Young artist supports other up-and-comers
In less than a decade, Aaron Cowan has established himself as a leader in Chattanooga’s art community, a facilitator and a benefactor for the arts. His work has brought numerous opportunities to artists and greatly enriched local arts culture.
Cowan earned an Associate of Fine Arts degree before moving to Chattanooga in 2009 to finish his BFA at UTC. When he graduated in 2012, Chattanooga didn’t have many opportunities to keep artists in the city—they were either moving to a larger metro area, or going back to school for larger arts scenes.
There were several spaces that have endured throughout the years, like The Hunter Museum, Association For Visual Arts, UTC’s Apothecary, Chattanooga WorkSpace, ArtsBuild, and Barking Legs Theater. “Meanwhile,” he says, “small galleries were shuttering their spaces, leaving unfilled gaps in activity and diversity. Some of my favorites were Graffiti Gallery AKA North Shore Gallery, Easy Lemon, the Rivoli Art Mill, and Tanner Hill gallery.”
Cowan became involved with the Chattanooga Film Festival’s theater project Cine-Rama, along with the SWINE gallery. SWINE focused on being an approachable, inclusive platform for creatives in Chattanooga and abroad who may not have had an outlet elsewhere in the downtown area. Cowan tells us, “Suddenly I saw opportunity to share the arts in everything—anywhere that had space or an audience could play a part in spreading art in some way, if they were willing to be supportive.”
The next year, he and artist Adam Kirby co-founded ARC: Artist Residency Chattanooga, an artist residency modeled after the Diane Marek Visiting Artist Series. ARC aims to connect artists abroad with Chattanooga to develop their professional practice while educating and diversifying the local community and arts culture.
Networking became very important to him. “I did my best to meet with anyone I could think of that was helping the city grow,” he explains, “to see if they were also interested in supporting the arts or collaborating in some way.”
He continues, “For a while Chattanooga felt like an arts desert, with some oases dotted here and there. Around the time Cine-Rama, SWINE, and ARC began, it kind of finally felt like something was beginning to happen. Before you knew it, Stove Works was announced; Sculpture Fields sprang up; Locate Arts was connecting artists in cities across the state; the UNFoundation began funding projects; Frequency Arts opened its doors for the arts and music community, and just down the street VERSA gallery opened in the St. Andrews Center. It felt alive, vibrant, connected. We were collaborating, sharing, hopping, building, and weaving into the community together.”
Cowan is optimistic, saying, “There is quite a bit happening in the city and there are more opportunities for local artists than ever before, while it continues to grow all over. Artists and businesses are discovering the appeal and availability of hosting art in all places, so just about any local shop will be featuring someone. Open mics, poetry readings, and music opportunities are also flourishing thanks to the work of some excellent creatives and smart thinking folk all over downtown.
“Chattanooga is changing incredibly fast, so I like to look at it as a place of ever-evolving opportunities to inject creativity into the city in more non-traditional ways; popups, collaborating with existing organizations, turning your house into a gallery. There are some folk who have been thinking in those out-of-the-box ways, such as the Chattanooga Film Festival, the Pop-Up Project, ArtDev, ChattLab, and the Midnight Puff, just to name a few.
“There has been a great increase in children’s arts education, which is glaringly absent from Hamilton County schools. Those organizations include Splash Youth Arts, East Lake Language Arts (ELLA), Mark Making, and Studio Everything. We also did free workshops, lectures, and exhibitions with ARC and worked with local elementary schools to bring artists in for hands-on educational sessions.
“The City has been paying attention, funding artists with projects like ArtSpark, exhibitions at City Hall, and the newly announced City Artist residency. I think the city, the community, business owners and proprietors have increasingly been warming up to the arts, simmering even. Murals adorn several facades all over downtown on new flats, apartments, and restaurants. Artists are at more festivities, events, and have a larger presence in the public. There are more annual events, such as the Chattanooga Zine Fest, Frequency Arts Fest, the Chattanooga Festival of Black Arts and Ideas, Splash Arts Youth Festival. Chattanooga and its arts have really come a long way.”