Cultural Vibrancy

The UrbanArt Commission aims to stir the artistic spirit of Memphis.

by

Even a global pandemic has done little to slow the creation of public art in Memphis. Sculptures, murals, and all manner of visual arts are found on neighborhood buildings and in big projects, such as the Renasant Convention Center. When the revamped Concourse B at Memphis International Airport opens in mid-2021, it will be chock-full of new art and design.

Thank the UrbanArt Commission for the explosion of art around town. For the past six years, Lauren Kennedy has been at the helm of the independent nonprofit that wants to enhance what it calls the cultural vibrancy of the city. And with ambitious goals, a desire to serve artists and communities, and even enduring a bit of political flak, she is bringing art to town.

Whether she knew it or not, Kennedy was on track to become the executive director of the UrbanArt Commission well before she accepted the post. She was and always has been devoted to the arts, particularly the visual arts, so it was hardly a surprise that she’d end up at the UAC. Still, it happened more quickly than she imagined.

She admits to being overwhelmed at first by the idea of taking on the job, but Kennedy is not someone who frets overlong about challenges. She far prefers to get things moving.

“I was at Ballet Memphis when the position became available, and I was enjoying my role,” she says. She was partnership manager there, which gave her invaluable experience working on collaborations with individuals and organizations. But she hungered to get back into the visual arts. “That’s my background, that’s my education and my passion,” she says. “Even when I was at the ballet, I ran this small gallery in my apartment that helped me keep my foot in there.”

The gallery was in a bedroom of her apartment at the time, and it served not only to keep her involved in the fine art scene, but to provide an intersection for artists from all over. “It was a way for me to convince some of my friends that lived around the country to throw art in their car and drive and come visit,” she says. “And then it spread through word of mouth and became almost like a speakeasy — there would be people coming through that I hadn’t met that heard about it from a friend, and there was something really cool in that as well.”

In her way, Kennedy was preparing for a full-time role in the visual arts. In 2008, she earned a bachelor’s degree in art history from Rhodes College, where she’d gotten involved in public arts projects. After graduation, she moved to Dallas to handle programming and project management at the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Art This Week video podcast, and the Dallas Art Fair. That work primed her to come back to town to work at Ballet Memphis, where she expanded her network and furthered her skills working with foundations and other nonprofits.

Then, at age 28, the opportunity opened up. A UAC board member, Russ Wigginton, urged her to apply. He’s held several staff and faculty positions at Rhodes College and had known Kennedy from the time she was a sophomore there.

“I’d never been at a director-level position, much less an executive director,” she says. But with her track record in development and programming, along with other contacts made along the way, she was offered the job in January 2015. She shared similar thoughts that the board had about what the UAC was and what it could be.

“It didn’t feel super active to me,” Kennedy says. “It felt more like something that I knew existed but not that I felt the presence of in a significant way. That was intriguing to me. How could my role in this organization feel like a bigger part of the art scene?”

In the late 1990s, the UrbanArt Commission got its start as part of ArtsMemphis, then called the Memphis Arts Council. Carissa Hussong, now executive director at the Metal Museum, was there at the beginning as director of the UAC.

“My support goes back to having been so involved in founding it and being there for the first 10 years,” Hussong says. “It’s close to my heart, the thing I want to see continue and to grow.”

Kennedy’s approach in bringing new ideas and methods has been encouraging to Hussong. “You look back and there are ideas that you had and things you wanted to do but the timing wasn’t right or the environment wasn’t there or the support wasn’t there for it,” says Hussong. “So, it’s great to see new people come in with fresh ideas and approaches. They’re able to make those things happen, but also the new ideas they’re able to bring that you hadn’t thought of. Lauren’s approach and her commitment has been really perfect for being a leader during this time.”

Kennedy says she and the board agreed that increasing the awareness and visibility of the UAC was paramount. “They were really specific about wanting to see the work grow beyond the City of Memphis’ Percent-for-Art program,” she says. Through that program, the city annually allocates a percentage of its capital improvement funds to public art projects. “That was really my charge when I started and I’m very proud to say I feel like we’ve done a lot in both of those spaces.”

With her deep interest in the area art scene, Kennedy already knew many artists, but she pushed further to seek out artists that the UAC had worked with and to understand their experiences. She also needed to quickly learn the dense process of making public art and to become even more familiar with the neighborhoods where the commission was working.

One important change for the UAC was to move its offices, which had been in what Kennedy calls “no-man’s-land” above Buster’s Liquors, at Poplar and Highland. Now it is ensconced across from Crosstown Concourse on Cleveland Street. “People see our sign and can pull up and park right in front of our door and walk into our space,” she says. “We’ve got this pizza-front storefront window that we call our Tiny Gallery where we do small shows.”

There was also what she calls a “brand lift.” “It’s not like a full facelift,” she explains, “but we amped up our graphics and all that, and launched a website that was a little bit more user-friendly, including some great tools like a map of public art around town.” The improvements are aimed at giving a clearer picture of what the commission does and generating further interest in what it’s doing.

It’s been important for Kennedy to make inroads into areas that can take the UAC beyond the city’s public art program. One such outreach has been into the architecture community, and she credits architect Mary Haizlip, chair of the board of directors, as being among those who have made introductions and started conversations. “It’s been really helpful in plugging into new developments and garnering more private business and contracts that have really helped expand our portfolio,” Kennedy says. Since she started at the UAC, that effort has generated more than $3 million in private project revenue beyond the city.

“That’s been hugely important,” she says, “not only for our visibility as an organization but, to be quite frank, our financial capacity. Every dollar in that total has also meant more opportunities for artists. There’s been a whole lot of work for us to grow as an organization, but I would say that it’s always, always been underlined about how we’re supporting artists and how we’re supporting and engaging the neighborhoods in which we’re making work. And that message has been important to garner the foundation support and drum up new business, because that’s always been a critical piece of why we’re trying to grow.”

“Public art is still a relatively new field in the larger arts field and still somewhat small. So it actually feels really accessible to be in conversation with people, and that has been super meaningful as the UrbanArt Commission has grown and shifted.” — Lauren Kennedy

“It’s one of the best organizations in the field, and we’ve gotten to work with them to provide training and resources for artists who are coming into mural-making for the first time through the two different iterations of our district mural program that we’ve done with the city. Because they’re so good at what they do, they also received some national funding to create the Mural Arts Institute where they’re finding ways to more strategically share their process and work.”

Memphis was one of three cities selected to participate in the institute and the UAC was ultimately chosen to lead a project through the institute’s art and environment initiative. “So we got to actually develop two mural projects with them in town — in Uptown and Frayser — that dealt with the intersection of public art and the environment,” says Kennedy. “And we’re able through some continued support from them to launch a series of conversations this past fall that actually took that a little bit further.” A recent series of talks from artists and environmental justice activists has resulted in submissions for a new round of projects. 

Another influential organization is Forecast Public Art in Minnesota, with which Kennedy has developed a good relationship. She has traveled and observed ideas from other organizations around the country, building a network and mining for fresh ideas. “It’s supportive because public art is still a relatively new field in the larger arts field and still somewhat small,” she says. “So it actually feels really accessible to be in conversation with people, and that has been super meaningful as the UrbanArt Commission has grown and shifted.”

One of the true tests of leadership and capability is how well one manages the political environment. Much of the money comes from public funds, so there is scrutiny from public officials on where it’s going. And then there’s the art, and that also can bring scrutiny from public officials.

“That’s been a really tough component of the job. I’m not going to lie,” Kennedy says. “We’re finding the opportunity and bringing people together who are creating it. But art is so subjective. And so when you’re making work in public spaces, it just follows that you’re certainly not going to be able to please everybody.”

That was the case in 2017 when some members of the Memphis City Council sought to pull funding from the UAC. Council member Joe Brown claimed the commission wasn’t spending enough on local or minority artists. Reflecting on that moment, Kennedy is the essence of diplomacy. “Some things in that represented a misunderstanding of how we function in terms of the committee process and how decisions are made,” she says, “but then there were also certainly truths in it as well, and people’s direct experiences. When you hear that kind of thing, the most important thing to do is to really listen and to understand that perspective.”

The pandemic of the last year has profoundly affected the normal course of doing things, and arts organizations have been hit especially hard. For the UAC, it was a matter of keeping the well-being of artists at the fore, and doubling down on projects.

“We immediately saw that the most important thing we could do was to keep our projects moving so we could keep paying artists for what they’re doing,” Kennedy says. “Thankfully, the major projects that we were working on weren’t shelved because of that economic uncertainty. Things kept moving forward in most cases, maybe some delays, but we were able to keep progress on track for most everything that we were working on from a capital project standpoint.”

But just maintaining the status quo was not an option for the UAC. “We thought about what else we could do,” she says. “One of the big strategic aims for us in the last few years has been to support different kinds of work in different kinds of spaces, and to think beyond the traditional mural and sculpture public art that is made. Ultimately we took $10,000 of our operating money and turned that into $500 project grants through the Bridging the Distance program.”

The program was designed for artists to respond to the pandemic with works about being connected and to allow those works to be quickly made and shared with the community. Most projects for the UAC are longer term and often complex, but this was a stripped-down process. The artworks could be easily delivered, the application was short, and the timeline was brief.

“We received a lot of great ideas and proposals and awarded 20 project grants with our widest range of disciplines represented ever, including short films and ceramics. It was very rewarding and exciting to get to fund that range of work and to support people that we usually don’t get to support through the traditional public art process.” The success of the program in May 2020 prompted a second round in August with more grants awarded.

As is happening with many organizations that have had to rethink processes due to the pandemic, the UAC will hang onto some of the ideas that have emerged. “We’re building this into our programming on a regular basis,” Kennedy says. “We’re just leaning into it and going to take it forward with us now. I don’t think that would have happened in the same way without covid because not only was it a response to supporting individual artists, but it was also us looking at virtual space as a different kind of public space, which is not really something we had considered. It’s not just about parks or community centers or murals on the sides of prominent buildings. It’s about creative experiences and shared spaces.”

The commission is also changing timelines where possible to get more money to artists, including the purchase of about $50,000 of studio art for the city’s public art collection to be shown in small galleries at library branches around town.

In her six years heading up the organization, Kennedy has managed growth and had to respond to change. She is continuing to keep her eye on the future to bring more public art to the area. The UAC recently moved to a bigger grant category with the Tennessee Arts Commission, which translates into some longer-term plans that now can be realized.

“It’s a very challenging job to do, and it takes a special person to do it. I’m just thrilled that Lauren is there and that she is really managing those different voices and needs so well.” — Carissa Hussong, Metal Museum director

“We’ll certainly see us playing more in this space of how we support multidisciplinary projects in different kinds of forms,” Kennedy says. “Not everybody wants to make sculptures or murals, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find a way to support that as a form of public art. I would love to also see us helping connect Memphis-based artists to opportunities in other cities as well. A huge part of our focus lately has been building up the folks in Memphis who are being supported by our work. And I would love to see some of these people that we’re working with for the first time, or working with more, for them to be able to take on some exciting projects in other places.”

One of the key developments that Kennedy is anticipating is a pilot program that would change the way the UAC identifies public art funding. “We can open up applications for neighborhoods, associations, organizations, and leaders to apply for public art funds for their communities, rather than basing it on where capital funds are being spent,” she says. “I’m really excited to see that grow and for us to continue to find ways for neighborhoods to drive and shape the work that’s made in their spaces.”

The strides that Kennedy has made in reshaping the UrbanArt Commission are appreciated by Hussong who, from the organization’s beginning, had hopes it would grow and thrive.

“It’s not an easy job,” Hussong says. “I think people assume that it is, but there’s so much that’s involved with working with the city council and the city administration, and also working with the community and needing to make sure that you meet all of these different goals and expectations. That can be a very challenging and sometimes thankless job, because there are just so many different points of view and so many different needs that public art is trying to address and so many different voices that need to be not just heard, but also incorporated into the final project, whatever it is.

“It’s a very challenging job to do,” she continues, “and it takes a special person to do it. I’m just thrilled that Lauren is there and that she is really managing those different voices and needs so well.”