Nashville Arts - May 2016

Sturgill Simpson

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Maggie Siner

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LaurĂŠn Brady

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Adam Hall

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Marleen De Waele-De Bock

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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 Vincente Viudes Archimboldo Dog 1963, Oil on canvas, 25” x 20”

May 2016

Spotlight on page 38

Features

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28

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Marleen De Waele-De Bock Principles of Design

24

Carolyn Beehler Beautifully Constructed Collages Capture the Street Life Bustle and Old World Serenity That Is Italy

26

VANISHING FACES OF BHUTAN The Study of a Timeless Culture

28

Still Life in Motion Leiper’s Creek Gallery Showcases the Paintings of Maggie Siner

32

Cassi Wright Painting with Fire and the Curiosity of Faith

68

Modern Meditation Lisa Weiss and the Elusive Now

72

Traditional Favorites at Haynes Galleries

40

Adam Hall Fire & Rain

45

Tennessee Craft at Centennial Park

48

The Rymer Gallery & Tinney Contemporary Street Art Shows National, International and Local Street Artists are About to Change the Way We Look at Nashville

53

Sturgill Simpson A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, Simpson’s Self-Produced Third Album, Explores the Journey ... There and Back

Photograph by Reto Sterchi

53

57

Laurén Brady Young Painter’s New Work Evokes the Mood of Cy Twombly

72

35 Artists Select 2016

A Powerhouse of Contemporary

Counterparts Opens at Cumberland Gallery

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62

The Harding Art Show Seventy Artists From Twelve States at One Inspired Art Event

Columns 16

Crawl Guide

58

As I See It

by Mark W. Scala

61

5th Avenue Under the Lights

64

The Bookmark Hot Books and Cool Reads

65

Public Art

by Anne-Leslie Owens

66

Open Spaces

by Erica Ciccarone

76

Symphony in Depth

78

Sounding Off

by Joseph E. Morgan

79

Arts & Business Council

by Tim Ozgener

80

Studio Tenn

82 Theatre

by Jim Reyland 84

Art Smart

by Rebecca Pierce

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Beyond Words

by Marshall Chapman

98

My Favorite Painting

Publisher's Note

A Great City Deserves Great Art Last year Brian Greif walked into my office and told me he had a vision for street art in Nashville. Nothing earth-shattering about that. Several local street artists, Bryan Deese, Troy Duff, Herb Williams, to name a few, had been painting Nashville's walls for years. Still, there was something about Brian's story that rang a different bell with me. He told me he actually owns a Banksy rat, originally painted on the side of a San Francisco building, and that he had been trying to donate it to a museum but without much luck. The problem is that a museum cannot accept it without authentication, and Banksy cannot authenticate it because he would be admitting to defacing property, and that can lead to a long prison sentence in California. The dilemma fascinated me.

Here is a street art piece that would sell in the millions at an auction, but a museum cannot accept it as a gift. What an art conundrum!

You can see the Banksy rat for yourself at Tinney Contemporary this month as part of the street art show at both Tinney and The Rymer Gallery.

The rat is also the subject of a documentary created by Brian called Saving Banksy that played at this year's Nashville Film Festival. I am proud of the association we at the magazine have had in the production of the movie and in helping Brian realize his greater vision for street art in Nashville. Painting on several downtown buildings is set to start on May 1. Read more on page 48.

And whilst you are out looking at street art, wander over to Centennial Park on May 6 and 7 for the Tennessee Craft Fair.

Paul Polycarpou | Publisher

May Crawl Guide Franklin Art Scene

Friday, May 6, from 6 until 9 p.m.

Jack Yacoubian Fine Jewelry and Art Gallery is exhibiting work by mixed media artist Randy L Purcell, who uses a unique encaustic process to create mosaic-like fields of color. Gallery 202 is featuring woodturnings made from salvaged wood by artist Ken Gaidos. Boutique MMM is presenting work by painter Jay Holobach. Hope Church Franklin is showcasing landscape watercolors and vignette paintings by Donna Fairchild. Tom Stillwell, a lifelong amateur photographer, is the featured artist at Parks on Main. Walton’s Antique and Estate Jewelry is displaying work by artist Rachael McCampbell and her students Janet Atnip, Margaret Cameron, Luci Garten, Nellie Jo Rainer, Karen Richmond, Mary Beth Rocco, Mary Jane Rushlow, Leslie Satcher, and Adrian Walton. See jewelry by Cindy David at Arbor Antiques. On view at Landmark Bank are watercolors by

Kent Cooper, The Arts Company

International Street Art (see page 48). The Browsing Room at Downtown Presbyterian Church is presenting Temporality: Artwork by the Poiesis Collective, a group of Vanderbilt Divinity School graduate students who have recently taken up residence in the DPC studios.

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.

In the historic Arcade, COOP Gallery opens Astri Snodgrass’s exhibit Inwards, Without Words, works that bridge painting, drawing, and photography. Experience Pink Noodle Soup, new work from multi-disciplinary artist S Lichen at OPEN Gallery.

WAG is unveiling Let Everything Happen, work by the artists of Healing Arts Project, Inc. curated by Watkins alumnae Sharon Stewart and Sharyn Bachleda.

Tom Stillwell, Parks Realty

Dave Woodward, and still life, landscapes, and animal images

by Carroll Jones. Shelby Stielstra is showing at Finnleys Good Findings. Savory Spice Shop is featuring work by Ashlyn Joy Anderson. Work by Carol Moon is on view at Shannon Eye Care. The Williamson County Visitor Center is presenting artwork by Janet King. Enjoy equestrian paintings by the featured artist of the 75th annual Iroquois Steeplechase, Hollie Berry, at Williamson County Archives (see page 34).

First Saturday Art Crawl Downtown Saturday, May 7, from 6 until 9 p.m.

The Arts Company is unveiling Visual Improvisation, an exhibition showcasing diverse gallery artists Daryl Thetford, Jerry Park, and Kent Cooper.

The Rymer Gallery is showing #615Streets, work by a group of local street artists, and Tinney Contemporary is exhibiting a street art show entitled Brick to Canvas: A Survey of

Randy L Purcell, Jack Yacoubian

Blend Studio is hosting In Search of Autonomy: Dissonance of Free Will, a solo exhibition by Kazadi Kazadi, which shows a juxtaposition of film and viral footage. 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 will be on view.

Arts & Music @ Wedgewood/ Houston

Saturday, May 7, from 6 until 9 p.m.

David Lusk Gallery is presenting DawnWatchers Watch for the Dawn by Rob Matthews, and Scene Paintings from the 1940s by Ted Faiers.

Channel to Channel is exhibiting Fascinating Creatures featuring artwork by Dustin Hedrick. CG2 is hosting a reception for Recent

Dustin Hedrick, Channel to Channel

Additions, a sampling of work by Lyle Carbajal, Christian Clayton, and Ryan Heshka (see page 33). Julia Martin Gallery is unveiling Maps by Lisa Weiss (see page 68). Infinity Cat Recordings is showing Gossima: Ping Pong Warriors by Brett Douglas Hunter. See new work

by Michael J. McBride at Refinery Nashville. Seed Space is opening The Rob Matthews, David Lusk Gallery Repair Project (And Other Affairs of Just Plain Living)

by Mary Addison Hackett in their new Track One home. Enjoy a reception for time // lines by Phillip Andrew Lewis and Kevin Cooley at Zeitgeist. Coop Gallery celebrates their inaugural exhibition at a new satellite space in The Packing Plant with the first in a series of summer exhibitions entitled House Guests, comprised of Tennessee-based artists and curated

by Mike Calway-Fagen. Ground Floor Gallery opens How to Love Living Things, a solo exhibition by Meg Stein, on May 20.

East Side Art Stumble

Saturday, May 14, from 6 until 9 p.m.

The Red Arrow Gallery is exhibiting Plumbago by Amy

Herzel, Casey Promise, and Mark Stockton (see page 33). Gallery Luperca is showing Crafted Narratives

by Randy Toy and Kate Madeira, featuring Madeira's colorful, complex, and intricately embroidered fabrics with Toy's satirical and thoughtprovoking folk art paintings.

Modern East Gallery is hosting a closing reception for Beth Gwinn's Where Were You in the 70s?, and Bob Jones, Main Street Gallery gallery co-owner Brandon Felts is opening his exhibit Blue Sphere. Art Muz begins a six-month Stumble residency at Main Street Gallery featuring artists John Cranshaw, Dina Dargo, Mollie Downton, Valentina Harper, Amy Jackson, Bob Jones, Katrin Keiningham, Michael Lax, and Shane Miller. The Vine is presenting Emergent featuring the work of emerging artists Tasha Cortesi, Ava Puckett, and Cynthia Barnett. The Warren, Sawtooth Print Shop, and Nashville Community Darkroom are also participating.

marleenDeWAELE-DeBOCK Principles of Design LeQuire Gallery

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May 13 – June 25

Photograph by Joshua Black Wilkins

by Lili Valcarenghi

M

arleen De Waele-De Bock’s persisting interest in design is evidenced through her experience as a printmaker, a fashion designer, and even, in her current part-time position, a teacher of Principles of Design at O’More College of Design.

Her upcoming show, titled Principles of Design after her course, will be exhibited at the LeQuire Gallery in May. While De Bock’s intentions are rooted in design, these principles have been elevated to create works that incite personal reflection and interpretation.

The series is interconnected with a recurring floral motif exclusively of daisies. The consistency of this subject matter is an indication of De Bock’s intent to create a cohesive body of work. By limiting the subject matter to the daisy, De Bock is deemphasizing the role of the subject and thereby drawing focus instead to color and texture. She describes her prior landscapes as combinations of several elements, without any unifying aspect. Thus, this show marks a period of transition.

It departs from her prior landscapes through the inclusion of

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abstract elements and through the predominant concern with design.

De Bock identifies this new style as “representative abstraction,” which reconciles aspects of both natural and geometric forms. While there remains a clear understanding of land and sky, this reality has been reimagined. The loose, organic movement brings rhythm to the piece, resulting in a harmonious composition. On the other hand, she includes what she calls “breaks” to segment the otherwise uncorrupted landscape. Because of these breaks, the paintings allow interpretation—something absent from more traditional landscapes. De Bock says that “art needs to talk,” even if there is no predetermined significance. She describes how her work can be considered either decorative or imbued with meaning, based on the contributed perspectives of the viewer, with each interpretation as legitimate as the next.

The large-scale paintings have an effect much like armchair travel. The intent of armchair travel is to invite exploration, to meditate on the image, and travel within it. As viewers, we are encompassed in De Bock’s paintings and almost adopted into her immense, abstract landscapes. Her pieces are therefore

Flower Circle, 2016, Acrylic on canvas (part of 2 panels, together 72” x 48”)

open to interpretation as well as exploration. Through this immersive experience, we are encouraged to contemplate our relationship with the earth. In a way, the abstract breaks in the image reflect the tendency of mankind to put nature in confines. De Bock optimistically aims instead to maintain its charm. She explains that “as an artist, you can make choices,” choices in the mediums and materials you use, the subjects you paint, and in your general outlook. This body of work is therefore representative of her own unwavering positivity.

As a student in Belgium, De Bock specialized in printmaking.

This traditional art education gave her “the bases for all kinds of art,” which allowed a natural transition to painting.

This shift was perhaps out of necessity, since the materials needed for printmaking were not easily accessible. However, the detail and precision founded in printmaking persist in her current practice. The time and effort put into each work of art are immediately evident, and we are left with the ultimate impression that her paintings are very thoughtful.

De Bock returns to printmaking in some capacity for Principles of Design, with several prints included in the exhibit as a complement to her paintings. Produced with carved linoleum

Blue Sky, 2015, Acrylic on canvas, 60” x 48”

Two Circles Overlapping Flower Field, 2016, Acrylic on canvas, 60” x 48”

reliefs, the patterned and meticulously rendered daisies contribute to the show’s cohesiveness. The linoleum prints require a much more involved practice than her paintings, and the results are far less gestural. She explains how painting has become her preferred medium for the easy manipulation of scale and texture by describing how “texture is different when everything is small; there is less to express with.” Her brushstrokes are far more capable of conveying emotion in their myriad layers. “It’s just more me,” she says of painting.

De Bock’s abstracted landscape paintings are characteristically engaging. The large scale of her compositions allows the full exploration of her subject matter in terms of texture and patterning—concerns that altogether connect her work to

design. De Bock even sees the possibility of incorporating this floral imagery into patterns for clothing, demonstrating her continual inclusion of the principles of design. Her paintings therefore serve several functions: as harmonious design, decorative imagery, or even conscientious reminders. Through experiencing the work of Marleen De Waele-De Bock, we are invited to contribute our individual interpretations and to adopt the profound positivity inherent in her work. na Principles of Design by Marleen De Waele - De Bock opens at LeQuire Gallery on May 13. At 6 p.m. Nashville Arts Magazine’s Paul Polycarpou will lead a conversation with the artist, which will be followed by a reception. The exhibit is on view through June 25. To see more of Marleen De Waele - De Bock’s art, visit www.marleensartwork.com.

For more on the exhibition, please go to www.lequiregallery.com.

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carolynBEEHLER

by Jane R. Snyder

Beautifully Constructed Collages Capture the Street Life Bustle and Old World Serenity That Is Italy

“

Travel certainly supplies me with my themes, but so do memories.

V

iewing Carolyn Beehler’s work from across a room you will wonder whether she prefers oil or acrylic paint. Once you step closer, it is hard to believe that every image, every highlight or shadow, is actually rendered using cut paper as her only medium. You can feel muscles beneath clothing and enjoy the warmth of sunshine spilling into a café or street scene.

This doesn’t surprise Carolyn’s family members, who have encouraged her creativity for a very long time.

“My first memory is collaging a trash can for my dad’s birthday in fourth grade. I rummaged through Mom’s magazines, mostly Southern Living and Better Homes and Gardens, and cut out images that were, in my eight-year-old brain, very Dad-ish—a basketball, palm tree, Snickers bar, stuff like that. He still keeps it in his office.”

Naples, 2015, Collage, 48” x 36”

That “trash can” might wind up in a retrospective exhibition someday. Carolyn, who earned her BFA at O’More College of Design in Franklin, Tennessee, is a tall, energetic artist who is permanently excited about the world she encounters.

“I admire Caravaggio’s portraits and am curious how exaggerating light and shadow can heighten the drama of collage, which is too often a medium relegated to cuteness or satire.”

You won’t find any cuteness or satire here, but only extreme attention to detail and a trompe l’oeil sensibility. This young woman is serious about her art, and the depth and dimension in each piece prove it. Is Carolyn drawn to any particular themes?

“Travel certainly supplies me with my themes, but so do memories, which I think are travels that happen in your imagination. I like to think these come together to create

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“I like to keep it simple—one pair of scissors, Mod Podge, a couple of brushes, and a UV protective gloss for the final layer.

Those purple scissors were wicked sharp at first—I once cut off the tip of my thumb with them. I was hacking up old papers I should have sent through a shredder. I forgave it.”

Carolyn’s “palette” can’t be found in any art supply store, and the texture of found typography adds even more to tempt your eye.

“I’m a purist, so just magazines, or sometimes I splurge and use brochures from trips I managed to save. Book paper is just too thick. Magazines like Interview, National Geographic, and Architectural Digest work well. I owe a lot to good photographers and graphic designers, because the better the image or font, the more dynamic the collage.”

Stunned by the complexity of her collages, we wondered what inspires her. Here is just a partial list of what stimulates her wide-open and inquiring mind.

“Istanbul. The rainforest. Sia’s voice. People with exceptional vocabulary. Patti Smith’s Just Kids. Baklava. Sir Ken Robinson.

Cambodian architecture. Maggie Smith. Boots. Jim Morrison minus his personal life. Vegan recipes. Monica Lewinsky’s TED talk. Also, the idea that imagination could be a truer reality than the real world we walk amidst.”

Campora, 2015, Collage, 7” x 5”

Asked if she has a favorite quotation that empowers her artistic spirit, she didn’t hesitate for a moment.

“I believe artists need to be vigilant for the first signs of taking shortcuts. It’s tempting to do so when you think, Yeah, but so and so client won’t care or know the difference. You get faster over time, but I’ve found that my projects suffer when I try to wrap them up too fast. When tempted, I remember what Michelangelo said: ‘Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.’”

If time, money, and safety weren’t current concerns, Carolyn knows exactly what she would do.

original images, not just ‘here I was’ paintings. Presently I work with travel photos I’ve taken. I finished my collection on Italy and am working on pictures from when I lived in China.

Sometimes I retouch them or merge two images together on Photoshop. I need to experiment with that more—the trouble is making sure the image is convincing, and that means getting your lighting and perspective spot on. Once I begin collaging, I allow memories and personal convictions to inform the process.”

With your nose inches from her work it looks complicated, but the tools she uses are not.

“I would make a two- or three-month accompanied trip around Europe and the Middle East to investigate and photograph the migration of refugees. I would like to do a collection based on my findings.”

All of her art is fueled by this type of adventurous curiosity.

Wide-eyed, Carolyn said she has “no idea” where her career will be ten years from now, but it’s certain her path will be both colorful and well traveled. na For more information, visit Carolyn Beehler’s website, www.carolynbeehler.com.

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Carolyn Beehler

Photograph by John Jackson

Lecce, 2014, Collage, 18” x 24”

VANISHING FACES OF BHUTAN: The Study of a Timeless Culture

Words by Linda Leaming Photography by Joseph N. Barker

B

hutan is the last independent Himalayan Kingdom, of which there were once several.

Now all of the others have been absorbed into India. It’s located in the eastern range of the Himalayan Mountains, wedged between the giants of Chinese Tibet to the North and India to the west, south, and east. To the west, on the other side of the Indian state of Sikkim, lies Nepal.

And to the east, beyond the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, is Myanmar. It’s half a world away from Nashville, as far as you can go in either direction.

Bhutan is a small country of about 40,000 square kilometers, two hundred miles from east to west and one hundred miles from north to south. It has one international airport, in Paro, no stoplights, and every conceivable climate zone from permanent glaciers in the north to rain forest in the south. It is an ecological hotspot. Its inhabitants are sustenance farmers.

The country is a photographer’s dream. The typical book of images from Bhutan is full of sweeping landscapes, dreamy cloud-covered mountain valleys, ancient temples, and equally ancient rice terraces. It is truly one of the most photogenic places in the world.

Portrait artist Joseph N. Barker took the path least traveled during his frequent visits to Bhutan from 2004 to 2007, focusing on intimate portraits of Bhutanese people in situ. The result is VANISHING FACES OF BHUTAN: The Study of a Timeless Culture, a beautiful, remarkable book that captures the character of the rugged mountain people who inhabit this modern-day Eden.

I had the good luck to travel with Joe and his wife, Judy, and I wrote the text, which is part travelogue, part history, and part descriptions of the remarkable people we met in every corner of Bhutan. Joe and Judy are fearless and intrepid travelers. We travelled across the entire country of Bhutan, from top to bottom on these trips, in good weather and bad. I’ve lived in Bhutan for 17 years and have seen more of the country with Joe and Judy than at any other time.

Many times we were almost mowed down on the narrow tracks called “roads” by large, overloaded, overcrowded trucks, bearing smiles painted on their cowling. We faced the heat and humidity of summer and the cold and snow of winter, becoming stranded in the Himalayan Mountains of Bhutan by a snow storm at an altitude of almost 14,000 feet in the winter of 2007! na A traveling show of images from the book, as well as antique objects and textiles from Bhutan, will be at Belmont University’s Leu Gallery through June 16. Parnassus Books will have a book signing for VANISHING FACES OF BHUTAN on Wednesday, May 4, at 6:30 p.m., and there will be a book celebration at Two Old Hippies on Sunday, May 22, from 3 until 5 p.m. VANISHING FACES OF BHUTAN is published by the Bhutan Foundation, www.bhutanfound.org. For more information, visit www.belmont.edu/art.

“

The country is a photographer’s dream.

Still Life in Motion

by John Pitcher

Leiper’s Creek Gallery Showcases the Paintings of Maggie Siner May 21 – June 10

A

merican painter Maggie Siner has spent the past few decades enjoying a remarkably

productive self-exile. A true cosmopolitan, Siner has lived and worked in France, Italy, and China.

Her paintings, moreover, have graced galleries and private collections the world over.

Many of Siner’s most evocative still-life paintings will be on display at Leiper’s Creek Gallery in Franklin. These works—intimate, whimsical, and infinitely colorful—all display this artist’s bold brushwork, beautifully balanced structure, and absolute clarity of light. We caught up with Siner in Venice, Italy, where she lives part of the year, as she was preparing for her show In Leiper’s Fork.

In addition to art, you have also studied medicine and anatomy. How have these studies informed your figurative art?

I had my first anatomy course as an undergraduate at B.U. and continued to draw from the live model my whole life. As earlier artists knew, it’s difficult to understand the structure of the human body from the outside because all the determining forms are hidden underneath the skin. To make a believable figure, a figure that could get up and move around like we do in reality—in three-dimensional space (as opposed to being stuck on the flat page)—one really has to understand how a body is put together, what forms and movements are in the normal range of possibility, which of the lumps and bumps are hard bone or soft fat, which are fixed, and which change with action. You have to understand how the human body functions with respect to gravity. No amount of photography will teach this. The goal of anatomy is not to make anatomically perfect figures, but to make meaningfully expressive figures.

Many years later I was attracted to medicine through my involvement in woman’s self-help. Living in France at the time, where the first year of medical school was free, I signed up. That’s when I began to understand how the human body works and became completely enthralled by how complicated and delicately balanced it is. Later I worked as a medical illustrator and dissector at Georgetown Medical School, and I did facial reconstruction for police.

Santa Maria Formosa, 2011, Oil on linen , 14” x 11”

Left Page: Descent, 2006, Oil on linen , 18” x 14”

Salute from Giglio at Night, 2012, Oil on linen, 15” x 10”

Red Hangers, 2005, Oil on linen, 36” x 30”

It is impossible for me to create figures that aren’t informed by my knowledge of anatomy. I see how every pose is an intricate set of relationships between parts connected and interdependent, and above all I see how small changes in the physical body expose mood and expression. A tiny difference in the position of a head makes a person confident or oppressed. The position of the shoulders tells a whole life story!

Anatomy is important because human beings look at paintings with active mirror neurons. Viewers feel a physical empathy with the figures they see in paintings. If a figure is flat, the parts unconnected, the bones broken, or immoveable like a mannequin, the viewer will never be able to truly empathize.

Can you talk about your influences? Who are your favorite painters?

All of the great painters of the past have been my teachers!

They all have something to inspire because they have all dealt with the same complex issues of painting in varying ways. To me, it’s not about who are my favorites but who are the best. Value judgments are underrated these days. (And personal tastes are overrated!) These are some of the great painters I study most (in no particular order) and who have all influenced me: Degas, Rembrandt, Cézanne, Titian, Vermeer, Giacometti, Chardin, Vuillard, Diebenkorn, Morandi, Piero della Francesca, Giotto, Velázquez, Balthus, Bellini, Monet . . .

You are exhibiting many beautifully expressive still-lifes at

the Leiper’s Creek Gallery. Could you tell us about your preference for this kind of work?

All my painting is from life. I work from direct visual perception, which means I am looking at the subject as I’m painting it. In truth, I’m painting the colors and shapes created by light falling on various things, but not painting the things themselves.

Just about anything that creates interesting shapes, has three-dimensional form creating light and shadow, and some delicious color harmonies is a good subject for painting. That being said, I’ve always been attracted to drapery. It is very expressive of movement and time passing—something which is difficult to evoke in painting, which is after all a fixed image.

By that I mean the folds in drapery or clothing imply the form that is underneath and retain the traces of the movements and forms that put them there. Fabric hanging over a chair or sheets thrown open in a bed seem to capture the action that just occurred. Drapery is very animated in that way. For me, all still life is animated through the stresses and tensions between objects. In any painting subject, it is the stresses, tensions, and action of the colors and shapes, as well as the natural movements of the eye perceiving the world of color and shapes, that animates the canvas.

It’s been noted that you rarely use black pigment, yet your paintings are remarkable for their wide-ranging color contrasts. Could you describe your use of color?

There are only six colors on my palette—the colors of the spectrum—and you’re right, there is no black. If I need black,

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“

Photograph by Denise Folmar

Maggie Siner in her studio

Marketing has nothing whatsoever to do with painting. It’s only through years of painting that one can arrive at some kind of mastery and a truly individual voice. The study of painting is a lifetime endeavor and never stops being challenging, rewarding, frustrating, encouraging, and life affirming.

Table Magenta, 2015, Oil on linen, 28” x 24”

I mix the exact black I need from the colors on my palette, rather than using a factory-produced black. There are infinite shades of black, just as there are infinite shades of red or gray.

Those six colors on my palette provide the full range of my color contrasts. However, color is relative and dependent on the colors nearby. One is never really painting the color one sees but the relationships one sees. So, in fact, you don’t really need a big range of color to create the effect of intense color. You only need to know how colors affect each other (something dull makes something else look bright; something red makes something else look green) and have developed a very sensitive eye.

experience. Every brushstroke delivered to the canvas is put there with a gesture of intent, with a specific speed, direction, thickness, and feeling. I learned a lot more about brushwork when I lived in China and had the chance to study with Chinese ink painters. There the brushwork is everything and the illusion much less important. Brushwork is not calculated.

It has its own necessity, which comes from years of using paint and becoming fluent in making the paint transform into a visual image. Again, as viewers, our mirror neurons are at work, responding to brushwork by empathizing with the hand and gesture that applied the brushstrokes.

Your bold brushstrokes have been described as having something of a Chinese flavor. Could you tell us about your brushwork?

My mentor, Robert D’Arista, talked a lot about brushwork, only he called it touch. The tactile aspect of painting is very personal, like handwriting, and a big carrier of meaning and expression, but it’s also a major part of the structure of a painting. Brushwork guides the eye through the painting and directs it where to look next, taking the eyes on a journey of

What advice do you have for aspiring painters?

The only advice I can safely give is: In order to be a painter you must paint! Find a good teacher; learn from as many painters are you can; study the great masters, and paint. na

Maggie Siner’s show at the Leiper’s Creek Gallery opens May 21, 6 to 9 p.m. and runs through June 10. For more information visit www.leiperscreekgallery.com and www.maggiesiner.com.

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cassiWRIGHT

by Jesse Mathison

Painting with Fire and the Curiosity of Faith

T

he art of Cassi Wright is about the merging of ideas.

The artist, who has a background working in charcoal and watercolor, has recently concerned herself with the art of pyrography, which is a fitting medium in the context of her artwork, which deals with the nature of substantial alteration.

Her work is a study of light and shadow that seeks to question the reality of what we see and attempts to synthesize a congruous ideal. “I like to merge images and symbols that speak to me,” said the artist. “I first began by working with the ideas of trees and sanctuaries, and the first series I produced through wood burning was called The Hallowed Woods, which began with a dream I had: I was walking down a narrow path lined with tall trees. It was sunrise, and light was peeking through the treetops. I could smell a strong scent of cedar, and all of a sudden I heard a man’s voice behind me, and he said, “This is the glory of Lebanon” over and over, and I repeated that phrase as I walked. I woke up and felt so inspired, and I immediately looked up the phrase and came to find a specific passage from the Bible: The glory of Lebanon shall come to you, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet glorious. —Isaiah 60:13 “From there I decided to really explore the idea of sacred spaces, as well as the curiosity of faith.”

In that initial series, the physical presence of architecture and nature is examined. A chapel space, a gallery space, and a forest overlap with ideas of reverence and faith. At certain points one cannot distinguish the sanctuary from the sylvan, and this ambiguity is, of course, the omphalos of the work.

The lines are supposed to be blurred, the ideas alike and not, the substance permanently changed. “Burning wood is hallowed to me,” explained the artist. “Burning wood is permanent; once you have applied fire to a spot it will never be the same. Change by fire is irreversible.”

Pergamos, 2016, Pyrography on birch, 39” x 24”

Cassi Wright in her studio

Laodicea, 2016, Pyrography on birch, 39” x 24”

Photograph by John Partipilo

For more information, visit www.cassiwright.wordpress.com.

Philadelphia, 2016, Pyrography on birch, 39” x 24”

Ms. Wright recently held her Senior Thesis Exhibition at Watkins College of Art, Design & Film. na

Openings in May Senior Art Crawl and Exhibition

Belmont University

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May 5

The work of graduating art students will be on view through May 6 on Belmont’s campus. Studio Art seniors have their work displayed in Gallery 121 inside the Leu Center for the Visual Arts, while the work of Design Communication seniors is on view in the historic Belmont Mansion. The shows include art by Sydney Baldwin, Brooke Bluestein, David Bolin, Dennis Cortés, Chris Higdon, Ashley Manno, Paige Muirhead, Danielle McCleave, Olivia Hamilton, John Paterini, Julie Shelton Snyder, Rachel Vandivort, Savannah Weaver and more. The exhibit is anticipated to be thoughtprovoking and sometimes even humorous. Senior Paige Muirhead finds she is “most inspired when I am trying to make the viewer and myself laugh,” while Sydney Baldwin enjoys using screen printing as a way to combine illustration with her sense of humor.

The Art Crawl is free and open to the public with a reception on Thursday, May 5, from 5:30–8 p.m. in Gallery 121. For more information, visit www.belmont.edu/art.

Brooke Bluestein

Paige Muirhead

Recent Additions

Plumbago

CG2 Gallery Through May 27

The Red Arrow Gallery May 15 – June 5

CG2 Gallery is featuring a new exhibit entitled Recent Additions: A small sampling of work by Lyle Carbajal, Christian Clayton, and Ryan Heshka, which focuses on the work of these three nationally acclaimed artists. Lyle Carbajal is a self-taught painter whose bold and socially perceptive art has been on display in Los Angeles, New York, France, and Latvia. Californiabased artist Christian Clayton uses a wide range of techniques and has had work featured in publications such as Art in America, Juxtapoz Magazine, and Hi-Fructose Magazine. Ryan Heshka, another self-taught artist, finds his inspiration in his love for comic books, B-movies, and old advertisements. His work has been featured in Vanity Fair, Esquire, and the New York Times, among others.

Lyle Carbajal

Recent Additions is on view through May 27 with a reception slated for Saturday, May 7, during Arts & Music @ Wedgewood/ Houston. For more, please visit www.cg2gallery.com.

Casey Promise

The exhibit opens in conjunction with the East Side Art Stumble on Saturday, May 14, from 6 to 9 p.m.

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

Darnell Victor Jones Tennessee State University

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May 1– June 30

Nashville-based artist Darnell V. Jones will be exhibiting his work at the Avon Williams Library of Tennessee State University from May 1 through June 30. Jones studied art education and art history at Tennessee State University and later pursued a Communicative Design degree at the University of Tennessee. His work ranges from oil on canvas to alla prima—a technique that uses soft pastels, felt pens, and gouache—with a specialization in portraits. “The joy and pleasure I obtain from my art is being able to make a picture, photograph, or person come to life on canvas,” he says. “This is my way of giving realism to the gift I have been given.”

A reception for the exhibit is scheduled for May 13 from 12 until 2 p.m.

For more information, visit www.tnstate.edu.

The Red Arrow’s upcoming exhibit, Plumbago, will feature three distinctive artists from Nashville, Roanoke, and Chicago. Nashvillebased Casey Promise works primarily in pencil and mixed media, with a particular talent for photorealistic portraits and purposeful imprecision.

Roanoke’s Amy Herzel draws from close-up images of microorganisms and cells to create infinite patterns and repetition in her most recent body of work, Pseudo Pompous. And Mark T. Stockton, currently residing in Philadelphia, is a teacher at Drexel University and a member of Vox Populi who specializes in intimate, life-like portraits.

Darnell Victor Jones

Steeplechase Celebrates 75th Anniversary

by Jarred Johnson May 2016 will mark the 75th anniversary of Nashville’s Iroquois Steeplechase. The event is a springtime tradition in Nashville, as is the selection of the featured artist.

Chattanooga-based artist Hollie Berry will create the event’s signature piece this year.

As a self-described equestrian painter and a regular attendee at Steeplechase, Berry was a natural choice.

Hollie Berry, Endurance, 2016, Oil on panel, 30” x 48”

“I’ve been fascinated with horses ever since I can remember, and I look forward to the races each year,” Berry said. “For me, it’s all about the action of the horse, the excitement of the race, and the thundering sound of hooves as the horses run past you on the green.”

Berry’s featured painting, Endurance, perfectly embodies that excitement. The painting shows eleven thoroughbreds and their jockeys crossing one of the final jumps of the race. Berry

completed nearly a dozen paintings celebrating the event, its horses, and its athletes.

Endurance will be auctioned online on May 13 with proceeds benefitting the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt. Other works by Berry are still available for purchase and can be viewed at the Williamson County Archives on Friday, May 6, from 6 to 9 p.m.

For more information, visit www.iroquoissteeplechase.org or Berry’s website, www.art-instincts.com.

Artists Select 2016:

by Megan Kelley

A Powerhouse of Contemporary Counterparts Opens at Cumberland Gallery Through May 21

Hanna von Goeler, European Turtle Dove/Streptopelia turtur, 2016, Watercolor and gouache on currency from France, 3” x 6”

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n a curatorial return after ten years of distillation, Cumberland Gallery brings back Artists Select 2016, a showcase of artists from their current established roster, as well as an introduction to new faces. Artists Select 2016 pulls work from Cumberland Gallery artists Lori Field, Tom Pfannerstill, Bob Nugent, Cheryl Goldsleger, Dan Gualdoni, Fred Stonehouse, Jim Lavadour, John Fraser, John Henry, Leonard Koscianski, and Marilyn Murphy.

In turn, each of the eleven artists represented by Cumberland engages their own curatorial voice, selecting another whose work they respect and whose artistic experience shares influence and dialogue. Visiting artists include Hanna von Goeler, Caroline Waite, Mark Eanes, Joanne Mattera, Tom Reed, Michael Noland, Nell Warren, Steuart Pittman, Bryan Rasmussen, Marcia Goldenstein, and Michael Kempson, creating a powerhouse chorus of global thought.

The exhibition itself forms a show as diverse in medium as it is in conceptual range: emerging as well as established voices in the international contemporary art scene discuss ideas of belief and construction, decay and change, process and improbable action. With each artist paired with their referred counterpart, the exhibit forms a unique look at the cross-dialogue of seeing through an artist’s fascination and into the deeper threads that weave through contemporary workmaking.

Hanna von Goeler’s conceptual foundations span issues of travel, displacement, historical context, and communication, pulling her thoughtful and forward lines of questioning through sculptural installations, built works, and two-dimensional works on paper and currency.

By altering these objects—particularly in the investigation of currency displayed for Artists Select—von Goeler questions their utilitarian purposes while elevating the rituals of their

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The exhibition itself forms a show as diverse in medium as it is in conceptual range.

Michael Kempson, Safeway, 2007, Etching and aquatint, 20” x 24” 36 nashvillearts.com

Caroline Waite, The Passage of Time, 2014, Wall mounted fabrication, 9” x 26” x 3”

use to new heights. If currency exists primarily as a system of belief (supported by manmade conceptual structures such as national boundaries, fiscal value, and built history: all “attachments” that von Goeler explains form both “entrapments and contradictions” in cultural narrative), through her painted alterations von Goeler asks the viewer to reconsider how these seemingly static values are in constant flux and evolution. They become “between” the current world and something new, borrowing our visual language even as they challenge its roots. When set beside Cumberland Gallery artist Lori Fields’ expressive, imaginative works, whose content explores open-ended narrative and ambiguity through archetype and symbolism, the twin pairing creates a new space, something parallel to our world and yet open and different, for the viewer to engage.

of their painting processes, layering a fury of loops, pulled paint, dripping, and scraping through their conversations of paint. Dynamic and vocal, the pieces reflect the movements of the artist’s body and the labor of painting. Nugent’s work diverges into the stylized and representational, remarking on his trips through the Amazon River Basin in dollops that resemble flora, borrow illustration, or evoke landscape. For Eanes, the work pulls back into observation and expression, the individual nuances of the hand that provide a more openended journey through discovery and process. na Artists Select 2016 is on view through May 21 from 10 am to 5 pm Tuesdays through Saturdays at Cumberland Gallery, located at 4107 Hillsboro Circle, Nashville, TN 37215. For more information, visit www.cumberlandgallery.com.

Cumberland Gallery artist Tom Pfannerstill has long been known for his gorgeous and detailed trompe l’oeil depictions of found objects: crushed cans, battered boxes, and trampled waste. His elevation of the discarded creates an easy conversation about consumerism and carelessness, but their deeper vein of inquiry reflects on the scarification of time and the accumulation of history that invades the character of these objects. “Each of these objects was at one time a near-perfect clone,” Pfannerstill describes. “By the time I find it, it has become a tiny study of opposing forces. [...] The inherent rationality is overlaid with elements of chance.” This fascination with the patina of weathering strides easily into the work of Pfannerstill’s companion artist Caroline Waite, whose assemblage pieces draw from a versatile collection of found and cherished pieces. Highlighting the subtle, Waite’s sculptures create small, intimate interactions of observation and wonder, pulling the viewer to examine otherwise ignored elements in new, curated environments. For both, the act of discovering and cataloging the work forms a vital conversation to the process, rethinking the object in a series of studied evaluations.

A similar companionship exists within the paired works of Cumberland Gallery artist Bob Nugent and his counterpart Mark Eanes. Both engage an energetic markmaking as part

Mark Eanes, Untitled XI, 2015, Mixed media on panel, 24” x 24”

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Zelle Collection to Be Auctioned

Martha Walter, The Garden Party, Circa 1910, Oil on canvas, 26" x 21" Est: $25,000 - $35,000=

Brunk Auctions

by Jarred Johnson On May 14, Anne and Robert K. Zelle’s collection of antiques and fine art will be sold at Brunk Auctions in Asheville, North Carolina.

The collection amounts to over 400 pieces, including paintings, china, cookware, and jewelry.

Mr. and Mrs. Zelle were philanthropists and Nashville residents for many years. Together they were avid animal lovers, and this interest of theirs is present in the collection.

Firm Friends by the French artist Louis Eugène Lambert is painted in Romantic style and shows a white poodle beside a monkey. Another painting by the Spanish painter Vincente Viudes shows a dog in the style of Giuseppe Archimboldo, resplendently formed from fruits and vegetables. (See cover.)

The show’s most valuable item is American Impressionist painter Martha Walter’s The Garden Party. The painting shows three women lounging around a table in late-19th-century dresses under a colorful umbrella. It is valued at $25,000–35,000.

“Mr. and Mrs. Zelle were respected and loved in Nashville,” Sarah Sperling, Director of Nashville Operations for Brunk Auctions, said. “They continue to touch lives in this community, and we are honored to offer the property at Brunk Auctions.”

Select items from the Zelle estate will be available for preview at Brunk Auctions’ Belle Meade office in Nashville, TN on May 4 from 10 am to 7 pm. The entire collection will preview in Asheville, NC, starting on Thursday, May 12, at 1 p.m. and will be sold on May 14.

For more information, visit www.brunkauctions.com.

Breaking Ground The New Tennessee State Museum

by Jake Townsend On April 6, Governor Bill Haslam, Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, Speaker of the House Beth Harwell, Rep. Steve McDaniel, chairman of the Douglas Henry State Museum Commission, Lois Riggins-Ezzell, executive director of the Tennessee State Museum, and Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author, were on hand to break ground on the new Tennessee State Museum.

Last year, the Tennessee General Assembly approved $120 million to build a new home for the Tennessee State Museum. A 137,000-square-foot facility will be built on the northwest corner of the Bicentennial Mall at Rosa L. Parks Boulevard and Jefferson Street.

“We're planning to accomplish a 100-year project with this new state museum—in terms of both quality and stature. I want to thank the General Assembly for its partnership and commitment to make this investment,” Governor Bill Haslam said. “We’re taking an innovative, hybrid approach to the museum's design that will be an extraordinary experience and complement the other cultural and entertainment opportunities Tennessee has to offer. Tennessee has played an important part in our country's history, and we have a dynamic story to tell.”

Showcasing one-of-a-kind artifacts, historical documents, and art, the museum will tell Tennessee's story in a new, interactive, and engaging way. A “Tennessee Time Tunnel” will serve as the backbone feature in providing a chronological and experiential journey through Tennessee's history. The new state museum is scheduled to open in 2018.

For more information, visit www.tnmuseum.org.

adamHALL

by Cat Acree

Fire& Rain From distant forest fires to choppy oceans, the expansive vistas of Adam Hall’s oversize oil paintings survey nature’s quiet power from a safe distance.

These are scenes we know: Heavy clouds hang over dark hills.

A faraway fire sends a pillar of black smoke to unfathomable heights. A shoreline appears through the mist. Hall’s minimalist landscapes are partially imagined and partially inspired by memories and photographs, and into these scenes we can place ourselves.

“

There’s a side to water and ocean paintings and river paintings that evokes this whole realm of emotion for people.

Much of Hall’s success must be attributed to fellow artist David Wright, whose paintings capture a love for American history and the Western frontier, and whose advice for Hall came at exactly the right moment. After graduating from Trevecca Nazarene University, Hall was pursing a career in recording engineering.

When he wasn’t touring with bands, he was at home, painting folk art and some charcoal portraits, pieces of excruciating detail that he describes as “painful.” Says Hall: “I was at a place in my artistic career where it just felt like it was going to be a hobby forever.”

Then in 2006, after tornados decimated Gallatin, Tennessee, Adam and a few friends grabbed chainsaws and set out to clear trees from an area picked at random. They ended up on the property of artist David Wright. After speaking to Hall and hearing of his frustrations, Wright suggested he try landscapes, which might offer the freedom and ease that were missing from his work.

It’s a change for which Hall is eminently thankful, not only for the renewed passion but also for the translatable nature of landscapes. “Every human being in the world can relate to a landscape painting,” says Hall.

Perhaps there is nothing more relatable than water, which can seem inviting or threatening, can provide answers or provoke more questions. Inspired by a conversation between the artist and his wife as they wondered how to “keep [their] heads above water,” Hall’s paintings often feel as though the viewer has just surfaced from the waves, their heads emerging for a desperate breath.

“There’s a side to water and ocean paintings and river paintings that evokes this whole realm of emotion for people,” Hall says.

Facing the Ledge, 2014, Oil on panel, 23”x 48” 40 nashvillearts.com

Down To The River, 2015, Oil on canvas, 36” x 36”

Ever Wonder, 2015, Oil on panel, 24” x 24”

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“For some people it’s joy, for some it’s fear because they’re scared of dark water . . . [It] gets to them and draws them in.”

Hall’s landlocked horizons, filled with cloudscapes and billowing towers of smoke, often feel more removed than the water paintings, like looking out through tall windows, safe within your home. Hall’s fire scenes often stem from his own childhood, when he would join his stepfather, a volunteer fireman, during controlled fires and natural brush fires. He describes sitting on his stepfather’s truck bed and watching a fire ravage a house or someone’s crops. The fire brought tragedy—but it brought hope as a community came together to protect its own.

As epic and vast as these landscapes may be, Hall’s own freedom is vanishing, and so his paintings have begun to change. He’s a new father with two sons—three-year-old Luca and one-and-a-half-year-old Leo—and his home studio in Franklin offers little separation from the daily demands of parenthood.

“It’s made everything harder,” Hall says. “At the same time I was transitioning into kids, my work was transitioning, tightening in. Before, I could paint a painting in a couple days, whereas now I’m focusing more on detail and trying to get things more refined, and that takes longer.”

Human After All, 2015, Oil on panel, 30”x 30”

A busy life will blur vision, Hall explains, and beauty requires stillness. And so the freedom of his work has succumbed to necessary structure. He is using less palette knife and more brushwork. He’s returning to details that he once rejected: delicate leaves, the backs of people’s heads, claustrophobic trees. “Having structure in place is the only way for me, in this season of my life, to get anything done.”

Though there is continued demand for cloudscapes and ocean views, Hall’s next show at Robert Lange Studios in Charleston, South Carolina, will showcase this new structure. The exhibition is tentatively titled The Untamable, for the idea that nature cannot be controlled and is merely waiting to take over the spaces we leave behind. na For more information visit www.adamhallart.com.

Adam Hall in his studio

Photograph by Brittany Wood

Moth To Flame, 2015, Oil on panel, 30”x 30”

Tennessee Craft at Centennial Park May 6–8

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ith spring blooms in abundance and white tents as far as the eye can see, the Tennessee Craft Fair is a sight to behold, a mark of the special community in Nashville that appreciates and invests in regional art.

Though it has become increasingly easy to purchase art—one only has to click a button, thanks to the Internet—the Tennessee Craft Fair taps into the rarer experience of personal connection between artist and buyer.

Jewelry-master Katie Sasser calls it “one of the most stunning shows in the country,” and this will be her seventh year to bring pieces. The accessibility of the artists does make for an unforgettable experience.

Watch Roger Smith carve peach pits at a demonstration tent. Cradle Merissa Tobler’s stoneware pieces in your hands, and hear from Lester Jones about the creation of intricately detailed sculptures. As an artist stands with his or her work, answering questions, showing off pieces, sometimes even conducting live demonstrations of the artistic process, a new realm of vulnerability and immediacy is offered: one that is in many ways medieval and in others, magical.

In order to have the opportunity to present work at the fair, artists must go through a strategic three-part selection process. Out of all the applicants, only 200 can be chosen due to the capacity of the fair’s iconic Nashville location at Centennial Park. From Tom Rice’s carved limestone to Katie’s Sasser’s hand-wired jewelry, the pieces are as diverse from tent to tent as the artists themselves.

It seems incredible that a nonprofit organization puts on such a large-scale event. Tennessee Craft relies on

Nashville has a loyal and engaged art community, and events like the Tennessee Craft Fair are proof that appreciation of arts and crafts is only growing.

For artists, the camaraderie of the vibrant community makes it a highly-anticipated weekend, and for buyers, the ability to see work of 200 artists and shake their hands and hear their stories holds a special appeal. As artist Katie Sasser says, “Old friends and soon-to-be friends make this show an undeniably good time.” na The 46th annual Tennessee Craft Fair is completely free to the public and will be held at Centennial Park from May 6 through May 8. For specific hours and more information, visit www.tennesseecraft.org.

Coppersmith Ben Caldwell

Photograph by John Jackson

Shadow May creates wheel-thrown and hand-built porcelain and stoneware ceramics

donations and nearly 50 volunteers to produce two craft fairs every year—one in the spring dedicated to regional artists and one in the fall for national artists.

It is a true community effort, one that brings art lovers from all over the region to the heart of Nashville. That kind of energy attracts artists like Ansley Larsson, for whom this will be the fourth year to present work. Her favorite part is seeing “the regulars— the loyal art lovers that come year after year no matter the weather.”

Photograph by John Jackson

Photograph by Tammy Gentuso

by Gracie Pratt

Proud Sponsor of the Nashville Walls Project

The Rymer Gallery & Tinney Contemporary Street Art Shows National, International and Local Street Artists are About to Change the Way We Look at Nashville Opening Both Galleries

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May 7

Augustine Kofie

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n its April 2016 issue, Nashville Arts detailed the Nashville Walls Project in which internationally renowned street artists will create new works on exterior walls throughout the city.

But after sunset, the celebration moves to Fifth Avenue, where most of these al fresco innovators will make their gallery debuts.

San Francisco independent art consultant Tova Lobatz and her Nashville-based partner Brian Greif, who created and curated the Nashville Walls Project, were instrumental in these two shows as well. At Tinney Contemporary, they serve as guest curators—and they also contribute what’s sure to be a high point of the exhibit: an original by Banksy, arguably the world’s most acclaimed and certainly most enigmatic muralist.

Niels “Shoe” Meulman 48 nashvillearts.com

by Bob Doerschuk

Emily Miller

Herb Williams

Greif recounts how he acquired this iconic Banksy rat image, which stands 108 inches by 88 inches by eight inches, weighs 425 pounds, and will be on display at Tinney. True to Banksy’s guerrilla method, Greif has refused to profit from his piece and turned down offers of more than a million dollars to sell it.

“When he came to San Francisco, the last piece he did was on redwood siding on an old bed-and-breakfast in the HaightAshbury,” he recounts. “First, I convinced the owner not to paint over it, even though she hated that someone had left a rat on the side of her building. Then it took six months to negotiate a deal and a week for me to remove the image.

I hired experts in renovating historic buildings. We had to tunnel into the wall, crawl behind it and cut the boards up individually from behind. I then sent it to an art restoration

specialist in Santa Barbara. It was crated up in our storage facility in San Francisco to be shipped to Nashville.”

Another highlight at Tinney will be an installation by the German duo Herakut in the gallery’s back room. As it’s being assembled, the Banksy rat positioned, and the other works brought in before the May 7 opening, the room’s exterior windows will be papered over. “It’s different from how we normally operate,” notes Gallery Director Sarah Wilson, smiling. “But it adds to the aura and makes people want to know what street art is and why they should value it.”

A few doors down, works by Nashville street artists will fill most of the ground-floor space at The Rymer Gallery. “My goal has always been to bring an event to Nashville featuring

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Troy Duff

Banksy

Brandon Donahue

Adele Renault

art in the public realm and to involve local artists in it,” says curator Herb Williams, who will also be represented in the show. “It goes to raise awareness of what they’re doing but also to give them opportunity. It’s just so rare that local artists get to meet or interact with international artists of this scale, who have hundreds of thousands of followers on Facebook or Instagram.”

Some of the folks Williams is working with have left their mark in various Nashville neighborhoods. “One of my favorites is Troy Duff, who’s done walls all across the city,” Williams says. “I especially like the one he did at Jet’s Pizza in East Nashville, off of Gallatin Road. Another interesting street artist, with a totally different style, is Chris Zidek, or Zidekahedron. We’ll have Jay Jenkins, a student at TSU, who created the Norf Wall Fest. Sam Dunson did a wall there that is unreal, all about civil justice.” Also showing at The Rymer Gallery are Emily Miller, Brandon Donahue, Nathan Brown, Patch Whisky, and Bryan Deese.

As Williams sees it, this combination of gallery and outdoor opens dramatic new possibilities for creators as well as collectors. na

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If we go about this in the right way, Williams promises, it could change the face of Nashville overnight.

Both exhibits open during the First Saturday Art Crawl Downtown on May 7.

Brick to Canvas: A Survey of International Street Art remains on view at Tinney Contemporary through May 28, and #615Streets is open until June 3 at The Rymer Gallery. For more information, please visit www.tinneycontemporary.com and www.therymergallery.com.

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International Playhouses Cheekwood

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May 21 – September 4

by Emily Blake At some point in our lives, we all have envisioned ourselves jumping between places, bending reality to our desires of worldly travel, and living unrestrained by the laws of time and space. International Playhouses resonates with this innocent wanderlust, creating a magical realm of fanciful playhouses where dreamlike travel and play are possible.

Drawing inspiration from the voyages of the Cheek family, the playhouses cleverly embody the cultures of the represented countries. “The bold colors and patterns of India, the castles of Scotland, the cathedrals of Spain, the mastery of Japanese design . . . It is fascinating to see how each designer interpreted the Cheek family’s travel and followed their own unique vision and inspiration,” said Brian Downey, director of exhibitions. As a result, families can take a grand world tour without leaving the gardens of Cheekwood.

For consideration in the exhibit, local architects from the Nashville area collaborated with the American Institute of Architects Middle Tennessee to design their travel-inspired, large-scale outdoor playhouses. Based on creativity, interactivity, visual appeal, aesthetics, and family appeal, a panel of judges chose the winning six playhouses for the exhibit. Equipped with umbrella roofs, swings, castles, and slides, these playhouses best embody educational, interactive, adventurous, and worldly travel for the entire family to explore.

Beginning May 21 and running through September 4, families will be able to explore the whimsical worlds of International Playhouses at Cheekwood, located on the historic Cheek estate. For more information, visit www.cheekwood.org.

Edinburgh Castle inspired by Scotland, design firm: Earl Swensson Associates

sturgillSIMPSON

Words by Walter Carter Photography by Reto Sterchi

S

A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, Simpson’s Self-Produced Third Album, Explores the Journey ... There and Back

turgill Simpson has given a new credibility to Nashville and country music, with songs about something deeper than pickup trucks and beer, delivered with an attitude that hasn’t been heard since a certain Outlaw movement in the 1970s.

He has a Top 10 country album in his resume, but calling him an important new country artist would be shortchanging him.

His Grammy nomination, for his 2014 album Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, was in the Americana category— not country—and his music can be found today in such noncountry settings as Billboard’s Rock Digital Songs chart and the theme song for the HBO series Vinyl.

All this in the six years since he moved to Nashville from Salt Lake City. And all on his own. Although Simpson’s Kentucky upbringing and his bluegrass/roots background made Nashville a natural destination, he hit a wall with Nashville

publishers and record labels. So he found a workaround.

In 2013 he took out a loan, teamed up with producer Dave Cobb, (Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell) and recorded High Top Mountain. Then he hit the road to pay back the loan. For his second album, Metamodern, he again worked outside of the established Nashville music business and enlisted Thirty Tigers, a “label services” company that handles distribution and other roles while leaving ownership of the product with the artist.

When Simpson finally did get major label support (from Atlantic) for his third album, A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, he took yet another independent turn, producing himself and taking it to New York to record strings and horn parts. A few weeks before the release of Sailor’s Guide, he talked about his career, comparisons to an iconic country artist, and his new concept album.

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New York? Strings? Horns?

It’s so funny. People say there’s no horns in country music, but I’m pretty sure that at least eight or nine of my favorite Merle Haggard records have horns all over them. Otis Redding is one of my favorite country singers ever.

Is this a fundamentally different sounding album?

Much different. It’s a concept record, written in a form like a letter in a bottle found at sea, so there’s a lot of nautical themes and sounds, sort of blending the steel and strings to emulate water moving. The horns are sort of like foghorns.

You’d had some success when you went in to cut it. Were you thinking of how to follow up success?

I thought more about this record than any of the first two, for sure, conceptually. I didn’t feel the pressure, which is odd because it’s a major label release, but man, to be honest, everything that’s happened to this point . . . I think a lot of this happened because of my wife encouraging me, one. And two, supporting me through some of the times when we just had a baby, and then Metamodern took off, and I had to go out and tour. If there was any chance of doing this for a living and supporting my family . . . She even told me, we didn’t come here and you spend the last four years busting your butt and you to not be able to follow through. So I just wanted to do something as a thank you to my family. You’re only as good as your last record, and every record may be your last record. This business is so fickle. So with the resources from Atlantic, it was like, wow, I can finally afford to just make a record that sounds like what I’ve always wanted to do. I put a lot of thought into it and basically just wrote the whole thing as a letter to my son and her.

You did your first two albums with Dave Cobb producing.

The first one I did with Cobb, he did that for free. We had a deal that if it sells any copies, he got a dollar for every copy, but he just wanted to work with me, and I wanted to work with him. We put the record out. We toured for about a year and nothing was popping off, and then at the end of the year, all of these critics that I didn’t’ realize were aware of it, it started showing up on the end-of-year lists. I was like, wow, I might actually get to make another one of these. A lot of the songs on the Metamodern record were written and road tested and arranged. We came off that tour in October of 2013, and Dave had a week off, which is a rare thing, and I had a week off, and he said, let’s go in and mess around and see what happens.

So we had about four days in the studio. We just went in and had fun. That record started my career, I guess. Life’s weird.

You did the new album without Cobb.

I produced it myself because once I started, I finally wrapped my head round what I was doing. I already heard it in my head. And it’s so personal I just didn’t really see how I could collaborate with somebody else, at least on this album. It’s intentionally a little indulgent and maybe even overproduced, just to capture some of the thematic elements. Dave and I will definitely work again.

Comparisons to Waylon Jennings are inevitable. You’ve got a similar voice and an attitude as a singer.

The attitude comes from . . . I’m not a tough guy at all, man.

When I’m onstage I’m so nervous, it’s almost like I have to dig in and find . . . It’s almost like a defiant feeling to face it all. Waylon —God, I’ve talked about this so much—you can’t change what other people hear, but a lot of people won’t believe this. He’s probably one of the guys that I don’t want to say I listened to the least but I discovered much later on. In my mind if I’m trying to imitate anybody, it’s guys like Elvis or Keith Whitley. But hey, man, I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it, there’s a lot worse things you can be told as a country singer than you sound a lot like Waylon Jennings, so I’ll take it. Shooter [Waylon’s son] even told me that, that I remind him of his dad a little bit, so if he says it, you have to take it as a compliment. And I always will. na Sturgill Simpson’s new album A Sailor’s Guide To Earth was released in April on Atlantic Records. Simpson will tour throughout 2016 including two shows at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium on October 28 and 29. For more information, visit www.sturgillsimpson.com.

The Harding Art Show

By Stephanie Stewart-Howard

Seventy Artists From Twelve States at One Inspired Art Event May 5–7

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his year’s Harding Art Show, scheduled for May 5–7, continues a tradition started in 1975, bringing together the school and the community to celebrate art with thousands of original pieces available for public purchase. The 2016 show starts a new trend, as not one but three featured artists showcase their abilities for the public and students alike.

Herb Williams, renowned for his distinctive crayon sculpture; illustrator, painter, and filmmaker Alex Beard; and I Believe In Nashville muralist Adrien Saporiti will all appear as special guests.

Chairs Meggin Grobmeyer and Mary Glenn Vreeland reveal that some 70 artists from 12 states will be present to sell and show an incredibly diverse field of works.

“We made sure we had a lot of variety,” says Meggin. “Variety in price, style, size, medium—we wanted to keep things as open to all parts of the public as possible.”

Lauren Ossolinski, Quince, 2015, Oil, 36” x 24”

Emily Ozier, Santa Monica, 2015, Mixed media, 48”x48”

Mary Glenn Vreeland emphasizes the importance of the show, long supported by the community, also giving back. They’ve partnered with Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt to collect art supplies for the Art Therapy program, with collection bins at the entrance to the show each day ( w w w. t h e h a r d i n g a r t s h o w. c o m / events-parking/).

Each of the guest artists offers original programming for the show. Herb Williams will create a crayon art installation piece using two trees on campus, with student collaboration. After the show, those crayons will be melted and shaped to provide functional art pieces to be used with the Children’s Hospital donation.

Adrien Saporiti will be working with students on Family Day to create a collaborative piece to stay on campus.

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Alex Beard, known particularly for his wildlife conservation efforts, will be screening his film Drawing the Line, in support of Kenyan elephant rescue and The Watering Hole Foundation ( w w w. w a t e r i n g h o l e f o u n d a t i o n . org/). He’ll also be reading his original children’s books with elementary students and doing an adult painting workshop Saturday.

The show also allows the students to showcase their talents. With Harding’s student art awards day preceding the show on May 2–3, the works of student artists will be hung around the gym, auditorium, and halls to provide background for the show.

Students additionally have plenty of interaction opportunities with the artists themselves and the preparation and execution of the show.

“We take pride in the partnership we have with the artists,” says Mary Glenn Vreeland of the 70 exhibitors coming to show.

“We’ve been especially proactive in the choices we made with the selection committee, and we’ve gotten to know the artists well. We’ve developed great relationships with them. They have a fun, rewarding experience too, along with the students and the community as a whole.”

The Harding Art Show provides a fantastic way to decorate your walls, celebrate art, take a class— or just get out and enjoy the sunshine amidst tremendous, delightful talent. na The Harding Art Show takes place May 5–7 at Harding Academy, 170 Windsor Drive. For more information, visit www.thehardingartshow.com.

Photograph by Jerry Atnip

ASISEEIT

BY MARK W. SCALA

Mark W. Scala Chief Curator

Frist Center for the Visual Arts

The Ocean Comes to Town

Ali Banisadr, The Lesser Lights, 2014, Oil on linen, 82” x 120” 58 nashvillearts.com

H

ead for the water. This is the advice to newly emerging artists that renowned critic Dave Hickey offered during a talk here a few years ago. Go to L.A. or New York. These coastal metropoles are where the market is— the critical apparatus and large numbers of artists, galleries, and museums that can spur you to excel, and maybe even to buck the odds and have a financially and critically successful career without having to teach or wait tables.

As important, such cities are places of great dynamism, where people have come from all around the world to live, to influence, to inspire, and to compete with one another. Without this cultural meshing, you risk provincialism, insularity, and being away from the pulse.

As someone who hopes our area artists, collectors, art dealers, and indeed any art lover will feel invested in the growth of our own cultural community, I had to wince a bit at Hickey’s call to migrate, however statistically justifiable it may be. But while the economics will not change, the path to success and happiness as an artist is not entirely one-way.

Many creative people still move to New York, and their struggle to survive while making art is frankly inspiring; it is a measure of seriousness and ambition. I often encourage young artists of a certain fire to throw themselves into the big mix.

Yet terrific artists are leaving Brooklyn and L.A., escaping the daily pressures and looking for a balanced life. Being out of the cauldron allows them to see that the art world is a useful construct, but one that only touches on the broader dimensions of reality that might fruitfully define one’s place in the wider world. In an age of increased access through artist websites and international art fairs, in which galleries from across the globe present artists from far-flung cities and countries, it is a little easier now to reach the marketplace than it once was, although it still takes singlemindedness and effort to distinguish oneself from a million others.

So what do I mean by touching on broader dimensions of reality? I have no assured idea, but have recently been trying to understand this in terms of what philosophers call the “social imaginary.” This is the intersection of language and law, family and group identity and customs, physical needs and psychological expressions,

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It is a little easier now to reach the marketplace than it once was, although it still takes single-mindedness and effort to distinguish oneself from a million others.

religious belief, and science and technology— all those invisible things that shape individual bodies into a social organism; in short, the “creative and symbolic dimension of the social world.”1 To me the social imaginary constitutes reality precisely because it is unfixed: the seemingly solid things of the world delude us about the ephemeral nature of existence.

My effort at understanding is complicated by the realization that social imaginaries today overlap in place and time. With global communications yielding a universe of conflicting information, vast migrations causing cultural collisions, and incompatibilities leading to religious and political tension, we may sense only chaos as we try to link these imaginaries into a master narrative. These forces are just so big, deep, and amorphous. They are like an ocean, even less fathomable than the watery one, which has come to us, in Nashville and around the world. This heaving formlessness makes many people seasick, and they yearn for that illusory solid ground. Others see endless horizons.

As artists, authors, musicians, and poets seek to add to the symbolism that becomes a part of the social imaginary, the ones who may be the most attuned to reality are those who strive to give poetic form to its inchoate fluidity. The best they can do, in Nashville as well as anywhere, is to employ their talents, hearts, and minds to respond to aspects of this human-made ocean that provide the greatest inspiration or consternation. To create the most mysterious, troubling, or beautiful things that we would not otherwise see. na

John B. Thompson, Studies in the Theory of Ideology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 6.

The O’More Show House Franklin

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May 12–27

Twenty-two of the South’s leading designers are once again coming together to showcase the latest in interior design trends as part of the O’More Show House May 12–27. The ca. 1919, 5,200-square-foot brick and stucco Craftsman-style cottage is a contributing property to the National Register-listed Hincheyville Historic District in downtown Franklin. Located at 1006 West Main Street, the home has been completely transformed while preserving the integrity of the historic façade.

The Show House serves as a fundraiser for the interior design program at O’More College of Design, and many of the participating designers are alumni. Tina Yaraghi of the national design blog The Enchanted Home has been named the honorary chair and will be in attendance for the opening day.

Presented by PARKS, the O’More Show House is open to the public Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and open until 7 p.m. on Thursday. Tickets are $20 per person and will be available at the door. For more, visit www.omoreshowhouse.com.

Destination Art: A New Road Trip Road trips are rapidly becoming true art adventures.

A particularly interesting new art destination road trip this year—Bentonville, Arkansas, a small town surrounded by rural landscapes—is fast becoming a destination for lovers of visual art. An important new American art museum—the Crystal Bridges Museum—has been thoughtfully placed near the heart of downtown Bentonville and is admission free.

I recently made my own road trip to this very small town.

Once off the road and making my way to the much-touted museum, I happily stumbled across another treasure trove of contemporary art in downtown Bentonville—the 21c Museum Hotel, literally just a couple of blocks off the square. The 21c is a hotel concept distinguished from others by making contemporary art the hallmark of their business inside and out. Curated exhibits and collections are changed regularly and are open admission free to guests and others.

The 21c folks have Nashville in the loop for one of their signature hotels opening here next year just two blocks from the galleries on 5th Avenue of the Arts. Adding to museums and galleries already here, the 21c and the new Tennessee State Museum will soon add dimension to Nashville’s art appeal to tourists and residents.

Nashville, of course, has been a prime destination for music

Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas

for decades. But public and private initiatives now underway— more museum development, more galleries, more artists, more organized art openings, and more public art all over town—are already adding new perspectives to the rich musical heritage indigenous to Nashville. In Nashville, the music scene is complemented by new energy in art, fashion, theatre, dance, opera, and more.

Music City is fast becoming a broader art destination, which promises to enhance the collaborative creative nature of Nashville. www.theartscompany.com

5THAVEUNDERTHELIGHTS

BY ANNE BROWN | THE ARTS COMPANY

laurénBRADY

by Karen Parr-Moody

Young Painter’s New Work Evokes the Mood of Cy Twombly Customs House Museum and Cultural Center

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May 3–31

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here’s a reason that Laurén Brady’s work resembles that of Cy Twombly, that giant of the postwar American art scene who scribbled on his paintings—either a word, such as “Bacchus,” or an entire passage from Rilke or Mallarmé.

“I love Cy Twombly,” says the 25-year-old artist. “I love the thin layers. He’s one of my favorites.”

Twombly melded drawing, writing, and painting, infusing aspects of Abstract Expressionism with allusions to history and myth. In Brady’s work, the hallmarks are all there: the thin layers of paint, the childlike pencil writings, and the expressive drips of paint.

Naturally, Brady puts her own spin on her various landscapes, abstractions, and prints. She brings together spritzes of spray paint, layers of thinned oil paint, writings, photo transfers, and found objects. She uses birch panels as her primary canvases because she doesn’t like how canvas gives. And, as did Roubidoux Stones, 2015, Oil on panel, 24” x 24”

In Torrents: The Rains of Spring, 2015, Oil and graphite on panel, 24” x 24”

Mackinac, 2014, Oils, photo-transfer, pastel on panel, 24” x 24”

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Twombly, she tugs at the past and coaxes it into her artwork.

One piece hints at the artist’s nostalgic point of view. From the Past is an oceanic landscape through which vague, childlike handwriting reveals the words, “They say it’s not good to dwell in the past, but one summer I lived in the 1800s.” While quixotic, they are specific.

“That was my tribute to spending the summer on Mackinac Island in Michigan,” Brady says, referring to the charming vacation spot that is steeped in history. She worked there as a historic house interpreter for the Biddle House, a home that was constructed in about 1780.

“I dressed in 1830s attire and baked bread over an open hearth and sewed a quilt by hand,” Brady says. “That was a big turning point in my life.”

Like many youths on the precipice of adulthood, Brady spent that summer examining the past and present simultaneously.

She was approaching the end of college and would soon leave Indiana Wesleyan University with a major in painting and a minor in writing. She was also engaged to be married.

“The summer I spent sort of living in the past, I learned I have a love for history,” she says. “Every place we go, there have been people impacting the location.”

Brady now lives in Clarksville, Tennessee, where her work will be featured in the exhibit Erosion: Studies of Finite Permanence at the Customs House Museum and Cultural Center from May 3 through May 31. She will give an artist’s talk there at 6:15 p.m., Thursday, May 4.

The beauty of Brady’s work—for those who admire the dreamy quality of Abstract Expressionism but crave representational anchors—is that she creates hazy mists of paint but also adds the architectural bones of houses through her photo transfers.

In Harvest Moon, a ghostly house disappears among the paint layers as a murder of crows swoops upward in stabs of black.

It’s an ethereal amalgam, this vagary of paint alongside the certainty of photo transfers.

The Hallow: They Echoed Like Prayers, 2015, Oil, spray paint, photo-transfer on panel, 16” x 12”

“There was a ghostly, faded barn in the middle of nowhere, and these pieces of chicken wire were scattered across the yard. This was what was remaining of this family. There’s a lot of decay and a lot of erosion—and there’s still life happening here. In my memory, whenever I see this chicken wire, this metal, it’s kind of a time capsule in a way.” na Laurén Brady’s exhibit Erosion: Studies of Finite Permanence is on view at the Customs House Museum and Cultural Center from May 3 through May 31. She will give an artist’s talk there at 6:15 p.m., Thursday, May 4. For more, visit www.customshousemuseum.org.

Similarly, in The Hallow, watery oil brushstrokes are punctuated by chicken wire, a hard, static object placed against the rushing paint strokes.

Brady uses such found objects in her work to convey the notion of change that happens over time. She remembers the setting in which she found the chicken wire used in the painting The Hallow.

Laurén Brady

Photograph by Megan Hevel

“I’m a collector,” Brady says. “My poor husband. He knows every time we go hiking or exploring, we’re going to come back with shattered rocks or rusted metal, the things we find along the way.”

THEBOOKMARK

A MONTHLY LOOK AT HOT BOOKS AND COOL READS

Kill ‘Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul James McBride James McBride will be at the Nashville Public Library on May 9 for the culmination of Nashville Reads—the initiative that brings Nashville together to discuss great literature. The citywide read is his bestselling memoir about his mother, The Color of Water, which was originally published in 1995; but many readers also know McBride from The Good Lord Bird, which won the National Book Award for fiction in 2013. Now the versatile McBride gives us a biography of one of music’s most elusive characters, the Godfather of Soul himself, James Brown. McBride explores the many contradictions in Brown’s life in this fascinating life story.

Julia Reed’s South Julia Reed As readers of Garden & Gun, Elle Decor, and Southern Living can attest, Julia Reed knows her stuff when it comes to entertaining graciously in the South. Take it from Nashville’s own Reese Witherspoon, who wrote, “Julia Reed is the quintessential Southern doyenne”— or from storyteller Roy Blount, Jr., who says, ”I am having a hard time resisting the urge to lick and nibble on this book.” What could we possibly add to that? We’ll just tell you this lovely volume full of Reed’s writing and photographer Paul Costello’s images belongs on every coffee table. Pick up a few copies, so you’re not at a loss for hostess gifts this summer.

Everybody’s Fool

Imagine Me Gone

Richard Russo

Adam Haslett

Remember Nobody’s Fool? If you loved Richard Russo’s bestselling novel about Sully, the hapless hero of a deadbeat town in upstate New York, you’ll adore this follow-up that comes along two decades later. As we catch up with Sully, he’s processing some tough news from his cardiologist and trying to keep the information from everyone in his life, including his lady friend, his son, his grandson, and a whole cast of kooky neighbors. We could not be more delighted that Russo will be visiting Nashville on his tour for the book. Hear him read from Everybody’s Fool at the Salon@615 event on May 31 at the downtown Nashville Public Library.

For readers who treasure impeccable writing, this new novel is a must-read.

On one level, it’s simply the story of a family; on another, it’s a study in how to describe the indescribable.

Margaret and John, who meet in 1960s London, marry despite John’s struggles with depression and have three children, Michael, Celia, and Alec. The characters take turns telling the events of the next few decades, revealing their dreams, demons, and great love for one another as they do. A past finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Haslett has a gift for the language of emotion, which shows in his remarkably astute depictions of what it feels like to fight for a hold on happiness.

Witness Walls Commemorates the Collective Experience

Artist’s model showing the abstract artistic (stencil) compositions to the far left and the shadow graphic (photo) images on the right. Between them is a fountain (not to scale), one of two fountains within the artwork. All images shown are from the Nashville Banner Archives, Special Collections Division, Nashville Public Library.

Fabrication has begun on the much-anticipated and long-awaited Witness Walls. In 2013, Metro Arts commissioned public artist and landscape architect Walter Hood to create a public artwork inspired by the extraordinary events of the Civil Rights movement that occurred in Nashville in the 1950s and 1960s. The artwork serves to both honor the many participants and engage all Nashvillians in conversations about race, equality, and justice in our city.

Witness Walls will be installed on the northwest corner of Public Square Park, steps away from the site of the historic April 19, 1960, student-led protest that led then-mayor Ben West to disavow segregation of Nashville’s lunch counters. From his initial design concept, the artist has intended to place the viewer among the heroic people who took part in this march and in the events that preceded and followed it. The design, as the artist states, “will allow the viewer to engage with them in the mundane actions of sitting and standing, rendered so extraordinary by their intent: desegregation.”

Through its materials, techniques, and composition, Witness Walls commemorates Nashville’s collective experience. As the artist explains, “The selection of images for the artwork does not seek to highlight key individuals or singular events in a chronological or hierarchical order. Rather, through two resolutions of images accompanied by music of the period, it strives to embed the visitor in a movement in which the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.” The artist’s abstract [stencil] compositions in “exposed aggregate depict scenes of motion: marching, protesting, and walking to school. Meanwhile, the shadow graphic [photo] images allow [viewers] to experience the expressions and emotions of these individuals. Most of these images depict people sitting, all of them focus on people’s hands and facial expressions … Both resolutions fade in and out of focus as you move through the sculpture—the former based on proximity and the latter based on angle—so that new relationships emerge with every step.”

Witness Walls is anticipated to be installed later this year. For more information about this and other public art projects, please visit www.publicart.nashville.gov or www.ExploreNashvilleArt.com.

PUBLICART

BY ANNE-LESLIE OWENS PUBLIC ART PROJECT COORDINATOR

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.

Socially Engaged Art Girls, Granny Panties, and the Politics of Representation

Toshima the Public Relations Consultant, 2015, Oil on board, 10” x 8” Shawntae the Corporate Attorney, 2015, Oil on board, 10” x 8”

Conisha the Civil Engineer, 2015, Oil on board, 10” x 8”

Every woman needs a girlfriend group. They start early in playpens, age in slumber parties, and move through dorm rooms and happy hours. Ask any woman about her best girlfriends. She’ll have plenty to say.

I asked Donna Woodley this after I saw her current series of portraits, Black Women Rock: Painting Black Female Experience. These are oil paintings of Woodley’s girlfriend group, a long-standing group of friends who get together on Friday nights. At first glance, her subjects are playful: they make fish lips and stick out their tongues; one sucks on her forefinger; another fixes her mouth in a pout. Each wears a white undershirt and dons a pair of white granny-panty underwear on her head, concealing her eyes.

Woodley began asking her friends to pose for portraits during her low-residency MFA program at Lesley University.

“I started thinking about hip-hop culture, Black culture, and American culture and specifically the demographic of Black women and our role in those cultures and the issues we face,” Woodley says. “Issues like feeling invisible in American culture, objectification of women in hip-hop, and body image.”

Woodley uses the underwear as the hook to engage viewers and put them at ease. “It disarms the viewer so they can say, OK, what does this mean? Then the serious conversation can happen without anyone being defensive.” This effective device makes us push back on our viewing practice to think about the assumptions we bring to the paintings, including biases about race and gender.

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Historically, women haven’t had the best of luck in portraiture for the last several centuries, nor have people of color. This landscape is changing as artists deal with the politics of representation. Kehinde Wiley famously replaces European aristocrats with Black people dressed to the nines in stylish hip-hop-inspired clothing, calling into question the relationship of portraiture with social status and challenging the sanctity of the “Old Masters” while paying homage to them. Atlanta artist Fahamu Pecou interrogates masculinity and the commodification of Black culture in self-portraits that can barely contain his explosive intellectual rigor.

Woodley is working in the same tradition. The portraits have titles like Wanisha the Neurologist, Shamika LaTray the Doctor, and Conisha the Civil Engineer. These aren’t the names of her friends; Woodley paired “Black-sounding” names with prestigious job titles to subvert expectations and draw attention to biases, including those held by companies reading job applications.

The most powerful aspect of Woodley’s many-layered cultural interrogation is when all of these questions about portraiture and viewing convene with body image. Black Women Rock reflects the split self: the idea that a woman is always accompanied by an image of herself. The portraits summon insistent questions like, How do I look to the world as a woman?

How do I look to the world as a woman of color? This by no means distracts us from the confidence and power of Woodley’s girl group. In fact, it’s these qualities that ask us to look closer, and the rest follows. na

Modern Meditation:

by Elaine Slayton Akin

Lisa Weiss and the Elusive Now Julia Martin Gallery

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May 6–31

X & O, 2015, Mixed media, acrylic, paper on panel, 20” x 22”

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Every waking moment we talk to ourselves about the things we experience. Our self-talk, the thoughts we communicate to ourselves, in turn control the way we feel and act.

—John Lembo in The Little Red Book of Yoga Wisdom by Kelsie Besaw 68 nashvillearts.com

P

ainter Lisa Weiss appreciates a simple lifestyle in rural Murray, Kentucky. The slow pace, she says, lends itself to her creative process, which is largely contemplative, devotional, and in pursuit of the universal experience.

A two-hour’s drive from hustly-bustly Nashville, Weiss is pleasantly on the periphery of the, as she describes, “thriving cultural mecca”—a subtle reference to the ethereal nature of her work she’ll later discuss. While the buzz boasting about our “It City” is exciting, it also encourages a bandwagon mentality, and Weiss’s welcomed distance is refreshing.

Rice & Water, 2015, Mixed media, acrylic, paper on panel, 20” x 12”

Weiss is evidence that remoteness can allow for more intense creativity. It’s not for everyone all the time, Weiss included, but balanced with a healthy connectedness to people and ideas gained through time not spent in traffic, it works. In fact, I immediately noticed an atypical inquisitiveness of others in Weiss when we first communicated about this story. She quickly established common ground between us in our first exchange by asking if I was from Nashville and how long I had been a writer. When I approach an artist for an interview, I don’t usually receive questions in return. They were thoughtful and completely natural. The country looks good on Weiss: her interpersonal instincts are as refined as her painting skills.

Even in quiet Murray, however, art is not created nor are thoughts expressed in a vacuum. Context matters.

Weiss’s monographic exhibit Maps at Julia Martin Gallery this month follows a series of recent articles regarding the international resurgence of works by women artists in galleries, such as Vogue’s review of the controversial Champagne Life, an all-women exhibit at London’s Saatchi Gallery back in January.1 According to artist Barbara Kruger, these exhibits are “playing catch-up after centuries of women’s marginality and invisibility.”2 Locally, the representation of women artists in galleries moves in a positive direction. For example, works by Jane Braddock at Tinney Contemporary earlier this year, which I specifically mention because of their thematic similarity to Weiss’s in spirituality (Braddock was heavily influenced

by Hinduism) and femininity, constitute one of many gallery shows featuring women artists in Nashville.

Neutral Loop, 2015, Mixed media, acrylic, paper on panel, 21” x 18”

While Weiss’s work is not overtly informed by a gendered perspective, she “always [looks] for a subtle meaning or message along the way, and many works are about . . . revering the feminine,” in addition to water, land, and boundaries, according to the artist.

“

While Weiss’s work is not overtly informed by a gendered perspective, she “always [looks] for a subtle meaning or message along the way, and many works are about . . . revering the feminine.

The real heart of Weiss’s recent works stems from her renewed and fervent practice of yoga, or asana, which has “sparked a joy” in the artist and inspired an appearance of color not formerly predominant in her oeuvre. Weiss has identified a “real sustaining liberation in the stable and sober . . . in the structure, discipline, and vibrancy of asana.” Painting with a combination of calligraphic marks, stains, scribbles, organic forms, and repetitious patterns, Weiss describes her process as down-to-basics, primitive, and free, moving slowly to rapidly and back at times, and is not intimidated by repeated gestures, pointless meanderings, imperfections, accidents, or surprises. Weiss chose painting as a career medium because she is drawn to its malleable, abstract, and otherworldly qualities and, while not religious per se, is interested in a mysterious, unexplained realm. The bodily movements that accompany the act of painting can mirror that of asana for an immersive experience of sacred oneness, mentally and physically. “You become centered, focused on the here and now, and detached from past worries and future plans,” Weiss explains.

Weiss has found painting, the process of which is arguably as impactful as the end product itself, to be the best possible outlet to satisfy her need to remain in the moment. Weiss’s focus on the fleeting now is balanced by the stable, architectural features of the compositions and materials in many of her paintings. In Rice and Water, prints of architectural forms, maps, diagrams, and labyrinths appear as pathways to understanding. Separately, her Tablets series includes loose shapes that allude to walls, structures, and frameworks, yet imply a “wabi-sabi” impermanence through a remnant-like and weathered style. Perhaps the two concepts are reconciled through the universal experience—the coming together of seeming opposites by some unexplored common ground. If you think about it, are we not all “in the moment” all the time and, thus, permanently?

Acrobat, 2015, Mixed media, acrylic, paper on panel, 30” x 20”

Lisa Weiss in her studio

Photograph by Daryl Phillipy

The now is somewhat elusive. Even our deepest meditations can be few and far between. It is delightful to see Weiss harness her meditative energy and create beautiful works, yes, but more important, engaging surfaces that demand consideration of more.

Weiss is consistent in her simplicity of life and thoughtfulness of others: “Painting and drawing are my best skills and my best talents I have to offer this world. Everyone is given skills in this life. Hopefully, we each find our best skill and bring it to its fullest potential.” na Lisa Weiss’s exhibition Maps opens with a reception from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on May 6 at Julia Martin Gallery, and remains on view through May 31. For more, visit www.lisaweiss.net and www.juliamartingallery.com.

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http://www.vogue.com/13386878/champagne-life-saatchi-gallery-art-world-sexism/ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/arts/design/the-resurgence-of-women-only-art-shows.html?_r=1

Traditional Favorites

by Margaret F. M. Walker

Haynes Galleries through May 28

Andrew Wyeth, Young America, Limited edition color collotype, 18� x 25�

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Anthony Thieme, Punto Barrios, Guatemala, Watercolor on paper, 16” x 22”

G

ary Haynes has a passion for realism, a passion which shines through in Haynes Galleries’ current exhibition Traditional Favorites, featuring nineteenth- and twentieth-century masters in this artistic style. Visitors will see works by Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, N.C. and Andrew Wyeth, and a number of other artists who were their inspiration and contemporaries.

Tucked back in an intimate room of the gallery, one thinks of the artwork inside as the jewels of the collection or as a cluster of seeds serving to inspire the many living artists whose work is exhibited on the nearby walls.

Walking through this show, the ties of these artists in their places of study, their stylistic preferences, and the geographies of where they lived and worked all weave together. There is a particularly fine watercolor by George H. Hallowell who, like most American artists of the early twentieth century, studied in Europe after his formal artistic training. Dutch genre painters like Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Jan Steen clearly had an impression on the young Hallowell in this layered tavern scene—at once one of rest, work, and merriment. Most appropriately, a charcoal portrait by John Singer Sargent faces and looks upon this genre scene, just as Sargent looked to Hallowell professionally. A portrait of a British baronet, it is classically Sargent’s work, with a touch that creates a feeling of sincerity and intimacy.

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George H. Hallowell, The Woods Supper, Watercolor on board, 19” x 26”

Andrew Wyeth, The Finn, Edition 104/300, 34” x 24”

At the far end of the gallery hangs my favorite work in the room, Eight Bells, an etching by Winslow Homer of two men at sea taking measurements on their octants to navigate a storm. The sailors occupy a majority of the foreground, pushed back towards the viewer closer still by the side of the boat and hanging ropes. Homer juxtaposes this with a view to the atmospheric sea in the other half of the scene. His technique in etching the sea and sky is textured, evocative, enthralling, and well worth a close study.

Andrew Wyeth, Olson’s, Offset lithograph, 25” x 38”

The heart of this exhibition, though, is the work by Andrew Wyeth, whom Haynes knew. Hailing from a tight-knit family of prestigious artists, Andrew Wyeth is best known for his painting Christina’s World. Christina’s house is a frequent subject in Wyeth’s body of work, and a fine print of the Olson House is featured in Traditional Favorites. Nearby, there is a collotype of a boy on a bicycle. In my conversation with Haynes, I learned that it depicts a real person in the Wyeths’ small hometown of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania—a boy by the name of Oodie, who was apparently quite a character. The many other works are similarly rich in color and emotion, and a window into the world of Andrew Wyeth, his father, N.C. Wyeth, their family, and their community.

With a wide range of media exhibited, from etchings to oils, to watercolors, to drawings, as well as a breadth of subjects, this exhibit is well worth a visit. At just around fifteen works, it is small, allowing one to truly soak in the art and internalize why the respective creators have come to be recognized as some of America’s premier artists. na

Winslow Homer, Eight Bells, Etching reproduction after the original engraving, 18” x 25”

Traditional Favorites at Haynes Galleries will run through May 28. For more information visit www.haynesgalleries.com.

SYMPHONYINDEPTH MAY 2016 Giancarlo Guerrero Talks Mahler’s Third

“A symphony must be like the world,” Mahler once famously said. “It must contain everything.” In this month’s Symphony In Depth column, Guerrero discusses this singular composer and his unique place in the world of classical music.

Photograph by Mark Mosrie/Nashville Symphony

Nashville Symphony Chorus

Maestro Giancarlo Guerrero

any of Mahler’s works to climbing Mt. Everest because they can be very challenging, so it’s a credit to the entire orchestra that we’ll be able to perform all of them. It’s also a treat for our audiences to be able to hear such grand and intricate works in our beautiful concert hall.

What’s special about the Third?

Where does Mahler rank among your favorite composers, and why?

Mahler is a composer with whom I really connect because he was first and foremost a conductor. He only composed parttime as a hobby in his spare time. And yet all of his music is a standard part of the classical repertoire, which really speaks to his talents. I’ve always found Mahler’s work to be very relatable. It touches on many natural and earthy themes, and there’s so much of Mahler in his music too—wishes, dreams, and even frustrations from his own life are all weaved into his work in a special way.

What prompted you to undertake performing all of Mahler’s symphonies?

We never had an official plan to do all nine, but they’ve all proven to be very popular. Personally, I compare performing

At 90-plus minutes, the Third is the longest work in the entire symphonic repertoire. And when Mahler began working on it in 1895, it was the first time he was able to write in his villa, away from the bustle of his daily life. Being surrounded by family, nature, and the things that he loved was a productive environment for him, and the result is vintage Mahler—a work full of philosophical elements touching on his ideas about love and man’s place in the universe. Having two choruses and a mezzo-soprano vocalist helping to tell the story in the fifth movement is also a great addition to the piece.

Why is the Third a fitting end to the Symphony’s 2015/16 season?

I think it encapsulates everything the Nashville Symphony is about. The Third is full of virtuosity, and it showcases our orchestra at its very best, with some incredible instrumentation that will give our musicians the chance to shine. Of all the Mahler symphonies, I believe that only the Eighth is more epic than this one, so it’s certainly a great way to end the season. na Learn more about the Nashville Symphony’s performances of Mahler’s Third Symphony and buy tickets at www.NashvilleSymphony.org/Mahler.

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Photograph courtesy of Nashville Symphony Orchestra

On May 26–28, the Nashville Symphony closes out its 2015/16 Aegis Sciences Classical Series with Gustav Mahler’s Third Symphony. This grand and awe-inspiring work will complete an eight-year cycle in which Nashville Symphony music director Giancarlo Guerrero and the orchestra will have performed all nine of the Austrian composer’s symphonies.

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SOUNDINGOFF

Jennifer Higdon

Photograph by J. Henry Fair

BY JOSEPH E. MORGAN

Higdon with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra Since coming to Nashville in 2009, Giancarlo Guerrero has championed contemporary North American composers and remade the Nashville Symphony into a world-class factory of Grammy Awards. The orchestra has garnered five of its eight awards during Guerrero’s tenure, and if their recorded performance of Jennifer Higdon’s Viola Concerto and orchestra work All Things Majestic from late March is any indicator, there will be more to come.

Higdon’s music carries the accessibility of Copland’s Americana except that his nostalgia is replaced with her restrained optimism.

This was particularly true of All Things Majestic, an orchestral illustration of Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park. In four movements whose depictions range from the “really big sounds” she associates with the “majestic quality of the landscape,” to an “exquisite mirror quality of reflection upon serene [lake] surfaces” or the natural setting as a “vast cathedral,” Higdon’s composition, as well as the NSO’s performance, was a revelation.

The Viola Concerto that followed was also quite magnificent, performed by Roberto Diaz, a colleague of Higdon’s at the Curtis Institute. Virtuoso Diaz’s musical personality is akin to his instrument—reserved but supportive of the ensemble with a tone quite rich in an understated way. Higdon, in composing this concerto for Diaz, recognized this and wrote a beautiful piece that emphasizes long lines against fresh rhythms.

The concert ended with excellent interpretations of Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante and Ravel’s La Valse, once again proving the NSO to be one of the country’s most versatile yet virtuosic orchestras. Like Mengelberg did a century ago, performing Mahler with the Dutch Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Maestro Guerrero is raising our orchestra to world-class status by giving consistently excellent performances of works by contemporary composers. Classical music history is being made here in “Music City,” and we have the privilege to witness it.

For more on the Nashville Symphony, visit www.nashvillesymphony.org

The Road to OZ

New Dialect at OZ

In my role as CEO of a contemporary arts center, I have been asked: What is contemporary art? Many people have not had the opportunity to experience it. They have not been part of Ann Hamilton’s installation, where attendees swing on 42 swings that are connected to a gigantic curtain that undulates like ocean waves. Nor had they witnessed Ernesto Neto’s anthropodino, which is like a giant indoor park with stalactitelike, spice-filled Lycra arms hanging from the ceiling, creating a cave-like labyrinth of bazaar smells. They haven’t taken in Art Basel Miami, a kaleidoscope of different types of visual arts from Picassos to strange French graffiti artists using stencils.

They have not yet enjoyed the spectacle of Miami’s Wynwood, a converted warehouse area with industrial buildings and walls adorned by different graffiti and murals.

I tell them that contemporary artists are living artists creating or adapting work that reflects their own creative voices or experiences.

Most nights, I watch a bit of CNN for political insights. The talking heads are entertaining, but never alter my outlook in a significant way. However, contemporary art has the ability to do that.

As a trained actor, I have done Shakespeare many times. When Tim Robbins brought The Actors' Gang to OZ Arts Nashville from L.A., a lot of people said, Oh my, there’s only so much I can take of Shakespeare. I was sympathetic. But when I went to see the show, it was vibrant, fresh, and outright hilarious. I could relate the interpretation to our culture now and its satire on love.

The importance of contemporary art is that it allows you to see things in a different way. It encourages empathy and tolerance.

It stimulates you to be enlightened in unpredictable ways. It can make you a better person.

Tim Ozgener President and Chief Executive Officer OZ Arts Nashville Tim Ozgener began his career in Nashville working with his family building CAO Cigars, one of the world’s foremost cigar companies founded by his father, Cano Ozgener. He served as President through the end of 2010, when he led the renovation of CAO’s former corporate headquarters into a contemporary performance and installation space and event center.

For more information, visit www.ozartsnashville.org.

ARTS&BUSINESSCOUNCIL

BY TIM OZGENER

THEATRE

Jim Reyland’s new book, Handmade: friendships famous, infamous, real and imagined, is available at Amazon.com in paperback and on Kindle. jreyland@audioproductions.com

BY JIM REYLAND

“What I like best about next season is its diversity—the mix of great classics and the best of the cutting-edge productions in New York from the past few years.”

—Kathleen O’Brien, TPAC President and Chief Executive Officer

2016-17 HCA/TriStar Health Broadway at TPAC

Kathleen O’Brien, TPAC President and Chief Executive Officer, is especially proud of the first show this new season. “After 34 years of presenting Broadway, we are doing something we’ve never done before in presenting a collaboration with a local theatre company on our season.”

EVITA with Studio Tenn September 9 to 18, 2016 Activist, suffragist, and venerated celebrity Eva Perón captivated a nation as Argentina’s First Lady. The international musical sensation EVITA chronicles her life and work, from her humble beginnings in the rural lowlands of South America through her ascent to fame, fortune, and untimely death.

Broadway powerhouse Eden Espinosa stars in Studio Tenn’s custom-designed presentation, a collaboration with the Tennessee Performing Arts Center built here in Music City, using the finest talents from Nashville and New York.

Desk, and Outer Critics Circle and received a 2015 Grammy Award nomination for Best Musical Show Album.

THE SOUND OF MUSIC February 14 to 19, 2017 The spirited, romantic, and beloved musical story of Maria and the von Trapp Family will once again thrill audiences with its Tony-, Grammy-, and Academy Award-winning Best Score, including “My Favorite Things,” “Do-Re-Mi,” “Climb Every Mountain,” “Edelweiss,” and the title song.

THE BODYGUARD March 21 to 26, 2017 A breathtakingly romantic thriller, The Bodyguard features a host of irresistible classics including “Queen of the Night,” “So Emotional,” “One Moment In Time,” “Saving All My Love,” “Run to You,” “I Have Nothing,” “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” and one of the biggest-selling songs of all time “I Will Always Love You.”

RENT—20th Anniversary Tour October 18 to 23, 2016 A reimagining of Puccini’s La Bohème, RENT follows an unforgettable year in the lives of seven artists struggling to follow their dreams without selling out. With its inspiring message of joy and hope in the face of fear, this timeless celebration of friendship and creativity reminds us to measure our lives with the only thing that truly matters—love.

The UK Tour Cast in a scene from THE BODYGUARD

A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME

January 24 to 29, 2017 The most celebrated musical of the 2013-14 Broadway season received ten 2014 Tony Award nominations, eventually winning four awards: Best Musical, Direction of a Musical, Book of a Musical, and Best Costume Design. In addition, it won the Best Musical prizes from the Drama League, Drama

April 25 to 30, 2017 The recipient of five Tony Awards including Best Play, six Drama Desk Awards including Outstanding Play, five Outer Critics Circle Awards including Outstanding New Broadway Play, and the Drama League Award for Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play.

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Photograph by Paul Coltas

We look forward to it like spring. It represents a rebirth of artistic beauty and grace with all the music and dance, the creativity for which our great city is so well known. It brings us together for a common purpose, the celebration of the best that theatre has to offer. Of course I’m talking about the 2016-17 HCA/TriStar Health Broadway at TPAC. And this year, it’s more local than ever with an unprecedented collaboration with Studio Tenn and Nashville songwriter Wayne Kirkpatrick, bringing his Broadway hit back home.

THE BOOK OF MORMON The New York Times calls it “the best musical of this century.” The Washington Post says, “It is the kind of evening that restores your faith in musicals.” And Entertainment Weekly says, “Grade A: the funniest musical of all time.”

Jimmy Fallon of The Tonight Show says, “It’s genius. It’s brilliant. It’s phenomenal.” It’s THE BOOK OF MORMON, the nine-time Tony Awardwinning Best Musical from the creators of South Park.

The Book of Mormon Company in a scene from THE BOOK OF MORMON

SOMETHING ROTTEN!

Photograph by Joan Marcus

November 15 to 20, 2016

Goffin/Carole King and Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil, including “I Feel The Earth Move,” “One Fine Day,” “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” “You’ve Got A Friend,” and the title song.

June 27 to July 2, 2017

Photograph by Joan Marcus

RIVERDANCE

Brian d’Arcy James and Brad Oscar with the cast of SOMETHING ROTTEN!

From the creative mind of Nashville songwriter Wayne Kirkpatrick, along with his brother, Karey, and John O’Farrell, this hilarious smash tells the story of Nick and Nigel Bottom, two brothers who are desperate to write a hit play. When a local soothsayer foretells that the future of theatre involves singing, dancing, and acting at the same time, Nick and Nigel set out to write the world’s very first MUSICAL! with its heart on its ruffled sleeve and sequins in its soul.

April 21 to 23, 2017 The 20th Anniversary World Tour. Drawing on Irish traditions, the combined talents of the performers propel Irish dancing and music into the present day, capturing the imagination of audiences across all ages and cultures in an innovative and exciting blend of dance, music, and song. Of all the performances to emerge from Ireland—in rock, music, theatre, and film—nothing has carried the energy, the sensuality, and the spectacle of RIVERDANCE. It promises to be a season of mayhem and hilarity, joy and enchantment upon the TPAC stage. For more information on the 2016-17 HCA/TriStar Health Broadway at TPAC series, visit www.tpac.org/broadway where season tickets may be purchased, or call TPAC Subscriber Services at 615-782-6560 or 800-410-4216. na

If all that music and dance aren’t enough, check out the 201617 Broadway Special Add-ons that will surely get you going downtown.

May 23 to 28, 2017 Long before she was Carole King, chart-topping music legend, she was Carol Klein, Brooklyn girl with passion and chutzpah. Along the way, she made more than beautiful music; she wrote the soundtrack to a generation. BEAUTIFUL features a stunning array of beloved songs written by Gerry

A scene from RIVERDANCE, American Wake

Photograph by Jack Hartin

BEAUTIFUL—The Carole King Musical

ARTSMART

A monthly guide to art education

Artists Who Teach What does it mean to be a teaching artist?

In Tennessee, we are very fortunate to have many practicing teaching artists. They are professional artists and have created relevant academic lessons to teach in schools. Students not only learn about the artist’s work, but also apply the art form to their current arts and non-arts curriculum.

Teaching artists are a wonderful asset in adding arts integration in schools across the state. Any school can invite a teaching artist in to enrich their curriculum through the arts. With the Student Ticket Subsidy Program offered by the Tennessee Arts Commission, schools can choose teaching artists who bring classroom experiences to students in a variety of subjects for different grade levels.

The Commission hosts a teaching artist roster on the arts education website www.tnartseducation.org that features artists who are experienced in providing these classroom experiences.

Each teaching artist on the roster has been vetted to teach their lessons to ensure that students will receive the instruction they require.

Courtesy of TN State Photography

Additionally, the Commission hosts a lesson plan database on the same website. Here, any teacher can search for lesson plans that complement the work they are doing in the classroom.

The lesson plans are ideal for presenting material in a new light

by Danielle N. Brown Arts Education Special Projects Coordinator

Roger Day performs original educational songs for school children

through the arts. Lesson plans are free to download and use within a teacher’s curriculum.

Teaching artists learn their craft through experience and study.

A resource which many teaching artists have found invaluable is the Teaching Artist Handbook, vol. 1: Tools, Techniques and Ideas to Help Any Artist Teach (University of Chicago Press).

Nick Jaffe and Becca Barniskis, co-authors of the book, will lead a day-long workshop for Tennessee teaching artists on Wednesday, June 8, from 8 to 4:30 p.m. in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, during the Tennessee Arts Commission statewide arts conference, Collective Impact.

This workshop is designed to provide new and veteran artists with strategies to improve their work as educators, but will do so in a way that recognizes the unique and valuable role professional artists play in arts education. Drawing on the expertise and experience of those in attendance, the workshop will explore such questions as: What will I teach? How will I teach? Is my teaching working?

The registration fee for the one-day teaching artist workshop is $50, which includes breakfast and lunch. Participants may choose to attend the entire Collective Impact Conference for a registration fee of $149, which also includes participation in the teaching artist workshop.

Visit www.tnartscommision.org/statewide-conference/ for more information and to register.

Photography by Mary Clair Crow

Teachers and artists collaborate to create an arts-integrated lesson

Photography by Mary Clair Crow

TENNESSEE ROUNDUP

ARTSMART Tennessee School for the Blind: Music You Can Touch We say it all the time: “Can you feel the music?” Now, the rhythm, tempo, and all of the dynamics and elements of music are reinforced for students at the Tennessee School for the Blind through the simple act of lying on the floor.

Photography by Tim Jack

Funded by the generous support of the Friends of TSB through grants and events such as the annual Brunch and Bid, and installed by Brantley Production Company, the music room floor wraps students in the beauty and power of a universal language and stimulates every facet of a child’s being.

The second and much improved such floor in school history adds a unique “third dimension”—the sensory input of touch—to the traditional sound and sight dimensions for music enjoyment, according to school music educator Georgette Seay. The first such flooring at TSB was created by Tom Fenner of Clark Synthesis, Inc., 22 years ago by installing transducers under the flooring. Over the years, that flooring as well as other equipment in the music room fell into disrepair until the recent renovations.

Seay marvels at the amazing power of tactile sound—music you can touch—as a unique language that goes deeper than physical deficiencies.

Suddenly, educational terms like behavior modification and stimulation take on different meanings when observing the effect of this technology on children.

“Hyperactive children, when initially encountering the floor, leave their chairs to lay peacefully on the surface. Non-verbal children who would not respond to verbal stimulation have been seen clapping, stamping, and jumping, and even attempting to verbalize in order to acquire access to the floor,” Seay says. “But the stimulation for the deaf/blind child proves vital to his/her development. For this person, sensory impairments are the most severe, for he or she lives in an isolated world. With the resonating floor, it is possible to communicate the concept of sound and rhythm in a tangible way through touch.”

Another exciting adaptation is the addition of a microphone, allowing the students to feel the vibration of their own voice as they speak or sing. “The whole room, recently named the Tactile Sound Music Room, resonates as they vocalize,” Seay explains. “I am blessed to be the inheritor of such a fabulous system for the kids.”

The combined forces of the TSB Friends, the constant loving and guiding hand of Pat Galvin in pursuing grants, and the commitment by all to these determined and resourceful students usher in years of joy as students “feel the music.”

Seay marvels at the amazing power of tactile sound—music you can touch— as a unique language that goes deeper than physical deficiencies.

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by DeeGee Lester Director of Education, The Parthenon

Photograph by Drew Cox

“

For more on Tennessee School for the Blind, visit www.tsbtigers.org.

ARTSMART Hey! Do you know Bob Ross?

On April Fool’s Eve, I shared with a third-grade class that they were in for a treat: a visit from a real live artist!

slowly and calmly, creating orderly paintings. I was so pleased with what Richard had instilled in them.

“Wait a minute,” one of them said, complete with hands on hips, tilted head, and tapping toe. “Is this some kind of early April Fool’s joke?”

Suddenly a hand shot up in the air. “May I please use a paint palette? I’m suddenly feeling very Bob Ross-y.”

Once they entered the art room and met abstract painter Richard Heinsohn, they soon found out I wasn’t pulling their legs. Richard introduced the children to several of his paintings, explaining both his thought and creative processes. The kids were in awe of what he shared as he spoke to them as young artists, not children.

However, like adults who are unfamiliar with the thought processes behind abstract paintings, some of my students asked similar couldn’t-anyone-do-that? questions. Take this exchange for example: “So, if I lay a piece of paper on the floor and drip paint on it, I’m an artist, right?”

“No,” said Richard. “There has to be thought behind it.” Richard then shared his painting titled Change Approaches the Blue Dot, a beautiful blue painting with a bold cobalt blue dot surrounded by swaths of white paint. He asked, “What do you think the blue dot is? How do your thoughts about this painting change when you hear the title?”

Artist Richard Heinsohn with third-grade art students at Johnson Elementary

The students began to see that painting abstractly is more than just lines, shapes, and color, which is how I have always introduced abstract art. I, too, learned there is so much more.

Still, these are third-grade kids. While they did love Richard’s work, there are always the holdouts. And that’s when Bob Ross entered the room.

“I have a question! Do you know Bob Ross? I mean, like, know him know him? Because he is my favorite artist. You should watch his show sometime!” one of the students shouted out.

Photograph by Juan Pont Lezica

Once the kids strapped on their aprons and went to their seats, I noticed that the entire room simply froze. Any other time, the kids dive right into their work, but not this time. I couldn’t figure out what the difference was until it hit me: they are thinking.

They now know that abstract painting isn’t just pounding away on their paper. As I watched, each one seemed to develop a mental plan and set about creating it. Some painted quickly, with broad and energetic brushstrokes, while others moved very

by Cassie Stephens Art Teacher, Johnson Elementary

Change Approaches The Blue Dot, 2010, Archival polymer and various objects on wood panel, 72” x 80”

Photograph by Caitrin Williams

Brooke Griffith Manager of School and Outreach Programs, Cheekwood

ARTSMART

Workshops with Cheekwood’s 2016 Artist-in-Residence Kensuke Yamada Kensuke Yamada is equal parts imaginative expressionist and enchanting communicator.

With clay as his dialect and imagination as his tools, Yamada’s work manifests into figurative extensions of shared human experiences. Pops of color and pattern add character to the simple expressions of his ceramic figures, creating a unique rhythm that brings them to life. And with bright color palettes and the youthful energy of summer upon us, Yamada’s playful sculpture easily becomes the perfect fit for Cheekwood’s 2016 Artist-inResidence this May. The Martin Shallenberger Artist-in-Residence program has brought national and international artists to Cheekwood’s grounds since 2012. This intimate residency allows the artist to interact with the staff and visitors and opens a window for the community to witness different creative processes, works, and talent from around the world. As the first ceramic artist-in-residence, Kensuke Yamada will bring his talent and whimsical work to Cheekwood’s Frist Learning Center ceramic studio.

After emigrating from Japan to attend college in America, Yamada began to utilize sculpture as an outlet to express himself and overcome his language barrier: “In my struggle to learn the language and communicate through speech I gained a strong empathy for the universal experiences that seem to provide the undercurrent to language. I gained an awareness for the complexities of our daily functions and the social infrastructures that subtly guide these interactions.”

This awareness, combined with his play of texture, pattern, color, and gestures, results in sculptural narratives that evoke the beauty, subtleties, and humor of everyday life. But it’s the youthful enchantment that embodies his work and begs the viewer to be in the moment—cutting past complexities and connecting stories between the artist and spectator.

x 38” are, new , Sto 2014 Swim,

During his time at Cheekwood, Yamada will create one-of-a-kind pieces while interacting and sharing his craft with the public, teachers, and the art community alike. On May 21, Cheekwood will host an intimate, interactive professional development workshop where he will teach, work, and create alongside participants. Afterwards, he will discuss his work and artistic journey in a lecture and open studio, both open to the public. There will even be a day of interactive and specialized activities centered on Yamada’s work, on May 24 during Cheekwood’s weekly drop-in art-making program for families, Tuesdays for Tots.

x 19”

13”

Yamada’s unique voice and undeniable whimsy will inspire people of all ages when his exhibition opens to the public in Cheekwood’s Frist Learning Center this June.

Visit Cheekwood May 21 at 12 p.m. for Kensuke Yamada’s artist lecture in Massy Auditorium, followed by an open studio from 1:30 to 3 p.m. Join Kensuke Yamada at Tuesdays for Tots on May 24 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. in the Frist Learning Center. Both events are free with admission to Cheekwood.

To register for Kensuke Yamada’s professional development workshop or to learn more about his residency at Cheekwood, visit www.cheekwood.org/art and click on the Martin Shallenberger Artist-in-Residence tab.

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You might still have a few tunes in your head from seeing A Night with Janis Joplin at TPAC last month. Get ready for more.

Janis Joplin: Little Girl Blue premieres Tuesday, May 3, at 7 p.m. on American Masters. Filmmaker Amy Berg’s powerful look at Joplin’s life and career opens with kaleidoscopic, psychedelic-looking credits and includes rare footage of Joplin as a child, in the studio and onstage, and back home in Port Arthur, Texas. There are interviews with her brother and sister, schoolmates and lovers, as well as with her Big Brother and the Holding Company bandmates Dave Getz and Sam Andrews.

Kris Kristofferson, who wrote Joplin’s posthumous No. 1 hit “Me and Bobby McGee,” is also featured.

Though Joplin’s public persona was that of a strong-willed, independent woman who growled bluesy, heartfelt songs, she was also a vulnerable artist still harboring the insecurities of her childhood and adolescent years. Joplin died of a drug

Janis Joplin

FITTING TRIBUTE Kris Kristofferson and his singer-songwriter pals Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Waylon Jennings are the subject of another American Masters program, The Highwaymen: Friends Till the End. These legendary outlaws, already known for doing things their way, took a victory lap of recordings and tours from 1985 to 1995, thrilling fans and shaking up the music establishment along the way. Four-time Emmy winner Jim Brown’s documentary premieres Friday, May 27, at 8 p.m. and incorporates new interviews and vintage performances, including previously unreleased footage from a 1990 concert.

CULTURAL VISTAS We’re observing Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month by airing the current season of Pacific Heartbeat, Tuesdays at 11 p.m. beginning May 3.

The series of independent documentaries covers topics ranging from displaced residents in New Zealand to Papua New Guinea’s first national surfing competition.

Matt Yamashita’s Sons of Halawa, airing

A still from Dream Big: Nanakuli at the Fringe, airing on the Pacific Heartbeat series

May 10, profiles Pilipo Solatorio, who has spent most of his whole life learning and preserving the ancient traditions of one of Hawaii’s oldest inhabited places.

On May 24, Dream Big: Nanakuli at the Fringe, is also a Hawaiian story, about the 2011 performance of Nanakuli Performing Arts Center students and alumni at the renowned Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Roy Kimura’s documentary is an uplifting film about kids overcoming economic, financial, and social obstacles in order to travel to Scotland. “What it will mean to the kids is this: anything is possible,” an administrator says in the film.

Dance fans, be sure to watch Bare Feet with Mickela Mallozzi Sundays at 1:30 p.m. This month host Mallozzi learns about Highland dances (May 8), Viennese waltzes (May 22); and Chinese, Indian, and Malay dance influences in Malaysia (May 29) as she dances her way across the globe. na Make a donation to NPT and see what programs may develop with your support. Simply go to www.wnpt.org and click the donate button.

Don’t forget, encore presentations of many of our programs and other favorite shows air on NPT2, our secondary channel.

Travel host Mickela Mallozzi in Edinburgh, Scotland

Photograph by Juliana Broste

PIECE OF HER HEART

overdose in October 1970, just a few months before the release of her acclaimed album Pearl.

Photograph by Roy Kimura

We kick off this month with a look ahead to new dramas coming to NPT, including new seasons of Wallander (premiering May 8) and the two Morse spin-offs Inspector Lewis and Endeavor. Watch PBS Previews: The Best of Drama, Monday, May 2, at 11:30 p.m.

Courtesy of Jan Persson/Redferns

Arts Worth Watching

Beth Ducklo and Meryl Kraft at Art on the West Side Sam Jaco and Mike Maitland at Lipman Sotheby’s

ARTSEE

Teresa Oaxaca at Haynes Galleries

Bill Velez, Terry Occhiogrosso, and Jess Harrington at Lipman Sotheby’s

ARTSEE

Paul Polycarpou, Walt Schatz and Cassi Wright at Watkins College of Art, Design and Film

James Eric Richardson and Ron York at Art on the West Side

Alice Irizarry and Christian Shaw at Andy Anh Ha Gallery

ARTSEE Photograph by Garrett Mills

Brittany Cook and Malorie McBride at The Arts Company

Michael Shane Neal and Sir John Leighton

Chad Spann, Stephanie Rogue, Heather Dubreuil, and Shelby Waltz at Corvidae Collective

Marleen De Waele - De Bock, Alain and Caroline Mercier at BelArt Gallery

Charles and Tom Root at David Lusk Gallery

Jenni Dickens and Eva Ross at David Lusk Gallery

Corrina Joyner and Jessica Clay at WAG

Photograph by Garrett Mills

John Jackson at The Rymer Gallery

The crowd at Zeitgeist

Stephanie Kelley, Kara Elion, and Memorie White at Lipman Sotheby’s

PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY BY TIFFANI BING

ARTSEE

Rebecca Moore, Madelyn Moore, Alejandro Allison, Tristan Allison at The Rymer Gallery

Thomas Dodd, Lindsey Bouldin, Jayda Tiano, and Rylee Harris at The Rymer Gallery

ARTSEE

Executive Leadership Team Member Carol Bailey and guests at Go For Red Luncheon

Lauren Ruth at COOP Gallery

ARTSEE

Christine Hall and Aubrey Derryberry at COOP Gallery Callan Downing, Allison Collins, Paul Myers, Jessi Gamble, and Jenni Dolfie at Fort Houston

Music City Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

Jessica Goldstein and Lauren Mazlin at Tinney Contemporary

David Myka and Kevin Wood at Zeitgeist

Jayne Menkemeller, Beth Alexander, Tara Alford, Lisa Forberg at Go For Red Luncheon

David and Cassie Berman at Julia Martin Gallery

Crowd at the Packing Plant

Zach Duesley, Sasah and Jesse Hale at Fort Houston

Anderson Design Group Illustrates Macy’s Flower Show

by Jarred Johnson The Run for the Roses is this month, but in terms of flowers Nashville’s Anderson Design Group (ADG) has already won.

In February, ADG was commissioned to design the illustrations for Macy’s annual Flower Show. Designer Aaron Johnson created six striking posters typifying the landscapes of different regions of the United States. The scenes span the deserts of “The Vast Southwest” to the shores of the “The Shining Northeast.”

Just as the landscapes are diverse, so are the flowers. There are daisies, calla lilies, tulips, and cacti. Each flower represents its region, and together they celebrate the beauty of America.

Between March 20 and April 3, Macy’s held five flower shows from New York to San Francisco. ADG’s posters were featured at each location. Additionally, they were used on Macy’s website and in print materials.

ADG has developed quite a reputation for their retro-inspired travel posters.

Nashvillians might be familiar with their “Spirit of Nashville” collection. Macy’s found the company’s National Parks illustrations online and asked ADG to create something similar for them.

“Posters are iconic and simple,” Joel Anderson, the company’s founder, said.

“They communicate from a distance and draw you in.” This can certainly be said of the Flower Show illustrations. They lure viewers with their detail, depth, and brightness. There is something enchantingly historic yet uniquely modern in them.

The Macy’s Flower Show posters will be available for purchase without the Macy’s logo in June. Find out more at www.andersondesigngroupstore.com, or visit their beautiful studio store at 116 29th Avenue North.

Remembering Aunt Susan . . .

Everybody has a favorite aunt, right? Mine was Aunt Susan. My father had four younger brothers, and Aunt Susan married the next-to-youngest, whose name was Joe. Joe and Susan started dating when they were fourteen, and, as far as anyone knows, they never dated anyone else.

The first night I ever spent away from home was with Aunt Susan at her parents’ house on the outskirts of Spartanburg. I was five years old and had a stuffed animal named Beauregard, which was actually a stuffed calf—the offspring of Elsie, a cartoon cow who, back in the day, served as a mascot for the Borden Dairy Company. Anyway, Beauregard had a zipper that ran between his front and back hooves that opened into a little compartment where I packed my toothbrush and toothpaste. Most children cry when separated from their parents for their first overnight. But not me. I was happy as could be with Aunt Susan. The only time I cried was when it came time to leave.

Aunt Susan had a warm smile and eyes that lit up when she saw you. But the two most distinctive things about her were her voice and her laugh. Her voice was Southern, for sure. Smoky and singsongy. But her laugh . . . oh my God, I’m not sure the words exist to describe her laugh. It sounded like a car trying to start but can’t, because it has molasses in the gas tank. It was contagious, to say the least.

When Aunt Susan and Uncle Joe moved to Chester, South Carolina, I visited them every chance I got, usually in the summer. And since I loved to swim and was prone to getting earaches, Aunt Susan later joked that the medical file on me at their pediatrician’s office was thicker than the ones for her own children.

One of the last, best times I spent with Aunt Susan was on a lateAugust Sunday afternoon in Spartanburg. I was book touring and had a day off in my hometown. Aunt Susan lived alone, having been widowed a second time a few years earlier. So I took a chance and dropped by her house, unannounced.

“Hey, you wanna go swimming?” I said, after she answered the door. She was dressed in her church-going clothes.

“I don’t know if I still have a bathing suit,” she said, laughing.

“Let’s see, I might have an old one of Nannie’s.”

So off we went to her bedroom, where, after rummaging through a closet, she found an old navy-blue cotton one-piece that had once belonged to my grandmother (her mother-in-law). We were a sight getting her into that bathing suit. As I recall, it took a pair of pliers to zip it up. With Aunt Susan laughing that laugh of hers the entire time.

When I think back on that day, I can’t believe Aunt Susan took me up on my offer. Let’s face it. Most eighty-one-year-old women would’ve declined. Especially if they’d just had their hair done.

But Aunt Susan was never one to let hair or advanced age stop her from going swimming with a beloved niece. And on that one glorious, late-summer afternoon, in that cold, spring-fed water at the Dulkens’ pool, Aunt Susan took one for the team. na Note: This article was written on the first day of April after Marshall received word that her Aunt Susan had died in Spartanburg at age 86.

BEYONDWORDS

Photograph by Anthony Scarlati

BY MARSHALL CHAPMAN

MYFAVORITEPAINTING

BY SARA ESTES ART WRITER, GALLERY ASSISTANT - DAVID LUSK GALLERY

© Eggleston Artistic Trust. Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York.

ARTIST BIO: William Eggleston Born in 1939 in Memphis, Tennessee, photographer William Eggleston is known as a pioneer of color photography, and his work has been instrumental in legitimizing the medium as fine art. In 1976 with the support of John Szarkowski, the influential photography historian, critic, and curator, Eggleston mounted Color Photographs, a now famous exhibition of his work at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. His subjects are mundane, everyday, often trivial, so that the real subject is seen to be color itself. His widely collected, exhibited, and published images have inspired a new generation of photographers, as well as filmmakers. He continues to live and work in Memphis and travels considerably for photographic projects.

William Eggleston, Untitled (Baby Doll Cadillac, 1973) from the Los Alamos Portfolio, 1965–74

My favorite painting is not actually a painting, but a photograph by William

Eggleston. Like many of Eggleston’s photographs, Untitled (Baby Doll Cadillac, 1973) from the Los Alamos portfolio is a work of art I return to again and again.

Widely regarded as the father of color photography, Eggleston approaches his work much like a painter. His photographs rely less on their subject matter and more on the careful juxtaposition of color, light, texture, and form. I’ve always loved looking at his work through a lens of painting and color theory.

Seeing the photograph in person at his 2011 retrospective at the Frist Center, William Eggleston: Anointing the Overlooked, only made me love it more. Everything works: the deep, seductive blue of the sky; the repeated triangular composition; the implied lines of the dolls’ sight and arm gestures; the oceanic tone of the Cadillac, one of his most common subjects. I’m endlessly struck with how the dolls seem to gaze out at the viewer with an eerie air of mystery, mischief, and conspiracy. I feel this is one of those iconic images that will continue to intrigue and inspire us for centuries to come. na

Sara Estes

Photograph by Sheri Oneal

There’s a special place in my heart for this particular photograph. Not only is it so quintessentially Eggleston—punchy, cryptic, and perfectly balanced—but it’s also the image that initially turned me on to his work. It was on the cover of one of my favorite albums, Alex Chilton’s Like Flies on Sherbert (1979), which I discovered while living in Memphis in my early twenties. After coming across a few more photographs, I began to dig further into Eggleston’s oeuvre and fell in love with the singularly dreamy, wanton world his images construct.