Don’t be surprised tomorrow if a friend invites you to attend an artistic performance in a place you wouldn’t expect – a school, a senior center, a pool or a museum – that features artists and people of all ages and stations learning or incorporating a form of art into their lives.
Think: Students in the CTC Youth Theater performing for young people at the Chattanooga Theater Centre; mentally challenged adults doing water ballet at Orange Grove’s pool; a string quartet from the symphony performing at Ganns Middle Valley Elementary as part of its goal of visiting every school in the county; or an ongoing movement class taught by Ballet Tennessee for children with special needs at Siskin Children’s Brainerd facility.
In other venues, you may find a guest author discussing craft with young writers at Orchard Knob Elementary, a class on visual arts and a hall display at Ooltewah or East Ridge elementary schools, or a trap drum class for impaired adults at Signal Center.
These are among the 15 events at as many venues that will take place around town tomorrow to mark the kickoff of Allied Arts’ $2 million annual fund-raising campaign. The events, appropriately, will involve a range of natural constituencies of the myriad forms of art enjoyed by residents of all ages throughout the region.
There is both a point and a purpose for showcasing so many ways that people here practice, enjoy and benefit from what we collectively call “the arts.” We might describe the day’s menu of events as “a moving canvas” for the arts, but the broad canvas Allied Arts will employ tomorrow is mainly symbolic of the scope of its work.
It makes a poignant point: The “arts” are not confined to painting or theater, opera or symphonies, ballet or sculpture. Rather they are the stuff of the many creative and meaningful pastimes of so many individuals who find joy and solace, purpose and release, structure and discipline, in engaging in art forms in which they are neither professional, nor highly polished amateurs.
They are, for the most part, people who find artistic ways to express their creative spirit. Indeed, considering the range of arts that people here enjoy throughout their lives, it’s fair to say that “the Arts are for All.”
In fact, that is both the theme and the reason behind Allied Arts’ decision to kick off its fund-fundraising campaign with so many artistic activities at so many places. The day’s events delightfully underscore the point that many people, of all ages and walks of life, find art to be a meaningful part of their lives.
It is important to recognize that when the community thinks about fund-raising and personal support for all the arts organizations that are, in turn, supported through funding by Allied Arts. Otherwise, the common stereotype of “the arts” sometimes gets in the way of understanding why Allied Arts deserves broad support.
The arts, and Allied Arts do, of course, showcase and celebrate traditional artistic endeavors at a high level of quality. Indeed, the Chattanooga community has experienced and supported a rich history of visual and performing arts by many citizens and guest artists whose achievements are outstanding by any measure. Allied Arts would merit broad support simply for helping fund those enriching experiences.
But the goal of Allied Arts encompasses a much broader mission than the occasional formal event at the Tivoli or the Theater Centre.
It seeks to nurture the roots and life-shaping benefits of a wide range of arts in the lives of students, adults and senior citizens alike, to give them meaningful creative opportunities and elevate their aspirations. To achieve that, it needs the community’s help to reach its fund-raising goals.
Local governments do help support Allied Arts, but they do not provide the principle support. Area residents must do that. Many are willing contributors because they are aware that artistic expression, if nurtured at the grassroots level, is instrumental in our daily quality of life and best nurtured among our youth at an early age. Others contribute because they enjoy the fruits of their gifts first-hand. There are many good reasons to support Allied Arts fund-raising campaign. Pick one, and help the campaign.