2010 May Nashville Arts Magazine

Nashville Arts Magazine | May 2010

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Nashville Arts Magazine | May 2010

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Nashville Arts Magazine | May 2010

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spotlight Hannah Maxwell Wins Best of Show Fusion Art Festival

Saturday, April 10, Fusion Art Festival 2010 brought creative works of 46 visual artists to art enthusiasts across Middle Tennessee. The lively, juried art show benefited the Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation. This year, Fusion 10 exhibited artful creations of every kind with over 150 visual, film, and musical artists, fashion designers, photographers, and videographers, with live performances held at the Cannery Ballroom and adjoining Mercy Lounge venues. Hip, lively crowds of folks poured in all night long enjoying everything Fusion 10 had to offer.

Photo: pierre vreyen

Best of Show went to Hannah Maxwell for Watershed, a larger-than-life charcoal portrait of a woman. Natural beauty, femininity, and the origin of creativity recur as time-honored themes in Maxwell’s charcoal vignettes. A creative artist, wife, and mother of twin little girls, Hannah Maxwell lives in Bon Aqua, Tennessee.

Mixed Nuts Dinner Theatre In the hilarious production of Mixed Nuts, Michael Caldwell, a shy, aspiring, Midwest writer played by Flynt Foster, moves to the Big Apple in search of his dreams. The unpredictable residents living in his dilapidated apartment complex incite a series of comedic encounters. Johnny Peppers and 3Ps Productions present the comedy May 6–29 in the Back Stage theatre of Chaffin’s Barn Dinner Theatre, off Highway 100 in Nashville. Tickets are $20

One hundred percent of the proceeds from Fusion 2010 goes to The Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation and their annual Young Adult Cancer Survivor Retreat for cancer survivors ages 20–35.

and can be purchased at www.3psproductions.com

nashvillefusion.com

or call 615-646-9977, ext. 0.

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Miami John and Yoko and the World of Keith Herring

Myles Maillie Five-Fifteen Myles Maillie’s colorful and ubiquitous work adorns everything from buses and room-size murals to t-shirts and ties, making him one of Nashville’s most recognizable and enduring artists.

Although his style is energetic, often full of frivolity, his work is nevertheless articulate and well conceived.

Exhibition runs Saturday, May 15, 5:15 to 9 p.m. and Sunday, May 16, 1 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. Studio East Nashville, 1520 Woodland Street, Nashville, Tennessee 37206. 615-496-3499. info@studioeastnashville.com Nashville Arts Magazine | May 2010 | 12 12 | May 2010 | Nashville Arts Magazine

Couch Possums, Charcoal on plywood, 59” x 50”

Bite, Oil on linen, 42” x 48”

Denise Stewart-Sanabria Great art and great weather drew big crowds of Nashvillians to last month’s First Saturday Art Crawl. Inside The Arts Company there were people of a different kind: two-dimensional figurative works by contemporary artist Denise Stewart-Sanabria. These paintings are part of a larger oeuvre of life-like charcoal portraits she calls “plywood people.” Stewart-Sanabria has been taking her plywood people on the road and having fun showing them in several solo and group exhibitions. Most of the work at the ArtCrawl was from the abandoned photo album series the artist had at the Tennessee Arts Commission Gallery’s Skeletons in Closets.

Denise Stewart-Sanabria paints hyperrealist “portraits” of everything from jelly doughnuts to people. Stewart-Sanabria was born in Massachusetts and received her B.F.A. in Painting from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She currently lives in Knoxville, TN.

2010 International Vision Strength and Arts Festival

Never before has a Tennessee performer or performing group been selected to participate in the International VSA arts Festival, until now.

Local group Lake Rise Place has been selected as one of the twenty-eight performers from around the world to perform at the festival on June 6, 2010, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. Lake Rise Place is a jazz trio composed of three teenagers from middle Tennessee. Elliott McClain, a keyboard player and vocalist from Mt. Juliet, is a sophomore at the Tennessee School for the Blind. Christian Kissinger, the founder of the group and a drummer from Gallatin, is a freshman at Merrol Hyde Magnet School. Caleb Shown, a bassist from Hendersonville, is a freshman at Merrol Hyde Magnet School. The group will serve as the featured act at a VSA arts Tennessee performance on Monday, May 24, 2010, at 7 p.m. at the Ryman Auditorium. Tickets are $10 and all proceeds will be used to cover the trio’s travel expenses to Washington, D.C., to represent Tennessee at the International Festival.

VSA arts is an international nonprofit organization founded thirty-five years ago to create a society where people with disabilities learn through, participate in, and enjoy the arts. www.vsaartstennessee.org Nashville Arts Magazine | May 2010

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spotlight Dawn Whitelaw Richland Fine Art

Local artist Dawn Whitelaw was commissioned by the venerable New York City Players Club to paint the portrait of recent Hall of Fame inductee Fredric March. Over the last several years Dawn has painted for the Club five pieces that hang in their permanent collection. Her subjects have included Bette Davis, Jose Ferrer, and Judy Collins.

The Players Club was founded in 1889 by the famed actor Edwin Booth. In 1962 The Players Club House was designated a National Historic Landmark. Past and Present Players include John Barrymore, James Cagney, Morgan Freeman, Helen Hayes, Ernest Hemingway, Norman Rockwell, Frank Sinatra, Mark Twain, and John Singer Sargent.

Dawn Whitelaw maintains a studio at The Factory in Franklin where she conducts workshops with colleagues from Alla Prima International and the Cumberland Society of Painters. For over 25 years she taught basic principles of oil painting as an adjunct instructor at David Lipscomb University. She credits the community of teachers and students around her for both her success and growth as an artist. Among her influential teachers are Scott Christensen, Cedric Egeli, and Jim Pollard, and nationally preeminent artist Everett Raymond Kinstler.

Richland Fine Art, 615-292-2781. www.dawnwhitelaw.com

Cheekwood Celebrates Fifty Years May and June will be busy months at Cheekwood Botanical Gardens and Museum. Beginning May 25, Chihuly at Cheekwood will run through October 31. Visitors will be transported by Chihuly’s magnificent glass forms, which will include a 30-foot-tall neon sculpture located in the Herb Garden, a Sun composed of a 15-foot-tall yellow radiant orb, a mille fiori glass garden in the reflection pool, as well as chandelier installations housed in the museum and a 20-foot-long boat designed specifically for the location.

To celebrate the illuminated glassworks, Cheekwood will extend its hours for the duration of the exhibit. The gardens will remain open on Thursday and Friday evenings until 10 p.m. from May 27 through August and until 9 p.m. in September and October. Cheekwood Vice President for Collections and Programs, Allison Reid, exclaims, “We’re delighted to present the work of Dale Chihuly throughout the botanical garden and the Museum of Art. Visitors will witness a show in which thousands of his hand-blown glass elements and Cheekwood’s landscape will stretch their imaginations and offer a new way of experiencing plants and art.”

Photo: Terry Rishel

Throughout the year, Cheekwood has celebrated its 50th anniversary with various delights for art enthusiasts.

May is no exception. While enjoying Chihuly glassworks, visitors will have the opportunity to encounter an interesting relic of our nation’s history. Cheekwood will display the treasured Jefferson Goblet which is currently on loan to the museum in its Silver Library. This goblet was commissioned by Jefferson in Paris during his final months in the capitol in 1789—the year of the French Revolution. A favorite among the Jefferson household at Monticello, the goblet will provide an interesting piece of history to be savored by guests of all ages. For more information visit www.cheekwood.org or call 615-356-8000.

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spotlight left:

Waiting for Scotland

Surrealist Painter Jeff Faust Jeff Faust, a California-based painter whose distinct painting style has become popular with Nashville art collectors, will return to Nashville for a solo show of new works this month at Gallery One. An Opening Reception for Faust will be held at Gallery One Friday, May 14, from 6 to 8 p.m. The exhibition runs through the middle of June.

Faust took a circuitous route before embarking on a decades-long career in painting.

He hitchhiked across the country, lived in England for a short time, and even joined a carnival.

Over time, Faust developed his own style of painting—a style he describes today as “subtle surrealism” or “visual forms of the written word.” His acrylic-on-canvas paintings often feature odd juxtapositions—a combination of clouds, ropes, leaves, eggs, and other objects—and settings that hint at some form of narrative. Faust admits to having a fascination and love for simple images. “I tend to want to retreat to a simple view, and I get strength in that. There’s nothing loud in my work. Life is so loud these days. We’re bombarded with loud music and loud images and loud people. I’m trying to create these windows I can look at in order to re-center myself.” Gallery One is located at 5133 Harding Pike in the Belle Meade Galleria. For more information call 615-352-3006. www.galleryone.biz

U-Ram Choe At the Frist This is an exhibit not to be missed. If you haven’t seen it yet, don’t walk— run! Even though the show has been up since mid February, people can’t stop talking about the mesmerizing sculptures by kinetic artist U-Ram Choe from Seoul, Korea. Mimicking organic creatures and flowers, these moving metal-and-light sculptures are exceptional. Their fine workmanship leads you to believe they really are alive. The life-like forms are set to timers to “awaken” and “sleep,” offering viewers an unparalleled visual delight by the way they contract and expand.

On view now through May 16, 2010 at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts are seven of U-Ram Choe’s kinetic sculptures. www.fristcenter.org

Simon Ripley’s Simon Ripley’s Music and Art kicked off a four-week-long grand opening celebration with multi-media artist and MuzikMafia performer Rachel Kice. Guests were entertained with a live performance by Kice who painted to cheerful rhythm that filled the cozy space on 8th Avenue. Original music resonated from a grand piano played by the store’s owner, John Ripley, along with Ruben Gonzalez on vintage Slingerland drums.

Photo: Anthony Scarlati

Throwing vibrant acrylic colors onto canvas, the painter’s work took shape as an abstract rendition of the music played. The painting was then sold to a collector. Kice has built a name for herself through joining forces with recording artists and was recently signed to a major record label.

Following this event were three weeks of additional receptions exhibiting the paintings by Marleen De Waele-De Bock, Greg Decker, and Ray Stephenson and the sculptures of Brenda Stein and Twisted Sisters. Simon Ripley’s is a unique experience in music and art. www.simonripleys.com 16 | May 2010 | Nashville Arts Magazine

spotlight Gwyneth’s Iconic Pad It takes a pretty special place to satisfy a movie star, her rock star husband, their children, and the entourage necessary for working international stars. So many choices, so little time. A mere home? Too pedestrian. A McMansion? Not quite Mr. and Mrs. Coldplay’s style. So the Martins took up residence at The Icon in a penthouse. In fact, it was customized to their particular needs and tastes. Their staff occupied several other units in the building. Ms. Paltrow requested only a claw-foot tub in the master bath and a Viking stove for cooking family dinners.

Size does not equal fabulous. In this pied-à-terre in the sky, the amazing views from this penthouse equal any international skyline. Exquisitely placed in all living areas, these views allow sheets of natural light to wash over the incredible contemporary design.

Clean lines, cork floors over concrete, and a complete sense of privacy fill this residence. Bathrooms are sleek and luxurious and provide plenty of discreet storage space. Did I mention the spectacular views?

Overlooking the ninth-floor pool, palazzo, and elegant entertaining areas, the penthouse provides a bird’s-eye view of Nashville and beyond. Fire pits, two fitness areas, a courtyard pool with Zen-like water features, and a pool table complete the entertainment floor, accessible only by key card. Another pool is located on the fourth floor.

With over 50% occupancy, a neighborly atmosphere exists at The Icon, along with efficient, 24-hour concierge services. A parking garage with controlled access provides safety for residents and guests.

In the lobby, an impressive two-story art installation created by Jeff Hager complements contemporary seating areas. Backlit onyx walls flank high-speed elevators, which also contain a TV for the latest headlines.

The Icon is 22 stories, offering unobstructed views of the city, oneand two-bedroom units with urban living floor plans, and open loft layouts. To learn more about The Icon contact Ashlyn Heinz with the Bristol Development Group at 615-579-7423.

Photos: Brian meneguzzi

As one of Nashville’s hippest urban neighborhoods, The Gulch offers residential living, retail shops, and restaurants. It is just minutes from entertainment venues The Station Inn, 12th & Porter, and Mercy Lounge. Nashville’s burgeoning art district, Midtown nightlife, and downtown watering holes are just five minutes away.

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on the horizon

Hillsboro High School Experiments in Creativity

by Lindsey Victoria Thompson | photography by Anthony Scarlati At Hillsboro High School, those students interested in a particularly challenging and rigorous curriculum have the option to follow the International Baccalaureate (IB) system, an internationally recognized educational path. While in the IB program, students are given the opportunity to take advanced and personalized courses in both academic classes and creative classes.

Seniors Erik Doty, Juliana Horner, and Lauren Taylor are three of Hillsboro’s students who have flourished in the arts under this international educational opportunity—in part due to the unique nature of the program and in part due to their veteran teacher Ms. Marti Profitt-Streuli, whom all three name as a major inspiration for their works.

Erik Doty Photographer Erik Doty has made it his personal mission to never stop changing and finding new ways to spend his time and make his art. “I get so sick of seeing all the other photography that looked so much the same,” he said.

“I want to make stuff that I hadn’t seen before.” However, his constant evolution from one project to the next is not always simple or unproblematic. “[It becomes] harder and harder as you get further and further in your art to come up with new ideas,” said Doty.

Despite the fact that every piece Doty creates is different from the last, the recurring theme throughout his works relates to the city. Oftentimes, Doty can be seen roaming the streets of downtown Nashville searching for new inspirations.

The complex structures and intricate lines from downtown Nashville’s many buildings and bridges eventually led Doty to the montage style that he works with.

In many ways, Doty says that the urban art form of graffiti has directly influenced his work. “The main thing with graffiti is that you can’t copy anyone else,” he said. By playing with light in his photographs, Doty has even created images that are meant to be reminiscent of the graffiti style.

Doty’s works are usually montages or patchworks, a style that he was originally driven to create so that he could see an entire structure in one space. By showing a structure from multiple angles and in different lights, Doty says that he is able to show the entire building in a singular image.

After graduating from high school, Doty, also an extreme sports and bicycling enthusiast, plans to pack his bike and head to Colorado. Although he does not know many people in the area or have cemented plans for the next several years of his life, Doty notes that this is in keeping with his commitment to trying new things. “If you think about it too much, it takes the fun out of it,” Doty said. “I like spontaneous stuff.”

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said. Ultimately Horner says that she tries to be objective when making her pieces so that she can show what feminism is without taking a stance for or against it.

Juliana Horner Aspiring fashion designer Juliana Horner’s life has been a compilation of romances. “I’ve always loved fashion. I love girly, cute things.

I love Japanese toys. I love femininity,” she said. “I literally just love making things that are beautiful.”

Next year, Horner plans to continue with a higher education in fashion design, most likely at one of the schools she was accepted to in or around New York City, a challenge that Horner is convinced she can conquer because of her experiences with Hillsboro’s art program. “[The program] is so selfguided,” she said. “You have to figure out for yourself what you’re really interested in and what you want to accomplish as an artist, and it’s helped me to find things out about myself that I didn’t know before.”

As the daughter of an artist and textile designer, Horner has thrived in a creative environment for her entire life. Horner cites her mother as her greatest influence and has worked as her mother’s assistant.

The two have designed textiles and garments collaboratively.

Horner describes her clothes as full of life, inserting exciting colors whenever possible, something she said eventually became a minor issue. An addiction to color, Horner said, resulted in overworked pieces, but she has learned to “use colors more intentionally.”

Horner’s love for clothing and fashion has culminated in a concentration of works inspired by the concept of the role of femininity in modern society and “defining what is feminine.” Initially, Horner said that she rejected the label of a feminist because she “regarded it as something for man-haters,” but as she did more research on the subject, she was impressed and moved by what she found. “The outstanding statement of feminism is equality between women and men, and there is still a gender gap that is relevant,” she Nashville Arts Magazine | May 2010

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For Terranova, painting is like “dancing with your heart in your hands around the universe.” He employs some nontraditional “paints” such as coffee and red wine in his pieces and sometimes slashes and sews the canvas back together again. The work takes on a more multi-media, physical form.

“In terms of the process, using coffee and wine as pigments or something that seems like ink, the substance is more powerful. I remember as a child when coffee would spill and stain. You see the mark of the glass and the patterns it created. It started having a different meaning for me.

I wanted to transform the canvas instead of just painting the surface; it became more of a construction than painting as a typical painter. It has a spatial transformation. I sometimes stretch the canvas, cut it, remove the stretching bars, sew it, and restretch it. When I sew it back together it’s never the same. It’s never what you expect.

above: Displaced Dwelling, 2008, 74” x 72” Coffee, wine, oil, resin and hand stitching on canvas below: Absence, 2009, 74” x 72” Coffee, wine, resin, oil and hand stitching on canvas

Terranova begins every day as the sun rises and goes for a morning swim. “Coming back to my studio, I’m trying to catch something that’s inspirational. Or maybe just a crack in the sidewalk—it’s about being observant on the way. The moment you wake up you should start seeing different things. It’s a continuous way of looking at things. I notice the corners of sidewalks, the textures of the pavement and colors of a rusted sign. The mind takes those images and internalizes them into architecture or art . . . Every day is dynamic; it is never the same.

Each day has a fluidity; it never bores me.”

As a youth in Colombia, Terranova made his own playthings, sewing and stitching together kites and building toys. His parents encouraged him in his artistic pursuits. “It’s like if you really like that and you love it and you work at it, you can do it. There was never any criticism.”

His mother now lives in New Jersey, and the two relate often about art and dreams. His father and the rest of his family remain in Colombia.

Terranova’s work has been shown throughout the United States, Italy, Spain, Austria, Sweden, and Argentina but has yet to be shown in his native land. “Sometimes we have to really get away from our own center to really get noticed.”

Although Terranova loves New York City and says he can’t imagine living anywhere else, Colombia still deeply informs his work. One of Terranova’s current projects is Disappeared and Vanished, based on the socio-political themes of the “disappeared” in his native country of Colombia where “tens of thousands of people have been kidnapped,

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above left: The Word Dreamer, 2008, 60” x 48”, Coffee, gold leaf, wine, oil and hand stitching on canvas

tortured, killed, or simply vanished.” But Disappeared and Vanished also reaches out to other world communities, with the aim of forming a collective memory. Along with the Colombian coffee that Terranova employs in his work, he sometimes also uses gold “as a contrast with these humble materials—taking something so mundane and making something ordinary very extraordinary. Gold is [also] a Colombian tradition, the gold leaf. You could say I’m a messenger for that tradition and culture, to continue it. The power of gold and the humbleness of thread, bringing this all together is very meaningful for me.”

above: Vessel, 2007, 58” x 36” Coffee, gold leaf, oil and hand stitching on canvas below: Golden Disk, 2010, 2009, 48” x 48” Coffee, wine, gold, oil and hand stitching on canvas bottom:

Batea, 2008, 48” x 48” Coffee, wine, gold leaf, oil and hand stitching on canvas

Another current project is Memory and Dreams. Terranova says, “I dream a lot, and dreams are very powerful. They are parallels to what’s going on in our lives and our universe, and I wanted to transform that into my paintings. It’s very important for me and to keep me alive to go into my subconscious to dream and to make others dream.” In Homo Faber, which means, “man who creates his own destiny,” Terranova collected tree branches from Central Park to integrate into the work. He then literally walked on the canvas, first with both full feet, and with each step placing less of his foot until just the toes are seen, creating a vision of taking flight. “It makes you feel like flying, and the freedom is in the transformation.”

Terranova’s work, and even the way he speaks, is a sensual experience.

“I think this comes back to the Egyptians, where high reliefs are not actually three-dimensional, but the surface plays with shadows.

There’s this line between three- and two-dimensional that I play with.

[At my shows] people get so close, and, while they don’t touch it, they feel the threads, and they smell the material, which is wonderful when the paintings are fresh. They elicit an aroma. People have actually said ‘that smells like coffee!’”

Terranova said Nashville and the Nashville art community hold a special place among his travels. “I curated my own show in Nashville.

It was really wonderful because people were so engaged at the night of the opening. The whole night I had people coming and asking me questions. It’s different from New York City where people come, say ‘oh it’s great,’ and leave. In Nashville, people really wanted to know the stories and ‘tell me about the title.’ You can only have that feeling when you’re physically in the gallery with people.”

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“My work elicits an aroma.

People have actually said ‘that smells like coffee!’ ” top left:

above right:

Untitled, 2007, 48” x 48”Coffee, wine, gold leaf, oil and hand stitching on canvas

Nocturnal Dream, 2008, 48” x 60” Coffee, gold leaf, wine, resin, oil and hand stitching on canvas

below:

Reveries, 2007, 48” x 48” Coffee, gold leaf, oil and hand stitching on canvas

bottom left: Voices, 2008, 48” x 48” Coffee, wine, gold leaf, oil, resin and

hand stitching on canvas

What’s in store for the future works of Terranova? Burial.

Literally. “Right now I cure and protect the coffee and wine with all organic varnishes. In the future I want to make [more paintings] without curing them and literally bury them and pull them up five years later. Sometimes the varnishes make the coffee behave differently.

Sometimes I use resin, which protects but also reflects.”

Terranova hopes those who experience his work will remember not only his creations but also those who inspired them. “Together we seek signs from those we thought to have ended in the junk pile of history.

Together we find them at once, breathless and immortal. Through the medium of ghostly grids, I share with the viewer my private turmoil. The materials I employ evoke an elegant yet eloquent universal call of remembrance to the disappeared.”

Eduardo Terranova is represented by Tinney Contemporary gallery.

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photography

Jack Spencer The Illusionist

by Currie Alexander Powers

Jack Spencer’s photographs make me weak in the knees.

They glow. They have mystery. There’s a depth of texture that can transport you from a chaotic world into his soft, dusty one. The subjects speak in whispers. They have stories.

Using glazes, distressing, and digital manipulation, Spencer creates images that are breathtaking, eerie, entrancing. You could say he paints with film.

I first saw Jack Spencer’s photographs while researching photographic techniques for a novel I was writing. I pulled a book at random from the library shelf, turned a page and saw Man with Fish. I nearly fell off my chair. Art can do that to you.

He is more than a man with a camera. Something ethereal and dark lives in his brain. He has a kind of X-ray vision mere mortals do not—the ability to see inside an image to its viscera, its skeleton.

And he has been very successful at it. His photographs are in permanent collections at the Berkeley Museum of Art, the Tennessee State Museum, and Sir Elton John’s own personal photo cellar. He has exhibited in galleries in just about every state that has a pulse in this country, from Illinois to Florida, California to South Carolina. Each of his series, which mark distinct phases in his career, chronicles where his heart has been, where his eye has led him: Native Soil, Apariciones, This Land, Gestures & Portraits, Flores, and his recent beach photographs, a foray into cleaner, watercolor-inspired images of St. Augustine, Florida. There is diversity in his subjects, but continuity runs through them all, an unmistakable passion for his subject and fearlessness for what he sees.

Born in Kosciusko, Mississippi (birthplace of Oprah Winfrey and harmonica great Charlie Musselwhite), Spencer grew up in Louisiana, attended university, then launched into his life as a traveler, playing music with slide virtuoso Sonny Landreth (whose album Levee Town featured Spencer’s photographs and was nominated for a Grammy for best album design), combing the wheat fields, trolling the streams, letting America soak into his eye.

He is an intimidating presence; a large man with a deep-throated rattle of a voice, irreverent, funny, erudite, eloquent, and likely to drop the F-bomb with equal aplomb. The photographs are largerthan-life. Literally. Many are mounted on twenty-by-thirty or larger formats. Nothing can prepare you for seeing them in person. They consume your entire scope of vision, draw you in, hold you there, sculpt you, rearrange your cells, and alter the way your heart beats. www.JackSpencer.com

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photo Jerry Atnip

“Everything you do as an artist is self-expression.

Maybe you’re expressing your disgust or your pain or your anger. But at the same time I think that all photographs are self-portraits. ”

“I like the idea of not being able to decide whether a photograph is the present or the past. It creates a mood and a mystery that invites the viewer to climb in, to make their own stories up.�

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“I think an artist should have visible growth rings.

If you don’t want to take any chances, I don’t think that’s a very viable way to be an artist.”

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“There’s something that we’re seeing that other people are not. I’m not saying we’re special, but I’m saying there’s a strange alchemy that happens—where things are manifested. There are probably a million people who have typewriters, but not all of them can write Grapes of Wrath.”

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“Photography is a very strange process. It puzzles me. I don’t think about it; I don’t try to figure it out. I think if you did, you’d be screwed at that point. You just do it.”

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Shu Kubo

Kirie Comes Alive

by Deborah Walden Both a traditionalist and a trailblazer,

Shu Kubo has famously revived a centuries-old tradition through the art of Kirie or paper-cutting. Nashville Arts Magazine had the good fortune to sit down with Shu Kubo over cakes and tea in the intimate setting of the Japanese Consulate’s home.

We later followed Shu Kubo to a small class downtown where he instructed a group of eager students in the art of Kirie.

Upon meeting Shu Kubo, it would be easy to guess that he is a professional artist. From his bold yet subtle attire to his tousled hair, he commands an aesthetic presence. Since the artist does not speak English, his translator, Sara Ogawa, acted as a liaison for our conversation. Language barrier aside, the artist’s excited gestures and expressive manner went beyond words to convey his passion for his work.

“I like to observe the scenery in nature.

When I look at it, it moves me.”

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literature

Jennie Fields

“I was thrilled!” Fields told me. “I couldn’t sleep that night. The serendipity of having just been to Wharton’s house and then having this fall in my lap was too perfect.”

The Age of Ecstasy

by Sally Schloss

in the historic Faubourg SaintGermain on the street where her favorite writer, Edith Wharton, had once lived. During that walk she had no idea that the life of Wharton would consume her own for the next three years. Arriving back at her hotel she picked up a phone message from her literary agent in New York, Lisa Bankoff. “I have an idea for you,” Bankoff said when Fields reached her. “How would you like to write a novel about Edith Wharton?”

When Fields smiles, she smiles with her whole face, like a little kid.

She has warm dark brown hair, bobbed to the length of her chin, and intelligent, observant eyes. Jennie Fields doesn’t miss a thing, much like Wharton, who has become her muse.

Jennie Fields was in Paris walking

As we sat together in her cheerful writing room—a converted sun porch—we discussed Fields’ work-in-progress, The Age of Ecstasy, to be published this fall by Viking. Noticeably absent from this workspace was a desk and piles of books and papers. Fields’ preferred writing place is in her comfy, upholstered chair, legs up on an ottoman, with her computer on her lap. She writes for two to three hours every day, producing at least five pages. To date, the manuscript is over four hundred pages.

After having published three previous books—Lily Beach, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, and The Middle Ages— Fields had not yet caught fire with a new idea for her next novel. Confessing this to her agent resulted in the suggestion that became the genesis of a research and writing journey that has lasted close to three years and has changed her life. The first eighty pages sold the book. She was given a healthy advance, allowing her to quit her advertising job at McCann Erickson in New York City and move in with her Nashville-based husband, ending her ten-year commute. For the first time in her life, Fields was a full-time writer.

The experience of this book, as she put it, has been magical. Another perfectly timed circumstance offered up a rare opportunity.

Photo: Anthony Scarlati

“One night, I’m in my nightgown at my computer, and I had just entered Edith Wharton in a Google search, when I see that Christie’s is going to auction off letters that Edith had written to her lifelong companion, governess, and secretary Anna Bahlmann. I’d already identified Anna as my other main character, though she’d barely been mentioned in Edith s autobiography, or in any of the Wharton biographies. These letters had been in an attic for one hundred years and had never been seen by anybody!

“I called up Chris Coover, senior vice president and specialist in manuscripts at Christie’s, who is a wonderful man, and he said, ‘If you want to come see the letters before they sell, I’ll be happy to set you up at a table so you can read them.’”

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antiques

Appraise It

by Linda Dyer | photography by Jerry Atnip

Polynesian Adze Handle

Cook Islands, Mangaia, third quarter 19th century, length 24 inches.

One of the aspects of dealing with “things” is the wonderment of how they get from point A to point B. Case in point, this Polynesian Island adze handle was found just off I-65 North, Exit 53 in Cave City, Kentucky, at an estate auction for the sum of $65. This Mangaian adze handle, from the southernmost island of the Cook Islands, is decoratively carved with the characteristic K motif, the symbol of Tane-mata-ariki, the god of the craftsmen.

The making of these adzes required judgment, experience, and skill. The adze maker was a taunga (expert), who enjoyed a position of social and economic importance. Persons requiring tools consulted a taunga, and on his consent they procured the stone, fed the expert during the period of work, and paid with presents of food and cloth after the work was completed.

After the Mangaians abandoned carving tools made from bone, shell, stone, or teeth and stopped using stone-bladed adzes in favor of European-supplied metal implements, they continued to create post-contact adzes for the tourist trade. The demand for these souvenirs was created by European sailors and missionaries. The newly made hafts were fitted with abandoned pre-contact stone blades of basalt or calcite. The stone adze heads were then lashed to the hafts with very finely braided plant fiber wound in traditionally significant patterns. The production of these adzes ceased in the early twentieth century due to the diminishing supply of suitable stone adze blades.

Even in its incomplete state, this mesmerizing crafted, chip-carved, and pierced wooden adze handle would be expected to fetch $1400 to $1800 at auction.

Bronze Image of the Deity Ganesha India, late 19th–early 20th century.

Ganesha, the elephant-headed Hindu deity, was the son of Shiva and his consort Parvati. Since the fourth century, Ganesha has been humanized in many guises as the god of benevolence. Ganesha is believed to be the pitcher of prosperity, the remover of obstacles, the lord of beginnings, and the bestower of good fortune, prosperity, and health. He is perhaps the most popular God in the Hindu pantheon, for he is considered the most accessible. Ganesha may be invoked by anyone to intercede on their behalf without an intermediary. The most democratic of deities, Ganesha is a symbol of tolerance and is well loved because he has no forbidding aspects, only enduring ones.

This handsome bronze sculpture shows a seated Ganesha endowed with his usual prominent belly and incised “jeweled” ornamentation symbolizing his noble masculine strength. The serpent draped across his shoulder and across his abdomen is representative of the vast energy field of the universe. The rosary in his hand suggests that the pursuit of knowledge should be continuous. Among his many other attributes is the mouse. Some devotees of Hinduism believe the mouse represents a thief who roams the darkness of the subconscious desires, gnawing at the tranquility of the inner self. Ganesha’s supremacy over his mouse symbolizes the conquest of egoism and the self-annihilating power of desire.

Should you be so fortunate as to find an image of Ganesha of this quality and age, a fair market price would be $200.

64 | May 2010 | Nashville Arts Magazine

theatre

Actors Bridge Ensemble

Theatre for a New Nashville

by Jim Reyland

“The fastest way to innovative theatre: take the Bridge.”

“We value an ensemble approach to all projects because we believe a community of artists working collaboratively provides for a richer, more fully developed product and allows for a community of good ideas to coexist.”

– Vali Forrister, producing artistic director Actors Bridge Ensemble New York actor and teacher Bill Feehely came to Nashville to tame the music business in 1994. He landed at Belmont teaching the first Meisner Technique acting class ever in Music City. Calling his class Actors Bridge, Feehely wanted to build a bridge between the fast-paced theatre arts of New York City and his new home in Nashville. In 1995, using his teaching as its foundation, Feehely and Vali Forrister cofounded Actors Bridge Ensemble.

left:

Ordinary Heroes Bill Feehely and Vali Forrister at Belmont’s Troutt Theatre below: The grrrls of Act Like a GRRRL

68 | May 2010 | Nashville Arts Magazine

Photo: Kim Green

below left:

photo: Rick King

Photo: Lynn Durham

Bill Feehely, ABE’s founding artistic director: “Since then, we’ve envisioned the ‘bridge’ a lot of different ways—a bridge to unite the music industry and theatre, a bridge to invite new talent into the Nashville theatre scene, a bridge to introduce the students of our training program to professional theatre, a bridge to help young women traverse the rapids of adolescence.”

LUMEN L

A

M

P

(Not Just Lamps) 280 White Bridge Pike, 37209 615-356-9596 www.lumenlamps.com

THE NASHVILLE HUMANE ASSOCIATION has a wide variety of

healthy and temperamentally sound dogs and cats that are in desperate need of loving homes. Maybe even yours.

A pet can change everything.

615.352.1010 • www.nashvillehumane.org

Nashville Arts Magazine | May 2010

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puzzler

Artrivia

by David Turner The Nike Swoosh is one of the most widely recognized icons on the planet. The design known globally as the Swoosh was originally created in 1971 by a design student, Carolyn Davidson, who invoiced just $35 for her work. The Swoosh represents the wing of the Greek goddess of victory, Nike. The founder of the company, Phil Knight, selected it at the last minute saying, “I don’t love it, but it will grow on me.” In twelve short years, the brand had become global, and in recognition of her contribution to the company, Knight gave Davidson a diamond Nike Swoosh ring and company share options.

Our modern-day word “fiasco” traces to a tradi-

tion among glass blowers of Renaissance Italy where flawed bottles were set aside to be reworked into flasks. The Italian word for flask is fiasco.

Harry Houdini (1874–1926) was an American magician and escapologist, stunt performer, and film producer. The Master of Mystery and his wife, Bess, used to perform “mind reading” illusions that involved a number code. Bess might indicate a person’s birth date by constructing a sentence using the code words: 1…pray/ 2…answer/ 3…say/ 4…now/ 5…tell/ 6…please/ 7… speak/ 8…quickly/ 9…look/ 0… be quick. For example, the driver’s license number 4785932 would be revealed by: Now! Speak to me, oh great Houdini! Quickly tell me!

Look deep within your mind and say the answer!

The 96th Bell on Capitol Hill Small Structure with Large Meaning

by Kem Hinton Acknowledgement of Tennessee’s rich music heritage was an essential component of the original concept for the Bicentennial Mall presented in 1993. Two elements were proposed to express this music identity: a 95-bell carillon located at the north end of the mall (representative of the voices of citizens in the state’s 95 counties) and a single, very large bell on Capitol Hill that would “answer” to the will of the people. The mall was completed in 1996, the carillon four years later, and, due to the continued commitment of state officials, the 96th Bell was finally funded and completed in 2003, a full decade after first being proposed.

After the carillon in the Bicentennial Mall rings at the top of each hour, the large 96th Bell rings once. Its pitch is C-3, one octave lower than the largest bell at the carillon, delivering not just an echo but equally an engaging tonal response.

Photo: John Guider

The 96th Bell is a singular pavilion positioned on the north slope of Capitol Hill. A combined abstraction and reinterpretation of the influential ancient structures, the bell pavilion is a simple, eight-sided object possessing robust base, unadorned columns, and expressive fin-like brackets implying an entablature. Its vertical form creates a visual terminus to Seventh Avenue, similar in effect to a church steeple at the opposite south end of the street. Over twenty-four feet in height, the stainless steel and granite composition supports a massive, five-thousand-pound bronze bell, elevated for sonic projection. Eight engraved female figures grace the structure’s granite base, each representing a distinct form of Tennessee music. Produced by the internationally recognized Tennessee artist Paul Harmon, these Musicks also recall the ancient Muses, sister goddesses of art and culture.

Tuck-Hinton Architects, design by Kem Hinton Paul Harmon, artist of the eight Musicks located on the granite panels

78 | May 2010 | Nashville Arts Magazine