Aimee Lurey
Adrienne Powell
Alfred Dodson
Jaime Barks
AJ Azike
John Vise
John-Michael Forman
Lisa Bohnwagner
Linda Coulter
Jonathan Bidwell
Matt Monahan
Sam LaStarr
The Association for Visual Arts previewed the second annual Between The Bridges Local Arts Festival. AVA will present Between The Bridges, a one-day festival featuring over 40 artists from Chattanooga and the surrounding areas, on Saturday, Oct. 15.
The festival will take place on the main lawn of Coolidge Park from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and is free for all attendees. The Chattanooga Vegan Festival will also be in Coolidge Park that day, and will be bringing in food and drink vendors to enjoy, and both events will be supplying live music entertainment from 11 a.m.-6 p.m.
AVA officials said they were excited to create this new event for local artists in 2021, and delighted that the event has grown and expanded and improved so that they can continue to highlight the incredible artists of the Tennessee Valley area. Chattanooga’s visual artist community has grown by leaps and bounds in the 21st century, and this event is a response to that – a new festival showcasing some established local artists, but also introducing many new, emerging makers and creators.
A few artists included in the event only recently began making art as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting need to stay home and isolated. The festival will feature painters, sculptors, photographers, ceramicists, and jewelry artists. There are two artists in the event who are represented at Signal Centers’ H*Art Gallery.
The biggest change or addition to the 2022 event is the inclusion of a Potters Alley section, featuring the work of ceramics artists working out of the Scenic City Clay Arts cooperative space downtown. There will be 27 booths at the festival for artists brought in under AVA’s umbrella, and 17 booths of SCCA artists.
The festival name is a play both on the physical space where the event will take place – on the riverfront between the Veterans and Walnut Street bridges – and also on the timing of the event – in the space between annual occurrences of AVA’s main festival, the 4 Bridges Arts Festival. With the rising national profile and reputation of 4 Bridges, that event brings in artists from all over the country. AVA felt a true need to add this new event to the calendar to create a space solely for local artists to shine in the fun festival setting.
For more information about Between The Bridges, visit the main AVA website – AVArts.org – or contact Sarah Moore, festivals director and programs coordinator at AVA, at sarah@avarts.org, or contact the AVA main office at 265-4282.