Painting Tennessee

from Experience Tennessee June 2021

Kidsville a MUST

“As we've documented other creative placemaking and public art programs across the country through our journalistic and marketing work, we've been given front-row access to some of the most brilliant brains in the space who have been kind enough to mentor us in our own art journey, ” Kristin said. “Our interest in public art and how it transforms the environment naturally dovetailed into the community work we were doing. ”

Kristin grew up in Coffee County and moved back with Scott from California in 2011. Kristin and Scott lived in Manchester for eight years, in an 1800s Victorian home, and spent those years restoring the house. Now they live in Tullahoma.

“We loved being on a walkable street just a block from the square, and we saw what the square could be, ” Kristin said. “But like many downtowns in rural regions, it had seen better days – the building of state highways in the 1960s and the subsequent mall culture of the 1980s stripped a lot of downtowns of their locally owned character. Nearly half the buildings were unoccupied when we moved into the Victorian. The whole square needed a facelift, including our house. ”

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There had to be a way to draw entrepreneur interest to this part of Manchester that was only a mile off Interstate 24, Kristin and Stott thought.

“Murals are a relatively easy and inexpensive way to transform the environment and generate interest in a region almost overnight, ” Kristin said. “We saw so much potential in Manchester – with four interstate exits, an amazing state park and, of course, Bonnaroo. ”

Kristin and Scott decided to bring tourism and spark interest in Manchester. “The first mural, the American flag magnolia on Wheeler Construction in Manchester, went up in May 2018 and generated quite a bit of buzz, ” Kristin said. “It has since become a Manchester icon. ” The community loved it.

“The overwhelming reaction from Manchester wanting more art had us install a second mural that summer near Jiffy Burger and two more that fall along the Little Duck River Greenway, ” Kristin said.

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“That inspired the name of our nonprofit, DMA-events, which stands for Do. More. Art., ” Kristin said.

Kristin and Scott have now curated the installation of more than 30 large-scale murals in communities across Tennessee, as well as produced free community events and art festivals, and launched a graffiti abatement and remediation program in Tullahoma, said Kristin.

“We have received a lot of support from city governments who have brought us in and funded pieces in their town, as well as been the recipients of several Tennessee Arts Commission grants and, most recently, our first National Endowment for the Arts grant, ” Kristin said.

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““Last year, we received a Creative Placemaking grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission that enabled us to gift two communities with murals. We chose Tullahoma, which is my hometown, and Centerville, a community we absolutely love that to date had no murals. We fell in love with Centerville over the course of multiple trips and were excited to gift them with a mural when grant money came through from the TAC. ”

Through that process, Kristin and Scott hired Columbia artist Whitney Herrington to create a mural, part of the Walls for Women project. Kristin and Scott launched the Walls for Women initiative in honor of the 100th year anniversary of women’s suffrage.

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The mural is called “Punch Bug” and Herrington wove in her 1974 VW Super Beetle, named Alice, as part of the design, said Kristin.

“It's just so fun and different and adds a lot of vibrance to the square there, ” Kristin said. “Centerville could not have been more excited and welcoming about that piece, and we made a lot of new friends who helped us. The best and most unexpected part of these projects is that Scott and I are so heavily involved, we wind up almost becoming members of that community and walk away with so many new friends. ”

“We just finished a mural on the Masonic Lodge in Tullahoma by Kim Radford, ” Kristin said. “We currently have a mural project going up in Columbia (in June) in partnership with the City of Columbia. It will be our next Walls for Women install and painted by Tara Aversa, who painted the American flag mural in Manchester and Bertha the octopus mural in Tullahoma. ”

Kristin and Scott have upcoming projects across Tennessee this summer: in Tullahoma, Knoxville, Sweetwater, Jackson and Lawrenceburg.

“Publicly visible art is a symbol to not just the youth, but also a way for residents to signal to visitors that they appreciate creatives in general, ” Scott said. “This is an important reflection outward that tells anyone with an eye that the community is likely supportive of their dreams, which is a critical concept very hard to communicate in words, particularly to the small business/investor community. I also really appreciate the visual accents that murals make upon architecture. A boring or tired building is immediately transformed with unique artwork. ” Murals spark creativity and bring comfort to communities.

“Plain paint on walls, if it's fresh, does much to improve our visual environment, ” Scott said. “The addition of a mural highlights the owner or tenant in a way that no advertisement ever could, and, in a strange quirk of our human consciousness, improves the perception of safety, which, beyond the obvious, is good for our mental health. (Art) also brings awareness to a business or area and has so many proven side effects, including driving tourism and economic development. ”

To learn more about the Walls for Women initiative, watch Colin Shuran’s Walls for Women documentary.

If you are interested in bringing more art to your town, contact Kristin and Scott.

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