Buchanan Arts Center was established in 2021 by two co-founders, Alex Lockwood and John Donovan, as an open-access visual arts center in North Nashville. Their core mission is providing free after school programs to kids in the neighborhood and adult pottery classes to use art to build community. Virginia Griswold, executive director of the Buchanan Arts Center, said people are looking for outlet spaces to work and spaces to grow.

“Pottery is something that’s hard to do without access to a potter’s wheel or kiln,” she said. “We provide a place where that activity can happen. Pottery is also very therapeutic, that’s another thing that we feel like we give to the neighborhood and to the community. People who take classes with us, it’s like this opportunity to decompress at the end of the workday, come make something, meet people, and learn.”

She continues: “Nonprofit work is not for the faint of heart. We are constantly working toward achieving our goals in terms of growth and funding. We would not survive if it wasn’t for the great work of the volunteers and people from the community who come in to help make this place work every day. That is just the reality of the landscape of working in nonprofits right now. You have to really believe in it and I do, I believe in this. I know my life has been changed through art-making. I don’t know if I would have gotten through different points in my life if it wasn’t for that outlet, that ability to create something with my hands and with my eyes and communicate that way.”

Additional event opportunities in the next week:

Stephen Sanchez is at the Basement East and Live Jazz is at Vinyl Tap on Thursday night (Jan 8). Former WNXP Nashville Artist of the Month, Mon Rovia, is doing an in-store performance and signing of his new record Bloodline at Grimey’s on Friday (Jan 9).