Rise Up Chattanooga is a temporary sculpture combining ladders on loan from the community to represent how we come together to achieve our hopes and dreams. The goal is to collect 500 ladders that will be leaning on each other to climb toward the sky.
The sculpture is coming together at the Glass House Collective as part of Better Block. The art will remain on display until March 25th. Most of the ladders are on loan from businesses and individuals in the community and will be returned when the sculpture is taken down. For those ladders that were donated, Habitat for Humanity will find new homes for them.
The ladders build upon each other, held together with thick plastic ties. The ladders come in all shapes and sizes. Some are shiny metal pieces while others are well worn wooden ladders speckled with paint. There are tiny toy ladders, short step stools and industrial ladders scraping the sky. Charlie Brouwer keeps finding just the right place to connect them to build a strong wall around the grassy lot beside the Glass House Collective.
When you walk along the sculpture you see paper tags flapping in the wind. Each ladder has a tag with the name of the owner. Some people painted their ladders while others were just glad to get rid of an old ladder taking up space in the garage. You can see a list of the ladder lenders at the site of Rise Up Chattanooga.
There is still a need for more ladders. If you have a ladder to loan you can visit the Glass House Collective and Rise Up Chattanooga to lend your ladder for art until the last ladder is put in place at 4:00 PM Saturday February 23rd. Rise up Chattanooga will remain on display until March 25th. Once taken down, people will be able to reclaim their ladders and know that for one month they were part of something bigger in the community.
