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SWEPCO Fishing
When the water gets cold at most lakes, bass fishing heats up at SWEPCO Lake, one of the Ozarks' most unique reservoirs. The 500-acre lake, located near Gentry, stays warm all winter thanks to a discharge of hot water from the coal-fueled Flint Creek Power Plant. Bass fishing at Swepco during winter is like fishing elsewhere during spring, said Kenny Stroud of Siloam Springs, an avid Swepco angler. Staff photos by Flip Putthoff
Formerly a professional photographer, Kathryn Warren, of Art 120 on Williams Street, recovers personal photographs damaged in the Thanksgiving night fire that totaled the building of art studios and non-profits.Art, like hope, springs eternal.
Less than a day after a monster fire chewed through their studios and devoured years of their works, a group of Southside artists and educators was making plans to regroup and, what else? Make art out of disaster.
"We're going to do everything in our power to start over. The program is too important to let a fire stop us now," said Kate Warren, whose Art120 program brings arts education to local children who don't get it in school.
Artist Adam Kirby, who rented space on the building's second floor and who lost five years of his work in sculpture, drawings and ceramics, on Friday was thinking about making "a whole exhibition" of drawings about the fire. His idea is to display them in the building's parking lot during the Dec. 3 MainX24 event to stir support.
As of Friday afternoon, the Chattanooga Fire Department hadn't said how the blaze at 1511 Williams St. began. The call came in just after 5 p.m. Thursday, and department spokesman Bruce Garner said 19 fire companies worked to keep the billowing flames from spreading to adjacent buildings.
On Friday, the glass block windows on the building's front were mere heaps of shards among fallen brick and charred debris. Arched brick windows on the second story showed only sky beyond, the roof and rafters completely gone.
Building owner Robert E. Colvin spoke briefly to some of his tenants but said he was too upset to talk about the blaze with the Times Free Press. Other tenants included a cabinetry shop, a tea-maker's place and studio space. Adjacent buildings apparently suffered only smoke and water damage.
Warren said Art120 lost the tools used to help children "learn, create, engage, and figure out what they can be in life." The program offers welding - the kids make fanciful art bikes, such as a dragon and a whale that were spared from the flames and will be shown off at MainX24 - along with graphic design, digital photography and computer programming.
Hannah Hahn, education coordinator for Art120 who's been working with about 20 Howard School students in a work-based learning program this fall, said some of her own drawings and paintings were in the building.
Like Kirby, Hahn said there's been "an outpouring of support" to help Art120 and the building's artists get through the crisis.
"Chattanooga's so great about being open-minded as far as the arts go, and there's so much advocacy for art," she said. "It's the people that are going to make this easier for us."
Kirby said that on what might have been a sad Thanksgiving Day, his friends and the people who love him surrounded him with comfort.
"When my friends reached out to me, they were not sad that I lost artwork, they were sad that it was lost; they had a passion for it. All these people loved me and cared about me."
That's why he's going right back to creating art, he said.
"It's like a phoenix mentality," Kirby said. "It feels as though this is just a new beginning, and if I really want to pursue that art mentality and that art life, just because I lost everything doesn't mean I should stop."