For Charlotte Caldwell, Founder and Director of Stove Works, buying the building at East 13th Street and South Holtzclaw in 2017 was a bit like kismet.
“My great-great grandfather started a company called Tennessee Stove Works back in the 1900s,” she said. The building she purchased was the site of their cast iron stove distribution facility. “It just felt serendipitous.”
While her great-great grandfather, J. L. Caldwell, paved the road with what were then artful, inventive and modern appliances, today Charlotte has created a space for artists to inspire thought, creativity and conversations.
Stove Works pays homage to her past while leaving the door wide open for whatever the future might bring. “It's like cooking,” she said. “You're creating something, that's sustenance and sustaining and something that helps to grow and feeds the mind in a way. It felt appropriate for what I wanted to do.”
Stepping inside the museum you’re met with sky-high ceilings and I-beams, brick walls and bare concrete floors. It’s grand. It’s open and airy. It reminds you that the building was once part of the industrial evolution era of the Scenic City.
Charlotte wanted to maintain that mood and atmosphere. “When I was talking to the architects, I really wanted them to keep as much of the building's history present as possible,” Charlotte said. “Let the old be the old and let the new be the new. I wanted a visual acknowledgement of the building's history in its present life.”
The new breath of life is the artwork that adorns the walls, passageways and floor. Pale palates contrast with vibrant colors, smooth surfaces contrast with textiles and textures that are palpable, visceral, and contemplative.
The arts space and the residency space on the second floor were mere ideas dating back to the years when Charlotte was an undergrad student living in Nashville.
“It was born from a series of ideas,” she said. “About how there was an absence of organizations in the Southeast that exhibited contemporary practice, which is a term that I like to use because it sort of means that it's always a work in progress. It’s never finished.”
Charlotte would go on to receive an MA in Visual Arts Administration from New York University. She later became the Residency Director at the Wassaic Project and Project Manager at No Longer Empty.
Charlotte said she was always drawn to art that fostered dialogue. “Work that's more centered art as the jump-off point for conversation,” she said. “Work that's exploring concepts around our day-to-day lives, global issues, societal issues, justice, equity, all those things. We were really interested in how visual art, specifically for me, could be a vehicle for those conversations.”
She said she decided to move back to Tennessee, a city she said is rich with artistic resources but lacked alternative spaces that display and support specifically Contemporary Art or Practice.
“I moved back with the idea to start a space for art, a residency in exhibition space and, complementary public programming, which are our three core components,” she said.
Stove Works opened its doors in 2020 in the middle of the COVID Pandemic. But Charlotte said opening amid a pandemic allowed them to sort things out. “It allowed us to get our sea legs under us to figure out how the building operated, figured out what we could do,” she said.
Her small staff are constantly on the move. Assisting incoming artists. Working with community partners and other artist organizations. Preparing weekend events and activities. Planning incoming exhibits and welcoming visiting artists in residency.
“We can accommodate nine living on-site,” she said. “Then we have one studio that's reserved for either local applicants or family residents, people who we call off-site residents, so they still have the opportunity to work in proximity to other artists.”
The artists in residency have the comfort of a private studio/bedroom and bathroom; shared kitchen, living space, and laundry; 24-hour access to facilities, which include a metal shop, wood shop, print shop, common shop space, and library.
Six of the studios are designed to accommodate artists who require significant space in their practice. The remaining bedroom accommodates writers, curators, and academics. The exhibition spaces are as fluid as the artists in residency, who frequently come and go.
“Artists are different,” Charlotte said. “Regardless of what their practice is, or what sort of genre they fall into, there's a commitment and a curiosity that artists have that is special. I would say that a lot of the artists that we accommodate, their practices aren't necessarily tethered to, you would say, commercial viability. We’re more interested in those sort of conversation starters. And sometimes that can be sound, sometimes it can be video, sculpture, painting, photography, it could be textile work, it could be anything. It's endless.”
Artists in residency can stay up to three months. Exhibits change throughout the year. “We don't have any permanent exhibits,” Charlotte said. “We're not a collecting institution.”
Charlotte said Chattanooga has a rich arts culture. “But sometimes we operate in silos,” she said. “We've become so focused on our own day-to-day that we forget that we're all contributing to a larger ecosystem and a larger part of this larger community.”
That’s why Stove Works is free to enjoy. “We want to use art as a way to have conversations,” she said. So, for that experience, it’s no charge to come in. Come at your own time, experience the work on your own time and pace.”
All of Stove Works public programs are also free to attend. These include their workshops, professional development programs, teen curators’ program, special weekend projects and more.
Stove Works is a non-profit organization. Their mission is to serve the Chattanooga community by providing local, national, and international artists with a venue for the production of, the exhibition of, and education through contemporary works of art.
Stove Works is located at 1250 East 13th Street in Chattanooga. Gallery Hours are Wednesday through Saturday from Noon to 6:30 PM (closed Sunday through Tuesday).
Visit or donate online at www.stoveworks.org