We have deep history.
Rooted in the 37208, North Nashville is a cultural legacy.
STARTING AT
THE BEGINNING…
For some, the 37208 zip code is the Harlem of the south with 3 HBCUs and major black religious organizations including Fisk University, founded at the end of the Civil War to educate the children of enslaved Africans and their capturers. Now, the historic culture is being destroyed and the rich legacy woven by threads of tribulation is jeopardized by gentrification. In the tradition of black people in America and everywhere in the diaspora, the North Nashville Arts Coalition, a non-profit congregation of artists, is dedicated to supporting the arts and artists of North Nashville. .
Our dedicated professional artists and volunteer community members aim to provide space, education, and access to BIPOC artists with a connection to north Nashville. We will provide a permanent home for the arts in north Nashville and keep the art flowing in perpetuity. We operate largely through strategic partnerships with mission-driven organizations that share our vision of seeing black artists thrive in Nashville and have a voice in imagining and designing our future city.
In 2015, we introduced North Nashville to the world as a premier creative hub with the Jefferson Street Art Crawl.
The JSAC brought dozens of disenfranchised artists to an audience which resulted in both national opportunities and shows with major Tennessee institutions like the Frist Art Museum. We hosted monthly crawls up until the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The importance of JSAC really was the access it allowed for black artists and those new to the art world to have a safe space to curate, fellowship, and build career momentum as they gained valuable feedback on their work.
The JSAC, which later became North Nashville Arts Coalition, was created by culture bearers of North Nashville.
It started as all-volunteer curated event with an only in-kind donation with the understanding that this investment would be invaluable for black artists in north Nashville. The Jefferson Street Art Crawl formed a tree with many programmatic branches to support the development of black artists in north Nashville. The annual Portfolio Day was formed to give professional artists much-needed fellowship to offer critique and advice to one another.
The event drew artists such as Ashley Seay, a professional artist that took constructive criticism all the way to Best of Show at the 2021 Tennessee Arts and Crafts Festival! She among others has expressed how important JSAC and the programs it birthed are to their career, to them, and the community in which they live. This set the foundation for the community of artists that has become North Nashville Arts Coalitions and all our friends and partners.
