Join Programs Director Chelsea Couch in the Workshop to learn how to braze!

Brazing is an ancient technique of joining metals that could be considered like the step between soldering and welding. This technique is a quick and easy way to prototype ideas, create ornaments, jewelry, or armatures, and can be done at home cheaply and safely. We will be working with thin metal wire which only requires camp fuel to join, so no experience is required. Come play with (safe) fire and learn a new skill!

Please wear closed-toe shoes and dress warmly; the Workshop is on the chilly side this time of year!

Join us in the Classroom for a Workshop with Brooke Frank.

Handmade books don’t have to be treated so preciously. When you know how to make them, the number of handmade books you can scribble in is limited only by your willingness to whip together another one. Any idea can be worthy of the blank page and the time it takes you to jot it down. 

In this workshop, we’ll each arrive with one of our dumbest recent drawings as a prompt, generate a series of pages exploring the drawing in greater depth, and then we will each bind our drawings into a unique book. The completed one-of-one set of books generated in this workshop will be kept in the Permanent Collection at Stoveworks with the South East portion of The Sketchbook Project, originally started by the Brooklyn Art Library.

We will use the drum leaf binding to bind our books. Drum leaf books look and feel like “a real book” despite being a fairly low-tech and simple binding technique. This binding lends itself well to improvisation. It’s well-suited to book projects that have a clear and detailed plan for the content and to books for which there is no plan at all. Its versatility and ease make it a great binding to have in your skill set for all kinds of books you haven’t planned yet.

Brooke Frank is an artist based in Miami, Florida. Her practice is grounded in painting, book and printmaking. Her studio practice is an open and flexible methodology for the gathering, parsing, and interpretation of information used to pry open ideas about fact and fiction. The collision of text and images on the surfaces of her paintings play with the humor and power of uncertainty. 

Recent exhibitions include “Two Lies and a Truth” (2023) at Ground Floor Contemporary in Birmingham, Alabama; “BluePrnt” (2023) at Bridge Red Studios in Miami, Florida, and “ZOONOTIC HEX” (2022) at Field Projects, New York City, New York. She has been an artist-in-residence at IS Projects (now known as the Miami Paper & Printing Museum, 2016) in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Art Farm (2016) in Marquette, Nebraska, and the Jaffe Center for Book Arts (2016) in Boca Raton, Florida. Her work has been acquired by the Girls’ Club Collection, the Jaffe Center for Book Arts, and the Miami Paper & Printing Museum. Frank received an MFA from The University of Texas at Austin in Studio Art in 2019.

Local and regional noise musicians. Organized by Chattanooga Noise Night. BYOB. Free. Donations encouraged.

https://www.chattanooganoisenight.com/home

https://www.instagram.com/chattanooga_noise_night/

Recurring event on the third Friday of each month

A variety hour where presenters are given 7 minutes to do anything they want! Each Art-A-Nooga is completely unique, and we never know what’s going to happen.

Previous presentations have featured artist talks, experimental videos, movie reviews, dance, live jazz, live songwriting, collaborative storytelling, science experiments, travel photos, performance art, arm wrestling, cryptids, poetry reading, resource sharing, tutorials, bathroom renovation, dogs, and terrible cakes. That’s just to name a few! It’s all-out anything-goes at Art-A-Nooga Tonight!

Interested in joining the legendary ranks of Art-A-Noogans? DM @kleightunn on Instagram or email clayton6794@gmail.com for details.

Join us for a SPECIAL EDITION OF ART-A-NOOGA TONIGHT featuring a film recap of this year’s presentations!

A variety hour where presenters are given 7 minutes to do anything they want! Each Art-A-Nooga is completely unique, and we never know what’s going to happen.

Previous presentations have featured artist talks, experimental videos, movie reviews, dance, live jazz, live songwriting, collaborative storytelling, science experiments, travel photos, performance art, arm wrestling, cryptids, poetry reading, resource sharing, tutorials, bathroom renovation, dogs, and terrible cakes. That’s just to name a few! It’s all-out anything-goes at Art-A-Nooga Tonight!

Interested in joining the legendary ranks of Art-A-Noogans? DM @kleightunn on Instagram or email clayton6794@gmail.com for details.

Join us for an opening reception & curator’s talk to celebrate Keep a Place for Me, an exhibition curated by the Teen Curators of Fall 2024 at Stove Works! December 14th, 5:30 – 6:30 PM

Open to the public during Gallery Hours from 12/14/24 – 01/18/25

Keep a Place for Me

Curated by Teen Curators Thomas Miguel, Khivionna Owens, & Penelope Suffern.

Including work from Clay Aldridge, Trinity Rose Anthony, Crowley Haworth, Oliver Ito, Nina McLean, Russell Robinson, Naomi White, Danyelle Woods, & Riley Younger.

Everything has a place. There is often the promise of tragedy, but also comfort in holding a physical or mental space; to know that you always have a place to go, a home to come back to. Keep a Place for Me gives the impression that you won’t be forgotten, but remembered in that hopeful promise. 

Keep a Place for Me may seem lighthearted and jovial, but could be read in a more desperate sense, such as longing for a place to call home. This place doesn’t have to be physical, such as storing someone or something in your mind to come back to, or reminisce about.

Keep a place for me: a seat at the table, a cabin in the woods, a hair in your painting. Keep a place for me: on your plate, in your memories, in a book. Keep a place for me.

Thomas Miguel is a senior at the Howard school. He loves all types of art from drawing to music. He is excited to be a part of Stove Works this year and to learn all the wonders that come with becoming a curator.

Khivionna Owens is a senior in High School. She’s been drawing since she was in the 3rd grade and enjoys the process of creating art and showing it off, particularly film wise, but she enjoys all forms of art.

Penelope Suffern is a senior at Hilger Higher Learning. She loves drawing both physically and digitally, and is fond of character creation and worldbuilding. Excited to work with Stove Works as a Teen Curator, she hopes to cooperate with her peers and learn more about art curation as a potential career option.

Catalog is Monospace’s pop-up shop and party that gives attendees an opportunity to browse our shop’s inventory in person. We’ll host a where we spin records from our inventory.

The shop will be open during RED DOT, Stove Works’ year-end fundraiser (must have a ticket to the fundraiser for access). And will also provide a site for lounging about.

Learn more about Monospace and Catalog HERE

DECEMBER 6th FROM 6:00 - 10:00 PM

Early Bird Tickets on sale until November 9!
Link to Tickets Below!

Stove Works’ annual fundraiser encourages the outlandish, the extreme, or jeans! Come as your boldest self in support of Art and Artists! The highlight of the evening is the exhibition opening of our Resident Review—curated this year by Josiah Golson. Cosmic Connection reflects on how the Stove Works Residency exists as an otherworldly station for artists and creators on their respective journeys and life changes between careers, projects, and life's seasons. 

Wardrobe prompt: Parliament Funkadelic in 2024

The main exhibition will feature a selection of works (and a silent auction) from the past year’s Artist-in-Residence. We will also have smaller and limited edition works available for purchase on the night of the event. This is the ONLY time we sell artwork at Stove Works, and all proceeds from artwork sales are split evenly between the participating Artists and our Organization!

Every ticket includes food + booze (+ FUN!)

• Early Bird ($75): General Admission but cheaper - Available until November 1st!

• General Admission ($125): Free Booze, food, and all the event’s festivities!

• 5 Pack of General Admission ($500)

• 10 Pack of General Admission ($750)

• Solo VIP tickets ($250) include all the wonders of the General Admin/Early Bird ticket, a Stove Works limited edition tote bag, 15% off at Monospace's pop-up store "Catalog", and a limited edition Artist Print from 2023 Resident Bucky Miller!

• VIP Tickets ($500): + 1 guest, include all the wonders of the General Admin/Early Bird ticket, a Stove Works limited edition tote bag, 15% off at Monospace's pop-up store "Catalog", a tin-type portrait taken by Wild in Love, and a limited edition Artist Print from 2023 Resident Bucky Miller!

• V-VIP tickets ($1,500): + 5 guests, include all the wonders of the General Admin/Early Bird ticket, a Stove Works limited edition tote bag, 15% off at Monospace's pop-up store "Catalog", a tin-type portrait taken by Wild in Love, a limited edition Artist Print from 2023 Resident Bucky Miller, and 2 tickets to Monospaces' Winter Dinner (date TBD).

Evening Highlights

In addition to the incredible works on view, we’ll have a DJ set from DJ MCPRO, a performance from GULL, food from Smothered California Burrito and Plant Power, Tin Types available for purchase from Wild in Love, Flint Chaney on the Red Curtain, a chance to make a “cosmic connection,” video installations from Nathan Mileur, an award for best dressed designed by Ray Padron, and more!

RED DOT sponsors:

Open Studios is an invitation into our Artists-in-Residence studios. It’s an opportunity for you to ask questions about their process and see them at work.

NOVEMBER RESIDENTS

Frida Foberg
Preetika Rajgariah
Anne Lukins
Paul Peng
Yusuke Okada
Gabriela Frank
Beatriz Chachamovits
Randi Renate
2$ON

Join Artist in Residence Paul Peng for a drawing workshop in the classroom!

Is your comics drawing experience haunted by the desire to desire something new? Does a cartoon picture of a monster boy in a strange situation leave you in a deep quandary over the ontological status of The Drawn Subject? If so, join us for our upcoming experimental cartooning workshop facilitated by November 2024 Stove Works resident Paul Peng. Join Paul on a series of collaborative exercises and activities in non-representational drawing, illustration, and storytelling to show how you, too, can draw something that makes you feel weird. Don't miss this chance to figure out what we mean by this!

Paul Peng (b. 1994, Allentown, PA) lives and works in Pittsburgh, PA and holds a BCSA in Computer Science and Art from Carnegie Mellon University. Recent solo exhibitions include My Subject at Bunker Projects, Pittsburgh (2024) and Intentions at april april, Pittsburgh (2024). Prior to Stove Works, he has been an artist-in-residence with the Brew House Association’s Distillery Emerging Artists Program (2020–2021) and the Ox-Bow School of Art (2023). Alongside his art practice, Paul is a roller coaster enthusiast, a programming language design hobbyist, and an aspiring long-distance runner and high-level Dance­Dance­Revolution player. He has a boyfriend and can deadlift his bodyweight.

https://www.paulpengdotcom.com

Local and regional noise musicians. Organized by Chattanooga Noise Night. BYOB. Free. Donations encouraged.

https://www.chattanooganoisenight.com/home

https://www.instagram.com/chattanooga_noise_night/

Recurring event on the third Friday of each month

A variety hour where presenters are given 7 minutes to do anything they want! Each Art-A-Nooga is completely unique, and we never know what’s going to happen.

Previous presentations have featured artist talks, experimental videos, movie reviews, dance, live jazz, live songwriting, collaborative storytelling, science experiments, travel photos, performance art, arm wrestling, cryptids, poetry reading, resource sharing, tutorials, bathroom renovation, dogs, and terrible cakes. That’s just to name a few! It’s all-out anything-goes at Art-A-Nooga Tonight!

Interested in joining the legendary ranks of Art-A-Noogans? DM @kleightunn on Instagram or email clayton6794@gmail.com for details.

Join us for the closing reception of Body of Work, photographs by William Johnson.

Darkroom prints and screen prints will be for sale.

Statement -

For many years, William Johnson has documented people from all walks of life across many versions of themselves. This collection of prints is an abbreviated version of an ongoing photo essay and documentary focusing on gender experience, personal identity, and freedom. This exhibition consists of darkroom prints, an edition of screen prints, film negatives, and darkroom ephemera.  The selected portraits in this show are informed by those consenting to be exhibited and are framed by photographic processes and image-making. If you are interested in participating in this project, please contact the Artist.

about the artist -

Among many things, William Johnson is a black and white film photographer and darkroom printer who lives and works in Highland Park, Chattanooga, TN.    

“In my practice, I seek to photograph and print my surroundings. In my music, I seek to create a sonic version of the same landscapes. I was diagnosed with epilepsy at an early age, and it has afforded me the opportunity to view my surroundings in a unique way that’s often missed by those whose primary source of transportation is a vehicle. It is my thought that the camera is less an art form than the thoughts conjured by the broken mind of epilepsy. It imparts less opinion and personal aesthetic on the memory than the mind alone, and in a way, the things the camera creates are less a piece of art and more a fact made into art. The perpetually shifting landscape and/or perception of the landscape yields images of instant importance and mundane images. Often, the mundane will become the most important of all, as it is often left undocumented and forgotten to time.”

www.wmjohnsonphotography.com

@wm.johnsonphotography

Join us Saturday, November 9th from 2:00–3:30 pm for panel discussion inspired by Reanimator, our current exhibition curated by Elizaveta Shneyderman and Anthony Discenza. Reanimator “presents works from fourteen contemporary artists working in sculpture and media alongside a collection of production objects culled from the cinema and gaming industries.”

Exploring the production of still and moving images, the potential of the image, AI & technology’s environmental impact, and how technological systems have altered the types of subjects produced, we bring together a mix of voices to discuss illusion and humor, technological tools and their misuses, as well as the “supposedly rational technologies of visual representation.” 

Panelists: Lindsay Godin, Heath Montgomery, and Greg Pond

Moderated by: Chelsea Couch

Join us for the opening of The Field, works by Megan Ledbetter.

The Field:

2023-24 Current Art Fund Grantee (Knoxville, TN) with additional support from Trust for Public Land and Stove Works (Chattanooga, TN)

Desolation! 

Desolate is the spot and wild the road, if road it can be called that leads to it. […] For a generation an acre of ground hidden in the hills has been used to receive the remains of unclaimed and indigent dead and still half the people one meets knows not where it is. To find it the seeker must blindly follow the trails leading over the spurs of Walden’s Ridge. Only a visit would convey a just idea of the horrors of that place.
Chattanooga Daily Times 
Sept 2, 1906

There are many written accounts describing the horrid conditions, criminal trespasses, and overall lack of humanity in a place now referred to as The Field: a municipal burial ground for the poor and dispossessed in operation from 1890-1912. During that time, The Field was no more than a dumping ground on the outskirts of Chattanooga, and the historical narrative is clear that this land has been deeply wounded time and again, still carrying the trauma of indecency, betrayal, and abandonment. The upcoming exhibition at Stove Works weaves a visual narrative that directs viewers to contemplate the complexity of this location, adds to the historical record, and holds a space in the collaborative effort toward repair.

ABOUT THE ARTIST -

Megan Ledbetter (1980) is an artist and educator based in Red Bank, Tennessee, whose lens-based work explores personal, cultural, and historical narratives tied to place.

Her current photographic project,The Field, is part of a larger collaborative initiative to recognize and repair a derelict municipal cemetery for the poor and dispossessed in operation from 1890-1912. Through generous support from the Current Art Fund (2023-2024), her work combines visual imagery, historical research, and community engagement to shine a light on the complex overlapping histories at this abandoned burial ground.

She earned her MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design (2011), a BFA from East Tennessee State University (2008), and a BA from Auburn University (2002). She attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2013 and was awarded a Resident Artist Fellowship from Anderson Ranch Arts Center in 2014.

Get to know our Residents and their practice. Each Artist-in-residence takes the mic for up to ten minutes to tell you the “why, how, when, who with, and what for” behind their work. Or they might tell you something entirely unrelated. You’ll have to come to find out.

NOVEMBER RESIDENTS

Frida Foberg
Preetika Rajgariah
Anne Lukins
Paul Peng
Yusuke Okada
Gabriela Frank
Beatriz Chachamovits
Randi Renate
2$ON

Will be held in the gallery. BYOB.

Join Botany Rain in the Courtyard for a Material Swap! Do you have leftover craft materials? Start a project you no longer plan to finish? Looking for a new hyper-fixation? Bring anything you no longer want, leave with something else! Don’t worry if you show up empty-handed; there may still be opportunities for you to acquire free stuff.

BYOB! There will be seating in the courtyard.

Join us for a screening of short works curated by Maja Čule, an artist included in Reanimator. 

Internet

sa titlovima / avec sous-titres / with subtitles / مع ترجمة

This screening brings together films that are retelling online experiences in languages other than English, and offer some ideas on how wide the web is. These films offer an overview of some early fantasies of the internet as a promised land, and the magic of translation, as well as some examples on how a foreign language can be an effective tool to slow down the web gentrification.

Duration: 85 Minutes

Program:

Afro Cyber Resistance, Tabita Rezaire, 2014

From yu to me, Aleksandra Domanović, 2013

1991, Saif Alsaegh, 2018

Program tvog kompjutera, Program of Your Computer, Inesa Antić, 2019

Maja Čule

Maja Čule works as a filmmaker and a visual artist, with time based media, and as an educator. They organize queer and trans residency program House of Neda in NYC. They had solo exhibitions at Arcadia Missa Gallery, London, Company Gallery, NYC, and Mochvara Gallery in Zagreb, they participated in group exhibitions at Andreas Huber Gallery in Vienna, CCS Hessel Museum of Art, New York, and at the 60th Venice Biennale.

Pulling from readings recommended by the curators, among others, we've selected texts that point towards and walk around the themes explored in Reanimator. Are you looking for more context? Feel like talking it out? Do you have questions? So do we! You don’t really need to understand the texts in order to participate! Let’s unpack these ideas together. Come to one or come to all!

This final discussion will focus on Hito Steyerl’s Too Much World: Is the Internet Dead?
&  A Thing Like You and Me

Texts and reading guides are available in both digital and print form for free; stop by Stove Works to grab copies in advance of each meeting.

Join Artist in Residence Lichen Bouboushian for a workshop!

This workshop will engage participants in exploring the building blocks of Lichen's creative process through breath, body visualization, movement, writing/drawing, speaking, and vocalizing. Special focus will be placed on surprise, rebellion, and refusal, in an effort to highlight the students' agency in co-creating the workshop environment. This workshop is consent-based and accessible -- no prior experience in any field is required, and every aspect can be customized to participants' needs, interests, and comfort levels. Please bring writing/drawing materials, water, and comfortable clothing and get ready to feel expansive.

Lichen Bouboushian is a performance artist whose work utilizes self-flagellating vulnerability, uncomfortable intimacy, and social commentary. They practice in noise, performance art, dance, video, installation, education, and community building/mutual aid.

https://lorenebouboushian.org/

@query.or.lament

Open Studios is an invitation into our Artists-in-Residence studios. It’s an opportunity for you to ask questions about their process and see them at work.

September RESIDENTS:

April Childers
Rachael Zur
Preetika Rajgariah
Andy Davis / Anne Lukins
Mei Lam So
Lichen Bouboushian
Lindsey White
2$ON

Join current Artists in Residence Crasis (Andy P. Davis + Anne Lukins) for a Workshop in the Classroom!

We will introduce participants to two natural dyes traditionally harvested between autumn and winter, as the earth prepares for a season of dormancy. Participants will be presented with the plants from which these dyes are made, and a brief historical and mythical context for their use. Participants will then take part in a series of guided activities in which they will be invited to reflect on the theme of degrowth, and connect with a plant of their choice while dye baths are prepared. We will then guide participants through a simple dying method. Natural fiber socks and shirts will be provided for dying.

Participants may bring their own white or off white natural fiber textiles for dying if preferred. Participants will be invited to return three days later to collect their dyed materials following the completion of the dying process.

Crasis (/krey-sis/ from the Greek κρᾶσις, "mixing", "blending") is a collaborative duo made up of Andy Davis and Anne Lukins. Their projects use participatory live performance to engage with questions of human ecology, moving between social experimentation and ritual. They collaboratively design and fabricate elaborate props, prosthetics and ceremonial dress, using both new and pre-industrial techniques.  Performances channel an evolving multitude of beings which emerge from personal narrative, the environment, and from ancient and contemporary cultures. Since 2020, they have organized workshops and performances in a wide variety of contexts: from historical sites to public beaches, artist-run galleries, and the forest floor. Crasis is serious play, rebellion against a culture of disposability and isolation, and transgression against  the acceleration of ecological twilight.

www.annielukins.com
www.andypdavis.com

Beep Boop Brunch is a community event celebrating food, electronic music, and culture through an all-day hangout and open-format music program. Everyone is welcome to attend, bring music, share food, and meet others who share a similar passion for the sound. Beep Boop Brunch encourages attendees to bring blankets, chairs, tents, and food to contribute to the potluck and BYOB.

Local and regional noise musicians. Organized by Chattanooga Noise Night. BYOB. Free. Donations encouraged.

https://www.chattanooganoisenight.com/home

https://www.instagram.com/chattanooga_noise_night/

Recurring event on the third Friday of each month

A variety hour where presenters are given 7 minutes to do anything they want! Each Art-A-Nooga is completely unique, and we never know what’s going to happen.

Previous presentations have featured artist talks, experimental videos, movie reviews, dance, live jazz, live songwriting, collaborative storytelling, science experiments, travel photos, performance art, arm wrestling, cryptids, poetry reading, resource sharing, tutorials, bathroom renovation, dogs, and terrible cakes. That’s just to name a few! It’s all-out anything-goes at Art-A-Nooga Tonight!

Interested in joining the legendary ranks of Art-A-Noogans? DM @kleightunn on Instagram or email clayton6794@gmail.com for details.

Join us for a gathering of conversation and inspiration with one of the works featured in our current exhibition, Reanimator. While sitting with Frank WANG Yefang’s work The Whimsical Characters, we'll use dialogue and activities to learn about the artist's specific experiences and search for a deeper understanding of our shared ones. You can read a statement from the artist below:

“Characters that exist ‘inbetween’ are integral to my creations. The Whimsical Characters is an ongoing project. It relates to the affect lingering in the space of inbetweenness, and attends to the philosophies of posthumanism. In this body of works, a series of digital bodies reside in plasma screens as discarnate entities, indicating that they are beings of the virtual world. But they continuously attempt to affect and connect to the viewers through their emotional outbursts built upon dramatic motion-capture data. The coded recording of real human movements is enveloped in the polygonal virtual “bodies.” Their paradoxical forms lead to an imagination of subjectivities preserved in a complex array of ambiguous dimensions.”

—------------- 

Inside the Art, Outside Ourselves is a 3-part Stove Works Exhibition-Specific series that invites you to spend time reflecting on a work from our current exhibition. Through guiding prompts, we encourage you to dig deeper into the work, into yourself, and to build a connection. 

A worksheet will be launched at each public workshop. After the fact, this worksheet can be used by you or with a group at your own pace. You are welcome to respond in whichever working practice makes the most sense to you, be it through drawing, writing, etc.

Join Maja Čule, an artist included in Reanimator, for a Workshop in the Classroom.

we are the virus if the new world disorder

rupturing the symbolic from within 

saboteurs of big daddy mainframe

clitoris is in a direct line to matrix

These lines were written by VNS Matrix, published in their Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century, in 1991. In this Cyberfeminist Manifesto workshop, we will read the previous cyberfeminist manifestos, draw connections between hardware and our bodies, come up with ideas, and reimagine how our relationships with the internet today can be fun, productive and hot. This will be both a lecture and hands on workshop that includes writing and video making with participants. 

(Please bring a phone and a charger)

Maja Čule

Maja Čule works as a filmmaker and a visual artist, with time based media, and as an educator. They organize queer and trans residency program House of Neda in NYC. They had solo exhibitions at Arcadia Missa Gallery, London, Company Gallery, NYC, and Mochvara Gallery in Zagreb, they participated in group exhibitions at Andreas Huber Gallery in Vienna, CCS Hessel Museum of Art, New York, and at the 60th Venice Biennale.