Kateri had always been an artist.
She had a stable living and a steady job before she found herself unhoused on the streets of Nashville. Though survival needs demand huge amounts of attention and time when homeless, her desire to create never went away. It took four long years to get back into an apartment; but she found a home even before she re-entered housing: Daybreak Arts.
“To me it was like opening the gates of heaven,” she said. “It was like having a home where you could create, obviously you don’t have a home [when you’re homeless], and you’re always having to carry everything that you have on your back. I called it carrying my closets with me.”
Though Kateri and the other artists she knew could make art at places like Room In The Inn, space and supplies were limited. Shelters are already providing so many services at once; adding an art studio on top of that is a big undertaking.
But for her and so many other Nashville creatives, the space to express oneself is not a luxury. It’s a necessary facet of self-care that predated and outlasted their episodes of homelessness; in fact, it was most crucial in those moments of crisis. That’s where Daybreaks Arts found its niche.
Daybreak, formerly Poverty and the Arts, is a nonprofit and art collective that provides tools, workshop space, and gallery exhibitions to a community of artists with lived experience in poverty and homelessness. Daybreak artists can directly showcase and sell their art in the community and connect with like-minded people, allowing them to make some income and cultivate a following doing what they love.
For founder Nicole Minyard, it’s always been about giving a voice to those who aren’t always heard. The concept for Daybreak began coming together as soon as she worked an art therapy internship at Room In The Inn; the very same space where she’d meet Kateri.
“I would see such talent from people in the art room, and people would ask me questions, like ‘How do I get my art in a coffee shop?’ or ‘How do I sell art on the street without a cop stopping me?’ because you have to have a street vendors’ license,” Nicole explained. “Recognizing that people experiencing homelessness were not only super talented and deserved the marketplace to share their art with the community, but also so many people experience income barriers due to physical and mental disabilities, all types of things.”
“Being able to leverage their creative talent to be able to earn income and gain some financial autonomy through their creative talent was part of why we filed for 501(c)(3) status my senior year of college. Then we received our nonprofit letter in July of 2014.”
Daybreak celebrated its 10-year anniversary this summer with an art showcase at the Drkmttr collective in June. Nicole secured Daybreaks’ nonprofit status only two months after she graduated from college, and in the decade since, it’s evolved beyond her wildest ambitions.
“I was a Religion and the Arts major at Belmont, I had no business, marketing or finance background; those are a lot of skills I’ve had to develop over the last 10 years, in addition to grant writing, strategic planning, all that,” she said.
“Early on, I had no idea where we were going, we were really led by the artists in our collective, just being in relationships with them and hearing their dreams and goals. We started off with just exhibiting and selling off original arts and we’ve expanded into reproductions, holiday cards, bulk sales, teaching artists, intellectual property licenses, live painting … really, based on their talents and gifts, we’ve been able to expand into the community.”
When it started, Daybreak was miniscule; the collective was three artists strong, its board consisted of Nicole and three volunteers, and it took years to secure enough funding to grow. These days, that board has grown to 14 members, with nearly 30 artists in the collective and three full-time staff members.
For founding artist Gwen Johnson, the chance to exhibit art to the community is exactly what she needed when poverty left her crestfallen.
“I had people call me from out of town, saying ‘you’re on TV,’” said Gwen Johnson. “They said, ‘wow, you’re a superstar!’ I’m like, ‘not yet!’ But I feel like a millionaire, though … [Nicole] gave us just what we were missing.”
After she lost her job due to illness, she was carjacked at gunpoint and left with nothing; to avoid time out on the streets, she’d spend all day in Room In The Inn’s art room and just create. When she met Nicole and the other founding artists at Daybreak, it was like a new beginning.
“We are a family. I had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, but when they met me, it’s like they shook it out of me by loving me so much. And Nicole — I’m always going to talk about how Nicole changed my life, because she was just a youngster,” Gwen said. “She just loved on us and opened up doors for us, and I’m just so grateful to be a part of this family. I’m just so grateful.”
Sam Fulks, another founding artist with Daybreak’s collective, stressed that the doors opened up by Daybreak were crucial for his and others’ recovery.
“We were living in tents when Nicole found us, so we came a long way, we found a home. Since 2015, we’ve been in a home,” Sam said. “I’m very blessed … I anticipate we’ll keep growing.”
He echoed Kateri and Gwen’s sentiments that Daybreak owes much of its success to the inherent sense of community, with artists developing a sense of symbiosis as they learn about one another and explore new mediums together.
“You got 15 or 20 other artists you kind of feed off of, everyone spurs everybody else on.”
Kateri said it was essential for a city to have accessible means of making art. While organizations that supply food and shelter are important, survival hinges on a person’s creativity, community and dignity just the same.
“It’s not just a program. She connected with us as human beings and as people. That’s the wonderful magic about this whole program,” Kateri said.
“When I became homeless, it was a totally different world for me. I saw that I was starting to withdraw within myself because you get rejected by people. You’re totally treated differently compared to the life I had before. I was still the same person and I couldn’t understand why I was being treated differently. You’re ignored and you become invisible. The great thing about being in this art program is you get to use your imagination; you have to use your imagination when you’re homeless, I found, to be able to survive.”
As for the future, Nicole is making plans to secure a larger, more permanent space to escape escalating rent prices as gentrification continues to encroach on Dickerson Pike, she said. The nonprofit also plans to implement a more robust curriculum of learning, culminating in graduation for those who “successfully transition into independent artists.” Daybreak alumni will be offered roles as mentors and teachers for newer artists in the collective.
In the meantime, she and the crew at Daybreak look forward to supporting more artists, and showing Nashville that everyone has something to give.
“Whenever they interacted with the community, it was as someone experiencing homelessness, or had things that they needed. Being able to create art and share it with the community has really flipped those power dynamics for them … they’re not just here to receive, they have things to give and contribute to the community.”