East Tennessee Artscapes 2025 Ongoing Activities

 

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All of our programs are designed to alleviate social, environmental, and economic issues that our rural Appalachian community faces. We believe that the arts are a mechanism to reach our community where it is and grow together.

Below are a few of our current programs, but we often are involved in other community projects as well.

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ART4KIDS-Ninth annual Art4Kids after school program. Regional artists are contracted to offer a variety of classes including performing arts, dance, painting, and crafts such as soap making and basket weaving. The classes provide free, enriching activities where the kids have fun while expressing themselves.

 

From Our Mountains to Yours- this program was created because we saw that there was a need for middle school aged students as well as a need to more effectively engage our local Latino community. It has since become the most exciting program to date. The program connects two classrooms via live video, one in the Peruvian Andes and one in Appalachia.2026

 

Teen Internship-The capstone project will be a group-directed 50 hour, art-based community service project. Each participant receives a $500 stipend upon completion. The teenage students will work together to create an artistic project to display while documenting the experience. We will evaluate their individual skills and interests and help them prepare for the real world with financial management knowledge, continued education opportunities, methods for creative expression as an outlet and relationships with artist mentors who they can count on to help them grow as artists. We will tour colleges, universities and trade schools. Each intern will have opportunities to job shadow based on their career interests.

 

Ballroom Dance in Sweat Pants –Our fourth season of this class will be delivered in 2025-2026 led by Missy and Alan Watts who have been teaching together for 30 years and are a retired US Army Veteran family. Each year the class has grown and has engaged over 120 adults in free ballroom dance lessons. The series of classes is designed to promote intergenerational socialization as well as focus on the health of participants by relating dance principles and customizing movement for people of all abilities to make ballroom dancing more accessible.

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Jewelry and Metalsmithing Workshops-Shand and Mitch Stamper professional metalsmiths and teaching artists from Paducah, Kentucky will return for the fourth annual free jewelry and metalsmithing workshop. The original workshop was designed for novices, but has developed into multiple offerings for various skill levels including those with disabilities. Entrepreneurial Workshops- we often host entrepreneurial workshops to assist rural creatives to develop methods to create self-sustainability