ANNE BROWN ANDREA HEIMER HARMONY KORINE
BRIAN TULL ROGER DALE BROWN PATRICIA BELLAN-GILLEN
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O V E R 10 0 S P EC I A LT Y S H O P S & R ES TA U R A N T S H IL L S B O R O P IK E , I- 4 4 0 EX I T 3 • N A S H V I L L E, T N • S H O P G R EEN H I L L S .C O M
Nashvillian of the Year Award Dr. Ming Wang, Harvard & MIT (MD, magna cum laude); PhD (laser physics) Presented by Kiwanis Club International, Nashville, TN The Kiwanis Club of Nashville is proud to announce Dr. Ming Wang, director of Wang Vision 3D Cataract and LASIK Center, world-renowned laser eye surgeon, author, and philanthropist as the 35th recipient of their coveted Nashvillian of the Year Award for 2015. Dr. Wang receives the award by exemplifying the qualities of Outstanding Nashvillian of the Year and the Kiwanis International Vision. Dr. Wang worked diligently to make the world a better place, when he established the Wang Foundation, helping patients from over 40 states in the U.S. and 55 countries, with sight restoration surgeries performed free-of-charge. “It is difficult to know anyone who works as hard giving back to the community and changing the lives of children as much as Dr. Ming Wang,” said Kenny Markanich, president, Kiwanis Club of Nashville. “He has helped countless children through the charitable outreach of his foundation, giving free surgeries to repair their vision.” Dr. Wang actively contributes to the Nashville community as the founding president of the Tennessee Chinese Chamber of Commerce and as an honorary president of the Tennessee American-Chinese Chamber of Commerce. The mission of these two chambers is to help educate Tennessee businesses about China, helping Tennessee to increase its export to China. He is also a co-founder of Tennessee Immigrant and Minority Business Group, an organization that provides support to the diverse cultural and ethnic businesses in our community. For the past 35 years, the 100-year-old civic club has bestowed the annual ac-
colade upon an individual who has gone beyond the expected scope of their abilities for the betterment and benefit of the Nashville community. The selection committee was spearheaded by George H. Armistead, III, one of the three original architects of the award (along with the late Gillespie Buchannan and the late Ralph Brunson). Past winners of note include Martha Ingram, Roy Acuff, Jack Massey, Phil Bredesen, Vince Gill, Tim Corbin, Mike Curb, Frank Wycheck, Darrell Waltrip and Mayor Karl Dean. A program saluting Dr. Wang was held at the Patron Club, Friday, July 29th at 11:30am. Dr. Wang was presented with
a commemorative plaque along a commissioned caricature.
About Kiwanis: Kiwanis Club of Nashville is a local chapter of Kiwanis International. This global organization of more than 660,000 members is dedicated to serving the children of the world. It annually raises more than US$100 million and dedicates more than 18.5 million volunteer hours to strengthen communities and serve children. Members of every age attend regular meetings, experience fellowship, raise funds for various causes and participate in service projects that help their communities. Dr. Wang can be reached at: drwang@wangvisioninstitute.com Wang Vision Cataract & Lasik Center 1801 West End Ave, Ste 1150, Nashville, TN 37203 615-321-8881 www.WangCataractLASIK.com
ADVERTORIAL BY WANG VISION 3D CATARACT & LASIK CENTER
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WILLFUL WONDERING AND DISORDERLY NOTIONS Pat ricia Bellan - G illen
N OV E M B E R 1 9 - D E C E M B E R 2 3 , 2 0 1 6
237 5th Ave N . Nashville 37219 . 615.255.7816 . tinneycontemporary.com
5 t h Av e n u e o f t h e A r t s Downtown nAshville
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Columns MARSHALL CHAPMAN | Beyond Words ERICA CICCARONE | Open Spaces LINDA DYER | Appraise It RACHAEL MCCAMPBELL | And So It Goes JOSEPH E. MORGAN | Sounding Off ANNE POPE | Tennessee Roundup JIM REYLAND | Theatre Correspondent MARK W. SCALA | As I See It JUSTIN STOKES | Film Review
Nashville Arts Magazine is a monthly publication by St. Claire Media Group, LLC. This publication is free, one per reader. Removal of more than one magazine from any distribution point constitutes theft, and violators are subject to prosecution. Back issues are available at our office, or by mail for $6.40 a copy. Email: All email addresses consist of the employee’s first name followed by @nashvillearts.com; to reach contributing writers, email info@ nashvillearts.com. Editorial Policy: Nashville Arts Magazine covers art, news, events, entertainment, and culture in Nashville and surrounding areas. The views and opinions expressed in the magazine do not necessarily represent those of the publisher. Subscriptions: Subscriptions are available at $45 per year for 12 issues. Please note: Due to the nature of third-class mail and postal regulations, issues could be delayed by as much as two or three weeks. There will be no refunds issued. Please allow four to six weeks for processing new subscriptions and address changes. Call 615-383-0278 to order by phone with your credit card number.
On the Cover Patricia Bellan-Gillen
Phantom Limbs/Guardian 2 2015, Digital print with colored pencil, gouache and collage, 60” X 40” See page 62.
December 2016 Features
18
10
Cultivated Living 2017 Antiques & Garden Show
18
Andrea Joyce Heimer The Adopted Child
24
Fresh Paint New Works from Brian Tull
53 doughjoe With Paintbrush in Hand Joseph “doughjoe” Love, III Tackles the Big Picture
53
24 Rebecca Allen Dance & Design Intertwine
62
Patricia Bellan-Gillen Willful Wondering and Disorderly Notions
68
A Winter Wonderland at Haynes Galleries
28
2016 Nashville Arts Photo Competition
Columns
34
Roger Dale Brown Lets the Light In
16
Crawl Guide
40
The Bookmark Hot Books and Cool Reads
67
Public Art
72
As I See It by Mark W. Scala
74
Open Spaces by Erica Ciccarone
76
Sounding Off by Joseph E. Morgan
78
And So It Goes by Rachael McCampbell
34
42
58
42
Anne Brown The Arts Company
48
Heaven Tonite Lain York Curates an Adventurous New Exhibit
48
80 Theatre
84 ArtSee 86
Studio Tenn
88
Poet's Corner
90
Art Smart by Rebecca Pierce
96 NPT 101 Beyond Words by Marshall Chapman 102 My Favorite Painting
62
THE RYMER GALLERY New Art/Light Installation Aurora Jamey Grimes
Continuing Southernacana by Don VanCleave
The Rymer Gallery / 233 Fifth Avenue / Nashville 37219 / 615.752.6030 / www.therymergallery.com
5 T H AV E N U E O F T H E A R T S DOWNTOWN NASHVILLE
Cultivated Living
by Donna Glassford
|
2017 Antiques & Garden Show
Music City Center
E
DECOR, and Veranda. Schafer is renowned for his work with historical and contemporary classical homes and gardens.
xperiencing the Antiques & Garden Show is a quick cure for the ennui brought on by the long and dark days of January. From February 3 to 5 people will flock to downtown Nashville to be seduced by an explosion of floral color and the earthy fragrances of spring or to be enticed by unusual goods and wares for home or garden adornment. Over 150 vendors from all over the country and Europe offer visitors an exotic bazaar of antiques, rugs, object d’art, and horticultural products. And there is the opportunity to learn from the domestic doyennes of interior and garden design who will share their knowledge and expertise on living: smart and chic. According to the 2017 A&G chairs Linda Graham and Mary Smith, this year’s theme is Cultivated Living, and they are wildly exited about all of this year’s speakers, in particular keynote Nate Berkus, a renowned celebrity interior designer who has been been featured in Architectural Digest, House Beautiful, VOGUE, InStyle, O Magazine, People and ELLE DECOR. He has authored two New York Times bestselling books: Home Rules (2005) and The Things That Matter (2012). Other speakers on the roster are Brooke and Steve Giannetti, Mary McDonald, Jesse Carrier and Mara Miller, and Nathan Turner. Following the Cultivated Living theme, longtime friend and supporter of A&G, award-winning architect Gil Schafer is being recognized as this year’s Honorary Chair. He is a member of Architectural Digest’s AD 100 and a winner of Veranda’s Art of Design Award. Schafer authored the bestselling book The Great American House, and his work has been featured in numerous publications, including Architectural Digest, ELLE
February 3–5
Interesting to note, both Schafer and Berkus share the same “cultivated living” philosophy as Bryant Flemming, who designed the Cheekwood estate in the late 1920s. Flemming was one of our country’s first landscape architects and was cofounder and chair of Cornell University’s first department of Landscape Art. Bryant Flemming escorted the Cheeks throughout England in search of great architectural remnants that were salvaged from dismantled English estate homes. These architectural elements were integrated into the Cheek estate. Perhaps Nate Berkus is channeling the spirit of Bryant Flemming in his statement “Your home should tell the story of who you are. What you love most, collected and assembled in one place,” Berkus continues. “Whether it’s a family heirloom or a piece you found on your travels. Everywhere your eye goes in your home, it should land on something that resonates.” Now in its 27th year, the Antiques & Garden Show is an incomeproducing and awareness-raising event that benefits the Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art and the many charity organizations supported by the ECON Club of Nashville. na The 2017 Antiques & Garden Show takes place at the Music City Center February 3–5. For a complete schedule and ticket information, visit www.antiquesandgardenshow.com.
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Publisher's Note We were flooded this year with entries to our photography competition. Over 400 images poured in from all over the state, the country, and some from around the world. We were delighted and just a little surprised. But what really got our attention was the quality of the work submitted. Beautiful sunsets, portraiture, carefully crafted conceptual work—it was all here, and to judge this we needed some serious help. Enter Nashville Arts contributing photographers Hunter Armistead and Jerry Atnip. Together they carefully looked at and discussed each image slowly and deliberately before making their final top ten choices. Each photograph was presented to the judges anonymously and without any technical explanation. They were judged purely on their photographic merit. You can see the winners on pages 28–32. Although I agreed with the judges wholeheartedly, there was one image that stood out to me as simply too good to ignore, so I picked it as the Editor's Choice. It is by Sarah Taylor, a student at Watkins College, who also happened to win the judges' top prize. Congratulations to her and to all who entered. This last month has been an emotional roller coaster for many of us. If you were deeply disappointed, now would be a good time to buy some art and cheer yourself up. If you were delighted, now would also be a good time to buy some art and celebrate. Either way, you should buy more art. Season's greetings to all our readers. Paul Polycarpou | Publisher
Pictured: Jack Chambers & Megan Murphy Chambers |Photo by Michael Scott Evans
NASHVILLE’S HOLIDAY TRADITION
December 3rd - January 14th A group show featuring homegrown artists in support of The Nashville Food Project
A CHRISTMAS STORY ADAPTED BY PHILLIP GRECIAN FROM THE MOTION PICTURE BY JEAN SHEPHERD, LEIGH BROWN, AND BOB CLARK
NOV 25 – DEC 21, 2016 At Johnson Theater, TPAC
TICKETS: (615) 782-4040 // NASHVILLEREP.ORG
Bob Durham, Sous Chef Smackdown, 2016.
Opening Recep�on and Fundraiser Saturday December 10th, 6 - 9 PM
BENNET T GALLERIES
Get to Bennett Galleries any way you can, and pick up a
for a holiday gift!
2104 Crestmoor Road in Green Hills, Nashville, TN 37215 Hours: Mon-Fri 9:30 to 5:30 • Sat 9:30 to 5:00 Phone: 615-297-3201 • www.bennettgalleriesnashville.com
Franklin Art Scene
Friday, December 2, from 6 until 9 p.m. Gallery 202 is featuring encaustic work by Chandra Adkins. Imaginebox Emporium is showing original illustrations created by Cory Basil for his young reader novel The Perils of Fishboy. Taziki’s is exhibiting photography by Gina Fitzhugh. See skyline and nature photography by Stuart Deming at Williamson Chandra Adkins, Gallery 202 County Visitor Center. Winchester Antiques is presenting Elaine Husband’s art. On view at Danita’s Children/Hope for Haiti Children’s Center are photographs by Lacey West and paintings by Jon Reddick. Early’s Honey Stand is hosting painter Katrin Keiningham. Finnleys Good Findings is showcasing acrylics by Michael Lax. Harlin Meyerhoff’s guest artist is Kay Grotz. Landmark Booksellers is featuring color-rich paintings by Anne Anne Doolittle, Landmark Booksellers Doolittle. Enjoy work by Robert Finale and other artists at Masters Editions of Franklin. Meredith Martin is showing her work at Savory Spice Shop. Young songwriter Lexi Peto is performing at The Registry.
Rymer Gallery is exhibiting Aurora, new art and a light installation by Jamey Grimes, and Southernacana by Don VanCleave.
In the historic arcade, WAG is showing Counterfeit by Upreyl Mitchell and Sophia Stephenson featuring work that examines how people often conceal their “undesirable” physical and cultural aspects while others take from cultures what they find to be “cool” or “trendy.” At Hatch Show Print’s Haley Gallery, enjoy the third annual Moonlightin’, a special exhibit featuring works created by the print shop’s designers while off the clock. The artists were given carte blanche to create outside of the normal hours of their daily Hatch Show Print duties, while referencing the shop’s classic letterpress style.
Arts & Music @ Wedgewood/Houston Saturday, December 3, from 6 until 9 p.m.
First Saturday Art Crawl Downtown Saturday, December 3, from 6 until 9 p.m.
David Wolff, Channel to Channel
Upreyl Mitchell and Sophia Stephenson, WAG
In celebration of their 20th anniversary, The Arts Company is hosting a full day of festivities including an exhibition of new art commissions created specifically for the anniversary, meet-andgreets with some of the most popular gallery artists, a variety of musical performances inside and outside the gallery, and the highly anticipated 20th Annual Holiday Arts Market (see page 42). Tinney Contemporary is unveiling Patricia Bellan-Gillen’s exhibit Willful Wonderings and Disorderly Notions (see page 62). The
Alex MacAskill, Hatch Show Print’s Haley Gallery
December Crawl Guide
slight, which features Small’s new photorealistic paintings that explore the dramatic evolution of time through aging Southern buildings and lush floral still life. COOP Gallery is hosting an opening reception for Red, which presents the work of Tracey Baran, a young photographer who produced a visual diary composed of both spontaneously recorded moments and posed depictions. At Julia Martin Gallery, see David Kenton Kring’s
16 nashvillearts.com
Zeitgeist is exhibiting Underground Again, an exhibition from Nashvillebased artists Caroline Allison and Patrick DeGuira, which meditates on ways history manifests itself in the present. CG2 GALLERY is featuring New Works by Mark Mulroney and The Adopted Child by Andrea Heimer (see page 18). Channel to Channel is opening Now This by David Wolff, Director of Fluorescent Gallery in Knoxville. David Lusk Gallery is presenting Jared Small’s solo show
David Kenton Kring, Julia Martin Gallery
BREAKDOWN, a new body of work which experiments with surface texture as metaphor and contemporary themes with overt references to madness and danger. mild climate is showing I need a new hot water heater, a solo exhibition of new work from Brooklyn-based artist Ron Ewert.
Boro Art Crawl
Friday, December 9, from 6 until 9 p.m.
the art of their members, who range in age from 18 to over 80. Two-Tone Gallery is exhibiting work by Norbert Thiemann, Beth Moore, Lesley Thomas, Kevin Sweeney, and Kevin Wurm Jr. Other participating locations include Murfreesboro City Hall Rotunda, The Block Eatery, Cultivate Co-Working, Mayday Brewery, Green Dragon, Studio Tour Artists on the Square, Quinn’s Mercantile, Sugaree’s, L & L Contractors, Funtiques, Let’s Make Wine, The Write Impression, Simply Pure Sweets, The Boutique at Studio C Photography, Earth Experience, and Studio 903.
East Side Art Stumble
Saturday, December 10, from 6 until 10 p.m.
Joseph Roccamo, dreamingincolor
dreamingincolor is showing oils and painted furniture by Deneen Glidwell, architectural watercolors by Joseph Roccamo, pastoral pastels on sandpaper by Justyna Kostkowska, and the winning artworks from their inaugural student contest. Beth Boudreaux will be painting live. The Murfreesboro Art League, located in Cannonsburg Village, is celebrating their 30th birthday with an open house featuring
Southern Grist Brewery is featuring new work by Nathan Brown. The Red Arrow Gallery is exhibiting Involuntary Occurrences, a solo show by Shawn Hall. Replication 3.0, the 3rd installment of Nashville’s only annual juried 3D printing exhibition, is on view at Make Nashville. Shawn Hall, The Red Arrow Gallery
A L L T H E B E S T I N F I N E J E W E L RY 5101 Harding Road Nashville, Tennessee 37205 615.353.1823
The Adopted Child Does Not Know Which Side Of History He Or She Comes From., 2016, Acrylic/pencil on panel, 18” x 24”
andrea joyceHEIMER
by Elaine Slayton Akin
The Adopted Child CG2 Gallery
|
December 3–31
“A
dopted” is a stigmatized word in American culture. Stripped down to its literal meaning, it is unbiased and straightforward. Wrapped in as many connotations as layers of institutionalized prejudice, whereby pedigree trumps autonomy, however, the simple origin is convoluted and lost. Andrea Joyce Heimer’s The Adopted Child, a body of autobiographical paintings opening this month at CG2 Gallery, is “based on societal presumptions and falsehoods surrounding the temperament, mental state, and character of adopted children,” said Heimer, a largely self-taught artist who was adopted as a baby. Heimer’s most critical years of art development occurred in childhood and ended abruptly when she was kicked out of high
18 nashvillearts.com
The Adopted Child Lives In A State Of Exile And Often Suffers From Head In The Clouds Syndrome., 2016, Acrylic/pencil on panel, 16” x 20”
way the adult mind recollects the past in disjointed vignettes. Many of us wax nostalgic for childhood because we had biological parents and a traditional bringing up and little else to worry about than what we’d get for our birthdays. For Heimer, the situation is different. When you’re an orphan and memories are some of your few possessions, reflection on the past is not always warm.
Behind Closed Curtains The Adopted Child Roughhouses And Is Roughhoused Against., 2016, Acrylic/pencil on panel, 18” x 24”
school art class for disagreeing with a teacher. She cites Native American art, which was pervasive throughout her Montana raising, and ancient Greek vase painting—both highly stylized, one-dimensional, and non-verisimilar—as influencers of her work. “I understand the mechanics of how perspective works. I have written graduate-level papers on the history and development of perspective,” said Heimer. “I can explain it to a class, but I’ll be damned if I can make it work in this world that I am painting. This work demands to be organized in this way.”
My Stuffed Animals Had Detailed And Complicated Lives Of Their Own That I Had Given Them And When Life Was Too Big I Would Lie Underneath Them And Feel Their Soft Weight On My Skin., 2016, Acrylic/pencil on panel, 24” x 18”
Perhaps it’s her memory that won’t have it any other way: the arrangement of objects in paintings from foreground to background as stacked from bottom to top, rather than receding to a vanishing point. Strips of wild wallpaper-like patterns touch and mimic quilt design. Her spatially flat, abstracted style echoes the presumed flatness of life one experiences with little to no known family history, but also the
“I want to examine what happens when a small subset of people is examined through the lens of a collective conversation that happens to them instead of with them,” explained Heimer. Sometimes, she seems to slip into the mode of a detached observer as she interweaves her firsthand experience with the perspectives of outsiders, as seen in The Adopted Child Does Not Know Which Side of History He or She Comes From. She said, “Some time ago I was paging through this old [child development] book with a section called ‘The Adopted Child,’” of which the points cannot be far off from the titles of Heimer’s works. “The outdated pop-psychology generalizations of how adopted children behave and how they should be treated are issues that persist even now.” The sources informing her work vary from friends, colleagues, doctors, and authors to complete strangers. “Deviancy and detachment have been recurring themes in their comments and, as unflattering as it is to admit, they happen to be some of the stereotypes that ring true in my own case,” Heimer admitted. By giving form to narratives that are more felt than seen by the public, Heimer chips away at the secretive, oppressive nature of stereotypes. She has unwittingly wrangled political incorrectness to work in her favor; creating outside the academic pipeline has allowed for greater honesty in process and subject matter and in turn greater apathy to satisfy a mainstream taste for formulaic art. With hints of Carroll Cloar, Clementine Hunter, and Kara Walker, Heimer’s paintings remain beautifully uncommon yet channel a familiar childlike quality that renders mature themes of adoption, psychology, and sexuality more palatable and, thus, more understandable to a broader audience. na The Adopted Child by Andrea Joyce Heimer is on view at CG2 Gallery December 3–31. For more information, visit www.cg2gallery.com. To see more of Andrea’s work, visit www.andrea-joyce.com.
Andrea Joyce Heimer
The Art of Cooking Comes to Nashville
N
ashville may well be the hippest “It” city in America, but that doesn’t mean everyone who lives here is doing OK. According to the Nashville Food Project, a charitable group that helps feed the hungry, one in five people in Nashville lacks access to enough food to support a healthy lifestyle. Frustratingly, nearly 40 percent of all food in the city gets wasted. This month, Cumberland Gallery is joining forces with the Nashville Food Project to address this problem. To celebrate the season, Cumberland Gallery is presenting Local Fare, a group exhibition and community event featuring the gallery’s unique roster of artists and invited artists from the greater Nashville area. Carol Stein, Cumberland’s director, says she learned of the Nashville Food Project from her husband, one of the charity’s biggest boosters. After investigating the charity for herself, she came away deeply impressed with its volunteer spirit.
accountants, and people from all walks of life preparing the food, and the meals they cook are exceptionally good and healthy.” Many of Cumberland Gallery’s top artists have agreed to create new works to benefit the charity. Artists participating in Local Fare include Kell Black, Amanda Brown, Susan Bryant, Barry Buxkamper, Jeff Danley, Robert Durham, James Gibson, Don Gilbert, Warren Greene, Red Grooms, Johan Hagaman, John Henry, Bill Killebrew, Ray Kleinlein, Marilyn Murphy, Billy Renkl, Andrew Saftel, Greg Sand, Max Shuster, John Wilkison, and Terry Williams. A percentage of the sales from the exhibition will go directly to the Nashville Food Project, says Stein. The gallery will also accept donations on behalf of the project. This exhibition will open Saturday, December 3, and run through January 14. na Sponsored by Yazoo Brewing Company and Lipman Brothers, Inc., an opening reception will be held on the evening of Saturday, December 10, from 6 to 9 p.m. at Cumberland Gallery. Hors d’oeuvres will be generously prepared by volunteers of the Nashville Food Project. Many of the exhibition’s artists will be at the reception. For more information, visit www.thenashvillefoodproject.org and www.cumberlandgallery.com.
“The volunteers at the Nashville Food Project come from everywhere,” says Stein. “They have doctors, lawyers, nurses,
20 nashvillearts.com
Bob Durham, Orange and Chocolate, 2016, Oil on linen, 12” x 24” Ray Kleinlein, Orange and Purple (Two Cointreau Bottles), 2015, Oil on canvas, 20” x 24”
Barry Buxkamper, Amour, 2016, Watercolor on paper on panel sealed with beeswax, 14” x 12”
Cumberland Gallery Hosts Local Fare to Benefit Nashville Food Project
HISTORY EMBR ACING A RT
Featured Artist
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Fresh Paint New Works from Brian Tull
No Better Place, Oil on panel, 60” x 60”
S
ome time ago, my wife and I spent time in Brevard, North Carolina, while we painted the Brevard Lumber Arts District Mural. From Brevard, if you take a short drive out of town in any direction you will find the peacefulness of mountain vistas and open sky—and that perspective changed the direction of my work. I had become best known for painting chrome, objects with reflections, and women (well, portions of) in photorealistic fashion. But back at home from the mountains, I thought about the area daily, missing it, and increasingly I found myself looking at the sky, its colors and the shades and shapes of clouds; the leaves, above and below me, with all their contrasts and textures.
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My new fascination with nature took us to Marfa, Texas, far in the West Texas desert. I wanted to be in the “middle of nowhere” to see gigantic sky, and see it we did—beautiful, seemingly endless sky and land. As an individual, I felt the pull to immerse myself spiritually in God’s creations. As an artist, I wanted to explore the challenges and master the techniques I would need to paint this complex organic subject. As a result, I have become more technical in my painting process, beginning with pre-mixing all the colors for an entire painting, every single detail, and putting them into tubes, a practice I expect to carry over into every new painting. A special blessing I’ve found in my new approach Before California, Oil and acrylic on panel, 65” x 53” is the ability to walk outside and see a dandelion leaf, crumpled leaves, lichens, moss, and clear-blue winter skies—no longer merely glancing and passing by, but stopping to look and really seeing their colors and textures. There are so many blues, purples, and reds in the green grass, a tiny touch of yellow in the blue sky, and I am aware of them when I’m painting. At the scale I paint, a segment of grass perhaps three inches long becomes, on the painting, I just wanted to be in the fifteen inches. I mix perhaps five colors for a single leaf, twenty colors for tree bark, ‘middle of nowhere’ to or nearly one hundred for a foot-square area of blurred grass.
“
see the gigantic sky… beautiful, seemingly endless sky and land.
I enjoy mixing and applying the colors, yet now I find my mind going back to more minimalistic subjects. I realize I enjoy nature more in “real life” than painting it, than being surrounded by it as “subject matter” all day. With my earlier, heavily narrative paintings featuring objects or people, I can escape, immerse myself in the story.
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He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, Oil on panel, 31” x 60”
Don’t Bother Missing Me, Oil on panel, 67” x 48”
Lately, I find myself thinking a lot more about painting those reflections, objects, and deeper narratives. Ultimately, my hope for all my paintings is that they will give viewers a sense of place and bring them into the story. So what’s next? We’ll see. In any case, I will be continually thankful for the ability to use my talents, to complete my paintings with “a few good brushes and a whole lot of faith.” —Brian Tull Brian Tull is represented by The Haen Gallery (Asheville, North Carolina) and Hespe Gallery (San Francisco, California). Locally, Brian accepts custom commissions through Tinney Contemporary. For more information, visit www.briantull.com.
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Brian Tull
Photograph by Nathan Chapman
Your Momma And Daddy Can’t Save You Now, But Jesus Can, Oil on panel, 60” x 60”
December 3-23, 2016 T PA c ' s J A c k s o n H A l l
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2016 Nashville Arts Photo Competition Our photography competition this year drew a record number of entries. Over 400 digital images jammed our mailbox, but more important to us was the quality of the work submitted. It was hard to tell the amateurs from the professionals, so we didn’t even try. Each image was judged anonymously purely on its presentation. Our judges this year, Hunter Armistead and Jerry Atnip, looked at and discussed every single photograph, sometimes at great length, to arrive at the final 10. The top 20 can be viewed online at nashvillearts.com. Thank you to all who entered, and please don’t stop clicking.
SARAH TAYLOR
Photo competition sponsored by
FIRST PLACE - $500 CASH PRIZE
JERRY ATNIP: This image is full of visual clues that project the artist’s message. There is complete dichotomy between hope and despair, fear and taking chances, good and bad choices, living on the edge, and making the plunge. HUNTER ARMISTEAD: This is successful on so many levels. Perfect lighting, composition, and idea—and I especially enjoy the continuously revealing nature of the photograph. 28 nashvillearts.com
SECOND PLACE - $300 CHROMATICS GIFT CERTIFICATE
JULIA STEELE HA: As a pure abstract, this is a very successful picture. But the mystery and psychodrama take it up to an enviable level.
AMBRE STEWART
THIRD PLACE - $200 CHROMATICS GIFT CERTIFICATE
JA: The artist allows us the privilege of projecting our own story into this mysterious image, yet does it in a beautifully abstract way. Even if I put my tendency to explore the narrative on hold, I’m still completely absorbed in the beautiful composition that is created with even the smallest details.
JA: A great portrait can put the viewer into the subject’s life, allowing you to experience their feelings. This image achieves that goal effectively. He is obviously greatly affected by something while the world behind him goes on without a notice. HA: Evocative of the famous shot of the musician crying at FDR’s funeral. Very nicely shot and composed.
STANTON TUBB HA: A really nice shot. I love the composition and subject matter. I keep wishing it were a little softer. JA: The artist has created a compressed image from a deep look at this place, causing an uneasy balance in our view. In our logical minds, we know that a road does not travel vertically as it seems to both here and in Men on a Rooftop by René Burri, but we have the ability to mentally correct it into its proper three dimensions.
BRANDYN BUSCO JA: After experiencing the shock of red in this image, I start trying to interpret the subject’s expression. Is he projecting defiance, regrets, resolve, anger, revenge? The inclusion of subdued details in the background and in his appearance give us clues to the narrative. HA: I love this one. It’s just a damn good portrait. Very contemporary and edgy.
DAVID KAZMEROWSKI HA: This is a lovely piece. I love the symmetry and reflection, which in turn makes me think. JA: This is a well-executed architectural image giving the viewer a sense of place. The artist’s talent lies in his ability to know when to restrain from going over the top with his production.
CHARLES WOOD JA: When viewers can put themselves in the photo’s place, feeling the air, smelling the smells, hearing the sounds, the image will transcend its two-dimensional realm. This photograph successfully achieves that. HA: This has so many strong points. I do wish it wasn’t quite as processed-looking. Overall, however, really nice.
JACK COGGINS HA: The image speaks for itself—it transcends the generic and ultimately is unavoidable. JA: Eliciting feelings in the viewer is a trait of a good photograph. Depending on the viewer’s life experiences, the feelings present while enjoying this image can range from fear to sadness to melancholy and in some, perhaps, to humor. The artist’s choices provide all these and more.
JO FIELDS JA: We assume this musician was not here playing without anyone else present, but the artist has skillfully isolated him with composition and depth of field control that eliminates all the clutter of the world and leaves just the subject. HA: In a world of countless musicians’ shots, this stands out.
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WILLETT DUPREE
HONORABLE MENTION
HA: A very nice study that continues to grow on me. Great geometry with repeating and reinforcing lines that intersect with a mysterious figure, herself with wonderful shapes and patterns.
JERRY ATNIP
Photograph by Jerry Atnip
Photograph by Hunter Armistead
GUEST JUDGES
JA: As a viewer of this image, I create more questions than answers, leaving me wanting to know more about this woman and her story. Why is she alone in this church, and what are her thoughts? The skillful use of color and composition help make this a successful image.
HUNTER ARMISTEAD
Jerry Atnip has a 39-year career as a commercial and fine art photographer. He is also a teacher, workshop director, curator, juror, and frequent lecturer. He is on the boards of several Arts & Photography organizations. He is an Exhibiting Member of the National Arts Club in New York, where he maintains a studio.
“I am a Nashville native with international experience in three continents, eight countries, and, most notably, the city of Berlin, my second home. Personally and with my photography, I am looking for beautiful, authentic experiences. I have shown in the Parthenon Museum and in Berlin, and I have worked with the Tennessee State Museum and with my favorite collectors.�
www.jerryatnip.com
www.hunterarmistead.com
HOLIDAYGIF GIF T GUIDE HOLIDAY HOLIDAY GIFTTGUIDE GUIDE
From the From Fromthe the Extravagant Extravagant Extravagant the Practical toto tothe thePractical Practical
$1.1 Milliontoto$25 $25 $1.1 $1.1Million Million to $25 Viewonline onlineatat View View online at www.lequiregallery.com www.lequiregallery.com www.lequiregallery.com
YORK & Friends fine art Nashville • Memphis
SHARI LACY
Little White Church, Mixed media on canvas, 30” x 30”
POLLY COOK
Game of Chance, Tile on wood, 12” x 12”
STUDIO STUDIO STUDIO
4304 Charlotte Ave• Nashville, • Nashville, TN 4304 Charlotte Ave TN 4304 Charlotte Ave • Nashville, TN 615-298-4611• Tues • Tues - Sat 10:00-3:00 615-298-4611 - Sat 10:00-3:00 615-298-4611 • Tues - Sat 10:00-3:00
107 Harding Place • Tues-Sat 10-5 615.352.3316 • yorkandfriends@att.net www.yorkandfriends.com Follow us on
at York & Friends Fine Art
ROGER DALE Lets the Light In BROWN Words by Annie Stoppelbein Photograph by Rory White
T
he story of Roger Dale Brown’s painting career begins in media res. After years of working unfulfilling jobs,
a fortuitous midlife encounter with a muralist in California landed him in the art world. In 1997 he moved back to his native Nashville and began honing his skills on canvas. His success has snowballed from there. Brown now has numerous accolades to his name, and his curriculum vitae is glutted with honors. In the coming year he has a solo exhibition and several invitational shows on his schedule. He teaches workshops across the United States and abroad and has just published his first book with two more in the works. He is a prime example of finding one’s calling. What has been the key factor in his success? His process.
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“
It is crucial to occasionally put away the painting and just observe the subject. Your painting will be more accurate if you take the time to become familiar with the scene. 35
nashvillearts.com
Spring at Sandstone Falls, 2016, Oil on linen, 24” x 30”
Distant Barn, 2015, Oil on linen, 50” x 50”
Winter Sunshine, 2014, Oil on linen, 24” x 36”
Regardless of the subject, Brown initiates each work with the same philosophy: to capture as many elements as possible to best communicate emotion. Before beginning a painting, he uses a composite of tools to gather information at the source. Often to his dismay, Brown is pinned as a plein-air artist. However, plein-air is just one component of his multifarious approach to painting. He will paint on location, to capture his immediate reactions. He takes photos for reference, but maintains the importance of not allowing his painting to look too much like the photograph. Respectfully he asserts that artists who are simply copying a scene are not using their creative ability. “Photos are but a snippet of time that do not account for other sensory aspects of the scene. The landscape is dynamic and it is alive. A photo is dead, and it shows nothing of the movement of light, the smells, the wind or lack of.” Taking video allows him to further access his memory of a place. Drawing sketches helps him to experiment with composition. Writing notes or stories offers another interpretation of the visual. Additionally, Brown stresses the importance of observation. It is crucial to occasionally put away the painting and just observe the subject. “Your painting will be more accurate if you take the time to become familiar with the scene.” He admits that he has had paintings fail because he neglected to take that time, or because he simply did not feel a connection. It is vital that he is in tune with his subject. Many promising places he has abandoned because they did not inspire him in the end.
Houses of Leiper’s Fork, 2015, Oil on linen, 24” x 30” 36 nashvillearts.com
Looking up the Marsh, 2016, Oil on linen, 40” x 30” 37 nashvillearts.com
Camden Harbor, 2014, Oil on linen, 30” x 50”
All of these tools help to build the emotionally charged scenes that comprise Brown’s oeuvre. He is a realist in subject but entirely impressionist in his application and process. By being so engaged with what he sees, hears, and feels, he intuitively knows what to exaggerate and where to pull back. This sensitivity is particularly apparent in his treatment of water. From the rocky coast of Maine to the lowcountry marsh, Brown has always been drawn to water. Each body of water is different, but his method of painting them is more or less the same. Going from general to specific, he simplifies down to the basic elements and builds upon them. He looks for the shallowest point, because light does not stop at the surface. He adds to this, catching layers of light both diffused and reflected. This process of moving from abstraction to realism is an essential component in the creation of a Roger Dale Brown. As an artist, Brown is a triple threat, painting landscapes, still lifes, and the figure. His latest project exhibits a strong sense of place, through a series depicting the Leiper’s Fork village outside of Nashville. The area, steeped in the past, appeals to his love of history. It reminds him of his grandfather, whom he deeply admired, a simple country man and a good storyteller. When he was a child they would walk through the woods, taking notice of the leaves and colors. Brown still remembers the smells of leather, grease and metal in his grandfather’s workshop. These childhood experiences instilled in him a love for simplicity and country living. Without forgetting his roots, Brown enjoys exploring the world with his wife and fellow artist, Beverly. Next year they plan to visit his usual favorites, Maine and Colorado, but also Italy, France, and Scotland. He notes that he can travel the world, but there are some places that go beyond the superficial, where he has witnessed spiritual beauty. These are the sites he is compelled to revisit. When describing how he chooses a subject, Brown uses the analogy of a mother seeing her newborn for the first time. The mother’s brain is flooded with oxytocin, inducing a feeling of complete awe. This is the emotion he looks for in his subjects. This is the emotion Brown hopes to stir in his viewers. na A painting demonstration with Brown will take place at Leiper’s Creek Gallery on Sunday, January 8 at 2 p.m. In late April, 2017, he will be the Leiper’s Creek Gallery featured artist at the 3 x 3 show in historic Leiper’s Fork. Roger Dale Brown is represented by Leiper’s Creek Gallery, www.leiperscreekgallery.com. To see more of Brown’s work, visit www.rogerdalebrown.com.
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Happy Holidays
Jodie Barringer & Libby Smith C. 615.593.9854 615.568.3402 O. 615.327.4800
jodiebarringer@realtracs.com
libbysmithrealtor@gmail.com
“Kiss your babies, tell your parents you love them, and take a walk in the park with a friend.”
Absolutely on Music: Conversations Haruki Murakami Fun fact: Did you know that before best-selling author Haruki Murakami became a writer, he ran a jazz club in Tokyo? It’s true. Murakami loves music, and—lucky for us—saved and compiled two years’ worth of correspondence and discussion on the subject with his dear friend, the acclaimed conductor Seiji Ozawa. Reading this book feels like eavesdropping on a pair of geniuses—what a unique joy! It’s a must-have for book lovers and music lovers alike.
The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed Our Minds Michael Lewis Speaking of brilliant pairs: This is the story of one of the greatest partnerships in the history of science, that of Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, who wrote a series of groundbreaking studies that illuminated how people’s brains operate when making decisions. (In fact, their writing laid the foundation for much of author Michael Lewis’s own work, such as his #1 bestselling book The Big Short.) Who were these guys? And how did they come to develop the Nobel Prize-winning behavioral economic theory that forever changed the way we understand our own minds?
Swing Time
Moonglow
Zadie Smith
Michael Chabon
It’s about dance, it’s about race, it’s about pop culture and place—but more than anything, Swing Time is about friendship found and lost. Two girls grow up together, both dreaming of becoming professional dancers. One goes on to forge a struggling dance career; her friend becomes, instead, the assistant to a pop star with a jet-setting lifestyle and philanthropic whims. As readers, we go along for the ride, discovering the universal truths these women learn about themselves and the world. Zadie Smith will discuss and sign Swing Time on January 19 at the Nashville Public Library at 6:15 as part of the Salon@615 series.
Is it a memoir? Is it a novel? Can it be both? Moonglow blurs the lines between fiction and fact, drawing readers into a family story based—quite heavily, it seems—on Chabon’s own history. He began writing it after a visit to his terminally ill grandfather, and the book reads as a deathbed confession, covering marriage, war, career, and a man’s life unfolding against the backdrop of American history. Whatever you call it, it’s beautifully done. Meet Chabon on December 4 at 3 p.m. in the Nashville Public Library when he visits Nashville as part of the Salon@615 series.
Wayne Brezinka’s Rhythm and Glue Music City Shop, Bridgestone Arena December 1, 2016–March 1, 2017 Wayne Brezinka’s most recent commission was to create a large-scale portrait of Johnny Cash using some very rare artifacts spanning the singer’s life and career. Worked into the portrait are Johnny’s original gun holster from his 1960 Columbia Records album Ride This Train and a gold watch Johnny gave to his mother. His fishing license from 1980 signed by John R. Cash himself and a handwritten thank-you note from Minnie Pearl are painstakingly pieced together with countless photographs and mementos of Cash history to create an image of this legend in likeness and in spirit.
Wayne Brezinka working on his portrait of Johnny Cash
Beginning this month, see some of the greatest icons in music as they come to life in Brezinka’s portraiture. The assemblage of Johnny Cash will be exhibited with Brezinka’s Bob Dylan, Chris Stapleton, and Guy Clark, all large-scale works on loan from private collectors and the Guy Clark Estate, in Nashville at Bridgestone Arena’s Music City Shop.
Presented by Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp–Visit Music City, Rhythm and Glue: Collected Faces of Americana & Country Music Icons by Wayne Brezinka opens December 1 at the Music City Shop in Bridgestone Arena. Everyone is welcome to attend the opening reception and celebration featuring special musical guest Blue Mother Tupelo on Saturday, December 3, from 6 until 9 p.m. The show remains on view until March 1, 2017. For more information, visit www.visitmusiccity.com. To see more of Brezinka’s work, visit www.waynebrezinka.com.
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Photograph by Matt Huesmann
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41 nashvillearts.com
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There are many reasons why Nashville is often referred to as the creative hub of America. You're looking at one of them.
Background painting by Mandy Rogers Horton Photograph by Allen Clark
Anne Brown
April Street, RingToss, Acrylic on canvas, 52” x 68”
by Cassidy Conway
T
Photograph by Bob Schatz
wenty years ago you could lie down in the middle of 5th Avenue North and take a nice long nap. No traffic and hardly any people. The street was pretty much a wasteland of failing businesses, abandoned buildings, and the occasional homeless person looking for a warm place to spend the night. But that was before a tour de force of nature named Anne Brown decided to do the unthinkable and open an art gallery in the middle of that creative purgatory. That’s right, an art gallery. Who would even think to venture downtown back then, let alone to an art gallery? Well, nobody at first, but as the old saying goes, if you build it they will come. And did they ever. Over the next few years Anne and her cohorts slowly transfigured the street into a major art center attracting other galleries, Nashvillians, and tourists from all over the world. Today the monthly art crawl on 5th Avenue attracts over 2,000 art lovers making their way from one gallery to another, enjoying the very best of local and international art. But all that didn’t happen by accident . . .
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CC: You were a theatre and literature professor for several universities in Nashville. How did that background help you create your vision for The Arts Company? AB: In theatre, you set the stage and present the story in ways that engage others. In this art gallery, setting the stage is of the essence. My goal was to present art in a surprising, casual environment that would engage rather than intimidate people.
I wanted everyone to experience the unexpected in ways that prompted interaction with the art—eclectic selections in photography, painting, sculpture, outsider art, and more. New inventories, more options, unlikely pairings, regular monthly openings, plenty of places to sit and look or talk, and a visceral invitation to viewers to be included in the lively world of art. Just like scenes change in theatre productions, we move art around in 6,000 square feet of space in hopes of making every visit to the gallery a new experience, just like a good book or poem.
CC: Personally, you have discovered and nurtured numerous artists, finding them locally or bringing them to this marketplace. Can you give some examples of creative individuals you’ve collaborated with?
Thornton Dial, Bird Catcher Lady, Mixed media, 30” x 42”
Cassidy Conway (CC): The Nashville visual art scene is thriving today, and so is the downtown neighborhood. You have been instrumental in bringing both to life. What was downtown like when you opened the gallery 20 years ago?
AB: This gallery has always been partial to prolific, inventive, and surprising artists. St. Louis-based Marianist monk Brother Mel [1928–2013] is a prime example of finding an under-discovered artist with a vast amount of output— over 10,000 documented pieces of art in his lifetime, placed all over the world. I ended up even writing a book about his “lifetime of making art.” Then there were emerging artists such as April Street, who came to us as an intensely involved young artist, producing a stunning body of diverse work every year. And there was the thenunknown Thornton Dial [1928–2016] and the Gee’s Bend
Anne Brown (AB): To be blunt, the 5th Avenue streetscape was bleak in the 1990s—lots of people working inside buildings, but little street life. There was foot traffic during the day but no activity after 5 p.m. Two small restaurants, a few small businesses, and no residential activity. In 1996, I was working on developing a new art business model designed to be set up in the middle of the city to see if an art enterprise could thrive there. I called it The Arts Company, a name that would allow the business to be expansive as needed. We would have a gallery backed by a one-stop shop for art—for homes as well as work spaces. CC: And the gallery opened in 1996? AB: Yes. When the printing company downstairs moved out, Ron Gobbell asked if I would help him keep the lights burning on the street by setting up the art gallery and offering people something to see and do downtown. We each spent $500 to clean the carpet and paint the walls; I called some artist friends, and The Arts Company opened on December 3, 1996.
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Charles Keiger, Velvet Moon (Sunday Evening), 2011, Oil on panel, 18” x 20”
“
I am driven to find ways to connect art with people in the middle of an animated commercial environment.
Quilters, whose work ultimately elevated them to become known as Great American Artists. A collection of their work is now part of the Metropolitan Museum. Of course, I want to mention Nashville native and legendary LIFE magazine photographer Ed Clark [1911–2000], who was the first featured artist when we opened. And many many others over the years, from emerging to legendary.
Brother Mel, Dalle De Verre, Metal and glass sculpture, 117” x 57” x 54”
CC: You must be very proud of that? AB: Yes, to put it mildly. I have gotten to work with some artists who really think about what they do and why. They are inspired by what they understand from their experiences and passionate about creating their own distinctive visual alphabet, their mediums of choice, and the styles they develop—all to offer important insights to the rest of us. It has been exciting to work with world-class as well as emerging artists. I have offered platforms to all of them at one time or the other. The ones who continue to evolve are the ones who inspire and sustain interest from viewers, who are an equal part of the process. They purchase what moves them to select and take it out the door to homes and offices. I never tire of seeing that connection happen between viewers, artists, and art. CC: What are some of the key factors in keeping your gallery consistently relevant? AB: The business model is about people. Referring again to theatre, my staff is structured as an ensemble who work with our customers through conversation and most important— Interaction, Interaction, Interaction! The idea is to get art, artists, and the rest of us acquainted with each other in an environment that refreshes regularly. Three words identify what we offer: Fresh, Original, Contemporary—key words that define the ethic of the place, guiding us in everything we do. At The Arts Company, you can get up close to the art, maybe even touch it, and take what you see home with you to sustain your personal experience or to add connections in your workplace.
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CC: And how do you keep it economically viable? AB: To make a commercial business thrive, you have to keep the inventory fresh and moving, but be consistent as well as creative. Continuity is critical. Twenty years ago, I started our first regular monthly art event with artist meet-and-greets and art talks. As more and more people came downtown, so did new galleries, and with our new neighbors we created, in August 2006, an evening event called First Saturday Art Crawl Downtown, with 15 to 20 galleries participating and approximately 2,000 visitors a month—collectively making a difference in how Nashvillians and visitors perceive art in Nashville. CC: What keeps you going? What excites you these days? AB: I am driven to find ways to connect art with people in the middle of an animated commercial environment, not just a classroom as in my academic career, but still influenced by my intense interest in literature, history, poetry, and theatre. Art challenges all of us to add new visual perspectives to our lives.
For the first 10 years, I certainly hoped for significant growth not only in business but also in the city. In the following 10 years, growth in both of those areas has been surprisingly exponential.
CC: And the next 20 years? AB: For the next 20, my wish would be that the gallery continues to be part of enhancing all the arts in Music City by adding visual art as a form to support and expand the iconic institutions that are our neighbors, including the new ones arriving. Just think of what’s to come—a new Tennessee State Museum, the 21C Museum Hotel, the National African American Music Museum, and more, much much more! na Leonard Piha, Home Body, Cardboard and oil paint, 43” x 28” x 24”
Daryl Thetford, Ignoring the Door, Inkjet on aluminum, 38” x 60”
The Arts Company is located at 215 5th Avenue North, 37219. For more information visit www.theartscompany.com.
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73 White Bridge Rd • 615-352-6085 • Mon-Sat 10–6 • Sun 1-5 • 2danes.com
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Marlos E’van, Self-Portrait w/6 paintings under it, 2016, Oil and latex paint on stretched canvas, 5' x 5'
Heaven Tonite
Lain York Curates an Adventurous New Exhibit Monthaven Mansion in Hendersonville through January 4, 2017
by John Pitcher
F
or nine months of the year, the galleries inside the Hendersonville Arts Council’s Monthaven Mansion showcase only local talent. The Arts Council sponsors plenty of student art shows and community exhibitions. Cutting-edge modern art, however, is seldom seen. That’s something that Dan Titcomb, the Arts Council’s executive director, has decided to change. Noticing a lack of contemporary art in Hendersonville in general, Titcomb began developing relationships with important curators around the region. Last fall, he tapped Sue Mulcahy, an artist and professor at Volunteer State Community College, to stage the Arts Council’s first modern show, titled Women of Abstraction, featuring the works of some of Middle Tennessee’s finest female abstract artists. This month, he turned to Lain York, the highly influential director at Zeitgeist Gallery, to stage an even more ambitious exhibit. York responded with Heaven Tonite, a wide-ranging contemporary show devoted to the works of Middle Tennessee’s diverse studio community. The 20-plus artists in this exhibit work in a variety of media, producing art in studios from White House and Hendersonville to Donelson, Antioch, Oak Hill, and Franklin, among others. Many of these artists are well known to Nashvillians from shows held at area museums, arts crawls, galleries, and university programs. But the works of this eclectic group have seldom been showcased in a single program. “Every community in the Nashville area has an exceptional number of artists, composers, designers, and filmmakers,” says York. “We thought it was time for an exhibit that reflected the diversity of contemporary work created in studios across Middle Tennessee.” The range of works in Heaven Tonite is indeed impressive. There are plenty of twodimensional paintings, photographs, and sketches in the show, featuring styles that are both abstract and representational. These works will be complemented by a variety of sitespecific installations, projections, video presentations, and music and visual performances. Since the exhibit is being held in one of Hendersonville’s most historic venues, an elegant, two-story antebellum mansion in the Greek Revival period style, York felt it was important to include works by current and former Hendersonville artists. Foremost among these artists is Joseph Saunders.
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Ashley Doggett, Revisionist Martyrs, 2016, Oil on canvas, 16” × 20”
If you consider the country music stars who live alongside Old Hickory Lake to be Hendersonville’s royalty, then Saunders is surely part of the community’s landed gentry. His ancestors first settled in the area as part of a land grant in 1798—the city’s public library is located next to a wooded park on Saundersville Road. The artist now lives on the final 30 acres of that original grant, working in a studio located in the home his grandparents built. For Heaven Tonite, Saunders has contributed a pair of sketches playfully titled The Birth of Comedy. In the first sketch, called Act I, the arms and chest of a Godzilla-like creature are seen emerging from the sea. The monster’s triangular-shaped head consists of an overlapping series of Groucho Marx eyes and mustaches, hence the reference to comedy. “The surfaces of my works all tend to be on the scruffy side,” says Saunders. “That’s a reflection of my rural background.” Some of the most beautifully colorful works in the exhibit come from Gieves Anderson, a Hendersonville High School graduate who now lives in New York City. Anderson’s method is to take photographs of freshly made abstract paintings. “Capturing the instant before the paint transforms from a wet, pliable substance to a fixed one is essential to these works,” Anderson says. “It suspends the medium in a state of flux and preserves the image of the paint in its most vulnerable state.” Anderson’s abstractions come across as gorgeously glossy and contemporary. The representational works of Wedgewood-Houston
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KJ Schumacher, Facsimile 009, 2016, Oil on canvas, 30" x 24"
David King, Untitled (ants), 2016, Epoxy resin and household ants
Joe Saunders, The Birth of Comedy, Act I, 2016, Ink and acrylic on vinyl, 42” x 36”
“
We thought it was time for an exhibit that reflected the diversity of contemporary work created in studios across Middle Tennessee.
artist Dane Carder, on the other hand, call to mind the steely gray hues seen in old daguerreotypes. That’s fitting, given Carder’s penchant for Civil War imagery. “Artists need to paint what they know,” says Carder. “Growing up in Nashville, I was surrounded by Civil War history. The Civil War images are a reflection of my Southern-ness.” History serves as the major marker in Carder’s works. For Oak Hill’s KJ Schumacher, the reference points are the lines, scribbles, and errant splotches from his earlier abstract paintings. “I treat the marks in previous works of mine and of my students as found objects,” says Schumacher. “The old marks are then re-represented in the form of new works.” Over the years, Lain York has been a major presence at Watkins College of Art, Design and Film, so it’s not surprising that he has included in Heaven Tonite the works from some of that school’s most gifted alumni. Nashville’s Marlos E’van, a 2016 Watkins graduate, creates vibrantly colorful paintings that are remarkable for both their energy and biting social commentary. Another Watkins artist, Antioch resident Mika
Agari, has contributed functional art to the exhibit, including towels for the women’s bathroom and a decorative curtain for Monthaven’s second floor gallery. Some of the most cutting-edge art in the exhibit comes from Patchbay, Kaylen Kennedy and Matt Kinney’s adventurous multimedia program. For Heaven Tonite, Patchbay has created an installation called Percussion Process for improvised snare drum and live electronics. York says that he doesn’t like to think too hard about the titles of his shows, preferring to let the works speak for themselves. Nonetheless, he says he found inspiration for the title Heaven Tonite in the Cheap Trick song of the same name. “For the title of this exhibit, I liked the idea of a golden age distilled or coming to an end,” explains York. “I also like the thought about moving forward the next morning.” na Heaven Tonite is on view at Monthaven Mansion in Hendersonville through January 4, 2017. For more information, visit www.hendersonvillearts.org.
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doughjoe in his studio
doughjoe
by Jerry C. Waters
With Paintbrush in Hand Joseph “doughjoe” Love, III Tackles the Big Picture
J
oseph “doughjoe” Love, III is an active participant in Norf Art Collective, a team of creative artists working to impact the North Nashville community as well as Metropolitan Nashville through the arts. Through mural projects, art exhibitions, and social events, Norf members address social issues as well as the unique and historical aspects of various neighborhoods. As an advocate for the North Nashville community, doughjoe is a member of a team that organized the Jefferson Street Community Health Fair and the monthly Jefferson Street Art Crawl. In addition to his communal work, doughjoe also channels his creative energy into the production of ballpoint-pen drawings that speak to contemporary social and political issues, which he displays in group art exhibitions.
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Ms. June, 2015, Ballpoint pen on paper, 12” x 18”
Doughjoe’s recent drawings are visually united by his use of ballpoint ink with fluid washes of color and through his focus on the human figure. The thematic focal point of his work centers on topics such as the prevalence of gun culture in America, the elevation of African American cultural heroes from history, and racism in the USA. In Ms. June, the figure embraces a rifle barrel with one hand and appears to stroke the handle—like a guitarist—with her right hand. Her ecstatic expression speaks to a type of love affair with guns. In contrast, the male figure in Slick, with his gold-plated handgun, suggests the self-destructive power of weapons. Recently doughjoe was invited to create a work of art centering on gun violence for a group exhibition, External Ballistics: A Show about Guns, organized by and shown at Julia Martin Gallery. Doughjoe has stated that he lacks formal training in art; however, through independent study he is constantly searching for knowledge about art techniques and the history of art. He acknowledges that he has been influenced by the paintings of twentieth-century Spanish artist Salvador Dali as well as by African American illustrator Ernie Barnes. The elongated black human figures that appear in Barnes’s painted illustrations (that adorned music album covers of the 1970s) are stylistically connected to many of the people that appear in doughjoe’s mural paintings and drawings. For example, Barnes’s inspiration is evident in the abstract dancing female in Mercury and the male figure found in Depiction of BadAzz.
Mercury, 2016, Watercolor on paper, 24” x 9”
Doughjoe’s commitment to Norf resulted in the creation of several murals he produced, along with a group of graffiti artists and muralists, in North Nashville on Herman Street and 18th Avenue near the historic campus of Fisk University in 2015. In October of last year, he assisted in the organization of a day-long festival of music, poetry, and visual art sponsored by the Norf Wall Fest project. This festival included an exhibition, juried by Nashville-based artist and community activist Thaxton Waters, which displayed doughjoe’s artwork alongside fellow artists Brandon Donahue, Jamond Bullock, Jay Jenkins (also known as Woke3), Michael Mucker, and Tennessee State University art professor Sam Dunson.
Mourning Cartoons, 2013, Ballpoint pen on card stock, 8” x 11”
Depiction of Badazz, 2016, Ballpoint pen and watercolor on paper, 20” x16” Nina, 2015, Ballpoint pen on U.S. currency
Another artistic role model is Greg Ridley, whose copper repoussé panels that chart the history of Nashville (located at the main branch of the Nashville public library) and the history of Fisk University (located on the campus at the Carl Van Vechten Gallery of Fine Arts and the University library) are connected to doughjoe in terms of style and theme. Ridley was also an advocate for social and political issues as expressed through the visual arts and which is relevant to doughjoe’s artistic vision. And doughjoe has said that his passion for creating art is tied to his interest in science, as both emerged during his college days at the University of Southern Indiana from which he received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology in 2008. When the United States Department of the Treasury announced that the image of 19th-century abolitionist Harriet Tubman would appear on the ten-dollar bill alongside the first U.S. treasurer, Alexander Hamilton, many citizens were excited about the news that an African American historical figure would add some racial color to the U.S. currency beginning in 2020. In the meantime, doughjoe’s artwork Nina, a ballpointpen drawing rendered on a ten-dollar bill, is a reminder that American paper money has been dominated throughout history by portraits of mostly white male figures. Also, his work elevates the cultural contributions of Nina Simone, a 20th-century female African American singer, songwriter, and civil rights activist (like Tubman) in the present historical moment. Nina is from the paper-money series which illustrates doughjoe’s commitment to raising public awareness about the African American experience. na Aqua, 2015, Ballpoint pen, cognac and watercolor on paper, 18” x 11”
See more of doughjoe’s work at www.facebook.com/doughjoeart.
Tennessee Art League Group Show at TSU
PHOTOS: JOHN PARTIPILLO
Continuing Exhibit November 3, 2016— January 3, 2017
Avon Williams Campus Library Gallery 330 10th Ave North • Nashville, TN 37203
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2205 bandywood drive in green hills • nashville, tn 37215 www.margischair.com • 615.463.3322
Harmony Korine Shadows and Loops
Now through January 16, 2017 Nashville- and Miami-based Harmony Korine is best known for films that are highly experimental, disorienting, and often socially transgressive. Korine also creates large and expressive paintings that are impulsive, raw, and suggestive of an altered consciousness. In them, ghostly faces and figures emerge from rough surfaces, and abstract patterns weave and float with hallucinogenic intensity. The Frist Center is supported in part by the FRIENDS OF CONTEMPORARY ART and Harmony Korine. Burst Manga, 2014. Ink on canvas, 102 x 84 in. Collection of David Perry. © Harmony Korine. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photography by Robert McKeever
919 BROADWAY, DOWNTOWN NASHVILLE
fristcenter.org | #KorineAtTheFrist
Words by Stephanie Stewart-Howard Photography by Hunter Armistead
I
t’s not unheard of for an artist to cross disciplines, sometimes
even brilliantly, but Rebecca Allen’s embrace of both contemporary dance and pottery—let alone her clever means of bringing the two together—is both glorious and unconventional at once. Working at the intersection of two dramatically different art forms, Becky strives to find the moments in her art where even the loud becomes quiet and the quiet becomes loud, the places where the artist can listen to the whole movement of the world. Becky Allen began her journey at home in New Orleans studying with the Jefferson Ballet Theatre, a small school owned by a Cuban-American family. From there she moved on to the Loyola Ballet School and meanwhile studied studio arts at the University of New Orleans and the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts.
Rebecca Allen
D
ance& esign Intertwine
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Rebecca Allen
It was here she began to work with clay, not yet throwing pots but sculpting. Allen relates the story of being just 19 and spending six months painstakingly exploring the intricacies of portraiture working on a single study of the head of a model called Gloria. “I saw the stories emotions had hidden in her muscles, the finest details . . .” The event was life changing. Shortly thereafter, her finished piece was chosen for an art show. Tragically, in the aftermath of the show, the piece was accidentally broken. “It didn’t even bother me—I know it should have, but the process was so rich, so meaningful, that the breaking of the sculpture didn’t matter to me. In the process, I fell in love with clay, the whole endeavor, the patience, the waiting—and as a dancer I noticed the subtle shifts in the model's body and in the work I was creating.” The act provided her with a different kind of movement map, one that is physical and less ephemeral than dance. From hence came her understanding of the relationship between the two types of artist movement and physicality: where the loud is soft, the quiet boisterous.
Upon graduating from college, Becky packed up and moved to Nashville, supporting herself as a science teacher and hoping to start a ballet school at an area church. The ballet school fell through, but teaching continued to bring its own inspiration. She met a choreographer from StillPoint Dance Theatre and began moving back into the dance world, performing and teaching dance plus teaching science for home schoolers. Still feeling a bit disconnected, she revisited her love of clay through Metro’s Centennial Art Center. “I’d never done pottery before, and I’d always had a secret desire to study it.” The potter’s wheel gave her new freedom, and soon she had one of her own in her home studio. The wheel brought so much movement to her life she began to see the parallel freedoms of clay and dance again. She made literally hundreds of mugs for the fantastic Karl Worley of Biscuit Love, even though creating them in quantity and similarity was a new concept, and fell in love with yet another creative process.
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New Dialect dancers Emma Morrison and Rebecca Allen
Her home studio remains a place where dance and design intertwine.
of Hurricane Katrina and the themes of connection in natural disaster as only a native of New Orleans could do.
In 2012, she also began working with New Dialect dance collective with Banning Bouldin, as dancer and choreographer. She’s now taken on the role of assistant director, coaching, taking notes at rehearsals, leading warmups, and managing the tougher roles that come with making a dance company truly work. She thrives in it.
For a forthcoming performance, she imagines using a confluence of unfired ceramics, live performance, and video, as the unfired clay falls to dust slowly, after dancer interaction.
Meanwhile, Becky is at work on her own projects, working to discover where dance and clay intersect in performance. Her recent work with New Dialect, Kat 5, explored the experience
The success of Kat 5 has led Becky to begin talks with OZ Arts about a future residency, perhaps further exploring the relationship between drawing, dance, and ceramics. At the moment, she continues all her works and produces pottery and ceramics via private commission. na For more information, visit www.rastudionashville.com.
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Photograph by Eden Frangipane, courtesy of New Dialect
“
I fell in love with clay, the whole endeavor, the patience, the waiting—and as a dancer I noticed the subtle shifts in the model’s body and in the work I was creating.
Phantom Limbs/Sentimental Void, 2015, Colored pencil, acrylic, gouache on birch, 96� x 164�
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Willful Wondering and Disorderly Notions Tinney Contemporary through December 23 by Sara Lee Burd
T
his winter, Tinney Contemporary presents artist Patricia Bellan-Gillen’s latest ruminations in visual art. The exhibition title, Willful Wondering and Disorderly Notions, suggests the experience Bellan-Gillen puts forward with her art. She explains that “wondering” is one of the most important aspects when engaging with her work: “‘Wonder’ has two connotations. One is awe, joy, rapture, and to wonder is also to think. I’ve tried to bring both of those elements into the work.” In this third exhibition of her work in Nashville, Bellan-Gillen continues using animals, nature, and technology as bearers of meaning. Through juxtapositions of imagery, texture, colors, symbols, and ideas she creates art that ignites curiosity. While there is not a clear narrative, she aims to communicate through her art. She expects viewers to engage with the imagery so that both common and personal interpretations arise. “We all have different experiences; we all might see the color blue as a symbol for differing things. Each piece is set up to pull people in and pull upon what they know. They are not set up for me
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Jonah’s Daughter, 2016, Lithograph with colored pencil and collage, 30” x 22”
Your Cruel Tears 3, 2015, Colored pencil and collage, 26” x 20”
patriciaBELLAN-GILLEN
Distortion and Distraction (Ratatoskr), 2015, Colored pencil, acrylic, gouache on birch, 82” x 120”
to relate a 1:1 idea I have; they are made to pull people in and evoke their own thoughts, feelings, and emotions about the work.” The artwork on exhibit at Tinney Contemporary ranges in size from 13 feet to 2 feet, which allows Bellan-Gillen to engage viewers in a particular way. As she explains, “I feel I work best at extremes. The large-scale works are almost like stage sets. When you are a few feet away, your vision is primarily my image. On the smaller side, you really have to pull in close to notice something.” The new, smaller series on paper consists of drawings that Bellan-Gillen didn’t expect to show with her other artworks. However, she found that they successfully and uniquely distill concepts encountered in her other art. The young girls or bears appear unassuming in their whimsical dresses, but the patterns on their clothing reveal significant juxtapositions ripe for contemplation. As is true in all of her work, nothing is cute for the sake of cute. The artist explains, “I like the culmination
of something that walks its way towards cute but has serious thoughts that underscore it.” Incorporating humor, beauty, and cuteness into her work allows her to alleviate discomfort and draw the viewer in and provide a space for reverie. An example from this series, Jonah’s Daughter is filled with imagery that comes from Bellan-Gillen’s interest in the “pull between wonder and woe.” As the title suggests, this work takes a feminist turn on the biblical story of Jonah who was thrown from a boat, swallowed by a whale, spit out on land three days later by the grace of God, and then continued a painful journey. The leviathan image featured in this work is appropriated from medieval interpretations of the sea mammal, which the artist selected because it provides a time signature. She explains, “It allows me to have something old and something new.” While that image is specific, the meaning is not. Bellan-Gillen has incorporated the whale from Moby Dick in other work, and whales have come to symbolize to her “the tension that pulls us toward something that we know is not good for us, but we go
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“
I feel I work best at extremes. The large-scale works are almost like stage sets.
after it anyway.” The depictions of little girls playing accordions on floating rafts that encircle the beast drive home the idea that they, though young and innocent, are also susceptible to this trap. At nearly six feet tall, the fox squirrel featured in Distortion Distraction (Ratatoskr) commands attention. Bellan-Gillen became interested in the Nordic myth in which the squirrel runs up and down the tree of life, keeping the giants on the top and the giants on the bottom from going to war, and she realized Ratatoskr has a lot in common with the 1960s cartoon character Rocky the Squirrel, who also kept peace by managing opposition parties— Boris and Natasha and Bullwinkle. Nestled among layers of stenciled foliage in the center of the work, the finely rendered creature is depicted releasing television screens with dazzle patterns over small human figures along the bottom of the composition. The recurring dazzle pattern in works such as Mediated Orthodoxies/New Wonderland and Distortion Distraction (Ratatoskr) is inspired by camouflage introduced to the military during World War I and II by artist Norman Wilkinson. Artists such as Annie Albers and Lee Krasner were commissioned to paint military vessels in blackand-white designs that would obscure them as they sat in the water. Much like a pack of zebras, the simple lines and colors confuse the eye and make the ships difficult to target. In her work the patterns usually appear on television screens and suggest interference and deception. Here again the viewer is asked to wonder, this time about the pattern on the screen that is both striking and perplexing. The power of Bellan-Gillen’s work remains in the imaginations of viewers wondering about the art in front of them as much as the researched and intuitive images the artist incorporates into her compositions. “I love it when someone comes up to me and tells me something that I didn’t know about it.” She leaves room for mystery in her work and looks forward to experiencing her own art from Nashville audience perspectives. na
Phantom Limbs/Guardian 1, 2015, Digital print with colored pencil, gouache and collage, 60” x 40”
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Willful Wondering and Disorderly Notions is on view at Tinney Contemporary through December 23. For more information, visit www.tinneycontemporary. com. To see more of Bellan-Gillen’s work, visit www.patriciabellangillen.com.
Photography by Ear The Tennessee Arts Commission Gallery through January 13, 2017
Dance Learn to
Future Man (Roy Willfred Wooten) and his Magnificent Synthax Drumatar
The vibrant worlds of music and photography merge at the Tennessee Arts Commission Gallery in its latest exhibition Photography by Ear. Featuring the work of Nashville photojournalist Charmaine Lanham, the show is buoyed by moments that defined the early emergence of blue grass and country music. Candid shots of icons like June Carter and Johnny Cash, Béla Fleck, and Claude Williams bring visitors to a pivotal time in Music City’s cultural history. “We sort of stumbled across this collection, and I was actually quite surprised that many of these works have rarely been seen,” explains Krishna Adams, the show’s curator. “It really captures a snapshot of 30, 40 years ago. It’s a step back in time of beautifully rendered, candidly captured moments that are very relevant to the unique expression of the Nashville area at that time.”
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Lanham, a self-taught photographer, moved to Nashville in the 1970s as her husband pursued his music career. They opened The Station Inn, which would become a downtown bluegrass mecca. Constantly surrounded by music and artists, Lanham began to document the burgeoning scene.
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“It’s kind of a microcosm of Nashville music, my show is,” Lanham says. “It’s got a variety of stuff that could only happen in Nashville really.”
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Beyond the up-close views of tastemakers who would become legends, Lanham’s work is most notable for its impromptu nature. In The Lesson from 1994, a circle of musicians is caught with eyes glued to Bill Monroe, palpably eager for his instruction. Vince Gill and Daughter Jenny, 1985, shows the country singer in an unguarded embrace of his young daughter at the end of a performance. “I want to provide a personal look at somebody that the viewer hadn’t seen that way before,” says Lanham. “I’d like them to just see what I saw at that moment.” Photography by Ear will be at the Tennessee Arts Commission Gallery, 401 Charlotte Avenue, through January 13, 2017. For more information, please visit www.tnartscommission.org.
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PUBLICART
Fine Art & Gifts
BY ANNE-LESLIE OWENS PUBLIC ART PROJECT COORDINATOR
Witness Walls: Continuing the Conversation about Civil Rights
by Olga Alexeeva & Local Artists
www.OGalleryArt.com
Olga Alexeeva, artist and owner, is available for commissioned works for home and business Art classes by Olga are conducted weekly
Hume-Fogg High School student Gabrielle Depalo interviewed Civil Rights veteran Vencen Horsley
Public art, by design, invites discussion. Each of us brings our own individual selves to our experience of art. When it is revealed in early 2017, we hope visitors to the artwork Witness Walls will reflect on Nashville’s Civil Rights story and make their own contemporary connections to racial and social justice in Nashville and around the country. We look forward to the conversation. As part of the Witness Walls project, Metro Arts is pleased to present the “My Witness” podcast series, a collaboration with One Voice Nashville facilitated by storyteller and narrative journalist Mary Margaret Randall. The podcasts feature intergenerational interviews with seven Metro Nashville high-school students and Nashville Civil Rights activists. In one additional podcast, artist Walter Hood discusses his inspirations and hopes for how people will experience Witness Walls. Taking this conversation a step further, we’ve asked students to share guest blog posts. In the blog posts, students describe what they learned in the interviews and how it impacted their views. Gabrielle “Gabby” Depalo, a recent Hume-Fogg graduate, reflected on her interview with Vencen Horsley, explaining, Although I have always been passionate about civil rights issues, interviewing Vencen Horsley has reinvigorated my dedication to the cause … This cycle continues through generations because when we listen and empathize with others, our conversations alter the way we see each other, and what we learn about our fellow man teaches us and then reiterates this fundamental “Capital T” Truth: We are all human—we are all connected—we are one. We hope you will check out the podcast series and blog available at www.witnesswalls.com. New podcasts will be launched each Monday in January. Witness Walls will be located on the west side of the historic Metro Nashville Courthouse in Public Square Park. Construction has begun and a dedication will take place after the first of the year. If you would like to receive notice of the dedication event, please email us at anne-leslie.owens@nashville.gov.
Olga Alexeeva, December Delight, Acrylic, 40 x 40
Open 7 Days a Week • Monday-Saturday 10-6 • Sunday 11-5 1305 Clinton St. Ste. 120 • Nashville, TN 37203 • 615-416-2537
A Winter Wonderland at Haynes Galleries Through January 28, 2017 by Margaret F.M. Walker
T
he exhibition of snow paintings at Haynes Galleries is certain to get you spirited for winter and perhaps even feeling goosebumps as you’re immersed in these artworks. Subject matter—the beauty of the natural world under snowfall—unites these paintings that are otherwise separated by the varied artists who created them and the dates of their creation, which span over 70 years.
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“
It is a treat to see these artists’ many approaches to the wonder and quietude of snow.
Marc Dalessio, Snow Scene, Oil on panel, 8” x 12”
Peter Poskas, Fresh Snow, Emily’s (Woodbury, Connecticut), 2006, Oil on panel, 16” x 15”
Lynn Sanguedolce, Winter Light, Oil on linen, 12” x 16”
Andrew Wyeth, Granary and Mill, 1961, Watercolor on paper, 10” x 12”
T. Allen Lawson, Wilbur and His Ladies, 2014, Oil on linen board, 28" x 26"
Cindy House, Stream in Mid-Winter, 2012, Pastel, 8” x 10”
Marc Dalessio and Lynn Sanguedolce seem to capture the weather in action. Both artists have used a looser facture, characteristic of the impressionists who loved to paint en plein air, though imagining an artist actually painting in a snowstorm should give you a good laugh. The ability of Dalessio and Sanguedolce to convince us that they have done so speaks to their talents. In Dalessio’s Snow Scene, the texture of paint on the canvas signals to us the rapidity of snowfall. A hint of blue mixes with the sky’s overwhelming white, and the obscured brown branches of a tree in the background give a sense that many more inches of snow are yet to fall. In a sea of white, snow has obscured the use of this land, allowing only for enjoyment of its beauty. Sanguedolce’s small work is compositionally more innovative. The hillside that dominates the right half of the canvas segments the scene in a way atypical for landscapes. Her use of color is indicative, too, as hints of autumn colors peek through the hillside to suggest the season’s first snowfall. The works by Emile Gruppe and Andrew Wyeth are older, dating from midcentury. Gruppe’s deep snow in the forest is likely a scene in Massachusetts. The trees leap up in the foreground and guide our line of sight straight to the pop of blue sky, and we are close enough to see tree species delineated by changes in bark and trunk color. Wyeth uses a similar technique of a tree in the foreground, though here it is simply a few branches on the left side, a funny interjection leading us to wonder about the area surrounding this scene of a farm (likely in his home of Chadd’s Ford, Pennsylvania). It is unusual for a snow scene to be painted in watercolor, though it was a favorite medium of Wyeth’s, and it offers an opportunity to think anew about texture and medium in depicting a familiar phenomenon.
with which Bedrosian renders the subject, creating motion as we view the painting. Snow has a way of creating a sense of timelessness, blanketing signals of the modern day in white. The only details reminding us that this woman was painted in 2015 are her knit cap and the design of her coat. With In the Shadow of the Towering Peaks, David Wright has created an intriguing scene. Is its primary subject the majesty of nature seen in the towering peaks and evergreens or the moment of old meeting new as a cowboy approaches a Native American camp? This seemingly significant encounter foreshadows the future of this Western land but literally sits in the shadow of snow-covered mountains. It is a treat to see these artists’ many approaches to the wonder and quietude of snow. Whether capturing the fluster of falling snow, its melting into the hope of spring, or the relationship of man and animal to nature’s constancy, the paintings at Haynes Galleries’ winter exhibition this year are sure to delight the eye and ignite the joy encapsulated in a pristine blanket of winter white. na See these and more winter scenes at Haynes Galleries through January 28, 2017. For more information, visit www.haynesgalleries.com.
Other artists capture the tail end of winter, when the snow lingers but grass peeks through under a warm sun, and water bubbles out from under ice. Peter Poskas’s Snowmelt, Andros Farm, Washington, CT, is a quiet scene of rural life where strong sunshine and melting snow signal the promise of a new day and the new life of spring. We can imagine the feeling of crisp air under a hot sun and almost hear the snow dripping from the trees and eaves of the farmhouse. T. Allen Lawson’s Wilbur and His Ladies, while a peaceful scene of barnyard coexistence, is far less still, as the donkey munches on and chickens peck at their meal. Cindy House takes viewers to a more secluded space with Stream in Mid-Winter. The dappled light in shades of blue, gray, and white in the foreground illuminates the changing seasons, as the snow melts and the water of the gently curving stream finds its outlet. Though the vegetation still signals winter, verdant evergreens in the midground brighten this scene. Two works fit less easily into a traditional landscape narrative. Holly Bedrosian’s On a Crisp Day shows a young woman outside on a chilly but refreshing day, signaled by the title and also the hint of pink on her nose and cheeks and the top of her heavy coat hanging over her right shoulder. The looser brushwork on the trees in the background plays against the precise realism
Holly Bedrosian, On a Crisp Day, 2015, Colored pencil on paper, 14” x 11”
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Photograph by Jerry Atnip
ASISEEIT BY MARK W. SCALA
Mark W. Scala Chief Curator
Frist Center for the Visual Arts
Talent, Celebrity, and Creativity: Intersecting Mediums A Closer Look at Harmony Korine, Patti Smith and Don Van Vliet
Scash Bridger, 2015, Acrylic, house paint and collage on canvas, 68” x 64”
Caker Plino, 2015, Oil, acrylic, house paint and ink on canvas, 101” x 72”
A
s I organized Harmony Korine’s current painting show at the Frist Center, Captain Beefheart and Patti Smith kept sneaking into my thoughts. The three artists seem to occupy common terrain, using the poetics of transgression to puncture the normative surface of culture. For them, sensation trumps reason, rawness is preferred to refinement. Too, each is known for making his or her way in two distinct creative worlds. The iconoclastic musician Captain Beefheart came along at the same time and performed with the same irreverence as his friend Frank Zappa. Then, after he quit music in the 1980s, he focused on his work under his given name, Don Van Vliet, the neo-Expressionist painter promoted by art dealers Mary Boone and Michael Werner. Julian Schnabel, a
painter who is also a gifted and intuitive filmmaker, was himself an early champion of Van Vliet’s canvases. Along with artists like Schnabel, Van Vliet was known for aggressive gestural abstractions that were descended from the machismo of Abstract Expressionism while at the same time paying homage to outsider artists, who turn their lack of formal training into arguments for approaching the world with new eyes. As Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan wrote after his death in 2010, “Don Van Vliet . . . listened with his eyes and he saw with his ears.”1 This could be equally ascribed to Patti Smith, the punk musician, poet, and author of the elegant memoir Just Kids, which delves into her relationship with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Smith makes exquisite drawings and photographs, often inscribed in her delicate hand with wistful poems or observations about the world. Her 2013 exhibition The Coral Sea, at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, was an absorbing and elegiac installation, with auratic objects and images saturated with longing and loss—feelings deepened by a swelling musical incantation and haunting film
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His lack of skill is more than compensated for by his restless creativity and aesthetic fluidity.
Breakers; or uneasiness at the dreamlike qualities of films like Gummo, audiences are at the very least intrigued by Korine’s assays into strangeness, on levels both intimate and cultural. Korine’s paintings are similarly disorienting and unrefined, with a bit of dirt under their fingernails. They share with his films an idiosyncratic sense of touch—which in his early projects appeared as a shaky, handheld aesthetic—along with off colors, stream-of-consciousness storytelling, and light-leaks and glitches coming from the use of old Super 8 film. The amateurism makes the films seem like found objects, discovered in an attic box full of weird old home movies. But when they are taken apart, frame by frame, we see a remarkable visual intelligence—each has been composed for maximum surprise and emotional pull. His paintings are also compositionally startling and seem found as much as made. They are begun by creating rough physical surfaces with rippling canvases or collages of torn-up paper, so their physical presence is strongly felt. Then, in a call-and-response mode, Korine layers ghostly images or abstract patterns to evoke worlds of shadow, mystery, and vertigo, all with mind-altering intensity.
Clincer Feen, 2015, Oil, acrylic and ink on canvas, 50” x 30”
projections. This protean orchestration left a lump in the throat and an ache in the heart. Like Van Vliet, Smith is essentially self-taught as a visual artist. But as we gauge the impact of her work, we are reminded that few of even the most technically skilled artists or musicians can reach such fierce interiority—a nakedness that seems as incidental and necessary as breath itself. While they are not mutually exclusive, if we weigh virtuosity against originality, intuition, and emotional power, we might also consider Harmony Korine, who disarmingly declares that “I don’t really know what I’m doing” in making either films or paintings.2 For him, the lack of skill is more than compensated for by his restless creativity and aesthetic fluidity. Korine makes what he wants to see, without worrying about whether it is thought to be good. His films are brazenly corrosive, hallucinogenic and, to my eye, pungently beautiful. I know many people who do not “like” them in the ordinary sense of the word—in the way one “likes” chocolate or the movies of Tom Hanks. Whether they feel revulsion at the moral grotesquery of Trashhumpers; offense at the problematic black humor, stylized violence, and cheerful randiness in Spring 1 Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, statement, quoted in “Tom Waits Remembers Captain Beefheart,” TwentyFourBit (blog), December 20, 2010, twentyfourbit.com.
None of these artists have received much, if any, training in their second languages of expression. Yet they are not naïve, having lived and worked in art-saturated milieus and shown with major New York galleries. But as with other creative people who step outside the medium for which they are known (and there are so many—David Bowie, James Franco, Dennis Hopper, Joni Mitchell . . .), there is often a lingering suspicion that they have attained art-world notice more because of their celebrity than their ability. To bypass this perception, Van Vliet left music behind so he wouldn’t be thought of as a “musician who paints”—that is, an egotistical dabbler who thought that because he was good at one thing he would automatically be good at something else. The reasons people have for expressing themselves in more than one medium are diverse. For some, the reason is the pleasure of and escape in having a hobby. For others, it may come from the notion that being a visual artist lends a certain gravitas—a means of demonstrating their intellectual heft and Bohemian street cred, which doesn’t always come through in fields associated with entertainment. But for a few—including, I think, Captain Beefheart, Patti Smith, and Harmony Korine— the different forms of expression bleed together and feed each other, the artist becoming indistinguishable from the impulse to create. na Harmony Korine: Shadows and Loops at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts through January 16, 2017. For more information visit www.fristcenter.org.
2
Harmony Korine, e-mail to Mark Scala, May 24, 2016
Photograph by Tony Youngblood
OPENSPACES BY ERICA CICCARONE
Erica Ciccarone is an independent writer. She holds an M.F.A. from the New School in Creative Writing. She blogs about art at nycnash.com.
Art and Basketball: The Alchemy of Brandon Donahue
O ne wall of Brandon Donahue’s studio is lined with basketballs,
Brandon Donahue
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You can have serious work that’s hidden in the context of something playful.
Photography by ORGNZD VISUALS
dozens of them, of varying size and color. Some are still fresh and pop with color; others are faded and soft. Some bear messages in Sharpie marker, the loopy handwriting shouting out a name. They carry other names, too: Spalding, Wilson, Rawlings. Donahue has been scavenging again at outdoor courts and in parks, collecting material for art making. He slices them open, through leather and rubber, and arranges them into wall hangings, four feet in diameter, that resemble flowers. The Basketball Blooms, as he calls them, are based on the sacred geometry of the mandala. A symbolic picture of the universe, the mandala is associated with belonging and harmony. The basketballs each carry a history: the number of games they’ve seen, the puddles, the pavement, the hands through which they’ve passed. “They’ve been touched by so many people,” he says. “It’s communal.”
Donahue is intentional in his repurposing. Basketball means a lot to him, and he taps it for cultural and aesthetic significance. He also collects hubcaps, fallen street signs, discarded pennant strings, chicken bones—stuff of his own Southern landscape. Like hip hop’s characteristic sampling of beats, he paints, airbrushes, vacuum forms, and assembles these items into something that transcends their original purpose without abandoning it. His work speaks in a vernacular that is influenced by hip hop and folk art alike. Donahue’s first love isn’t assemblage or sculpture, but airbrushing. His work is anchored in graffiti traditions with slick fonts and bold colors, while his M.F.A. and extensive fine art experience drive him to elevate the form. He’s quick to differentiate street art from graffiti; street art is legal, he says, sanctioned, commissioned, but he grew up painting with graffiti artists and customizing T-shirts, sneakers, skateboards, and cars. Now a professor at Tennessee State University, his alma mater, Donahue does commissions around the state. He has painted murals in Printers Alley, a house off I-65, the Chilhowee Park entrance in Knoxville, and the historic Sterick building in his hometown, Memphis, among many others. The exactitude of airbrushing and the slapdash quality of assemblage create a wonderful sense of tension in Donahue’s work that shows his versatility. The sculptural work from scavenged materials is somewhat liberated from rules of perspective and proportion. It feels as if the artist is letting go of control, playing for
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Basketball Bloom (muddy), 2016, Torn basketballs, shoestrings, 3' x 3' Bamboo Goal, 2016, Bamboo, rope, toilet seat, shoestrings, and spray paint, 4' x 3'
the sake of play, but as he says, “You can have serious work that’s hidden in the context of something playful.” In November, he transformed Seed Space’s gallery into a half-court basketball gym in his solo show FOUL SHOT. Donahue constructed goal backboards from bamboo that he spray painted vibrant colors, employed spray-painted toilet seats as makeshift rims, and wove nets from shoelaces. He hung these on three of the gallery walls and marked the floor with requisite lines. The line that interests him most is the free-throw line. On a true court, it’s the one 15 feet from the basket, where players stand to take unopposed shots after being fouled. “That’s an important shot,” Donahue says. “That’s where the most pressure is. There’s no one there to block your shot. It’s just you.” The practice of an athlete is not unlike that of the studio artist. While both arenas include plenty of competition, the athlete’s and the artist’s main adversary is himself. Rachel Bubis, the curator of Seed Space, gave Donahue free range, but even working within the gallery’s scarce parameters didn’t come easy. “The gallery itself can serve a great purpose,” Donahue says, “but sometimes you need to leave the gallery to get your message across . . . That’s why I do street art—it’s art for the public.” Donahue says he’s always been anti-canvas, anti-square, and he connects this aversion to white, male-dominated art history that feels far from his experience. “It was like a sophisticated, superior sport . . . If I were to go back to those times, I wouldn’t fit into that history.” This is perhaps the cord that makes Donahue’s work so powerful. An excellent, affecting gallery exhibition touches only so many people, usually a small sector of art world elite. The gallery of the city, however, is available to all. It speaks in a language that everyday people understand and to which they respond. Standing in the middle of FOUL SHOT before the center goal, with three Basketball Blooms at your back, you can feel the tension between the white box of the gallery and the world outside, both hungry for the transformations ignited by art and basketball. na Brandon Donahue’s FOUL SHOT will be on view at Seed Space until December 31. For more information, visit www.seedspace.org. To see more of Brandon’s work, go to www.brandonjaquezdonahue.com.
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SOUNDINGOFF BY JOSEPH E. MORGAN
particularly with his trill at the moment the woodwinds are given a new theme (one of Mozart’s many innovations in the piece). Barnatan’s cadenzas eschewed a tremendous romantic flash and instead provided a restrained and melodically rich ornamental style appropriate to Mozart’s masterpiece. Sinaisky closed the concert with Tchaikovsky’s magnificent Manfred Symphony Op. 58. The entire work was fantastic, especially the magical second movement’s fairy music. At the symphony’s close, the Schermerhorn’s mighty Martin Foundation organ brought the evening to a thrilling and transcendent close.
Inon Barnatan
For classical music fans in Nashville, the last couple of weeks have represented an embarrassment of riches with two wonderful concerts from the Nashville Symphony and a tragic, heartbreaking production of Tom Cipullo’s contemporary opera Glory Denied from the Nashville opera. On October 28 and 29, emerging virtuosa violinist Simone Porter joined the Symphony for a performance of Samuel Barber’s lyrical Violin Concerto in a concert which also featured Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 2 and Antonin Dvorˇák’s Othello Overture. Porter’s performance of the Barber was well read, but her virtuosity really shined in the technically brilliant perpetuum mobille of the third movement. Under Guerrero’s baton, the Dvorˇák and the Brahms’s were quite dramatic. In particular, the Wiegenlied theme in the first movement was given in a bright nostalgia without lulling us to sleep. The wind instruments, too, deserve special mention for their climactic largamente theme in the fourth movement.
However, the highlight of the month, and perhaps of the season, was the Nashville Opera’s Veteran’s Day production of Glory Denied at the intimate Noah Liff Opera Center. The work is a chamber opera based on an account of the life of Vietnam veteran Colonel Jim Thompson and his experience as the longest held prisoner of war in American history. John Hoomes’s production was Spartan, allowing the singers (baritone Michael Mayes, Alto Rebecca Sjöwall, tenor Eric Neuville and Soprano Emma Grimsley) to shine and shifting the dramatic conflict and spotlight to the mental and emotional aspects of Cipullo’s beautiful score. Mayes’s rendition of Thompson was remarkable. His Act Two scene 1 aria “Teflon Cookware, Men with Long Hair,” better termed a rant on the changing terms of the American Dream, was masterfully performed and important—humanizing the loss and anger of this soldier who gave everything. Maestro Dean Williamson’s chamber orchestra was marvelous, and special mention goes to Michael Samis (cello) for the beautiful obbligato line in the second act. na
For his part, Barnatan was quite attentive and responsive to the orchestra’s expression,
Simone Porter
Glory Denied
Courtesy of Nashville Opera
On November 4 and 5, established virtuoso pianist Inon Barnatan joined the Symphony under the baton of the famous Russian conductor Vassily Sinaisky, a specialist in the Russian and German repertoire, who served as the principle conductor for the Moscow Philharmonic at the end of the last century. The concert opened with Samuel Barber’s Essay No. 2 Op. 17, a broad orchestra composition based on a novel organization that requires great patience on the behalf of the conductor in order to allow Barber’s magnificent transitions to flower. Sinaisky proved up to the task and more, particularly with Mozart’s 24th concerto, in which he managed to bring out many of this classic era work’s proto-romantic characteristics. Jeff Fasano Photography
Photograph by Marco Borggreve
A Rich Autumn for Classical Music in Nashville
THE ARTWORK OF HATCH SHOW PRINT’S DESIGNER-PRINTERS Celene Aubry
Heather Moulder
Jennifer Bronstein
Sarah Anne Murphy
Devin Goebel
Amber Richards
Alex MacAskill
Cory Wasnewsky
EXHIBITION OPEN NOVEMBER 18, 2016 – JANUARY 8, 2017 MEET THE ARTISTS AND SHOP SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3 • 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Downtown Nashville
•
615.577.7711
Visit HatchShowPrint.com for more information.
Photograph by Ron Manville
ANDSOITGOES BY RACHAEL McCAMPBELL
Rachael McCampbell is an artist, teacher, curator, and writer who resides in the small hamlet of Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee. For more about her, please visit www.rachaelmccampbell.com.
TUSCANY
Photograph by Robbie Brooks Moore
Rachael Takes a Group of Nashville Artists to the Land of La Dolce Vita
I
remember a day in my 20s when I was standing on the outskirts of Cortona, eating a nocciola gelato, overlooking miles of vineyards and olive groves. As I took in the smell of garlic and tomatoes simmering on a nearby stove, a group of Italian women passed by, arm in arm, chattering in their native tongue, and I thought, I wish I could take this all with me. And I have, so to speak, but there is no replacement for actually experiencing Italy firsthand. Like many art students, I completed a college summer abroad program in Cortona—a medieval hilltop town in Tuscany made famous by the book/film Under the Tuscan Sun. After graduating, I worked in Florence and have returned many times since. In September, I took twelve guests to a villa in Cortona for eight nights of what I called a “transformational journey.” I provided a unique environment for them to reconnect with their creative selves, learn Italian cooking, and build new relationships. I didn’t specify what sort of creativity because not everyone was there to paint—some photographed while
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Rachael McCampbell, Kim Zimmer and Robbie Brooks Moore painting in Piazza della Repubblica, Cortona
Rachael painting
Photograph by Robbie Brooks Moore
Photograph by Rachael McCampbell
Robbie Brooks Moore and Kim Zimmer
To help deepen their time in Italy, I encouraged my guests to set daily intentions. Each night we gathered for dinner at a large table inside or al fresco and shared our impressions and inspirations. It’s magical how thirteen people can experience the same thing in thirteen very different ways. With much laughter, gentle teasing, and even a few tears, common themes arose for many of these accomplished, cando folks. One being that they were grateful for the gift they had given themselves of crossing the ocean to unplug and explore their creativity. When you are from an outcome-centric society like America, being present is not always easy. A few guests shared their expectations of finishing several pieces of art before the week was out. I understood. I put that same pressure on myself, but we weren’t at home, we were in Italy. So I encouraged them to slow down, take in their surroundings, and be playful. Italy itself is a place that enlivens the senses, which in turn feeds creativity. The textured, peeling walls, the colorful fresh-food markets, Vespas buzzing through the narrow streets, the taste of fresh basil and buffalo mozzarella dripping with syrupy olive oil, ancient Renaissance masterpieces, and creamy cappuccinos are a few examples of things that awaken the senses there. Even the inconveniences of thick villa walls limiting wi-fi access, or bathrooms that offer only handheld shower appliances,
The view from Cortona
were all blessings in disguise—forcing us to let go of our expectations and our electronic devices—to slow down and be present. I have since heard from many of my guests that the paths they began and the friendships they created in Italy have continued. They have said that the paramount lesson of simply being, observing, and taking life in has remained. Their observational skills have improved, and they are looking at life from a new, more sensual perspective. They have slowed down to explore the ordinary and enjoy things as they are presented—in the moment. And if they shut their eyes and breath in deeply, they can even hear the distant church bells pealing throughout the cobblestone streets and hills of Cortona. na Rachael is an artist, writer, and teacher in Franklin, Tennessee, who leads Artistic Adventures Abroad, www.rachaelmccampbell.com.
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Photograph by Rachael McCampbell
others wrote. Being an artist and art teacher, I made a point to paint with them (after all, there’s nothing as peaceful as deeply observing your surroundings), but I knew that it was even more important for them to take in ALL of Italy, store its nuances, and let their observations be a source for creativity for months to come.
THEATRE
Jim Reyland’s new book, Handmade – Friendships Famous, Infamous, Real and Imagined is available at Amazon.com in paperback and on Kindle. Jim’s new Christmas music comedy, MOTEL NOEL, starring Barry Scott and Jamey Green, opens December 1 at the 4th Story Theatre. jreyland@audioproductions.com
BY JIM REYLAND
Cinderella Brings Love to the Holidays
Eric D. Pasto-Crosby (Prince Rupert), Jamie Farmer (Tisbe), Rosemary Fossee (Ella), Matthew Rosenbaum (Prince Leopold), Evangeline Richmond (Clarenda), and Shawn Knight (Archduke Ludwig) in Cinderella
R
enowned pianist and composer Loonis McGlohon once described Christmas as “Candy Canes, wind-up trains, drawing names . . . Christmas is all the things children dream of . . . but most of all, Christmas is Love.” Nashville Children’s Theatre agrees. That’s why they’ve not only chosen to punctuate the season with one of the greatest love stories of all time, but they also suggest that it could become so much more—your new holiday tradition. This is very exciting, because holiday traditions, like mistletoe, are filled with expectation!
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Cinderella is as colorful as a Victorian pop-up book and as lush as a Viennese waltz.
Photography by Colin Peterson
Nashville Children’s Theatre
2017 at Nashville Children’s Theatre Treasure Island is the ultimate pirate adventure, reinvented for today’s young audiences and families! January 19 – February 5, 2017 And in This Corner: Cassius Clay. In this corner, ignorance, bigotry, poverty, and injustice. And in this corner . . . Cassius Clay! February 23 – March 12, 2017. A Regional Premiere. Goodnight Moon. You’ll find a hundred delightful surprises on the way to getting exactly what you expect! April 13 – May 14, 2017
Rosemary Fossee (Ella), Eric D. Pasto-Crosby (Baron Rupert), Matthew Rosenbaum (Prince Leopold), and Shawn Knight (Archduke Ludwig) in Cinderella
Cinderella is a tale of magic that starts with a girl, a shoe, and ends with a prince. It’s a story that’s been reimagined in every possible way for hundreds of years. The oldest version was thought to have come from China. After that, a European version arrived from Italy. The most popular version was first published by Charles Perrault in Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé in 1697 and later by the Brothers Grimm in their folk tale collection Grimms’ Fairy Tales. Today it’s as much a part of our modern-day culture as Disney and Rodgers and Hammerstein. NCT’s Cinderella is dramatized by the late Producing Artistic Director Scot Copeland and remounted by Company Stage Manager Dan Brewer. The cast is led by Rosemary Fossee, last seen as Mary Warren in the critically acclaimed Afflicted: Daughters of Salem. Matthew Rosenbaum will make sure the shoe fits as Prince Leopold, and Rona Carter appears as Cinderella’s magical Godmother. The wonderful Jamie Farmer and Evangeline Richmond are the hilariously awful stepsisters, Tisbe and Clarenda, and Bobby Wyckoff makes his appearance as King Otto. Shawn Knight and Eric D. PastoCrosby are on hand as Baron Rupert and Archduke Ludwig, respectively. NCT is very proud of their upcoming production, and they should be.
Grand Day. A celebration of the generations of families who have supported NCT, Grand Day begins with a 2 p.m. performance of Goodnight Moon and is followed by a carnival of games, rides, food, and fun for the whole family! Sunday, April 23, 2017
transformations, delicate pumpkin coach, beautiful ball gown, a handsome prince, the striking clock, a desperate flight, and, of course, a delicate glass slipper left behind in the snow, all lovingly designed, carefully crafted, and beautifully played.” You can’t argue with images like those. So hurry up, purchase your tickets before the clock strikes midnight or risk turning into a gourd. Performances are Thursday, December 15, through Saturday, December 17, evenings at 6:30 p.m., as well as afternoons at 2 p.m. from Saturday, December 17, through December 22. There is no performance on Monday, December 19. na For more information and tickets, visit www.nashvillechildrenstheatre.org.
“Cinderella is as colorful as a Victorian pop-up book and as lush as a Viennese waltz. This sparkling holiday confection brims with humor, romance, and spectacular theatrical effects. All the iconic elements one would hope to see are here: hilarious stepsisters, wise fairy godmother, amazing Jamie Farmer (Tisbe), Rosemary Fossee (Ella), and Evangeline Richmond (Clarenda) in Cinderella
C U S TO M S H O U S E M U S E U M E X H I B I T
Christmas from the Collection Through January 22 Featuring the Drye Family Christmas Village TOYS • ORNAMENTS • MODEL TRAINS
200 S. 2nd Street in Historic Downtown Clarksville, TN 931-648-5780 • www.customshousemuseum.org Hours: Tues – Sat 10 – 5 • Sun 1 - 5
Presenting
RECLAIMING PEACE: Honoring International Holocaust Remembrance Day
NeLLie Jo
Featuring works by Messaien and duBois
January 24, 2017 at
Maybe It’s In the Barn, oil, 11 x 14, by Nellie Jo Rainer ARTS • NASHVILLE
ozartsnashville.org aliasmusic.org
Nellie Jo Art Studio 615-519-0258 • nelliejoartstudio@gmail.com
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Lucy Gaines at Julia Martin Gallery
ARTSEE
Photograph by Brenda Stein
ARTSEE
Bicycle Tour of Nashville Walls Project
Photograph by Tiffani Bing
Tri Star Gallery Show Opening Reception at The Clay Lady’s Campus
Lisa Jennings and Anton Weiss at Nashville Arts Magazine's offices
Cierra Potter and Evan N. at The Rymer Gallery
ARTSEE
Photograph by Sam Jaco
Olli Daher, Blair Bandy, and Lucy Clark at The Arts Company
Photograph by Tammy Gentuso
Tanner Hamilton and Mary Sellers at Jack Yacoubian Fine Jewelry
Malachi Riddle at David Lusk Gallery
Mai Orsino and Shawn Barber at The Rymer Gallery
Artist Jared Freihoefer at Blend Studio
Freida Outlaw at The Arts Company
Artist Paul Buono at Franklin Presbyterian Church
Photograph by Tiffani Bing
Jason Hargrove and Eliana Hargrove at Blend Studio
Amanda W. at The Rymer Gallery
Sloane Southard and Emily Leonard at Zeitgeist
Jordan Powell, Ken Gaidos, and Lisa Powell at Gallery 202
Angie Howard, Jay McDougall, and Molly Upchurch at Artclectic
ARTSEE Photograph by Peyton Hoge
PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN JACKSON
ARTSEE
Amanda Bjorlund and Candace Watson at 40AU
ARTSEE
At Valentina Harper Gallery
Ron Buffington at mild climate Dr. Jewyl Gibson at Seed Space
Don VanCleave and Herb Williams at The Rymer Gallery
Artist Rebecca Green at Julia Martin Gallery
Brandon Felts and Jen Stalvey at David Lusk Gallery
Photograph by Peyton Hoge Photograph by Tiffani Bing
Ram and Laxmi Dasari, James Kuol Makuac, and Lanie Gannon at Artclectic
STUDIOTENN Studio Tenn Embraces Vintage Christmas Present (and Future)
Jake Speck, Emily Speck, Patrick Thomas, Laura Matula, Melodie Madden Adams, Erin Parker, Libby Black, and Matt Logan
This time of year, “what makes the ideal present?” is the question on many of our minds. Of course, there is no onesize-fits-all wonder widget. Although wish lists vary from person to person—cooking classes, concert tickets, the latest video game—gifts that enable us to share experiences with friends or loved ones tend to be a common theme. Such is the inspiration for Studio Tenn Theatre Company’s new holiday offering A Studio Tenn Christmas, a new musical variety show that harks back to the television specials of yesteryear. Billed as “a modern take on the vintage holiday special,” the format takes cues from legendary hosts such as Andy Williams, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, and others. A cast of eight singers offers up a warm blend of merriment and nostalgia through music and banter—sans cameras and commercials.
The company piloted an early version of the program somewhat quietly in 2015 under the no-frills title Holiday Concert. The limited run featured just two weeknight performances on the set of It’s A Wonderful Life (the company’s mainstage offering whose three-week run was also underway). The song-centric approach was a hit with patrons. This year, A Studio Tenn Christmas debuts as a full two-week run and the company’s sole holiday offering. Logan intends to continue with the same basic format, refreshing the content and performers each year. “At Studio Tenn, we never want to serve up leftovers,” he said. “Neither do we want to ‘regift’ the same show to our audience year after year.” Fortunately, “the breadth of the Christmas canon allows us to be original with our own twist on the songs yet still deliver on our audience’s expectations for familiarity and nostalgia,” he said. Though A Studio Tenn Christmas is just beginning its ascent as a Middle Tennessee tradition, Logan is hopeful that it will become a perennial favorite for patrons—the type of gift that keeps on giving. na The show runs December 8–18 at Jamison Theater in The Factory at Franklin. Performances are held Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets are available at www.studiotenn.com or by calling the box office at 615-541-8200.
Performing their stylized takes on holiday favorites such as “O Holy Night,” “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” and “White Christmas,” featured singers of A Studio Tenn Christmas include Jake Speck, Libby Black, and Patrick Thomas, as well as Studio Tenn’s Artistic Director, Matt Logan. Logan said the concept has been a few years in the making and will have a distinctly different feel from its mainstage plays and musicals. “The vintage TV specials that we most dearly remember brought the music and conversation right into our living rooms,” Logan said. “It was an intimate experience and a social one.”
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Melodie Madden Adams, Erin Parker, Patrick Thomas, and Laura Matula
Photography by Anthony Matula of MA2LA
Photography by Anthony Matula of MA2LA
In the same way, this new program “is more about sharing than strictly presenting,” he said. “We want to set aside that metaphorical fourth wall and just be together—as artists and audience—inhabiting the same moment.”
BY CASSIDY MARTIN YOUTH POET LAUREATE
I’ll never forget my first poem My sunlight moment I didn’t think I would cry so hard I didn’t think it would be that easy to shrug the world off my shoulders As tightly as I gripped my paper waves of anxiety crashing on desks Admission was someone I didn’t know I could meet she looked so good Her strong delicate hands pried the fingers from my throat That choked my stanzas Her lips pressed against mine her approval slipped inside I had permission to speak She held the paper steady for me She lifted my chin and brushed the dirty hair from my face She cradled my cheeks She lived for me to speak my truth She willed me to live like a loved one wills a comatose patient to move She commanded me to open my mouth let out something other than silence as loud as screams Dared me to taste freedom She dared me To taste Freedom It was the first bite I had had in 11 years. Other than hard skeleton bodies that were shoved down my throat I threw up my bones all over that makeshift stage Everyone who read Poured the darkest corners of our souls on the cement floor Full of empty and dark memories Heavy they rolled around like bowling balls Slamming together They created earthquakes and we shook to tears We plummeted off skyscrapers with extended wings That poetry lets us wear That art supplied Art gave us wings And we flew Like we never wanted to taste dirt again My wings grew stronger with every poem Art stood in front of me When I tried to turn around and go back
Cassidy Martin is the 2016 Nashville Youth Poet Laureate and a junior at Nashville Big Picture High School. Join her on December 10 at Ingram Hall as we select the next Youth Poet Laureate. Learn more at www.southernword.org.
She carried me She dragged me when I was too weak to move She force fed me with relief until I could stomach the eerie feeling peace on my own Sometimes it’s still hard to swallow But with every brush stroke I feel her fingers on my shoulder Every new line is the bird who eats my crumbs back to a broken home As I meet others whose experience with her is almost no different than mine Friends whose string of fate was gently picked up by her And she tied and connected all the different pieces Twisted all the places in our lives that began to unravel in chaos She saved my sister Cradled her hand in sketchbook paper Held her feet on stage in forensic competitions She saved my best friend Held his ear drums with melodies Traced the outline of his fingertips with pads of a studio sound board She doesn’t let the razor taste your skin anymore She urges you only to describe its memory As a tool to help others You don’t have to crawl inside yourself And be alone And grow up in this world without an outlet Without a voice Or a palette Or drums Use your heartbeat as the drum Take a marker to your skin If you don’t see beauty Draw It There If you only hear gunshots screaming and mothers weeping Drown it out with your music Compare it to God’s thunder Make Bold lines turn up the bass lift your voice Until you are riding the sky Until you are swimming with clouds as children watch from the ground As they wait For art To give them wings
Photograph by Carla Ciuffo
POET’SCORNER
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ARTSMART
A monthly guide to art education
TENNESSEE ROUNDUP NEA Programs to Inspire Lifelong Learning
Big Read Kick Off Party with a scene from Clarence Brown Theatre’s stage adaptation of A Lesson Before Dying
Photograph by Jon Gustin Courtesy of Knox County Government
Poetry Out Loud (POL) is a national recitation competition organized by the Commission in partnership with the NEA and the Poetry Foundation. Open to all public, private, and homeschooled students in grades 9–12, POL encourages students to learn about great poetry through memorization and recitation. This program helps students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence, and learn about literary history and contemporary life.
TBR Kickoff Fantasy Faire open to community
Photograph by Larry Kuzniewski Courtesy City of Germantown, TN
To encourage lifelong learning, the Tennessee Arts Commission wants Tennessee schools and communities to know about two opportunities to participate in national programs from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
I have seen firsthand what this can do for a student. In 2014, Anita Norman from Arlington, Tennessee, won the national competition, beating over 300,000 other students. Her father, Edward Norman, had this to say: “We told Anita that if she worked really hard, she would experience success. Her participation in POL has given her a new sense of confidence, motivating us as parents to continue encouraging our children to discover their passions.”
Another initiative of the NEA is the NEA Big Read that annually supports community-reading programs that each explores a single book. Over the past ten years, the NEA has supported more than 1,200 NEA Big Read projects across the country, with 4.2 million Americans taking part in these innovative communitywide programs
I hope you will consider participating in this literary program. Harold Kushner got it right when he said, “I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense.” The application deadline is Thursday, January 26, 2017, at 4 p.m. CST for NEA Big Read programs taking place between September 2017 and June 2018. Full details on eligibility and how to apply are available at neabigread.org/application_process.php.
Courtesy of Tennessee State Photography
Schools hold competitions to select a winner who competes in the Tennessee state competition. Winners of the state competitions then compete in a national competition held in Washington, D.C. Tennessee schools must register to participate by January 13, 2017. Students who will compete in the statewide contest must be registered by January 31, 2017. Visit tnartseducation.org/events/poetry-out-loud to learn more.
Photography by TN State Photography
Nonprofit organizations are eligible applicants, such as arts centers, arts councils, arts organizations, colleges and universities, community service organizations, environmental organizations, fairs and festivals, faith-based organizations, historical societies, housing authorities, humanities councils, libraries, literary centers, museums, school districts, trade associations, and tribal governments. The book list consists of 28 titles, and authors hail from across the country representing a range of ages and ethnicities.
by Anne Pope Executive Director Tennessee Arts Commission
2016 Poetry Out Loud winner Alexia Buckner from Bolton High School, Arlington, TN
ARTSMART
Beautiful Oops by Barney Saltzberg
Barney working in his studio
Beautiful Oops Recently I had the pleasure of dropping by the studio of book author Barney Saltzberg. Barney has written and illustrated over 50 children’s books and is constantly dreaming up ideas for more. One of my favorite books to read to my students in art class is Barney’s book titled Beautiful Oops. If you don’t own this book, it’s simply a work of art. The small format of the book fits nicely in small hands and speaks directly to imaginations big and small: you can create something beautiful from an oops! In his book, a torn piece of paper becomes an alligator. A purple paint spill becomes an elephant . . . and a dog! It’s pure magic and a great way to encourage children to learn from “mistakes” and make something magnificent.
Once I had the camera rolling, I asked Barney to walk me through his creative process. Boy, was that fascinating! As one might imagine, there is no direct path to creating a book. Barney scribbles notes on scrap papers, draws on his computer, doodles at his light box, you name it. Inspiration seems to come from everywhere in Barney’s books, and that is what makes them so fresh and fun. After chatting and filming for an hour, Barney was kind enough to take my husband and me to lunch. I am currently in the editing phase of Barney’s video. I know my students will be thrilled to go on a field trip to Barney’s studio and learn about his creative process. What an inspiration he will be to young budding artists!
Recently, I got the idea to introduce my students to creatives who use art every day in their lives. I am filming these artistically minded folks and sharing the videos with my students in a series I am calling “Field Trip!” By the way, I share my videos on my YouTube channel, which can be found under my name. Feel free to take a field trip along with us! I’m so fortunate to call Barney my friend. When I ran the idea past him, he was all in. Barney’s home and studio are located in Southern California. I penciled in a date and time to visit him when we happened to be on the sunny side of the states. He graciously hosted my husband and me as we explored his creative space. Directly behind his home is a blue studio where you can find Barney working most days. Just as one might imagine a creative space to be, there were books, art supplies, and wonderful curiosities covering every inch of his workspace. Barney is also a musician. His collection of stringed instruments filled the walls.
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by Cassie Stephens Art Teacher Johnson Elementary
Photograph by Juan Pont Lezica
Barney’s blue studio
ARTSMART
Lucy Barz, Lindsey George and Maelea Radford perform show tune “The Little Lambs from Alabama”
Classic movie buffs entering a theatre and taking a seat for a high school musical may have immediate flashbacks to the familiar words, “Hey kids, let’s put on a show!” This became the signature line for a series of Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland musicals in the early 1940s. The words always unleashed a frenzy of activity culminating in a stage performance of music and choreography, costumes and sets that would have been far beyond the budgets of the “kids.” Today, often lured by friendship, school loyalty, or family obligations to come and support budding youthful talent, musical theatre audiences often lower their expectations (“remember, they’re just kids”), prepared for a cute two-hour performance. Not so with audiences who pack the theatre each fall and spring to enjoy the latest musical production by students at Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet High School.
Ranked annually among the top high schools in the nation, Hume-Fogg offers students an academically challenging learning environment, but the school has also gained, since 1998–99, a reputation as one of the top theatre production venues in the city. From plays such as Our Town, The Man Who Came to Dinner, and Metamorphoses to musical productions running the gamut from South Pacific and West Side Story to the edgier Cabaret, Sweeney Todd, and In the Heights, Hume-Fogg’s theatre department consistently fills the house and “wows” audiences. The most recent production, Big Fish, marked the last performance before the theatre closes for several months of renovation—all in anticipation of the final spring production for actors in the class of 2017. It’s all part of the larger vision to upgrade and bring the theatre to a level that better reflects the quality of the performers, the sophistication of the audiences,
92 nashvillearts.com
Photograph by Rick Malkin
Hume-Fogg: “Let’s Put on a Show! ”
Michael Dunaway (center with young boy on his shoulder) singing "Be the Hero"
Photograph by Rick Malkin
ARTSMART
and the talent and standards of excellence associated with the Academic Magnet. Directing the actors in each production as well as in the development of their vocal and technical skill capacity is Daron Bruce, who teaches theatre at the school, and music director Lisa Forbis. “We started the same year at the school and work well together,” says Bruce of his collaborations over 19 years with Forbis. “Although we’ve presented plays, we do mostly musicals, usually two per year, based on the talents of our crew of highly musical performers. In addition to very talented singers and dancers, we have a full orchestra, and I like to remind students that not every high school theatre company has an opportunity to work with 15 violins.” The choice of musicals is generally kept secret from students until the scheduling of auditions. “I’m always looking to see what’s new out there,” Bruce says. “Last year we did Sweeney Todd. But we also very often go back to the old war horses— musicals audiences know and love.” The November production of Big Fish provided an opportunity for students to present a full range of vocal skills while exploring a cast of characters that make demands on deep diving into traits, motivation, and emotional range.
remained the eternally optimistic, goofy caricature was, in Dunaway’s skilled hands, given an unexpected depth as layer upon layer of Bloom’s personal story and complex relationships were peeled away. The transformation was stunning. “We talked about the role and Michael asked me if he needed to ‘age’ with the use of gray hair and make-up,” Bruce recalls. “But the action of the play moves back and forth in time. It is a tribute that only through Michael’s own action and emotional arc was he able to capture this complex character.” Dunaway’s previous theatre experiences at Hume-Fogg were parts in Sweeney Todd (“Really cool, I loved it”) and In the Heights (a hip-hop ensemble production) and admits to being nervous auditioning for the lead as a sophomore. “When auditions came up for Big Fish, I knew nothing about the show, but I knew the music for the part of Edward was in my range.” Senior Lindsey George, who performed the part of Sandra Bloom, is a veteran of three years in Hume-Fogg productions and brought her incredible vocal range to the stage in this production based on a novel by Daniel Wallace and adapted to the musical stage by John August (book) and Andrew Lippa (music and lyrics). “As a child, I looked at the stage and thought it would be cool, and at Hume-Fogg, it is pretty much my thing,” George says. “Theatre has given me self-confidence. I was always reserved and quiet, but I have the opportunity to take the stage and explain the emotional side of me through the lens of a character in front of different people each night. And I am surrounded by supportive people. It is a culture, a legacy, a heart and spirit we leave behind when we leave Hume-Fogg. My last rose ceremony will be emotional. I will be a ball rolled up on the floor.” Senior Jonathan Hankins, who plays Will Bloom, also treasures the friendships and camaraderie of the theatre. “We are always together. Being onstage with friends, making the audience laugh and enjoy the performance is rewarding.” Rewarding to the audience is Hankins’s unique voice, capable of stirring emotional response in songs such as “Stranger”.
The complex main character, Edward Bloom, was played by sophomore Michael Dunaway in an inspired performance— emotionally as well as musically. A character that could have
Rewarding to the young performers, as well as Bruce, Forbis, and everyone connected with Hume-Fogg theatre, will be the renovations starting December 2 and including new carpeting, curtains, seating, rigging, LED lighting, and sound system.
by DeeGee Lester Director of Education The Parthenon
Photograph by Drew Cox
Maelea Radford, Jonathan Hankins, and Lucy Barz in the musical number "Showdown"
Photograph by Rick Malkin
“I have the best job—an opportunity to see these students grow and make this beautiful piece of art,” said Bruce. “In the spring, they will have a great venue to display great talent.”
ARTSMART
ON THE HORIZON
Pearl-Cohn senior Laith Amanoel wins Emmy for Citizen Laith
Though it sounds like the pitch for a Hollywood film, this scenario was the actual life experience of Laith Amanoel, a senior at Pearl-Cohn Entertainment Magnet High School. From a dramatic life that has eased into the safety, comfort, and normality of the American Dream, Laith created a powerful documentary short film, Citizen Laith, chronicling his family experience. The film, narrated by Daniel Herelli, with cameraman Loai Amanoel, won the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) Midsouth Regional Student Award in April and continued to the national level in October, capturing the NATAS Student Production Award at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., in the non-fiction/short form documentary category. The film follows the family through the harrowing experience of the run to safety. “At any moment, we could have been killed,” Laith reminds his viewers. “I kind of knew what was going on [regarding the threats of beheading toward the family], but my parents tried to make it seem like it would be OK, that life was not going to stop.” Laith now recalls joining an uncle who had preceded them into Turkey and sitting while his parents answered questions during one of a series of interviews before being allowed to travel (again following their uncle) through Germany and Chicago to their new home in Nashville. Because he could speak no English, Laith was initially placed in
Laith Amanoel working on his film Citizen Laith
the 4th grade, but within a month had advanced to 5th grade. “I caught on pretty quickly. My friends—American kids—helped me the most,” he says. Attracted by broadcasting and state-of-the-art equipment and experiential learning at Pearl-Cohn Entertainment Magnet, Laith worked with his advisor, Todd Young, on his award-winning documentary. “I was always interested in film, but at Pearl-Cohn, it just expanded as I developed skills and learned all of the steps for creating a documentary,” Laith says. After high school, he wants to study filmmaking at Belmont or MTSU and pursue a career as a filmmaker or cinematographer. The Emmy Awards, along with submission of the film to the Student Television Network in Atlanta, have given Laith pride on a professional level, but as the film title, Citizen Laith, suggests, his personal goal was to become a U.S. citizen, which he achieved the day before getting his Emmy nomination. “I’m just really grateful to this country that gave me and my family the opportunity to be something and to have a future.”
Film still of Laith Amanoel acting as a DA agent investigating a crime with his co-worker
94 nashvillearts.com
Photograph by Mariah Redmon
Imagine, as a child of ten in Mosul, Iraq, living in the constant danger of a war zone, with unrelenting gunfire and explosions from bombs and shelling. Imagine your entire family, threatened with beheading, racing hundreds of miles to cross the border into Turkey on the first leg of the 10,000-mile journey to Tennessee. And imagine six years later, as a high-school student in Nashville, capturing two prestigious Student Emmy Awards.
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Unwrap music and other specials this month as we celebrate great arts programming on public television.
leads a tour of his father’s buildings.
BUILDING DRAMA
We’re sprinkling new holiday music shows throughout this month’s schedule. Christmastime in New Orleans, a new special Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe celebrating the Crescent City’s holiday traditions, debuts Tuesday, December 13, at 7 p.m. and 2017, at 6:30 p.m. Later that day, settle in includes Jason Marsalis and the NOLA for The Six Thatchers, a new episode of Players, a trio of the city’s chefs, and Sherlock on Masterpiece debuting New actors Wendell Pierce and Jim Caviezel. Year’s Day at 8 p.m. Premiering Tuesday, December 20, at 7 p.m., Jordan Smith ’Tis the Season is CHRISTMAS BREAK the first concert special from the seasonnine winner of The Voice. Smith performs The holidays are great, but too much can holiday standards from his new Christmas be, well, too much. Non-holiday music album and welcomes special guest programs on NPT this month include Great producer/composer David Foster. Moments from Soundbreaking, Tuesday, December 6, at 8:30 p.m., a greatest On Thursday, December 22, at 11 p.m., hits version of the eight-hour series that Keith Lockhart conducts Happy Holidays aired in November. International trio Il with the Boston Pops, a new program that Volo performs with Placido Domingo and includes the orchestra’s signature rendition presents a tribute to the Three Tenors of Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride”, a in Il Volo Notte Magica, premiering reading by Mad Men and Broadway star Wednesday, December 7, at 7 p.m. Robert Morse, and a performance by In Joshua Bell’s Seasons of Cuba, the country artist Sara Evans. violinist teams up with musicians from the U.S. and Cuba on Live from Lincoln Saturday, December 31, at 8:30 p.m., we have the annual New York Philharmonic Center, Friday, December 16, at 8 p.m. New Year’s Eve on Live from Lincoln It is the most wonderful time of the year to Center. Another tradition, Great support NPT. Simply go to www.wnpt.org Performances’ annual presentation of and click the donate button. Be sure to check the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s NPT2, our secondary channel, for encore Celebration, airs Sunday, January 1, presentations of many of our programs.
Tom Sturridge (as HENRY VI) and Sophie Okonedo (as Margaret) in The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses Henry VI (Part I)
Eero Saarinen with a model of the Gateway Arch (1958)
Courtesy of Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University Library
If you’re flying over the holidays, you may encounter the work—or at least the influence—of Eero Saarinen, the FinnishAmerican architect responsible for St. Louis’s Gateway Arch, the TWA Flight Center at JFK Airport (represented so strikingly in the Catch Me If You Can set), Washington’s Dulles Airport, and the iconic Tulip chair. In Eero Saarinen: American Masters – The Architect Who Saw the Future on Tuesday, December 27, at 7 p.m., photography director Eric Saarinen
Courtesy of Robert Viglasky © 2015 Carnival Film & Television Ltd
Before ringing in 2017 as Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch displays his Shakespearean chops in The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses. The Great Performances series includes Henry VI, Part 1 (Sunday, December 11, at 8 p.m.) and Part 2 (Sunday, December 18, at 8 p.m.), and Richard III (Friday, December 30, at 8 p.m.). The distinguished cast features PBS favorites Judi Dench, Hugh Bonneville, Michael Gambon, Philip Glenister, Samuel West, and James Fleet. What was going through his mind when Vincent van Gogh decided to cut off his ear in December 1888? Secrets of the Dead: Van Gogh’s Ear, airing Wednesday, December 14, at 9 p.m., pieces together the events leading to the Dutch artist’s actions.
HOLIDAY PRESENTS
Courtesy of Private collection/Bridgeman Images
Arts Worth Watching
Weekend Schedule 5:00 5:30 6:00 6:30 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30 10:00 10:30 11:00 11:30 12:00 12:30 1:00 1:30 2:00 2:30 3:00 3:30 4:00 4:30 5:00 5:30 6:00 6:30 5:00 5:30 6:00 6:30 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30 10:00 10:30 11:30 12:00 12:30 1:00 1:30 2:00 3:00 3:30 4:00 4:30 5:00 6:00 6:30
Saturday
am Thomas and Friends Bob the Builder Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Splash and Bubble Curious George Nature Cat Ready Jet Go! Sewing with Nancy Sew It All Garden Smart A Chef’s Life Moveable Feast with Fine Cooking The Mind of a Chef noon America’s Test Kitchen pm Cook’s Country Kitchen Mexico – One Plate at a Time with Rick Bayless Lidia’s Kitchen New Orleans Cooking with Kevin Belton Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting Best of Joy of Painting Rough Cut – Woodworking with Tommy Mac Woodwright’s Shop This Old House Ask This Old House Woodsmith Shop PBS NewsHour Weekend pm Tennessee’s Wild Side
This MonTh
December 2016
Nashville Public Television
Sunday
am Sid the Science Kid Cyberchase Sesame Street Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Splash and Bubble Curious George Nature Cat Ready Jet Go! Tennessee’s Wild Side Volunteer Gardener Tennessee Crossroads Nature Washington Week with Gwen Ifill noon To the Contrary pm Music Voyager Joseph Rosendo’s Travelscope Expeditions with Patrick McMillan Globe Trekker California’s Gold Travels with Darley America’s Heartland Rick Steves’ Europe Antiques Roadshow PBS NewsHour Weekend pm Charlie Rose: The Week
Call the Midwife 2016 Holiday Special Nonnatus House and Poplar celebrate the season. Sunday, December 25 6:30 pm
Weekday Schedule 5:00 5:30 6:00 6:30 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30 10:00 10:30 11:00 11:30 12:00 12:30 1:00 1:30 2:00 2:30 3:00 3:30 4:00 4:30 5:00 5:30 6:00
am Classical Stretch Body Electric Wild Kratts Ready Jet Go! Nature Cat Curious George Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Splash and Bubble Sesame Street Dinosaur Train Peg + Cat Super Why! Thomas & Friends noon Bob the Builder pm The Cat in the Hat Splash and Bubble Curious George Nature Cat Ready Jet Go! Odd Squad Odd Squad Wild Kratts Arthur Martha Speaks WordGirl pm PBS NewsHour
Nashville Public Television *Downton Abbey Marathon preempts Dec. 24-26
Il Volo Notte Magica The quartet performs in Florence with Plácido Domingo. Wednesday, December 7 7:00 pm
The Great British Baking Show Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood bake the challenges in Masterclass episodes. December 12, 19 & 22 9:00 pm
wnpt.org
Monday
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Joshua Bell’s Secrets of Cuba Friday, December 16 8:00 pm
Tuesday
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7:00 Last of the Breed A once-in-a-lifetime concert event featuring Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Ray Price. 8:30 Infinity Hall Live Tedeschi Trucks Band. 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Ed Sullivan’s Rock and Roll Classics: The 60s Performances by the Beatles, the Stones, the Doors and others.
Thursday
7:00 The Manners of Downton Abbey: A Masterpiece Special How the aristocratic set lived in 1900s Britain. 8:00 Great Performances: The Hollow Crown – The Wars of the Roses Henry VI, Part 1. Young Henry VI causes outrage by marrying Margaret of Anjou. 10:00 A Craftsman’s Legacy The Ceramist. 10:30 Tennessee Uncharted 11:00 Tavis Smiley 11:30 Scully/The World Show
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7:00 Antiques Roadshow Bismarck, Hour Two. 8:00 Antiques Roadshow Bismarck, Hour Three. 9:00 Great British Baking Show Masterclass 1. Madeira and walnut cakes, biscotti, Black Forest gateau. 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 The Greeks The Good Strife. Timeless epics, the original Olympic Games, and the world’s first democracy.
7:00 Christmastime in New Orleans Musicians, chefs and actors share the Crescent City’s holiday traditions. 8:00 Frontline From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians – Pax Romana/A Light to the Nations. 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Reaching West: Dreams of China’s New Generation High school students prepare to study in the U.S.
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7:00 Nature Legendary White Stallions. Lipizzaner stallions. 8:00 NOVA Mystery of a Masterpiece. Is this a da Vinci painting? 9:00 Secrets of the Dead Van Gogh’s Ear. What happened on that fateful night in Arles? 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Austin City Limits Ryan Adams, Shakey Graves.
15 7:00 Tennessee Crossroads 7:30 Volunteer Gardener 8:00 NPT Favorites 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 American Umpire Former secretaries of state elaborate on U.S. foreign policy.
7:00 NPT Favorites 7:00 Il Volo Notte Magica 7:00 Michael Feinstein at 7:00 Antiques Roadshow 7:00 Under the Streetlamp: 10:00 BBC World News The international trio the Rainbow Room Austin, Hour Three. Rockin’ Round the 10:30 Last of Summer Wine perform with Placido Feinstein and guests 8:00 Carpenters: Close to Clock 11:00 Il Volo Notte Magica Domingo in Florence, Christine Ebersole, You & Christmas Recent leading cast The international trio Italy. “American Idol” sensaMemories members of the Tony perform a Three Tenors 8:30 NPT Favorites tion Jessica Sanchez, The perennially popular Award-winning musical tribute. tap dancers The Manzari 10:00 BBC World News Christmas recordings of Jersey Boys perform 10:30 Last of Summer Wine Brothers and others. the 1970s sibling duo. tunes from the American 11:00 Remember Pearl Harbor 8:30 Great Moments from 10:00 BBC World News Radio Songbook of the Tom Selleck narrates this Soundbreaking 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 1950s through 1970s. 75th-anniversary story Segments from the 11:00 The Greeks 8:30 Van Morrison: Live at of veterans and civilians music series. Cavemen to Kings. the Rainbow who witnessed the 1941 The ancient Greeks rise 10:00 BBC World News A 1973 concert recorded Pearl Harbor attack. 10:30 Last of Summer Wine from nothing to lay the in London. groundwork for a revolu- 11:00 Trans-Siberian 10:00 Rock, Rhythm & Orchestra: The Birth tion in human thought. Doo Wop of Rock Theater Performances by Top-40 artists.
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Christmastime in New Orleans Tuesday, December 13 7:00 pm
Sunday
Primetime Evening Schedule
December 2016 2
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16 7:00 Music City Roots Live from the Factory Abigail Washburn and Wu Fei, Tim O’Brien. 8:00 Joshua Bell’s Seasons of Cuba A Live From Lincoln Center event with American and Cuban musicians. 9:00 Lidia Celebrates America Holiday for Heroes. Celebrating veterans. 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Cyber-Seniors Senior citizens gain digital experience.
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7:00 Lawrence Welk Show Christmas. 8:00 Keeping Appearances 1991 Christmas Special. 8:30 Downton Abbey Season 4, Part 8. Lady Rose meets the Prince of Wales and faces a dilemma. Trouble plagues almost everyone at Downton Abbey. 10:30 Bluegrass Underground St. Paul & The Broken Bones. 11:00 Keeping Appearances 1993 Christmas Special. A holiday cruise.
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7:00 Andre Rieu: Waltzing 7:00 NPT Favorites Forever 9:00 Aging Matters: Abuse A new special recorded & Exploitation in the Netherlands. NPT’s original documentary about risks faced by 8:30 Downton Abbey Season 4, Part 7. Robert elder adults. and Thomas return from 10:00 BBC World News America. Bates disap10:30 Last of Summer Wine pears for a day, Edith 11:00 Age Reversed with prepares to go abroad. Miranda Esmonde10:00 Inside Poldark White Cast and creator interSlowing down and views and behind-thepotentially reversing the scenes footage. aging process through 11:30 Great Moments from exercise and other Soundbreaking lifestyle choices. Seminal moments in recorded music.
7:00 The Last Waltz 7:00 Forever Painless with Martin Scorsese’s 1978 Miranda Esmonde-White film of The Band’s fareA new program with well concert includes interviews and tips for Bob Dylan, Neil Young, managing pain. Emmylou Harris, The 8:30 Downton Abbey Staples Singers and Season 4, Part 6. Robert others. and Thomas make a 10:00 BBC World News sudden trip; an unwel10:30 Last of Summer Wine come visitor appears. 10:30 Smart Fats to 9:30 Rick Steves’ Europe: Outsmart Aging with Remote, Sacred, Wild Dr. Steven Masley 10:00 The Last Waltz A new way to fight the Martin Scorsese’s 1978 problems caused by the film of The Band’s farewell Standard American Diet. concert at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom.
Friday
Nashville Public Television
wnpt.org
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JaNuary 7:00 Sidney Lumet: American Masters 9:00 Frontline: The Next President 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 BBC World News
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7:00 Nature Meet the Coywolf. 8:00 NOVA Vampire Sky Tombs. Scientists and explorers discover evidence of burial rituals designed to ward off vampires and zombies in caves in the Tibetan Himalayas. 9:00 Secrets of the Dead Vampire Legend. 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine
5 7:00 Tennessee Crossroads 7:30 Volunteer Gardener 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine
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Nashville Public Television
7:00 Lawrence Welk Show New Year’s. 8:00 Keeping Appearances 1995 Christmas Special. 8:30 Live from Lincoln Center New York Philharmonic New Year’s Eve. An evening of American classics featuring singer Joyce DiDonato. 10:00 Bare Feet with Mickek Mallozzi Waltzing in Vienna. 10:30 Bluegrass Underground Jason & The Scorchers. 11:00 Keeping Appearances 1994 Christmas Special.
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DOWNTON aBBEy MaraThON. EvEry EPiSODE FrOM all Six SEaSONS. 8 PM FriDay, DEC. 23, ThrOuGh 10:30 PM MONDay, DEC. 26
Egypt’s Treasure Guardians Wednesday, December 28 9:00 pm
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7:00 Music City Roots Live from the Factory A salute to Tommy Womack. 8:00 Downton Abbey Season 1, Part 1. A marathon of all six seasons begins. 10:00 Downton Abbey Season 1, Part 2. Mary has three suitors, including the Turkish diplomat.
7:00 Tennessee Crossroads 7:00 Music City Roots Live 7:30 Volunteer Gardener from the Factory 8:00 Independent Lens Molly Tuttle, Christian Meet the Patels. Ravi Lopez, Leigh Nash. Patel enters the semi8:00 Great Performances: arranged marriage The Hollow Crown – system favored by his The Wars of the Roses Hindu family in this Richard III. Benedict intersection of traditional Cumberbatch, Judi culture and modern Dench and Phoebe Fox identity. star in the final play in 9:30 Our American Family: the cycle. The Mays 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 10:00 BBC World News 11:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine
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7:00 Tennessee Crossroads 7:30 Volunteer Gardener 8:00 Christmas at Belmont Kathy Mattea hosts this extravaganza. 9:00 Great British Baking Show Christmas Masterclass. Holiday treats. 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Happy Holidays with the Boston Pops A new special with guests Sara Evans, bass-baritone Justin Hopkins and others.
Visit wnpt.org for complete 24-hour schedules for NPT and NPT2
7:00 Antiques Roadshow 6:30 Great Performances 8:00 Antiques Roadshow From Vienna: The New Birmingham, Hour Two. Year’s Celebration 2017. 9:00 Independent Lens The annual concert by Best and Most Beautiful the Vienna Philharmonic. Things. A young woman 8:00 Sherlock on who is legally blind and Masterpiece on the autism spectrum. The Six Thatchers. 10:00 BBC World News The Season 4 opener. 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Great Performances: Shakespeare Live! From the RSC A gala on the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.
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7:00 Nature Snow Chick. 8:00 NOVA Secrets of Noah’s Ark. 9:00 Wonderful World of Blood A BBC presenter experiments with his own blood to learn about its properties. 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Austin City Limits Sleater-Kinney, Heartless Bastard.
7:00 Nature 7:00 Eero Saarinen: Cold Warriors: Wolves American Masters and Buffalo. The Architect Who Saw 8:00 NOVA the Future. The FinnishBuilding Pharaoh’s American architect of Chariot. historic landmarks, air9:00 Egypt’s Treasure ports and furniture. Guardians 8:00 Frontline A group of people deExodus. First-person termined to bring Egypt stories of refugees and back from the brink, to migrants fleeing war and keep its heritage safe persecution for Europe and encourage tourism. told through camera10:00 BBC World News phone footage. 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 10:00 BBC World News 11:00 Austin City Limits 10:30 Last of Summer Wine Tom Waits.
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6:30 Downton Abbey Season 6, Part 8. Molesley and Spratt try out new jobs. 8:30 Downton Abbey Season 6, Part 9. The final episode. 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 BBC World News
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6:30 Call the Midwife Holiday Special 8:00 Downton Abbey Season 5, Part 1. The village snubs Robert. 9:35 Downton Abbey Season 5, Part 2. Sarah tutors Daisy. 10:55 Downton Abbey Season 5, Part 3. Violet is reunited with an old friend.
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7:00 Jordan Smith ’tis the Season A Christmas special from the season nine winner of The Voice. 8:00 Frontline From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians. 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Christmas in Norway with the St. Olaf Choir A holiday special filmed in Trondheim, Norway.
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7:00 Antiques Roadshow The Best of 20. 8:00 Christmas with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Broadway star Laura Osnes joins the famed choir and orchestra. 9:00 Great British Baking Show Masterclass 2. Soda bread, baguettes, checkerboard cake. 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 The Greeks Chasing Greatness.
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7:00 More Manners of Downton Abbey: A Masterpiece Special The social protocols of 1920s Britain. 8:00 Great Performances: The Hollow Crown – The Wars of the Roses Henry VI, Part 2. Feeble King Henry is overshadowed by Queen Margaret, then Edward IV takes the throne. 10:30 Tennessee Uncharted 11:00 Tavis Smiley 11:30 Scully/The World Show
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Chicken encounters ... My contact with live chickens has been limited, to say the least.
Saturday, December 10 • 7 p.m. • Ingram Hall The Blair School welcomes the Ninth Annual State of the Word, featuring the region’s top college and high school writers, poets, emcees, and spoken-word artists. Participating writers have received standing ovations at TEDxNashville, MNPS School Board, Leadership Nashville, and Child Advocacy Day. We will also announce Nashville’s third Youth Poet Laureate.
Tickets: $10 general admission, $3 students with ID, available through southernword.org.
2400 Blakemore Ave. Nashville, TN 37212
For the complete concert calendar, please visit blair.vanderbilt.edu
Featuring Some of America’s Top Bluegrass Talent
43rd ANNUAL BLUEGRASS AWARDS SHOW & 34th NATIONAL CONVENTION
While growing up in Spartanburg, South Carolina, I lived across the street from a family who raised chickens in their back yard. Their last name was Pickens, and it amused me how Pickens rhymes with chickens. Like the Pickenses were somehow predestined to raise chickens based solely on their name. My next contact with chickens—or I should say a chicken— occurred twenty years later. It was Easter Sunday 1973. I was two years out of Vanderbilt, living in a condemned neighborhood near the campus. That morning, I had awakened to an unusual “peeping” sound in my one-room loft apartment. Peep ... peep ... peep-peep ... it went. As I peered over the edge of my bed, I spied the source of this peeping running frantically along the baseboard of one of my walls. It was a baby Easter chicken dyed aquamarine blue. I later learned that my next-door neighbor, Bubba Crigler, had dropped this baby chicken through my open window during the night. And that its name was Kilgore Trout. Three months later, another neighbor ran over Kilgore Trout thus ending his life. The entire neighborhood rallied around this tragedy and a funeral was held in my front yard. A steady rain began to fall as we all gathered around the deep burial hole someone had dug. After a moment of silence, Slick Lawson (the late, great Nashville photographer), dressed in a dark suit and tie, began the service with ”Let us now bow our heads.” In a reverential and solemn voice, Slick then read the entire recipe for “Chicken Ambassadeur” from the Junior League of Nashville Cookbook. He attributed the recipe to Mrs. Guilford Dudley, Jr., which seemed appropriate, as her husband was Ambassador to Denmark at the time. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered the recipe was not submitted by Mrs. Guilford Dudley, Jr., but by Mrs. H.R. Flintoff, Jr. I mean, if you can’t trust the stand-in preacher at your Easter chicken’s funeral, who can you trust? So what got me thinking about chickens? Well, last week while standing in line at the Berry Hill post office, I noticed a man carrying a red-and-white box with diamond-shaped perforations on either end. WARNING! LIVE BIRDS the box said. “What’s in the box?” I asked. A chicken, the man replied. “Really?” I exclaimed. “Where are you sending it?” L.A., he replied. “Is it for eating or laying eggs?” Neither, he said. It’s a show chicken. “Is this your first time mailing a live chicken?” Nah. I mailed one last week.
February 2-5, 2017 Sheraton Music City Hotel 777 McGavock Pike, Nashville, TN 37214
Lots of jamming!!! Schedule coming to www.spbgma.com Reserve seats available • Email stephanie@spbgma.com
How could I have lived sixty-seven years and not known this? That you can actually mail a live chicken in a “Bio-Source Container” made for just this purpose by the U.S. Postal Service? Wonders never cease. Marshall Chapman is a Nashville-based singer/songwriter, author, and actress. For more information, visit www.tallgirl.com.
BEYONDWORDS
Photograph by Anthony Scarlati
State of the Word
BY MARSHALL CHAPMAN
MYFAVORITEPAINTING SAMANTHA SATURN Founder of Saturn Advisory, a marketing consulting firm, and Director of the American Artisan Festival, started by her mother Nancy Saturn, which will be returning for its 44th year in June of 2017
ARTIST BIO: Robert Gniewek Considered a second-generation photorealist painter, Robert Gniewek (born 1951) paints scenes of midcentury American roadside culture and contemporary cityscapes. Using three or four photographic images of his subjects, Gniewek meticulously produces large-scale paintings of diners, movie theaters, motels, gas stations, cafes, and urban vistas—usually in his native Detroit but also in New York and Las Vegas. Like Robert Cottingham and Ron Kleemann before him, Gniewek shares a love of American signs of the 1940s and 50s, though as a member of a younger generation he sometimes portrays them as neglected and time worn, expressing nostalgia for a bygone era. He received both his B.F.A. and M.A. from Wayne State University in Detroit. Robert Gniewek, Chinatown, 1985, Oil on Canvas, 35” x 49”
I
Photograph by Jerry Atnip
first laid eyes on this painting when I was fifteen years old. It was hanging in the corner at a group show at the Zimmerman Saturn Gallery, where I was helping out my mother with her art opening that night. I remember walking over to it and staring at it for a very long time trying to take it all in. My father, Alan Saturn, was there too, and together we stood and stared at this incredible work of photorealism, sinking into that dark scene on a street in Chinatown that was finally quiet after a busy day. I wondered if the car was backing up or just idling for a short while. My father and I both loved being in New York with the grit and the hustle of it all—but the quiet was something I hadn’t thought about much. The next week my father bought that painting by Gniewek, and he brought it home and hung it in our dining room. It was dark and mysterious, but we all loved it. He told me we could keep thinking about whether that person in the car was coming or going (and more important, did he have takeout). I have always loved this group of photo realists who take regular everyday scenes in American life and focus us in on just that—the quiet beauty of the everyday moments and places we breeze by in our busy lives. Decades later, I now have it hanging in my dining room in Nashville, and I still love to stop and stare at that quiet scene in Chinatown all the time. na Samantha Saturn
www.saturnadvisory.co 102 nashvillearts.com
H AY N E S G A L L E R I E S PRESENTS
WI N TER WO N D ERLA N D INCLUDING EMILE GRUPPE’S WINTER LANDSCAPE T H R O U G H J A N U A RY 2 8 , 2 0 1 7
H AY N E S G A L L E R I E S . C O M