Nashville Arts Magazine - May 2017

Adam WATOR Seth HAVERKAMP Christina VOGEL Lisa JENNINGS Dane CARDER Alan SHUPTRINE

IRVING

PENN

February 24–May 29, 2017 DOWNTOWN NASHVILLE 919 BROADWAY NASHVILLE, TN 37203 FRISTCENTER.ORG #IRVINGPENNFCVA

Irving Penn: Beyond Beauty is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum with generous support from ART MENTOR FOUNDATION LUCERNE, Sakurako and William Fisher, The William R. Kenan Jr. Endowment Fund, The Lauder Foundation—Leonard and Judy Lauder Fund, Edward Lenkin and Roselin Atzwanger, The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Margery and Edgar Masinter, The Margery and Edgar Masinter Exhibitions Fund, the James F. Petersen Charitable Fund in honor of Tania and Tom Evans, The Bernie Stadiem Endowment Fund, and the Trellis Fund. The C. F. Foundation in Atlanta supports the museum’s traveling exhibition program, Treasures to Go.

Irving Penn. Head in Ice, New York, 2002, printed 2003. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of The Irving Penn Foundation. © Condé Nast • Irving Penn. Issey Miyake Fashion: White and Black, New York, 1990, printed 1992. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of The Irving Penn Foundation. © The Irving Penn Foundation • Irving Penn. Bee, New York, 1995, printed 2001. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of The Irving Penn Foundation. © The Irving Penn Foundation • Irving Penn. Harlequin Dress (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn), New York, 1950, printed 1979. Platinum/palladium print.

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist. © Condé Nast • Irving Penn. Leontyne Price, New York, 1961. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of The Irving Penn Foundation. © Condé Nast • Irving Penn. Truman Capote, New York, 1979, printed 1983. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of The Irving Penn Foundation. © The Irving Penn Foundation

Supported in part by:

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Nashvillian of the Year Award Dr. Ming Wang, Harvard & MIT (MD, magna cum laude); PhD (laser physics) Presented by Kiwanis Club International, Nashville, TN The Kiwanis Club of Nashville is proud to announce Dr. Ming Wang, director of Wang Vision 3D Cataract and LASIK Center, world-renowned laser eye surgeon, author, and philanthropist as the 35th recipient of their coveted Nashvillian of the Year Award for 2015.

Dr. Wang receives the award by exemplifying the qualities of Outstanding Nashvillian of the Year and the Kiwanis International Vision. Dr. Wang worked diligently to make the world a better place, when he established the Wang Foundation, helping patients from over 40 states in the U.S. and 55 countries, with sight restoration surgeries performed free-of-charge.

“It is difficult to know anyone who works as hard giving back to the community and changing the lives of children as much as Dr. Ming Wang,” said Kenny Markanich, president, Kiwanis Club of Nashville. “He has helped countless children through the charitable outreach of his foundation, giving free surgeries to repair their vision.”

Dr. Wang actively contributes to the Nashville community as the founding president of the Tennessee Chinese Chamber of Commerce and as an honorary president of the Tennessee American-Chinese Chamber of Commerce.

The mission of these two chambers is to help educate Tennessee businesses about China, helping Tennessee to increase its export to China. He is also a co-founder of Tennessee Immigrant and Minority Business Group, an organization that provides support to the diverse cultural and ethnic businesses in our community.

For the past 35 years, the 100-year-old civic club has bestowed the annual ac-

colade upon an individual who has gone beyond the expected scope of their abilities for the betterment and benefit of the Nashville community. The selection committee was spearheaded by George H. Armistead, III, one of the three original architects of the award (along with the late Gillespie Buchannan and the late Ralph Brunson).

Past winners of note include Martha Ingram, Roy Acuff, Jack Massey, Phil Bredesen, Vince Gill, Tim Corbin, Mike Curb, Frank Wycheck, Darrell Waltrip and Mayor Karl Dean.

A program saluting Dr. Wang was held at the Patron Club, Friday, July 29th at 11:30am. Dr. Wang was presented with

a commemorative plaque along a commissioned caricature.

About Kiwanis: Kiwanis Club of Nashville is a local chapter of Kiwanis International.

This global organization of more than 660,000 members is dedicated to serving the children of the world.

It annually raises more than US$100 million and dedicates more than 18.5 million volunteer hours to strengthen communities and serve children. Members of every age attend regular meetings, experience fellowship, raise funds for various causes and participate in service projects that help their communities.

Dr. Wang can be reached at: drwang@wangvisioninstitute.com Wang Vision Cataract & Lasik Center 1801 West End Ave, Ste 1150, Nashville, TN 37203 615-321-8881 www.WangCataractLASIK.com

ADVERTORIAL BY WANG VISION 3D CATARACT & LASIK CENTER

THE RYMER GALLERY The Order of Things

Paintings by Scott Eakin May 6–May 31, 2017 5 T H AV E N U E O F T H E A R T S

DOWNTOWN NASHVILLE The Rymer Gallery / 233 Fifth Avenue / Nashville 37219 / 615.752.6030 / www.therymergallery.com

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Columns HUNTER ARMISTEAD FYEye MARSHALL CHAPMAN Beyond Words ERICA CICCARONE Open Spaces LINDA DYER Appraise It RACHAEL MCCAMPBELL And So It Goes JOSEPH E. MORGAN Sounding Off ANNE POPE Tennessee Roundup JIM REYLAND Theatre Correspondent MARK W. SCALA As I See It

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 $6.65 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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TINNEY CONTEMPORARY

©Wesley Clark

THE PROPHET’S LIBRARY NEW WORK BY WESLEY CLARK May 13 - June 24, 2017

237 5th Ave N . Nashville 37219 . 615.255.7816 . tinneycontemporary.com

5 t h Av e n u e o f t h e A r t s Downtown nAshville

HISTORY EMBR ACING A RT

Spring Chicken, 30” x 32”

Serenity, 23” x 74”

The Hat Maker, 32” x 48”

Featured Artist

MIC H A E L

HOOPE R

Artist Reception • May 5, 6-9pm 202 2nd Ave. South, Franklin, TN 37064

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615-472-1134

CONTEMPORARY NARRATIVES DARYL THETFORD / MAY 6 - 26

©DARYL THETFORD ©ROGER HALLIGAN

©DARYL THETFORD

THE

arts

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COMPANY

FRESH. ORIGINAL. CONTEMPORARY.

215 5th Ave of the Arts N. Nashville, TN 37219 • 615.254.2040 • theartscompany.com

5TH AVENUE OF THE AR TS • DOWNTOWN NASHVILLE

On the Cover Adam Wator

May 2017

No (3) (from the No series) 2012, Acrylic on canvas, 36” x 36” See page 54.

Features

60 Parallel Tensions:

Dane Carder’s Better Angels Soars at

Red Arrow Gallery

18 Moments in Time Gone South

Jerry Atnip Photography Exhibit

66 Chattanooga

Artful Daytrip

20 National Endowment for the Arts:

What Is It? What Does It Do? Why Do

We Need It? 25 Alan Shuptrine

Appalachian Watercolors of the

Serpentine Chain 28 Q&A with Ashley Howell

Executive Director

Tennessee State Museum

70

Works on Paper from the Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art Customs House Museum

76 Contemporary Collective:

From the Heart and the Mind

30 Seth Haverkamp

The World in a Face

25

86 Kaleidoscopic Wildness:

Artifacts and Archaeology in Fred Grgich’s

Avian Canvases

Columns

30

16 Crawl Guide 42 The Bookmark

Hot Books and Cool Reads 79 Poet’s Corner 80 As I See It

by Mark W. Scala 82 Open Spaces

by Erica Ciccarone 84 Theatre

by Jim Reyland

43

89 And So It Goes

by Rachael McCampbell 38 Art Reaches New Heights at the

Nashville Airport

90 Art Smart

by Rebecca Pierce

43 Lisa Jennings

New Work from the Sculptor/Artist Reflects

Her World Travels

96 FYEye

by Hunter Armistead

48 The Perceptual Art of Christina

Renfer Vogel

100 NPT

54 Adam Wator

Across the Line

54

98 ArtSee 105 Beyond Words

by Marshall Chapman 106 My Favorite Painting

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Publisher’s Note

BLU E FIG G A L L E RY You are invited to an Art Party

A Great City Deserves Great Art I’ve only ever received one “hate mail” letter here at the magazine. It was in response to a story we ran on an art collector. Go figure! Well, last month that record was broken after the story we ran on Stacie Huckeba’s This Shoe Doesn’t Fit exhibit at Art & Invention Gallery. If you missed it you can read it online at Nashvillearts.com. The exhibit centers around a pair of Ivanka Trump shoes. Several people wrote to tell us that we had no business running articles that were political in nature and that we should stick to what we do best, writing about art, which is, of course, exactly what we were doing. Many of the articles and exhibits that we have featured over the years have had political messages. Nashville artists like Marlos E’van, doughjoe, and Mary Mooney all tackle big political issues in their work. Nothing new there.

Art has always reflected the political and social environment that we live in better than the politicians have. That’s a fact.

Grand Opening of Nashville’s Newest Gallery

Our job is to present what is happening in the art community here in Nashville. Stacie’s exhibit was a legitimate art statement made by a Nashville artist, and I was pleased to run the story. I thought her work was intelligent and well executed. Did it represent my political views?

Well, that’s my business, and I will keep it that way. But I will tell you this, had we been introduced to an exhibit that presented an opposing view to Stacie’s, we would have considered that as well, but to date no artist has presented us with work that expresses that opposing view.

Blue Fig Gallery

#56 Arcade • Nashville, TN

Mike Martino Artist/Owner

Opening Reception and Party Nashville Art Crawl Saturday, May 6 • 6:00-9:00pm

Art should stimulate conversation; it should evoke emotion, get us thinking, scratching our heads, whether we like it or not. Sometimes it gets the blood boiling, and that’s a good thing. Again, nothing new there.

Blue Fig Gallery • Nashville, TN www.bluefigeditions.com • mike@bluefigeditions.com • 615-942-9844

Paul Polycarpou | Publisher

Trunk Show Event • May 2

A L L

T H E

B E S T

I N

F I N E

J E W E L RY

5 1 0 1 H a r d i n g R o a d  N a s h v i l l e , Te n n e s s e e 3 7 2 0 5  6 1 5 . 3 5 3 . 1 8 2 3

BENNET T GALLERIES WENDY FRANKLIN Fiber Artist

Wander Through with Joy Hand-tied silk and wool, wet felted and mounted on canvas, 30” x 30”

2104 Crestmoor Road in Green Hills, Nashville, TN 37215 Hours: Mon-Fri 9:30 to 5:30 • Sat 9:30 to 5:00 Phone: 615-297-3201 • www.bennettgalleriesnashville.com

May Crawl Guide Franklin Art Scene

Friday, May 5, from 6 until 9 p.m.

Enjoy historic downtown Franklin and the nearby neighborhoods during the Franklin Art Scene. Gallery 202 is featuring self-taught artist Michael Hooper, known for his engaging folk-style paintings as well as impressionistic and surreal work. Bagbey House is showing paintings by Jennifer Wilson. At boutique MMM plein-air artist Jay Holobach is exhibiting originals painted on location.

Hope Church Franklin is presenting chalk, pencil, and pen-and-ink renderings by Tessa Walker. O’More College of Design LetterPress prints are on display at Williamson County Archives and Museum. Danita’s Children is hosting plein-air artist Jo Ellen Thatcher and painter Erika Kirpal. Enjoy detailed, realistic landscapes and still lifes by James Redding at Parks on Main. Finnleys is showcasing Michael Hooper, Gallery 202 Amaranthus Paper and Flora by mother-daughter team Cherie and Meredith Eastburn. At Historic Franklin Presbyterian Church students from Renaissance High School are sharing their artwork and performing live music from their CD of original songs. Proceeds benefit the Davis House: Child Advocacy Center. Imaginebox Emporium is featuring original illustrations created by Cory Basil for his young reader novel The Perils of Fishboy Ashlyn Joy Anderson, The Cellar on Main and a multitude of Basil’s paintings.

Savory Spice Shop is hosting painter Michael L. Boyle who will show mainly Williamson County landscapes. See work by 11th grader Ashlyn Joy “AJ” Anderson at The Cellar on Main.

The Registry is showcasing graphic illustrations from a book

by Carol Lea-Mord. The Williamson County Visitor Center is exhibiting abstract paintings by Pam Brown. Enjoy acrylic, oil, and watercolor paintings by Pam Tyson at Wellspring Financial. Jack Yacoubian Fine Jewelry and Art Gallery is presenting paintings by Abraham Hunter.

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

Enjoy a variety of artistic styles under the lights on 5th Avenue.

The Arts Company is unveiling Contemporary Narratives by Daryl Thetford. The Rymer Gallery is showing new paintings by Scott Eakin and glass work by Travis Adams.

May 6 is the final day to see Gold of Africa by Adam Shulman at Tinney Contemporary where on May 13 The

Scott Eakin, The Rymer Gallery

Prophet’s Library, new work by Wesley Clark, opens. The Browsing Room Gallery at the Downtown Presbyterian Church continues with HUM, new paintings by Nashville artist David Onri Anderson.

Arts in the Arcade Mike Martino, Blue Fig Gallery welcomes Blue Fig Gallery, which is celebrating its grand opening during the First Saturday Art Crawl Downtown. Join artist/ printmaker Mike Martino and his crew and enjoy new work by Martino. “O” Gallery is featuring photographer Angela Faye, known for her unique view of country scenes.

At Watkins Arcade Gallery, experience Patchbay, a Nashvillebased experimental art and new music program that commissions collaborations between visual artists and music composers. This installation is the collective effort of artists Chris Strachan, Kay Chris Strachan, Kay Kennedy Kennedy, and composer Matt Kinney. and Matt Kinney, WAG Hatch Show Print’s Haley Gallery is exhibiting historic block prints originally used to catch your eye with bold color and striking imagery in advertising and signage.

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

From Hagen to Houston to Chestnut and beyond, Arts & Music @ Wedgewood/ Houston offers a broad range of artistic experiences.

At David Lusk Gallery, see artist Brady Haston, Zeitgeist Emily Leonard’s show Unfold, consisting of medium to large oil paintings on either panel or paper. COOP Gallery is presenting Impact Silhouette, a solo exhibition by Barbara Weissberger, whose work resists clear definition, hovering between photography and collage, documentary and imaginary, fact and fiction. Zeitgeist is showing Fragmentary Survey, paintings by Brady Haston, and Split Ends by Douglas Degges. Julia Martin Gallery is hosting an opening reception for Christina Vogel’s exhibit To Go Unnoticed (see page 48). Channel to Channel is showcasing Joshua Shorey and Christopher Spurgin’s pop-up installation Halitide, a time-based multimedia installation including kinetic

Carina Pearson, Sauvage Galerie

sculpture, sound, and projection. On Friday, May 12, at 6 p.m., Channel to Channel is having an opening reception for Michael Giles’s show One Hundred. At SNAP, CONVERGE is unveiling LISTEN, a group show of text-based artwork curated

by Alysha Irisari Malo, which celebrates the expression of the written word in the visual arts. Carina Pearson is exhibiting at Sauvage Galerie.

East Side Art Stumble

Saturday, May 13, from 6 until 10 p.m.

Take a drive down Gallatin Pike for Red Arrow Gallery’s closing reception for Better Angels, the newest body of paintings by Dane Carder (see page 60). Stop in to Sami Wideberg’s mobile art gallery The Box just outside of Red Arrow Gallery. At Dadu, students from Explore! Community School are displaying the mosaics, quilting, environmental art, and murals created by students seeking to answer the question “What Is Beauty?” In the alley between Forrest Avenue and Gartland Street, the Art Club at Nashville Classical Charter School, Lockeland Springs neighbors, community members, and NYC designer Channing Bailey (TSU alum) are partnering to create a mural in the Forrest Alley Mural Corridor. Michael Weintrob Studio is hosting a celebration for Weintrob’s book launch with images from his large prints on display. Southern Grist Brewery is exhibiting acrylics by Marshall Hall.

Germantown Art Crawl

Saturday, May 20, from 6 until 9 p.m.

Tour the non-traditional art spaces of Germantown to see an array of artworks by a variety of artists. As you make your way through the neighborhood, stop at these key arts spots: 100 Taylor Arts Collective, Abednego, Wilder, Bits & Pieces, Bearded Iris Brewing, and Alexis & Bolt.

Jefferson Street Art Crawl

Saturday, May 27, from 6 until 9 p.m.

Add an artful experience to Memorial Day weekend with a visit to the Jefferson Street Art Crawl. Woodcuts Gallery and Framing is featuring artist Essence DeVonne, who creates two-dimensional wooden sculptures. One Drop Ink Tattoo Parlor and Gallery, Garden Brunch Café, and the Loft at Ella Jean’s Café are also participating. Check Facebook.com/ jsactn for updates.

WORDS Peter Chawaga

Moments in Time Gone South Photography Exhibition at the Parthenon

|

May 6 – August 27

No. 114, Tennessee

“

[The South is] a transitory area where the past and the present exist in a familiar tandem.

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1. No. 197, Texas 2. No. 196, Texas 3. No. 164, Georgia 4. No. 226, Tennessee 1

2

3

T

he introduction to Jerry Atnip’s book of photography Gone South: A Collection of Images from the American South is a message about use of the medium on his subject of choice. “[The South is] a transitory area where the past and the present exist in a familiar tandem,” Atnip’s introduction reads. “This selection of images is a collection of fleeting moments in this place. The moments between waking and sleep, moonlight and day, fogged and clear, where the exploration of transformations can reveal truth.”

It is in these moments that the artist, camera in hand, can make permanent those things that appear just for an exceptional moment. Things like the bursting of clouds and glistening of grass that cannot stand still but reveal the full scope of their beauty only while static.

The Gone South series lives in these transient moments.

Many of Atnip’s photos, rendered colorless, capture moments that could have lived for only a second: a horse staring into the lens, a wave caught just at the moment of crashing. Others depict rural monuments that may once

5. No. 215, Tennessee

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have stood tall in defiance of their natural surroundings but have since given way, like an overrun barn or billboard.

The style is an effort on Atnip’s part to present a version of the American South that cannot be achieved any other way.

“I want the viewer to have the privilege of seeing the South in a way that breaks through their preconceived notions, to travel with me through this richly diverse landscape and begin to experience a new perception,” he explained.

Adding to the balance of permanence and ephemerality, Atnip’s Gone South work will be exhibited in a show at Nashville’s Parthenon, an homage to a temple that has stood for thousands of years. “It’s a perfect venue for this collection of images illustrating this part of the country,” Atnip said. “The visitors, numbering 300,000 a year, will see the South from a new perspective.” Visiting the exhibition promises to be an experience that lasts. na Gone South will be featured at the Parthenon, 2500 West End Avenue, from May 6 to August 27, with an opening reception on May 12. An artist’s talk and reception, led by Nashville Arts’ Paul Polycarpou, will be held on June 1. For more information, please visit www.jerryatnip.com and www.nashville.gov/Parks-andRecreation/Parthenon.aspx.

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Photograph by Jerry Atnip

National Endowment for the Arts: What Is It? What Does It Do? Why Do We Need It? Photograph courtesy of MNAC

Photograph by Heather Thorne

WORDS Jennifer Cole, Executive Director, Metro Nashville Arts Commission

Sheri Warner Hunter’s The Gathering at Edmondson Park

W

hat do an after-school theatre program in Edgehill serving low-income African American students, an urban sculpture park in a public housing development, a new ballet based on the Persian story of Layla, and the Southern Festival of Books all have in common? They were all catalyzed in some way by an investment from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

Since its inception fifty years ago, the NEA has sought to strengthen the creative capacity of communities by providing all Americans with diverse opportunities for arts participation. Despite this unwavering cultural vision, it has faced numerous attempts to eliminate or weaken it over the years.

President Trump’s 2018 proposed federal budget seeks to eliminate all funds for the NEA, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute for Museum and Library Sciences, and all cultural projects at the Department of State, including most cultural exchanges and scholarship programs. No administration has ever proposed such sweeping cultural elimination. As I talk with citizens and lawmakers local and national about this proposed action, I continue to confront a series of assumptions about federal arts and humanities funding that I find are ubiquitous. As people who love and treasure the arts, we can re-post a

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Nashville Ballet’s Layla & The Majnun

million New York Times tweets and Los Angeles Times opeds, but the most important thing we can do collectively is to seek to understand these points of view and counter them with data and truth so we can make a thoughtful and effective defense of the arts in America.

The arts are only for “certain people” and others shouldn’t subsidize programs for the wealthy.

This is the chorus I hear constantly as I seek to defend our public investments at Metro Arts. It is perhaps the most frustrating argument, because daily I work to ensure that every resident in our city has access to the arts and so does the NEA. The National Endowment for the Arts supports programs in every Congressional District in the U.S. and its territories.

In 2016, more than 20 million Americans connected to over 33,000 exhibits, concerts, and events.

In Tennessee, the largest investment from the NEA goes to the Tennessee Arts Commission, which in turn re-grants those dollars in rural communities and to grassroots arts organizations who have less access to capital for cultural programs.

In Nashville, 100 percent of the grants issued by the

Simply, the elimination of federal investment would disproportionally affect rural, low income, and communities of color who do not have broad donor bases or support systems for cultural investment, and so the funding really is for all people, not “certain people.”

If artists can’t make it as a business, why should we support them?

First and foremost, outside of a very few literary fellowships, the NEA does not fund artists directly. Artists who receive money do so through proposals from organizations like the Nashville Children’s Theatre or the Oasis Center. In other words, a local glass blower or actor isn’t being funded by the NEA. What the NEA, NEH, and IMLS are funding are institutions who employ millions of our working artists. Those collective businesses and the production of arts and cultural goods have added more than $704 billion to the U.S. economy.

This amounts to 4.23 percent of GDP. The arts and cultural sector contributes more to the national economy than the construction, agriculture, mining, utilities, and travel and tourism industries. (Source: National Endowment for the Arts, U.S. Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account Issue Brief #1: Overview of Arts and Cultural Production, 2016.)

In Nashville, data emerging from our Arts and Prosperity V Study with Americans for the Arts (that will be final in June) suggests that every dollar spent at a local cultural institution nets more than $28 in ancillary money spent in our economy on food, parking, and other services. So investment in artists through cultural organizations actually delivers a double bottom line—cultural and economic vibrancy.

So arts and culture are “making it as a business” and contributing not only quality of life and joy to our lives, but significantly driving our national economy. So as we bemoan the issues in manufacturing or energy, it is important to remember that, regardless of geography, investments in arts have ripple effects beyond the stage and gallery and are central to any successful national strategy for growth and prosperity for all Americans.

Beyond those artists working for cultural organizations, millions of artists’ work never touches the NEA portfolio but is critical to local economies. This includes self-employed photographers, writers, and craft artisans working direct to consumer and within the local small-business marketplaces.

Photograph by Melody Barnes

NEA in the last year were for creation of new educational works for the public such as operas, ballets, Shakespeare performances, or local artist development programs with required outcomes for broad and diverse citizen participation.

Southern Festival of Books

Outside of the proposed “culture cuts” the FY18 federal budget seeks to cut the Small Business Administration and eliminate the Legal Services Corporation, Community Development Financial Institutions, and Consumer Protection Bureau—all of which provide business assistance, financial empowerment programs, and lending capital to micro-businesses like artists.

It will continue to be hard to “make it as a business” if there are large disruptions to the small-business ecosystem in which self-employed artists make and create alongside other entrepreneurs like your local florist, plumber, or coffee shop.

The government has no role in the arts.

This is the one that makes me put my head down on the table and take a deep breath. Government exists to support the safety and quality of life for citizens. Our citizens have always created. First Nations have long traditions of dance, textiles, craft, and song. Enslaved Africans came to this country and brought with them traditions of story, song, dance, and craft. Legions of immigrants from Asia to Ukraine to Ireland brought with them design and cultural traditions that have shaped the America we are and the America we are becoming. These traditions and ideas of “Us” are central to our collective identity as Americans. Our diverse traditions, our deep belief in individualism, creativity, and the right to make a living are worth investing in and protecting.

Public investment in the arts indicates a value for this and signals that we as people respect and honor the role that artists play in our communities as culture bearers in the complicated, beautiful country that we all love.

These are the arguments I wake up with and go to bed with. It is my chorus. Because I believe if this cultural erasure comes to pass, we will feel it profoundly in our communities, our neighborhoods, and most distressingly, in our souls.

Next month, I will share more about how the proposed investment changes may affect the Nashville region.

For information on the Jobs, Economic and Other Benefits of the National Endowment, please visit the Americans for the Arts Mobilization Center. http://bit.ly/2lJROpY. For daily updates on the status of proposed arts changes in federal legislation, join (free) the Arts Action Fund www.artsactionfund.org.

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STILL HOUSE HOLLOW FARMS $17,900,000 550 acres / $9,900,000 130 acres stillhousehollowfarms.com Rick French 615.604.2323

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4400 FRANKLIN PIKE $3,950,000 4400franklinpike.com Tim King 615.482.5953 Co-listed with Laura P. Stroud 615.330.5811, Lisa F. Wilson 615.478.3632

1641 WHISPERING HILLS $3,490,000 1641whisperinghills.com Rick French 615.604.2323

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144 STEEPLECHASE LN $2,990,000 144steeplechase.com Rick French 615.604.2323, Tim King 615.482.5953

31 INVERARAY $2,950,000 31inveraray.com Rick French 615.604.2323

320 VAUGHN RD $2,850,000 320vaughn.com Rick French 615.604.2323 Co-Listed with Alison Douglas 615.305.6978

5539 BIG EAST FORK $2,250,000 5539bigeastfork.com Rick French 615.604.2323

110 LYNNWOOD BLVD $1,999,999 110lynnwood.com Rick French 615.604.2323

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2726 ACKLEN AVE $625,000 Rick French 615.604.2323

Inspiration. Creativity. Heritage.

Paducah inspires creativity as a UNESCO Creative City. Home of the National Quilt Museum, Paducah’s rich American heritage and engaging attractions create the foundation for authentic cultural experiences. Travel to Paducah and find your inspiration!

Plan your next getaway at Paducah.travel—and be creative!

1-800-PADUCAH

Alan Shuptrine Appalachian Watercolors of the Serpentine Chain Tennessee State Museum

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May 19 – October 1

Cadence, Watercolor, 20” x 24”

Cadence, Watercolor, 20” x 24”

WORDS Cat Acree

A

ppalachia is no mere mountain range. Beyond battlefields and farms, mines and hiking trails, the Appalachian region has a history as mysterious as it is unfathomably old. Nationally recognized watercolor painter Alan Shuptrine captures this region’s rich European heritage with Alan Shuptrine: Appalachian Watercolors of the Serpentine Chain, a traveling exhibition that debuts at the Tennessee State Museum in May. From Tennessee’s misty valleys to the forests of Maine, the history of the Appalachian Mountains is, in a word, ironic. As Shuptrine explains, when British, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh immigrants first began exploring the Appalachian region in the 18th century, it reminded them of home—and indeed they were home, as these mountains formed more than 250 million years ago by splitting from what is now the British Isles. On both shores, twin veins of the mineral serpentine run through the land.

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The sixty watercolor paintings included in this exhibition are often peaceful, calming landscapes and frozen moments of utmost serenity.

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Beloved, Watercolor, 44” x 60”

“They were coming back to the same mountains that they had left an ocean away,” says Shuptrine. “They were coming back to the same vein of serpentine. They were plowing the same rocky soil that they had left back in their homeland. People live in a certain place for a reason. A lot of it is what feels like home, what’s comforting to them.” (Shuptrine would know: He has always, except for a few homes, lived on top of a mountain, mostly in the South. He currently lives on Lookout Mountain with his wife, Bonny. He owns a fine arts gallery and specializes in restoring and crafting one-of-a-kind gold-leaf frames.)

Mist and Lace, Watercolor, 16” x 20”

The sixty watercolor paintings included in this exhibition are often peaceful, calming landscapes and frozen moments of utmost serenity. Along with the original paintings, the exhibition will include Shuptrine’s palette, brushes, and other supplies from his thirty-odd hikes from nearly four years. It will also feature loose watercolor studies done en plein air, offering a behind-the-scenes look that is especially fitting for a show about origins.

Celtic Mists, Watercolor, 19” x 37”

Citing realist painters Andrew Wyeth and his late father, Hubert Shuptrine, as his greatest influencers, Shuptrine imbues his work with a unique stillness, like each moment has held its breath. He explains that his father called his paintings “realizations,” and likewise, Shuptrine pursues emotional resonance over pure realism. His light often has a mythic quality, and shadows are subtle. But for all the beautiful

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Just Before Dawn, Watercolor, 21” x 26”

Shuptrine’s devotion to capturing this heritage doesn’t stop with the traveling exhibition. A coffee-table book is underway, and he has plans for a documentary film.

For the coffee-table book, Shuptrine was inspired by his father’s collaboration with writer James Dickey, Jericho: The South Beheld (1974), which captured in words and illustrations the spirit of the declining South. For his own book, Shuptrine reached out to best-selling writer Sharyn McCrumb, a native of the Blue Ridge Mountains. “I think one of the reasons why she is perfect for writing this book is because she’s lived and breathed and bled Appalachia all her life, from a little tiny town on the border of Virginia and West Virginia, right on the Appalachian Trail,” he says.

Someday, Shuptrine says, he hopes to do a sequel of the whole project from the British side. “[I hope] this can help serve as a monument to the Appalachian Mountains, people and the land, and shed light on the connection between Britain and America and strengthen that friendship.” na Alan Shuptrine: Appalachian Watercolors of the Serpentine Chain is on exhibit at the Tennessee State Museum May 19 through October 1. For more information, visit www.tnmuseum.org. See more of Shuptrine’s paintings at www.alanshuptrine.com.

Shuptrine’s exhibition is the final show at the Tennessee State Museum’s current location at the James K. Polk Center, as well as the final show for Executive Director Emeritus Lois Riggins-Ezzell. “This is a huge honor,” Shuptrine says, “for my show to be her last.”

Alan Shuptrine sketching from a vista along the Appalachian Trail

Photograph by Jake Shuptrine

scenery, at its core this exhibition is about heritage, with Appalachian ties to the old country that can be seen in folk tales, quilt patterns, and fiddle tunes.

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When I was a grade school student, I came to the Tennessee State Museum to see the permanent exhibits and the special exhibits of Red Grooms and Masterworks. That museum experience stayed with me, and now I want to inspire the next generation.

Ashley Howell

Executive Director Tennessee State Museum

The right time • The right place • The right person

WORDS Paul Polycarpou PHOTOGRAPHY Jerry Atnip What is your greatest extravagance?

Vintage clothes from the ‘50s and ‘60s. Vintage jewelry, purses, and coats, I love it all.

Which living person do you most admire?

There are so many, but really I’d have to say my parents. Both are very creative people. They have encouraged me to forge my own path.

Who would you most like to have a cup of coffee with?

I saw Hamilton recently, the musical, which was incredible, so I’d like to meet Lin-Manuel Miranda and talk to him about his creative process.

Auvers in Paris. It was one of the last paintings he did before he died. A very powerful, emotional experience for me.

If not Nashville, where?

There are two sides to me. I love Knoxville, East Tennessee, the Great Smoky Mountains, but I also love New York. I’d like to live in both those worlds. I’ve travelled to many countries around the world, and one of the pleasures of that is coming back home. Tennessee is very much a part of my history.

What other profession would you like to do?

I love antiques, so maybe an auction house or even an antique shop. I’d like that.

What are you really good at?

What is a most treasured possession?

I’m a very analytical person without being a very analytical person, and that’s an intersection where I like to be.

I have a few items from family members that have a lot of sentimental value to me. I’d grab those.

And what are you really bad at?

The biggest personal change you have made?

Definitely having a family and being able to balance career with family. That’s important to me; I make that a priority.

Time management. That’s why I am so deadline-driven.

What characteristic do you most like about yourself?

What’s the motto you live by?

I’m good at building relationships. I love talking to people and hearing their stories.

Be kind, be fair, be trustworthy, and do good work.

How do you feel about the way Nashville is growing?

As a kid, I did a report on Susan B. Anthony.

I am drawn to women in history: like the Tennessee suffragists who lobbied for the ratification of the 19th Amendment here in 1920. They were courageous and unstoppable.

Who were your heroes?

I would love to see more transportation options. I know that’s on everyone’s mind. But I also worry about the affordability of our city.

Settling into our growth is a big challenge.

What are you looking forward to?

Working with the great team here at the museum, working with the community, seeing the new Tennessee State Museum come to fruition. We’ve got a lot of work to do, but it will get done. I’m looking forward

What would surprise people to know about you?

I’ve been cage-diving with great white sharks in South Africa. Very scary but thrilling, a total adrenaline rush.

What was the last good book you read?

I just read A Square Meal by Andrew Coe and Jane Ziegelman about the food crisis during the Great Depression and how it shaped the way we eat today. A fascinating read. I also recently read Edmund de Waal’s The Hare with Amber Eyes. I could not put that book down.

So what do you sing in the shower?

I don’t. I make lists of what I need to accomplish that day.

Are you a night or morning person?

I’m a night person. I stay up late, read or talk with my husband, and then in the morning I regret that I stayed up late.

When and where are you happiest?

Being with my family and friends. It’s that simple really.

What artist makes you weak in the knees?

I broke down in tears when I saw Van Gogh’s The Church at

to that.

What is the one thing that you would like to change about yourself?

Sometimes I can be a little too serious.

Are you happy with where you are heading?

Absolutely; I love what I do. I love what museums do. It’s a career that found me 20 years ago, and I’m glad it did.

Are the arts in Nashville at a comparable level to other major cities?

I think what Nashville has is world class. We do excellent work here. There may be more of it in larger cities, but we have many wonderful offerings here, which is why everyone wants to live here.

Will there be big changes at the new Tennessee State Museum?

We’re going to be in a new building in the fall of 2018. It is my goal to honor the museum, engage with our community and work with a great team.

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WORDS Margaret F. M. Walker

Seth Haverkamp The World in a Face Haynes Galleries through May 27

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here is deep curiosity at work in Seth Haverkamp. In speaking with him, it is clear that the need for a challenge is the primary driver of his creativity, and always at the pinpoint of his focus is the human face. In his own words, “There is nothing more captivating than a face. Faces are everything; they are the world encapsulated in eight square inches. I don’t ever get bored painting a face.” Haverkamp does paint portraits on commission, such as The Twins, a highly interesting and conceptually developed work that explores the similarities and differences of twins in numerous symbolic ways. However, the artist’s go-to subjects are the four children of him and his wife Catherine, also a painter. Their children, always playing dress-up and make-believe, appear to be as creative as their parents and a constant source of inspiration. While Haverkamp does not ever paint them “at play,” he does something far more difficult and eternal by capturing the environment of play—the impishness, whimsy, and childlike enthusiasm for discovery. In Essie’s Unicorn, his daughter’s face is ever so slightly off center. In the negative space between her and the unicorn’s heads, we are invited to ponder the subject of her intense gaze and the animal’s charge.

This is a fantastically balanced and compositionally interesting piece: Essie’s feather and the unicorn’s horn strike off at different angles, while the two are unified by the color pink and the thin

Penelope’s Lights, Oil, 36” x 24”

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Secret Keeper, Oil, 48” x 36”

The Twins, Oil, 24” x 36” 32

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Essie’s Headdress, Oil, 48” x 36”

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Haverkamp’s distinctively patterned backgrounds make his paintings easy to recognize.

These timeless settings are a signature of sorts, playing a subsidiary role to focus our attention back onto the face of the subject.

Her Giraffe, Oil, 36” x 24”

lines of harness and headband. Similarly, Her Giraffe captures the juxtaposition of a quirky, improvised headband and the earnestness with which children will relate their make-believe worlds.

Headdresses are a recurring theme in Haverkamp’s work for several reasons. First, they present an opportunity for him to incorporate nature into portraiture. The artist loves landscape paintings but never creates them himself. Second, he feels that they help capture the psyche of play, providing a visual cue in addition to just the glint of an eye or twist of the mouth.

I think that he is drawn to these accessories, too, because of the way they make a portrait more interesting and less straightforward, all the while framing a face to emphasize its uniqueness and the delicate nuances of human expressions.

That is certainly the case with the intricate Essie’s Headdress, which won the People’s Choice Award in the 2013 Portrait

Precious, Oil, 48” x 36”

Society of America’s International Portrait Competition. In it, his daughter sits upon a simple chair, her legs intertwined with its wooden ones in a way that points to the twisting of long branches into an elaborate crown. Her face and affect are engaging, and this headdress adds another layer of personality. The bright buds on the twigs serve to unify the foreground with the splotched background, just as the materiality of the chair is echoed in both the crown and the hardwood floor.

Haverkamp’s distinctively patterned backgrounds make his paintings easy to recognize. These timeless settings are a signature of sorts, playing a subsidiary role to focus our attention back onto the face of the subject. For a long time, the artist found faces so captivating and backgrounds so uninteresting that he had a pile of unfinished paintings. As is often the case with discoveries, he landed upon the idea for

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this technique by accident. While at first this splattered sort of look was a way to finish paintings, he has found the pursuit of this technique and the transformation of pattern into a three-dimensional element to hold his interest. I would argue, too, that it heightens the mystical feeling of his otherwise very realistic paintings, especially those capturing the imagination of children.

In paintings of recent years, one will notice this fully abstract pattern often taking three-dimensional form. Secret Keeper features a girl and her dog in front of a draped cloth.

By adding shadow to create the idea of folds in fabric, Haverkamp transforms the background of, say, Her Giraffe into a more recognizable setting. Precious takes this one step further, showing the top and sides of the drapes so that the exposed wall to the side acts as more of a nod to the grand drapery seen in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century portraiture. Most recently, he has experimented with taking the splattered background and incorporating it into the actual subject of the painting. Fireflies is a perfect example of this effort. The artist’s niece is illuminated by a cluster of

Essie’s Unicorn, Oil, 24” x 36”

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fireflies above her hands, giving the idea of a gentle and unconventional natural light. The lightning bugs themselves, though, are just a translation of this same background technique into the foreground, adding an element of abstraction into an otherwise precise rendering of reality.

Perched Nest is a rare still life in an oeuvre dominated by the human figure. The artist uses works such as this as an opportunity to sharpen his technical skills, be they the smooth facture, use of shadow, or working color palette (no small feat, as he is red/green colorblind). This work, as most of his still lifes, demonstrates an appreciation for the details of nature in its delicate balance of a single egg in a tangled nest precariously situated atop a variety of rocks. That pristine oval of white, while not a face, shares a consistency with his portraits in its emphasis on the absolute centrality of life. na Haverkamp is represented by Haynes Galleries. His work is part of their current exhibition The Real World: Real People & Real Stories, Real Places & Real Things on view through May 27, 2017.

For more information, visit www.haynesgalleries.com. See more of Haverkamp’s work at www.sethhaverkamp.com.

Barbara Coon, A Friendly Competition, 48” x 36”

Nina Kuzina Gallery

4231 Harding Pike • Nashville, TN 37205 Stanford Square, Across from St. Thomas Hospital 615-321-0500 • 615-483-5995 ninakuzina@comcast.net • www.ninakuzina.com Open Daily 10 am - 6 pm NASHVILLEARTS.COM

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Mother’s Day Event York & Friends Fine Art | Saturday, May 13 When Ron York’s mother, Joyce, passed away on Mother’s Day weekend in 1985, she did not know that her son would become a successful artist and gallery owner.

York chronicled their relationship and her passing in his recently released memoir, Kept in the Dark. With the 6th anniversary of his gallery approaching, York decided to mark it with a Mother’s Day event.

Ron York with his mother, Joyce

The daylong celebration is slated for Saturday, May 13, and includes new works from the gallery’s 40 artists and featured artist Ginger Oglesby. York has also partnered with Nancy ScofieldGermyn, who will offer a trunk show of her Bella Baroque Artisan Jewelry line.

This Mother’s Day celebration takes place on Saturday, May 13, from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. at York & Friends Fine Art. For more information, visit www.yorkandfriends.com.

Dragon Eggs Benefit Nashville Children’s Theatre Online Auction through May 12 Last month the Nashville Children’s Theatre (NCT) hosted the 18th edition of its annual fundraiser, Grand Day. Among the variety of familyfriendly events was the Dragon Egg display and auction opening.

This year’s porcelain Dragon Eggs were painted and decorated by artists JaBrion Graham, Randy Green, Denise Hawkins, Gary Hoff, Sarah Kaufman, Janet Lee, Carrie Mills, Jairo Prado, Rachael Silverman, Patricia Taber, Maribeth Wright, Bobby Wyckoff, and Ron York.

Dragon Egg by Carrie Mills

Proceeds from the Dragon Eggs auction fund NCT’s mission to provide theatrical experiences for all children by offering free or reduced tickets and scholarships to NCT performances, camps, and workshops. Each egg starts at $50 with $25 incremental increases until the auction ends on Friday, May 12, at 9 p.m.

To bid, go to www.nashvillect.org and select the Dragon Egg auction page.

BAND TOGETHER BECOME A MEMBER TODAY

Museum members enjoy unlimited access to the Museum’s rotating exhibitions, as well as exclusive performances and programs, discounted tours of Hatch Show Print and Historic RCA Studio B, shopping and dining deals, and more.

PRESS PLAY RECORD #PressPlayRecord • @CountryMusicHOF CountryMusicHallofFame.org/Membership • Downtown Nashville

www.OGalleryArt.com

Fine Art & Gifts

by Olga Alexeeva & Local Artists

Olga Alexeeva, artist and owner, is available for commissioned works for home and business.

Art classes by Olga are conducted weekly.

Olga Alexeeva, Wisdom, Acrylic, 30" x 40"

Open 7 Days a Week • Monday-Saturday 10-6 • Sunday 11-5 • 1305 Clinton St. Ste. 120 • Nashville, TN 37203 • 615-416-2537

Tennessee State Museum Alan Shuptrine: Appalachian Watercolors of the Serpentine Chain

On View May 19 through Oct. 1, 2017 505 Deaderick Street

Downtown Nashville

Free Admission

615.741.2692

tnmuseum.org

PHOTOGRAPHY Bruce Cain

WORDS Catherine Randall

Art Reaches New Heights at the Nashville Airport

Spectacle Butterfly, Hilary Zelson, Waltham, Mass.

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he Nashville International Airport (BNA) is certainly not the most traditional venue for a public art exhibit, but it does take the genre to new heights. The Fourth Annual Bonnaroo Exhibit is on display now through January 21, 2018, and consists of five suspended sculptures hanging in the skylights in the three concourses. These five installations were chosen from nearly thirty proposals.

The winning entries represent the spirit of the festival. “The proposals often tap into the unique sense of community that is the heartbeat of Bonnaroo,” director of the Bonnaroo Works Fund Nina Miller says.

For example, Miho Ogai’s glass installation called Collective Momentum is constructed from glass rectangles hung to form an arch depicting the festival’s iconic symbol, the Bonnaroo arch. Each glass piece is painted with Japanese characters in blue and yellow.

Magical Amass, created by Gianna Stewart, consists of 122 tents that echo the tent-like shape of its skylight. Stewart says she followed “the language of the skylight” for her inspiration. The pastel tents in yellow, lavender, blue, and green look textured, like fabric, and seem to move in the wind, but each one, in fact, is a hand-cast plastic sculpture.

Collective Momentum, Miho Ogai, Long Island City, N.Y.

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Lift, Leticia R. Bajuyo, Madison, Ind.

Magical Amass, Gianna Stewart, Dorchester, Mass.

Leticia Bajuyo’s Lift is a complex design created by thousands of compact discs and DVDs. The connection of these now-obsolete recordings is not lost in Music City; however, the shimmering plastic circles are Bajuyo’s preferred medium since 2009.

“The form is an icon in that it is larger than itself. The memory is still inside there. I’m giving it another life,” Bajuyo says. DVDs are purple, Play Station discs are black, and colored CDs in yellow, blue, and red from the 80s become the paint splotches for this sculpture.

The shiny memory sides are exposed nearest the viewer and create almost a water-like reflection of a still pond. The flat surface is interrupted with a funnel that seems to spin up into the skylight and around in a tornadic motion.

The bulk of the structure covers most of the canopy, obscuring the windows until light bursts through the cut-out circles, which cast a dotted dance floor on the otherwise drab carpet.

BSWAG, Mary Carter Taub, Chapel Hill, N.C.

This material “lends itself well to public art because it holds up in the sun and is fade resistant,” Stewart explains. It also plays well with the changing daylight.

Sunshine pushes through the translucent tents and casts vivid rainbow colors on the surrounding walls.

Hilary Zelson’s Spectacle Butterfly is a giant monarch constructed out of hundreds of orange and black sunglasses. The suspension hangs lower than the other installations and seems to catch the eye of every child who passes.

In the course of the eleven months of display, approximately 12 million people will pass under these unique installations.

Look up, weary travellers, look up!

Mary Carter Taub’s concept BSWAG and “the artwork’s many vinyl lines are a metaphor for the countless people that pass through Bonnaroo,” Taub says.

The Fourth Annual Bonnaroo Exhibit is on display through January 21, 2018, at Nashville International Airport. For more information, visit www.flynashville.com.

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A Branch of Anne Daigh Landscape Architect, LLC

FRED GRGICH Lush Urban Canopy

Double Date with Kids 2017, 36 x 36 inches

EXHIBITION

THROUGH

J U LY 1 4 T H

Galerie Tangerine is free and open by appointment Monday through Friday, 9 AM - 5 PM 615 454.4103 Located at 900 South Street, Suite 104 www.gal erietangerine.com

SIMPLY ETHEREAL CRAIG HAVIGHURST MUSIC CITY ROOTS

JUNE 1, 2017

ABIGAIL WASHBURN & WU FEI GRAMMY-winning singer-songwriter Abigail Washburn teams up with Beijing native and master guzheng virtuoso Wu Fei to weave together traditional Appalachian and Chinese folk music.

OZARTSNASHVILLE.ORG

THEBOOKMARK

A MONTHLY LOOK AT HOT BOOKS AND COOL READS

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Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

Into the Water

The Leavers

Make Trouble

Paula Hawkins

Lisa Ko

John Waters

David Grann

Paula Hawkins, best-selling author of The Girl on the Train, is back with Into the Water. Her latest mystery follows a series of killings linked by drowning.

Be prepared to stay up all night learning how it unravels.

Lose yourself in Lisa Ko’s gorgeous debut novel, The Leavers, about the disappearance of a single mother named Peilan.

Spanning from Brooklyn to China, The Leavers weaves together the stories of Peilan and all those connected to her disappearance. Lisa Ko is definitely a writer to keep an eye on!

This year, give the graduates in your life the gift of John Waters in all of his brilliant weirdness.

This edition of John Waters’s commencement address at Rhode Island School of Design includes beautiful illustrations that perfectly complement his wit.

Get your true-crime fix with David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon. Following events in 1920s Oklahoma, Grann’s new book explores the greed-driven killings of Osage Indians and the links to the early FBI. David Grann will be at Parnassus on May 8th to discuss the book—don’t miss it!

NASHVILLEARTS.COM

WORDS Annie Stoppelbein

Lisa Jennings New Work from the Sculptor/Artist Reflects Her World Travels

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Under the Full Moon, Beechwood/ hand-pigmented paper, 39” x 30” x 11”

estled behind her home, miles from the bustle of Nashville in historic Newsom Station, Lisa Jennings designed and constructed her own studio. The air is refreshing and permeated with the scent of earth and wood. It is the perfect habitat for the “modernprimitive” painter and sculptor, with the Harpeth River nearby and a thriving wild-life community outside her door. Lisa is quite at home in nature, as it is the source of her art. A true hunter-gatherer (with more emphasis on the gathering), Lisa collects natural treasures to create forms inspired by the ancient past. This year the artist is busy preparing for several upcoming exhibitions, whetting her sculpture skills and bringing nature indoors.

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“

Like Modigliani in the third dimension, Lisa’s long slender forms evoke delicacy and grace, backed by the strength of Mother Nature.

Desert Rose, Beech/hand-pigmented paper/bark headdress/ found semiprecious stone, 68” x 10” x 9” (Detail below)

Mother Moon, Beech/batik resist handmade papers/acrylic/semiprecious found stones, 26” x 16” x 6”

At the back of her studio is a storage room where Lisa keeps her stock of wood.

She was gifted a selection of virgin tree trunks that were dried and now amount to an indoor forest. She also has sections of hollowed trunks that curl in the most delightful way. Lisa will first use her beloved chainsaw to make rough cuts, then a drill sander, upping the grit until she reaches the ultra-fine 220 paper. Sealed and waxed, her work is highly archival.

The bridge between her painting and sculpture is her handmade pigmented paper, which she seals into the wood. The paper element lends a pleasing contrast to the organic structure. Lisa then may add something unexpected, like a quartz stone or fused bark. With the utmost simplicity and minimal

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ornamentation, her figures are revealed as the essence of femininity. Like Modigliani in the third dimension, Lisa’s long slender forms evoke delicacy and grace, backed by the strength of Mother Nature.

Lisa has lived in Nashville since she was fifteen, but has been a wanderer all her life. Her parents, both creative types with nomadic spirits, kindled in her a curiosity for life that still burns. Lisa asserts that travel is the greatest education. She is fascinated by ancient cultures and has visited the living museums of the world, the sites that evidence humans’ first attempts at making art. She spent six weeks in Australia, living in nature and tracking the history of the aboriginals. She witnessed the equinox at Newgrange in Ireland, a tomb older than Stonehenge, which is aligned with the sun on that day.

She says, “Part of me wishes I had been an archaeologist.”

From her travels, Lisa has collected relics to be reused in her art. Her studio table is covered with treasures; broken pottery, porcupine quills, tortoiseshell pieces, and more.

These days she has not been able to travel like she once did. As much as she pours herself into her art, Lisa is also a devoted caregiver to Anton Weiss, her lifelong mentor who sadly has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Weiss was a prolific and celebrated artist when he met young Lisa Jennings years ago at Lyzon gallery in Nashville. It was 1997 and Lisa had just left a career in the printing industry to become a full-time artist. She says, “It was a sink-or-swim moment.” Anton was her lifeboat, and they became instant friends. “Our first years together, we would go rock hunting and look for stone in the streams of Middle Tennessee. He taught me how to sculpt, and it exploded my life in a way that I could never repay him.” However she does pay it forward by teaching workshops and sharing her knowledge with two studio apprentices. “I’m going to be okay even when he’s not here, because he’s given me these skills and I’m passing them on to people who work for me.”

Morning Caw, Beech/hand-pigmented papers/granite base, 27” x 28” x 12”

been difficult but, she jokes, her chainsaw helps her to sleep at night. Lisa is looking to the future now and continuing to explore the past. For her next venture, she wants to visit the Deep South and experience the Gullah culture of the Lowcountry. Wherever she roams, Lisa Jennings’s passionate spirit will remain an asset to the Nashville arts community. na Lisa Jennings will have an exhibit of her sculpture and paintings at Harpeth Hall’s Marnie Sheridan Gallery June 23 through September 10. See more of her work at www.leiperscreekgallery.com and www.lisajenningsart.com.

Lisa’s sculptures are highly labor intensive, but for the viewer they bring peace. Her clients report that they are pacified by these living forms. Not surprisingly she has had many commissioned works for hospitals. They have a healing effect, especially for the artist who creates them. Lisa’s work is replete with her cathartic energy. The past three years have

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Lisa Jennings in her studio

Photograph by Toby Rose

Anton taught Lisa the theories and principles that she uses today. Her sculpture hinges upon the interaction of planes and lines. She is very careful to manage the flow of wood from one area to the next. In her figural sculptures, a slight tilt of the head or slope of the shoulder can alter the entire mood.

“If something is not quite right, people will feel it.” It is a balancing act. If there is something square or sharp, Lisa says, there needs to be something round or soft.

YORK & Friends fine art Nashville • Memphis

GINGER OGLESBY

Heart’s Courtyard, Acrylic on canvas, 48” x 48”

Celebrate Mother’s Day Weekend with us Saturday, May 13 featuring Nancy Scofield-Germyn’s Bella Baroque JEWELRY TRUNK SHOW 10-5 ARTIST’S RECEPTION 2-5 107 Harding Place • Tues-Sat 10-5 • 615.352.3316 • yorkandfriends@att.net www.yorkandfriends.com • Follow us on

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WORDS Sara Lee Burd

The Perceptual Art of Christina Renfer Vogel

Julia Martin Gallery

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May 6 – June 24

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ather than always occupying the center of social circles, Christina Vogel enjoys walking along the perimeters. Gathering information and finding questions to explore, she returns to her studio to create art that presents discoveries and clues to an open-ended mystery. Through her clever editing, this perceptual painter ignites viewers with a desire to resolve the circumstances and form narratives about what they see in her art.

Vogel works with snapshots as source material and transforms the vivid moments she captures into an anthropological presentation of social behavior.

She describes how the series began: “I found, when I was looking through all the photographs I had on my computer, I was drawn to images of groupings and gatherings. I was thinking about zeroing in on more complex situations.”

She usually knows the people featured in her art because she uses her iPhone when she’s out.

This allows her to document unexpected actions, expressions, and body language in authentic situations.

In Threshold, Vogel presents the outsider perspective by depicting a woman in the foreground gazing out into what seems like a party that she is not a part of yet. The participants are in the distance, a man and woman chatting and another man standing or walking while holding what looks like a drink. The pose of the central figure, with her hands in her pockets, elbows awkwardly extended, gives the viewer a sense of the uneasy feeling an observer may have when entering a social environment. A threshold is not merely a physical place represented in this painting; it is revealed to also be an adjective describing a relatable experience.

Fancy Ladies III, 2014-15, Oil and acrylic on linen, 72” x 84”

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Huddle, 2015, Oil on paper on panel, 8” x 10”

A Near Miss, 2016, Oil, acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 20” x 36”

Threshold, 2016, Oil on linen, 42” x 48”

An essential formal element of Vogel’s work is the use of broad strokes of single-color paint to abstract the initial charcoal sketches she makes on the canvas. Simplifying the composition, the resulting planes of color across the works strip the figures of context, denying clear communication about who they are, what they are doing, why they are there, and how they got there. The hues she chooses complement the figures but not strictly for the same purpose. As a colorist she considers color carefully, noting that “color has a potential to suggest an emotional or psychological space. Color has weight.

Sometimes I have an idea for color at the start, and sometimes it evolves or shifts as I work. Sometimes it becomes arbitrary.” Thus, the process is as important to the outcome of the work as any planning that goes into it.

A professor of painting and drawing at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga, Vogel is fluent in making decisions that infuse meaning and striking aesthetic appeal. In A Near Miss, Vogel depicts three men and a woman all traveling in different directions. If the scene were set in motion, two of the men would intersect the path of the woman walking toward the viewer.

Her downward gaze suggests she does not see the approaching men or maybe has and does not want to interact with them. By selecting these specific figures within the composition, Vogel shows her mastery of optical painting techniques such as overlap and diminishing size to create a sense of perspective. By evoking space, the relationship between the figures becomes more apparent and encourages contemplating the juxtapositions.

Martin Gallery. She appreciates what she can accomplish with each medium because of how it affects her process.

“There’s something about a piece of paper that offers up endless possibilities and potential for error in a way that a six-foot canvas requires more physical labor and the stakes feel much higher. I think that affects the way I work.” Exhibiting the works together creates a dialogue that reveals the aesthetic consistency in which she highlights her role as an observer documenting the interactions she witnesses. She maintains the flat planes across the surface in both, but instead of paint, she depicts the socializing figures within expanses of untouched paper.

By representing people removed from real-world contexts, Vogel calls upon empathy and problem solving to relate with her art. “It’s an interesting and complicated thing when you are painting someone. It’s more than just physical appearance. It is about a kind of presence. What I see in these people may be very different than what they see in themselves.” Coming to conclusions about Vogel’s art is much like the experience of a Rorschach test: It reveals the inner workings of the mind of the interpreter. na Vogel’s exhibit, To Go Unnoticed, opens with a reception on May 6 from 6 until 9 p.m. at Julia Martin Gallery and remains on view until June 24. Sara Lee Burd will lead an artist talk on June 9 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. For more information visit www.juliamartingallery.com. See more of Vogel’s work at www.christinarenfervogel.com.

Photograph by Brandon Vogel

The ambiguity that Vogel creates within her art provides tension that ignites imagination. In the painting In a Crowd the brushy acrylic paint obscures everything, leaving only the heads, particularly faces, of the people who are packed together. None of the figures appear to interact. A woman with a solemn yet somewhat bored expression is presented with three men who appear sad, distracted, and uninterested respectively.

The questions begin with a sense of wonder about where people convey such distinct feelings within a group. Perhaps a line for coffee?

Along with her paintings, Vogel is showing her drawings at Julia Christina Renfer Vogel in her studio NASHVILLEARTS.COM

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WORDS Annie Stoppelbein

Adam Wator

Across the Line Bennett Galleries

No (5), 2012, Acrylic on canvas, 40” x 40”

“

He compares his subjects to actors on a stage, each one fleshing out the range of sensitivities and feelings that make us all alive.

On the Edge of a Dream (from Awakening series), 2015, Acrylic on canvas, 40” x 56”

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olish artist Adam Wator finds the human body, as a subject, inexhaustible, and the prolific painter’s works are gaining popularity among collectors worldwide. They were discovered in 2012 by one Joanna Cabaj on a trip from the United States to her homeland, Poland. She was enamored with Wator’s work and resolved to acquire as much as she could to present to the American art world.

It can now be viewed at galleries across the United States, including Bennett Galleries in Nashville.

Wator’s distinctive style of painting focuses on the figure, most often female. Though only the silhouette is visible, the figures push emotion using their body language.

Wator deliberately excludes the face, to emphasize the hands as the most demonstrative element of the

composition. The body’s shape is filled with an array of energetic colors and lines. Typically the background is comprised of muted blocks of color, to contrast the drama of the form. This is the recipe Wator has been developing for years.

The artist was born in 1970 in the small town of Mys´lenice, near Krakow. He recollects painting, as a child, a snowy winter landscape with toothpaste, before receiving his first set of oils in elementary school. He grew increasingly committed to painting a few years before he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow.

He graduated in 1997 and began the search for his signature style. Wator recalls the watershed moment of his career when he ditched the oils for acrylics. They

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He deliberately excludes the face, to emphasize the hands as the most demonstrative element of the composition.

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Alone (from Awakening series), 2015, Acrylic on canvas, 52” x 40”

In the Shadow of Silence (from Awakening series), 2015 Acrylic on canvas, 40” x 56”

Before Dawn (from Awakening series), 2015, Acrylic on canvas, 32” x 60”

enabled him to make quick changes and even pour paint onto the canvas. This medium became the vehicle he needed to present his characters to his liking.

Wator is fascinated by the female figure, and he has painted it fervently. As a male artist he is attempting to understand the intricacies of femininity. He works from live models, but maintains their anonymity by omitting the face. This allows him to capture the essence of a general person, instead of a specific personality. Using the unlimited gestural combinations of the body, hands, and feet, Wator presents a stronger message than he could with facial expressions.

In a series entitled Awakening, Wator depicts figures that appear fatigued and resigned. Today, two years after their creation, the artist recognizes the contradiction between the title of each work and the subject’s apparent mental state. He postulates that this inconsistency was formed by his subconscious mind during a difficult time in his life. It was a period when he grappled with his creativity. Retrospectively the Awakening series marks a moment of trial followed by growth in his artistic vocation.

Adam Wator

Photograph by Monika Bala - Wator

While Wator’s collective body of work follows the trajectory of his career, it also examines the many facets of the human condition. He compares his subjects to actors on a stage, each one fleshing out the range of sensitivities and feelings that make us all alive.

No human is immune to suffering or pleasure. Wator predicts that for the rest of time the arts will continue to depict the spectrum of emotions. As throughout history, we will always be attracted to the human form because it relates directly to the viewer’s own experience.

When he is painting, Wator takes no consideration of reality and what it looks like, but faithfully follows what is happening in his imagination. “Reality,” he says, “is not only the nature that surrounds us, because more and more often we live outside of it. The reality that surrounds us is also the people. It is not difficult to see the beauty of the mountains; it is self-imposed. You should see beauty in a person.” Unanchored in reality and unidentifiable, the figures in Wator’s work are captivating objects of enduring beauty. na See Adam Wator’s work at Bennett Galleries, www.bennettgalleriesnashville.com.

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Inspiration Moves at the Nashville Dance Congress Millennium Maxwell House

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May 5–7

This month, the Nashville Dance Congress will welcome more than 34 worldclass dancers to the Millennium Maxwell House for a first-ever weekend of music, performance, tutorials, and social dance.

By showcasing award-winning dancers like Benji Schwimmer and Nicole Clonch, former winners of the U.S. Open Swing Dance Championship, and Clyde Harris and Summer Elkin, winners of the 2016 United Country Western Dance Council’s world cabaret exhibition, the event hopes to inspire attendees.

“We hope that attendees remember this time as a delightful learning atmosphere and definitely a most impressive live dance performance,” said Tonya Miller, president of the Nashville Dance Congress. “We hope that by interacting with these elite dancers, the whole of Nashville will be inspired to dance. And lastly, we hope the attendees’ bodies flat ache from all the good dancing.”

Miller sees this first event of its kind as an important step for Nashville’s dance community to become more prominent. However, even those who are not predisposed toward dancing will find something to enjoy.

“Everyone finds joy in their own way, so it’s 100 percent acceptable to just watch,” Miller said. “This is about community and feeling connected to each other. There’s plenty of space and time. You can dance if you want to, or not. Just feel good.”

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The Nashville Dance Congress will be held from May 5 to 7 at the Millennium Maxwell House, 2025 Rosa L. Parks Boulevard. For more information, please visit www.nashvillesalsacongress.com.

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Dane Carder’s Better Angels Soars at Red Arrow Gallery Through May 15

Inauguration Day, 2016, Acrylic on canvas, 60”x 60”

WORDS Megan Kelley

Parallel Tensions:

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Inauguration Day VI (Abe and Angels), 2017, Acrylic on canvas, 36”x 30”

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Inauguration Day V (Looking Up), 2017, Acrylic on canvas, 36”x 30”

etter Angels, the newest body of paintings by Dane Carder, follows the artist’s arc over a decade of working from historic images. In this solo exhibition at the Red Arrow Gallery, Carder navigates the grey spaces between realism and abstraction, intention and deception, politics and perspectives.

the opaque areas of acrylic and oil push against themselves, mimicking the pressure of the depicted crowds in how they jostle against the shoulders of another color. Even the shadows carry color shifts up in subtle coils of stroke, creating a nearly imperceptible movement that lends to the building of energy.

Carder’s work has been known for his sensitive translations of Civil War photography and design, his tendencies towards the photorealistic humanized through the translucence of light that rises through his washes and underpaintings and softened by a generosity of evident brushstrokes in all the key places. Though the subject matter can be grim or gruesome, Carder has often employed large negative spaces or repeating patterns as a way of calming the eye, allowing the viewer places to rest among subtle sepias and dark, quiet stretches.

The tension builds also in Carder’s compositional choices.

There’s an acute sense of scale, of the magnitude of the structural mechanism that is American government, rising about the scene in bold declarations of line and architectural landscape, dominating the faceless mass that is the crowd.

There is reverberation. There is a sense of the unknown.

His Inauguration Day series gives few such mercies, and they are powerful for this rigorous refusal. The palpable tensions create a sense of menace more outspoken than his War Wounds exhibition at Nashville’s Parthenon; the work in Better Angels is openly and vocally darker. It’s a choice made partially in the layers of paint: with fewer washes and glazes,

“Often I like my paintings to have a sense of peace, but this doesn’t,” Carder acknowledges. “It’s as if I’m trying to find comfort with the discomfort.” Though the work didn’t start as a dialogue on current politics, he admits that the conceptual dialogue has begun to echo against his own reality of contemporary tension. “[The photograph depicts] a time when the country was about to go to war with itself. I knew I wanted to deal with the imagery of a country on the brink.” Carder pauses. “Our country seems as divided as ever.”

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I knew I wanted to deal with the imagery of a country on the brink.

Our country seems as divided as ever.

Better Angels III, 2017, Mixed media on paper, 33” x 22”

His previous work had followed a long arc, ultimately pushing towards the annihilation of recognizable image. The painting, rather than as a window through time, had become much more focused on the act of painting, which followed in a series of paintings every week, “looking at painting for painting’s sake.”

Better Angels gathers this course, damming it into swift waters for a single body of work.

The references draw from a single photograph depicting the inauguration ceremony of Abraham Lincoln. The image itself is small but crisp, the square-foot size crammed with scenery and figures whose features are blurred by the long exposure time and the whipping of wind. Carder sourced the photograph from government archives online, the printed copy forming the master source for the dozens of xeroxed pages he uses as reference.

The process of source becomes yet another deliberate piece of Carder’s conversation around intention and representation: The scene was framed by the photographer’s intentions; the image itself was chosen for the archive to represent this moment in history. Now chosen by Carder, the process of xeroxing reduces the image into pixels and blurs, further abstracted and questioned through a material translation. The larger image fractures into smaller paintings and tighter close-ups of the crowds, each figure disintegrated into groupings of paint, which are simultaneously presences in their own rights, but also meld into anonymous shapes and indiscernible objects.

It’s a long dialogue about the idea of framing perspective and context that serves to drive Carder’s investigation. “There are familiar notes, but they don’t make sense. You’re caught trying to grasp what we are witnessing.”

The final three works on paper are obscured by a layer of vellum, a hand-stained mask of oil that works to obscure, distort, distance, separate, and disguise. They are apt metaphors for Carder’s unease and determination to look deeper. “Where we are [in history], it all comes down to what are you seeing? What are you really looking at, contextually? Is a story of history being told?” na Better Angels is on view through May 15 at Red Arrow Gallery, which is open Saturdays 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and by appointment.

On Thursday, May 4, at 6 p.m., Paul Polycarpou of Nashville Arts Magazine will lead an artist talk with Carder. Learn more about the exhibition at www.theredarrowgallery.com and about Carder’s work at www.danecarder.com.

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Dane Carder

Moored-Castine, Acrylic on paper, 18” x 18”

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American Watercolor Society Recognizes Nashville’s Nick Long

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For centuries, masters of medium have formed and joined organizations germane to their styles of choice. In modern history, few such clubs have become as prestigious and revered as the American Watercolor Society (AWS), a group that has supported such members as Winslow Homer, Andrew Wyeth, and Edward Hopper. Celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, the organization has welcomed native Tennessean and longtime Nashville resident Nick Long into its ranks.

Long’s acrylic work Moored-Castine, an incredibly lifelike 18x18, contemporary realist depiction of rope and stone, was chosen by AWS’s jury of selection for signature membership. The work is notable for its depth of detail, textural contrast, and complementary color palette. The painting was featured last month during AWS’s anniversary exhibition at New York’s Salmagundi Club.

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“I want a viewer to be drawn in with the dynamic and simplicity of the composition, moving closer to feel the warm light on that September afternoon in Maine and then experience the texture of the stone and rope as if they could touch it,” Long said. “I want visitors to see what I saw.”

Long, who moved to Nashville in 1977 to pursue a graphic design career and illustration work, has been working in acrylic since he was in college and it was introduced as a new medium. He decided to exclusively work in acrylic fifteen years ago.

“Acrylic gives me the flexibility to move paint around any way I want,” Long explained. “Some passages are thick while others have very thin washes or glazes to alter the value or temperature . . .

What [the medium’s range of hues] gives to an expressive hand is the opportunity to make bright, explosive paintings with texture and color or a nuanced, understated painting with subtle color transitions.”

See more of Nick Long’s paintings at www.nicklongart.com.

flynashville.com NASHVILLEARTS.COM

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SCULPTURE

FIELDS

A 33-acre international sculpture park in Chattanooga, Tennessee Open 7 days a week, free admission

Peter Lundberg, Anchors, 2015, 65’ x 10’ x 21’, Concrete, Steel

1800 Polk Street • Chattanooga, TN 37408 423-266-7288 • www.sculpturefields.org

Photograph Courtesy of the Hunter Museum

Chattanooga Artful Daytrip

The scenic city is host to a variety of art events and exhibits

C

hattanooga has been charming travelers for generations.

Over 900 iconic, hand-painted See Rock City barns have dotted American highways since 1935, beckoning families on road trips to enjoy the Scenic City and its attractions. With the fantastic views, fanciful gnomes, and now a wealth of art, culture, music, and creative experiences, there is something for everyone to love in Chattanooga. Today’s day-trippers can plan an adventure in art with a dizzying array of opportunities, from galleries, attractions, and exhibits to music festivals, concerts, foodie fun, and more.

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Photograph Courtesy of Sculpture Fields

WORDS Jennifer Crutchfield

Hunter Museum of American Art

Heinz Aeschlimann, Composer, Steel, 24’ x 22’ x 19’

From public art to one-of-a-kind experiences, Chattanooga is an art lover’s paradise. The transformation from America’s dirtiest city to the “Best City” has been celebrated nationwide, and art has been a purposeful part of that revitalization. Public Art Chattanooga is a city department dedicated to enhancing the civic environment and enriching the lives of visitors and residents. From a massive Meg Saligman mural to Art in the Neighborhoods, Art on Main, and permanent indoor and outdoor collections, guests can walk or drive to engage in the art and the city around it.

History has come alive under the masterful eye of four-time Emmy® Award-winning artist Wayne White. “Wayne-ORama,” a yearlong indoor “funhouse” in Chattanooga’s Southside Arts District, has drawn guests and volunteer artists from around the country for an experience that Wayne describes as “Goony Golf meets the Smithsonian.” From a Magic Lookout Mountain with a working Incline Railway to Chief Dragging looming with fascinating ferocity over the gallery’s main room, this exhibit, produced by the Shaking Ray Levi Society, guides guests through the city’s history with art that sets the senses tingling. A regular series of concerts and music adds another dimension to this fun attraction.

Wayne-O-Rama will be open until September 30. The Hunter Museum of American Art will be hosting a Wayne White exhibit June through October.

The Houston Museum of Decorative Arts sits, ladylike, next to the famed Hunter Museum of American Art in the Bluff View Art District. Atop a bluff overlooking the Tennessee River, this museum houses one of the largest collections of art glass in a unique Victorian structure, a gift to her city from the eccentric Anna Safley Houston.

The Hunter Museum of American Art boasts breathtaking

Photograph by Mark A. Herndon

Photograph Courtesy Bluff View Art District

River Gallery

Wayne-O-Rama

views of the city and a famed collection, and is the end-point of the glass-paneled Holmberg pedestrian bridge connecting to the Walnut Street bridge and hosts events, workshops, and yoga. From the River Gallery Sculpture Garden to the bocce ball court, Rembrandt’s Coffee, Tony’s, Back Inn Café, the Bluff View Bakery, and the Bluff View Inn, this district can absorb a whole day of fun itself.

From eclectic to refined, the galleries in Chattanooga have something for everyone. Area 61 and the Hart Gallery on the Southside and WinderBinder in NorthShore are magical shopping adventures, each surrounded by great opportunities for a snack at area restaurants and bars.

Shuptrine’s Gallery, the River Gallery at Bluff View, In-Town Gallery, and Plum Nelly in NorthShore are just a few of the unique galleries that are a perfect complement to an artful daytrip in the city.

In the Southside you can stretch your legs at the Sculpture Fields at Montague Park. This 33-acre International Sculpture Park is the vision of renowned artist John Henry and is on a fully restored brownfield with over 100 trees and native plantings. Featuring 32 large-scale sculptures, this park is free and open to the public and was established as a publicprivate partnership between the City of Chattanooga and the Sculpture Fields non-profit organization.

Remember, during your artful daytrip in Chattanooga, to keep a notebook handy for your must-see list for next time! na For a complete listing of places of interest in Chattanooga, see this article online at www.nashvillearts.com. For more information, visit www.bluffviewartdistrict.com, www.huntermuseum.org, www.wayneorama.com, www.thehoustonmuseum.org, www.ShuptrinesGallery.com, www.sculpturefields.org and www.river-gallery.com.

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In the heart of Chattanooga’s Bluff View Arts District 201 High Street, Chattanooga, TN 37403

423.267.7176 www.thehoustonmuseum.org

1800 Rossville Avenue, #108 Chattanooga, TN 37408 Wednesday through Sunday 11 AM - 6 PM (Open until September 30)

wayneorama.com Our America Nuestra América THE LATINO PRESENCE IN AMERICAN ART

LA PRESENCIA LATINA EN EL ARTE ESTADOUNIDENSE

Fine Art & Craf t

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Rembrandt’s Coffee House Tony’s Pasta Shop & Trattoria Back Inn Café

Stay

Explore

River Gallery River Gallery Sculpture Garden Rembrandt’s Roasting Company Bluff View Bakery

WORDS Jerry C. Waters

Works on Paper from the Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art |

May 8—July 1

Ron Adams, Blackburn, 2002, Color lithograph, 25” x 35”

Customs House Museum

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he exhibition Works on Paper from the Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art opens May 8 at the Customs House Museum in Clarksville, Tennessee, the final location of a traveling show that has been viewed by art patrons in cultural institutions in Florida, Nebraska, Texas, and Pennsylvania since 2007. The show contains seventy works on paper, dating from the late 1800s to 2002, and includes drawings, etchings, lithographs, and serigraphs. Important masterworks within the show were produced by nationally recognized African American artists such as Romare Bearden,

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Elizabeth Catlett, Aaron Douglas, Jacob Lawrence, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Alma Thomas, and Charles White.

While viewing the exhibition the viewer should understand that the 1960s–70s was an era in which an appreciation of the artistic, literary, and musical expressions by Americans of African descent eventually resulted in the collecting of African American art by individuals and art museums. Indeed, since the 1980s, there has been an increase in the collecting of African American visual art for several reasons. First, the

Hilda Wilkerson Brown, The Family, 1940, Lithograph, 14” x 10”

Charles Criner, Mr. Alvin White (Man with Chicken), 1998, Color screen print, 18” x 23”

impact of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s on American society; second, the Black Arts movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s; and third, the emergence of multiculturalism as a notion that promotes an understanding of the cultural, societal, and political worth of people across racial, geographic, and social boundaries.

According to Shirley Woodson Reid, a Detroit-based African American artist and president of the National Conference of Artists of Michigan, interest in the importance of African American art over the past forty years has been reinforced by “the rise of numerous African American galleries and museums, national traveling exhibitions, national organizations of artists, and the emergence of prominent collectors.”

Harriet and Harmon Kelley are among a group of prominent African American art collectors in America. Based in San Antonio, Texas, Dr. Harmon Kelley is an obstetriciangynecologist, and his wife, Harriet, is a biologist who began purchasing art by African American artists after viewing Hidden Heritage: Afro-American Art, 1800–1950, an exhibition that illustrated the accomplishments of black artists, shown at the San Antonio Museum of Art in 1986.

Several prints in Works on Paper from the Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection were produced in the 1930s and 1940s, the era of the Great Depression. Indeed, many are thematically linked to the Social Realism movement that emerged in nineteenth-century European and American art through artists who focused on everyday life experiences of the working class and the poor, often in a representational style. For example, Hilda Wilkerson Brown’s lithograph from around 1940, The Family, is illustrative of the significance of the nuclear family despite the harsh economic realities of the era.

In contrast, Shorty George, also created during the Depression period by Harlem-based artist Norman Lewis, portrays a well-dressed dandy leaning against a brick wall.

In terms of artistic technique, Lewis successfully integrated a range of black and grey tonalities rendered on limestone through the printing process of lithography.

A concern for the elevation of the human figure and the idea of labor as a communal endeavor is the thematic goal of the brightly colored world Jacob Lawrence created for his print from 1977, Carpenters. Lawrence is an iconic figure in twentieth-century American art history whose legacy was built on the documentation of black history through painting.

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Jacob Lawrence, Carpenters, 1977, Color lithograph, 18” x 22”

In fact, the Carpenters print is a unique visual experience in that Lawrence advances the Social Realism movement into a modernist arena—stylistically—through his use of decorative flat, colored shapes and spatial recession.

The printing process of etching, which involves using acid to cut lines into a metal plate, is a method Henry Ossawa Tanner employed for Gate of Tangier and Street Scene–Tangier, which depict an Islamic mosque the artist viewed during a visit to Morocco and show his sensitivity to line and his desire to illustrate faraway places. Tanner gained international fame through Biblical paintings he created while in Paris, France, where he lived from 1891 until his death in 1937. Tanner was one of the first African American artists to study at the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts prior to his migration to Europe.

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A visual highlight of the exhibition is Ron Adams’s lithograph Blackburn of 2002. This portrait of Robert Hamilton Blackburn is important because he was a master printmaker who established the Printmaking Workshop in New York City. His workshop produced editions for several artists in the show including Bearden, Lawrence, and Faith Ringgold.

David C. Driskell, Professor Emeritus of Art History at the University of Maryland and a renowned scholar and curator, calls the Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection “one of the finest that has been assembled tracing the history of art.” na Works on Paper from the Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art is on view at the Customs House Museum and Cultural Center May 8 through July 1. For more information, visit www.customshousemuseum.org.

2018

OPEN CALL FOR ARTISTS

May 2 through August 31, 2017

Submit your art, photography or sculpture to be juried by Nashville Arts Magazine for a 2018 exhibit at Customs House Museum in Clarksville.

Tennessee artists interested in having a one-month solo exhibit must send the following to be considered: • Five images of work completed in the past three years to info@nashvillearts.com with accompanying list of titles, medium and size • Artist bio/resume • Complete the online form at www.nashvillearts.com

Submissions will be accepted from May 2 through August 31, 2017

Selected artists will be notified on October 2 and will be given a show at Customs House Museum in 2018

Must be at least 18 years of age to enter. Open to Tennessee residents only. Two-dimensional works cannot exceed 60” x 60”. Application materials will not be returned to artists. Entrants cannot have had a solo exhibit at Customs House in the last three years (2015 – 2017).

For entry details visit www.nashvillearts.com or call (615) 383-0278

She Learned to Draw Artwork by Olivia DeFazio, Firstlight student

Adult Art Classes Summer Workshops: • Figure & Anatomy • Painting Trees • Artists Perspective • Color in Acrylics Classes for beginners, Intermediate & Advanced Artists.

firstlightart.org 615-678-6745 In COOL SPRINGS 1710 Gen George Patton Dr, Brentwood , TN 37027

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Center for the Arts in Murfreesboro

|

May 8 – June 2

Karen Johnston, Inner Bloom, Acrylic on canvas, 30” x 24”

WORDS Bob Doerschuk

Contemporary Collective: From the Heart and the Mind

Eichman, I Will Be Your Tra La La, 2017, Acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 30” x 40”

A

t bedtime, when she was a little girl, Jessica Eichman used to lie back and lull herself to sleep by watching the flickers and hints of light that played against the inside of her eyelids, like movies on a screen.

local artists linked by two common denominators: their decision to eschew realism and their history as students of Millie Jarrett, Nashville’s 80-something doyenne of nonrepresentational expression.

“Those images are definitely still present in my artistic process,” she now confirms. “I’m still observing those moving shapes and colors but not necessarily controlling the process.”

“Abstract is much more difficult than representational,” she insists with a finality that doesn’t encourage debate. “You already know what a tree looks like.”

That spontaneity is just one reason Eichman chose to express herself as a painter through abstract rather than representational forms. As for the others represented in Contemporary Collective: From the Heart and the Mind, each one has reasons just as personal for taking their parallel journey.

Jarrett, who is represented by Tinney Contemporary, has been teaching and preaching the abstract gospel at Plaza Arts for a number of years. In 2012, members of her class decided to create Contemporary Collective as a forum for mutual support, encouragement, and positive critiques.

Their Murfreesboro exhibit represents both their shared vision and each participant’s individuality.

Running May 8 through June 2 at the Center for the Arts in Murfreesboro, this exhibit features the work of seventeen

“The most important thing about this show is that every one of these painters paints like themselves,” Jarrett insists.

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“Nobody else around here, to my knowledge, has ever led a class where the students didn’t end up painting like the teacher.

That does not occur in my class because it’s not about making pictures. It’s about emotion and feeling.”

Mary Veasey concurs. Unlike many in the Collective, she continues to paint representational as well as abstract works.

But she credits Jarrett for broadening her approach to all of her endeavors.

“When you paint a hay bale, a floral still life, or a portrait, you have standards by which you and other people can judge your work,” she explains. “But nonrepresentational painting is almost uncharted territory. In exploring it you don’t copy the considered masters, like Helen Frankenthaler or Franz Kline.

They can inspire you, though. In the group, with Millie’s gentle guidance, the humor and the camaraderie encourage us all to go further out on artistic limbs and challenge ourselves.

“This has helped me loosen up in my representational work,” Veasey adds. “I’m not content anymore to just copy nature. I want to express the essence of the subject. When I paint birds, I try to convey their kinetic energy now, by using slashes of paint and applications I’ve done in the Collective—vigorous brush strokes, drops, runs, and spatters.”

For Eichman, who paints abstracts exclusively now, the Collective has done nothing less than liberate her. “I love that I’m free from representation,” she says. “You can’t say, this looks a lot like the thing I was trying to paint and so it’s a success.

Bypassing all of that imagery cuts straight to the emotions that people can identify with. Because it’s subjective in that way, people can bring their own stories to what you do. I really love that about abstract work. It kind of belongs to all of us.”

Mary Miller Veazie, Twisted Sister, 2016, Acrylic on canvas, 36” x 36”

“

Abstract is much more difficult than representational. You already know what a tree looks like.

Process, as well as results, defines key differences between these two schools of art. “In representational painting, you often have an end in sight,” Veasey notes. “It’s step one, step two, step three, and step four. You’re very particular about your methods—thick over thin, working large and then going into smaller details. In nonrepresentational painting, the sky’s the limit. I’ve actually seen Millie put her canvas on the floor, put a squeegee on a broom handle, and squirt paint on the canvas.”

So how can visitors assess the works in the Murfreesboro show?

What are the criteria? Don’t worry about it, Jarrett suggests. Just look and let each piece speak on its own terms. And if you’re not hearing anything?

Jarrett sighs. “If you want a picture, I would advise you to get a really good camera.” na Contemporary Collective: From the Heart and the Mind is on view at the Center for the Arts, 110 W. College Street in Murfreesboro, from May 8 through June 2. The opening reception is slated for Friday, May 12, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. For more information, visit www.boroarts.org.

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Gail Blane, Chronicle, 2017, Acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 36” x 48”

Golem POET’SCORNER

Photograph by K. K. Fox

BY DESTINY BIRDSONG

You had me during my years of broken pills,

of dosage adjustments, of rages, of night terrors, though I’d sleep for days in front of your fireplace

while you played video games. To the untrained eye, it looked as if I was groveling at your feet.

You can have those years, and with them the power to pose me, each memory—I cannot choose

what gets to move against you wearing my skin. But that’s what you hunted, right?

What you stalked, split open, and only you knew the end: that you would not keep

what mattered: blood and bone.

Mount an effigy for your friends, your family.

Suck your teeth with them over how crazy I must be by now. Paint me in my most pathetic scenes:

on my knees, or striking your face—always pleading.

You could predict the fever by its sheen of sweat,

mimic my doctor’s voice—his murmuring apologies.

Even now, grief has tempered me as you said it would.

Finally, I am taking shape. I’m on your mantel.

I tug the air around you with an outstretched paw.

You hold the clavicle of a different girl.

Yes, you handled me, plucking my ovaries,

unbraiding muscle from spine like it was the humane

thing to do.

But in the evenings near-darkness and cool, I crawl through grass.

The blades sting my nipples like mounting pins.

My breath slivers around me—blown glass.

A carcass crackles open like an exoskeleton.

Background photograph by Carla Ciuffo

BY MARK W. SCALA

Photograph by Jerry Atnip

ASISEEIT

Mark W. Scala Chief Curator Frist Center for the Visual Arts

Dana Schutz, Open Casket, 2016, Oil on canvas, 39” × 53”, Collection of the artist Courtesy Whitney Museum of American Art

Empathy or Exploitation: White, Black, and Gray

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here have been strident disputes about the 2017 Whitney Biennial’s inclusion of Dana Schutz’s painting Open Casket, which portrays lynching victim Emmett Till lying in a coffin, his mutilated remains exposed to the world. The source of the painting is a grisly photograph, published in Jet magazine soon after the murder in 1955 at the request of his mother, who wanted the evidence of her son’s suffering and death to be registered in the public’s consciousness.

Schutz has taken this image and, with paint, expressionistically distorted it so that it is difficult to read as more than demolished flesh. A white woman, Schutz says that she sought to convey empathy toward Till’s own mother, who suffered such a terrible loss, while pointing out parallels in recent

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killings of unarmed black men by police. Yet, the painting has triggered protests and calls for its removal and destruction.

Her critics argue that Schutz is exploiting and even profiting from a crime that has traumatized black Americans in a way that a white artist could not begin to understand. She has made a spectacle of suffering without saying anything insightful about racism in America, past or present. By translating a disturbing photograph into a near abstraction, she has undermined its power as a sacred icon of martyrdom and an inspiration to the civil rights movement in the late 1950s.

The work and this response lead one to ask if being horrified by this murder or, for that matter, any atrocity, doesn’t make

an artistic representation of it any more than a helpless echo of a feeling that is widely shared in a civilized society. It may be enough to establish this common accord, but in the view of some of the respondents, a work of art that treads into this arena should at least add to our understanding, widen the field of grief, perhaps even lead to an opening of a heretofore closed mind (all of which are admittedly difficult goals to quantify).

To look at this in another way, can white artists address America’s great stain in a way that shows empathy while acknowledging that the artist will never fully understand the pain of racism? When Jack Levine painted police brutality in Birmingham during street demonstrations after the 1963 church bombing, when William Kentridge portrayed the traumatic realities of South African apartheid in his gutwrenching videos, and when Alice Neel painted loving portraits of her friends of color who lived in her Spanish Harlem neighborhood, were they being opportunistic appropriators of black experience? Or were they showing, as I believe they were, a deeply humanistic connection with people whose experience was not theirs? These artists and many others spend their lives personalizing—that is, “deabstracting”—social issues, putting forth the idea that the path to justice—racial, political, and economic—is through a strong assertion of individual responsibility. Any change a single work of art may affect is immeasurable, but it nevertheless has importance as a part of a collective tide that may eventually influence public discourse.

to convey solidarity with people whose experiences have not been their own, whether in terms of race, sexuality, class, or any of the other categorical descriptors that are paradoxically becoming both blurred and increasingly divisive in society.

This would set a poor example indeed for those who seek to build community by finding common ground in multiplicity.

But I also think that the most compelling socially engaged art is more than a mirror of individual feelings. It is an expression of empathy not just toward immediate victims of injustice, but toward an audience for whom these victims signify something bigger and more profound than an individual reflection of hurt.

For me, the best part of this entire incident is the discussion around it. In leaving the painting on view, the Whitney is affirming the important role that museums play—to be safe places in which social meanings can be formulated, presented, and argued. The Whitney Biennial’s co-curator Christopher Lew eloquently speaks for all museums when he says that they are “some of the last few physical places where people can convene to wrestle with ideas.” Without such forums, we face an increasingly bifurcated understanding of the world—people talking only to those with whom they are in absolute agreement, refusing to imagine an orbit outside of their own. If there is no room for nuance, ambiguity, or even negative interpretation, art risks losing its capacity to provoke. It becomes doctrinaire, mono-dimensional, or worse, predictable. na

“

In today’s deconstructive analytical environment, which often takes place in the anything-goes and depersonalized space of the Internet, it is not uncommon to voice one’s suspicions of hidden motivations and biases in the hearts of others.

Many people have expressed doubts about Schutz’s sincerity and her level of commitment to civil rights. And even if her empathy is genuine, the perception of insensitivity is less a matter of her original intentions in making the work than of how she might best respond to her audience’s sense of offense, which is based on an interpretation that is inflected with its own experiences and expectations. An important lesson for all artists is that once a work is out in the world, it has a life of its own. It is difficult for any creative person to predict how her effort to step into another’s shoes will be received.

I would hate to see artists (and by this I also mean authors, poets, songwriters, the whole range of people who put their thoughts and feelings out into the world) become unwilling

Jack Levine, Birmingham ’63, 1963, Oil on canvas, 71” x 75” Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Museum purchase, Dr. Leland A. Barber and Gladys K. Barber Fund, American Art Trust Fund and Mildred Anna Williams Collection, by exchange, 1996.69

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BY ERICA CICCARONE

Photograph by Tony Youngblood

OPENSPACES

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.

Stay Weird, Nashville: Joe Nolan’s Pikes Project Highlights Overlooked Narratives

Bunny Boy, Gallatin Pike

Nashville’s many pikes stem from the city center and extend out

like the spokes of a wagon wheel. New residents should take note, lest they drive around in circles for weeks, like I did.

But Nashville’s pikes don’t act only as geographical touchstones.

They are social touchstones, too, revealing the rainbow of our cultural and aesthetic diversity. Joe Nolan and Nashville Public Radio recently documented four pikes. Part photo essay, part poem, part audio compilation, Pikes Project not only highlights the aesthetics of Nashville’s communities. It also shows, as Nolan says, that what’s out of the way geographically can lead into another way of seeing.

Many know Nolan’s byline from art reviews and roundups. Others know Nolan as a singer/songwriter whose acoustic rock songs are flavored with folk music, Southern blues, and Dylan-esque lyrics that celebrate miscellany. Being immersed in so many genres has made Nolan appreciate that there’s a form for every idea. And sometimes an idea is best articulated in a few forms at once.

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New and Used Glory, Nolensville Pike

Nolan shot hundreds of photos of Nashville’s pikes that you can see on Nashville Public Radio’s website alongside audio segments and captions that reveal his sharp way of seeing. Infused with history and humor, Pikes Project covers everything from tacos to trailblazers.

Gallatin Pike is the one that started it all. When Nolan moved from Belmont/Hillsboro to Inglewood in 2012, his wife, Antonia Oaks, pointed out erstwhile signage, street art, and the accidental beauty of abandoned buildings so often that Nolan started noticing more himself.

In the audio segment narrated by WPLN’s Emily Siner, Nolan describes the “entrepreneurial, anything goes kind of spirit” of Gallatin Pike. “It’s not so much that we need to change this street or fix this neighborhood . . . We can change our own perceptions of these places and see them more clearly for the often beautiful . . . funny, absurd, interesting places that they already are.”

In one photo, several open-house signs have been blown by the wind to point in all directions, and tied around the pole is a tangle of ribbons fastened to deflated balloons. There’s plenty of metaphorical fodder in Nolan’s images, but he leaves that part to the viewer, focusing instead on the weird beauty of the road.

He distills the pluralistic clutter of Nolensville Pike in a ridealong audio track with WPLN digital services director Mack Linebaugh. Nolensville is Nashville’s most diverse corridor, and Nolan points out traces of Latino, Middle Eastern, and Eastern European communities. Zeroing in on details like a beetle someone painted on the side of a bar or some dried flowers hung on a doorway, Nolan reminds us that a community is made up of individual people who leave marks all over it. He writes that a hand-painted sign of a pair of eyes draws viewers to Green Auto Sales with “hypnotic intensity” and jokes to Linebaugh that La Hacienda offers “the gateway taco” to those new to the neighborhood.

My favorite parts of the project are the poetic tributes that Nolan read on air. He evokes the image of the life-sized buffalo statues at the entrance of Dickerson Pike with an air of nostalgia for a time before freeways, when small momand-pop motels were gateways to a new, exciting world. Like Nolan’s songs, his poems are sonorous. Full of unexpected rhymes and striking images, they manage to convey emotional resonance and romance without sentimentality.

quickly, and you’ve only to look at the pace of change along the pike for the perfect example of that.”

This is not to say that Nolan sentimentalizes the pikes or Nashville. Aware of the changing landscape, Nolan, Linebaugh, and WPLN news director Anita Bugg (who is now VP of content) set the rule early on that the project wouldn’t wear out the subject of new Nashville but instead bring to light overlooked narratives of the pikes. “The democratic thing in the middle of all this is that it’s impossible to do any artwork inspired by Gallatin Pike and make it something precious and special,” says Nolan. “That would be ridiculous.

You don’t own the Pike.”

Metro Arts Commission has given Nolan a THRIVE award to continue the project with community participation. For the past few months, Nashvillians and tourists alike have created a community of images on Instagram by using the hashtag #PikesProject. Meanwhile, Nolan is visiting homeowner groups and neighborhood organizations in East Nashville and Inglewood.

Pikes Project eschews spotlights and rhinestones for used-tire shops, random street art, colorful doors, and vintage signs. By finding beauty in miscellany, Nolan reminds Nashville to stay weird and wonderful. na Explore Pikes Project at www.nashvillepublicradio.org/topic/ nashvilles-pikes-collection-photo-essays and participate on Instagram @PikesProject. Pikes Project opens at Red Arrow Gallery on May 20.

Eagle Has Landed, Charlotte Pike

While scrolling through photos of old-school meat-and-threes and a life-sized sculpture of Elvis, you can listen to Nolan read, “Charlotte Pike, she’s the pike I like. Craning her downtown neck to see the sun set behind a bridge named Jubilee.” In one image, sheets of pale pink paper cover a window, and Nolan writes that “simple things can become complex very

Orange White Wall, Nolensville Pike

THEATRE

Handmade – Friendships Famous, Infamous, Real and Imagined by Jim Reyland is available at Amazon.com. Or get an autographed copy and support a 2017 high-school tour of his awardwinning play STAND at writersstage.com.

BY JIM REYLAND

Hey, let’s put on a show!

My dad’s got a BARN! “We’ve gotta have a great show, with a million laughs … and color … and a lot of lights to make it sparkle! And songs—wonderful songs! And after we get the people in that hall, we’ve gotta start ‘em in laughing right away! Oh, can’t you just see it?”

Photography Courtesy of Chaffin’s Barn Dinner Theatre

—Patsy Barton, Babes in Arms

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hey may not have been saving an orphanage, but what’s been happening on a small hill in Bellevue for the last fifty years is nothing short of remarkable. In 1967, when Howard Wolfe’s “Magic Stage” descended from the Barn’s ceiling like a spaceship, it kicked off a ground-breaking production of Any Wednesday, and Chaffin’s Barn Dinner Theatre was open for business. Over the years, the lights would dim a few times, but the Barn wouldn’t stay down for long.

When Chaffin’s Barn Dinner Theatre opened in September 1967, it was originally part of a chain of twenty-seven dinner theatres spread across the country. This syndication of presenting theatres used a common touring show produced in New York. The actors would travel to Nashville and then stay on-site during the run. Today, after fifty years of operation, Chaffin’s Barn, along with the Barn Dinner Theatre in Greensboro, North Carolina, are the only two remaining.

Emmy-winning actress Cherry Jones (Transparency, Erin Brockovich, and The West Wing) was an early Chaffin actor who lived on-site during the run.

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“I’ve never gotten to live in any other theatre I’ve performed in. Being an actor and director, you know that for a young actor just beginning, the notion that you were actually going to get to live in the theatre was too good to be true. The only drawback for me at the Barn—the only one—was the serving of drinks before the show. The night my family came, I splashed hot coffee on my poor younger sister. My words in the moment have been repeated frequently in our family: ‘Susan, thank God it was you.’”

Chaffin’s Barn Dinner Theatre turned to local productions in the mid 70s. Less than a decade later, the great Brian Russell would begin starring in what would become dozens of productions at the Barn.

“I was doing Groucho: A Life in Revue with Martha and Brian Hull. It was a packed house, but there was one lady (elegantly dressed in red, head to toe) that got a little, shall we say, out of hand. By the second act, she was loudly cursing the actors, her companion for the evening, and her neighbors at the adjoining tables. Martha and I were seated on a sofa parked

INGRAM

NEW WORKS FESTIVAL FIVE NEW PLAYS, FIVE OUTSTANDING PLAYWRIGHTS. at the A/ZB corner doing a scene, and whoosh . . . a rocks glass passes in between us, crashing across the way in front of C section. Needless to say, she was escorted out.”

One of the finest actresses Nashville has ever produced, and unwitting target of that flying rocks glass, is Martha Wilkinson.

CHRISTOPHER DURANG

“I started working at the barn as an actor in March of 1988 … I was a merry murderess in Chicago! The Barn is my family. I attribute the majority of my success in Nashville theatre to the support and trust from John Chaffin. He has always believed in me, and for that I am most grateful.”

2017 INGRAM FELLOW

Martha and assistant artistic director Bradley Moore are leading the Barn charge these days, both behind the scenes and on the stage. In 2017, Chaffin’s Barn Dinner Theatre is going strong.

The Next Fifty Years Perhaps to coincide with its 50th Anniversary, Chaffin’s Barn Dinner Theatre recently changed hands, from longtime owners John and Janie Chaffin to new owner Norma Luther.

Luther has amazing plans for Chaffin’s Barn. A successful businesswoman, she feels like a “kid in a candy store” as she began as an actress in her early life and has always had a strong affinity for theatre. Her ideas for the theatre are sincere and solid so, as to stability, she says, “I’m here to make sure the Barn is here for the next fifty years.”

If you’re a Barn regular, you know. If you’ve never been, treat yourself.

Attention playwrights: The Barn is looking for nonpublished, full-length, two-act plays for Clash of the Playwrights. Deadline for script submission is May 31. Check their website for details.

On the main stage at Chaffin’s Barn in 2017: Beau Jest April 27 to June 4, Sister Act June 8 to July 23, and Smoke on the Mountain June 15 to July 23. And ask about their moneysaving 2017 season and sampler memberships on sale now— a savings of nearly $500 at www.dinnertheatre.com. na

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WORDS Megan Kelley

Kaleidoscopic Wildness: Artifacts and Archaeology in Fred Grgich’s Avian Canvases Galerie Tangerine through July 14

Comic Con Birds, 2016, Acrylic, charcoal, and mixed media on wood, 48" x 48"

Spring Ritual Birds, 2016, Acrylic, charcoal, and mixed media on wood, 24" x 24"

F

Visual themes of evidence, memory, and accumulation form the foundations of Grgich’s painting. Lower layers are woven from pieces of ephemera, photographs, and pages, as the surface layers move across textured remains of past painting and mark making. Grgich describes his process as cyclical efforts to “destroy and create.” He often scrapes, chips, sands, grinds, and smears his top layers of paint in order to reveal the archaeology of the work beneath.

Many of Grgich’s canvases incorporate physical artifacts as well: Found objects and repurposed elements are Fred Grgich in his studio 86

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Photograph by Anthony Scarlati

red Grgich moves through his studio, energetic and effervescent, and his bright demeanor reflects itself in the bold figuration and color of Lush Urban Canopy, his latest exhibit of work for Galerie Tangerine.

Summer Fun Birds, 2016, Acrylic, charcoal, and mixed media on wood, 24" x 24"

Mountain Love Birds, 2016, Acrylic, charcoal, and mixed media on wood, 36" x 36"

commonly buried within the work. Athletic shoes form the feet of a figure, or dried flowers from funerals and weddings form central seeds for elaborate floral motifs, while studio remnants—sandpaper scraps, paint chips, and stirrers—find their way into suggestions of frames, targets, and arrows beneath acrylic paint. These personal fragments from his environment create historical as well as textural depth in his work. The paintings serve as maps through time, unfolding context and evoking memory as Grgich engages the work.

Rather than relying on studies, Grgich chooses to live intuitively within the moment of working, relying on his honed instincts as an artist and designer as he leaps directly into the materials. A series of collaged scraps creates an initial base, the elements chosen for their creative spark.

“Many artists choose to suffer [through the decision-making process],” he says, riffling through a box of leather-bound pages, old concert tickets, ribbon, and photos. “I embrace that you can always change something if you don’t like it.”

Birds in Books, 2016, Acrylic, charcoal, and mixed media on wood, 48" x 48"

Grgich’s method takes him through a prolific and energetic generation phase, pulling forms out of the canvas as paint and charcoal block out negative space. His background in advertising lends a bold, graphic appearance to his contrasted plains of color, while his painterly aesthetic allows for the sensitivity of drips, discolorations, smears, shifts, and shrouds. As a furniture designer and fabricator, Grgich often creates his own studio tools, tinkering and improvising to find the right sense of line, weight, or shape.

underpaintings and buried collage giving them presence and attention. The finished work demands that the viewer navigate between frenetic vitality and engaged space, yet remains accessible and luscious. Lush Urban Canopy rises from paint into a kaleidoscopic wildness both local and exotic, a chorus of wildlife caught on canvas. na

The final works reflect this intensity of thought and effort.

Negative spaces carve the figures of birds and portraits, their

Lush Urban Canopy is on view through July 14 at Galerie Tangerine. Learn more online at www.galerietangerine.com.

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Like Having Your Own Interior Decorator!

may 13,2017 • 7 Pm-11 pM

© Susan W. N. Ruach

artisan fair

GASLAMP ANTIQUES & GASLAMP TOO

on The Clay lady's Campus

1416 LEBANON PIKE, NASHVILLE TN 37210

Two Stores of Antiques, Vintage, Home & Personal Furnishings

Join us at dusk on Saturday, May 13th

100 Powell Pl, Suite 200 & 128 Powell Pl, 37204 615-297-2224 / 615-292-2250 : Open Daily!

as we kick off the Firefly Artisan Fair

Monthly Happenings! Visit us online for details! GasLampAntiques.com

— a unique market celebrating the Nashville arts community. Shoppers can enjoy an evening under the stars featuring local artists and musicians, food trucks, an interactive art project, artist demonstrations and more.

FIREFLY ARTISAN FAIR IS NASHVILLE’S NIGHT TO SHINE!

FREE ADMISSION!

www.fireflyartisanfair.com

Proud Supporters of Nashville Public Television, Greenways of Nashville & The American Cancer Society

Photograph by Ron Manville

Rachael McCampbell is an artist, teacher, curator, and writer who resides in the small hamlet of Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee. For more about her, please visit www.rachaelmccampbell.com.

ANDSOITGOES

BY RACHAEL McCAMPBELL

This is how my painting progressed from the original to the final abstract, which is entitled Fearless. Oil on panel, 36” x 36”

Life Begins … at the End of Your Comfort Zone

I

gave myself a great birthday present this year—a threeday workshop in cold wax medium. You may not know what that is and that’s okay. The point is, I drove from Nashville, Tennessee, to Asheville, North Carolina, and gave myself the gift of being an art student again. I got to forget about my deadlines and worries and work with materials I was uncomfortable using. When I felt frustrated and perfectionist issues popped up, I gave myself the same advice I dole out to my students—Think of this as an experiment that you’ll throw in the trash. Don’t worry about the outcome; enjoy the process—much easier said than done.

When you get paid for the art you make, it’s sometimes hard to extricate yourself from the outcome-centric pressure cooker professional artists simmer in. Once I convinced myself that this artwork was NOT a commission, nor would anyone even see it, I was freed up to play. My teacher, Cindy Walton, showed us how to use powdered charcoal, stencils, oil sticks, print rollers, and much more with cold wax medium mixed with Gamblin oil paints. It was exciting to experiment with these techniques, at times creating nothing but a mess—other times, the beginning of something new.

Posted in my studio is the quote by Neale Donald Walsch, Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. This applies to many walks of life but in the arts, it’s easy to get stuck and produce

predictable work. Trying to create abstract art with materials I don’t normally use pushed me. How could I incorporate the experience of this workshop with my current paintings?

When I returned home, I set the abstract paintings I’d made against a wall and asked them to inform me. That’s when I took a 40” x 40” framed painting off the wall (that had hung in a gallery the previous week) and started drawing all over it with charcoal and oil bars. Suddenly, I was 6 years old again.

This was worse than being the kid who marks on the wall with a Sharpie. I was drawing on a finished work of art! Since there were no adults to put me in time-out, I was left to my own devices.

It was a risk to draw all over it. I could never get the painting back to what it was. If I ruined the entire thing and wasted supplies and time, I consoled myself that at least I hopefully learned something.

I’ve posted images of this process for you to see. Maybe after the first or second attempt, I should have stopped. I don’t know. Whether or not I improved or destroyed the painting is subjective. Honestly, it was scary but most things that force growth usually are. If you can, go take a workshop—do something you’ve never tried. For me, it felt very freeing to step out of my comfort zone. na

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ARTSMART

A monthly guide to art education

TENNESSEE ROUNDUP

Educators learn African drumming from teaching artist Kofi Mawuko

May means school is almost out for the summer. End-of-year music concerts, annual school revues, culminating art shows, and school open houses are coming to a close. Students and educators alike are preparing for some much-deserved time for play and relaxation. However, as any educator knows, being a teacher is a year-round job. Summer is also a time for planning the upcoming academic year and for completing professional development to meet district requirements and one’s own learning goals. Luckily, in Tennessee there are plenty of teacher training opportunities to meet the needs of educators—for arts specialists, classroom teachers, and teaching artists.

If you’re looking for new ideas for the classroom, you may consider attending one (or more!) of the following arts education workshops or conferences for educators, all of which have received funding from the Tennessee Arts Commission for the service provided to teachers. (Of course, this is not an allinclusive list, just some of the work funded by the Commission.)

For educators seeking financial support to attend one of these offerings, check out the Teacher Incentive Grant guidelines now available at tnartseducation.org. Teacher Incentive Grants support travel costs, registration fees, and/or teacher stipends for your time. Consider applying as soon as the grant application opens on June 1 because funds are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis!

NASHVILLE 1. Global Education Center offers the Multicultural Arts Institutes for Teachers, which involve teaching artists from diverse cultures, helping educators to create culturally relevant lesson plans and inclusive classrooms.

Photograph courtesy of State Photography

2. The Tennessee Arts Academy puts forth a week-long immersion in arts education training that offers new techniques and methods in teaching the arts and inspires teachers through

by Ann Talbott Brown Director of Arts Education Tennessee Arts Commission

Chattanooga-based artist Isaac Duncan leads a workshop for the Southeast Center for Education in the Arts

Photography Courtesy of Southeast Center for Education in the Arts

Mapping Teacher Training in Tennessee

professional performances and cross-disciplinary interludes.

3. Tennessee Performing Arts Center holds the Arts Integration Institutes, which are centered on purposeful, goal-oriented arts integration training aligned with the HOT Season for Young People performances.

CHATTANOOGA 4. As one of the original national partners in the Kennedy Center’s Partners in Education program, ArtsBuild presents Local Kennedy Center Arts Integration Workshops that provide instructional strategies in arts and literacy integration.

5. Southeast Center for Education in the Arts offers Arts Learning Lab (ALL) consisting of a four-day clinical workshop developing concept-based, arts-integrated units of study with additional planning clinics and a culminating digital storytelling event.

MEMPHIS 6. Orpheum Theatre Group’s Summer Institute: Teaching through the Arts brings together beginner and advanced educators to increase the use of arts integration techniques in the classroom with sessions led by Kennedy Center teaching artists.

7. Tennessee Art Education Association holds the 2017 TAEA Fall Statewide Conference in Memphis this year offering specific strategies for developing interdisciplinary curriculum and arts assessments in the visual arts featuring nationally renowned presenters.

8. As one of the oldest Orff Training Centers in the country, the University of Memphis Orff Summer Institute trains teachers to use an active approach to music and movement education that builds on children’s innate musical abilities through singing, speaking, movement, and play.

ARTSMART Meigs Middle Magnet – Creating with Confidence Looking back, we can all recognize and relate to the funny and awkward middle-school years and the challenge of starting to tap into our individuality and finding where we fit. Those pre-teen years are a see-saw of emotions— the thrill of acceptance and gut-wrenching rejection; of being cool and feeling left out. Self-expression through art becomes, for many, a way to navigate through these years.

“I attempt to present various problems which my students can solve with art,” says Jan Hatleberg, art specialist at Meigs Middle Magnet Prep for sixteen years. “I feel that the visual arts can allow students to develop various technical skills, which lead to creating visual images that express their individual views about themselves and their place in the world.”

Having also taught at the elementary and college levels (at MTSU, Volunteer State, and Austin Peay), Hatleberg is cognizant of the ways art can instill confidence in young students. She sees fifth graders entering their middle school experience with art experience.

“I can elaborate on the students’ ability to write and creatively reflect about art. And I can further develop my students’ understanding of their art and the world because of that strong arts foundation that is found in the visual arts programs in elementary school,” she says.

Print by Anabel Canedo

As they proceed through middle school, students explore and learn about artists and their styles as well as the basics in various art genres. By 7th and 8th grade, they are working in themes and technical aspects, and then she invites them to go beyond the technical and to call into being their own thoughts and unique voice. “That’s the hardest part,” she says. And what she looks for in the work of each student are persistence and clarity.

As a further step in confidence for their own artistic voice, Hatleberg displays outstanding work and offers 7th and 8th grade artists the opportunity to step up their game, competing with high-school talent in the prestigious Scholastic Art Competition each spring.

Print by Gracie Kemper

Meigs is one of the few middle schools to submit annually to Scholastic, and Hatleberg’s students have captured at least one award each year, including two Gold Key recipients in 2016. At the recent 2017 presentation, Meigs students captured three Silver Key awards: Eden Sekwat (photography), and Gracie Kemper and Anabel Canedo (print-making).

Photograph by Eden Sekwat

by DeeGee Lester Director of Education The Parthenon

Photograph by Drew Cox

Their submissions were all classroom assignments, but in finding and expressing their own voices, each of these artists also demonstrates the ability to communicate their vision with a wider audience. That power of art to transform by giving voice is important to the development of the whole student at a crucial time in life. “Every day I learn something new, along with how to be a better teacher, from my students,” Hatleberg explains. “They help me to see the world through their point of view.”

ARTSMART

by DeeGee Lester

High School Winners Grace Hall, 1st Place Painting; Danielle Bowen, 1st Place Mixed Media; and Sarah Harper, 1st Place Drawing and Best of Show (not shown, Jack Merwin)

Middle School 1st Place Winners Torrie Petersen, 3D; Noah Wunder, Mixed Media; Lizzie Wilder, Painting; and Veen Sweidan, Drawing

Engaging the community since its inclusion in the Hendersonville City Charter in 1975, the Hendersonville Arts Council embraces its mission to “expand cultural interest, diversity, and opportunity, build cultural resources, and integrate the arts in our daily lives” through arts education, exhibition, and programming. Through after-school programs, scholarships for in-house programming for the underserved, summer camps, a film camp, and five parlor exhibition galleries, the non-profit serves residents and attracts participants from surrounding counties.

The Arts Council’s home, historic Monthaven Mansion, recently hosted the organization’s signature event, the 41st Annual Best of Sumner County Student Art Show. Featuring approximately 150 works by high school and middle school artists from schools throughout the county, this continues as one of the area’s oldest annual arts exhibitions.

“This event showcases the talent of students throughout Sumner County,” says Arts Council Executive Director Daniel Tidcomb. “It takes a lot of extracurricular effort by both students and teachers. With the devotion of coaches to star athletes, these art teachers work with students to find exhibit opportunities (such as Scholastic Arts competition), scholarships, and possible careers in the arts. The talent and quality of our annual exhibition exceeds a lot of art guilds in Middle Tennessee.”

HIGH SCHOOL BLUE RIBBON WINNERS

Best of Show: Teapots

The Freezer Section

Drawing by Sarah Harper (Hendersonville High School)

Painting by Grace Hall (Hendersonville High School)

Approaching what appears to be an exquisite black-andwhite photograph, viewers are stunned to realize the Best of Show selection, Teapots, is in fact a charcoal drawing.

The challenge for Harper in working with charcoal was in maintaining clean lines and control of light and shadow while avoiding smudges.

Nashville Arts readers met Grace Hall in the March issue as a Gold Key/American Vision Nominee for Scholastic Arts. In the Hendersonville Arts competition, her painting, The Freezer Section, pays homage to the Alice Neel portrait style.

“I used a very, very sharp charcoal,” says Harper. “And I worked in little sections at a time.” The result is a collection of silver teapots, gleaming in perfection and reflecting the surrounding room.

Sarah Harper, Best of Show and 1st Place – Drawing 92

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“I got the idea in the grocery freezer section and it fit my AP concentration on reflection,” says Hall.

“Perspective was the hardest part, and I like to challenge myself.” Next fall, Hall begins a new challenge as a student at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago.

Grace Hall, 1st Place – Painting

Photography by Jerry Atnip

Best of Sumner County Student Art Show

Jack Merwin, 1st Place – 3-D

Danielle Bowen, 1st Place – Mixed Media

ARTSMART

G.I.M. (Growth Imitates Maturity)

His Legacy

3-D by Jack Merwin (Pope John Paul II High School)

Mixed Media Collage by Danielle Bowen (Merrol Hyde Magnet School)

For his award-winning 3-D piece, Merwin admits the baby in the center was a misprint.

The creativity, passion, and photographic skill of a grandfather inspired Bowen’s award-winning collage.

“In the process of making babies on the 3-D printer, weak points made the arms and legs snap off. I had run out of ideas and picked up one of the babies and devised a way so that it looks like it’s growing out of the wood,” he says.

“I really like this collage,” says Bowen. “It’s the most personal for me.

My grandfather had his own photography studio.”

“It’s certainly different and a little on the dark side.”

Built against a background of newsprint, the creative process involved using a photograph of her grandfather as a reference and sketching it onto the canvas as a guide. His image is made entirely from magazines.

MIDDLE SCHOOL BLUE RIBBON WINNERS

Papa Doc

Picasso Weeping Woman

Master Lee

Scorpion

Watercolor Split Picture

by Lizzie Wilder (Merrol Hyde Middle Magnet School)

Charcoal and Pencil

by Veen Sweidan (T.W. Hunter Middle School)

3-D

by Torrie Petersen (Robert E. Ellis Middle School)

Mixed Media / Paper and String

by Noah Wunder (Knox Doss at Drakes Creek Middle School)

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ARTSMART Video Field Trip with Doris Wasserman I recently had the incredible opportunity to meet Nashville-based Canadian artist Doris Wasserman. I discovered her when I was searching for local artists and her beautiful paintings popped up. I absolutely love the air, space, color, and radiating light that shines through her work. On a whim, I sent her an email to see if she’d be interested in taking part in the video series of artists that I share with my elementary students. Not only did she agree, but she hosted me both at her showing and invited me back to her beautiful home studio.

Doris was originally a medical illustrator. She decided to take an abstract painting class . . . and the rest is history. Well, that makes it sound like the journey was an easy one. If you’ve ever tried your hand at abstract painting, you know that it really is a journey full of ups, downs, self-doubt, and discovery. Doris likens getting into the groove of painting to meditation. When I look at her work, I can sense the peace and calm that comes from mindful breathing.

Doris and I share similar painting backgrounds in that I was once a representational artist. In fact, my degree is in painting. Over time, I found that style of painting to be very constrictive and I lost interest. During my college years, abstract painting was frowned upon by my professors. It was ingrained that the only real painting was realistic painting. What a pity that I missed out on learning just how incredibly rich abstract painting can be.

Listening to Doris talk and witnessing her process was very eyeopening to me. I love her method of hanging a wall of canvases in varying shapes and sizes. How fun would this be for my students?

How freeing would it be for my kids who struggle to get things “just right” as I used to do?

Tumble, 2015, Acrylic, graphite, charcoal, paper on Venetian plaster on canvas, 24” x 24”

Doris’s method is to put a color on her palette, a heap of white, and some medium that gives the paint more viscosity. Working in acrylic, she applies paint with one hand and scrubs with the other, using inexpensive house-paint brushes.

As she works, Doris also will collage bits of paper into her work.

Sometimes the paper is so subtle you have to look for it, and other times it has more of a voice in her work. As Doris paints, she also uses the back of her brush to scribble and sometimes write onto her canvases.

Her process and her work inspired me to look more closely at abstract paintings. When I was in her studio, Doris asked me if I miss painting and if I think I’d ever get back to it. At the time I told her no . . . but after visiting her studio, chatting with her, and editing her video, I have to say I’m feeling very inspired. Thank you, Doris, for not only inspiring my students but also me!

Photograph by Juan Pont Lezica

See more of Doris Wasserman’s work at www.doriswasserman.com.

by Cassie Stephens Art Teacher Johnson Elementary

Doris Wasserman in her studio

TEXT & PHOTOGRAPHY

BY HUNTER ARMISTEAD

Photograph by Jerry Atnip

FYEYE Instagram: @hunterarmistead

A Frame of Film, A Line of Words, Capture the Creative Culture of Our City

Ashley Boyd-Jones Multidisciplinary artist, gallery owner, and living room dancing pro

She Rode with The Dead Peds Where did you grow up?

Out in the countryside in Mocksville, North Carolina.

What was growing up in the country like for you?

It was wonderful. I have a most caring family who raised me to experience a lot. We went wild all over our land—riding dirt bikes, tractors, and horses, and swimming in our pond. Dad had a plane and flew us around. For my 16th birthday, he surprised me by flying me in with my friends all waiting for me.

ARRATT GALLERY AT VANDERBILT

Anonymous Women

Patty Carroll Color Photography May 1 - 31, 2017

What all do you do creatively?

Film, art direction, styling, a DIY gallery named Sauvage, designing clothes, photography, tapestry, collage, and making mix tapes.

What’s on your mind these days?

All these projects that have been on the shelf for years. I have Hashimoto’s, a debilitating thyroid problem that really slowed me down. But it’s in check now. When I was younger, I thought I was immortal. Now I am all about respecting my body through diet and exercise so it can be the best channel to help people.

What is the one thing you’ve learned you’d like to share with us?

Don’t sit on things for so long. I lost a lot of stuff in a fire I had never showed anyone. Things can turn to dust.

What’s the weirdest job you have held?

I walked miniature ponies on a leash. It was rad.

Give me a fun Ashley fact.

I rode here in Nashville with a moped gang, The Dead Peds.

Badassery at 40 mph!

If you could click your heels and do anything anywhere, what would you do?

Be a backup dancer for David Byrne! If I could time travel, I would go back to the wedding where Jesus turned water into wine.

Anything else?

Give flowers and champagne whenever you can.

Follow her on Instagram at @ashleyboydjones.

LOCATED ON THE MAIN FLOOR OF SARRATT STUDENT CENTER AT 2301 VANDERBILT PLACE NASHVILLE, TN 37235 Visit us 7 days a week from 9 a.m–9 p.m. during the academic year.

Summer and holiday schedule hours are Monday–Friday 9 a.m.–4 p.m.

www.vanderbilt.edu/sarrattart

Dr. J. Kline and Mary Schatz at Watkins Silo Opening

ARTSEE

Sarah Knobloch at Tinney Contemporary

Sylvia Tennant and Frank Hand at the Cherry Blossom Festival

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Photograph by Sam Angel

Caroline Gilbert, Hannah McGraw, and Emily Thompson at The Arts Company

Stephen Schlegel and Shannon Dobson at The Rymer Gallery

Amy Potter and Jolyn Newton at Corvidae Collective

ARTSEE

Jessie English and Buddy Jackson at Julia Martin Gallery

ARTSEE

At Watkins Arcade Gallery

Brianna Bass at Ground Floor Gallery

Julia Martin, Sara Estes and Sarah Souther at Julia Martin Gallery

Susan Tinney and Adam Shulman at Tinney Contemporary

Norman Mitchell, Dalton Ford, and Cody Anderson at The Arts Company

Mary L. Sullivan and Carl Gombert at Ground Floor Gallery

Karen Schneider and Melody Wilson at David Lusk Gallery

At East Side Project Space

Andrea and Cesar Pita at mild climate

PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN JACKSON

ARTSEE

ARTSEE

ARTSEE

Drew Maynard and Liz Herrington-Maynard at Julia Martin Gallery

Megan Lightell and Derek Greene at Channel to Channel

At Zeitgeist

Stephen Watkins and John Albert at Zeitgeist

Kellie Barnhill and Ania Talaga at COOP Gallery

Kristy Skinner and Sherry Tizzano at Tinney Contemporary

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Abstract painter Moe Brooker, featured in Articulate with Jim Cotter

Tim Pigott-Smith, an actor known to longtime Masterpiece viewers, died last month. Most recently he received critical acclaim as the lead in King Charles III, Mike Bartlett’s Tony-nominated drama about the Prince of Wales’ ascension to the throne. Bartlett wrote this television adaptation—premiering on Masterpiece Sunday, May 14, at 8 p.m.—maintaining the play’s use of blank verse, while expanding the drama beyond Buckingham Palace to the streets of London. This broadcast is a fitting tribute to PigottSmith, who originated the role on London’s West End, then brought it to Broadway in the fall of 2015.

Finally becoming king may indeed bring about the best and worst of times for

The cast of Dickensian

ARTIST PROFILES Garrison Keillor narrates Let There Be Light, a documentary about the creation of a series of stained-glass windows by Rowan LeCompte and craftsman Dieter Goldkuhle for Washington National Cathedral. The show airs Monday, May 8, at 11 p.m. Graffiti artists team up with Native Hawaiian youth to show how environmental changes and modernization are encroaching on their native culture in Mele Murals (May 9), part of the Pacific Heartbeat series of documentaries, airing Tuesdays, May 9 – 23, at 11 p.m.

Sundays at 10 p.m. “Tap into America” (May 14) visits MacArthur fellow Michelle Dorrance for a look at modern tap dancing and shows how Mira Nakashima continues the wood mastery of her late father, sculptor George Nakashima. “The Nature of Art” (May 21) features Moe Brooker, whose bright abstract paintings are influenced by jazz improvisation.

FOODIE FAVORITES We have several programs on the menu for gourmands this month, including new American Masters profiles of James Beard (May 19, at 8 p.m.), who launched the first TV cooking show in 1946 and whose name is still associated with awards for food media and cooking; and Jacques Pépin (May 26, at 8 p.m). Also this month, Food – Delicious Science, airing Wednesdays at 9 p.m., is a threeweek exploration of how the chemistry of food contributes to its taste and thus our enjoyment of it.

Support NPT this spring by going to www.wnpt.org and clicking the donate button. Encore presentations of many of our shows and program theme nights are broadcast on NPT2, our secondary channel.

Artists of all genres are featured in Articulate with Jim Cotter, airing

Tim Pigott-Smith as Charles in King Charles III on Masterpiece

Courtesy of Drama Republic for BBC and MASTERPIECE

BRITANNIA RULES

Prince Charles, and if that reference to a Victorian literary giant sets your heart aflutter, you’re going to love another of our May programs. In Dickensian, various characters from Dickens’ books interact in a murder mystery around the Christmas Eve death of Jacob Marley. Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit and his family, Fagin and his minions, and a young Amelia Havisham are among the cast in this clever mashup series airing Thursdays, May 4 – June 1 at 8 and 9 p.m. Be advised: You may find yourself reaching for Dickens’ novels to learn more about the intriguing characters.

Courtesy BBC Worldwide/Red Planet 2015

The long-awaited American Epic premieres this month. Produced by T Bone Burnett, Robert Redford, and Jack White, the series traces how America’s diverse cultures blended into distinctive musical styles aided by advances in recording technology in the 1920s. The show airs Tuesdays, May 16–30, at 8 p.m. In June, The American Epic Sessions features modern-day artists performing and recording using antique recording equipment.

Courtesy of WHYY

Arts Worth Watching

This Month on Nashville Public Television

American Epic

A journey across time to the birth of modern music.

Tuesdays, May 16 – 30, 8 pm

Presented by T Bone Burnett, Robert Redford and Jack White

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY

Next Door Neighbors: Belonging How foreign-born Middle Tennesseans go about fitting into their adopted home.

Tuesday, May 30, 9:30 pm

Animal Super Parents Weird, wonderful stories of parenting in the natural world.

Wednesday, May 17 – 31, 7 pm

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7:00 Antiques Roadshow Orlando, Hour 1.

8:00 Antiques Roadshow Corpus Christi, Hour 3.

9:00 Independent Lens Forever Pure.

Reaction to Israeli soccer club Beitar Jerusalem F.C.’s acquisition of two Muslim players.

10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 BBC World News 11:30 The Last Ring Home A WWII POW’s Naval Academy ring resurfaces 17 years after his death.

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7:00 Call the Midwife Season 6, Episode 7.

Parents care for a disabled child as the terrible legacy of thalidomide becomes apparent.

8:00 King Charles III on Masterpiece Prince Charles ascends to the throne in this drama.

10:00 Articulate with Jim Cotter Tap into America.

10:30 Tennessee Uncharted 11:00 Tavis Smiley 11:30 Scully/The World Show

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7:00 Antiques Roadshow Virginia Beach, Hour 3.

8:00 Antiques Roadshow Corpus Christi, Hour 2.

9:00 Independent Lens The Prison in Twelve Landscapes. A cinematic journey through a series of ordinary places across the USA where prisons affect lives.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Let There Be Light Stained-glass artists. .

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7:00 Victorian Slum House The 1880s.

8:00 American Epic The Big Bang. The Carter Family and other 1920s Tennessee musicians.

9:00 Frontline American Patriot. The Bundy family’s fight vs. the federal government.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Pacific Heartbeat Visions in the Dark: The Life of Pinky Thompson.

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7:00 Victorian Slum House The 1870s. A dire economic depression is heightened by the arrival of Irish migrants.

8:00 Amish Paradise Leaving Amish Paradise. A family searches for a new life.

9:00 Frontline Poverty, Politics and Profit. Why few get the help they need though billions are spent on housing the poor.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Pacific Heartbeat Mele Murals.

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7:00 Animal Super Parents Going It Alone. Single animal parents.

8:00 NOVA Chinese Chariot Revealed. Experts reconstruct China’s first superweapon.

9:00 Food – Delicious Science Food on the Brain.

Michael Mosley and James Wong reveal our food’s hidden chemistry.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Austin City Limits Gary Clark Jr.; Courtney Barnett.

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9:00 Dickensian Honoria faces up to the reality of her situation.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Above and Beyond The WWII journey of former R.I. Gov. Bruce Sundlun.

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7:00 Tennessee Crossroads 7:30 Volunteer Gardener 8:00 Dickensian Amelia and Arthur Havisham hear the reading of their father’s will; Jacob Marley is murdered.

9:00 Dickensian The Havisham’s New Year’s Party.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Forgotten Coast A rugged thousand-mile journey from the Everglades to the FloridaAlabama border.

Thursday

7:00 Nature 7:00 Tennessee Crossroads Dolphins: Spy in the 7:30 Volunteer Gardener Pod, Part 2. Meet the 8:00 Dickensian largest and the fastest Martha Cratchit’s dolphins. wedding plans are 8:00 NOVA thrown into turmoil.

Arctic Ghost Ship.

9:00 Dickensian 9:00 Plants Behaving Edward Barbary comes Badly into the sights of Sex & Lies. The Inspector Bucket. ethereal beauty of 10:00 BBC World News orchids and how they 10:30 Last of Summer Wine attract pollinators.

11:00 Audubon 10:00 BBC World News The legacy of John 10:30 Last of Summer Wine James Audubon.

11:00 Austin City Limits Robert Plant & The Sensational Space Shifters.

7:00 Antiques Roadshow 7:00 Victorian Slum House 7:00 Nature Virginia Beach, Hour 2.

The 1860s. Modern-day Dolphins: Spy in the 8:00 Antiques Roadshow Brits embark on a living Pod, Part 1. Aquatic spy Corpus Christi, Hour 1. history experiment. creatures capture 9:00 Independent Lens 8:00 Amish Paradise behavior in the National Bird. The Trouble in Amish superpod. dramatic journey of Paradise.

8:00 NOVA whistleblowers 9:00 Frontline Super Tunnel. determined to break Second Chance Kids.

9:00 Plants Behaving Badly the silence around the A Supreme Court Murder & Mayhem. The secret U.S. drone war. ruling leads to the extraordinary behavior 10:30 Last of Summer Wine re-evaluation of juvenile of carnivorous plants.

11:00 BBC World News murder cases.

10:00 BBC World News 11:30 Spectrum: A Story of 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine the Mind 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Austin City Limits 11:00 Paleo Sleuths Natalia Lafourcade/ Grupo Fantasma.

Monday

7:00 Call the Midwife Season 6, Episode 6.

Valerie Dyer makes a troubling discovery when she cares for an expectant Somali woman.

8:00 Home Fires on Masterpiece Season 2, Episode 6.

A wedding brings joy to Great Paxford.

9:00 Inspector Lewis What Lies Tangled.

10:30 Tennessee Uncharted 11:00 Tavis Smiley 11:30 Scully/The World Show

Sundays, 7:00 pm

Call the Midwife

Sunday

Nashville Public Television’s Primetime Evening Schedule

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7:00 Soundbreaking I Am My Music.

8:00 American Masters: James Beard America’s First Foodie. The iconic chef who launched the first TV cooking show.

9:00 American Masters: Julia Child Julia! America’s Favorite Chef.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 The Kate Jane Lynch.

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7:00 Soundbreaking Sound and Vision. The rise of MTV and music videos.

8:00 Genealogy Roadshow Boston.

9:00 Genealogy Roadshow Providence.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Front and Center CMA Songwriter Series with Jennifer Nettles. With Brandy Clark and Amos Lee.

7:00 Soundbreaking The World Is Yours.

Hip-hop pioneers and sampling.

8:00 Genealogy Roadshow Nashville.

9:00 Genealogy Roadshow Albuquerque.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Front and Center Dawes.

Friday

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7:00 Lawrence Welk Show Farm.

8:00 Keeping Appearances 8:30 Downton Abbey Season 6, Part 9.

Series conclusion.

10:30 David Holt’s State of Music Steep Canyon Rangers.

11:00 Globe Trekker Tough Boats: The Nile, Egypt.

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7:00 Lawrence Welk Show Love Songs.

8:00 Keeping Appearances 8:30 Downton Abbey Season 6, Part 8.

Molesley and Spratt try out new jobs.

10:00 Endeavour Neverland. Morse and Thursday confront corruption on the police force.

11:30 Globe Trekker Tough Boats: The Nile, Egypt.

7:00 Lawrence Welk Show Songs of the ’70s.

8:00 Keeping Appearances 8:30 Downton Abbey Season 6, Part 7.

A car race upsets Mary; Mrs. Hughes tricks Carson.

9:30 Endeavour Sway. The Oxford police deal with the third strangling victim in a month.

11:00 Globe Trekker Food Hour: Provence, France.

Saturday

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7:00 Antiques Roadshow 8:30 Journey in Concert Houston 1981.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Magic Moments: The Best of ’50s Pop

7:00 Antiques Roadshow Orlando, Hour 3.

8:00 Antiques Roadshow Boston, Hour 2.

9:00 Independent Lens Farmer/Veteran. An Army combat veteran starts a farm to cultivate a healthier life.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Coming of Age in Aging America The exploding population shift and its impact on society.

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7:00 American Epic Sessions Jack White and T Bone Burnett record top artists as they re-create our musical past.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine

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7:00 Victorian Slum House The 1900s. Helping the poor.

8:00 American Epic Out of the Many, The One. America’s diverse cultures contribute to its music.

9:30 Next Door Neighbors: Belonging.

A new NPT original about foreign-born Tennesseans.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Pacific Heartbeat Next Goal Wins.

Sun, May 21, 8:00 pm

Dark Angel on Masterpiece

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Victorian Slum House

June

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7:00 Tennessee Crossroads 7:30 Volunteer Gardener 8:00 Dickensian Will Dodger risk the noose rather than betray Fagin?

9:00 Dickensian Another body is found.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Canine Soldiers: The Militarization of Love Military Working Dogs and their combat soldier handlers.

7:00 Animal Super 7:00 Tennessee Crossroads Parents 7:30 Volunteer Gardener Lending a Hand.

8:00 Dickensian Elephants, lions and Inspector Bucket knows musk oxen. who killed Marley.

8:00 NOVA 9:00 Dickensian Troubled Waters. The Amelia Havisham water contamination prepares for the crisis in Flint, Mich. wedding of the year.

9:00 Food – Delicious 10:30 Last of Summer Wine Science 11:00 BBC World News We Are What We Eat. The hidden chemistry in food.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Austin City Limits Iggy Pop.

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7:00 Animal Super Parents It Takes Two. Mouse, penguin, cheetah and flamingo parents.

8:00 NOVA Meteor Strike. A 2013 meteor strike in Russia.

9:00 Food – Delicious Science A Matter of Taste.

The chemistry that gives our food taste.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Austin City Limits Tedeschi Trucks Band.

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7:00 Magic Moments: The Best of ’50s Pop 9:00 Age Reversed with Miranda Esmonde-White 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 The Kate Kiefer Sutherland.

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7:00 Free to Rock How American rock music contributed to the end of the Cold War. 8:00 American Masters: Jacques Pépin The Art of Craft. The surprising story of the famous French chef.

9:00 American Masters: Alice Waters 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 The Kate Darlene Love.

Visit wnpt.org for complete 24-hour schedules for NPT and NPT2.

6:30 Conversation with Bill Moyers 8:00 Weddings of Downton Abbey

7:00 National Memorial Day Concert Gary Sinese and Joe Mantegna host the 28th broadcast of this night of remembrance.

8:30 PBS Previews: The Vietnam War A behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming series from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick.

9:00 National Memorial Day Concert 10:30 Tennessee Uncharted 11:00 Tavis Smiley 11:30 Scully/The World Show

7:00 Call the Midwife 7:00 Antiques Roadshow 7:00 Victorian Slum House Season 6, Episode 8.

Orlando, Hour 2.

The 1890s. Mass The season concludes 8:00 Antiques Roadshow manufacturing and with a quick wedding Boston, Hour 1. social reform. and Shelagh goes into 9:00 Independent Lens 8:00 American Epic labor.

They Call Us Blood and Soil. Early 8:00 Dark Angel on Monsters. LA’s most Delta blues, gospel and Masterpiece violent juvenile protest songs.

Downton Abbey’s offenders.

9:00 Frontline Joanne Froggatt 10:30 Last of Summer Wine Bannon’s War. portrays a Victorian 11:00 BBC World News 10:00 BBC World News poisoner.

11:30 Chef Paul 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 10:00 Articulate with Jim Prudhomme: 11:00 Pacific Heartbeat Cotter Louisiana Legend Ever the Land. New The Nature of Art. Fellow chefs Zealand’s Ngai Tuhoe 10:30 Tennessee Uncharted remember the New tribe.

11:00 Tavis Smiley Orleans icon.

11:30 Scully/The World Show

Weds, May 17 - 31, 8:00 pm

Food – Delicious Science

3 7:00 Sgt. Pepper’s Musical Revolution 8:30 I Miss Downton Abbey!

10:00 Suze Orman’s Financial Solutions For You

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7:00 Lawrence Welk Show America at Play.

8:00 Keeping Appearances 8:30 Churchill’s Secret on Masterpiece The U.K. prime minister suffered a secret stroke in 1953.

10:30 David Holt’s State of Music Alice Gerrad, Rayna Gellert, Laurelyn Dossett.

11:00 Globe Trekker Road Trip: Patagonia.

Pur•pose: the reason for which something is done Helping you realize your home dreams is my purpose.

Let’s talk buying and selling in 2017.

Kelly Fisher kellyfisher@realtracs.com c 615-974-9898 o 615-202-7777 License #286183 cpcanashville.com

4535 Harding Rd., Ste 110 Nashville, TN 37205

Eclectic Home Furnishings and Gifts

2205 bandywood drive in green hills • nashville, tn 37215 www.margischair.com • 615.463.3322

BEYONDWORDS

Photograph by Anthony Scarlati

ry Eve st fir ! ay Frid

BY MARSHALL CHAPMAN

Mama Cloud ...

My two grandmothers were polar opposites.

Nannie, my paternal grandmother, was the saintly one. She had a sunny disposition and always gave you the benefit of the doubt.

She also had the good fortune to predecease both her cook and her chauffeur. A family story tells of the time her cook was unable to come to work due to an illness. So when Nannie went down into the kitchen to cook herself some grits, she somehow ended up with a broken arm. (Nobody’s quite sure how this happened.)

My other (maternal) grandmother ... we called Mama Cloud. To label Mama Cloud a force of nature would be an understatement.

She lived out in the middle of nowhere on the edge of a sand and gravel pit near Lilesville, North Carolina. She bought a new black Buick every year and drove like a bat out of hell. She rarely smiled.

And if she laughed, it was with derision. We grandchildren were taught to fear her. She never touched alcohol, but it’s my personal belief she was on a dry drunk her entire life.

Williamson County Culture

For some reason, when I was a child, I loved visiting my maternal grandparents. Mainly because they were such characters. Mama Cloud and Papa Cloud. Trust me when I say I could write a book.

There was a lot of passive-aggressive behavior going on in that household.

One time I heard Papa Cloud singing happily in the kitchen. He was standing at the sink with the water running.

“Papa Cloud, why are you so happy?” I asked.

“Oh, because I’m washing these coffee grinds down the disposal, and your granny just hates it when I do that!”

Mama Cloud kept a pistol in her bedside drawer and a rifle on her back porch. One moonless night, a pack of wild dogs went running and howling through their yard. When she heard the commotion, she stepped out on the back porch and blindly fired two shots into the night.

The next morning, my Uncle Jeff dropped by.

“Mama,” he said. “What are those two dead dogs doing out in the driveway?”

When Mama Cloud died, we all went to her funeral. After her casket was lowered into the ground, a woman came up to me.

(I later learned this woman was Mama Cloud’s best friend.) Taking both my hands into hers, she looked me right in the eye.

“Child,” she said, “I had to pray to love your grandmother.”

Marshall Chapman is a Nashville-based singer/songwriter, author, and actress. For more information, visit www.tallgirl.com.

NASHVILLEARTS.COM

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MYFAVORITEPAINTING COLLEEN DOWD, COMMUNITY VOLUNTEER AND ART LOVER

W.B. “Bus” Romeling, Snow Flurries, Watercolor, 15” x 23”

G

rowing up in Upstate New York, I spent much of the winter cross-country skiing with my family. The winter of 1977 was particularly long, and I easily remember it because Bus Romeling presented my mother a painting of Old Man Winter’s grave with the dates December 1977 – March 1978. My mother and Bus skied together nearly every week that winter.

This watercolor is among the first pieces of art I ever purchased.

Its peacefulness relaxes me. I love the dark tone of the clouds.

This is exactly what the sky looks like before it starts to snow!

The rolling hillside reminds me of being blinded in a strong storm and fiercely skiing toward a tree line to find temporary shelter.

I routinely search online for additional Romeling paintings to no avail. It seems like Bus’s artwork is a favorite of many others, too.

This is truly one of my most valued possessions. na

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NASHVILLEARTS.COM

Colleen Dowd

Photograph by John Jackson

Bus was a popular artist in Upstate New York because of his beautiful sketches and watercolors of the area farmland, his passion for teaching art, and his delightful personality.

Recent Findings by James Lavadour May 20 - July 1, 2017 Opening reception Saturday May 20th, 6 - 8 pm Artist will be present

4107 Hillsboro Circle | 615 297 0296 | www.cumberlandgallery.com