For the Transcendental Arts Council (TAC), art is not just for hanging on the walls.
The 1996-formed artisans coalition takes art beyond its traditional uses to include the community, charity groups and artists in projects and events.
“Our theme is to change the way art works,” said David Heatwole, president and executive director of the TAC, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit, art-for-charity group officially organized in 1999. “There’s a great need for the community to utilize these talents in ways that go beyond hanging art on the wall.”
The TAC is a loose organization with a seven-member board from Northern Virginia and 15 artist members from the East Coast and Colorado. The artists in the group, which can include painters, sculptors, poets and musicians from across the nation, come up with ideas that the TAC turns into three-dimensional collaborative projects carried out by community members. The TAC aims to promote the arts through these projects. “You have to have it adopted by the community, or it’s nothing,” said Heatwole, a 32-year-old artist living in Brunswick, Md. “Through the art-making process, you’re opening people’s minds who normally wouldn’t be thinking artistically.”
THE TAC works on one major project a year, two smaller projects involving a community game or event and three to four exhibits held throughout the nation.
For each of the projects, the TAC brings people together who want to do something for their community, said TAC member Jamie Donaldson, owner of the Art House Gallery in Leesburg and a Leesburg resident. “It’s not just for artists. It’s for everybody to get involved,” he said.
Last month, the TAC created a half-acre artist’s rendition of a flower made out of panels that together formed a maze, the third in the Flowering of a Dream series that brought together students, businesses, politicians and charity groups.
Loudoun County students painted sheets with visual messages of peace, charity, kindness, love and friendship for Earth Day April 21 when the maze was on display at Franklin Park in Purcellville. The TAC encouraged businesses to sponsor the project and, in turn, donated the funds to several charity groups.
Loudoun municipalities signed proclamations for Art-for-Charity month when the maze was displayed, first designated in December 1998 and again in May 2000 and April 2002.
Heatwole said he “cringes” at the idea of a certain month being designated for the event. “It’s keeping people on their toes all the time. It’s exciting that way,” he said. “We always come up with something new.”
Donaldson agreed. “It’s a growing organization. It’s trying to reinvent itself with new ideas. It has a lot of energy involved with it,” he said.
THE TAC acts as a mediator and facilitator for the artists, markets their projects and works as a liaison between the artists and the community. The TAC markets new art forms, new inventions and new products that create entertainment while raising awareness and funds for charity groups and non-profit environmental interest groups. The symbol for the TAC is a gas mask, a wartime tool to save lives. “We’re showing how you can take anything … and give it a new life through art,” Heatwole said.
The TAC’s mission is to use creativity to solve large and small worldwide problems.
“It’s a creative mind bank of sorts. We all feed off of one another,” Heatwole said. “The artists involved are virtually undiscovered, but they’re great. These guys, there’s something about them that’s super unique. They’re not limited by one material. Their minds go in all different directions.”
The TAC aims to become an international peacemaking organization and “mind bank for the world,” Heatwole said, calling the organization “the United Nations of Artists.”
“Everything is an art. Politics is an art. Plumbing is an art,” Heatwole said. “The TAC is all the arts together but to assist artists and to assist these causes.”
“It’s a power that can change the world in a good way because it’s beauty,” said TAC member Yury Karabash of State College, Pa.