“Good things happen when we’re eye to eye, face to face, and able to absorb the passion many of us have for our neighborhood,” said GNN facilitator and neighborhood volunteer, Gail McKeel.

The room was packed and our talking circle was large including representatives from Hope For The Inner City, Hardy Elementary Community PTA, Boyce Station Neighborhood, CALEB, GreenSpaces, Glass Farm Neighborhood Association, Glass Farm Block Leaders, Building Stable Lives, City Farms Grower Coalition (formerly Grow Hope Farms), East Chattanooga food pantry project, alongside members of the Glass House Collective board of directors and staff, and Glass Farm residents and volunteers.

The Good Neighbor Network was launched to be a sounding board for ideas and a way to keep and build momentum for the work all of these groups are doing individually. Today, as more eyes and energies are focused on Glass Farm and East Chattanooga, beginning the year with a re-group to build consensus on the best ways to stay connected, focused and supportive, was important to neighborhood leaders.

“With the help of all interested parties, we’ll be able to structure our meetings and form committees to set goals, share the facilitation of the meetings this year, distribute the duties, and have more productive meetings,” McKeel said.

We appreciate Miss Gail’s leadership pulling this conversation together. It is clear that the collective is getting wider and deeper and that everyone involved believes in the power of partnerships!

GNN’s next meeting is Monday, March 2 at 6:30pm at the GHC HQ.

LINKS:
GNN Facebook page
City Farms Grower Coalition
Change Makers Workshops at Hardy Elementary
East Chattanooga food pantry

The fact that the installation was set up away from a central, more developed city plaza encouraged the colorful discs to serve as a temporary stage, playground, and dance floor where all were welcome. Kids from Hardy Elementary in the East Chattanooga neighborhood where The Pool was first installed, as part of the East Chatt Highlight Festival, had an inside track to directly selecting the programmed color patterns. They got to ask questions of Julie Miller, Jen Lewin’s Creative Manager (Jen sustained a foot injury that, unfortunately, caused her to miss the trip to Chattanooga), and test out the pucks functions before they were installed out on site at 1900 Roanoke Ave., just 3 blocks down the street from their school.

Julie’s eyes were wide during the opening night of the festival. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” She told me. “I’ve been traveling with this installation for years, but never do we find this kind of mix. I thought I’d be used to it in New York, but it’s so sad and surprising how everyone can so easily wall themselves off.  This is a kind of approach that’s completely new and exciting to me.”

The 40,000 LED bulbs within the 106 pucks of the installation create a bright, enchanted atmosphere as attendees danced with friends, old and new. Following Lululemon ambassador, Becky Byrns’ yoga movements all together that first night of the festival it was hard to feel self-conscious. Whether or not the person on the disc next to you was a total stranger, the common sense or wonder was powerful and unifying.

Dawn Hjelseth, Director of Development and East Chattanooga Empower Outreach Coordinator (an energy conservation and savings education program run through green|spaces), wanted to take on the challenge of setting up the sculpture, right off the bat, at the site with the least amenities (no lighting or power that wasn’t transported in), and at a neighborhood site unfamiliar to many Chattanooga residents. “We agree with what Glass House Collective consistently advocates for: there are many types of families who call these neighborhoods home, and the opportunity to engage with one another through beauty and art and music should be available to everyone.”

We applaud the whole Empower team for their sustained energy in seeing this installation successfully shared across three neighborhood sites over the course of a week. Despite some rough weather-delays, the colorful lights were enjoyed by an estimated 700 attendees to the launch site here in East Chattanooga. We are very proud to have partnered with Empower, Public Art Chattanooga, and Lyndhurst Foundation to bring Lewin’s installation to our city’s neighborhoods.

For a complete list of sponsors, click HERE.

The artist arrangements are being made in collaboration with Public Art Chattanooga, and director Katelyn Kirnie says, “We are very excited to launch ‘The Pool’ in the Glass Street neighborhood, and for all the participating neighbors to have access to an interactive tech-integrated artwork which is sure to activate the former Harriet Tubman site and bring the community together.”

Our 3rd annual Gospel on Glass, funded by Tennessee Arts Commission is scheduled for Saturday, April 22 and will be held at the same location with the installation, to provide a live music component near and dear to the hearts of our neighbors. Plans are well underway for organizing favorite performers from Chattanooga’s gospel community for Saturday, while we continue to dream up a more freestyle hip-hop evening of programming for Friday’s kick-off. It will be exciting to see what comes together as local artists and musicians collaborate on expressions that make the most of the colorful lighting context of “The Pool.”

Since 2012 alone, The Pool has traveled to over 30 major installation sites worldwide, clocking millions of user steps, but has never been open to the public in the Southeast. Prior installations have been in metro areas including downtown Denver, SXSW, Google Headquarters; and it will be coming from Hong Kong before arriving in Chattanooga. The artist has selected this project to be a “Global Showcase”, a designation that is expected to bring international media attention to the installation and host neighborhood partners.

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Watch for continued program updates here on our blog and on our Facebook page as we move closer to this exciting weekend: April 21-23!

Read more in Sean Phipps’ preview article on Nooga.com

Following the preliminaries, some volunteers picked up landscaping tools or trash collecting gear to restore local green spaces along Glass Street, while others headed to private organizations needing help with sprucing up storage and applying fresh paint.  Some of the areas that received special attention included our pocket park at the junction of N. Chamberlain and Glass, which received fresh mulch and leveling to prepare for new plantings in the coming spring. Brenna Kelly, Program Director for our partners, the Southeast Conservation Corps, and her team led a hardworking crew of volunteers in that space.

Nearby, a crew of volunteers from Chambliss Center for Children helped complete and transport wooden planters from Studio Everything to the triangle between Awtry and N. Chamberlain, replacing deteriorating boxes to hold fresh plantings in the warmer months ahead. Local Block Leaders, Janette Richie and Jeffrey Evans pitched in on the planter project, and Studio Everything regulars, Chrystion and Amari were excited to receive energetic help for the kind of work they undertake regularly with Rondell Crier. “It feels great to show people around an area that’s really new to them, which is home to us. It’s fun to see them help us accomplish just in one day what would usually take weeks to finish,” Chrystion said.

At Christian Community Fellowship, four local sorority sisters from Sigma Beta Xi gave much needed organizing and cleaning assistance, which is wonderful help for a group that has consistently partnered with us in the past to offer support space for our GHC events. And a little ways farther, up Glass Street, volunteers from Causeway’s staff pitched in to restore book-cases and drywall for First Steps Christian Daycare. Always ready to roll up their sleeves whenever there’s an opportunity to improve our city, the Causeway group included three new team members getting a firsthand taste of their team’s consistent service ethic as they gave great help to an important haven for kids on Glass Street.

At the top end of Glass Street, NPS ranger Will Wilson led a clean-up crew to collect trash along the Pennsylvania Reservation connector trail, with help from enthusiastic volunteers like Sarah Hooper of local catering favorite, Dish T’Pass, and her two sons and leaders of Chattanooga Rotary, Harriett and Burton Whitaker who enjoyed the chance to explore a new corner of Chattanooga, having never been aware of Sherman Reservation before now. Geoffery Meldahl, the artist who designed the trail’s way-finding signage for our How-To Guide Projects, came to help clear trash too and was delighted to see his sign in great shape!

Just up at the peak of Lightfoot Mill Road, two Baylor school shuttle vans pulled in to unload a crew of twenty sophomores there to pitch in with NPS ranger Chris Barr to give the Sherman Reservation access trail a little TLC. The Baylor students have a history of using MLK Day as a time to serve within our local National Parks, and with today’s citywide focus on East Chattanooga, it only stands to reason that the focus would be on our local national park, Sherman Reservation.

Local News Channel 3 provided excellent coverage of the drive to improve local business property and community parks, and featured an interview with our neighbor, Mr. Lee McWhirter, owner of Lee’s Barbershop. Volunteers were all smiles working alongside Lee, who is full of stories and insight about Glass Street, and who was in great spirits all day, as Senator Bob Corker came by for a conversation directly following the feast of grilled hot dogs hosted by our local partner, Michele Peterson, director of ArchWay on Glass. Peterson issued an invitation to Senator Corker. Since then, he has shared his positive experience across social media including his official twitter.

Overall, it was a wonderful day of service activities on Glass Street, and we felt gratified and proud to welcome such supportive community members to the neighborhood, and we can’t thank everyone enough for the difference made on behalf of each entity mentioned, along with twenty other project sites across the wider East Chattanooga area! What an incredible way to honor Dr. King’s legacy together.

Alex continually emphasized the malleable nature of buildings and official projects put in place within kids’ own communities. They have a voice, and with some experimentation, their imaginations are fully engaged to express preferences and make design choices that they have a stake in.

Photo by @alex.gilliam

The kids who participated learned to use power tools and quickly got collaborative, working in teams to cobble together the tallest impromptu climbing structures that could bear weight. Prior to discussing design principles, Alex leads by getting the participants into hands on experimentation. The group who created the tallest sturdy form proudly propped the makeshift jungle gym up against the front of the Avondale YFD building, to climb up to the highest roof peak. Those who bravely climbed up, giggled with the mischief of displaying their building and climbing antics in the large picture window where local senior citizens were gathering to play bingo.

Photo by @alex.gilliam

Rondell Crier of Studio Everything on Glass Street, is beginning to bridge the connection for Avondale kids who are interested in using power tools and learning increased building skills on a more consistent basis to come work after school at Studio Everything’s Tuesday/Thursday after-school workshop hours. He also participated with Teal Thibaud, and Michal Walton as team facilitators. A big shout out to our community partner, Green Spaces for sponsoring such a great event, investing in East Chattanooga.