artistic promise, commitment to their work and fresh ideas.
Among these emerging artists is Amy Johnson, a 27-year-old Virginia native and graduate of the University of the South in Sewanee who has called Chattanooga home for the past two years.
“It’s exciting to be able to work on my own and the AVA exhibit is a great opportunity,” Johnson says. “Aside from school, this is my first opportunity to show my work. I’ve done the Hop for the past few years and it’s one of my favorite events.”
The opportunity to meet artists in their studios is another “doesn’t happen every day” element of the Hop that takes visitors behind the gallery walls and allows them to “take down the Wizard’s curtain,” as AVA’s Boerema puts it.
“It’s an opportunity to meet working artists,” adds Willson. “It demystifies the process, breaks down the rules and lets you ask questions.”
Miki Boni, an artist who took advantage of an ArtsMove grant three years ago transplanting her from Bradenton, Fla., where she operated an open studio, is among the five artists who will pull back that curtain to give Hoppers an opportunity to peek into the rabbit hole, so to speak.
“I was in an artist colony in Bradenton and my studio was part of my gallery,” says Boni. “I was always painting in the gallery when people would walk in, so I’m used to that. In Chattanooga, I decided that my studio is more of a showroom. I don’t paint on the night of a showing, but I do take a work-in-progress and share the process. You’d be surprised how many people give you good ideas.”
Boni, an outgoing artist who helped organize the Southside Arts Stroll, says she loves the Hop and the opportunity to meet the public.
“I’m a visible kind of girl,” she says, “and the Hop gives us a lot of visibility.”
Now in her third year in Chattanooga, Boni says it takes time—a good two or three years, she reckons—before an artist becomes settled and established in a new community, and events such as the Gallery Hop help artists and the community form a bond.
“A lot of it is pioneering,” she says. “There wasn’t always a big arts community here, and I’m a pioneer from way back. As long as people are willing to work, put that extra time in to be part of a group, that’s when the magic starts to happen.”