Executive Director of the Jackson Arts Council

Story by Lyda Kay Ferree, The Southern Lifestyles Lady. Photography by Kristina Only.

Lizzie Emmons is a native West Tennessean from Dyersburg, Tennessee. Lizzie is a passionate advocate for the arts with experience in arts administration, graphic design, education, therapy, and both music performance and visual art. She is involved with various arts advocacy initiatives in Tennessee. Currently she serves on the Board of Directors for ArtsEd Tennessee and serves as the Board Secretary, and she is also the Vice-Chair for the City of Jackson’s Public Arts Commission. She has presented at many conferences on the benefits of the arts including the National Association for Multicultural Education’s Tennessee Conference, the Tennessee Disability Mega Conference, UT Martin’s ARTStanding, and the Tennessee Arts Academy. She is also a recent graduate of Leadership Jackson.

Lizzie has a Bachelor of Arts in Music and a Master of Science in Education, both from the University of Tennessee at Martin, and she is pursuing a certificate in Arts Management from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Prior to her role at the Jackson Arts Council, she served as the Programs and External Operations Coordinator for the Department of Music at UT Martin.

VIP: When were you named the Executive Director of the Jackson Arts Council (JAC)?

Lizzie Emmons: I became Executive Director in early August 2021. Prior to this, I served as Program and External Operations Coordinator for the Department of Music at UT-Martin, my alma mater. I was over all scheduling, programming events, marketing, and communications for the Department.

VIP: What are your chief duties as Executive Director of the JAC?

LE: A lot of what I do is help provide communications and marketing service for both JAC and the local arts groups. I am also in charge of grant writing and administering grant programs, fundraising and development, and arts programming for the JAC. I am the only full-time staff member with Tommy Rhoads as my excellent office manager, who assists with accounting duties, the calendar of events, and grant management.

I work with a board of directors to advance our goals. We also have an Arts Coalition for 54 leaders of arts groups in Madison County. We provide professional and personal development opportunities for them so they have the resources they need and may continue to grow. The Arts Coalition networks with each other and shares resources.

VIP: Is there a typical day in your office?

LE: My typical day usually begins with office work mostly related to the grant funding that we provide and the grant funding for which we are applying. We look for grants both to support our organization and grants we can get for our art and cultural community in this area. A lot of the work that I do has to do with arts community service and arts programming. I organize JAC board meetings, meet with arts groups, educators, elected officials, businesses, volunteers and the media to make sure we are connecting all of the arts and promoting our arts groups. Also, I spend a lot of the day collaborating with Tommy Rhoads in our office. He is so essential to what we do!

VIP: What do you most enjoy about your JAC work?

LE: I enjoy finding opportunities to make the arts more accessible and enjoyable to the people in our community. When I find new ways to promote great arts programming, when we receive grant funding to distribute to the arts groups to give them more money for what they do, that’s when I enjoy my work.
Our mission is to “Connect and Strengthen the Arts.” We are the designated arts agency for the Tennessee Arts Commission to distribute Arts Buildings Communities (ABC) grants for 8 counties: Chester, Decatur, Hardeman, Hardin, Haywood, Henderson, Madison, and McNairy Counties.We work hard to support this ongoing grant opportunity for our region.

VIP: What are some of the top projects you and your board are pursuing now?

LE: We already had Jackson Arts Council grants and ABC grants as annual grant offerings to our community. We have received $150,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts for American Rescues Plan Funding for COVID relief for the arts and culture sector. That money will go directly to the arts communities in our 8-county region. They may apply now on our website, 731arts.com. This is a great new opportunity for our arts groups and artists. With this grant, we will give four times as much grant funding as we typically do in one fiscal year.

We are also working on our new Jackson Art Box Program. This project will provide art supply boxes to the school counselors in the Jackson-Madison County School System. The counselors will use the art supplies to assist children in processing any difficult or traumatic experiences they have been through. The children may then take the box of art supplies home. We believe that this provides both a healing opportunity to our most vulnerable population, and it rids barriers to creating art by providing children with their own art supplies.

“The Jackson Arts Council is strengthening the community through arts and culture.”

— Lizzie Emmons, Executive Director, Jackson Arts Council

VIP: Tell me about your family.

LE: I am married to a musician—Jerry Emmons. We met at UT-Martin and have been married for four years. We are both musicians. I was playing bass guitar for fun (I’m a clarinetist!), and he was playing drums in the marching band when we started dating. He teaches at UT Martin and Lane College. My mom is a visual artist. I grew up with all forms of art. Jerry and I lived in Union City before relocating in Jackson.

VIP: What are your hobbies?

LE: I play instruments and paint. I also enjoy cooking, listening to podcasts, and drinking lots of coffee. (I actively seek out coffee shops everywhere I go!) We enjoy spoiling our two dogs, supporting local businesses, hiking, attending and participating in arts and cultural events, and traveling.