Nashville Arts Magazine - June 2016

Nelda

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Bellissima

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Oni Woods

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Lauren Snelling

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Modular Art Pods

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PUBLISHED BY THE ST. CLAIRE MEDIA GROUP

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Columns MARSHALL CHAPMAN | Beyond Words ERICA CICCARONE | Open Spaces JENNIFER COLE | State of the Arts 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.

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On the Cover Anne Siems

June 2016 19

Ceremony Sisters 2013, Acrylic on panel, 30” x 48” See page 32.

Features

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Nashville at Night A Photographic Essay

19 Bellissima!

The Italian Automotive Renaissance at the

Frist Center

74

Who Is Nelda?

84 Craig Nutt

’Pataphysical Ponderings

Columns

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Relief For Haiti: A Local Connection to Help Those That Need It the Most

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A Show of Hand Artstormer Creator Betsy Wills Picks a Few of Her Favorite Artists for Lusk Show

37 Book As Art Medieval Necessity and Modern Invention

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16

Crawl Guide

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As I See It

by Mark W. Scala

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The Bookmark Hot Books and Cool Reads

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And So It Goes

by Rachael McCampbell

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Symphony in Depth

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Zoe Bentyne New to Nashville

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Lauren Snelling Artistic Director, OZ Arts Nashville

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Open Spaces

by Erica Ciccarone

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Modular Art Pods Tony Youngblood’s New and Innovative Way to Experience the Art Experience

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Poet's Corner

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Art Smart

by Rebecca Pierce

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Nashville Walls Project

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Inka Essenhigh Universal Tongues: Unfolding Mythos within Inka Essenhigh’s Between Two Worlds

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Sounding Off

by Joseph E. Morgan

78 The f-Stops Here

92 NPT 96 ArtSee 99

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Public Art

100 Arts & Business Council 101 Beyond Words

by Marshall Chapman 102 My Favorite Painting

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Oni Woods The Unstoppable Scribe

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Pujols Foundation Helps Persons with Down Syndrome Express Their Inner Artists

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Publisher's Note

A Great City Deserves Great Art

Photograph by Anthony Scarlati

A mutual friend introduced me to Guy Clark a few years ago. We visited him at his home, and our love of acoustic music and guitars gave us lots to talk about. He took us down to his basement workshop where he was in the middle of building a beautiful acoustic parlor guitar. I played a few tunes, my friend played a few, and then Guy decided to roll a big one and play a few of his songs. I told him that I loved his song "The Randall Knife," that it meant a great deal to me, reminded me of my dad. After a slightly uncomfortable pause he said, "You wanna hear it?" and before I Guy Clark could open my mouth to say anything he eased himself into the familiar lyrics that I knew by heart. When he finished, he lit the joint, took a hit, and said, "You wanna see it?" And with that he went over to a chest of drawers, pulled one open, and took out the old Randall knife. There it was, bigger than I had imagined, tip broken off just as the song said. He laid it in my lap, and in a strange way I felt like I knew this knife, that it was an old friend. I tried not to make a fool of myself, but inside my emotions were doing cartwheels.

When it was time to leave I wondered when I might run into him again.

I did, at various songwriter events here and there. I reintroduced myself, and although he was incredibly polite I don't think he really remembered me. And that's ok because I will never forget him and the wonderful gift he gave me that day in his basement. To say he will be missed is way too small a sentiment for such a huge talent.

Paul Polycarpou | Publisher

June Crawl Guide Franklin Art Scene

Friday, June 3, from 6 until 9 p.m.

Gallery 202 is featuring Makai Glass Creations from Maui featuring blown glass pieces inspired by the sea and volcanic formations of the Hawaiian Islands. Jack Yacoubian Fine Jewelry and Art Gallery is showcasing work by O’More College of Design instructor Jake Wells. Hope Church Franklin is presenting work by Sharon Register. Shuff’s Music and Piano Showroom is hosting Maureen O’Brien. The June artist at Parks on Main is Annie Owen.

Shannon Eye Care is showing paintings and prints by Lisa Eisenga. See handmade goods by 1767 Designs at Finnleys Good Findings. Historic Cory Basil, Imaginebox Emporium Franklin Presbyterian Church is featuring art by Laura Neal and Kate Cloud. Find original sculpture and prints at Cory Basil’s new studio Imaginebox Emporium. Landmark Bank is hosting Kona Coffee Artist Cheryl Buehring. Artist and educator Camille Harlin is exhibiting at The Registry. At the Williamson County Visitor Center, enjoy pyrography and drawing by Annmarie Barlow. In the Brentwood Town Center, stop by the new White Rose Gallery to see work by Janna Phillips, Nancy Higgins, Elizabeth Ponce, Celsie Hennessey Abelt, and Katrin Keiningham.

First Saturday Art Crawl Downtown Saturday, June 4, from 6 until 9 p.m.

In the historic Arcade, COOP Gallery is presenting Now What, a juried group show featuring recent work by Iris Bechtol, Amanda Brazier, Brooks Dierdorff, Katie Hudnall, Andrew Kozlowski, Mildred Jarrett, WAG Drew Liedtke, Sean Morrissey, Hannah Pino, and Margi Weir. L Gallery is opening New Chapter, a collaborative exhibit curated by Andrés Bustamante, which showcases his final collection of contemporary street fashion and features new work by Zachary Gray, Eric "Mobe" Bass, and Hans Lambert. Corvidae Collective is showcasing ARCANA, in which international artists interpret the major tarot arcana. Nom Kinnear, Samuel Araya, Megan Buccere, Scott Kirschner, Michael Armenia, Nina Covington, Symantha Jones, Mani C. Price, Bella Harris, Heather Rose, Amy Pragnell, Jackie Cheuvront, and Lea Barozzi are a few of the artists participating. At WAG, see Without 'Isms, paintings by Watkins alumna Mildred Jarrett. For those who wish to start crawling early, O Gallery opens at 1 p.m. where work by artists Olga Alexeeva, Annie Robinson, Diane Lee, Raymond Gregory, and custom silver jewelry by Cynthia Bell are on view.

Visit Hatch Show Print’s Haley Gallery to view historic restrikes of original posters from the Hatch collection, as well as Master Printer Jim Sherraden’s monoprints. E.T. Burk is hosting a reception for the opening of artist Ann G. Doyle’s exhibition of midcentury illustrations.

Ann G. Doyle, E.T. Burk

Arts & Music @ Wedgewood/Houston Saturday, June 4, from 6 until 9 p.m.

Swoon, Tinney Contemporary

Julia Martin Gallery is opening BEVY 2016 featuring William Buffett, Michelle Farro, Brett Douglas Hunter, Devin Goebel, Louisa Glen, Jodi Hays, Seth Prestwood, Olivia Leigh Martin, and Alex Warble. Mild Climate is showing Chicagobased painter Adam

The Arts Company is unveiling Setting the Stage for Fresh Art Summer, which includes new work by Daryl Thetford, John Nikolai, Philippe Guillerm, Edward Belbusti, and Edie Maney.

Tinney Contemporary is exhibiting Brick to Canvas: A Survey of International Street Art, Part II featuring work by Above, Hush, Logan Hicks, Ben Eine, Swoon, Faith47, and Banksy. The Rymer Gallery is presenting Golden Gate Meets Music City by Jet Martinez. The Browsing Room Gallery at the Downtown Presbyterian Church is hosting an opening reception for Tracings, a new exhibition of work by Nashville artist Zack Rafuls.

C. J. Pyle, CG2 Gallery

Scott's exhibit RECORDINGS. On view at CG2 Gallery is Summer Selections, a revolving selection of work by gallery artists. Refinery Nashville is exhibiting oil paintings by Leroy Hodges.

Betsy Wills of Artstormer, takes over the walls of David Lusk Gallery for a group exhibition of contemporary art, A Show of Hand (see page 32). Enjoy time // lines

by Phillip Andrew Lewis and Seth Prestwood, Julia Martin Gallery Kevin Cooley at Zeitgeist.

Channel to Channel is presenting Michael Grine’s Limbic, an eclectic selection of abstract patterns created from found objects, acrylic paint, and aerosol sprays. Universal Spaces by Jovanni Luna opens at Ground Floor Gallery on June 18.

Boro Art Crawl

Thursday, June 9, and Friday, June 10, from 6 until 9 p.m.

In honor of the Tennessee Arts Commission’s annual conference taking place in Murfreesboro this year, the Boro Art Crawl will occur for two nights in June with 30 venues participating. Murfreesboro City Hall rotunda is featuring the work of Kristina Lyle, who uses colored paper in various ways influenced by her grandmother’s quilts and her own travels. She shares the limelight with Miranda Herrick, whose style also employs vivid color and organic shapes. Top of the Block is hosting Carol Berning, Tina Whitfield, Pamela

Mack, and Robert Holt. Daffodilly Design is exhibiting work

by Middle Tennessee artists Mary Miller Veazie, Patty Burks, Carol Williams, Tiffany Foss, and Carol Curtis. The Shoppes on West Main is showcasing Boro Improv and photographer Ray Kleinstein. At Mayday Brewery visitors can sample brews while viewing art and listening to the sounds of Honeyboy and Boots. Suzanne LeBeau is the featured artist at L & L Contracting. At The Alley on Main, Beth Boudreaux is slated to create a collaborative work of art with members of the community.

East Side Art Stumble

Saturday, June 11, from 6 until 9 p.m.

Gallery Luperca is hosting an opening reception for Power Bottom, prints and paintings by Josh Evans. Southern Grist Brewery is featuring work by street artist Troy Duff. The Red Arrow Gallery is unveiling You Decide by Tara Walters. Nashville Community Darkroom is showcasing Deadline Today, a monthly pop up photography scramble. Modern East Gallery is presenting Nina Covington’s solo show Movement. Art Muz continues their six-month Stumble residency at Main Street Gallery. The Vine, Art & Invention and The Idea Hatchery, Sawtooth Print Shop, The Warren, and Perk & Cork, are also participating.

Nina Covington, Modern East Gallery

Vintage car restoration expert Mark Lambert serves enthusiasts around the globe from his West Nashville shop specializing in the pre- and post-war Classics, Sports, and Racing cars, and 2016 marks his tenth year as a Pebble Beach Concours Judge.

by Mark Lambert

Bellissima!

The Italian Automotive Renaissance at the Frist Center Through October 9

Bellissima! includes the real one: a Ferrari GTO. The 250 Gran Turismo Omologato (GTO) is Ferrari’s iconic World Champion closed coupe and is the most famous Berlinetta ever produced. Ferrari developed it to run in the GT World Champion endurance racing series for 1962, which it won.

Then it won again in 1963. Of the 39 GTOs produced, 31 survive today. These few have commanded ever-increasing interest as this street-useable racer has achieved investor art status with rumored private exchanges in the fifty-million-dollar range!

Photograph © 2016 Peter Harholdt

1955 Alfa Romeo BAT 9. The Blackhawk Collection

Photograph © 2016 Peter Harholdt

I

f you’re a certain age, you may associate the term “GTO” with a kid’s fast car in a high school parking lot. Aptly nicknamed the “goat” back in the day, the GTO was produced by GM’s Pontiac Motor Division in the 1960s, when it was considered flattering (not criminal) for Pontiac to have appropriated those famous letters from Ferrari’s renowned sport racer. Pontiac’s version sold very well, and an American generation grew up street racing. I still own my goat from those days, and it’s still fast. But it’s nothing compared to the genuine article now displayed at the Frist Center.

This new exhibit, Bellissima! The Italian Automotive Renaissance, 1945–1975, brings some of the world’s greatest automobiles to Nashville for up-close viewing. Don’t miss it. This is a really big deal. That these cars have been brought together in Nashville is a star in our crown. It’s only happening once, and it’s only happening here.

1953 Alfa Romeo BAT 5. The Blackhawk Collection

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Photograph © 2016 Peter Harholdt

1962 Ferrari 250 GTO. Collection of Bernard and Joan Carl

Photograph © 2016 Peter Harholdt

1954 Alfa Romeo BAT 7. The Blackhawk Collection

As Frist Center Executive Director Susan Edwards observes, “Italian automobiles are synonymous with elegance, prestige, and sex appeal. Their allure attracts men and women in equal measure. We are drawn to their sophisticated design, precision engineering, and luxurious interiors, as well as the association with the glamour of racing, Hollywood, and royalty.” Her Frist team has done a superb job of layout and lighting, working with guest curator Ken Gross to showcase these fabulously significant motorcars and motorbikes now on display.

Ken Gross’s depth of knowledge and experience is unmatched. You may remember his curating the Frist Center’s 2013 exhibit Sensuous Steel or recognize him as authoring several books, including The Allure of the Automobile:

Driving in Style 1930–1965. A 20-plus-year veteran judge at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and a past Executive Director of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, Ken has deep-rooted connections in the collector car world.

He knows where all the good cars are, and, more important, he knows their owners. Bellissima! is the result of Ken’s unique ability to gather ultra-rare cars for months-long commitments away from their highly protective homes.

His chosen design entries showcased here exemplify the Italian coach-builder’s enormous influence on automotive styling in the post-war world. Of that initial war-time recovery, Ken explains, “. . . existing auto makers were able to quickly reestablish production, while companies like Cisitalia and

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Ferrari used the resumption of auto racing as a platform to begin producing stylish, highly advanced road-going cars of great merit.” Indeed, some of the most sought-after cars, back then and now, were produced by the Italian design houses.

Let’s begin with a quick look at three stars of this show: the Alfa BATs. Imagine the obstacles Alfa Romeo must have faced in the late 1940s. Their factory had been bombed during the war.

The company was fighting for survival, desperately attempting to rebuild itself while facing daunting materials and personnel shortages. Fortunately, European motor sports had resumed shortly after the war. In time, the fierce loyalty and hard work in the Alfa racing program paid off, and Alfa Romeo soon proved their mastery in Grand Prix events. They won the Formula One World Championship in 1950 and again in 1951.

1946 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 Speciale. Collection of Christopher Ohrstrom

These victories gave Alfa more than just needed cash. With refreshed hope and enthusiasm, Alfa was ready to try for even more. They sought to solve a problem which had confounded all: create a vehicle whose stability increased with speed. This required the discipline to depart from traditional design methods of the time, tapping into a higher form of jet-age aerodynamics. Since a more stable car is a safer car, such a platform would allow Alfa to better compete in the world’s most vibrant market: the USA. The spectacular Berlinetta Aerodinamica Tecnica (BAT) concept program is the successful result of that effort.

Photograph © 2016 Joe Wiecha

So, what are we going to see here this summer?

In concert with the Fiat Supersonic, the Lincoln Indianapolis, the Moto Guzzi V-8, and the fourteen others, these sensational motorcars and motorbikes of Bellissima! present a must-see opportunity for everyone. Whatever your interest level in cars, your time viewing these gems will be well spent, and you’ll be infused with a newly discovered understanding of design language, and its evolution, in the world around you. na

1955 Chrysler Ghia Gilda. Collection of Kathleen Redmond and Scott Grundfor

1970 Lanci a Stra tos H F

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Zero . The

XJ W ang Coll ecti on

Photograph © 2016 Peter Harholdt

These three, BAT 5, BAT 7, and BAT 9, are the only ones in existence. Their Frist visit is the first time the three BATs have left California to appear together away from their home at the Blackhawk Collection.

Photograph © 2016 Michael Furman

Bellissima! The Italian Automotive Renaissance, 1945–1975 is on view at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts through October 9. For more information, visit www.fristcenter.org.

Relief For Haiti:

Words by Kimberly Williams-Paisley

Sean Penn

Delmas 32 neighborhood, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

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he teenager wore a pair of old sneakers, shorts, and a collared shirt. He was working so hard with a pencil, slide rule, and spiral notebook that he seemed oblivious to the stench of garbage and feces polluting the nearby river running through Delmas 32. That’s his densely packed neighborhood, one of the poorest sections of Port-auPrince, Haiti.

I encountered him there during a tour last September hosted by actor Sean Penn’s Haitian Relief Organization, J/P HRO, formed after the 2010 earthquake to save lives. Now it’s committed to building stronger, healthier communities through programs envisioned and shaped by Haitians themselves—perhaps someday even by this boy.

Emcee Kevin Nealon and guests

His workplace was a dark doorway by the side of a trail. His desk was a tiny straw stool. I didn’t want to interrupt him as he drew and measured angles and straight lines across the page. A baby cried a few feet away on the other side of the thin cobbled road, and stray dogs sniffed our sneakers looking for something to eat. There was plenty of squalor to distract this kid. But he was focused on drawing plans.

He isn’t the only architect of Haiti’s future. Thousands of resilient Haitians are looking toward a better tomorrow.

And Nashvillians are helping them.

Brad Paisley

Photograph by Miles Adcox

Photography by Jerry Atnip

A Local Connection to Help Those That Need It the Most

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One of our closest neighbors, Haiti, remains the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere.

Eight months after my tour, and just a few hours away from Haiti, more than 130 people in Brentwood participated in the first annual “Nashville Shines for Haiti.” The evening fundraisers on April 26 and 27 were hosted and completely underwritten by part-time Tennessee residents Johnathon and Newman Arndt. The combined efforts raised over a quarter of a million dollars for Penn’s charity.

Paul Beaubrun

After the devastating earthquake six years ago, he was one of many people from this country who dropped everything and rushed to aid the suffering nation. But he was one of only a few who stayed. Now, six years later, Penn lives part time in Haiti, and J/P HRO has helped transform and rehabilitate some of the worst areas of the country.

Penn recounted a few of his experiences from a small stage set up in the palatial living room of the Arndt estate. “Haiti is where I’ve spent some of the most important years of my life,” he said.

He remembered a 26-year-old Haitian scrambling to make sense of a manual for a mobile x-ray machine given to one of the local hospitals. Through tears, Penn recalled his admiration for this man who, in four hours, was able to decipher the directions for running the complicated and potentially dangerous machine and put it to work to save lives.

Penn continued, “This is the place where people have been on the railroad track with a slow-moving train,” ready to switch to the fast track and become x-ray technicians or all sorts of agents for change overnight. Despite the extraordinary genius and generosity of its people, Haiti—one of our closest neighbors—remains the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere.

“This is the place we have our responsibility . . . in the bigger picture of our human nation.”

Many attendees agreed with him. Sheryl Crow, Colbie Caillat, Jewel, Paul Beaubrun, and the musical headliner for the evening, Brad Paisley, provided the entertainment. Beaubrun, who was born and raised in Haiti, stomped on the floor—after he pointed out his Southern-style blue suede shoes—and pounded on his guitar as he sang a soulful “No Woman No Cry” and reminded guests that many in his home country don’t know where they will get their next meal. “Think about it. Think about it,” he keened.

SNL and Weeds actor Kevin Nealon performed standup and served as the emcee for the second evening, pretending to auction off the Arndts’ one-of-a-kind jade heirloom pieces on display for just pennies.

Sheryl Crow, Sean Penn and Connie Britton

Paisley played a few of his older hits, as well as debuting some of his latest material to be released soon. He began his set with “Southern Comfort Zone,” an anthem meant to encourage people to think beyond their familiar domestic perspectives and venture into a more global one. He noted that the song was inspired by trips to Haiti in recent years.

Gary Philoctete, country director and senior vice president of Haiti operations, spoke words of encouragement to the Nashville community. “We are seeing tangible results” from J/P HRO, which remains a largely Haitian-run organization.

Their two medical clinics see 8,000 people a month; their women’s clinic has an infant mortality rate of 0%, and their education initiative positively impacts 6,000 students. In addition, 2,000 community members have participated in small business management training.

“This is how we support Haiti,” Philoctete said, “. . . forging a future where it supports itself.” na For more information or to make a donation, please visit jphro.org.

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Photograph by Jerry Atnip

ASISEEIT

BY MARK W. SCALA

Mark W. Scala Chief Curator

Frist Center for the Visual Arts

Art and Abrasion:

Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch

Ryan Trecartin, Temple Time (still), 2016, Single-channel HD video, 49 minutes. Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York

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t was ages ago now, in 2009, when the New Museum in New York had its sweeping triennial exhibition The Generational: Younger Than Jesus. For me the show epitomized the rising curatorial propensity to use biennials and triennials to predict next-big-things just recently out of Hunter College, Cal Arts, SVA, Yale, or in the case of the standout duo Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch, Rhode Island School of Design. The show did not really make the case that younger artists are more attuned or thoughtful regarding contemporary culture than those who fell on the other side of 33 years old.

In truth, I felt that a lot of the artists in the show were channeling earlier ideas that they seem to have thought they had invented themselves. But wunderkinds Trecartin and Fitch were different; their deeply original untitled installation was hailed by many reviewers as the strongest work in the show.

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I have to agree. This absorbing synthesis of freewheeling visual invention and mile-a-minute nasal chatter elevated the interactions of its cast of gender-bending kids into an expression of wondrous overload. The sprawling installation was random and surprising, with lounge furniture, an upended bed, and a jet-plane interior acting as a walk-in theater for a movie that zoomed through loony scenarios to the sound of dissonant music and high-pitched dialogue, satirizing Gen Y-ers’ angst about, well, everything in their digitally framed world. Held together through masterly composition and the staccato sequencing of its fragmentary vignettes, the work refused to allow the audience and performers any room to breathe or reflect—talking was always two seconds ahead of comprehension. This subverted patterns of comprehension in favor of allowing the experience to wash over the viewer: “Everyone is stuck in modes of anticipation,” Trecartin says—“or recollection,” adds Fitch. “They’re either remembering or foreseeing, but no one is actually having experiences. There’s a fear of being.”1 An unrelenting horror vacui appears in other movies and installations by Trecartin and Fitch. Their characters, played by themselves and their friends, often act as futuristic pixies whose verbal clichés and mannerisms, contemporary speech patterns, and Twitter-based shorthand constitute a tribal code that parrots the “younger than Jesus” world of social interaction. While the movies are hard to follow, they do have actual storylines, which are often shot through with ambiguous desire: gay, straight, or bi, everything is mashed together in an inchoate longing for connection. This is consistent with the movies’ larger dissolves of dream and reality, emotion and melodrama, physicality and digitality.

Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin, Living Comp, 2011

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As they teasingly mimic this manic universe, the movies of Trecartin and Fitch amplify an aspect of contemporary reality that in real life might be filtered through our senses, keeping us sane and allowing us to function.

Why, then, watch or write about this work? For me, it employs radical playacting to gleefully deconstruct and redraw social norms in a way that seems absolutely pertinent to this moment. When we speak of art’s various functions, one is surely to disrupt the established synaptic reception of the world. Our brains don’t always enjoy being rattled, but in the end it makes them more elastic and muscular, a bio-psychological asset needed now more than ever. na

1

Photograph by Benoit Pailley

As they teasingly mimic this manic universe, the movies of Trecartin and Fitch amplify an aspect of contemporary reality that in real life might be filtered through our senses, keeping us sane and allowing us to function. I have shown online examples of their work to university art majors, who typically beg me to make it stop. I understand—it is all I can do to watch for more than twenty minutes without feeling an intense desire to escape to a place that is governed by conventions of space, time, language, and identity (if such a place exists anymore).

Ryan Trecartin, Installation view from The Generational: Younger Than Jesus, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. Courtesy the artist and Elizabeth Dee, New York

See press release at the Andrea Rosen Gallery’s website: www.andrearosengallery.com/exhibitions/lizzie-fitch-ryan-trecartin_2016-03-19

A Show of Hand

by Amy Eskind

Artstormer Creator Betsy Wills Picks a Few of Her Favorite Artists for David Lusk Show David Lusk Gallery

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June 1

Phillip Nuveen, Hermes Boutique in 1:12 scale

W

hen school lets out and the humidity climbs, arts patrons migrate wholesale to the beach or to far-flung vacation destinations. It is the time of year Nashville galleries catch their breath. Summertime is downtime. But this year David Lusk Gallery—a Memphis staple that opened a Nashville outpost two years ago—is presenting something off the beaten path, giving art lovers a reason to linger in the city a little longer. Contemporary art blogger Betsy Wills of Artstormer.com has been invited to guest curate a show, and with her slate of emerging avant-garde artists culled from her adventures around the country, we’re in store for a June spectacle akin to early fireworks.

“

A Show of Hand will focus on pieces in which the hand work of the artist is not only evident but central to the work.

Wills has an eye for art that is quirky and sophisticated and produced with a high level of technical skill, says Dane Carder, gallery director at David Lusk Gallery. “Her aesthetic is just bizarre enough without being too bizarre,” he says. “It’s on the edge of commercially viable work.” That sounded like a winning formula for the June show, so Carder offered Wills the opportunity to bring a few favorites to Nashville.

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A Show of Hand will focus on pieces in which the hand work of the artist is not only evident but central to the work. Take the creations of Phillip Nuveen, a burgeoning artist recently featured in The New York Times for his finely detailed miniature luxuries from high-fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton and Chanel. Wills tapped him for her show, and the New York up-and-comer is sending a tiny Hermes boutique in 1:12 scale. “Having a room full of Hermes purses—you’d have to be really rich to afford that,” he says. “But in miniature you can.” The piece will be nine inches tall at most, with LEDlit shelves piled high with the signature Hermes scarves and a stockroom of Hermes boxes. “You get lost in it,” Nuveen says, while completing it.

Matt Kleberg of Brooklyn is another up-and-comer whom Wills spotted at an art show in Miami. His bold use of thick colored lines could be digitally produced if it weren’t for the imperfections, the scratchiness, and the uneven thickness of the paint, which give the geometric work a human element.

“I like that they’re wonky, a little off,” says Kleberg. “I like the logic of stripes. Stripes give you a sense of rhythm, where you begin to feel a sense of expectation—but then there is something wrong. You get a sense of order, but it’s never followed through all the way.” The titles he gives his pieces are just as creative as the pieces themselves, such as Midnight and I’m Not Famous Yet. Here he’ll show Love Too Long, a depiction of a house with an imperfect roof, a floor that is not level, and walls with wayward geometry. The window into its soul is muddy brown.

Matt Kleberg, Love Too Long, 2015, Oil stick on canvas, artist frame, 44” x 30”

Elliott Puckette, Rushen Coatie, 2014, Gesso, ink, and kaolin on board, 34” x 50”

Elliott Puckette is a Sewanee, Tennessee, native who transplanted herself to Brooklyn, where she perfected her style of playful scrolling lines, sometimes reminiscent of calligraphy, sometimes freeform modern dance. Puckette has four works in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, including two that are pen and ink on “found paper.” To the viewer, her work takes time; it must be contemplated, the details discovered, the intricacy found beneath the simplicity. Here she will show Rushen Coatie, inspired by the Scottish Cinderella fairy tale. Puckette built the black background with 12 layers of gesso and powered kaolin, covered the surface in ink, and then etched the lines with a razor blade. “It’s about getting stuck in the weeds,” she says.

Howard Fonda, Untitled, 2015, Oil, colored pencil, and pastel on canvas, 48� x 36�

Howard Fonda, who has works in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the New York Museum of Contemporary Art, is known for complex and colorful works that employ heavy-handed lines and shapes that create

characters and their surroundings, resulting in a composition that feels simple and childlike, giving the pieces a feeling of wonderment. The Portland, Oregon, artist will show two untitled works, both in oil, colored pencil, and pastel.

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Anne Siems, Lady With Veil, 2016, Acrylic on panel, 30”x 24”

Mary Wagner, Rainbow Dreams, 2015, Ink drawing, 28” x 28”

Mary Wagner of Chicago is known for colorful “parametric drawings” reminiscent of the art made with the children’s Spirograph drawing toy, only larger and much more intricate. She has said her pieces have “connections to conceptual drawing practices, mathematics, particle physics, astronomy, baroque art, meditation, and other forms of repetitive devotional practice.” Wagner designs her own laser-cut acrylic gears that fit inside each other and guide her hand. Patterns are drawn on top of patterns, and the result is an optical field day. Her piece in the show is 23 inches in diameter, an eyepopping Rainbow Dream, made with three different kinds of pigment ink pens in 17 different colors. “There is a simple, optical pleasure in the work if you’d like to stop there,” she says. “When you approach it and look at it in detail you see the complexity of the piece. It is a sequencing of colored lines; it actually is two overlapping patterns.

It’s about the scientific and emotional quality of a rainbow.”

All told, a dozen artists will participate in the show, from Wills’s stable as well as David Lusk Gallery picks. Artists in A Show of Hand represented by the gallery include Leslie Holt, Anne Siems, Tyler Hildebrand, Mark Bradley-Shoup, and William Eggleston.

Wills founded Artstormer not to sell the art, but to increase exposure for both the artists and the audience. “I had noticed that young artists were unbound by the traditional Tyler Hildebrand, Residence 25, 2014, Mixed media on distribution systems, so it made it exciting and easy to discover and meet them,” she paper, 17”x 12” says. Any buying is done through links to artists' websites and galleries. Wills has two basic tenets for would-be art buyers: It doesn’t have to match the sofa, and the purchase doesn’t have to be considered an investment.“Sometimes an artist’s prices skyrocket and that’s fun, but in general you should buy because you love living with it,” she says.

The four-year-old Artstormer blog has received more than a million hits from around the world. The Lusk show promises to be that good. na The exhibit opens Wednesday, June 1, with an opening reception on June 4 at 6 p.m. The gallery will also host an artist discussion with Wills and several of the exhibiting artists on June 18 at 11 a.m. A Show of Hand is on view through June 22. For more information, please visit www.artstormer.com and www.davidluskgallery.com.

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Glimpses by Ludie Woodcuts Gallery and Framing

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June 4–30

Retired schoolteacher and Clarksville multi-media artist Ludie Amos brings her 82 years of life experience, imagination, attention to detail, and joie de vivre to each of her one-of-a-kind creations. Her handmade dolls run the gamut of life, from quilters (with their own quilts!) to potters, to school bus drivers and soldiers.

Ludie crafts stories through her work, allowing her dolls to “communicate” with her, telling her what to name them, the clothing to handcraft for them to wear, the stories they ultimately tell. She uses a variety of materials, including polymer clay for the dolls’ bodies, acrylic paint, fabric, thread, vinyl, and leather. She is able to share, universally, the magic of everyday life, through the clothing, jewelry, accessories, and props that accompany and are an integral part of each piece. She conveys: “I tell a visual story that expresses attitudes and examples of history that are not exact but are true to the essence of this artist’s eyes.”

Woodcuts Gallery and Framing is, for the first time, providing an opportunity for all of Ludie’s work to be seen in one place. In addition to her dolls, One-room Schoolhouse, created from her memory of life as a young girl in Georgia, and Front Porch, a multi-character creation exploring how knowledge is passed through storytelling, will be on display.

Buffalo Soldier, 2016, Fabric and acrylic, 24” x 44”

Ludie’s work has been showcased on Tennessee Crossroads and Talk of the Town, and at Customs House, Atlanta International Museum, and the Indiana Black Expo.

Glimpses by Ludie opens with a reception on Saturday, June 4, from 1 to 6 p.m. at Woodcuts Gallery and Framing, 1613 Jefferson Street.

For more information, visit www.woodcutsfineartgallery.com.

by Jane R. Snyder

Book As Art: Medieval Necessity and Modern Invention

The Jean and Alexander Heard Library at Vanderbilt University through March 2017

Lesley Patterson-Marx, Butterfly Harmonica Book, 2014

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he chairman of a major publishing house told me that he had once witnessed his toddler grandson toss a hardcover book down the main staircase of his residence. A wise man, the publisher picked up the volume, sat down beside the boy, and gently explained to him, “We don’t throw books; books are our friends.”

The current show at Vanderbilt University’s Jean and Alexander Heard Library presents a collection of amazing friends, both medieval and modern.

Before Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press which revolutionized book production, illuminated manuscripts were the only—albeit extremely time consuming—method to capture information between covers and allow content to pass from reader to reader.

Whether filled with historical knowledge, extant medical wisdom, or spiritually uplifting treatises, those precious volumes required talented parchment makers, writers, calligraphers, and illuminators to bring them to life. In today’s world, you can read by turning on your tablet or clicking a mouse to order the newest print-on-demand title. Rarely, if ever, do you get an opportunity to see treasures like these up close.

The rare volumes— researched and selected from Vanderbilt’s Special Collections and University Archives— and the artists’ tools on display will broaden your understanding of the art of illuminated books. Standing beside them are outstanding handmade books created by contemporary artists, including several who live in Middle Tennessee. Of added value are interactive touch screens offering viewers background data on each artist and guides for further study.

Modern bookmaking, using varied styles and reaching artistic levels that you may have never seen before, will surprise you with varied points of view and unusual thematic explorations. These intimate volumes are ideal environments for select autobiographical revelations as well as introspective thoughts. Challenges, both creative and cerebral, were clearly part of the curatorial plan for Book As Art. This fascinating show will be open to the public through March 2017, but make sure to stop in when you have plenty of time to explore the details. You are sure to encounter a favorite friend among those waiting in the gallery. na The Jean and Alexander Heard Library at Vanderbilt University, 419 21st Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37203. For more information, visit www.library.vanderbilt.edu.

Celia Walker, Director of Special Projects for Vanderbilt University’s libraries, wanted to involve students in the curatorial process. Professor Elizabeth Moodey’s undergraduate History of Art 2288 class stepped forward. The students—Anna Childress, Mary Helen Johns, Ariana Parrish, Danielle Pettiti, Francesca Salvatore, Sharon Si, Rebekah Smith, and Daniel Weitz—worked in tandem with the library and the History of Art department to curate every aspect of this exhibition. They all deserve an “A+” for a thoughtful and well-executed presentation.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friendship: An Essay, 1901-1912

zoeBENTYNE

by Richard Courtney

New to Nashville

O

ne evening, Braison Cyrus popped the question to his girlfriend, Zoe Bentyne. No, not that question. He asked her if she was happy living in Los Angeles. For Zoe, and Braison for that matter, it was not the How’s-theweather-type question. Rather, it was an inquiry into her mental well-being, as Zoe had struggled with anxiety and depression her entire life.

Her answer was that she was not happy living in L.A., and that response has greatly benefitted the Nashville arts community as her brilliance has now graced the Middle Tennessee area. The daughter of Cheryl Bentyne, a member of The Manhattan Transfer, and a self-described “feminist activist,” Zoe reveals her conflict in her work—both the photography and the painting.

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What type of art do you do?

I am a photographer and a painter. But I’ve been told I am a better photographer than a painter because my photographs convey more emotion. I like to think about what people are shocked by or what they want to see. I want them to be curious and say, Whoa, how did you do that? I want my work to spark a question, because I like to ask questions.

At what age did you know you had “something?”

When I was 10. My parents got me my first little Canon camera; I started taking pictures of my friends, and by 11 I was editing them on my computer. I started giving them as birthday gifts, and people seemed to love it. It was around that time that my mom told me she thought photography is what I should do with my life. So I’ve sort of known since I was 11 that this is what I wanted to do.

How did you develop your talent?

I went to CHAMPS performing arts high school in L.A. and attended the media program. I learned everything I know from those courses. I did not do very well in high school. In fact, I only attended those two hours of photography classes, but I sure learned how to take a picture! I have continued my training with workshops. I took a course with Brooke Shaden, whose work I admire, and also with Robin Layton, who is a Nikon Ambassador and lives in Washington State.

Have you ever done an art show?

When I was 16 and a sophomore in high school, I did an art show to benefit tsunami victims. I curated the show and had some fellow student artists’ work in the show, and it attracted a lot of attention. It was in L.A. Weekly, and we raised a lot of money for the cause and gave it to Global Giving.

What got you interested in that cause?

There is a pop singer in Japan named Anna Bella. Her mother was a jazz enthusiast, and she saw some of the photos I had taken of The Manhattan Transfer. She invited me to come to Japan to take Anna’s photo! So, at 16 I flew to Japan for a photo shoot, and I fell in love with the country. It is such a magical place, so after the tsunami, I felt like I needed to do something to help.

Zoe Bentyne

Did that open some doors for you?

Yes, I had already been doing photo shoots and working on album covers for musicians like my mother, Cheryl Bentyne, who is a member of The Manhattan Transfer, and jazz artist Tierney Sutton, who won a Grammy for the album that I did the cover on. I also did a lot of work for Punk bands on Burger Records, like Kitten, who are getting pretty big now.

Can you describe your work?

It is kind of weird and trippy. Lately I’ve been doing some surreal stuff, mainly with women. My paintings are more like storybook style, but my photographs are real-life versions of how I wish the world looked. Part of the magic of the photographs I take are the people in the photos. For example, I’ve worked with Syd Lynch, David Lynch’s granddaughter, who is very very creative, and she was very open and trusts me. That mutual trust helps creates the special dreamlike quality to my art. I remember one photo shoot in particular where I had been watching The X-Files and thinking about alien abduction, which is the scariest thing to me. So Syd and I were awake around 3 a.m. one morning, and we went outside and set up a shot under a big streetlight. There was already this creepy eerie feeling, and she just opened up to it, and I think we captured the exact essence of what I was trying to convey. All of my work is collaborative; it is almost like an emotional or spiritual connection with my subjects. If I don’t have their trust, it isn’t going to work. Every picture is a story, and I need them to help me tell it.

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Photograph by Nancy Lee Andrews

You are new to Nashville. What made you move here?

I moved from Boston to L.A. when I was 10, with my parents, who are both artists. And I came to Nashville about two months ago when my musician boyfriend asked if I was happy, and I replied, No! I think L.A. is a very hard place for a young woman to be, especially if she is artistic and creative in a way that is not considered “normal.” In fact, for the last year I was not even doing any art; I was just worn out. He suggested we check out the scene here, and we love it! I knew there would be plenty of music for him, but I had no idea there would be such an art scene here. It’s incredible! I’ve had more opportunities and I’ve been more inspired here than I’ve been for years living in L.A. And I am creating again, so I am happy.

Does your art reflect your life?

Oh absolutely. My mom was diagnosed with cancer, twice, and that was really hard for me to deal with. So I stopped doing art during that time, and then as she got better, it was almost like my art was reborn again, as I witnessed her being reborn. She went through a stem-cell transplant, and it was amazing to watch her come back to life, and it made me see how beautiful life can be.

What have you been working on since coming to Nashville?

I’ve just been so inspired since coming here, and I just finished a whole new series. It deals with me opening up and coming to Nashville and not being silenced. It’s kind of like me evolving and being open to this new creativity. So I depict women emerging into something, and some are falling from something. So in some art-therapy sense, my work speaks to what is happening in my life now. All of my pieces are very surreal and dreamy. I get most of my visions for these photographs right before I fall asleep, when I’m in that weird dream state but still kind of awake. So I keep a notebook next to my bed, and I jot down ideas that I have before I fall into slumber. And then I make them real. Best of all, the reality of my life right now is matching my dreams. na For more information visit www.zoeallenimage.tumblr.com.

Jered Sprecher

by Jane R. Snyder

Recent Prints and Paintings Tennessee Arts Commission Gallery through July 15

In the midst of my conversation with Jered Sprecher, his threeyear-old son woke up in search of a snack. As the painter excused himself to provide one, Jered’s tone moved easily from strictly business to loving parent.

Accomplished artist and dad are just two facets of this talented Nebraska native, who is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of Tennessee, a winner of multiple fellowships (Chinati, Guggenheim, Irish Museum of Modern Art), and preparing for his January 2017 solo exhibition at Knoxville’s Museum of Art. Part abstraction, The Blind, 2013, Acrylic and paper on linen, 11” x 8” part representation, his paintings reflect contrasts—hard edges or hazy ones, loud colors or tranquil shades, light grids or dark globes, high energy or lazy brushstrokes—you may find yourself wondering exactly what he was thinking. Sprecher likens his work to jazz improvisation.

“I am inspired by a variety of images, including snapshots, children’s drawings, or a painting like Manet’s The Luncheon on the Grass.

Rhythm and structure are important to me, but I like to be surprised by them. My process is a conversation, a call and response, between me and the painting. Through the process of painting, I may find a shape or a color that I did not expect. I can either leave it or wipe it away, because I am always chasing after harmony amidst the dissonance.”

What kind of impact does teaching have on Jered’s own creative output?

“If my students want to know, ‘Why should I care?’ or ‘Why is this important?’ I have to re-evaluate basic artistic truths about perspective, color, even politics. They always keep me honest.”

You may be surprised to discover he signs his canvases on the back so viewers can appreciate the whole of his content and not be distracted by a single name—as if each work had the feel of many hands.

The painter revealed, “Mine are not the most normal decisions,” but you will applaud them just the same. Whether those decisions are intellectual or straight from his gut, Jered Sprecher raises eclecticism to high art.

Recent Prints and Paintings by Jered Sprecher is on view at the Tennessee Arts Commission Gallery through July 15. For more information, visit www.jeredsprecher.com and www.tnartscommission.org.

laurenSNELLING Artistic Director, OZ Arts Nashville

L

Interview by Paul Polycarpou Photography by Jerry Atnip

auren Snelling blew into town with a dream and a plan—to help establish a stellar performing arts center that would showcase the best of dance, theatre, music, and the visual arts from around the world. Two years later we are all trying to catch our breath as OZ Arts amazes and stimulates us with groundbreaking performances in every art genre. And that’s just the beginning. Spend a few minutes with Lauren and you’ll quickly realize that she is far from finished, which is good news for OZ Arts and good news for Nashville. na For more information visit www.ozartsnashville.org.

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What is your greatest extravagance?

Travel! I absolutely love to travel; it gives me energy to see other cultures.

Why Nashville?

We got lucky. Nashville called us. We moved here from Asheville, North Carolina, to help get OZ started.

First impression?

I grew up in the South so after years of living away it was nice to come back to a place where people have manners. There’s a real honesty here.

What was the last good book you read?

I have a stack of books on my bedside table, so I have good intentions, but finding time to read is tough, but the last good book was M Train by Patti Smith.

What is one of your most annoying characteristics?

How much time do we have? I’m very pedantic about detail. I will tweak things to the ‘nth degree.

What are you good at?

I’m good at bringing people together.

I’m a serious extrovert, so I like to be around people a lot.

If not here, where would you live?

If not Australia, probably Europe, France, Spain, Italy.

Who’s your favorite visual artist?

I’m a big Rothko fan.

Any regrets?

I’ve moved around a lot. I regret that I haven’t lived anywhere long enough to establish traditions with friends.

Who are you listening to these days?

Ben Harper.

What do you like least about Nashville?

That it’s not near the coast. I’ve always been fairly close to the sea.

How do you feel about the rapid growth going on in Nashville?

I think it’s very exciting. I love the energy that comes with all this growth. I just hope we’re careful not to alienate those who created this very appealing city.

How does Nashville rate as an art city?

I think we could push the boundaries a little more. Lean in a bit more, become more engaged.

What do you do badly?

I am horrifically impatient.

Night or morning person?

Oh my God, night, definitely one hundred percent night.

Are you always five minutes early?

No! I am always late, or I’m skidding in right on time, never early. (Not proud of this!)

Who would you most like to meet?

Dame Judy Dench, Meryl Streep.

Who’s a modern day hero for you?

There’s quite a few. There are a lot of female leaders right now, and that is inspiring to me. People with integrity, Helen Mirren, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

What’s the road ahead look like?

I feel very positive right now; there’s so much potential in what we’re doing.

A word or phrase that you over use?

“We’re not saving lives here.” I say that a lot. I mean, there is no art emergency.

What can you not leave the house without?

This is a horrible admission, but it’s my phone. Shocking and I wish it weren’t that way. I hate it.

Who would you most like to have a long conversation with?

My husband; we’re both so busy What would you like to know about the future?

I want to know where OZ Arts will be in ten years and what the arts scene in Nashville will look like.

What about you would most surprise people?

That I nearly went to dental school. I’m really glad I didn’t do that.

What are you most proud of?

My daughter, Indigo, and what we’ve been able to accomplish at OZ Arts in two and a half years.

What talent would you most like to have?

I wish I could speak more languages.

Are you a political person?

It’s tough not to be, especially at this time of year with what is going on around us, but I don’t actively seek out political conversations. It’s important to be invested in the leaders we elect to represent us.

What performance have you seen that was life altering?

That’s very clear to me: I saw a performance by a Japanese dance company called Sankai Juku. I have never had the penny drop in the way it did at that performance. Absolutely astonishing.

What’s your mantra these days?

I try to say yes instead of no. “Yes” leads to so many more ideas, more possibilities.

Who would you stand in line to buy tickets for?

I would stand in line for James Thiérrée, an amazing performer.

Stevie Wonder. Bruce Springsteen.

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Modular Art Pods

by Sara Lee Burd

Tony Youngblood’s New and Innovative Way to Experience the Art Experience OZ Arts Nashville

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June 21–25

Chip Boles art pod

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roducer of such events as The Circuit Benders Ball, Bring Your Own Beamer, and Modular Art Pods (MAPs), Tony Youngblood is known for his ability to wow an audience. His Theatre Intangible blog distills Nashville avant-garde culture and shares opportunities to get creative—usually with technology.

Youngblood thrives on the new and the incredible, and the upcoming presentation of MAPs at OZ will be sure to take his creative vision to new heights.

Chip Boles’ bull-headed humanoid demon will be placed on the top of his art pod

Photograph by John Scarpati

Tony Youngblood

How did you conceive of creating MAPs? I’ve always been attracted to exploratory experiences. Growing up, my favorite TV shows were Fraggle Rock and Star Trek: The Next Generation largely because of the seemingly endless cave systems and starship hallways/Jefferies tubes, respectively. St. Louis’s City Museum and the Dialogue in the Dark exhibition were big influences. I also have a love for haunted houses, a long-running form of immersive art that never gets classified as such. Experiential art brings a new dimension to art. You have to go through it. Done well, it can be a rite of passage.

But the idea germinated at local art openings. I thought, it’s hard to have an experience with the art because of all the socializing, the free wine, etc. Then I wondered what it would be like if the

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“

The flexible warehouse space at OZ Arts provides artists with an opportunity to create unique environments that engage curious audiences. MAPs is a fascinating, immersive experiment for both the artists/makers and the visitors.

—Lauren Snelling, Artistic Director, OZ Arts Nashville

Photograph by Sarah McDonald

Emily Holt’s Pod at abrasiveMedia

gallery was so small that only one person could fit inside. You would be forced to confront the art.

Also, most artists don’t have the financial means to make room-sized experiential art, but a four-foot cube can be made for cheap. Then, when you connect these tubes into a tunnel, something exciting happens. The whole becomes greater than the parts. The exhibit forms a narrative that no individual artist or curator can foresee.

What is a Modular Art Pod? What is not a Modular Art Pod? A Modular Art Pod is a tiny room, anywhere from four feet cubed to ten feet cubed, with entry and exit doors, containing art. In most cases, the room is part of the art. The walls can be made out of anything. Building materials for the OZ edition include foam, PVC pipe, cardboard, squirrel traps, electrical boxes, quilts, doll houses, packing tape, and much more. It’s modular because the pods are built separately and can be connected in any order.

What’s not a Modular Art Pod? Work hanging on the wall. Unless it is hanging on a tiny wall . . . inside an art pod.

You are curating a collection of artworks to be displayed as a tunnel in an installation style, but the presentation and concept seem to defy the usual art-on-walls connotation of “exhibit.” Is it an exhibit? How do you categorize this type of participatory art event?

Good question. You could call it an exhibit, immersive art, interactive art, experiential art; they all apply.

MAPs publicly debuted at abrasiveMedia during Arts & Music @ Wedgewood/Houston in February 2015. Were you certain that it was going to work? What efforts and challenges were involved in coordinating artists to participate in your project?

We intended the abrasiveMedia show to be in many ways a

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up into mini-tunnels of four to six pods each.

We call these sections “Levels,” like levels in a video game, and they each will have their own name and loose theme (ex. “Spies,” “The Sound of Colors,” “Trials,” and “Play.”)

Plans for StasisUniverse by Carla Ciuffo, Tanya Butler and Dee Simpson

Tony Youngblood’s pod under construction test run for the idea. It was supposed to be low profile. But we were astonished by the turnout. The line to get in stretched down Chestnut Station’s entire long hallway, and some people waited two hours to crawl through.

I ask myself why the first show was so successful. I believe it is because people are natural explorers, and there is very little exploratory art in Nashville (with the exception of the wonderful Adventure Science Center.) Also, people are conditioned to believe that getting on your hands and knees is something only kids do, and an exhibit such as this gives adults the excuse to crawl around.

With that first show, we learned what worked and what didn’t.

For example, the fact that the pods were assembled in one long tunnel created congestion. If one person stopped, everyone had to stop. This time, we’re breaking the pods

Could you elaborate and contextualize MAPs within the larger immersive art movements going on now? How is it similar to and different than what you’ve seen around the country?

When I started developing MAPs, I wasn’t really aware of the immersive art movement.

I don’t think I’d even heard of the term, even though shows like Sleep No More had been running for a long time. I had been to City Museum and loved it, but I thought of it more as a highly creative adult playground. But then I discovered Sleep No More and got to attend a show. I was equal parts jealous that they came up with it first and floored by the potential that immersive art offers. In March, I got to see two immersive art shows by Third Rail: Then She Fell and The Grand Paradise. With these shows, the experience with the actors and movement artists is the key.

With MAPs, the experience with the tiny universes that the pod artists construct is the key. That’s what makes us unique: there isn’t one designer but many. The thing that made me happiest about the first MAPs was seeing this art microcosm spring up in a matter of hours. Over here we had an inverted sinkhole that was neighbor to a coral reef. And over there was a castle guarded by squirrels next to a psychedelic shower with pulsing lights. It felt magical, and we hope to rekindle that magic for five days at OZ. You put out a call for artists for the OZ exhibit. I imagine you had a huge response. What types of artists applied?

Painters, sculptors, sound artists, filmmakers, projection artists, installation artists, performance artists, scientists, puppeteers, new media artists, makers, textile artists, 3D object designers—and those were just the ones that got accepted.

What were some of the primary factors you looked for when selecting from the pool of applicants?

The big factor was if the idea felt like a total environment.

We tried to avoid pods that just felt like ways to display the artists’ non-pod art. Strong pods have a central idea, even if it’s a simple one.

The pods provide a creative challenge for artists to transform their styles and ideas into a particular space.

What do participants say about their experience making and sharing their art pods? How many artists are building MAPs for OZ right now?

There are approximately 80 artists making 60 pods.

Additionally, we have 17 groups of performers taking shifts in

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two special performance pods.The feedback I’ve heard from the artists is that the experience of building a pod is more challenging than they originally thought. And then watching people experience their pods was enormously instructive in what worked and what to improve for next time. Nearly all of the artists were glad they participated, and many of the original MAPs artists are coming back for the show at OZ. We rely heavily on artist input, and many of the changes we’re implementing this round were directly due to the artists’ suggestions. This is very much a group effort.

Part of MAPs is incorporating interactive aspects for people who prefer to walk outside the pod walls. At the abrasiveMedia show, I enjoyed walking along the exterior, peeking into the mini galleries and sharing smiles with passing crawlers. Why was unifying the inside and outside important to you?

Many people are not able to crawl through the pods, and we didn’t want to exclude anyone from enjoying the show. The idea of the backlot tour was to create a parallel experience that was different from the tunnel but equally enjoyable. The outsides of the pods contain additional artwork, peepholes looking inside, and ways to interact with the crawlers. If you like, you can imagine the crawlers as the lab rats and the backlot tourers as the scientists peering in.

What is your plan for MAPs? Where will we see them next?

I wanted to make MAPs open source so anyone could put one on anywhere. As such, I licensed it under Creative Commons– Attribution–Share Alike. In this respect, I was inspired by the open source ideas Bring Your Own Beamer and No Media.

There’s talk of Queen Ave Art putting on their own MAPs. If artists in other cities put on their own independent MAPs, that would make me ecstatic. na

OZ Arts Nashville’s TNT presentation Modular Art Pods will feature special performances with $15 tickets on June 23 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Crawl through or walk around the installation for free June 21–25, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. For more about Tony Youngblood and MAPs, visit www.theatreintangible.com and www.ozartsnashville.org. Please note: children must be accompanied by an adult as the content of some pods contains adult themes.

Close-up of a miniature building in the pod by Sarah McDonald and Tyler Blankenship at abrasiveMedia

Photograph by Sarah McDonald

Photograph by Jerry Atnip

For the OZ show, we also have several accessible levels planned. These levels feature larger pods that are walkable with doors big enough for wheelchairs to fit through. If you go to ModularArtPods.com, you can click the “Accessibility” tab to learn more.

What changes can we expect from the first presentation of the MAPs to the upcoming one at OZ? The OZ show will feature twice as many pods as the abrasiveMedia show. The pods will be broken up into ten levels of four to six pods each, which will ease congestion and give people the ability to choose their own adventure.

Since the abrasiveMedia show was only for one day, many artists performed in their pods. Since the OZ show is for one week, obviously we can’t ask the artists to perform in their pods for a week. But we wanted to keep the intimate aspect of performance art. So we devised two special performance pods that will feature a rotating cast of actors, movement artists, musicians, performance artists, and projection artists.

Every time you come to the show, you’ll see something new.

Jason Brown and postal art entries for his pod

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Sketch for Alexis Colbert’s The Darkwood Theatre

THEBOOKMARK

A MONTHLY LOOK AT HOT BOOKS AND COOL READS

LaRose: A Novel Louise Erdrich Louise Erdrich, bestselling author of the National Book Award-winning The Round House and Pulitzer Prizenominated The Plague of Doves, proves that just when we think she’s at the top of her game, she can go higher. An unparalleled storyteller, she applies her talents here to a concept that might not work in any other writer’s hands. When a man accidentally kills the child of his neighbors in a hunting accident, he atones with a gesture rooted in Native American culture: He gives his own son to the grieving family. LaRose examines both families as the years unfold from there. You won’t be able to forget these characters.

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

A Hero of France: A Novel

Sebastian Junger

Rejoice, Alan Furst fans—the master of thrillers returns with a fantastic new offering this summer. This time the story is set in Nazi-occupied Paris, 1941, amid the danger of the French Resistance. Spies, blackmailers, informants, and brave citizens populate this tale about men and women determined to do whatever it takes to take down Adolf Hitler’s forces. Throw in some shady characters and a love interest or two, and this book has it all.

A suspenseful must-read that belongs in every beach bag. Meet the author at 6:30 p.m. on June 6 at Parnassus.

This is one everyone will be talking about. Part history, part anthropology, and part contemporary psychological study, Tribe examines the deep need humans have to belong to part of a small group with close ties. It helps explain, for example, why soldiers returning from war have difficulty re-entering society apart from the rest of their platoon. It offers evidence as to why living through a disaster with other people can bond you to them and leave you with surprisingly fond memories. The roots of our tribal tendencies go as far back as human history, and understanding them just might be the key to our survival in today’s increasingly disjointed, individualistic world.

Alan Furst

Diane Arbus: Portrait of a Photographer Arthur Lubow How did one of the greatest and most controversial artists of the 20th century become who she was? This biography of visionary photographer Diane Arbus takes us back to her childhood and through her career to show how her body of work came to be. Arbus was known for her arresting photographs of marginalized people—nudists, circus performers, people considered freakish at worst or outside the realm of traditional beauty at best. Arthur Lubow researched this book obsessively, drawing upon letters and interviews with Arbus’s fellow artists, friends, lovers, and family to inform his understanding of the artist. What drove Arbus to seek out the people others refused to look in the eye? And what do her photographs teach us about them?

Local Artist Edie Maney Featured in NYC Gallery “Color! What a deep and mysterious language, the language of dreams.” These words, credited to French Post-Impressionist Paul Gauguin, have profoundly influenced local Nashville artist Edie Maney and served as inspiration for her vibrant works, several of which will be featured in the Big Apple at the Amsterdam Whitney Gallery in June. Maney has been showcasing her art since 1984, and her work has been widely acclaimed in exhibits throughout the U.S. and Europe.

A Modern Abstract Impressionist specializing in organic works that range widely in tone and texture, Maney is a skilled colorist. “Each day renews my belief in the power of color,” she expresses in her artist statement. “It excites me. It is contagious.” She is known primarily for her ethereal canvases and fluid shapes that create a sense of graceful movement and also for her innovative methods: “There are endless possibilities for moving paint,” she says. “Redefining chaos with acrylic, gel, brushes, and palette knives; introducing torn pieces of canvas.”

Maney’s art can be seen on display in many establishments around town, including the St. Thomas Heart Institute, Vanderbilt Medical Center, and the Tennessee State Museum. It can also be viewed through The Arts Company, a Nashville gallery that sponsors the artist.

Her New York exhibit will be at Amsterdam Whitney International Fine Art Inc., located at 511 West 25th Street, Chelsea.

For more information, please visit www.amsterdamwhitneygallery.com.

To see more of Maney’s art, please visit www.ediemaneyart.com and www.theartscompany.com/maney.

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Colorful Slice of Time, 2016, Oil on canvas, 24” x 24”

Proud Sponsor of the Nashville Walls Project

Nashville Walls Project Words by Éva Boros Photography by Colin M Day

C

haos ensues on 5th Avenue as "Shoe" begins whacking fake twigs and plants against the northeast corner of a parking garage. He is on a boom lift six stories directly above Brian, who has been directing the afternoon rush-hour traffic, letting people and cars pass, guarding potential casualties from splatters of paint. Johnny Cash lyrics from “As Long As The Grass Shall Grow” begin to appear in Shoe’s signature style. He is the inceptive force behind calligraffiti.

Neils “Shoe” Meulman - Parking Garage, 5th Avenue between Commerce and Church Street

One block up, on Church Street, Rone is also hard at work painting a 70-foot-tall portrait of Jane-doe. She appears to be slowly seeping through the bricks. Rone intentionally creates this illusion by detailing various parts of her face, shoulders, and arms in equal proportions throughout the day.

On the other side of the Cornerstone Building on 6th Avenue, one can already see Herakut’s finished mural.

It reads, One day I will rescue your brother, too next to a super-hero pit bull, its eyes painted to reflect the Nashville City Center.

Herakut - Cornerstone Square Building, corner of 6th Avenue and Church Street

Back at the lobby of the Kress Building on 5th Avenue North, Adele Renault sits in the eye of the storm and paints colorful feathers for her seven-foot-tall King Pigeon named Helk. She is unaffected by the loud thunderstorm passing through downtown.

Gibson Custom Division made Nashville Walls Project possible, but it is the community of Nashville that brought these murals to life. The dog portraits taken by Williamson County Animal Center in front the Herakut mural and people singing, even dancing, in front of Shoe’s Johnny Cash lyrics are only a few examples of why the artists appreciate being in Nashville.

Herakut explained that they “came to Nashville because it is Music City. We strive to experience culture removed from street art and connect with locals wherever we go.”

Rone - Cornerstone Square Building, corner of 6th Avenue and Church Street

Involvement by local artists such as Brandon Donahue, Jon Buko, and Sterling Goller-Brown also helped solidify a bridge between international artists and a longstanding history of local graffiti and street art. As we move forward, Nashville Walls Project and Gibson Custom Division will welcome artists such as Curiot, Mike Shine, Above, and Mars-1. Stay tuned! na For more information, please visit www.nashvillewallsproject.com.

Adele Renault - Lobby of the Kress Building, 5th Avenue North

Photograph by Amanda Spangler

Photograph by Amanda Spangler

Photograph by Amanda Spangler

by Anneliessa Balk

Previously Unknown Portrait of Andrew Jackson Acquired by Stanford Fine Art

Henry Leavitt Ellsworth (1791–1858), one of three commissioners appointed by President Andrew Jackson to establish “order and justice” after the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830, purchased a portrait of Jackson by Ralph E.W. Earl in 1835. For nearly 16 years, Stan Mabry, owner of Stanford Fine Art, has been communicating with Ellsworth’s descendants, who have maintained possession of the portrait since. As the portrait was previously unknown, art historians like James Barber of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., were thrilled to learn of its existence, and its information has been added to the gallery’s records.

Ralph E.W. Earl (c. 1785–1838) arrived in Nashville in 1817 to paint the portrait of General Jackson, the hero of the battle of New Orleans. Not long after, he met and married Mrs. Jackson’s niece, Jane Caffrey. Although she died the following year, Earl and Jackson became close friends, and when Jackson was elected president, Earl followed him to Washington, D.C., painting so many portraits of Jackson he became known as the “court painter.” When Jackson returned to Tennessee after his second term, Earl accompanied him and remained until his death.

This particular portrait was painted during Earl’s time in Washington and has never resided in Tennessee—until now! Stanford Fine Art is proud to have played a role in bringing the portrait to Jackson’s home of Middle Tennessee, where it was recently purchased and now resides.

Stanford Fine Art has been specializing in high quality 19th- and 20th-Century American and European paintings in the Nashville area since 1987.

For more information, contact Stanford Fine Art, 6608A Highway 100, Nashville, TN 37205, www.stanfordfineart.net.

Ralph E. W. Earl, Portrait of President Andrew Jackson, circa 1834, Oil on canvas, 30” x 25”

Nashville International Puppet Festival Nashville Public Library

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June 17–19

Now in its fourth year, the Nashville International Puppet Festival will bring 14 renowned puppeteers, puppet troupes, and performers from six countries, including Squallis Puppeteers, Nashville Ballet, the Global Education Center’s Djembe Drum Corp, T-RAC, and the Library’s own Wishing Chair Productions, to the Main Library in downtown Nashville Friday, June 17, through Sunday, June 19. The art, appeal, and allure of puppetry will be explored during this free, three-day family event.

Unicyclists, jugglers, stilt walkers, face painters, and balloon artists will be on hand in the indoor Library Courtyard, where a European-style Street Festival will be in full swing! More than 30 free, seated puppetry performances, surprise pop-up performances, puppet crafts and workshops, and a family zone with a music stage, kids’ activities, and food trucks will be available throughout the Festival.

Photograph by Gary Layda

Highlights will include a parade complete with floats, artists, dragons, larger-than-life marionettes, a live band, and a variety of musicians along Capitol Boulevard to the Main Library on Saturday morning, two free evening performances of String City by Wishing Chair Productions at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum on Thursday, June 16, and Friday, June 17, and pop-up performances by Francois Blanc.

All events are free, but tickets are required for seated performances, available in advance for a $2.50 processing fee at www.nashvillepubliclibrary.org/puppetfestival and for both String City shows at www.countrymusichalloffame.org; $2.50 processing fee.

Nashville International Puppet Festival runs June 17–19 at the Main Library, 615 Church Street. Doors open at 8:30 a.m. Friday and Saturday and 10:30 a.m. Sunday. For more information, visit www.nashvillepubliclibrary.org/puppetfestival.

inkaESSENHIGH Universal Tongues: Unfolding Mythos within Inka Essenhigh’s Between Two Worlds Frist Center through October 9

Summer Landscape, 2013, Triptych: Oil on paper, each panel, 84” x 52”

F

igures stride, caught in moments of suspension and suggested motion as they shift through space and time.

They exist within their own worlds, and yet the works of Inka Essenhigh beckon and bridge to ours.

Between Two Worlds gathers the longer narratives of Essenhigh’s large-scale oil paintings and the intense intimacy of her monotypes. Even as their essence of oil mediums and constructed, mythical space may seem to borrow from historical traditions of figurative painting, the body of work caught Between Two Worlds explores a modern twist to the usual verbiage. Contemporary color accents the surface with neons and graphic pops, and Essenhigh’s surrealistic curves and hyperreality feel grounded in the sinuous static of digital culture and compressed, theatrical space. Simply put, though the paintings may speak a romantic language to write their visual poems, the works themselves are highly articulate in the vocabulary of the Now.

Green Goddess II, 2009, Oil on canvas, 60” x 72”

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by Megan Kelley

Spring Bar Scene, 2008, Oil on canvas, 78” x 72”

The works stem from an aesthetic immediacy not only in their cultural context, but also reflecting a personal ‘now’ inherent to the artist: Essenhigh begins work by following through a sensation. “It’s not a ‘feeling’, exactly; instead I create a story, a reality, that serves as a still life I can return to in my mind.

I try to copy it down very faithfully.” With such a detailed mental construction, visual sketches—if any exist—may be as simple as a dashed set of lines, but the bulk of preparation that Essenhigh explores happens within a dedicated process of color-mixing in her pursuit of sensation. “A color’s painting

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is like light: everyone is affected by it; it has a physical effect on us.” The intention of color serves as structure for the created spaces, pulling the eye across the surface and through narrative and familiar symbols.

Though Essenhigh’s work touches on themes of mythology, the artist strays from summarizing any particular lexicon of reference. Goddesses and woodsmen abound among sea monsters and saints, but the specific archetypes are allowed to be nebulous. “There’s an understanding we all have, that I have access to as much as anyone else does,” Essenhigh describes. “I believe we are somewhere in between: we may have a Jungian imprint of collective unconscious, but we are also recreating it as we go along, a vision of what might be.” Without the specific weight of a particular fairytale, the conceptual presence of the images mimics the visual dynamism. The narrative feels light and mobile, at once tapping into a universal line of thought while navigating personal resonance. The re-awoken cultural explorations create space for new immortals. The figures, resplendent in their symbolic scale, become both “energies, separate from us,” part of “a bigger chain of events,” and yet, Essenhigh explains, “they are also us. We participate in this cycle, and these things work their way through us.”

The Woodsman, 2012, Oil on canvas, 72” x 68”

In the end, the stories inscribed within the exhibit inhabit a borderland of the probable and the possible, finding a new space where the viewer is both the observer and the observed, simultaneously new to the worlds presented and yet fundamentally having always been a part of them.

“These aren’t made-up worlds. They are worlds where everything is alive and present and full of possibilities: to live in a different kind of world, and create the beautiful world we wanted to shape.” na

Photograph by Carlin Mayer

Inka Essenhigh: Between Two Worlds is on display through October 9 at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts. For more information and hours, visit www.fristcenter.org.

Inka Essenhigh

City Street, 2013, Oil on linen, 70" x 60"

“

…these eyes see a life that’s Tricky: leading down blind alleys opening onto All that is

oniWOODS

Words by Nichole Perkins Photography by Gina Binkley

The Unstoppable Scribe

W

hen poet and voiceover artist Oni Woods returned to Nashville after 16 years of living in Chicago, she found her hometown almost unrecognizable. She returned to help support her mother, who had become the primary caretaker of a family member with dementia. She found high-rise condos in Nashville, something she never imagined, but she also found a way to be at peace with all the changes in her life.

Through her poetry, voiceover work, and other endeavors, Woods has learned to use creativity to make change.

At A Matter of Taste restaurant in East Nashville, part of those changes Woods has experienced since she returned in 2014, she discusses how Prince influenced her voiceover work, her love of knowledge, and harnessing creativity.

“

We all have those things & we face them, in time Do it gracefully

“I’m an insatiable lover of knowledge,” Woods admitted. “I want to know. I want to know about the mind-body-spirit conflicts. I’ve always been, more than anything, a seeker of the ultimate truth, whatever that is. Truth with a capital T. The more I’m looking, the more I realize that’s kind of a pipe dream.”

Because of her interest in commercials, Woods wanted to understand why advertising works, which led her to psychology. The study of medicine intrigued her as well, and her experience as an endocrinology intern at Meharry Medical College during former surgeon general David Satcher’s tenure allowed her to carve a path in biology. Ideally, Woods wanted to “figure out a way into holistic psychology.” She wanted to treat mental illness in a chemical-free way that included the whole person. Her studies circled through various religious beliefs, from Christianity to atheism to Judaism and more, before she settled into her current life of Zen. The portable nature of her skills as a voiceover artist enabled Woods to return home. She insists that “as long as I can set up a booth and the rest of my equipment and get my engineers in there, I can work anywhere.” With the death of her last aunt and the need to help her mother, this flexibility was crucial.

How did she first discover her talent for voice work? “I’ve been curating my voice ever since I was about 8 years old,” Woods said. “The first time I heard Prince and realized he was a man, I was like, no way. If he can do that with his voice, what

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can I do with mine?” Woods also admired Earth, Wind and Fire singer Philip Bailey for his range and abilities. She looked to radio disc jockeys, specifically the ones who would host the late-night programs called Quiet Storms, and recorded her voice to study and perfect it. What was it about Prince that helped her find her voice?

“When I was 13, my voice cracked. That wasn’t supposed to happen, but it happened to me, and because I had this sort of internal artistic connection with Prince, I was like, oh, it’ll be alright. I was able to accept that happening to me, which opened up this chest voice that I have and this resonance that I have, which I would’ve never thought anything about if I had not seen an example of someone just pushing an envelope.”

Woods’s multiple degrees and her talented voice join her skills as a poet and writer. She first became a writer as she got into acting.

“I started acting because of my writing. I was published by The Tennessean in an anthology when I was in 7th then again in 8th grade, and then I was published again with the Young Authors project that Vanderbilt was doing one year,” Woods revealed. “One day someone said, could you come to the Southern Festival of Books, and that was the first time I was ever onstage for my own writing.” Performing her own work helped her hone her voice even more.

During her time in Chicago, Woods used her experience as a writer and actor as well as her interests in holistic therapies to form Living Art, a program that helps students use theatre and creative writing to work through academic and societal pressures. It helps the students find their own voices and exposes them to literature and artwork they might not get in school. Woods feels that “Artwork is a bridge for humanity from our mundane, everyday lives into that part of ourselves

“

In my childhood home Memory: bringing me back Carrying forward

that is unseen but undergirds everything. It’s our water.”

After losing a teaching job in Chicago while recovering from some health challenges, Woods realized she had to become her own boss. She began publishing her poetry, the first in a trilogy of books about her experiences in Chicago.

She focused on creating her voiceover studio, using old stockings to create a pop-guard for her microphone. She was determined to use her abilities to see herself through a difficult time, and her perseverance paid off. She started Unstoppable Enterprises which houses her voiceover, writing, acting, and teaching endeavors.

Woods’s travels have taken her around the world, yet Nashville is home. How has the city shaped her? “There’s an openness here that I think really helped me open my eyes to the fact that there’s some horrible stuff out there, but it’s all a part of this big beautiful world.”

And what would she say to other artists who hope to make Nashville home one day?

“Please don’t make it Atlanta,” she laughed then sobered quickly. “Don’t saturate it with a lot of the same stuff. Please keep it diverse and open. I see some areas where Nashville has potential to start closing down and narrowing its focus, and I just would want to see artists of all stripes come together.

[Nashville] is still finding its culture outside of country music.

Please bring as much as you can so we can have a cornucopia, so we can really choose from it and say yeah, that’s Nashville. There’s a drive there that could narrow us, but don’t be afraid to come to Nashville, because there is an openness here.” na Read Oni Woods’s poem on page 81.

For more information, visit www.unstoppable.enterprises.

Pujols Foundation Helps Persons with Down Syndrome Express Their Inner Artists The 21 Collaborative Project at The Standard

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by Skip Anderson

June 17

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n artistic endeavor that pairs persons with Down syndrome with established artists to create one-of-a-kind works of art is returning to Nashville this spring. The Pujols Family Foundation created the 21 Collaborative Art Project in 2014 to nurture the nascent creativity in these budding artists by working with Nashville-based artists specializing in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, and songwriting.

Twenty-one artists have worked closely with Nashvillebased persons with Down syndrome in recent weeks to create works of art that will be available for purchase at The Standard on June 17. Participating artists include painter Ed Nash, photographer Larry McCormack, sculptor Lisa Jennings, and songwriter Josh Kerr. The collaborative works created through these pairings will be available for purchase the night of the event, which is open to the public.

Guy Gilchrist, a musician, artist, philanthropist, and, perhaps most famously, an award-winning comic-strip writer who brings Nancy and Sluggo to hundreds of newspapers daily, is also participating in this year’s event.

“Working with a person with Down syndrome is exactly like working with anyone else,” says Gilchrist, who is a board member of the Pujols Family Foundation. “My job is to find out what makes each collaborator tick and what they bring to the story.”

Michelle Grayum and Hannah Nall, Happy and Free, 2016, Mixed media encaustic (beeswax) on panel, 24” x 18”

“I asked Eric, ‘If you could give any superhero power to our character, what would it be?’ I thought he might say something about anti-bullying, or something along those lines,” Gilchrist says. “Instead, he said he wanted our character to have the ability to make sad people and mad people happy. I was just floored.”

The collaboration led to the creation of Nashville Man, who shoots mirth-making musical notes from his wrists á la the web-slinging Spider-Man himself.

“People sometimes are surprised to learn that persons with Down syndrome can write songs, paint paintings, and take

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Michelle Grayum and Hannah Nall

Photograph by Aaron Grayum

In the 1980s, Jim Henson hired Gilchrist to draw The Muppets for an internationally syndicated comic strip by the same name. Gilchrist is also the artist behind the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic strip, among others. For this year’s 21 CAP, Gilchrist worked with Eric Wilson, who is a fan of superheroes, especially Spider-Man.

Photograph by Stacey Irvin Photograph by John Wilson

Kristin Llamas and Anna Spooner

Photograph by Alfonso Llamas

Andee Rudloff and Sara Hight

pictures,” says Rae Hummell, event coordinator.

“The 21st chromosome [which is the root of the genetic disorder] impacts parts of their brains and affects some of their functions, but it doesn’t impede their creativity. The 21 Collaborative Art Project shows people how creative persons with Down syndrome can be.”

Hummell is the director of business development Grace Dodd and Lizzy Ragsdale and global initiatives for the Pujols Family Foundation. The Foundation is a personal initiative started in 2005 by Major League Baseball slugger Albert Pujols whose now-teenage daughter has the genetic disorder. The Pujols Family Foundation has offices in St. Louis, Southern California, and Nashville.

“Albert didn’t just lend his name to this organization,” Hummell says. “He actively put it together in 2005 to provide extraordinary experiences and opportunities for individuals with Down syndrome.”

Other upcoming PFF events in Nashville include the PFF Prom, which includes Titans cheerleaders and baseball players from Trevecca Nazarene University and Lipscomb University; and a home-run derby at First Tennessee Ballpark October 2. The latter is open to the public. na Please support The Pujols Family Foundation on June 17 at The Standard at The Smith House in Nashville. Tickets are $35. You can bid on the artwork by these amazing artists with Down syndrome and their mentors. For more information please visit www.21ArtsCollab.com or www.pujolsfamilyfoundation.org.

Roger Dale Brown and Sam Nafzger, Sunning, 2016, Oil on canvas, 20” x 20”

Guy Gilchrist and Eric Wilson

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.

… And He Never Spoke A Word

Photograph by Kaila Lassey

The first time I met Scott, his parents brought him to discuss what we were going to paint. I showed Scott my artwork and the different subjects I have painted in the past. He indicated that he liked my horse paintings. Did he like portraits of horses’ faces, jumping racehorses, grazing horses, or running horses? Running horses. Next I pulled out the vine charcoal and paper and talked about looking at shapes, which is a fundamental of drawing. We studied photos of horses and broke them down into ovals, rectangles, and triangles. With my hand guiding his, Scott was able to make these shapes with me and then on his own.

Scott has a form of autism that is called sensory processing disorder, which manifests itself in hyposensitivity to touch and movement, both hyper and hyposensitivity to sound, hyposensitivity to oral input, and hypersensitivity to visual input. All that said, what I discovered was a quiet, sweet young man who moves slowly but intentionally. He smiles a great deal and laughs when I make goofy sound effects while painting. At first, I chose the colors and mixed them with his hand in mine, then I asked him to pick the colors. I was impressed by his bold choices of almost primary colors and his thick application of paint. Scott belly laughed when we playfully splashed and splattered paint and let it drip to the floor.

Rachael and Scott

Anita, Scott’s mother, shared with me that when her son was born, they tagged his chart with the acronym FLK, which meant he needed testing for possible chromosomal defects.

When she asked what FLK stood for, the nurse told her “Funny Looking Kid.” Anita was appalled and complained. Hopefully they have stopped such insensitive labeling.

Scott Lewis and Rachael McCampbell, Scott and Rachael’s Horses, 2016, Acrylic on canvas, 36” x 36”

T

he 21 Artists Collaborative is 21 Nashville artists who are invited to work with individuals with Down syndrome for the Pujols Foundation, a national non-profit with a two-prong mission of serving impoverished areas of the Dominican Republic and creating extraordinary opportunities for individuals with Down syndrome. I was told that I was paired with a 26-year-old man with Down syndrome and autism who is non-verbal. My first thought was how will we communicate and make art together if he doesn’t speak?

I mention this because Anita took a video of me working with Scott, and when we played it back, all I could see was what a bad hair day I was having, and she commented on how her voice sounded funny. Of course the person with the best self-esteem in the room was Scott, who knows he’s grand all the time. No FLK for him. He has no time for labels or fears of what others think—no criticism or negativity. He’s simply kind. At one point in the painting process, he leaned over and rested his head on my shoulder as if to say, “You are okay with me.” That was a vote of confidence that meant more than any I have ever received—one that I will always treasure.

Scott, you came to learn from me, but I can assure you I learned much more from you, and you never spoke a word. na Please support The Pujols Family Foundation on June 17 at The Standard at The Smith House in Nashville. Tickets are $35.

You can bid on the artwork by these amazing artists with Down syndrome and their mentors. For more information please visit www.21ArtsCollab.com or www.pujolsfamilyfoundation.org.

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ROGER DALE BROWN • MARLEEN De WAELE-De BOCK • AARON GRAYUM • MICHELLE GRAYUM GUY GILCHRIST • JODY HAYS • VINCE HERRERA • LISA JENNINGS • JOSH KERR • ALFONSO LLAMAS • KRISTIN LLAMAS • RACHAEL McCAMPBELL • LARRY McCORMACK • ED NASH LAURA PAIT (KENDRA SCOTT JEWELERS) • MICHAEL POINDEXTER • ANDEE RUDLOFF • LIZZY RAGSDALE • BETHANY ROGERS • THE DOMINES • CORY WASNEWSKY (HATCH SHOW PRINT)

Nashville Photograph by Beth Inglish

by John Partipilo

A

s a photojournalist you never know what situation you’re about to walk into. I have done that for 35 years. As a fine art photographer I like to stick to my journalism roots, and that heavily influences my process.

Serendipity also plays a major role in the process. I have to be present in the moment and allow for happenstance, holding the belief that I’m going to get the photograph every time. I really do trust in that. I try not to think about it much, because if you over think, you won’t get your pictures. Once I get there, things happen. I call it Zen Photography—reacting to whatever is in front of you.

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12:01a.m. the lights and traffic of Lower Broadway

at Night A Photographic Essay

An example of this is the shot taken inside Skull’s Rainbow Room. When I arrived the place was packed, and I couldn’t get in. I went around to the side door and asked a waitress on a smoke break if she could get me in. I made it in just in time to take the shot of the dancer on stage with the woman in the audience covering her husband’s eyes.

Sometimes you can write the narrative by allowing the environment around the subject to influence the picture. For example, the photo taken at Play in the dressing room uses the wall of wigs to tell the story.

But the single thread that ties the series together is people—people in different environments and at different stages of life. That’s at the heart of my work. na For more information, visit www.jparti.com.

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10:15 p.m. in the dressing room at Play Dance Bar, Adam Biga, AKA The Princess, gets ready for the Drag show

11:30 p.m. Kitana Louise entertains the crowd at Skull’s Rainbow Room in Printers Alley 9:00 p.m. David Olney performs at Bobby’s Idle Hour, a songwriters hangout for many years on Music Row

1:00 a.m. Michael, a homeless man, hangs out on Second Avenue

10:30 p.m. A couple kisses on the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge

7:45 p.m People wander through ears during an art show at the Arcade in downtown Nashville

3:00 a.m. Elizabeth Stamps talks with her boyfriend Jace Aaron at the Hermitage CafĂŠ

SYMPHONYINDEPTH JUNE 2016

Summer is finally here, and for the Nashville Symphony,

that means it’s time to head outdoors for its free Community Concerts series at parks and public spaces throughout the area.

A central component of the Symphony’s community engagement programming since the 1950s, the series has become a local tradition. The concerts draw thousands of Middle Tennesseans every year to hear the orchestra free of charge and play a key role in fulfilling the Symphony’s mission to deliver great music to people of all ages and backgrounds.

With the full 80-member orchestra performing works by Bernstein, Rossini, Bizet, Dvorˇák, and more, the concerts bring the great classical repertoire to locations ranging from Centennial Park to the neighboring communities of Lebanon and Lafayette, where concertgoers sit on blankets and lawn chairs and enjoy picnic dinners in a relaxed environment.

For Nashville Symphony associate conductor Vinay Parameswaran, who will lead the orchestra on all seven Community Concerts this year, these evenings are one of the highlights of his year.

“Nashville has some truly beautiful outdoor spaces, and it’s such a treat to be able to perform in them,” he says. “The casual settings often allow all of us to interact with attendees, and it’s incredible to hear from so many people about how much they love and look forward to these concerts each summer.”

Though a longstanding tradition, this year’s Community

Photograph by Chris Ware

Photograph Courtesy of NSO

Summer + Symphony = Community Concerts

Concerts are notable for a couple of new features this year. One is the addition of a new location: Southeast Park Greenspace, located next to Ford Ice Center in Antioch.

Finding new venues for these concerts is another way that the orchestra is able to reach new audiences, giving them access to live orchestral music in their own neighborhoods.

This year’s Community Concerts series also features another special twist: a popularly selected encore. Members of the public were invited to vote for this year’s encore on the Nashville Symphony website in March, with eight initial selections. After a strong response and three rounds of voting, Bernstein’s “Mambo” from West Side Story won the encore slot by a mere four votes.

These aren’t the only things that will make this year’s concerts new and different for loyal audiences. As Parameswaran found out during last year’s concert at Bicentennial Mall, you never know when a surprise will come along that enhances the experience even more.

“We were playing Copland’s John Henry, which has the subtitle A Railroad Ballad for Orchestra,” he recalls. “And just as we started, a train came right through on the tracks behind the amphitheater. It was perfect timing!” na For more information, please visit www.NashvilleSymphony.org/tickets/calendar/CommunityConcerts

Full 2016 Nashville Symphony Community Concert Lineup: Thursday, June 2, Centennial Park at 8 p.m.

Friday, June 3, Bicentennial Mall State Park at 8 p.m.

Sunday, June 5, Crockett Park, Brentwood at 7 p.m.

Tuesday, June 7, Two Rivers Mansion at 7 p.m.

Thursday, June 9, Cumberland University in Lebanon at 7 p.m. *$5 admission for adults, free for students and children Wednesday, June 15, Key Park in Lafayette at 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, June 16, Southeast Park Greenspace, adjacent to Ford Ice Center in Antioch at 7:30 p.m.

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Photograph by Rory White

by Annie Stoppelbein

Who Is Nelda?

She is an emerging Nashville artist with a playful style all her own. Nelda has come out of the woodwork, but in a way she has always been here. She has something that everyone wants— complete self-confidence. Not much matters to Nelda. She is exactly who she wants to be. The pressure to perform in a sink-or-swim market can stifle an artist’s creativity, but Nelda has found a loophole in the game. She has suspended all judgment of herself and is blind to others’ opinions of her. Her work is not informed by her audience, but grows from a place of pure creativity.

No two Nelda self-portraits look alike, because she is an amorphous being. She moves fluidly through time, existing for some years now as a kind of avatar. Nelda claims no gender. Perhaps once she was a woman, but has decided that after a certain age that qualifier becomes irrelevant.

In fact, Nelda does not measure her life in years, but has certainly lived long enough to fill the pages of a memoir.

She works with the imagination of a child and the skill of a seasoned artist. She does not have a race, but rather belongs to a dimension all her own.

Nelda’s consciousness streams through her work. It chugs along like the trains she rode all over Europe two years ago.

She traveled for two months, from Helsinki to Spain and many places in between. There she was inspired by what she saw through the windows on her voyage. The drawings she made evolved to become her latest work.

Biology, 2016, Paper and paint, 20” x 16”

Nelda says she is “free from the dogma and indoctrinations of art school, the church, and the patriarchy.” Much of her work is gynocentric and fueled by feminine energy. Biology is an interpretation of the female anatomy—up close and personal à la Georgia O’Keeffe. A portrait series of ladies with accentuated features includes one of the “Queen B”, Beyoncé, complete with her signature sultry red lips. Each woman in the grouping appears as an offshoot of Nelda, exuding audacity and attitude. Other works simply feature floating female body parts in pop colors cut by bold black lines. Nelda’s Man also makes an appearance among her collection of portraits. He is a questionable character; tattooed, mustached, and greased over. But Nelda doesn’t care what you think of her choice in men.

The Allergen Series is an explosion of color and an exorcism of stuffiness. She uses her art to rid herself of toxins lurking beneath the surface. Using a conglomerate of materials from needle and thread to ink and paint, she produces charming

Beyoncé, 2013, Paper, 12” x 10”

Hivies, 2016, Paper and paint, 12” x 12”

Cross Pollination, 2016, Paper and paint, 20” x 16”

Pollination, 2016, Paper and paint, 24” x 24”

snippets of biological processes. Petri dishes turned to cartoon clips become the subjects of works like Histamines and Pollination. Flowers become solid shapes amid nondescript geometric figures. A condition as painfully uncomfortable as the hives becomes adorably bearable in Hivies.

Nelda has moved away from what she describes as “new-age knock-offs” and developed something entirely singular. Her detachment from the desire for profit has been liberating. Her work is as free-flowing as her outlook. She says she “would become a wilted flower if [she] committed to a particular set of truths, because there are so many. It would be like a cage for [her] and hinder any further blooming.” Because she has nothing to lose, she is a veritable loose cannon. She is the It Girl with an edge. In the end, Nelda’s existence is fluid and contentious, but her artwork is undeniably real. na

Histamines, 2016, Paper and paint, 20” x 16”

Society for Nashville's Artistic Photographers

by Ara Vito

Gordon Jewish Community Center

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June 1–30

Photograph by David Morel

The Society for Nashville’s Artistic Photographers (SNAP) will be showcasing a collection of images from some of the city’s finest photographers at the Gordon Jewish Community Center (GJCC) beginning June 1. According to the organization’s mission statement, SNAP is “dedicated to inspiring photographers and promoting photographic art in Nashville” and to providing a way for members to share their work within the community.

This will be the organization’s fifth annual juried and curated exhibit at the GJCC and will feature a total of 40 pieces by 32 photographers from the area, all of whom are members of SNAP. The pieces vary in size, style, subject, and method and are sure to be of interest to anyone who enjoys photography and contemporary fine art, as well as supporting local artists. Exhibit entries were judged by Nashville Arts Magazine Editor Paul Polycarpou, and the exhibit was curated by Carrie Mills, the resident Curator at the GJCC. Featured photographers include Al Wood, Bill Lund, Bob McReynolds, Denny Adcock, Durwood Edwards, Donna Kilkelly, David Morel, Eric Henderson, Emily Naff, Elizabeth Ross, Jo Fields, Judith Hill, Paul Schatzkin, and more.

The exhibit is on view through June 30. It is free and open to the public, with a reception that will include music and complimentary food and beverages held on June 8 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the GJCC, located at 801 Percy Warner Boulevard in Nashville. To learn more about SNAP, visit snapnashville.org and for more information about the exhibit, please visit www.nashvillejcc.org.

Photograph by Raeanne Rubenstein

THE f-STOPSHERE N

Photograph by Raeanne Rubenstein

ashville photographer Raeanne Rubenstein is no stranger to fame. As a first-call photographer in New York City she was hired to photograph some of the most interesting people and situations for the top magazines of the day. There was John Lennon, Muhammad Ali, Jimi Hendrix, Gram Parsons, Johnny Cash, Dolly . . . the list is endless. And then there was Andy Warhol, who gave her unprecedented access to his life, his loves, and his work. And let’s not forget the craziness that was Studio 54 where she met the movers and groovers, the wheelers and dealers, the makers and shakers. Her images are legendary, a part of our visual vocabulary. You’ve seen them; you just didn’t know Raeanne took them. But that was then, this is now, and Raeanne is ready to turn her f-stop towards the city she now calls home. Each month she will pick a Nashvillian that fascinates her and photograph that person for this column. It could be the famous or the infamous, the wannabes or has-beens, or it could be you. It really doesn’t matter; each is important to the makeup of this great city. We can’t wait to see what she comes up with. na

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.

Grounding Creative Placemaking in Social Justice Cities all across America are grappling with how to encourage growth without disrupting the continuity of communities and displacing long-time residents. As Nashville’s growth spirals, some of its residents seek solutions to this conundrum, and art may play a role.

In theory, creative placemaking seeks to make art and culture central to a city’s growth. This is executed in many ways, such as through securing funding for community arts grants, the building of arts spaces, and policy coordination with other citybuilding elements like transit and parks development. What creative placemaking often gets wrong is tethering efforts to built environments (or not-yet-built environments) that operate inside policy frameworks and economic development.

Bedoya says that efforts of creative placemaking as a means of revitalization, while well-intentioned, too often leave out the vitality that already exists in communities: current residents.

Bedoya has been on the front lines of urban development since the 1960s, when his San Francisco neighborhood organized to stop a freeway from being built that would scatter their community. He’s skeptical of creative placemaking and cites what scholar George Lipsitz calls the “white spatial imaginary,” which gives aesthetic value to urban anesthetized landscapes: uniform condos and corporate art are preferable to overt expressions of culture in existing neighborhoods. While gentrification promises upward mobility, it prioritizes the white middle and upper-middle classes and disenfranchises others.

Photograph by Aerial Innovations of TN

This was the theme of “Spirit/Place: Imagining a Creative Community of Art, Advocacy and Action,” a conference hosted by Vanderbilt Divinity School and Scarritt Bennett Center, among others. The event brought Roberto Bedoya, whose visit was co-sponsored by the Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission and the Curb Center. Bedoya is a sociologist, policy maker, and arts manager who is renowned for his work in civic engagement and arts leadership. His late-April talk was attended by activists, academics, artists, and Metro employees, many of whom are wary of Nashville’s rapid growth and its potential to marginalize people who call it home.

crisis: Can we be an ‘It City’ without displacing our most vulnerable people and erasing the cultural pluralism that makes Nashville truly vibrant?”

Nashville is experiencing unprecedented growth Marie Campbell, an activist and the assistant director of education at Scarritt Bennett, spearheaded the effort to bring Bedoya to Nashville at a time when activists and visionaries are holding decision-makers accountable to the needs of the people. “Bedoya calls us to question whether conversations about creative placemaking are about property rights or human rights. This question speaks to the heart of Nashville’s

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According to Bedoya, creative placemaking efforts too often impose a place on a community rather than building with the community. “Before you have places of belonging, you must feel you belong,” he says. To enhance belonging, arts policy makers can draw upon the history of place, its distinct natural environment, and its entrenched communities to strengthen cultural plurality and artistic diversity. Bedoya calls this creative placekeeping.

If our goal is true revitalization, we will keep a place at the table for those who call the city home and make deliberate decisions about who benefits from our creative economy. By placing art and advocacy hand in hand, we will be more likely to see a just city emerge. na

Photograph by Gina Binkley

See article on page 60.

POET’SCORNER

BY ONI WOODS

If I ruled the world & For Free 1st 5 things I would do if I ruled the world: free the prisoners erase the debt open free universities create truly free media provide access to fresh food and water where there is none

opening the doors to my mental capital I would free my mind and my wallet I could shut down the credit agencies and erase their recordkeeping empires and fire the umpires of credit score-ology the trapsetters that hold me in a mental machination that says I’m never worthy never wealthy I’d free my mind and shut down the sallie mae’s and pawn brokers of schoolbooks and frat parties because we all know true education is has always been will always be free ruling the world with a gossamer twine no push no pull no rush no time so I run it with a saunter and we stroll

for free

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Photograph by Carla Ciuffo

to a day dawning

Rail Yard Studios Unveils PROJECT BOXCAR A Unique Collaboration

by Jane R. Snyder Robert Hendrick, owner/master designer of Rail Yard Studios, is a contemplative thinker, yet you can see bold ideas ignite behind his intense blue eyes. Urban artist Troy Duff, his collaborator, has so much creative energy he can barely sit or stand still. “My father is blind,” Troy explained. “So I think that my visual has always been more important to me. I feel like I’m seeing for my dad as well.”

Photograph by Reeves Smith

The artists’ work has captivated viewers in galleries and on walls in Nashville’s “hot” neighborhoods and those up-and-coming. Robert had already featured Troy’s paintings on some of his custom furniture. PROJECT BOXCAR expands their partnership, melding reclaimed railroad equipment with street art as aged boxcars are cut into segments for use as canvases. Weather, temperature, and decades of service have left intricate patterns of wear and rust behind. Troy considers all that historical beauty and the original boxcar’s typography before he raises a single can of spray paint.

Robert believes if trains were turned into art before they were put into service it would improve overall safety for the industry. “My vision, my big picture for this, is I’d love to get railroad companies to the point where they would welcome Troy in to do his own impression of their logos on a whole fleet of boxcars.”

The artist never does preliminary sketches, but prefers to paint freestyle—whatever Troy can imagine will deftly appear on each “canvas.” Fast-drying acrylic base paint—whether classic matte, fluorescent, or shock colors—will last whether these artworks are displayed indoors or outside. You don’t have to love railroads to appreciate this unique alliance, but PROJECT BOXCAR is sure to stop viewers in their tracks.

For more information, please visit www.railyardstudios.com and www.troyduffart.com.

Robert Hendrick with art by Troy Duff

Third Annual Make Music Nashville Festival Various Locations | June 21

Photograph by Getty Images for NAMM

Once again the Make Music Nashville Festival resonates through the city. Taking place on the Summer Solstice, this festival is celebrated around the world in 700 cities, including New York, Jerusalem, Buenos Aires, and Hong Kong, to name a few. This is Nashville’s third year participating, and the events are not to be missed.

The free event encourages performance and participation regardless of age, genre, or stage of ability. The festival’s primary goal is to provide an equal platform for musicians of all skill levels, interests, and walks of life and to inspire the next generation of musicians through innovative outreach programming.

This year’s events include a children’s harmonica jam and lessons at the Nashville Zoo, a Drum Circle in Sevier Park, a Cymbal Jungle at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, a Ukulele Jam at Two Old Hippies in the Gulch, and free group guitar lessons at the Country Music Hall of Fame (guitars will be provided). The festival will also host the World Premiere of Brian Chase’s (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) Shimmer. And don’t miss your opportunity to Jam with Ranger Doug (Riders In The Sky, The Time Jumpers) and Andy Reiss (The Time Jumpers) as they lead a Western Swing Jam at Gruhn Guitars on 8th Avenue South.

If you have a teenager interested in the songwriting industry, go to the Notes for Notes® Production Lessons at Preston Taylor Bays & Birls Club Center on 38th Avenue North. The program will focus on the process of creating music, from songwriting to production to post-production.

The Third Annual Make Music Nashville Festival will take place on June 21 starting at noon. For the most current schedule of events and to volunteer, please visit www.makemusicday.org/nashville.

Photograph by Anthony Scarlati

Craig Nutt

craigNUTT

by Cat Acree

’Pataphysical Ponderings Belmont University’s Leu Art Gallery

T

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June 30 – September 9

he apostrophe at the beginning of ‘Pataphysical Ponderings, the title of furniture artist and sculptor Craig Nutt’s summer exhibition at Belmont University, is no error. ‘Pataphysics, which Nutt describes as “the science of imaginary solutions,” includes this apostrophe to suggest the multitude of puns someone might catch if they heard the phrase in French, such as pas ta physique (“not your physics”).

Make a Tree from a Chair, 2007, Oil paint on recycled chair, 34” x 17” x 14”

Along with Nutt’s veggies, the exhibition will also showcase some of his more restrained works, such as Hung Jury, a sculpture of 12 wooden heads inspired by Sophie Taeuber’s Dada marionettes.

Butterbean Chair, 2009 Bleached maple, leather, painted wood 41” x 18” x 23”

Nutt has just stepped down after a decade as the Director of Programs for the Craft Emergency Relief Fund (CERF), which helps educate artists on how to be proactive about protecting their careers. During Nutt’s tenure, the organization developed a curriculum for career protection that’s being taught in art schools around the country. “We’re hoping over time that it changes how artists approach their practice,” says Nutt.

by John Photograph

Lucas

This exhibition marks Nutt’s return to the studio full time. Says the artist, “Maybe some of this is just to figure out where I’m going from here.” na ‘Pataphysical Ponderings is on view June 30 to September 9 in Belmont University’s Leu Art Gallery.

From an ear of corn suspended as an airplane to chili peppers functioning as chair legs, Nutt’s work combines classic furniture forms and historical executions with crazy imagery, often inspired by his vegetable garden. Perhaps Nutt’s surreal, whimsical designs should be described as “not your furniture.”

‘Pataphysical Ponderings features works from more than four decades of Nutt’s career, tracing back to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in the 1970s and early 80s when he painted and made experimental music with the art collective Raudelunas.

“The absurdity of [‘pataphysics] fits the zeitgeist of the time, of being outsiders,” says Nutt, who now lives in Kingston Springs, Tennessee. “It was a strange thing to be an artist there and then.”

Nutt first began woodworking in the 70s, when it was considered sacrilegious to put paint on wood furniture. But he couldn’t resist outrageous forms and the “insane” color combinations found in his own garden. “Furniture is anything but spontaneous,” Nutt explains, “but I was trying to figure out how to get that element of spontaneity into my work that I enjoyed in free-improvised music.”

Nutt’s garden palette is literally aflame in Burning, a loveseat with flaming asparagus back legs and chili-pepper arm rests.

“There’s not a lot of difference between the forms of a leaf and a flame,” Nutt says. “The flames are also similar to the arabesques you would see on Rococo furniture and Rococo revival.”

Hung Jury (Hung Up on Sophie), 2012, Wood, 25” x 10”

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ARTSMART

A monthly guide to art education

TENNESSEE ROUNDUP Now’s the Time for Arts Education This is an exciting time for education in Tennessee. Exciting? Allow me to explain. There have been several changes in education over the past few years.

And with change, depending on whom you ask, often come challenges. With the teacher evaluation model, adopting different curriculum standards, and new student assessments, educators and administrators have certainly had to make adjustments to the old way of doing things.

Change also brings opportunity for growth. According to the 2015 National Assessment of Education Progress, Tennessee is still the fastest improving state in the nation since 2011. This report shows that Tennessee has the nation’s best education gains in reading and math.

But this is an arts education column.

“

As a result of new math and English Language Arts curriculum standards, teachers are allowed more creativity and flexibility in the way they teach.

Photograph courtesy of State Photography

Photography by Mary Claire Crow

During this same time, arts education in Tennessee has received national attention for the development of the Fine Arts Growth Measures System led by Dr. Dru Davison and a team from Shelby County Schools, allowing arts specialists to demonstrate their effectiveness based on individual growth scores for the first time ever. Several school districts throughout the state have adopted this portfoliobased system, including Metro Nashville Public Schools.

Words by Ann Talbott Brown Director of Arts Education, Tennessee Arts Commission

As a result of new math and English Language Arts curriculum standards, teachers are allowed more creativity and flexibility in the way they teach. Teachers are incorporating ways of instructing

students to increase critical thinking and problem solving skills. The standards easily lend themselves to approaches used by arts educators. Arts and non-arts teachers are collaborating to strengthen student achievement in all subject areas, including the arts, through arts integration.

The voluntary National Core Arts Standards were also put forth recently and developed with current trends of public education in mind. Currently, there is a committee of arts education leaders revising the Tennessee Fine Arts State Standards too, potentially providing reimagined goals for what Tennessee students should learn.

Speaking of a new direction, the federal government recently passed the Every Student Succeeds Act, which is the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. There are several opportunities for arts education with this new law, including retaining the arts as part of a well-rounded education, funding for arts programs, and supporting STEAM education.

This is an exciting time for the arts, and now’s the time for education leaders to come together to explore these opportunities. Join us at the first Tennessee Arts Education Policy Convening as part of the Tennessee Arts Commission’s statewide arts conference Collective Impact: Together as Change Agents on June 8 in Murfreesboro to do just that.

For more information, visit www.tnartscommission.org/statewide-conference/artseducation-policy-convening.

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ARTSMART

Photography by Becky Verner

The Museum Advocates: The Power of Collaboration

Junior Docents at Robert Churchwell Museum Magnet Elementary interpreting the “Slaves and Slaveholders of Wessyngton Plantation” exhibit. The exhibit is sponsored by Humanities Tennessee and organized by the Tennessee State Museum.

Meeting agendas may focus discussion on shared issues such as improved summer camps or increasing home school participation in programming. Other times, expert guest speakers may address general institutional topics such as improved programming and accessibility for disabilities, or increased understanding and dialogue in serving a diverse community (such as attending an “Islam 101” class at the Nashville Islamic Center before the

opening of the Frist Center’s 2015 exhibit Ink, Silk and Gold: Islamic Art from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). Group meetings end with round-table discussions of members’ current exhibits or events (an opportunity for future collaborations) and tours of the host institution.

Over the fifteen years, the Advocates have provided professional development workshops for teachers, presented at curriculum fairs, hosted hands-on activities at community events (such as Tennessee Craft), collaborated for family days and specialized workshops, created curriculum guides for schools, and supported the efforts of Nashville’s two museum magnet schools—Robert Churchwell Elementary and John Early Middle.

“For me, the Museum Advocates is a group that fosters collaboration and sharing of information between educators at the city’s cultural organizations, which in turn can benefit the area’s educators and students,” says Anne Henderson, Director of Education at the Frist. “It supports a sense of camaraderie and relationship-building that contributes to the general good will and willingness of cultural organizations to partner. That is not true in all cities.”

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by DeeGee Lester Director of Education, The Parthenon

Photograph by Drew Cox

Fifteen years ago, in anticipation of the 2001 opening of the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, two museum education directors— Cheekwood’s Mary Grissim and the Parthenon’s DeeGee Lester—met with Linda Anderson, the Frist liaison to Metro Nashville Public Schools, to form The Museum Advocates in order to build upon unique institutional strengths to better serve the educational needs of the students and teachers. As other organizations joined, the Advocates expanded beyond museums to include historic homes, cultural institutions, nature centers, theatre groups, the library, and educational organizations. Today, 37 groups and ten individuals comprise the membership. Since its inception this collaborative organization dispensed with membership dues or officers, giving all membership institutions equal influence.

ARTSMART

ON THE HORIZON Words by DeeGee Lester Photography by John Jackson

Beech High School: Art “taking off!”

It’s similar to writer’s block, admits Beech High School senior Casey Wells. “I get it a lot. I have a piece of paper or canvas in front of me, and I don’t know what to do with it, but when I find something I really like, then I take off!”

When describing the process for creating their art, four Beech

High School arts students—Casey Wells, Heather Neeley, Preston Tribble, and Emma Freshwater—consistently refer to their art as “taking off” and their own efforts as moving outside their comfort zone and stretching the palette. As they speak, their enthusiasm is contagious. Art Specialist Lorraine Puckett leads students in a classroom where assignments spark creativity and imaginations.

CASEY WELLS

Attracted to “straightforward graphite drawings that I can expand on the details within,” Casey says that her classroom assignments challenge her to explore both the playfulness and deeper thought processes necessary to create art in other genres.

In Confliction of Interest, she uses color schemes to both unify and separate features from her own face (in blue) and that of a British actor (in green), creating a haunting face-scape. Her still life Untitled utilizes chalk pastels to bring depth and definition to a collection of wood and animal skulls.

A Gold Key Scholastic Art winner, Casey acknowledges her ability to translate 3-D references to a 2-D drawing, but is aware that her continued growth as an artist also demands the ability to portray motion, rhythm, and story. Her current work uses paint and wallpaper, incorporating Da Vinci’s Lady with the Ermine with a selection of animals to create a work that reflects both stillness and dynamic motion.

After graduation, she plans to attend Volunteer State Community College for two years and transfer to a university to major in art and pursue a career as an artist. “I’d like to have a career I enjoy!”

Casey Wells, Confliction of Interest, 2016, Acrylic on canvas, 36” x 36”

“I’ve always done art, since I was big enough to pick up a pencil,” says Preston Tribble. Inspired in childhood by his father’s doodles, encouraged by his teacher Lorraine Puckett, and spurred throughout life by his own natural competitive drive (he was first team defense on Sumner’s All County Football Team), he excelled in art, capturing a gold medal in the Scholastic Arts Competition at Cheekwood, as well as scholarships from O’More College of Design and Nossi College of Art. His award-winning piece The Old King utilized a special mixed media called folded book art, in which the pages are folded to create a pattern, bringing to life the pages of old books in a flourish of 3-D design. Preston says he discovered the art form online. Around the same time, the library was getting rid of old books, and he ran across “the perfect find” for the project—a volume about ancient Egypt that allowed him the opportunity to unite his interest in ancient civilizations with his folded book art.

“Once I got the hang of it [the folding process], I moved through the book quickly, page by page,” he says. The piece is topped off with the iconic image of King Tut. His ceramic piece Times of War is again themed around an ancient subject. “It started out as a little ceramic bowl,” he laughs, but working and shaping the material got out of hand, and the assigned little-bowl project grew into a detailed warrior helmet.

Preston Tribble, The Old King, 2016, Used book, stain, mixed media, 12” x 9” x 13”

Some variation of the arts will impact his future as he prepares to attend Volunteer State for two years before transferring elsewhere to complete a degree in architecture or automotive design.

PRESTON TRIBBLE

ARTSMART As confidence grows, students are willing to push beyond the expected parameters. “Once I hear the assignment, I know in my head what I’m doing,” Heather says. “For a sculpture assignment, I always worked with clay, but I wanted to use wire. I went out of the box, submitting a piece, Rags to Riches, using wire and fabric, which captured second place in the Sumner County Art Competition.”

Her preferred medium is working with chalk pastels, but she is intrigued by mosaics. “I’ve done some with paper (visually reminiscent of the colorful paintings by one of her favorite artists, Leonid Afremov). I’ve never worked with glass, but I like the style and would like to pursue it.”

As an artist, Heather remains open to anything and enjoys taking on the various challenges as they are presented. “I just do it as it comes,” she says. “Whenever I am introduced to a new project, so many ideas go through my head. I just start working instantly and quickly. The excitement inspires my artistic decisions.”

Heather Neeley, When The Harp Calls 2016, Mixed media, 36” x 36”

For example, in a work that reflects her eye for design, composition, and color, Heather’s mixed-media piece When the Harp Calls successfully unites paint, fabric, and wallpaper in a bold image as figures in the painting look toward the Harpy Eagle, one of nature’s largest and most powerful birds.

HEATHER NEELEY

“I will definitely be doing art in the future,” Heather says, as she looks toward life after graduation.

The majority of students who participate in school art classes will never pursue art as a career but, like Emma, foresee art as a hobby and creative outlet throughout their lives. She recognizes that what she has learned in art provides lessons that are applicable to other areas of life.

For example, her favorite medium is watercolor. “I love the diversity in the medium, layering in shadows and light, and the time you have to wait between adding layers forces patience.

It’s something I’m trying to develop and express in my work instead of rushing through projects.”

She was also encouraged by her teacher to step outside her comfort zone, as she did with a wood and paint sculpture that captured third place in the Sumner Art Competition. “I realized that she might have a point in making me do things I may not have done by myself.”

Emma is again stretching herself as she works on her current multimedia assignment. “It draws on the techniques of two masters of their craft—Rodin with his sculptures and Monet’s brilliant use of pastel tones. I am combining latex wall paint with acrylic, making it easier to put in background without wasting the acrylic.”

Emma Freshwater, 5th Dimension, 2016, Wood and paint, 24” x 25” x 4”

This is her last project in her last year in art class She has only one dual enrollment college course in the fall before graduating next December, and then plans to enroll at Volunteer State for nursing, where she sees her art background providing the added skills in art therapy. “I don’t plan an artistic career, but I always plan on doing art—until I’m really old.”

EMMA FRESHWATER

SOUNDINGOFF

BY JOSEPH E. MORGAN

Key of Intensity performance by Intersection

Intersection, Nashville’s contemporary music ensemble, closed their season on April 28 with Key of Intensity, a concert featuring works written for the ondes Martenot, a monophonic electronic instrument invented by Maurice Martenot. Including for one number dancers in Rebecca Allen’s choreography, the evening proved to be interesting, entertaining, and cool—all that we’ve come to expect from Intersection.

The first piece, a suite written by Darius Milhaud in 1933, emphasized the instrument’s lyrical quality, while the second, Mach 2,5 (1971) by Tristan Murail, dealt with the instrument’s sound from a textural standpoint, a kind of spectral music that emphasized sound as a “haze” and “moving mass.” Then came Jonny Greenwood’s Smear (2004), which combined both approaches and seemed most successful at finding a blend that could accommodate and complement the ondes idiomatic timbre and lyricism. The detail and delicacy that Maestra Corcoran drew from her ensemble, especially Chris Miller’s buttery clarinet and the two ondistas, Marie Bernard and Estelle Lemire, was extraordinary.

This detail was especially important in Alain Lalonde’s Glissements, tourments, et ravissements (1988). The ensemble was balanced on both ends by the eloquent phrasing and dynamic control of trombonists David Loucky and Phillip Jones, while Allen’s dancers actualized Lalonde’s music in a passionate and self-reflective (they had a video camera) cycle of anxiety and uncertainty. Allen’s choreography, Kat 5, was written to mark the tenth anniversary of Katrina, and in hindsight, one can see that. However, one can also see the work transcending that context as an absolute dance piece, emphasizing the human condition in moments of tragedy— its need to watch, to exclude, to find community.

The evening ended with an excellent performance of Claude Vivier’s Pulau Dewata (1977), a warm, percussive piece written in tribute to the Balinese culture.

Late this summer look for Intersection at Cheekwood with works inspired by Steve Tobin and another dance collaboration with New Dialect.

For more information, visit www.intersectionmusic.org.

Photograph by Alex Ferrari

Intersection’s Key of Intensity

Photograph courtesy of Joseph Sinnott/WNET

Arts Worth Watching

A 1930s jazz band is at the center of the stylish Dancing on the Edge, an eight-part series airing Sundays at 7 p.m., starting June 26. The story begins with bandleader Louis Lester, portrayed by Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave), desperate to flee England.

Before that happens, and indeed before we find out what the trouble is, the action moves to flashback as the band receives a break leading to a gig at a ritzy hotel where they become the first black band—and indeed the first jazz band—to play there.

In Dancing on the Edge, men wear sharp tuxedos and crisp white shirts; women dress in elegant tea dresses, and people travel in posh automobiles. The series’ music is sophisticated and jaunty, and the impressive cast includes Jacqueline Bisset, John Goodman, and Matthew Goode as Stanley Mitchell, the band’s manager.

Goode may look familiar: He also played Lady Mary’s husband Henry Talbot on

Chiwetel Ejiofor as bandleader Louis (center) in Dancing on the Edge

The Kingston Trio in concert

Photograph courtesy of Shari Belafonte Harper

THE JAZZ HOT

Downton Abbey.

Joan Baez celebrating her 75th birthday at Speaking of, here’s New York’s historic Beacon Theatre a summer treat: NPT will broadcast the members of other legendary groups. entire Downton Abbey series starting with Season 1, Episode 1, Saturdays at 8:30 Singer-songwriter Joan Baez turned 75 p.m., beginning June 18. Enjoy! earlier this year, and naturally there was a big musical party to mark the occasion.

CLASSIC COMEDY Held at New York’s Beacon Theatre, the evening featured performances by Baez, Arguably the funniest parts of the longJackson Browne, Mary Chapin Carpenter, running Carol Burnett Show were the (many) times the troupe caused each other to crack Judy Collins, David Crosby, Emmylou Harris, up during routines. Tim Conway in particular the Indigo Girls, Damien Rice, Paul Simon, had a knack for tormenting his colleague Mavis Staples, and others. Joan Baez 75th Harvey Korman. The routines themselves are Birthday Celebration airs Tuesday, June 7, still side-splitters decades after their debut at 8 p.m. on Great Performances. on the Emmy Award-winning program.

Burnett shares some of these howlers in We’ve got many more music programs on Carol Burnett’s Favorite Sketches, airing this month, including The Highwaymen Live Friday, June 3, at 8 p.m. and Thursday, at Nassau Coliseum, a newly released film June 9, at 7 p.m. of the superstar country group. See Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, FOLK MOVEMENT and Willie Nelson in this 1990 concert on The Kingston Trio Celebration highlights Monday, June 6, at 8:30 p.m. na a group that helped bring folk music to the It’s time for our June Membership Campaign! mainstream. Airing Saturday, June 4, at 7 Look for exciting thank-you gifts when you make p.m., the program includes the trio’s current a generous donation to NPT this month. Your incarnation—Bill Zorn, George Grove, continued support makes possible the kind of and Rick Dougherty—performing with programming you’ve come to love. Simply go to original member Bob Shane. Other guests www.wnpt.org and click the donate button. Don’t include Timothy B. Schmit (The Eagles), Al forget, specialty shows and encore presentations Jardine (The Beach Boys), Trini Lopez, Barry of many of our programs air on NPT2, our secondary channel.

McGuire (The New Christy Minstrels), and

Photograph courtesy of Ruby Films and Television (DOTE) Limited

This month we celebrate a few vintage gems with programs about legendary music acts, comedians, and different eras. Do you have vintage items of your own? Find out what they’re worth at NPT’s Antiques and Appraisal Day, Saturday, June 25, at The Factory at Franklin. Go to wnpt.org/antiques for information and tickets.

Photograph by Tammy Gentuso

Photograph by Tiffani Bing

Taylor Berryman and Kevin Van Pamel

Photograph by Madge Franklin

Photograph by Tiffani Bing

Rick Gembar and Dave Berryman, President, Gibson Guitars

Curator Julia Whitney Brown recognized at The Clay Way Opening Reception

Barry Baird and Joe Taylor at The Arts Company

David Steine, Ronnie Steine, Lisa Quigley, Larry Harrington at The Arts Company

ARTSEE

Banksy at Tinney Contemporary

Dana Cooper at David Lusk Gallery Danielle Kirk, Carissa Shapiro and Robyn Burns at Julia Martin Gallery

Troy Duff at The Rymer Gallery

The artist, "Shoe", creating on site at Tinney Contemporary

Photograph by Tammy Gentuso

Tom Turnbull, Timothy Weber and Danielle McDaniel at The Clay Way Reception

Photograph by Tammy Gentuso

Colin Day and Rone

ARTSEE

Photograph by Tiffani Bing

ARTSEE

At David Lusk Gallery

Photograph by Tiffani Bing

At Tinney Contemporary

Teri Alea, President of Tennessee Craft, at The Clay Way Reception

Sharyn Bachleda and Sharon Stewart at WAG

Grayson Scott and Cori McGuirk at Open Gallery

Artist Jon Buko on 5th Avenue

Randy Duncan and Dakota Spiceland at Tinney Contemporary

PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN JACKSON

ARTSEE

Mariah Hiller at Zeitgeist

ARTSEE

At COOP Gallery

ARTSEE

At Zeitgeist

Brikolaj at Studio 74 in the Arcade

Artist Elisheba Israel at Corvidae Collective

At The Rymer Gallery

Mickenzie Lauren Smith at Mickenzie Smith

Mary Addison Hackett at Seed Space

Kate Mason and Dan Carr at Julia Martin Gallery

Film-Com 2016 Various Locations

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by Mary Unobsky

June 17–27

A sampling of execs who have participated in the past: Gilbert Adler, Producer/Writer (Valkyrie, Superman Returns); Callie Khouri, Writer/Producer (Thelma & Louise, Nashville TV series); Michael Uslan, Executive Producer/Writer (Dark Night Rises, Batman Begins), and Tom Schulman, Writer (Dead Poets Society). Distribution has been represented by Sony Pictures and the Weinstein Production Company, among others, while DreamWorks Animation, A & E, Lionsgate, the Discovery Channel, and National Geographic have been on the scene trolling for new projects.

The motion-picture medium is a widely collaborative field, and the growth of our local industry deeply impacts artists

Photograph by Ashley Gillum

As rumor would have it, seems Music City has a new moniker— “Little Hollywood.” To serve our burgeoning film and television community, FILM-COM, now in its seventh year, is providing a transactional marketplace to connect the creators of visual content with the global distributors and decision makers in the industry. The conference, hosted by the Hutton Hotel, runs from June 17–27 in Nashville and acts as the central engine for a variety of topics, including how-to-launch and financial panels at the Acme Feed & Seed, a new project Pitch Expo at the Titans stadium featuring 140 new works, coupled with a chance for attendees to interact with high-level film and network executives.

involved in songwriting, acting, composing, screenwriting, music performance, photography, set design, wardrobe, fashion, and choreography, in addition to the producers, directors, crew, and post-production personnel normally associated with this art form. FILM-COM is a cultural driver for Nashville with over 1,000 people expected to attend, whose interests include TV pilots, documentaries, short films, animation, gaming, and transmedia narratives.

For additional information, visit www.film-com.com.

CAROLINE VINCENT, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC ART

Photograph by Stacey Irvin

Light Meander, Laura Haddad and Tom Drugan

PUBLICART

Public Art Community Investment Plan

This year, Metro Arts has embarked on a new initiative that will help us imagine a new future for public art in Nashville—a future in which public art is a critical component of creative community investment, citizen engagement, and strengthening Nashville’s creative work force.

This vision for public art is a direct outcome of our strategic plan, Crafting a Creative City, which was completed last year after extensive community engagement, and the Nashville Next comprehensive plan, which was also completed last year. This initiative, called A Public Art Community Investment Plan, will be completed over the next several months.

Right now, our consulting team is in the process of learning more about Nashville, our arts community, and different visions for its future. To assist with the process, we have formed community advisory groups that are helping us think about how investments in public art can help to build Nashville’s public art ecosystem and improve access to, and participation in, the arts for everyone in Nashville. We have also been organizing focus groups of artists and consulting with numerous Metro agencies and departments to identify opportunities for future collaborations.

Recently, we completed an Internet survey that generated nearly 1,000 responses to questions about the public art Nashville has commissioned to date and directions we might pursue in the future.

The findings of that survey can be found on our website.

Our consulting team has also completed a “benchmarking” study that examines a variety of ways in which public art agencies and independent arts organizations throughout the U.S. have developed projects and programs that are directed towards the vision Metro Arts has for public art. One finding is that cities of Nashville’s size often rely on a broad ecosystem of arts organizations—public agencies, museums, university programs, independent arts organizations, and artist collaboratives—to achieve goals that are as ambitious as Nashville’s.

We urge you to follow and participate in this process. Please visit our website at publicart.nashville.gov.

Bill Starke, The Ladder

ARTS&BUSINESSCOUNCIL

BY ANNE BROWN, THE ARTS COMPANY

Galleries and Artists Creating Successful Partnerships On June 23, the Arts and Business Council will offer an event pairing galleries and artists to begin a mutual conversation focused on how the gallery system works for both artist and gallery. The hope is to create a regular resource through the ABC for artists to ask general questions about the advantages of becoming a gallery artist, the role of a gallery artist, and the options for an artist to work independently. Galleries and artists when working together at their best can learn practical ways to gain trust and achieve common artistic and financial goals.

One of the primary responsibilities for the artist is to do their homework: researching galleries and discovering which ones might be an appropriate professional fit; sketching out a career and business plan for their artwork; developing promotional messages; and thinking about ways to build a consistent following of clients and fans through social media and other initiatives.

The gallery responsibility is to outline the terms of the curatorial, promotional, and financial resources that they commit to the artists they represent. Once the gallery and artist engage, they together create a mutual plan based on using the extensive resources of the gallery to advance the goals of each of their artists.

The result is a creative, collaborative relationship that benefits both. Clients and customers then have access to artists in a gallery where mutual trust and respect reign.

One other consideration for an artist is what the merits are for pursuing an independent career versus becoming a gallery artist. Either way, starting this conversation and making resources available to artists and galleries is important to both. The lure of Nashville’s vibrant creative lifestyle is attracting legions of new artists and galleries. Together, they are establishing themselves as an integral part of making Nashville a creative collaborative destination for new artistic vitality.

The Gallery Relationships seminar takes place at The Arts Company on June 23, 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. If you would like to take part in the conversation, please register at www.abcnashville.org/workshops-for-artists.

Life-changing choices …

As we age, we gain perspective. I am sixty-seven, and, as I look back over my life, two decisions stand out that forever altered its course.

The first happened in my late teens. I was visiting the Forbes family on Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. The Forbeses were textile people like my family. Their son, Walter, had recorded two albums for RCA produced by Chet Atkins. Since I played guitar and loved to sing, my parents sent me to visit the Forbeses the summer I was sixteen. One afternoon during my stay, Walter asked if I’d thought about college.

“Not really,” I said.

“Well, you want to go to Vanderbilt,” he said.

“Vanderbilt . . . what’s that?”

“Well, it’s a fine academic school, and your parents will like that, but more important, it’s in Nashville, which is where you should be.”

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From that moment on, I was going to Vanderbilt. This was 1965, back when nobody from South Carolina went to Vanderbilt or even knew where it was. My parents were shocked. “But we don’t know anybody out there,” they said. Exactly, I thought. My parents had wanted me to go to Hollins or Sweetbriar or Agnes Scott—lady factories, I called them. At the time, I was enrolled at an all-girls boarding school and was ready for a change. I wanted boys and music . . . Bright Lights, Big City. So I stuck to my guns and went to Vanderbilt. And, other than brief stints in London, Fort Worth, Los Angeles, and Ketchem, Idaho, I’ve lived in Nashville ever since.

The other life-changer happened in 1988. I was about to turn forty and my life wasn’t working. I was depressed. Even my therapist had thrown in the towel. “You need treatment,” she said.

“Treatment? What’s that?”

She then handed me three brochures for treatment centers.

Naturally, I chose the one that was farthest away. Next thing I know, I’m flying to Tucson, Arizona, and, other than my therapist and a friend who’d driven me to the airport, nobody knew I was doing this.

www.nashvillearts.com

615-383-0278

Shortly after my arrival, I heard about something called Family Week. Family Week? I was horrified. “You leave my family out of this!” I said. “This is something I’m doing on my own.” As it turned out, my mother, younger sister, and brother all flew out for Family Week. And the things we learned forever changed us. But best of all, I haven’t been depressed since.

So here’s to Nashville . . . and keeping on the sunny side! na Marshall Chapman is a Nashville-based singer/songwriter, author, and actress. For more information, visit www.tallgirl.com.

BEYONDWORDS

Photograph by Anthony Scarlati

BY MARSHALL CHAPMAN

MYFAVORITEPAINTING MARGARET F. M. WALKER ART CURATOR ASSISTANT, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY FINE ARTS GALLERY

ARTIST BIO: Goswyn van der Weyden

Goswyn van der Weyden (Southern Netherlandish, ca. 1465-1538), Madonna and Child with St. Anne, Oak panel, 19” x 13”, The Samuel H. Kress Collection, Peabody College, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery

Goswyn van der Weyden (ca. 1465–after 1538) was a Flemish painter, grandson of the renowned Rogier van der Weyden (ca. 1399–1464). Goswyn was trained in his father, Pieter’s, workshop and around 1503 settled in Antwerp, where he became a burgess.

In the early sixteenth century, he employed ten apprentices and was twice Dean of the Guild of St. Luke. In Madonna and Child with St. Anne, the Virgin Mary visits her mother, while Joseph and Joachim stand by the cottage. The enclosed garden was a symbol of Marian purity, and St. Anne’s open book and apple represent Christ’s coming as the second Adam.

interest in the intersection of art and war. With many artworks, what is visible presently is only the beginning of the story; Madonna and Child with St. Anne, a Northern Renaissance devotional scene by Goswyn van der Weyden, is one such painting.

This artwork is part of Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery’s Kress Collection, providing a meaningful provenance in and of itself. Prior to Mr. Kress’s acquisition, though, it was wrapped up in a story of Nazi-era confiscated art. Spoiler alert: Vanderbilt’s ownership is perfectly legal and conscionable. In 1938, the Nazis confiscated the art collection of Richard Neumann, including a diptych by Maarten van Heemskerck that ended up in the Austrian National Museum. Austria would not allow the diptych’s exportation in 1949, when Neumann was a refugee in Cuba, so he accepted instead a deal of this painting and the balance of the diptych’s under-market value in cash. In 2011, the Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery was contacted by Neumann’s grandson, Thomas Selldorf, about the value of this painting because the Austrian National Museum had agreed to restitute the original van Heemskerck diptych, given the family reimburse them for the value of the 1949 agreement. I am always dismayed that we cannot simultaneously display van der Weyden’s painted biblical scene with the frame and panel’s intricate, storied verso. Luckily, it’s a different case for publication, and you can see how both sides tell a unique story. na Margaret F. M. Walker

Photograph by Sheri Oneal

My path to museum work began with degrees in both history and art history and an