2023 AWARD RECIPIENTS

Peggy & Stan Townsend

“Our size is an asset,” Peggy Townsend says about Chattanooga. “We’ve found that a lot of cities that are bigger than us, like Atlanta or Nashville, don’t have a place like this.” She’s referring to Townsend Atelier, a school, gallery, and materials store on the second floor of The Arts Building that she operates with her husband, Stan.

“We bring people from all over the country to teach, and so we have people coming here from all over that want to learn from a particular artist. They all say, ‘What is this magical place?’” she says with a laugh. “We find ourselves in the role of being ambassadors for Chattanooga.”

Community ambassador is one role of many that Peggy and her husband Stan inhabit: they are artists themselves, as well as arts administrators, educators, entrepreneurs, and advocates.

The arts are elemental to the couple’s relationship in more ways than one: Peggy and Stan met more than 30 years ago at an event at the Hunter Museum of American Art where she was an employee there and he was an artist in residence. Their relationship continued through the Association for Visual Arts (AVA), where Peggy worked and which Stan helped found.

Peggy was also the first director of Public Art Chattanooga. Their shared passion for public art exemplifies ArtsBuild’s vision of more arts in more places for more people. While Stan’s paintings are in some of the city’s most prestigious collections, his work can also be seen in places and spaces that quite literally put Chattanooga on the map.

“We are both so proud to have been a part of some truly transformative projects in our city,” Peggy says. “Stan created public artwork for the Tennessee Aquarium Plaza—the first major public space in Chattanooga that integrated art into its overall design. I’ve had the pleasure of working on the art components for the 21st Century Waterfront Plan, the AT&T mural on MLK Blvd [“We Will Not Be Satisfied Until” by Meg Seligman], and the revitalization of Main Street.”

For the Townsends, art is not something that hangs on a wall or remains in a studio: it’s a way of connecting to the community around them, particularly where people of diverse backgrounds and interests come together. Perhaps no one understood that more deeply than their friend Ruth Holmberg, for whom the Arts Leadership Award is named.

“Being honored as recipients of the Arts Leadership Award is really overwhelming,” says Peggy. “We both worked with Ruth a lot. She was on my public art committee for years and she collected Stan’s artwork. We both knew what an incredible person and advocate for Chattanooga she was. She taught so many of us how cultural our city can be.”

Mrs. Holmberg’s early and steadfast devotion to the arts continues to inspire the Townsends’ work as artists and advocates, which they hope inspires others.

“I hear people all the time just talking about what a great place Chattanooga is,” Peggy says. “Certainly we are just a couple of people that have been involved, but our fingerprints are on a lot of the city. That’s really rewarding.”

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