Tara Dugger, a visual artist and designer from Nashville, TN, intertwines visual art and fashion in her project, Angel's Echo. Drawing inspiration from her punk-influenced youth and a penchant for wanderlust, Dugger blends pseudo-sexuality with gritty industrial aesthetics, displaying a strong commitment to process, materialism, and avant-garde silhouettes.

Her roots in The Nations and Charlotte Park shape her DIY aesthetic, with a poignant connection to her father's early guitar repair business in the building now occupied by Random Sample. Dugger embraces the accessibility of upcycled materials, drawing parallels between West Nashville's blue-collar origins and its evolving identity during her lifetime. These full-circle moments manifest in circular motifs, chains, and earthy elements evident in her wearable fashion and collages.

Utilizing ink, paint, thread, metal, spray paint, fabric scraps, and natural elements like flowers and grass, Dugger's creations are a testament to her walks around The Nations and commitment to intentionality and waste reduction. Angel's Echo highlights her upcycled fashion, incorporating printmaking, sunlight photo transfers, exposure lamps, and painting.

Angel's Echo funnels sexual expression through motifs of female empowerment and domination. It colleges erotic magazines with other photographic and printmaking methods on recycled garments. It traverses barriers betweenartand fashion, made from her unique sensibilities. Dugger, who faces the challenges of living with an autoimmune disease, defies rules in her work. Dugger says, “Living with an autoimmune disease feels like you don’t have agency and control over your own body” and “with personal style, you regain some of that power to present yourself. Having less control over my body, medically, has freed me in other ways. "Not giving a fuck and feeling strong."

As she traverses interior and exterior terrains during her walks around The Nations and Nashville, Dugger not only discovers materials but also forges connections within her community of three decades. Herartreflects a hardcore-rooted sense of sex expression and place, capturing the essence of a city undergoing transformation and displacement, while her wanderings instill a profound sense of curiosity and connection to the community she calls home.