07/02/2025
We ❤️Allen…he was also with Area 61 Gallery’s from true beginning to end (2009-2025)
Repost from
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This is just a portion of our ninth article in a Vendor Profile Series intended to share the history and diversity of the Market through the stories of our vendors, as we celebrate our 25th Season.
It’s a spotlight on long-time vendor, Allen Hampton Art, written by journalist Barry Courter. The full article can be found at chattanoogamarket.com
As an artist, Allen Hampton likes to experiment and push himself to create something new, and the Chattanooga Market provides him the perfect test audience, as well as a steady income.
He says it’s been a great place to test new ideas.
Right now, “I’m experimenting with painting and have started bringing some pieces to the market to gauge reactions,” Hampton said. “It’s an incredible way to get feedback from the general public.”
Over the years, Allen, owner of Blue Light Studio, has worked in clay, metal and now paint, but his professional career didn’t start out in the arts.
After getting a degree in architecture from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 1980, Hampton took a year to travel Europe. After getting work in his chosen field, he quickly learned a desk job wasn’t for him.
He found a local pottery guild that allowed people to rent space and equipment, and he was soon spending his nights and weekends there.
“I was hooked,” Allen says.
When work slowed at the architecture firm, he was laid off and decided to dedicate himself into working in clay full time.
“I spent the first two years working out of my grandfather’s house and garage. When he passed away, I bought a small piece of land by a mountain stream on the edge of the Cherokee National Forest and built a home and studio from scratch. My wife, her daughter, and I lived there for 25 years. I was focused on clay for most of that time, but in 1998 I took a welding class at a vocational school and started exploring metalwork.” ...read more at chattanoogamarket.com
