The Association for Visual Arts previews the third annual Between The Bridges Local Arts Festival, and the festival is expanding to two days this year. On Saturday, Oct. 14, and Sunday, Oct. 15, from 11 a.m.-5 p.m., AVA will present Between The Bridges, now a two-day festival featuring over 40 artists from Chattanooga and the surrounding areas. The festival will take place in Coolidge Park (the section between Veterans Bridge and the Walnut Street Bridge), 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, as well as vendors selling vegan home and beauty products and other vegan-friendly wares.
AVA created this new event for local artists in 2021, and the event has grown and expanded and improved so that organizers can continue to highlight the 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. Two artists in the event are represented at Signal Centers’ H*Art Gallery.
As in 2022, Between The Bridges will again include 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 14 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 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, director of Special Events at AVA, at sarah@avarts.org, or contact the AVA main office at 265-4282.
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