Community Calendar

Main and Landis Education Galleries: Annual Juried Member Exhibition

Every year, AVA hosts a Juried Show for our Member Artists. Each year a panel of jurors (each an established professional in the visual art field) score and evaluate submissions from AVA’s member artists. This show is a smaller scale group exhibit and helps us determine an artist for our annual Solo Artist Exhibition. The artist whose work receives the highest score from the Jurors is awarded “Best in Show” and will receive a solo exhibition of their work at AVA the following year as well as serving as a juror for the next Juried Show. Jurors are also each asked to select an artist to receive “Juror’s Choice” for automatic inclusion in the exhibition, regardless of score. Those artists are awarded a small group exhibition of their work in the Landis Education Gallery the following year, coinciding with the Best in Show solo exhibition.

Opening Night- Friday, July 3rd

Five guys who are artist friends invite you to the Breakout Show of Five Sketch Guys on July's First Friday at ClearStory Art, downtown Chattanooga. You will be dazzled by lustrous landscape art, ship shape maritime art, macro nature photography, intriguing Waffle House and lovingly crafted pottery on display and available. We hope you can come and be dazzled!

Main Gallery: 2025 Best in Show: Danyelle Woods (Title TBD)

Danyelle Woods received “Best in Show” in the 2025 Annual Juried Exhibition for her work Memory Map I. Danyelle’s work is a combination of known and unknown forms, created with organic materials made by the earth.

Landis Education Gallery: 2025 Juror’s Choices: Jeweli Eslinger, Meredith Olinger and Andy Brooks (Title TBD)

Eslinger, Olinger and Brooks were each selected by the Jury of the 2025 Juried Show as recipients of the “Juror’s Choice Award.” Jeweli Eslinger is an abstract artist working in a street art and graffiti aesthetic. Meredith Olinger is a mixed media artist who works with bold patterns through wallpaper that she designs, create, and prints using both digital and hand-printing along with some collage techniques. Brooks is a photographer who creates abstract, filtered images of mundane, household objects printed at a large scale.

Opening Night- Friday, September 4th

Art of Spirits: Cocktails. Canvas. Chattanooga.

Join Chattanooga artist Brandi Donan for Art of Spirits, a cocktail-inspired art exhibit at Townsend Atelier during First Friday.

This three-year project brings together Chattanooga’s restaurant, bar, and hospitality scene through original oil paintings inspired by local cocktails, non-alcoholic drinks, their stories, and the places behind them. Each painting began with a drink — its name, ingredients, mood, or backstory — and became a still life that tells a larger story about creativity, place, and the many kinds of artists who shape a city.

Guests will be able to view the original paintings, explore the stories behind the drinks, and enjoy select cocktails and non-alcoholic options from the project. Books, prints, and original artwork will be available for purchase.

All cocktail sales from the evening will benefit the Tennessee River Gorge Trust.

Free admission.

Date: Friday, October 2, 2026
Time: 5–8 PM
Location: Townsend Atelier, 301 E 11th Street, Chattanooga, TN 37403

Come raise a glass — with or without the booze — to Chattanooga’s artists, bartenders, restaurants, and the stories that make this city worth painting.

Main and Landis Education Gallery: Annual AVA Member Salon Show

Each year, around the holidays, AVA fills our gallery floor to ceiling with artwork from as many of our Member Artists as we can fit in the space! Based on the public art exhibitions and intellectual social gatherings in France in the 17th-19th centuries, this show is scheduled to coincide with the holidays. It is a perfect opportunity to purchase affordable art from living, local artists for those holiday gifts!

Opening Night- Friday, November 6th