Anne Wilson sits next to her favorite art pieces, including a basket that she wove together, inside of her office at the Association for Visual Arts. Wilson has been director of the AVA for almost a year and is beginning to develop plans for the upcoming year.Anne Willson arrived in Chattanooga about a year ago to serve as executive director of the Association for Visual Arts. Having lived in North Carolina all of her life and been an artist/arts administrator for 25 years, she found some pleasant surprises when she moved here.
“Chattanooga has a much higher energy level than where I lived before, and the arts are experienced on so many different levels,” she said.
Also, Willson pointed out that there are a large number of artists/entrepreneurs who have taken charge of their own careers in Chattanooga.
“When I began working in the arts in the mid-1980s, art took place within the gallery system,” she said. “Now it is much more democratized with artists selling their own work through the Internet and other venues.”
With AVA having just celebrated its 25th anniversary and grown to a membership of more than 500, the challenge is how to stay relevant in the changing sector.