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Basically I don’t have rules toward how I pursue creativity.
I’m a creative being, and I love making stuff, especially the process.
I love the process of making.
And so I try to learn what I need to learn to accomplish my creative goals.
And that can be weird and twisted, you know, ideas that I may have at night and, you know,
I’m trying to wake up the next day and find a way to do them.
Studio Everything is basically a creative resource studio, and it’s open to anyone
in Chattanooga, but more specifically, people who live in this underserved community of
East Chattanooga.
It’s not an organization, and I’m trying to not have it be.
It’s an artist’s project or an artwork, and I’m shaping it along that way.
I thought, I have tools and machinery, and I don’t have to be the only person to access
and utilize them, and then I have a skill set and a weird sense of creativity.
And so I thought if I put my tools and make myself available, just to kind of see how
residents would use it in an underserved neighborhood.
I met Garth, Teal and Katherine, who were all founders of Glass House Collective
and they mentioned like, oh, we need to get you out to Glass Street and see what we have
going on.
Glass House Collective was founded in 2012 to bring life back to Glass Street and Glass
Street back to life.
We’re a non-profit organization working with the community to make Glass Street and
the surrounding area cleaner, safer and more inviting.
They wanted to do their revitalization work through the lens of creativity, so they asked
me if I’d be interested in serving as a resident artist for the work that they were doing.
So that’s how I landed on Glass Street, and then of course, you’re somewhere in
a space and place where need is paramount, and you meet residents and you sort of get
to the real meat of what’s going on and where need is.
And it changes you.
I think there’s a lot of folks that don’t truly understand the depth of what an under
resourced community looks like, and honestly I don’t think I did when I first showed
up here either.
There’s a lot of education gaps here in this area, which leads to unemployment, but
also, the mere fact of infrastructure improvements and development.
The normal resources just haven’t reached people’s doorsteps here, and so sometimes
the assumption is that people maybe want to live like this or don’t want to help themselves,
but I think it’s something that’s just having a generational impact, where people
have to sort of exist in this type of struggle.
And if I can do something that can kind of assist in that, that’s what’s required.
You can’t just hope that change is going to happen.
It can all start with each of us, and so that’s what I’m committed to doing.
When you’re thinking about a neighborhood that’s under resourced, and you put a resource
in place, you’re not quite sure how they’ll use it, because it’s foreign, almost like
you’re walking into another world, because you wouldn’t necessarily think that something
like this would be here.
And that’s why I think kids come in more often than adults and use the space, because
it’s whimsical for them and they’re more curious, and so they reach out.
It’s a studio where you can come and just make any and everything you want.
You can make things out of glass, metal, wood, paint, anything!
Just anything that comes to your head, how you feel, just put it all together in whatever
fashion you want to put it in.
To me, that’s one of the best gifts you can give somebody, is the ability to sort
of do something on their own without having to worry about, how much money they have.
You don’t have to have, brand new canvases to make art, or brand new shiny things to
make things out of it.
If you give somebody the resources and a fertile environment to utilize it, amazing things
can happen.
What they’ve been able to produce, birdhouses, dollhouses, bike repairs.
You know, these kids know how to repair their own bike now.
Using their own power tools, being empowered in a way that they aren’t seeing in school
or home life.
He’s willing to take a risk to let me do stuff back there, like using all those tools.
I mean some people are not willing to take the risk, but he is.
They’re probably scared I’ll mess it up or I’ll get my finger chopped off.
I mean some people just don’t trust people, but he does trust me and everything I do.
Rondell is like an uncle that allows you to do stuff certain adults wouldn’t let you do.
You know, he lets me come here to work.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to work here, because there’s not a lot of shops
that d o this.
There’s a lot of tools and there’s a lot of skill-building that can happen, and some
of those things are directly related to, you know, being a resource to your family and
yourself, which is huge.
These skills are going to help me do whatever I want to do in the long run, because you
know, some people can take away money and material things, but they can’t take away
what I know.
It really motivates me to know I can do anything I put my mind to, because Rondell, he’ll
just give me something, show me how to do it, and then boom.
No more help.
I’ve just got to do it, and then it helps me to know that I can do anything.
Just in a simple way, making something is empowering.
So if somebody can come in here and make a little tiny sketch of something and then to
walk away with something, I think that gives someone a sense of self-worth.
It’s like the best feeling ever when you really finish something and you look at it
and you’re like, I did that?
And it’s like, yeah, I did that.
if you ask Rondell what his art form is, most of time you’ll hear “mentoring.”
He sees it as opening a door to so many other art forms, and understanding that if these
kids can be mentored right that they have the whole world in their hands.
I know what value is instilled in me, to have had a mentor and be a part of some kind of
organization, so I’m trying to put that back, pay it forward.
It’s a time I can be serious and joke with Rondell.
So it’s just like an overall… like family, basically.
I don’t even know if Rondell even understands the importance that he brings to the table
by just being present.
But I know that being present and investing in people is really the heart of Rondell’s
work.
I used to fight in school and I used to do…
I used to do more… other bad things.
But everything changed when I started coming here, because I realized that I can be doing
something much better than what I was doing before.
I’m not out doing what other people are doing in the streets.
I mean I used to hang with people that was in gangs and stuff, but I didn’t want to
get in trouble no more, so I was like, this is probably a spot for me to learn, create
things, and stay out of trouble, and making money.
You know, that’s the best.
That combination is very good.
And so I just started here and was like, you know what, it’s a place around the corner
from my house that I can go and be safe.
We’re living in a different world that, especially in this neighborhood, we’re in
crisis mode, constantly!
And these kids, instead of breaking in houses, they’re learning to make a living in a different
place, in a different way.
And if that’s with the arts, if that’s workforce development, if that’s through
storytelling, however it needs to be told or done, it’s providing an opportunity.
If you adopt that kind of feeling of, what are my resources and how can I put them to use?
If you think about that on a daily basis, then it can have all kind of impact.
You don’t have to have systems in place to aid people.
And I think there’s a consequence for us to not think about that on an individual level,
so I do charge those of us who feel somewhat privileged, or those of us who feel that we’ve
acquired a sense of self-worth, I think it’s on us to activate ourselves, and not through
organizations, and not through just giving money, but I think your heart has to be standing
in front of another heart to really make a difference.
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