Connecting the Dots with Education, Arts & Culture

Ten months after pulling together as a new city department in 2005, the City of Chattanooga Department of Education, Arts & Culture (EAC) invited the community to the first annual “Connecting the Dots Summit” to engage in conversations about the potential impact of using the arts to address social issues. The event was co-sponsored by EAC, United Way of Greater Chattanooga and Allied Arts of Greater Chattanooga—a first ever partnership between United Way and Allied Arts, an excellent example of “connecting the dots.”


It could be said that Chattanooga’s renaissance has been an outgrowth of artistic vision on the part of both the city’s leaders and its citizens. From skyline to streetscapes, from riverfront to urban space, the once-polluted city has since come to life through creative revitalization efforts. In sparking dialogue about arts and social issues through the Connecting the Dots Summit, EAC Administrator Missy Crutchfield and EAC have an artistic vision for helping community members realize their own creative potential in helping reshape Chattanooga’s social issues and cultural development for generations to come.


Most citizens probably don’t think of themselves as artists, but keynote speaker and artist/activist Rick Lowe encouraged summit attendees with the words “Everyone is an artist,” a famous slogan first advanced by artist and social sculpture theorist Joseph Beuys. “Social sculpture is the way we shape and mold the world around us,” Lowe explained. “Whether we are artists, doctors or janitors, every day we’re all contributing to the shape of the world around us."

Through his artistic vision and passion for social activism, Lowe helped transform a neighborhood of shotgun houses in Houston’s Third Ward (which is now called Project Row Houses) into a thriving community for single mothers. From local residents and children, social services agencies and schools, architects and urban planners and artists of various disciplines, Project Row Houses became a dynamic community project in every sense of the word. Each community member had a part to play in helping rebuild and revitalize the neighborhood. This sense of networking and making use of each community member’s creativity, talents and resources helped Lowe and the project leaders in “connecting the dots.”


Following Lowe’s keynote address a group of 150 summit attendees engaged in a series of workshops sparking dialogue in the areas of Arts & Education, Arts & Healing, Arts & Economic Development and Community & Race Relations. “This summit is part of a collaborative partnership for change,” Crutchfield said in her opening remarks. “We can tell a story in Chattanooga, Tennessee that can resonate across the country."


As a result of that first Connecting the Dots Summit, many of the community members who attended immediately launched into new and powerful conversations about addressing social issues through the arts. The intent in offering the community summit is to help community members and organizations continue the conversation and start connecting their own dots, Crutchfield says. Former Allied Arts President Don Andrews says he believes the summit opened the way for new partnerships and collaborations among organizations in the city. “I think Allied Arts now has a clearer vision of the opportunities for crossing over with social service agencies,” he remarked in the summit discussion session.


Since the first Connecting the Dots summit launched, EAC has worked with artists and community partners to roll out a variety of collaborative arts programs that connect the community and engage youth in remembering their dreams. EAC continues to co-host the Connecting the Dots Summit with Allied Arts and United Way each year with new keynote speakers, follow-up networking, and celebrating summit outcomes. Past keynote speakers have included Claudia Cornett, Ph.D., author of “Creating Meaning Through Literature and the Arts” and Earl S. Braggs, M.F.A., poet and UC Foundation Professor, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.


Through the Connecting the Dots Summit, EAC is developing an artistic vision for community members and organizations working together to creatively address social issues and community development in the city. As Lowe put it, everyone has a part to play. “We’re going to have to figure out how to unleash the creativity in all our citizens,” Lowe says. “And apply it to world issues we’re dealing with.”


For more information about the the City of Chattanooga Department of Education, Arts & Culture contact Melissa Turner (423) 425-7826 or turner_m@mail.chattanooga.gov.