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Our Mission

The mission of The Arts Center of Cannon County is to foster and develop an environment in our community for discovering and preserving our traditions, encouraging creative expression, providing educational experiences, and enhancing the appreciation of artistic excellence.

 

The following central themes of our mission statement define our programming:

Foster and Develop

The Arts Center is the hub for local arts activity, supporting local artists by providing resources, technical assistance and over $50,000 in direct payments to artists (over 10% of total budget) in the past year. In addition, ACCC has an Estimated Annual Economic Impact on the community of approximately $1.5 million.

Encouraging Creative Expression

Traditionally, performances and exhibits make up the most popular elements of our programming, annually serving approximately 40,000 people from a 100 mile radius. 

Theatre- Since 1980 The Arts Center of Cannon County has set the standard for high quality community theatre from a rural perspective.  ACCC works hard to discover challenging new works that fit within the cultural context of our community. This has resulted in various premiers over the years including the Tennessee premiers of Foreigner, Art, 1st Baptist of Ivy Gap, and Mitch Albom’s Duck Hunter Shoots Angel and amateur premiers of Always Patsy Cline and Keep on the Sunny Side. 

 The Playhouse Series of locally produced productions features award-winning directors, designers, and performers from here at home and across the Mid-state. The past year included over 150 performances averaging 80% capacity. Upcoming offerings include the Tennessee premiers of Frankly My Dear, and Man of Constant Sorrow.

The Young at Art Series provides locally produced programming geared specifically towards students and families.

Music-Our live concerts strive to reflect the vast array of musical influences in our area, with various award-winning artists including several Grammy winners.

Visual Arts- With well over 200 professional artists in our service area, providing showcases, outlets and celebrations of our visual arts community is a vital part of our mission. National publications like American Style and Southern Living and major museums like the Smithsonian and Frist Center seek out local artists.

The Marly Berger Gallery features a wide selection of both arts and interpretive exhibits.

The White Oak Crafts Fair, now in its 20th year, features the best of local and regional quality crafts.

The Southern Visions Gallery provides a year-round retail outlet for local craft artists, authors, and musicians, as well as a “one stop shop” for works of local artists that tourists can use to plan studio visits.  The Arts Center also serves as the primary retail outlet for Spring Fed Records and publications of the Cannon County Historical Society.

The Cannon Cultural Museum Collection includes over 100 Cannon County white oak baskets and over 300 pieces of art produced by the southeast’s finest self-taught artists including Bessie Harvey, Raymond Coins, Jimmie Lee Sudduth, Burlon Craig, and Edgar Tolson. Items from this collection have been on loan to The Tennessee State Museum, Frist Center, and the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore.

Providing Educational Educational Experiences

Education is a central tenet of our mission as well as a founding principle. Through its vast array of programming the organization strives to transform itself from an arts center to a community center in the truest sense of the word. Our arts education program strives to enlighten all elements of our community. The following are important elements of our programming.

School Matinee Program provides educational programming for over 10,000 students annually from a seven county area. Utilizing volunteer adult and student performers, this unique program introduces students of all ages to what is many times their first formal arts experience.

Stage Page – These performance guides show our commitment to arts education and arts integrated classroom activities. Written and produced by our professional staff, these guides are designed to prepare students to experience the performance by cultivating interest in, providing insight into, and stimulating thoughtful and active response to the performance.

Summer Youth Conservatory Program - This ongoing summer program consists of three multi-week sessions of intensive theatrical training for students ages 6-18.

Preserving Our Traditions

Cannon County is a small rural community with an outstanding traditional arts heritage.  The long tradition of white oak basket and chair making has gained the attention of collectors and museums worldwide. Employing a full time folklorist, our traditional arts program is a statewide model.

Spring Fed Records- With a Grammy Award for John Work III: Recording Black Culture and feature articles in The New York Times, The Bangkok Post, and The Old-Time Herald, our in-house music label is building a national and international audience.  Since its inception in 2002, Spring Fed Records has focused on preservation through production, using field recordings and reissues of traditional recordings to build a catalog of 25 titles which have been reviewed by major national music publications. Sales have doubled each of the last three years, and with a brand new national distribution deal in place, growth is expected to continue. The upcoming year brings The Cedar Glades video project and a project featuring legendary bluegrass fiddler Howdy Forrester.

Heritage Tourism- ACCC acts as the local tourism welcome center connecting patrons/tourists with local artists and currently maintains and publishes a craft directory featuring over 150 artists within a 30 mile radius. Other projects include:

The Cannon County Rocking Chair Project creates a front porch “gallery” of different chair-makers and a guide to help provide local artists with both retail and wholesale opportunities. 

The innovative Uncle Dave Macon Driving Tour, uses low frequency AM radio transmitters along the route to provide interpretation of the life and music of the Grand Ole Opry Star.

The Cumberlands Craft Trail, a 200-mile self-guided driving tour featuring craft shops, galleries, and artists throughout the region.

Preservation-White Oak Timber Co-op is a non-invasive harvesting cooperative in which the ACCC executes a selective harvest of premium white oak timber. The co-op supplies traditional basket-makers with the raw materials they need to help continue one of Middle Tennessee’s most enduring traditional art forms. This program brings together each of the main themes of our mission statement and has single handedly rekindled the career of five local basket-makers.

With our facility serving visitors from all 50 states and six continents (no one yet from Antarctica), and our record label sending music all over the world The Arts Center is establishing a true worldwide audience.