by Nicky Reynolds
posted July 22, 2005
Art lovers now have a guide to exploring Southeast Tennessee’s treasures with the new brochure “Art Trails: A Shopping Guide to Local Arts and Fine Crafts of Southeast Tennessee.”
More than 40 sites located in the 10-county Southeast Tennessee region are featured in the brochure, and are broken up into 15 different trails based on their location. From a shop inside an old, purple school bus to a man who melts recycled plastic buckets to create amazing works of art, visitors are sure to find some one-of-a-kind art in Southeast Tennessee.
The first trail guides visitors through Chattanooga’s Southside, stopping at galleries such as Ignis Glass Studio and Cessna Decosimo Gallery. Other trails lead visitors through Chattanooga’s downtown, north shore, and outlying areas. Each shop in the guide features handmade artwork by Southeast Tennessee artisans and crafters.
Listed on the Southside trail is the Chattanooga Market, an open-air market with no third-party merchandise. The Market is open each Sunday and features a blend of the region’s artists and farmers as well as live music, chef demonstrations, children’s art projects and food vendors.
For cultural art, Rugina’s Afrikan Village features a mix of hand-made African imported art and paintings by local artists. And up the road in Tracy City is the Leanin’ Barn Studio, which features Indian-style beadwork jewelry, as well as paintings on wood, acrylic/mixed media paintings, and pen and ink collages.
Each trail includes unique shops such as Studio II Art Center, where watercolors, pottery, and photography are the featured mediums. But this studio is more than a showroom; Studio II Art Center also offers classes in watercolor, oil, and acrylic.
And then there are outdoor galleries like the First Street Sculpture Garden located in the Bluff View Art District in downtown Chattanooga, overlooking the beautiful Tennessee River.
To see an artist at work, visit Beersheba Porcelain in Beersheba Springs. A potter can usually be found on the front porch at a potter’s wheel, turning new vessels out of fresh clay, or decorating bisque ware with glaze in preparation for firing. And someone is usually nearby designing pottery bead jewelry.
In Dayton, Smith’s Crossroads is a large, diverse shop featuring a coffee bar, local antiques and local arts ranging from watercolors to metal sculptures, from pottery to woodworks. And in Decatur, an artisan blacksmith creates fanciful and elegant wrought-iron gates, stair and balcony railings, outdoor structures and furniture at the Anvil Works.
Hand-hewn wooden bowls, Raku and stoneware pottery, stained glass, sculpture, watercolor and oil paintings, handmade soaps and lotions can all be found in Copperhill at Courtyard Studios. And the McMinn County Living Heritage Museum focuses on the folk crafts and fine arts of local artisans with selected works of pottery, watercolors, baskets and quilts.
There are so many unique stops on Southeast Tennessee’s Art Trails. For a copy of the new Art Trails brochure which features a brief description of what each site offers, directions, and hours of operation, call (423) 424-4263 (Southeast Tennessee Tourism Association) or (423) 756-2787 (Allied Arts). Visitors can also visit www.SoutheastTennessee.com and www.alliedartschattanooga.org to view the brochure online.
The Art Trails brochure was funded under an agreement with the Tennessee Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts. It was also funded in part by the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development, in conjunction with the Southeast Tennessee Tourism Association and Allied Arts of Chattanooga.
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