The newly renovated city hall lobby seems the unlikeliest places for a richly colored rough & tumble wooden sculpture of a locomotive with a parking meter for a smoke stack—roped-off and prominently featured in front of the lobby’s extravagant stained glass window.  Terry Cannon donated the sculpture to the city for the Mayor’s Art of Change program – an initiative to reduce panhandling in Chattanooga.  

The program uses artistically dressed up parking meters located throughout downtown and the North Shore area to collect loose change from folk who are compelled to give to the homeless without the risk of perpetuating panhandling.  “The majority of panhandlers are not homeless,” explains Karen McMahon, director of the Art of Change Program.  To kick start the program’s public education campaign, Mayor Littlefield enlisted the help of Terry Cannon.

The program was inspired by similar initiatives in Denver and Baltimore.  However, as Ms. McMahon explains, “We wanted to have one of the meters produced by an artist to have prepared as a visual for when we addressed the public or spoke with donors.”

Cannon explains; “I had this existing train sculpture that was inspired by my boys.  It is typical of my sculptures—puttin’ a bunch of junk together, very impractical.”  So he re-purposed the piece for the Art of Change program.

For the city, the sculpture was a necessary ingredient for public buy–in.  “[We wanted] To show the public what was possible.  Take an ordinary object and make something interesting out of it,” Ms. McMahon said.  And so far so good.  The program has raised $12,000, respectively, and the funds are being used to help support numerous homeless agencies’ programs.

“For the foreseeable future,” said Ms. McMahon, “the sculpture will stay where it is.”