Nashville Arts Magazine - May 2018

George DOMBEK Marti Jones DIXON Anna CARLL Olivia Leigh MARTIN Leonard PIHA

SMILE Debuted Statewide in Nashville New and Minimally-invasive Surgery for Myopia (Nearsightedness) is First Major Advance in LASIK Technology in 25 Years, Reducing Dependence on Glasses and Contacts which causes the corneal shape to change, permanently changing the prescription.

SMILE has a proven track record of success. It has been used internationally since 2011 and more than 750,000 procedures have been performed worldwide. Dr. Wang noted that currently, the procedure has not been approved to treat large amounts of astigmatism and cannot treat farsightedness and that LASIK is still a better option for a majority of the patients seeking laser vision correction.

The first major advance in LASIK technology in 25 years, the SMILE procedure, was performed in Nashville recently at Wang Vision 3D Cataract & LASIK Center by its director, internationally renowned ophthalmologist Dr. Ming Wang, Harvard & MIYT (MD, magna cum laude); PhD (laser physics).

“We are extremely very excited to be the first again to introduce the next generation laser correction procedure to the state, helping out patients with this new and minimally invasive procedure,” said Dr. Wang.

Myopia is a common eye condition in which close objects can be seen clearly but distant objects are blurry without correction. LASIK and PRK have been the main stay treatments for myopia for over two decades. But SMILE, which stands for SMall Incision Lenticule Extraction, has unique advantages over LASIK. The SMILE surgery is minimally invasive as the surgeon needs only to create a small, precise opening to correct vision.

No flap is needed. The laser incision is smaller than 5 millimeters for SMILE, compared to approximately 20 millimeters for LASIK. This helps the cornea to retain more of its natural strength and reduces

the risk of rare flap complications. Dry eye after SMILE is also reduced compared with LASIK, as nerves responsible for tear production during the cornea remain more intact in SMILE. One of the state’s first SMILE patients was Margaret Coleman, 34, a manager of the world-famous Bluebird Café, in Nashville, which was prominently featured in the ABC TV drama Nashville, among others. Ms. Coleman has had poor eyesight all of her life, legally blind in both eyes without correction. Ms. Coleman’s 3D Laser SMILE procedure went beautifully and she is thrilled to have her crystal clear new vision and newly gained independence on glasses or contacts and being one of the first patients in the state to receive SMILE! “I am so happy!!!” exclaimed Margaret at her postop visit.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the VisuMax Femtosecond Laser for SMILE procedure for -1 to -8 D myopia with up to 0.5D astigmatism. During a SMILE procedure, a femtosecond laser with precise short pulses is used to make small incision in the cornea to create a discshaped piece of tissue. This tissue is then removed by the surgeon though the opening

Dr. Ming Wang, a Harvard & MIT graduate (MD, magna cum laude), is the CEO of Aier-USA, Director of Wang Vision 3D Cataract & LASIK Center and one of the few laser eye surgeons in the world today who holds a doctorate degree in laser physics. He has performed over 55,000 procedures, including on over 4,000 doctors. Dr. Wang published 8 textbooks and a paper in the world-renowned journal Nature, holds several US patents and performed the world’s first laser-assisted artificial cornea implantation. He established a 501c(3) non-profit charity, Wang Foundation for Sight Restoration, which to date has helped patients from more than 40 states in the U.S. and 55 countries, with all sight restoration surgeries performed free-of-charge. Dr. Wang is the Kiwanis Nashvillian of the Year.

Dr. Ming Wang can be reached at: Wang Vision 3D Cataract & LASIK Center, 1801 West End Ave, Ste 1150 Nashville, TN 37203, 615-321-8881 drwang@wangvisioninstitute.com www.wangcataractLASIK.com

TINNEY CONTEMPORARY

©Jaq Belcher

WHITE NOISE NEW WORK BY JAQ BELCHER April 7 - May 19, 2018

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

5 T H AV E N U E O F T H E A R T S DOWNTOWN NASHVILLE

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Columns HUNTER ARMISTEAD FYEye MARSHALL CHAPMAN Beyond Words 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 LIZ CLAYTON SCOFIELD Pocket Lint JILL MCMILLAN Arts & Business Council

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 $6.70 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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LEONARD PIHA

Piha at Work MAY 5-25

THE

arts

COMPANY

FRESH. ORIGINAL. CONTEMPORARY. ©

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ha

2 15 5th Ave of the Arts N. Nashville, TN 37219 • 615.254.2040 • theartscompany.com

5 TH A V EN UE OF T H E A RT S • DO W N T O W N N A S H VI L L E

HISTORIC FR ANKLIN TENNESSEE

T I F FA N Y

FOS S

Summer Bounty, Oil on canvas, 16” x 20”

DAV E

PIC ’ K E L L

Saggar-Fired Pottery

Artist Reception • May 4, 6-9pm 202 2nd Ave. South, Franklin, TN 37064

•

www.gallery202art.com

•

615-472-1134

THE RYMER GALLERY presents

VERGE

New Paintings by Robert Mullenix

Study for Noch

May 6–31, 2018 The Rymer Gallery / 233 Fifth Avenue / Nashville 37219 / 615.752.6030 / www.therymergallery.com

5 T H AV E N U E O F T H E A R T S DOWNTOWN NASHVILLE

On the Cover Olga Krimon

May 2018 30

Free, A Portrait of an Artist Oil on canvas, 48” x 48” www.leiperscreekgallery.com

Features 78 Ingram New Works Festival

20 MusiCircus

OZ Arts

80 Blue Moves

Myths: Connecting Universal Experiences

26 The 49th Annual Nashville Film Festival

Regal Cinemas Hollywood 27

Columns

30 George Dombek

Recent Paintings

16 Crawl Guide 22 Fresh Paint

Norman Lerner

37 Ruche

Amanda Joy Brown & Katherine Wagner 42 Q&A with Gina Wouters

22

44 Marti Jones Dixon

Cinematic Impressions

44

57

48 Steve Benneyworth Sculpture Auction 50 P.E. Foster

Point of View

24 Art Look

Daniel Holland

52 The Heart of Leonard Piha

28 In the Gallery

Raphaëlle Goethals

57 Olivia Leigh Martin

Malleable Terrains

52

62 The National Oil and Acrylic

Painters’ Society

Best of America Small Painting

36 The Bookmark

Hot Books and Cool Reads

82 Arts & Business Council 84 Art Smart

by Rebecca Pierce

68 Double Vision

Marlene De Waele-De Bock and Jeff Frazier

Duet Perspectives in Twin Peeks

88 Pocket Lint

by Liz Clayton Scofield

72 Anna Carll

Expressive Erosion

90 Theatre

by Jim Reyland

72

94 StudioTenn

by Logan Treadaway 96 ArtSee

Leonard Piha

Photograph by Tim Rogan

98 FYEye

by Hunter Armistead 100 NPT 104 Sounding Off

by Joseph E. Morgan 76 France with Friends

Amélie de Gaulle invites you to join her

art excursions to her family home

105 Beyond Words

by Marshall Chapman 106 My Favorite Painting

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May 9-19 | All shows at 7PM | FREE Nashville State Community College

The Very Last Wishes of Grandpa Joe,

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by Cristina Florencia Castro

A pop-up book artist losing her sight ventures to Ireland with her best friend to honor his grandfather's last wish May 11th & May 17th

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This Red Planet

by Nate Eppler

An ex-President decides to be an artist instead of a Republican and takes lessons from a teacher hired to discourage him May 9th & May 19th

How the Baby Died

by Tori Keenan-Zelt

An actress agrees to be the nanny for her gay friends' baby while making an audition tape for a French horror theatre May 10th & May 18th

Pranayama

by James Anthony Tyler

A Bikram yoga studio in a gentrifying corner of Harlem sees an

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May Crawl Guide

Experience historic downtown Franklin and see a variety of art during the Franklin Art Scene. Gallery 202 is featuring paintings by Tiffany Foss and saggar-fired pottery by Dave Pic’kell. Hope Church Franklin is presenting paintings

by Katrin Keiningham. Essence DeVonne is showing her work at Parks on Main. Big East Fork Retreat Center for Sustainable Stewardship is hosting artist Von Derry. Franklin First United Methodist Church is exhibiting nature and landscape photography by Susan Hay and Dorma Tabisz.

Stop by Imaginebox Emporium to see original art in a variety of mediums by Cory Basil. O’More College of Design is celebrating their graduating seniors with an open house featuring student work. There will also be an art installation honoring the legacy of Eloise Pitts O’More, as this will be the last art scene before O’More moves to the campus of Belmont University. Outdoor Classic Structures is showcasing textured acrylic paintings by Daron Frazier. See the work of abstract artist Jonathan Todryk at Twine Graphics. Amber Gould is the featured artist at Moyer Financial. Wellspring Financial is displaying bright and colorful mixed-media work

by Holly Rhodes. Winchester Antiques is highlighting Marsha Hunt’s one-of-a-kind jewelry made with gemstones and metals from around the world. For more information and the trolley schedule, visit www.downtownfranklintn.com/the-franklin-artscene.

First Saturday Art Crawl Downtown

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

Enjoy an evening of art under the lights on 5th Avenue. The Arts Company is unveiling Piha at Work by Leonard Piha (see page 52). Tinney Contemporary is exhibiting White Noise, new work by Jaq Belcher, which centers around a site/time-specific floor drawing comprised of 144,000 hand-cut paper seeds, collected from the works produced over Belcher’s 16 years of practice.

James Perrin, Tinney Contemporary

The Rymer Gallery is presenting VERGE, new paintings by Robert Mullenix. The Browsing Room Gallery at the Downtown Presbyterian Church is showing A Color Darker Than Black

by DPC resident artist Sarah Shearer. With this body of work, Shearer explores her experience with depression, trauma, and loss while searching for peace and freedom.

Leonard Piha, The Arts Company

Von Derry, Big East Fork Retreat Center for Sustainable Stewardship

Dave Pic’kell, Gallery 202

Friday, May 4, from 6 until 9 p.m.

In the historic Arcade, Blend Studio is hosting an opening reception for Supernatural Groves, new paintings by Shelly Winifred Barger. On the second floor overlooking 5th Avenue, The Gallery of Andy Anh Ha is featuring the work of Andy Anh Ha, which is reflective of natural elements—water, earth, and sky—and consists of a mixture of mediums to create texture.

Hatch Show Print’s Haley Gallery is displaying Throwing Bread at Geese by Todd Herzberg, who works predominately in the print processes of relief and lithography and has recently begun to incorporate animation and installation to create complex stories with absurdist overtones. For parking and trolley information, visit www. nashvilledowntown.com/play/first-saturday-art-crawl.

Todd Herzberg, Haley Gallery

Franklin Art Scene

Uptown Crossing Parking Garage

The corner of West End and 21st Avenues On your way from the First Saturday Art Crawl Downtown to Arts & Music @ Wedgewood/ Houston, stop by Uptown Crossing Parking Garage where Brian Tull is painting three large-scale murals. Tull’s painting-turned-mural, The Highway Has Always Been Your Lover, is complete and will remain on view permanently.

The murals vary in size, Brian Tull, Uptown Crossing Parking Garage with the largest being around 50’ long by 11’ tall, and the compositions of all three feature cars in various landscapes.

Arts & Music @ Wedgewood/Houston

Saturday, May 12, from 6 until 10 p.m.

Take a drive down Gallatin Pike to Red Arrow Gallery for the opening of The Silent World by Daniel Holland, an all-new selection of his work featuring mixed-media abstract, landscapedriven paintings and collage works that are textured and thought-provoking.

Southern Grist Brewery is showing loosely realistic acrylic paintings of Nashville Predators players by Rodan.

For updates on the East Side Art Stumble, visit www.facebook.com/ eastsideartstumble.

Germantown Art Crawl

Daniel Holland, Red Arrow Gallery

Saturday, May 19, 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 art spots: 100 Taylor Arts Collective, Abednego, Wilder, Bits & Pieces, Bearded Iris Brewing, and Alexis & Bolt. For updates and more information, visit www.facebook.com/ germantownartcrawl.

Saturday, May 26, from 6 until 9 p.m.

Visit the vibrant neighborhood along Jefferson Street for a unique and inspiring artistic experience.

Woodcuts Gallery & Framing is continuing their exhibition in honor of the 50th anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King featuring work by Michael McBride, James Threalkill, Omari Booker, Twin (Terry and Jerry Lynn), Frank Frazier, XPayne, Elisheba, doughjoe, Thaxton Waters II, and Ol Skool. One Drop Ink is showing digital images and a collection of zines by Veronica Leto. The Garden Brunch Cafe is presenting work by N’digo Kali and Jae Graham. Stay up to date on additions at Facebook.com/JSACTN.

N’digo Kali, The Garden Brunch Cafe

the work of Brooklyn based artist Michael Scoggins, who uses notebook paper to create large-scale drawings challenging American ideals and culture. The Gallery at Fort Houston is unveiling Spiritual Hypochondriac, a new exhibition of painted works from Nathan McKenney, who uses a variety of overtly modern techniques in an aggressively playful manner. abrasiveMedia is having a closing reception for I Live Here Too by Omari Booker, a declaration of belonging in which the artist is visually expressing his desire to create a community of inclusion. At Channel To Channel, owner Dustin Hedrick is displaying his solo show Title, which explores portraiture by enveloping the viewer in vast fields of pattern, color, and texture using tape as the medium. CONVERGE is opening Potential of Clay: Old School Farm Pottery that includes

East Side Art Stumble

Jefferson Street

Jered Sprecher, Zeitgeist

Nathan McKenney, The Gallery at Fort Houston

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

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

CONVERGE, Julia Whitney Brown Zeitgeist is opening 2 shows: Public Performance by Simon Roberts brings together works from the photographer’s two series The Last Moment and Sight Sacralization: (Re)framing Switzerland, which explore our society of instantaneity and the use of photography in relation to ideas of landscape identity and modern culture.

Still We Move by Jered Sprecher is an exhibition of largeformat paintings guided by the artist’s urge to form a delicate balance between instability and stability. David Lusk Gallery is hosting an opening reception for Recent Paintings by George Dombek (see page 30). Seed Space is featuring Polly by artist Kevin Jerome Everson, two single-channel films—one color, one black and white—filmed during the solar eclipse.

Polly is named for Everson’s paternal grandmother who passed away one day before the eclipse. Julia Martin Gallery is showing Artifacts of Return by Olivia Leigh Martin (see page 57). To complement the exhibition, the gallery is including STIX benches from designer Tony Baker’s STAY and a site specific floral installation created by Rachel Wayne of Daily Bloom Floral Styling & Studio. COOP Gallery is presenting

the clay work of Old School Farm Pottery, personal work by Founder Julia Whitney Brown, Studio Assistant Jo Mechan, and photographs of the organization in action. See FINAL DREAMS The Private Art of a Public Figure, photography by prominent attorney, bestselling author, and internationally known healthcare CEO Erie Chapman (aka Dane Dakota) at Dane Carder Studio. For more information, visit www. artsmusicweho.wordpress.com.

Veronica Leto, One Drop Ink

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WORDS Peter Chawaga

Performance and Genre Overlap at

OZ Arts

|

OZ

May 17

L

ike distinct sounds arranged together in orchestral harmony, simultaneous performances in distinct mediums and disciplines have the power to illuminate one another.

Demonstrating just how symbiotic artistic displays across the spectrum can be, OZ Arts Nashville will present MusiCircus, a compendium of more than 75 musicians, composers, writers, dancers, visual artists, aerialists, performance artists, and culinary artists all demonstrating their crafts concurrently across 43 sections of OZ Arts’ sprawling property.

The event has been curated by Colleen Phelps, an award-winning percussionist who is drawing from the history of artistic “happenings” in the 1950s—freeform, multi-disciplinary performance-art events that were originally conceptualized and organized by art pioneer Allan Kaprow and his mentor, the composer and music theorist John Cage.

“The idea behind putting on a MusiCircus now is to bring so many members of the arts community together and to see what combinations we can find,” Phelps explains. “But also, in some ways, losing a sense of purpose to the event would be more in line with Cage himself . . . So, maybe we should just say that we’re having MusiCircus because we just are.”

Suspended Gravity

OZ Arts has secured a wide range of local artists to participate in the event; their ages range from 11 to 70 and their mediums and disciplines of choice run the gamut. Many of those who will be performing side by side have made plans to coordinate their performance in some way, even if they have never met before.

Photography by Nate Brown

While there may be some initial sensory overload, a key concept behind these events is that disparate artistic expression will prompt unexpected correspondence between the works, not competition. Of course, the freeform event will also embody an edict of Cage’s, who said that the highest purpose is to have no purpose at all.

An event like this makes the most of the OZ Arts space, which has hosted a wide variety of artistic performances in the past and is a veritable playground for local artists and art lovers. Visitors will be free to survey the artistic offerings as they like, spending as much or as little time as they like interacting with a given performance. Performances will be occurring simultaneously, with the number in progress fluctuating throughout the evening. Some performances will last all night, some will be repeated every few minutes, and still others will be performed differently throughout the event.

Xandra Lee

MusiCircus will be held at OZ Arts, 6172 Cockrill Bend Circle, on May 17. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.; the programs begin at 7 p.m. and end at 9 p.m. For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit www.ozartsnashville.org.

Karen Renée Robb of Frame Drum Wisdom

Photograph by Kevin Schlatt Photography

Chinese Arts Alliance of Nashville

Perhaps no single event on the arts calendar is as readily poised to bring the full variety of Nashville’s art scene to its patrons. “The Nashville arts community is showing up with open arms to share their stories and creative talents in a communal environment,” Snelling says. “I encourage all visitors to arrive with an open mind and hope they will leave with a new perspective on what is possible . . . within every discipline of art offered for their consumption.” na

Photograph by Olga Kryshtal

“MusiCircus, as a cacophony of simultaneous and overlapping performance and visual art happenings, will embrace the entire campus, indoors and outdoors, with works both intimate and large scale,” says Lauren Snelling, OZ Arts artistic director. “There is no pre-prescribed order for the consumption of these pieces, so audience members have autonomy to design their own experiences—reinforcing the notion that every presentation at OZ Arts is different,

designed to suit each individual work, and audiences are encouraged to be awake to the possibilities and fully engaged in the moment.”

Suspended Gravity

As a sampling of the breadth of the event: The Whites Creek High School World Percussion Ensemble will be performing a samba; the Portara Ensemble choir will be collaborating with the Epiphany Dance Company; the Porch Collective will be contributing spoken-word performance and an audio and visual installation; and the artisan collective Tank615 will be presenting something called Tank Chicken.

FRESH PAINT 22

NASHVILLEARTS.COM

Walking in the Rain

WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHY Norman Lerner

I love rainy days. As a matter of fact, it’s raining right now, and I’m so excited. I can’t wait to go out and play in the rain.

I wasn’t always like this until I realized that it was a wonderful time for making pictures. I would call it an exercise in mindfulness.

It happened one day while I was out shopping and got caught in a cloudburst. While braver folk exited their vehicles and ran or just sauntered for the shelter of the store or eatery, I, the coward,

decided to wait it out. As I sat listening to the rain hitting the windshield, I realized that a whole new world was taking shape before my eyes. It was almost like looking through a giant kaleidoscope. Colors, people, and buildings were transformed by the splashes, rivulets, and large raindrops hitting the windshield. The car became a huge camera, and the wet windshield became this unusual lens, and I was sitting in this dark camera.

I found that a whole new world was unfolding before me.

Everything seemed to be in a state of flux. Colors splashed.

People became elongated and half disappeared. The ambience of light changed from moody to sparkly to subdued.

The amazing thing about this whole experience is that it has always been there, just waiting to be discovered.

In a way it’s a little scary because, being 90, I know how quickly the years go by. On the other hand, when you keep discovering new realities, life becomes more than living. You just have to step out into it. In the process, you might get a little wet—but that’s life.

Oh, did I tell you? I used my iPhone for the series. na For more information, visit www.normanlerner.com.

NASHVILLEARTS.COM

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Art

Look

The Silent World by Daniel Holland The Red Arrow Gallery

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May 12 – June 3

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Waiting underground at an empty train stop at 3 a.m. or holding one’s breath underwater at the public pool, swimming softly through coral, indifferent to human excitement. Quick escapes, leaving your friends behind on the beach and hiding beneath a pier to smoke, alone and safe from the wind. Standing quietly in the sand, contemplating the graffiti and the garbage. I've always looked forward to these moments alone, when I can daydream wildly.”

—Daniel Holland, 2018 www.theredarrowgallery.com

Smoking Cigarettes Under the Pier, 2017–2018, Mixed media on canvas, 60” x 48”

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The Final Scene, 2017–2018, Mixed media on canvas, 60” x 48”

SOMETIMES

A CURE COMES OUT OF

LEFT FIELd. 28th Annual Celebrity Softball Game

Saturday, June 9 at 10 a.m.

First Tennessee Park

#strikeoutcancer18 Learn more at

LAUREN ALAINA

Come watch your favorite television, sports and country music stars step up to the plate to help strike out cancer at the 28th Annual Celebrity Softball Game on Saturday, June 9, at First Tennessee Park in Nashville. Support a great cause and have fun enjoying an up close and personal celebrity experience. This year’s game will feature playby-play announcer Naomi Judd, batters Drew and Jonathan Scott, and several other stars. Proceeds from the game will benefit City of Hope’s mission to eliminate cancer and other life-threatening diseases.

Learn more at CityofHope.org/softball

CityofHope.org/Softball

49 The

th

Annual Nashville Film Festival

Regal Cinemas Hollywood 27

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May 10–19

I

n May, the Nashville Film Festival will celebrate its 49th annual event with ten days of can’t-miss film premieres, red-carpet events, and informational panels featuring industry leaders. The Festival—voted one of “50 Film Festivals worth the entry fee”

by MovieMaker Magazine, highlighted as One of the Best Film Festival Prizes by Film Festival Today, and named by Brooks Institute as one of the top five film festivals in the U.S.—presents the best in World Cinema, American indies, documentaries, and numerous short-form programs by veteran masters, up-andcoming directors, and first-time filmmakers.

With Oscar Award-qualifying status and numerous well-attended shorts programs, the Nashville Film Festival has screened many prize-winning narrative and animated shorts, including 13 Assassins, (500) Days of Summer, Cyrus, and Academy Award nominees I Am Love, Ajami, and Dogtooth. Celebrity honorees and participants have included Oprah Winfrey, Susan Sarandon, William Shatner, William H. Macy, Al Gore, Nicole Kidman, Danny Glover, Vincent D’Onofrio, and many more.

This year the festival received nearly 5,000 short film submissions, of which 215 were selected to be shown. Brian Owens, Nashville Film Festival’s Artistic Director, said, “We are continually impressed by the incredible storytelling submitted in the Tennessee First Competition and thrilled to highlight these films as part of our all-star lineup.”

The winning films in the Narrative Shorts Competition, the Animated Shorts Competition, and the Documentary Shorts Competition all qualify for the Academy Awards® as long as they meet all other eligibility requirements. Each of the festival’s last three winners in best Animated Short—Garden Party, Borrowed Time, and Bear Story—received Academy Award nominations.

Bear Story went on to win the Oscar. na Additional information on the festival and its 2018 schedule can be found at nashvillefilmfestival.org.

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Realizing a client’s visions of custom, one of a kind, hand-crafted folding screens, room dividers and wall art.

In the

Gallery

Recent Work by Raphaëlle Goethals

|

Through June 2

I

n her second show at Cumberland Gallery, Raphaëlle Goethals presents a recent series of signature large-scale encaustic paintings. Born in Brussels, Goethals enjoyed her initial formal education in Belgium, moved to the United States in 1981, and currently resides in New Mexico. These geographical locations and their rich history of painting can be felt in Goethals' work: the glazed layers of early devotional Flemish painting, the light and glowing colors of the desert landscape in the Southwest, and the influence of American artists such as Clifford Still, Richard Serra, and Brice Marden.

Goethals’ signature medium for almost twenty years is encaustic—an ancient medium that combines ground pigments, heated beeswax, and resin. The malleability and translucency of the wax component allow the artist to brush, scrape, and reapply material, registering a visual memory of the art-making process. This notion of memory is conceptually central to Goethals’ work: “I believe we have in our cellular memory an inner awareness of a universal language. And our artistic mind is made up of a mosaic of thoughts and images collected over the years, which can

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Transition, 2018, Encaustic on panel, 60” x 54”

Chamisa Yellow, 2018, Encaustic on panel, 48” x 48”

Cumberland Gallery

then be forgotten or put aside to reach the emptiness from which new work can manifest itself.”

Moving simultaneously in opposite directions, Goethals' encaustics are the ultimate blurring of boundaries. On the one hand, her artwork is about integrating memory, accumulating material, mark making and history, allowing persona, expression, and complexity. On the other hand, the artist distills radically, erases anything referential, and moves towards simplicity, a universal minimalism, a point zero.

Goethals’ paintings are the visualization of an existential gray zone, a place of uncertainty, vulnerability, and contemplation.

The artist transports the viewer to this holistic in-between stage by reformulating the constituents of painting as similar quintessential dualities: flat surface versus deep space, precision versus ambiguity, material versus ethereal, the gridlike composition of brightly colored dots versus animated, formative fields of homochromatic hues. As such, Goethals’ art shows the viewer how the self-reflection of painting mirrors a spiritual turn inwards.

Recent Work by Raphaëlle Goethals is on view at Cumberland Gallery through June 2 For more information, please visit www.cumberlandgallery.com.

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Photograph by Kat Wilson

George Dombek

WORDS Elaine Slayton Akin

George Dombek

Recent Paintings

David Lusk Gallery

|

May 1–26

T

he title of J.D. Salinger’s 1963 novella Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, about the dysfunctional members of a post-World War II bourgeois American family, is summarized in this one optimistic quote, borrowed from the ancient Greek poet Sappho:

Raise high the roof beam, carpenters.

Like Ares comes the bridegroom, taller far than a tall man.

Salinger cleverly interweaves the structure of carpentry and the emotion of matrimony to represent the weighty potential of what is yet to come for the newlyweds, yes, but more important for the cast of characters as a whole who do not yet know what the reader knows: that Seymour will commit suicide a few years later.

Williamson County Barn III, 2017, Watercolor on paper, 60” x 60”

This poem fragment makes an appearance in the final pages of the book as an epigraph from younger sister Boo Boo to brother Seymour to commemorate his wedding day and resurrects an age-old pastoral sentiment among a modern audience.

Through the use of metaphor,

“superhumanly” because his primary medium is watercolor, which is infamous among artists as quite difficult to control.

For every source of light, there is an equally dark truth to discover. This tension is good. It’s this tension that draws us in as readers, as well as viewers, and rarely has a living artist captured this light-dark contrast as adeptly as Northwest Arkansas-based painter and architect George Dombek.

Known best for his barn paintings, Dombek is more than barns, unveiling a selection of new abstract work at David Lusk Gallery this month.

“I don’t want to control it,” Dombek clarified. “Watercolor is such a spontaneous reaction between pigment and water. That’s what makes it special.” Dombek believes that watercolor chose him, not the other way around. In almost every article or book published on Dombek, the author recounts the same tale about how the artist took up watercolor by chance in the year 1960 during his sophomore year of high school. “All the other art students went on to something else; I’ve been stuck there ever since,” he recounted. Fifty-eight years of watercolor is a testament to the artist’s obsessive dedication to his craft and his ability to produce over and over again without being redundant.

People still want to see what this 73-year-old does next.

The idea of barns and, by association, farming is a longstanding symbol in art and literature for community and family. A barn raising, for example, was a common practice by which neighbors helped neighbors without pay to erect barns across the 18th- and 19th-century America countryside. The whimsical displays of agrarian life in works

by Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, or Carroll Cloar invoke the carpe diem imagery of a Sappho or a Robert Herrick (“To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,” 1648).

On the other hand, Dombek draws from nostalgia but is not nostalgic. “Barns are often pictured as romantic, from a time gone by,” said the artist in an April phone interview.

“I don’t care anything about that. I’m not documenting a barn for history’s sake; I’m trying to make a painting that is relevant today.” Dombek relates more to the barn paintings of Edward Hopper and Georgia O’Keeffe because they are more concerned about the composition and have spent time meticulously removing things from it.

Union City County Barn, 2017, Watercolor on paper, 30” x 30”

While some of Dombek’s compositions are certainly more abstracted than others, overall his oeuvre shows very little effort toward three-dimensionality. Fortunately, realism and exceptional artistry are not mutually exclusive. A trained and prolific architect from 1974 to 1995, Dombek exercises superhumanly controlled precision in his paintings—

Strong Resemblance to Her Mother, 2005, Watercolor on paper, 40” x 40”

Dombek unknowingly drafted the first of many barn series in 1973 in response to an assignment for his historical preservation class. He was required to document an Arkansas building type by drawing various examples of the chosen structure, so he drew what he knew—the hay barns that lined the country road he traveled to and from school. And just like his first use of watercolor, he’s been stuck on barns ever since. That’s not to say his focus is stagnant. “One of the things that’s impressive about George Dombek is the way he continues to grow and develop as a painter,” according to Henry Adams, professor of art history at Case Western Reserve University. “Many artists either start repeating themselves, and the work gradually becomes drained of life, or they take a wrong turn. Over time, [Dombek] circles back to a theme of his early work, as he has with his paintings of barns, but bringing a new vision to the enterprise.” Since becoming an artist, Dombek has also painted rocks, bicycles, urbanscapes, steel mills, and

AB I, 2017, Watercolor, 20” x 20”

Coming Back, 2018, Watercolor, 20” x 20”

more, in addition to barns.

mortality popular in 17th-century Northern European still-life paintings, in his work. Dombek’s depictions of remnants of a dying way of life even exhibit a still-life impression because of the artist’s strategic placement of each object. Madison County Barn with Landscape (2016), for example, depicts an old red pickup truck just inside the alley doors of a tobacco barn. Two small pipe fragments lie in front of the weathered outer wall on the left side. The barn itself is front and center, the angle as if captured by a point-and-shoot camera. The faded background landscape gives just enough information to make out a row of hay bales. The dark-light juxtaposition, created by the intricate line detailing on the barn structure, is dramatic and minimalist and striking. The black interior of the barn is foreboding, but there is something curiously happy about the red truck. We see a similar composition in Union City County Barn and Robertson County Barn (both 2017).

Even early in his career, however, there has been something beautifully bleak and ominous in the shadows of his barn paintings. It is arguably a combination of the artist’s imposed urgency that time is running out and the anthropomorphic quality of his subjects. Think Toy Story if the toys were creepy old farm tools. Dombek paints practically every minute of every day and believes anything else is a waste of time. He noted during our interview that he was painting up until the very moment his assistant, Emily, handed him the phone. “I’m 73 years old,” he said, “I can’t wait.” He’s spent ten to twelve hours a day painting, seven days a week, for twenty-three years since he went full-time.

Knowing this aspect of the artist’s mind, it’s hard not to see a touch of memento mori, the theme of

Madison County Barn with Landscape, 2016, Watercolor, 30” x 60”

Moonlight, 2018, Watercolor, 40” x 40”

Against the Wall, 2018, Watercolor, 20” x 20”

The personality of these strategically placed objects effectively takes the place of humans in Dombek’s work and inspired a whole new series in 2004. Dombek studied the configurations of people in family photography to prepare for Portraits. In this series, we see the personification of rusted cans, mufflers, pipes, and pots, guided by darkly humorous titles, such as The Odd Couple (2004), Tommy Embarrasses Easily (2005), and Twins at Thirty-Nine (2004).

Pure Lard and Strong Resemblance to Her Mother (both 2005), which are included in the Lusk exhibition this month, follow suit, depicting various farm equipment arranged portrait-style against a white background. These “portrait” paintings offer a lighter contrast to the barns, not only because of their comedic tone but also their unleashing of more saturated color in Dombek’s repertoire.

hundreds if not thousands of paintings in existence, Dombek knows these people because he is these people. The seed was planted back then, working in his grandfather’s barn, for the future of his artistic career. Even in its dilapidation and sparseness, the barn, in a way, is Dombek’s natural resource, a metaphoric vehicle to show us who we are—the light and the dark sides, however flawed. na Recent Paintings by George Dombek is on view at David Lusk Gallery May 1 through May 26. An opening reception and book signing is scheduled for May 5 from 5 to 8 p.m. For more information, visit www.davidluskgallery.com. See more of Dombek’s work at www.georgedombek.com.

Barns are reflections of their surrounding natural resources, including humans, because they are built from local materials, house local materials, and are built by local people. Aside from all the awards and accolades and

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George Dombek in his studio

Photograph by Kat Wilson

Perhaps the stars of the show this month will be Dombek’s abstract paintings, which are concentrated versions of the linear tension he has mastered. The compositions essentially comprise zoomed-in frames of his larger structural paintings.

“Abstraction gives me more freedom than realism. No limitations,” said the artist. AB I (2017) and Against the Wall (2018) both feature bright colors—reds, yellows, oranges, and blues—that appear to grid out the roof beams of a vaulted barn ceiling as they are defined by hard black lines.

“The strong element of abstraction in [Dombek’s] work creates a certain distance from the subject, where we need to stand back and reflect on things,” said Adams. “I think there’s also a very personal relationship with the subjects he paints, contributing to the intensity with which he records hay barns.”

RaphaĂŤlle Goethals & John Henry through June 2

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

THEBOOKMARK

A MONTHLY LOOK AT HOT BOOKS AND COOL READS

The Only Story: A Novel Julian Barnes The Only Story is not just a novel, it is an austere portrait of the human heart. Paul and Susan, nineteen and forty-eight respectively, begin a love affair that changes their lives. In this beautiful, sweeping novel of a single love story, Julian Barnes masterfully weaves a tale of memory and how a first love inevitably changes your life.

Elvis, Strait, to Jesus: An Iconic Producer’s Journey with Legends of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Country, and Gospel Music Tony Brown Chances are, you’ve had at least one of Tony Brown’s hits stuck in your head. This coffee-table book is a rare look into the life and work of the iconic Nashville music producer, with gorgeous photographs of musicians coupled with stories from his life and of his legacy. Any music lover will want to make a place in their home for this celebratory tribute!

Love and Ruin: A Novel

The Museum of Lost Art

Paula McLain

Noah Charney

Martha Gellhorn is known mostly for her relationship with Ernest Hemingway. A heroine who has been lurking beneath the surface of our history, Gellhorn is at last the star of her own breathtaking novel by the queen of historical fiction, Paula McLain. Don’t miss Paula McLain at a Salon@615 on May 14 in conversation with Charles Frazier, author of the new novel Varina.

Museums are often considered the safest space for humanity’s most notable treasures, but over the centuries, like all things, works of art have succumbed to theft, war, natural disasters, and myriad attacks and schemes. Bestselling author Noah Charney has collected the stories of art lost in these dynamic circumstances and collected them in their own museum: The Museum of Lost Art.

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Amanda Joy Brown, How to Say “Mountain”, Sometimes Understood as “Tree”, 2018, Acrylic on panel, 12” x 12”

Katherine Wagner, Bedtime Anxiety, 2017, Acrylic on fabric, 34” x 28”

RUCHE Amanda Joy Brown & Katherine Wagner Galerie Tangerine

WORDS Sara Lee Burd

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Through July 6

A

manda Joy Brown and Katherine Wagner both approach memory from a distance, capturing the essence of the experience rather than focusing on traditional mimetic representation. While they agree that photography has its place within their lives, neither artist is beholden to what they see; rather they practice ways of processing their remembrances into unique works of art steeped in imagination.

The artists met when presenting their work at the 2017 group exhibition Otherworldly hosted at Ground Floor Gallery. Fascinated by their overlapping interests in art, the two noted that one day they should have a two-person show together. Ruche, on display now through July 6 at Galerie Tangerine, is where that seed of an idea came to fruition.

NASHVILLEARTS.COM

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Katherine Wagner, That Fancy Woman, 2017, Acrylic on fabric and hot glue, 36” x 24”

Amanda Joy Brown, Blue Edge, 2018, Acrylic, canvas and fiber, 12” x 12”

depth in a new way. In these works, she incorporates details that stand out to her from places she has been and qualities of nature she observes. Gathering bits and pieces of inspiration, Brown expresses her memory through material.

Amanda Joy Brown, Underbrush, 2018, Acrylic, canvas and fiber, 12” x 12”

Working alongside Galerie Tangerine’s Anne Daigh, Annette Griffin, and Lilli Robinson, Brown and Wagner curated a flow to introduce gallery visitors to the art of each.

They wove their works together into alternating patterns creating thoughtful juxtapositions. Based on their aesthetic predispositions for repetition, color, and texture, the resulting exhibition enlivens the gallery space, while each work also begs for slow contemplation.

Brown’s artworks are part of her Patternscapes series that began in paint on canvas creating a shorthand to represent natural elements; they were flat with the exception of the thick tar gel patterns, which provided literal dimension on the surface of the artwork. In the work on display at Galerie Tangerine she maintains the preciseness of gesture and plays with elements such as translucent textiles to approach

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The artist explains that she developed an interest in working from memory while in a Chinese painting class in graduate school at Savannah College of Art and Design, saying that “a lot of the masters of Chinese painting would sit and absorb the thing they wanted to paint—a plum blossom, a chrysanthemum . . . and other natural elements. They’d observe it, the character of it, the nature of it, how it grew.

Then they wouldn’t do a directly observational painting; they would take that information back and try to embody the character of it.”

Nocturnal Evergreen exemplifies Brown’s academic use of color theory to achieve sophisticated optical effects.

“

Both Brown and Wagner pursue similar questions about memory, and their unique approaches to art-making provide multiple aesthetic answers.

Amanda Joy Brown, How to Say “Grass”, 2018, Acrylic on panel, 12” x 12” Photograph by Oliver Prince

Katherine Wagner, Me and Sarah and the Rope Swing, 2018, Acrylic on fabric, 24” x 18”

Katherine Wagner

Photograph by Brett Warren

The dark-blue, sheer cloth overlaying the painted surface creates an impression of the night sky. Folds in the fabric articulate diagonal shades of dark and light comprehended by the mind as moonbeams. The painted surface employs complementary color combinations created in hues produced by Brown. Applied in at least seven layers, the dripped pigment builds up on the panel only to be sanded away into a smooth plane. The effects she achieves activate the painting, which appears nearly black, but is actually a blending of tightly overlapping reds and greens. That the panel vibrates although shrouded by the filter of the flowing blue cloth is a lesson Brown learned studying and practicing painting.

Composing with textiles and clear tar gel in her works, Brown is able to suggest fluidity in media. In Blue Space, she recalls a trip to Lake Michigan with her mother. The resulting artwork reveals her attention to subtle wave movements explored through diaphanous material, color blending, and mark making. The repetition of each linear application of the tar gel creates an exactness that falls away as the medium dries. The horizontality of the gestures and hues of blue contrasting with golden peach nod to the changing light and movement Brown observes in nature.

Wagner employs color, specifically a limited palette, to inspire her art-making around themes of childhood memory

Amanda Joy Brown

in her latest series, Warped Fabric. Describing the impetus of the challenge she set out upon, the artist says, “Color has always scared me. It started out as a test for myself . . . just do it, go two feet into it. I obviously enjoyed it.”

She creates her own colors, blending them from the basic tubes of paint from the art supply store. To create a group of tones for each painting, she applies the basic rules of the color wheel, which she encountered during her BFA studies at the University of Tennessee. The work exemplifies both her technical skill and attention to detail, her heroic action stemming from her efforts to surpass what she was able to do before. She says, “I’m trying to mix a color that I might not see, and getting it to a place where I’m satisfied with it and its relationship with the past.”

Katherine Wagner, Beach Vacation, 2018, Acrylic and hot glue on fabric, 38” x 32”

Applying the paint in color combinations that may not correspond to how they appeared in reality, she presents what is brought forward from her imagination. Building art as she works in obsessive detail, she constructs mixedmedia works such as Beach Vacation employing fabric, hot glue, and acrylic paint. While the casual observer may not immediately sense an escape to the sea, it is in Wagner’s mind.

Memories take shape in her paintings as she blends the selected hues with textures from fabrics into each composition. Wagner collects fabrics that interest her and stretches them into panels for paintings. The size of many of her works is determined by the size of the original cloth.

Perusing the sides of each work of art is its own adventure.

The artist plays with expectations such as leaving lush velvets untouched, printed florals peeking through paint, or delicately rendered illusions of texture made with her own brushstrokes.

In moments of clarity after the art is created, she develops words to describe what was conjured into the work of art.

With titles such as Bedtime Anxiety, Jelly Shoes, Me and Sarah and the Rope Swing, and The Fancy Woman, Wagner calls attention to the simple notions, childlike in tone, that appear in her visually complex paintings.

Both Brown and Wagner pursue similar questions about memory, and their unique approaches to art-making provide multiple aesthetic answers. These works benefit from being viewed in person as the effects of light and perspective can be most enjoyed in three dimensions.The artists’ focus on craft and technical skill, combined with their personal expressions of memory, provides space for gallery goers to consider their own memories as they perceive the artists’ recollections of something passed. na Ruche will be on exhibition at Galerie Tangerine through July 6.

For more information, visit www.galerietangerine.com.

Amanda Joy Brown, Nocturnal Evergreen Forest, 2018, Acrylic on panel and mesh, 20” x 16”

Self Portrait with Ghost Nude, Erie Chapman, 1977

Dane Carder Studio Announces

FINAL DREAMS

The Private Art of a Public Figure

MAY 5-26, 2018

Opening Reception May 5 at 6:30 In 1977, prominent attorney, best selling author and internationally known healthcare CEO Erie Chapman (aka Dane Dakota) began a parallel, underground career as a serious photoartist.

Under the tutelage of museum curator Roberta Wadell his focus became street pictures and the female nude. After his photographs won top awards, his work was exhibited at The Toledo Museum of Art, Manhattan’s Gallery of the Union League, The Rhode Island School of Design and Wisconsin’s Wustum Museum. Concerned that his nudes might cost him his job and marriage, he withdrew his work from public view for 35 years.

He returned to full-time photoart in 2008. This is his first public showing since 1982.

Two Women, Erie Chapman, 1979

ALL PROCEEDS TO NON-PROFIT ERIE CHAPMAN FOUNDATION

438 Houston St. #262 / 615.598.5600

Photograph by Sheri Oneal

“

Formally, I’m an art historian, and the Dutch Golden Age is where my heart beats just a bit faster.

Gina

Wouters Vice President of Museum Affairs Chief Curator,

Cheekwood Estate and Gardens

WORDS Paul Polycarpou Why Nashville? What brings you here?

This job. I knew nothing about Nashville but saw this opportunity at Cheekwood and everything just fell in place by finding everything I love in one position. So we uprooted from Miami and came here. I say this with complete affection, but Nashville was a Plan B for us. The long-term plan was to return to Europe, until this opportunity came along. Hurricane Irma also helped us with the decision. When we evacuated, we stayed in North Georgia; by this time, I already had my first interview. So, we drove a little further and saw enough of Nashville to know that it was a viable possibility.

What were your first impressions?

It’s not Miami, that’s for sure. Very manicured and clean. Very homogeneous compared to Miami, which is an incredibly multicultural and dynamic place. There’s no ocean! I’ve always lived by an ocean, so being landlocked is a first for me.

Any local artists in particular that interest you?

Oh, yes, lots. I’m really looking forward to meeting María Magdalena Campos-Pons. With her Cuban heritage and my time in Miami, I think there will be some interesting conversations there.

When and where are you the happiest?

In my professional life, working with artists on site—specific projects and the challenges that brings. The trial and error, I love that. Seeing how artists reshape their own practice by thinking about site specificity in contrast to the white cube and studio setting. That’s a rich and rewarding process for me.

In my personal life, it’s traveling. It’s the one luxury my partner, David, and I agreed we should give our two children.

Which places on your travels have stayed with you?

Sintra in Portugal, an extraordinary mountaintop village.

Certainly Cusco, Sacred Valley, and Machu Picchu in Peru. The Azores, the feeling of being on an island literally in the middle of the ocean is an exhilarating one.

Who are the artists that make you weak in the knees?

Formally, I’m an art historian, and the Dutch Golden Age is where my heart beats just a bit faster. From that era, I like Gerard ter Borch, Frans van Mieris, and Jan Steen. Do Ho Suh, a Korean sculptor and installation artist, and Xavier Veilhan, a French artist. Artists that are thinking specifically about interacting with the public and with spaces. Robert Winthrop Chanler, a relatively unknown artist who did a lot of commissions for gilded-age houses, whom I published a book on in 2016. His immersive murals and decorative embellishments operate as Gesamtkunstwerks. Janet Cardiff’s sound installation Forty Part Motet, which I saw at the Tate Modern last summer, moved me in profound ways and showed how a space can be filled with something intangible.

What was the last great book you read?

Probably Space and Place by Yi-Fu Tuan, a Chinese American humanist geographer. It’s been the foundation for a lot of the things I do and shows how much agency we have over our relationships with spaces, especially those that may seem

static. The last show I curated at Vizcaya in Miami took Tuan’s ideas as a point of departure.

Who would you like to have a long conversation with?

Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, a museology expert. She has been very influential in the way we think about museums and how they impact our lives. Yi-Fu Tuan is still alive; I’d like to talk to him.

What music do you listen to?

David Bowie, Massive Attack. A lot of Icelandic music, Björk, Röyksopp, Sigur Rós. The Clash. Cocteau Twins. Love and Rockets. Damien Rice.

Who has been a major influence on you?

My parents, definitely. The way they live their lives. The energy and passion they put into everything they do. They’ve always been crazy risk takers and never think something isn’t possible. Joel Hoffman, an incredible museum director, art historian, and visionary. Every good thing I accomplished professionally, he was in my corner.

What are you good at?

Multitasking, balancing a lot of things in my work and my lifestyle. I’m very active; I run a lot. I cannot stand to be idle.

That stresses me out.

So, what are you bad at?

I think I compromise a lot, but I think I could compromise a little more. Sometimes you have to relinquish parts of your vision because of external circumstances. Patience, I don’t have patience. I like things to move really fast. By default, I expect others to be at the same pace, which is an entirely unreasonable expectation.

What’s your greatest fear?

Not being able to leave a mark. To go through life just taking up oxygen. I want to make a difference through my work, through my children, my family. The arts are so vital in so many ways, especially right now. You can think of art and museums as a luxury, but to me they are essential.

What advice would you give the young Gina?

I would tell her to maybe spend more time on friendships and relationships. I was always so busy and goal oriented that I never really valued personal connections. I would tell the younger me to invest more time in people.

What can we look forward to here at Cheekwood?

I’m working on a fall exhibition with local and regional contemporary artists. Looking at the intersection of new work with our permanent collection. It will give me the opportunity to get to know the local arts community. I’m also trying to kick off a salon series that will allow Cheekwood to become a forum, dialogue-based space where relevant conversations can happen. We have major plans for the sculpture trail and for a children’s garden, and we’re renovating the horse stables. There’s a lot going on, big and small, tangible and intangible. na

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“

I’ve always felt a conflict between painting and music.

C I

inematic mpressions: Marti Jones Dixon’s paintings give new life to Robert Altman’s vintage film Nashville LeQuire Gallery through June 2

Marti Jones Dixon, Self-Portrait, Oil on canvas, 20” x 16”

WORDS John Pitcher

I

t’s a story of would-be singers and smarmy record company executives, of lonely housewives and conniving political operatives. Robert Altman’s 1975 film Nashville is a sprawling masterpiece that captures the zeitgeist of its time and place through the interlocking stories of its twenty-four colorful characters.

Musical docudrama. Political parable. Wicked satire. Nashville is all those things and more.

Given its complexity and sheer number of characters, Nashville does not lend itself to easy summarization.

What writer has ever been able to describe, in a satisfactory sentence or two, what this remarkable film is about? Words seem to defy this movie. But paintings do not.

Bar 1, Oil on canvas, 15” X 30”

At least not the ones in Marti Jones Dixon’s Nashville: Paintings Inspired by the Robert Altman Film, which runs through June 2 at LeQuire Gallery. About a dozen or so paintings, all depicting scenes and characters from the movie, will be on display. The gallery will also exhibit some of the original artwork for Altman’s movie created by Nashville-based artist Bill Myers.

Dixon has considerable experience creating figurative art based on movies. Her series titled Grey Gardens, drawn from the documentary of the same name, was exhibited at LeQuire about a decade ago. She has also created art inspired by the cult movie Valley of the Dolls along with paintings that pay tribute to the films of Alfred Hitchcock.

In the case of Nashville, one could almost see Dixon as a plausible character in the film. That’s because she’s also a professional musician who toured and recorded for decades with her husband, the producer, songwriter, and bass player Don Dixon. Her smooth vocals and acoustic guitar, mixed with Dixon’s raspy voice and electric bass, result in a funky country concoction that would seem natural on the Nashville soundtrack.

Altman, for his part, would have had little trouble creating a fictional narrative for Dixon’s character. He could have cast her as the successful singer stuck on the Nashville music-machine treadmill, a performer longing for the quieter, more introspective life of a painter. In real life, Dixon has always contended with a certain inner turmoil about her dual career paths.

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Linnea, Oil on canvas, 24” x 24”

“I’ve always felt a conflict between painting and music,” Dixon tells Nashville Arts Magazine. “That’s partly because it takes time for me to get my painter’s eye back once I’ve been on the road performing.”

Dixon’s exquisite eye for painterly detail, for knowing the exact moment to depict the action of her figures, has been the key to her success as an artist. It is also a defining feature of her Nashville series.

In Dixon’s Choir, we see the character Linnea Reese (played in the movie by Lily Tomlin) draped in a black robe, turning her head to look back as other choristers bustle forward.

A kind of helter-skelter movement and sense of confusion about which way to go are implicit in this painting.

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We all experience such moments in real life, which makes Dixon’s painting universally relatable. Dixon drew that painting from a fleeting scene near the end of the movie, after the character Barbara Jean (played by Ronee Blakley) had been shot onstage during a political rally at the Parthenon. The action unfolds so quickly it would be easy to miss. Somehow, Dixon turns it into an indelible image.

“That’s one of the things that make Marti’s paintings so special,” says Elizabeth Cave, the director at LeQuire Gallery who encouraged Dixon to create her latest series. “She’s able to express a huge amount of emotion from scenes that last a fraction of a second.”

The fraction-of-a-second technique is one element of Dixon’s

Stage 1, Oil on canvas, 12” X 24” Choir, Oil on canvas, 12” X 24”

style. Another is what she refers to as semi-impressionism.

In her painting titled Stage 1, inspired by one of Altman’s ever-so-brief camera pans, we see instantly recognizable characters such as the bearded, womanizing folk singer Tom Frank (unforgettably played in the movie by Keith Carradine).

But look close and you see there are no photo-realistic details of any figures onstage. Dixon merely gives us her impressions of these characters.

“I learned long ago that just a glob of paint could represent an arm or face,” says Dixon. “That’s a big part of my approach.”

It’s also a prime reason her paintings transcend the movie

stills from which they are drawn. Dixon is conveying her emotions about the characters directly to the viewer. “My goal is to create paintings that can stand on their own as works of art,” says Dixon. “I don’t want them to be just scenes from a movie.”

Dixon describes Altman’s Nashville as “one of those movies you can watch a hundred times and always discover something new.” She has accomplished an even more remarkable feat with her art, taking a vintage subject and making it seem completely fresh and original. na Marti Jones Dixon’s Nashville: Paintings Inspired by the Robert Altman Film runs through June 2 at LeQuire Gallery. For more information, visit www.lequiregallery.com.

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Sculpture Auction Owl’s Hill Nature Sanctuary

WORDS F. Douglass Schatz

|

May 19

X and Y, Steel and concrete, 3.5’ x 5’ x 6’

Courtesy Hannah Gardner

BENNEYWORTH

Steve Benneyworth

Big Drum, Steel and concrete, 11’ x 11’ x 11’

Coin Slot, Steel and concrete, 5’ x 5.5’ x 2’

A

s a native Nashvillian and erstwhile local art enthusiast, I remember Steve Benneyworth’s sculptures well, from his studio on Murphy Road, to his outdoor sculpture Web in Hillsboro Village. Known for his gentle demeanor and humorous quips, he was always a fixture at art functions and gallery openings around town.

My earliest memory of him was not on the art scene though; it was when he came to repair a house I happened to be squatting in during my college years. Like most artists I know, he had a day job, and in his case, it was the renovation and repair of houses in town. In Nashville during the 70s and 80s a lot of artists in town had ‘repair’ companies, though most apparently only for tax purposes because they never seemed to be fixing anything. Steve, however, made a living at it and was able to finance and produce his large-scale sculptures.

More important, his vocation informed his avocation in terms of materials and technique—he was able to channel his construction work in concrete and steel into abstracted and massive sculptural forms.

Benneyworth was one of the first contemporary sculptors in Nashville that worked entirely in abstract or non-objective large-scale outdoor sculpture. His abstractions using scale and mass seemed to be the outlier in a town versed in realism and statuary. His imagery was often organic in form with hints of an underlying pattern of science-based structure.

At the time, his work was somewhat challenging to the Nashville community because of its non-objective nature and use of non-traditional art materials. There is a certain truth in materials that the general public tends to accept as art—bronze, clay, stone, and more recently steel; so it is no surprise that his work was overlooked in Nashville during the early years. Often, the community didn’t quite know what to make of his work. Web, the aforementioned piece in Hillsboro Village, had, among people that I knew, many descriptive guesses about its origins—catcher’s mitt, Chex™ Mix, and spider web were terms that I heard most often. However one described it, there was no mistaking the creator; Benneyworth’s sculptures had their own look and feel that were unique in Nashville at the time.

The forms themselves were inspired by math and science, two lifelong interests of Benneyworth’s. He had two major themes in his outdoor sculpture: gravity and organic form.

He often used gravity as a way to connect the elements of the works, distributing mass and manipulating balance to support the large geometric forms. In addition, these forms provided visual tension that was palpable, given the physical weight of the pieces involved.

The organic forms that he made were perhaps his bestknown works—they used an underlying mathematical computation and grid system as a starting point for the forms. Through these structures, Benneyworth said that he was exploring the possibilities of “surface and its underlying mechanics” to create his arrangements.

His organic works often had a figurative quality, resembling bones or joints. The surface texture and coloration of the concrete contrasted with his use of steel to create a dynamic effect that seemed to reinforce these connotations. Those textures in the work were interesting because they didn’t hide the process of making or obscure the materials that he was using. His use of concrete was unapologetic and was intended to show off the material. Many sculptors are fascinated by the tools of the trade—cranes, lifts, steel, concrete—so it is no surprise that Benneyworth’s construction work and sculpture dovetailed so completely.

Though he passed away in 2014, Benneyworth’s sculpture will be exhibited on May 19 at Owl’s Hill Nature Sanctuary and will be available for purchase in an auction. Proceeds will go to the Steve Benneyworth Fund for the Arts to help underwrite visual and performing arts programming at Owl’s Hill. na For more information, visit www.owlshill.org.

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By the Numbers, 2018, Woods, steel rods, oil paints, 43” x 27”

Point of View Art & Words by P.E. Foster

B

y the Numbers began as sort of an “art-about-art” piece as I reflected on the wide degrees of creativity in the art world. However, I’m not really a fan of art about art, so I was happy when By the Numbers changed course as it developed—leaving a specific focus upon the subject of artmaking—and broadened to a more inclusive message about celebrating individuality.

So, with an examination of creative individuality brewing in my head, I started doodling in my sketchbook, and the notion to begin with a paint-by-number backdrop came quite quickly. Paint-by-number pictures, of course, are suggestive of a creative void, with immediate references to conformity, of operating within established boundaries.

However, just what that paint-by-number backdrop image itself should be was undecided and shifted each time I tried a different “lead actor” to juxtapose on top of my unfolding tableau. I can tell you that there were many auditions within my sketchbook for that lead role: a monkey, astronaut, cowboy, plein-air painter, mustang horse, and even a Jesus.

With each change in that lead roll, of course, the art piece took on completely different meanings. So, early on, the direction of the piece was in flux, and it slowly found its way by many little trials. I think they call it art-making.

As you can see, a parrot auditioned best and got the role— as a familiar linguistic metaphor for mimicking (parroting), it seemed a good choice to resonate with the paint-by-number staging. Settling upon the parrot, my next compositional decision was to resolve what the host paint-by-number image should be. I can tell you that I wrangled long and hard on that one, torn between two choices: Rodin’s Thinker, or (as you can see) an echo of the parrot itself, which I thought implied a layer of a self-examination. As for that white parrot, it was a symbolic decision. I was hoping to suggest a pure/ virginal state, whereby the parrot (due to parroting) is yet without color—no identifying plumage or distinctive voice.

As young artists, we study, gather technique, and often mimic influential artists. This is useful early training; I went to that school. However, to sing one’s own song and avoid repeating our predecessors, there is more to the recipe.

Those early studies must be co-mixed with our own unique

grit and percolated through the matrix of our time. This will distinguish our work from what has come before. “Finding one’s voice” seems a daunting goal amidst all the grand art traditions and stylistic modalities that have preceded us.

Fortunately, it takes care of itself as a consequence of much dedicated “doing.” To quote my talented songwriter wife: “Just show up,” day after day. Let this be your repetition, and your song will find you.

Like many things in life, repetition is double-edged. On the one hand, it is vital to progressive refinement, “practice makes perfect” . . . all of that. Conversely, if we are not mindful of it, redundancy can stunt our growth, serving to clip our wings and entrench us firmly within a cage of our own creation. I always liked this old adage (attributed to Mark Twain): “If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.” Repetition can beget repetition.

The tendency toward repetition is in us, from the first step out of bed in the morning. Whatever our activity in life (perhaps especially in the arts), the repetitive impulse should be a bit suspect, to be balanced with mindfulness. Patterns can serve us—or the other way around. It is always easier to follow the trail than to blaze one.

I personally quite like this advising quote from British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead:

“Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure, a sense of nothing having been done before, of complete freedom to experiment; but when caution comes in you get repetition, and repetition is the death of art.”

Our best work will come amidst that adventure—young or old, our habits can add color to the wing and elevate us towards new potential. Or, there is always that familiar old road—wide, worn, and traveled—by the numbers. na To see more of P. E. Foster’s work, visit www.pefoster.com and www.leiperscreekgallery.com. P.E. Foster is exclusively represented by Leiper’s Creek Gallery.

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The Heart of

Leonard

Piha Leonard Piha

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May 5–25

Photograph by Tim Rogan

The Arts Company

I

WORDS Karen Parr-Moody

f not for one watershed moment decades ago, Leonard Piha’s emotive art style might not have been. He might have continued to believe that one’s work had to be on the razor’s edge of an “art scene” to be valid. He might not have followed his gut to utter satisfaction.

Leonard Piha’s art lies within a tender vein of American folk art, its simple structures made rich through the infusion of universal experience—the longing of a child for his mother’s touch, grown children who no longer lean on parents, a nighttime walk shared by lovers. His work weaves a narrative tapestry from the threads of familiar stories.

His is a magical aesthetic borne of a visit one evening to the home of an art professor at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where Piha received his MFA. At that time this professor, Michael Hall, directed the graduate sculpture program at the prestigious Michigan university and had invited his sculpture class to see his broad collection of folk art, which he had installed in a single room.

“This room was jam-packed full of art,” Piha remembers. “In 1980, folk art wasn’t quite so known. Most folk artists were isolated, and of course the Internet was not there, so they had not looked at an art book or a gallery.

Searching for the Inner Jew, 2018, Wood, 90” x 48” x 14”

“My professor explained that these people were making work from their gut, from an inner drive. Most of it was a religious calling. I was just blown away. I said to him, ‘You mean to tell me that these people never went to college and they are making stuff that is way more powerful than anything I’ve ever seen, and way more heartfelt?’ That blew my mind.”

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Since then, Hall has donated his 273-piece collection to the Milwaukee Art Museum. It includes works that date to 18thcentury colonial America, as well as 20th-century works by self-taught artists such as Bill Traylor, Edgar Tolson, Felipe B. Archuleta, Elijah Pierce, and Mose Tolliver. And since that evening, Piha has never looked back.

“I realized it was okay for me to work from my gut,” he says “Those people, whose art I saw in his house, gave me permission to do what I really wanted to do. And that has lasted to this day.”

After viewing Hall’s collection, Piha’s work—which he admits to being bored by, anyway—began to change drastically. He began exploring his roots in Judaism and carving rabbis and menorahs and Torahs.

Today Piha lives in the serene woods of Athens, Georgia, where he creates art from found materials—wood, rusted tin,

Thinking About Bottles Outside the Box, 2018, Oil/wood, 33” x 36”

Yard Friend, 2018, Acrylic/wood, 22” x 26”

and cardboard—that possess a sort of inherent honesty that fits into the folk-art genre. At the moment, he’s working on a piece inspired by the Torah, a vision that is between him and the piece of wood. In fact, he thinks no one else would even realize this particular inspiration, as his Jewish symbols have become more diffused over the years. The Torah is one of many items in his “visual vocabulary,” which also includes trees, bicycles, jugs, boats, birds, menorahs, eyes, and chairs.

life, “That’s the wonderful thing,” Piha says. “That’s the fun and satisfying part about showing my work.”

“I lean on the vocabulary to say what I want to say,” he explains. Viewers don’t have to speak Piha’s language to know what he’s saying. His work’s universality sparks the viewer to remember his or her similar experiences.

“I have a picture of my wife in which we’re facing each other and there’s a moon behind us,” he explains. “That may sound like a trivial, no-big-deal painting. But someone saw it the other day and said, ‘I love going on walks with my wife at night.’ That was so satisfying.”

When viewers are reminded of their beautiful memories of

Retirement Schedule, 2018, Acrylic/wood, 26” x 88”

Despite being highly trained, Piha draws on the untrained artist’s natural inclination to create beautiful, yet imperfect, art, as will be seen during his exhibit at The Arts Company, which opens on May 5, from 6 to 9 p.m., during the First Saturday Art Crawl Downtown. The show will continue through May 25, during regular gallery hours, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.

“It’s always a magical experience upon entering the world of Leonard Piha,” says Anne Brown, owner of The Arts Company. “Full of sculpture and paintings of all sizes, this exhibit continues to tell the story of one person’s lifetime filled with art in ways that resonate with the rest of us. He often repeats ordinary objects that he associates with family, work, and traditions.” na To learn more about Piha and his exhibit, please visit www.TheArtsCompany.com.

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&

TENNESSEE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

present

plus

5 specials The Phantom of the Opera

2018-19

OCT 24 – NOV 4, 2018

season

Irving Berlin's White Christmas SEPT 11-16, 2018

OCT 9-14, 2018

JAN 15-20, 2019

FEB 12-17, 2019

Journey to the past.

NOV 13-18, 2018

Peter Pan & Tinker Bell: A Pirates Christmas DEC 13-23, 2018

The Book of Mormon MAR 12-17, 2019

Rock of Ages

APR 12-13, 2019

MAR 19-24, 2019

APR 30 – MAY 5, 2019

JUN 4-9, 2019

JUN 25-30, 2019

2018-19 season tickets today TPAC.ORG/Broadway • 615-782-6560 Get your

Groups of 10 or more call 615-782-4060

Some shows contain mature content.

TPAC.org is the official online source for buying tickets to TPAC events.

Know Before You Go – learn more about the content of each show, so you can make an informed purchase. Visit TPAC.ORG/KnowBeforeYouGo

Tennessee Watercolor Society

2018 Biennial Exhibition

May 12–July 27

Barbara Jerrigan Java Jumble, Watercolor, 15 x 22 The Customs House Museum & Cultural Center located at 200 S. 2nd Street in Historic Downtown Clarksville, Tennessee

931-648-5780

www.customshousemuseum.org

Hours: Tues—Sat 10-5

Sun 1-5

WORDS Noah Saterstrom

Malleable Terrains

Olivia Leigh Martin at Julia Martin Gallery

Through May 26

Glen Coe I, Oil on canvas, 48” x 48”

“

When you paint out of doors, the light on your skin is the same as that on the trees you are painting; the wind that moves the leaves also blows your hair. You are implicated.

Glen Coe II, Oil on canvas, 48” x 48”

F

or Olivia Leigh Martin, as for many who are inclined to work en plein air, landscape painting is not strictly a visual experience but a full-body sensory engagement. You feel the wholeness of that place: the hardness of the ground under your feet, the quickness of the wind, the color of the light. “Louisiana has a violet light,” Martin tells me. “Dallas light is yellow.”

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Olivia Leigh Martin in her studio

“Light is therefore colour” is how JMW Turner, painter of tumultuous landscapes, phrased the enigma. When you paint out of doors, the light on your skin is the same as that on the trees you are painting; the wind that moves the leaves also blows your hair. You are implicated. And since you are not a machine, you reveal your presence in your choices of color and mark—which, of course, is the idea.

Cameras are inarguably better at capturing the objective appearance of a place, at least from a single-eyed, mechanical, one-point perspective. But if such documentation were the only reason to make a picture, cameras would have made painters obsolete in the 1840s, as many predicted.

Perhaps Émile Zola’s assertion that art is a “corner of creation seen through a temperament” gets closer to the purpose of the plein-air painter. Little in nature is more squirrelly and less reliable than human temperament. Really, I mean, what a mess we all are, changing second by second, through will and circumstance in equal measure. Having said that, places and objects are all pretty shifty and transitory as well. The longer we look and the more nuanced our observations become, the clearer that is.

Martin, who is currently showing at Julia Martin Gallery (no relation) grew up in New Orleans, but she wasn’t regionally confined. She studied and painted in New Hampshire, Texas, New Mexico, and Scotland. One experience, however, was especially formative: During a summer project, she painted in the coastal wetlands of South Louisiana, a malleable terrain that is subject to merciless erosion. During her time there,

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she necessarily began considering the ephemerality of land itself. The idea of “trying to hold” the land—the notion that painting could embrace a land that is undergoing a death or drastic change—captivated her. All things transform, of course, but land usually at least appears long-lasting, if not eternal. Yet those bayous and estuaries near the coast change and deteriorate so quickly, some of the places Martin painted are already no longer recognizable.

Does acknowledging the unreliable temperament of a landscape make it feel more human, more relatable? What is the relationship between a painter and a landscape? What can we expect from the dialogue between a temperamental human and an immense, expansive terrain?

Between 1830 and 1832, the Japanese painter Hokusai created the self-evidently titled Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji.

Hokusai was a fanatical draftsman who loved shapes and arrangements. As an old man, he joked that though he started drawing at age six, nothing he made before age seventy is of use, but when he is ninety he will be a great artist, and when he is one-hundred-and-ten, every dot and dash will be alive.

In that prediction is the trust that over the course of decades of toil, the artistic subject—in this case, the landscape—will reveal deeper meaning. Not just the land, but the artists themselves will express richer complexity and an almost supernatural power to actually create life as well as represent it. It’s a lofty ideal, but Hokusai brings it with the humble (if dispiriting) preface that there are a lot of years of just looking and pushing silly paint around first.

Morning Walk, Oil on canvas, 11” x 14”

A Clearing in the Mist, Oil on canvas, 48” x 48”

Ruins, Oil on canvas, 48” x 48”

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simple fact of naming it “Glen Coe” identifies it not only as a mountainous location, but one many would recognize as the site of a 17th-century massacre of (in storied dichotomy) freedom-loving Scots and the Jacobite uprising. Certainly, even just giving a landscape a name invites human complexity. I asked Martin what she thinks about that: Does she welcome the human element in her landscapes, or is something as simple as, say, a cell-phone tower or distant interstate a contaminating element?

Evening I, Oil on canvas, 16” x 20”

She wrestled with that early on but found herself disinterested in what she refers to as “essentially a 19th-century argument about ‘the picturesque’ and the value of Romanticism.” Really, her intentions are not to create some idyllic image. She wants to take it all in, not an edited or abrogated version. Martin is what she refers to as a return painter. “What this means is that I return to the same places over and over again, like a moon orbiting a planet. Each time I return to the bayou estuaries of my childhood, or the gorge in New Mexico overlooking the Rio Grande, my understanding of that place is compounded.”

The Impressionists hauled their rickety easels up and down country roads and boulevards all over Europe. Paul Cézanne famously returned to the majestic Mont Sainte-Victoire to paint between 1882 and 1906. Monet made dozens of Rouen Cathedrals. In Martin’s work can be seen the wriggling, intestinal brushwork of Chaïm Soutine; Helen Frankenthaler’s analogy of a painting’s surface as a skin’s complexion; alongside the “uncorrected” gestures of Japanese Zen painting. She uses oil, the most visceral of painting media, and shoe polish, applied with her fingers.

One of Martin’s inspirations, Joan Mitchell, said, “I paint from remembered landscapes that I carry with me—and remembered feelings of them, which of course become transformed. I could certainly never mirror nature. I would more like to paint what it leaves with me.” Pierre Bonnard often made loose sketches out of doors, then painted from them in his studio to willfully open the door to the humanizing (contaminating?) element of memory and confabulation.

Winter in the Tropics, Oil on birch panel, 12” x 8”

Then there’s the question of humanity superimposed on a landscape. You see a picture of Monument Valley and it’s difficult to free it from the drama of westward expansion, the devastation of the native cultures, the artifice of “spaghetti Westerns.” Martin painted Glen Coe in Scotland, and the

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Martin says that in the studio, you can make conscious decisions, less reactive, more thought-through, but in a sense the studio makes the process more inward- than outward-looking. In the field, you are subject to unpredictable elements. Wind knocks your stuff over. Bees come and sting you. “One time I was painting an egret,” she says, “and as I was watching, an alligator came up and ate it.” She was painting a bird, and just like that, it was gobbled up. “In the studio, there aren’t things like that.” na Olivia Leigh Martin’s exhibit Artifacts of Return is showing at Julia Martin Gallery through May 26. For more information, please visit www.juliamartingallery.com. See more of Martin’s art at www.olivialeighmartin.com.

YORK & Friends fine art Nashville • Memphis

MONIQUE CARR

Mama Mia, Acrylic on panel, 12” x 12”

Celebrate Mother’s Day Saturday, May 12 Jewelry Trunk Show by Bella Baroque 10-5 Monique Carr Demonstrations 11-12 and 2-3 107 Harding Place • Tues-Sat 10-5 • 615.352.3316 • yorkandfriends@att.net at York & Friends Fine Art www.yorkandfriends.com • Follow us on

Manon Sander, Bel Air Stare, Oil, 12” x 16”

BESTof AMERICA Small Painting

WORDS Margaret F. M. Walker

Richland Fine Art

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|

Through May 26

T

his May, Richland Fine Art is hosting the first annual Best of America Small Painting show organized by the National Oil and Acrylic Painters’ Society. The exhibition, which features over 150 unique paintings by as many artists, showcases a wide variety of approaches to representative painting. The only parameters uniting these works are the media—oil and acrylic—and the fact that all are a maximum of 16” x 20”. The 156 works on display were chosen from nearly 900 submissions.

Clay Whitelaw, owner of Richland Fine Art, has hosted large association shows like this in the past for groups including the Oil Painters of America and the American Impressionist Society. His greatest joy in bringing the NOAPS Best of America Small Painting exhibit to Nashville is that “I get to see work by artists I have not known about before. It is

a thrill to open the boxes coming from all over the country and world and see these paintings I’d only known from photographs.” And, it is a wonderful treat for the community in Nashville to have such a breadth of artists consolidated here in one space and moment.

The events of opening weekend, the first in May, include a reception, a demonstration, and a workshop by this year’s judge, Dawn Whitelaw, who is a locally based Master Artist with the American Impressionist Society. The demonstration will also include John Michael Carter, a Master Artist with the Oil Painters of America. Dawn Whitelaw will be awarding upwards of fifteen prizes for the submitted paintings, decisions that surely will be difficult given the caliber of work on view.

While none of the paintings truly venture into abstraction, for fans of realism there is a great diversity in subject matter and technique.

Frank Baggett’s Snow Shadows at 11” x 14” is a traditional landscape that evokes an impressive sense of movement for a country snow scene.

Smooth blues and whites rush to a deep horizon while also fighting for dominance of the foreground. A barn and muddy ground are created in concentrated impasto of the midground, and gestural brushstrokes create trees that surge upwards. On the other hand, Monique Lazard’s Backyard Palm measuring 17” x 14” Monique Lazard, Backyard Palm, Oil on vellum, 17” x 14”

David Marty, Ready to Sail, Oil on canvas, 12” x 9”

Frank Baggett, Snow Shadows, Oil, 11” x 14”

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“

While none of the paintings truly venture into abstraction, for fans of realism there is a great diversity in subject matter and technique.

Sharon Will, Bike Shadows, Oil, 16” x 16”

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level view of the world. A red and a yellow bicycle frame our subject: the shadow.

This shadow is created with a rich multitude of cool colors. Greens, blues, and purples combine to form something we are used to seeing every sunny day.

A black kickstand gently contrasts with the blues to unite the shadow with its source.

J. Russell Wells, C’est Fini, Oil on panel, 12” x 16”

is a close-up study of one palm tree, more about vertical relationships than a sense of depth. Clever use of an almost indigo color creates the sense of cool shade, while the leafy fronds reach into a sunlit, cloudless sky. Its coconuts are an anchor in the middle of the composition. Lazard’s choice of vellum for the painting’s support also lends a different quality to the appearance of the paint.

A great number of these paintings are figural. Bella’s Petals (12” x 16”), by Michelle Murray, is a whimsical moment, made intimate by its small size. A girl sits perched atop a picnic table, a basket of flowers beside her. The shaded diagonal of the tabletop in the foreground is countered by the diagonal of the sunlit path in the background. This scene’s balance of elements creates a sense of tranquility, even as Bella’s blowing of flower petals lends some motion to it.

Furthermore, there is a unity about the subject as the vibrant red petals in the air and basket pick up the young girl’s hair ribbon and patterned dress. Russell Wells’s C’est Fini (16” x 12”) is a sensuous scene, wholly different. His handling of paint is far more textured, with evidence of a palette knife in the fabric of the couch and obscured background. A young woman in a black dress seems to have tossed herself upon the couch, arm thrown back and hair strewn over her eyes.

Evoking further this sense of movement is the fact that she does not fit into the composition; Wells’s frame of his subject gives the idea of a snapshot.

Given the variety of subjects resulting from a juried show such as this, I inquired of Clay Whitelaw about his curatorial process for hanging. Much of it, he says, has to do with how colors in the artwork are complemented by colors on the walls and how their frames—the classic historical unifier of diverse art—work together. I thought his description apt, that it was like working a Rubik’s® Cube, puzzling your way to a harmony of colors. na Best of America Small Painting is on view at Richland Fine Art through May 26. An opening reception is slated for May 4 at 5 p.m. For more information, visit www.richlandfineart.com.

Please visit www.NOAPS.org for more information on the events surrounding the exhibit.

One of my favorites is Bike Shadows (16” x 16”) by Sharon Will. Like Lazard’s palm, it focuses on a portion of what we know would be a larger scene. Will has the added element of approaching her scene from an unusual angle, capturing the two-dimensional plane of the ground rather than an eyeMichelle Murray, Bella’s Petals, Oil, 12” x 16”

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Double Vision Marlene De Waele-De Bock and Jeff Frazier: Duet Perspectives in Twin Peeks The Parthenon

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May 19–September 9

B

ringing together painter Marleen De Waele-De Bock and photographer Jeff Frazier, Twin Peeks pairs twin perspectives on city and state parks near the Nashville area.

The two artists walked side by side in several Nashville staples—Beaman Park, Radnor Lake, Percy Warner, Shelby Park, and Richland, to name a few—and considered ways to depict the same places with their own unique mediums and perspectives.

Jeff Frazier

Photograph by Heather LeRoy

WORDS Megan Kelley

De Waele-De Bock is best known for her textured, layered style of painting, which shows a strong command of color and surface. Her scenes, which range from figurative to landscape, are expressionistic, with moments of focus that give clarity in the atmosphere and are deeply personal and poetic. In contrast, Frazier is known for his portraiture and compositional strength, creating a visual and narrative prose through pose and body language, with his landscapes similarly cinematic in form. The project asked both artists to use their mediums in new ways, using their particular approaches to document specific scenes and subject matter almost as nonfiction vignettes.

For Frazier, much of the work happens onsite or even before. He walks often in the parks and describes the habit

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Jeff Frazier, Tree Sky

The complexity of the concept goes deeper than just the surface, however. The exhibition is as much about two processes of thought as it is about two methods of approach. Though the place and images chosen for depiction happen at the same moment—the two artists vying side by side for locations and concepts—the work itself branches in front of and after this moment in time.

Marleen De Waele-De Bock, Radnor Park, 2017, Acrylic on canvas, 48” x 60”

Marleen De Waele-De Bock

as a familiarity that allows him, in photography, to remain entirely present in the moment. For the multiple exposure method, such presence and attentiveness is crucial. “None of the exposure work happens in post; it all happens on-site, in the camera,” explains Frazier. The first image provides structure, the shadows within that image creating the space for additional images to overlap. The focus of the following images is intent on capturing texture, atmosphere, and “the

“

That process of negotiation occurs when you have two sets of perspectives. It’s good for artists.”

Jeff Frazier, Tree Trestle

quality the place wants to impart,” layering the impression of space into the medium and moment. Prior to choosing the exact location shots, Frazier must consider every element he wants to include. “It requires you to be really engaged and present at the scene. You can never get the same moment twice.”

For De Waele-De Bock, the work diverges forward from the moment of choice. Though she also takes photographs on-site, these serve more as notetaking methods than points of reference. “It is a starting point, and then I go my own way.” She begins with an abstracted background completely separate from the photo reference, engaging the process of painting as its own being before moving into depiction. Her

Marleen De Waele-De Bock, Centennial Park, 2017, Acrylic on canvas, 48” x 60”

Marleen De Waele-De Bock, McCabe Park, 2017, Acrylic on canvas, 60” x 48”

Jeff Frazier, March of the Primrose

work then spends additional hours in the studio, pulling from her memories of place and the needs of the painting before her, engaging layers and layers in her quest for recreating the spaces. The work is poetic yet realistic, constructions of memory even as they are reconstructions of specific place.

The differences led to many conversations around the intention and construction of each of the scenes. “I usually work by myself; I like to work from my own ideas,” says De Waele-De Bock, “and now I worked with someone else, conversing with someone else’s ideas, trying to find my own.

I resisted at points, but now they are some of my favorite paintings. Ultimately, it is a show about trust.”

“We are two artists pretty passionately engaged with these locations,” Frazier agrees. “That process of negotiation occurs when you have two sets of perspectives. It’s good for artists.” The final choices led to places and depictions that surprised them both.

Jeff Frazier, Mystic Horizon

“I expected to see differently,” De Waele-De Bock notes, “but in the end, we are both drawn to the organic structure in these moving forms, landmarks as defining moments, and that universality of space.

“This show reflects every moment between two people asking the same question. You wonder, do we even see the same color, the same thing that catches us first? We are drawn in different ways, and yet we arrive in these places together.” na Twin Peeks is on view in the East Gallery at the Parthenon from May 19 through September 9, with an opening reception on Friday, June 1, from 6 to 8 p.m. For more information, visit www. nashville.gov/Parks-and-Recreation/Parthenon.aspx. See more of the artists’ work at www.marleensartwork.com and www.jefffrazier.com.

Marleen De Waele-De Bock, Shelby Bottom Park, 2017, Acrylic on canvas, 48” x 48” 70

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CARLL

The Erosion Series is a testament not only to the beauty of abstract forms, but also to the healing properties of artistic practice.

Photograph by Al Johnson

Anna Carll

ANNA

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WORDS Kathleen Boyle Urban Botanical #1, Mixed media on panel, 31” x 24”

Expressive Erosion at York & Friends Fine Art

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he Highland Park neighborhood of Chattanooga, Tennessee, boasts a magnolia tree unlike any other. Rooted in the yard of artist Anna Carll, it is responsible for igniting a creative spark within its caregiver. “I call the tree Bella, and I am guessing she is between 60 and 70 years old,” Carll said of the magnolia. “This tree is very messy, always dropping stuff on your head. Its big leaves are thick, almost leathery, and when the petals of the flowers start to fall off, it drops the center of the flower pod, which is even more vicious than a pine cone!” Vicious as these pods may be, their oblong shapes have found themselves echoed in contours that saturate the panels of Carll’s most recent paintings. Identified by Carll as contributions to the Modern Botanical movement—art that explores abstraction in relation to nature’s organic forms—her artwork is the outcome of considerable reflection.

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Character Botanical #5, Mixed media on panel, 45” x 90”

Character Botanical #7, Mixed media on panel, 36” x 36”

But Bella has not been Carll’s only muse. Over the past few years, much of Carll’s art has also been created in response to grief caused by the deteriorating health and eventual loss of her mother, Maggie, who had battled dementia for years. Maggie’s death in 2012 marked a turning point for Carll, who was then living in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Carll approached bereavement as a catalyst for change in her own life and decided to relocate to Chattanooga where she delved into the creation of paintings titled the Erosion Series.

Initially named after the hardship of witnessing the diminishing of Maggie’s memory, the Erosion Series found additional momentum in an unexpected parallel. “My observation of having to tend to the 70-foot magnolia tree, and the cycle of life that it goes through every year, led me to start equating that to the cycle of life with humanity and with what happened to my mom,” said Carll. “My thesis of the work is the process of the life cycle through botanical shapes.” The visual translation of Carll’s artistic concept is not literal; the imagery she creates is neither purposely figurative nor does it readily lend itself to evident illustrations of life, death, or nature. Instead, the Erosion Series is a collection of expressive work whose abstraction is embedded with a range of emotions, directed by the influence of natural forms.

The route that brought Carll to this practice is one informed by a variety of artistic methods. Having spent the majority of her childhood in Sarasota, Florida, in a large German Catholic family (as the youngest of six children), Carll attended the University of Florida where she pursued a degree in Graphic Design. After graduating, Carll established her career in design and illustration in Atlanta, but found that the increasing accessibility of desktop publishing was generating a negative impact on the field. Looking to painting initially as a form of stress relief, Carll began to study at Artist Atelier in Atlanta under the guidance of Ouida Canaday. By 1999, Carll’s

Character Botanical #1, Mixed media on panel, 40” x 40”

hobby had developed into a full-time career, leading her to leave behind Atlanta’s urban atmosphere in favor of the Blue Ridge environment. Her painting outset was steadfast in figurative work, a practice that she continued until her mother fell ill. “I reached a point where I could paint figuratively in my sleep . . . and I was ready to move on,” Carll explained.

“I learned a lot from that period, though, such as a deeper saturation of color like you’d find in stained glass. The church my family attended in Sarasota had beautiful stained glass windows, which informed my figurative work.”

Like the forms that populate the surfaces of her paintings, so too was Carll’s journey to her abstraction process organic.

And while her hobby evolved to become her livelihood, the initial motivation of painting as a stress-relief practice persisted. The Erosion Series is a project wholly actualized by the therapeutic properties of artmaking, a collection that dared to confront the painful emotion of anguish and, in so doing, evolved to achieve a state of resolve. “The original Erosion Series was me taking out my grief and anger with dark color, gouging, scraping, putting on the paint and taking it off,” Carll revealed. “It was total color field abstraction, and there was no form. The form was grief through color and action.”

Carll’s process is one that is very physical, very active, one that both lends and surrenders itself to abstraction. Through the primary employment of acrylic and house paints, Carll’s medium selection enables her to work at a more rapid pace. “I start most of my pieces as [lying] flat. I usually spill and puddle colors, textures, drips across the surface,” she explained. “My work starts out as total chaos.” Once this chaos reaches a calm, though, Carll revisits the panel by

Botanical #21, Mixed media on panel, 30” x 30”

lifting, tilting, and moving it around her studio to achieve a desired translucency with her palette. From this point, Carll does what she calls “painting out the background,” a process that further enables her to achieve the pod-like forms that mimic botanical shapes, congregations of pigments whose interaction bears resemblance to the resistant mix of oil and water. And for a while, all this activity would result in a completed work. That is, until recently.

This past winter, Carll experienced an “Ah ha!” moment—the incorporation of graphic design into imagery that results in “character botanicals.” Although the use of typography within her compositions also undergoes an abstraction process, one may still be able to decipher the word “erosion” clustered across the surface of these paintings.

The treatment of the imagery’s text experiences an active manipulation process much like the other forms that grace her painting’s surfaces. “I create these letter characters, and I flip them around, or I put them on their side, or I put them upside down, and combine them in ways that are not really readable,” Carll stated. “What is left of the background is the botanical forms that you see through the character shapes.”

The Erosion Series is a testament not only to the beauty of abstract forms, but also to the healing properties of artistic practice. Carll notes that while she began the series during a dark period, her creative process enabled her to discover the beautiful cycle of life. “In a way, I think this is one of the reasons why many artists live so long. We get to work through all of the stuff in our lives using a creative outlet.” na Anna Carll’s work is currently on view at York & Friends Fine Art, www.yorkandfriends.com. See more of Carll’s art at www.annacarll.com.

Urban Botanical #5, Mixed media on panel, 45” x 45”

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France

The de Gaulle family home in Valmondois 76

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Photograph by Laurent de Gaulle

with Friends

Photograph by Hunter Armistead

You can feel everything that has happened in this house. It was a micro society of intellectuals and artists.

Amélie de Gaulle invites you to join her art excursions to her family home WORDS Joe Pagetta

I

t’s been almost thirty years since celebrated interior designer Amélie de Gaulle left her hometown of Paris to start a new life in Nashville. Newly married and fresh out of school with a diploma from the Camondo School of Interior Architecture in Paris, she went on to raise a family in Nashville and develop a successful business, Amélie de Gaulle Interiors. But while she certainly found her place in Music City, the City of Lights remained close to her heart. Her family is still there, as is an ancestral home owned by her great-grandparents in Valmondois, a village a few miles outside of Paris where de Gaulle would spend weekends growing up.

It’s that home, now lovingly restored as a chambre d’hôte by de Gaulle’s brother, Laurent, that de Gaulle wants to share with Nashvillians. France with Friends, de Gaulle’s new “atelier experience/cultural immersion” program, invites guests to spend ten days at Valmondois to study with renowned symbolist painter Greg Decker while enjoying curated excursions with de Gaulle to museums and attractions such as Chateau de Chantilly, Auvers Sur Oise, and more in Paris.

Plus, of course, there will be plenty of meals, good wine, and conversation.

“I’ve been here for almost thirty years,” says de Gaulle of Nashville, “and many times in different circles, with clients and architects and contractors, people would say that they would love to visit France with me. But it was difficult to leave everything. I have my business, and I was raising two children by myself. But they are now out of college, and I can organize my life differently.”

While it will provide an opportunity to see her siblings more—she is the youngest of six—de Gaulle also feels she’s developed a good sense of what people are looking for in experiential travel.

“People in Nashville are very educated in art and foreign languages,” she says. “They have been traveling already, all over the world. That is the clientele this is for, that person who has already been to France, has been to visit museums, and has already experienced the culture of Paris but wants to see more, learn what life is like outside of Paris.”

‘You can feel everything that has happened in this house,” de Gaulle adds. “It was a micro society of intellectuals and artists.

There was music in the courtyard and young ladies dancing barefoot in the grass.”

Decker is an apropos artist for the workshop portion of the experience and a gifted instructor, says de Gaulle. Born in the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) when it was still under colonial rule, and fluent in French, Decker holds two MFAs, from Cranbrook Academy of Art (MI), the New York Academy of Art (NYC), and has taught at both MoMA and the Met as a Visual Teaching Artist through the Lincoln Center Institute. He also taught the first Introduction to Visual Arts lecture series at the Frist Museum of Art. “He is very knowledgeable and is totally inspired by the painters of that period, like Daubigny, Corot, and Daumier,” says de Gaulle, who studied oil painting with Decker fifteen years ago in Nashville. “He belongs to that group, even if it’s a century later. He was trained the same way.”

Decker is a skilled enough teacher that artists at any skill level, from beginner to advanced, are welcomed at the workshops and will benefit from his instruction, assures de Gaulle. In addition to the oil painting workshop with Decker, offered late May into June and in September, 2018, France with Friends will also offer a French cuisine experience with Nathalie Guiral in July and a health and beauty experience with Cecile Cotten in late September. na For more about France with Friends, Amélie de Gaulle, Greg Decker, and the village of Valmondois, visit FranceWithFriends.com.

Photograph by Laurent de Gaulle

The life that France with Friends guests will experience in Valmondois will revolve very much around art and literature, says de Gaulle. It’s already embedded in the walls of the house and on the streets of the village. In addition to being the great niece of legendary French general, prime minister, and president, Charles de Gaulle, Amélie counts among her ancestors the great French sculptor and architect Victor Geoffroy-Dechaume, who worked on restorations of the

great cathedrals in France, including Notre Dame de Paris, and called Valmondois home. Amelie’s great aunt studied under “The Mother of Dance,” Isadora Duncan. Artists such as Honoré-Victorin Daumier, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Charles-François Daubigny, and Vincent van Gogh all lived in and frequented Valmondois.

Greg Decker, Near Valmondois, 2006, Oil on paper, 12” x 16” NASHVILLEARTS.COM

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PHOTOGRAPHY Kara McLeland

WORDS Gina Piccalo

Ingram New Works Festival

Nate Eppler

O

n the first night of Nashville’s 1,000-year flood, the Nashville Repertory Theatre staged the city’s first festival of new plays—the Ingram New Works Festival. While just a few blocks away, the Cumberland River spilled over its banks, drowning downtown streets, the audience for playwright Nate Eppler’s first staged reading of his drama Long Way Down remained rapt.

“The city is flooding and all of these people are sticking around to have a conversation about this play,” recalls Eppler, now Nashville Rep’s playwright-in-residence and director of its Ingram New Works Project. “It made us rethink what we were doing. We’d opened up an appetite for new plays.”

After that night, Eppler notes, every art institution in Nashville followed the Rep’s lead and made a commitment to new works. Long Way Down was ultimately nominated for a national playwriting award. And suddenly, the Rep—and Nashville, itself—were transformed. Every year since, the festival has doubled its audience.

The Festival’s story is as much about Nashville’s creative rebirth as it is about the city’s historically rich makers’ culture.

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Nashville State Community College

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May 9–19

Cristina Florencia Castro

Though Music City has always been a town for dreamers, young creatives have flocked here since the May 2010 flood.

The growing and dynamic art community, the (relatively) affordable performance space, and a culture that welcomes experimentation and risk lure them here.

“My sense is people are game here,” says Festival playwright Tori Keenan-Zelt. “They’re interested. They’re not overwhelmed. Sometimes New York can feel saturated.

[Nashville] is a good environment to test something for an audience.”

Consequently, the Ingram New Works Project, funded

by Nashville philanthropist Martha Ingram, has evolved to become a nationally recognized hothouse of talent.

Hundreds of playwrights apply to incubate their ideas here with visiting mentors who have themselves earned Pulitzers, Oscars, and Tonys. This year’s Ingram New Works Festival, from May 9–19 at Nashville State Community College, features four complex and thoughtful pieces.

Framing his work around a Harlem yoga studio during the 2016 presidential campaign, New York playwright James Anthony Tyler considers issues of gentrification in

Pranayama. Keenan-Zelt’s dark comedy How the Baby Died is inspired by the staged horrors of Grand Guignol theatre and explores the unspoken pain surrounding unwanted pregnancy. Minnesota-based playwright Cristina Florencia Castro’s characters grapple with the same grief she herself is experiencing as an artist slowly going blind. Each brought an idea to Nashville in September, and, during monthly visits through May, they worked with a community of actors, directors, designers, and dramaturges to refine them.

James Anthony Tyler

“I think the attitude of the lab and Nate is that all wishes are granted,” says Keenan-Zelt, who has participated twice. “If I show up and ask for something, even if it’s unconventional, they will make it happen.”

At this festival, Eppler premieres This Red Planet, inspired by watching an interview with Laura Bush describing her husband George W. Bush’s hobby as a painter. In his play, the Laura character hires an instructor to deliberately discourage him.

“The problem with falling upward is you leave a lot of rubble in your wake,” Eppler says. “This play is about the broken stuff left behind.”

The Ingram New Works Project dates back to 2007. At the time, the Rep’s former artistic director, David Alford, wanted to return to playwriting. This was years before ABC gave him a recurring role on the hit series Nashville. Alford convinced Ingram to provide an annual $50,000 in-residence fellowship, and he would be the first recipient.

The next year, Los Angeles-based writer Victoria Stewart was chosen to develop Rich Girl, an update on Henry James’s Washington Square, now being performed nationally. In 2010, Tony-winning playwright David Auburn became the third Ingram fellow. He developed his dramatized biography The Columnist in the lab. Two years later, it opened on Broadway starring John Lithgow.

Playwrights and audiences were so engaged by the creative process of those early works that Nashville Rep’s artistic

Tori Keenan-Zelt

director, Rene Copeland, expanded the program to include developing playwrights. Now, there’s money to host four playwrights monthly for nine months.

“We’ve all learned so much about how new plays are built and how playwrights work,” says Copeland. “Even the way audiences respond to a play during the talk-back has grown in maturity over the years. The audiences seem to really understand they’re a part of the process now. They’re deeply involved in making it happen; they’re not just observers.”

It’s been eight years since the Nashville flood, and Eppler’s fortunes still feel inextricably linked to those of the Ingram New Works Project. Last year, his fantastical and comedic sequel to the Tonya Harding story, The Ice Treatment, won the American Theatre Critics Association’s New Play Award for playwrights outside of New York. Yet another milestone has been reached. “In that moment,” Eppler says now, “we kind of proved the thesis behind all of this right.” na This year’s Ingram New Works Festival, taking place May 9–19 at Nashville State Community College, features four complex and thoughtful pieces. For more information, visit www.ingramnewworks.com.

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Blue Moves Presents

Myths: Connecting Universal Experiences Centennial Park

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May 12

WORDS Amanda Dobra Hope PHOTOGRAPHY Martin O’Connor

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rt as well as myths, often serve as metaphors for our lives. Sometimes they are so closely related, they begin to intertwine. Though art is a more visible part of our popular culture, myth exists all around us, in the stories we tell and in all the ways we grow as humans. “Myth helps us see things in a bigger framework,” says Amanda Cantrell Roche, co-founder and dancer with Nashville’s Blue Moves Modern Dance Company. “Myths are still very much real. It’s not just Greek and Roman mythology; they’re stories that guide us,” adds long-time company member Valerie Hackworth.

On May 12, in collaboration with their sponsors, donors, partners, and Metro Parks Cultural Arts Division, Blue Moves will present Myths: Connecting Universal Experiences at Centennial Park. The performance will begin with a free outdoor walk-through experience in three areas of the park and conclude with a ticketed performance of four works inside the Centennial Performing Arts Studios.

In the outside experiences, the themes presented will range from multi-cultural representations of how humans related to myth from Paleolithic times until today, interpretations of what may happen to your soul when it leaves your physical body, and how to understand your past, future, gateways, and doorways through the myth of Janus.

On your way to the inside performance, a thought-provoking mural depicting The Hero’s Journey will be presented, and guests will be invited to share thoughts and feelings of their own hero’s journey. The inside performance pieces consist of a blend of modern and jazz choreography that will explore themes of what happens when the fine line between religion and myth is crossed; the character traits we develop that lie dormant until later in life; the rise of the phoenix and its integration into its environment after death and rebirth; and the distortion and evolution of myth, similar to a game of telephone.

Prepare to be transformed as you allow Blue Moves and their artistic collaborators to guide you on a journey to how myths influence your own life and how you can look to them to help make sense of it. As Roche explains, “[A myth is . . .] the Road of Trials, what’s preparing you for the road ahead. Myths help us to make sense of all of that. They’re the connecting thread across space and time.” na For times and ticket prices, visit www.bluemoves.org.

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ARTS&BUSINESSCOUNCIL

BY SHIRLEY ZEITLIN

Martha Rivers Ingram Arts Visionary Award 2018 On May 3, the Arts & Business Council of Greater Nashville will present to Dr. Bob Fisher the Martha Rivers Ingram Arts Visionary Award for his business leadership and patronage of the arts.

A Branch of Daigh Rick Landscape Architects, LLC

As last year’s recipient of the Martha Rivers Ingram Arts Visionary Award from Dr. Bob Fisher the Arts & Business Council, I know how special and meaningful it is. I can’t think of a more deserving person to be selected as this year’s honoree.

Bob has served the Nashville community in various roles, including Chair of the Greater Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, board chair of PENCIL Foundation, and cochair of Mayor’s Task Force on Public Education. He has also been a board member of nonprofits, including the United Way, Nashville Symphony, Country Music Hall of Fame, and Nashville Public Education Foundation, just to name a few.

He was also a founding board member of the Arts & Business Council, and his interest in and enthusiasm for a vibrant arts community has never waned. During a time of change for the organization in 2012, I went to visit with Bob about forming a partnership between the Arts & Business Council and Belmont. He was instantly enthusiastic and within a few short days we had an agreement.

This is the kind of leadership that enabled the transformation of Belmont College to become Belmont University and motivated the growth it has experienced over the last decade—including new undergraduate majors as well as several new doctoral programs, new state-of-the-art facilities, and an increasingly dynamic student population.

Photograph by Jerry Atnip

In 2008, he was named “Tennessean of the Year” and in 2010, “Nashvillian of the Year.” It is strikingly apparent that Bob Fisher’s vision has considerably affected almost every aspect of our community. I congratulate Bob on receiving the 2018 Martha Rivers Ingram Arts Visionary Award.

A long-time Nashville business leader, industry trendsetter, and arts supporter, Shirley Zeitlin founded Zeitlin & Co. Realtors in 1979 and continues to serve as its chariman. Shirley was the recipient of the Martha Rivers Ingram Arts Visionary Award in 2017.

A m a n da J oy b rown + Kat h e r i n e Wagne r r

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ART MADE TO MOVE YOU. Chicago-based artist Nick Cave creates work in a wide range of mediums, including sculpture, installation, video, and performance.

His creations, bursting with color and texture, are optical delights that can be enjoyed by audiences of all ages and backgrounds. A deeper look reveals that they speak to issues surrounding identity and social justice.

THROUGH JUNE 24

Downtown Nashville 919 Broadway Nashville, TN 37203 FristArtMuseum.org/NickCave #NickCaveFeat

Kids 18 and under are always free.

Nick Cave Feat. is supported in part by Silver Sponsor

The Frist Art Museum is supported in part by

Nick Cave. Soundsuit, 2016. Mixed media, including vintage toys, wire, metal and mannequin, 84 x 45 x 40 in. Courtesy of the Lewis Family. Š Nick Cave. Photo: James Prinz Photography

ARTSMART

A monthly guide to art education

TENNESSEE ROUNDUP

The 2018 Tennessee Arts & Arts Education Conference will be held on June 19–21 at Austin Peay State University (APSU) in partnership with the Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts (CECA). This gathering is geared toward arts administrators and teachers interested in learning best practices, lesson plan ideas, and the nuts and bolts of work in arts management and education. This year’s theme is Design Thinking: A Pathway to Innovation in the Arts, and all attendees will explore a process used by designers to develop a new product or come up with an innovative solution to a problem.

Most versions of the Design Thinking process encompass the following steps.

1. Empathize 2. Define 3. Ideate 4. Prototype 5. Test

Photograph courtesy of State Photography

Design Thinking involves building empathy to understand the need or issue clearly; defining the problem or driving question; brainstorming ideas to address the problem or question; improving or coming up with new ideas based on feedback about initial ideas; designing a prototype that is tangible, digital, or actionable; testing the prototype to determine what works and what needs to be fixed; and repeating steps of the process until a final product or idea is ready to implement.

by Ann Talbott Brown Director of Arts Education Tennessee Arts Commission

This process is valuable for educators because it develops 21st-century learning skills such as creativity, collaboration, communication, and problem solving and soft skills such as interpersonal (empathetic), flexibility, and teamwork. Design Thinking encourages students to embrace a maker-mindset, consider unlikely solutions, and persevere until a final solution is determined. What’s fascinating is Design Thinking challenges a fixed mindset and builds a growth mindset—a mindset both students and teachers alike should embrace.

In addition to tailored training in Design Thinking, select sessions offered for general classroom teachers and arts teachers include: • Laying a Foundation: Defining Arts Integration and Experience an Arts Integrated Learning Unit, Parts I-II by Dr. Janice Crews, Director of CECA • Train the Trainer. Think Like a Designer: A Session for Educators presented by Mary Kim, Director of Bridge Innovate’s Bright Spark, which is a social impact initiative to ignite creative confidence within students and educators • Unpacking the New Tennessee Fine Arts Standards by Dr. Brad Foust and Amanda Galbraith, members of the Standards Writing and Review Committee • Visual Arts in Elementary Music by Dr. Eric Branscome, Department Chair and Coordinator of Music Education at APSU Most conference sessions will take place at APSU’s new Art + Design Building, a space conducive to exploration and inspiration. The conference offers in-service hours and is approved to award Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for teachers through APSU’s Continuing Education Program. For more information or to register, visit www.tnartscommission. org/2018-statewide-arts-conference/.

See you there!

Participants engage with arts education sessions during the 2016 Collective Impact: TN Arts and Arts Education Conference

Photograph by State Photography Services

Participants engage with arts education sessions during the 2016 Collective Impact: TN Arts and Arts Education Conference

Photograph by State Photography Services

Design Thinking in the Classroom

ARTSMART Calling All Arts Advocates

Janet Malone’s art class at Norman Binkley Elementary

Photograph by Janet Malone

William Henry Oliver Middle School’s production of The Little Mermaid

Photograph by Jean-Francois Riand

Can you imagine getting a call from a parent or friend saying, “You have to come to the school board meeting tonight. They are about to cut math from our schools”? Sounds far-fetched, right?

However, if you substitute the word “music” or “art” for math, the scenario becomes all too familiar.

Advocacy coalitions across the country have been working for the past four decades to ensure supportive public policy and funding for the arts in education. Tennessee is adding a strong voice with the launch of a new statewide coalition, ArtsEd Tennessee.

Support for arts education (dance, music, theatre/drama, visual arts) tends to rise and fall depending on budget cycles. The arts have been viewed as “nice to have” but not essential. In many school districts, robust arts programs flourish in wealthy communities where parents can raise private dollars to augment public funds. Conversely, schools in poor urban and rural communities simply cut arts programs when budgets are tight.

Now for the Good News: Public value for arts education has never been higher. A 2015 NAMM Foundation nationwide study of 1,000 teachers and 800 parents finds strong support for music education at all grade levels, with the majority saying that music and arts education are “extremely” or “very important.” And 93 percent of Americans agreed that the arts are vital to providing a well-rounded education, according to a 2005 Harris Poll.

In Tennessee, it’s interesting to note that our urban areas— Memphis/Shelby County, Metro Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga—are making strides to promote equity and countermand the wealth = arts education equation. The inclusion of music and the arts in the definition of a well-rounded education in the new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is a fantastic policy win for our students and sets a strong agenda for statewide advocates.

And the Great News: As a volunteer-led coalition, ArtsEd Tennessee is both strategic and opportunistic, with a unified message and core beliefs coupled with vigilance in seeking opportunities to promote access, equity, and quality in arts education in Tennessee public schools. Launched in January 2018 in response to the desire for a unified advocacy voice and the need for immediate legislative action, the core leadership represents the primary arts educator associations in Tennessee (Dance, Music, Theatre, Visual Arts).

Co-founder and director Stephen Coleman says, “With a legislative win under our belt in 2017 [protecting the arts graduation requirement], ArtsEd Tennessee continues to cultivate relationships with decision-makers, review all relevant legislation for possible action, and reach out to expand the circle of advocates beyond the current 100 parent booster organizations and 7,000 individuals. Our community is hopeful that we will gain momentum as we learn more about being effective advocates for our students.”

With the guidance and support of the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) and the CMA Foundation and corporate partner KHS America, the coalition’s mission is to advocate for visual and performing arts education for all students in Tennessee.

Will you join ArtsEd Tennessee in this important work?

by Laurie T. Schell CEO, Arts Education Advocate www.ElevateArtsEd.org

Photograph by Donn Jones

Hume Fogg Orchestra/ Metro Nashville Public Schools/ Music Makes Us

Photograph by Ardee Chua

For more information, contact Stephen Coleman at ArtsEdTN@gmail.com.

ARRATT GALLERY AT VANDERBILT

Altered Reverence April 23 - June 7, 2018

David Heustess clay vessels

JoEl Logiudice art quilts

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/sarrattgallery

SPRING STUDENT ART SHOW • OPENING RECEPTION • WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18 • 4:30 – 6:30 PM

AP Studio Art

Marnie Sheridan Gallery

Upper School Art • Photo • Media Artwork by AP Studio Art Students

Patton Visual Arts

THE HARPETH HALL SCHOOL • 3801 HOBBS ROAD, NASHVILLE, TN 37215 • 615.297.9543 • HarpethHall.org

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Art Up Nashville is a comprehensive fine art service provider dedicated to the professional installation of items such as art and antique objects, heavy mirrors, posters and photographs. No job is too big or small. Our staff consists of museum-trained art handlers who for years have regularly handled precious, irreplaceable items of all classifications for museums and galleries as well as commercial and residential clients. Additionally, our staff is made up of artists who possess a special appreciation for art and whose refined aesthetic sensibilities optimize the clients’ experience.

www.ArtUpNashville.com

duncan@artupnashville.com 615-975-7577

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SHOWING APRIL 7 – MAY 27 OPENING RECEPTION SATURDAY, APRIL 7 • 6:00 – 9:00 pm

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615-383-0278

224 Fifth Avenue South, Nashville, TN, 37203 615.577.7711 • HatchShowPrint.com

POCKETLINT

BY LIZ CLAYTON SCOFIELD

Wandering and Getting

Lost: 3.6 miles with an open heart/chest/palm

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esterday I walked 3.6 miles. Wandered, really, until well past dark and the cold deep in my bones. I retraced steps from last September when I first met Baltimore, when it was still hot and I could breathe heavy air, laugh, and roll in the grass.

Yesterday I walked 3.6 miles, remembering a year ago, riding my bike around Atlanta aimlessly in the late hours, searching for something or just trying to get lost. I passed last March over-working, biding time until I left for an artist residency in Wilmington, trying to pack in enough freelance work to justify the two and a half weeks away. I was a hamster, running in a wheel for my waking hours. It was no way to live.

I showed up in Wilmington with a bike, an open heart, and a desperate need to change my life. I rode miles and miles during my time there, marking the landscape, learning how to make a place home: learning my home is a shell on my back. During that residency, I began defining Wandering as a conscious creative practice, moving through space with intention and awareness, while also Letting Go of expectation, outcome, or destination. I began documenting my wandering through maps, text, video, and photographs.

Wandering is a way of drawing on a landscape, making a mark by moving through space. I track bike rides, walks, and runs on my phone, creating a collection of

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Liz Clayton Scofield is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, thinker, all-around adventurer, and nomad. They hold an MFA from Indiana University, Bloomington. See their art at www.lizclaytonscofield.com.

drawings as maps. When I look back over these drawings from the last two years, I can remember each particular route, where I was when I was moving through that space, making those lines.

June 18, 2017, for example: 20.3 miles in Atlanta, my last ride there, three days before I moved. I had a donut and coffee at Sublime. I visited my friend working at the feminist bookstore. I wandered around IKEA for one last free coffee. I said goodbye to Lord Whimsy, my cat friend who lives on the Belt Line. I paused on the 17th Street Bridge, where I liked to watch the traffic, cars zooming on the interstate under the bridge. Lights lights lights. Millions of people from point A to point B. I was finding myself in Getting Lost.

I still am.

I recently attended a workshop entitled The Body Is Drawing Is Thinking led by interdisciplinary artist Andrea Sisson hosted at Maryland Institute College of Art. In the workshop, attendees were instructed to go for a walk, taking particular notice of Things that typically would go unnoticed. We photographed these Things, mapping our walks as we used our bodies to draw through space.

I do my best to show up as myself in the world, with an open heart, an open chest, and an open palm, but this particular day I had a heavy heart. Once again, I am new to a city, beginning yet again the process of making a Home. While my Body was Drawing, I remembered: Wander and be open to the creative potential of Any Place. Wander and fall in love with the misaligned brick, the dust gathered under a shelf, the bits of colorful tattered construction ribbon, the soggy packs of Newports left in the garden bed, the patch of flowers that grows resiliently or desperately or both through a crack in the concrete sidewalk, and even the sunlight as it comes through her window, splays across her bed, and hits me in my belly, just like love: warm and terrifying and glowing all at once.

I was reminded in order to find myself here in this new place, I’ve got to spend some time Getting Lost. Practice has no destination. Art is Every Day. As someone with a complicated relationship to home, I wander as a way to mark my place in the world, to be of it, to pass people and homes and cars and be reassured: Each

of these holds infinite opportunities to connect genuinely to other humans. To be surrounded by such potential force and held in it, by it, is to be comforted by possibility in the world.

Wandering is making place, healing, lines in sand, washing away. Wandering is Being Present, like meditation through space. Being in your body as you take step after step, Letting Go and letting each decision come and pass. Letting Go of expectations, destinations, trauma, goals, assumptions, time, patterns, routines, routes. To turn right or left in three blocks does not matter right now. It will matter in three blocks, and it won’t matter, because neither decision is right or wrong: It’s just left or right, leading to more decisions later, leading to a line, a drawing: left or right, not right or wrong: Process.

Practice. Breath.

Wandering and Letting Go are active practices, though. This is not passive: not to be confused with Letting-Life-Happento-You. We are active agents: We are artfully creating our worlds, relationships, selves, if we do so consciously. That is, if we choose to open ourselves to the possibility and process of creating ourselves.

I’m making marks on a landscape as this story unfolds. I am grounding myself with my feet on the pavement.

Yesterday I walked 3.6 miles, wandered really, and cried on a bridge overlooking a parking lot. na

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THEATRE

Handmade: Friendships Famous, Infamous, Real, and Imagined by Jim Reyland is available at Amazon.com.

Or get an autographed copy and support the 2018 high school tour of his award winning play, STAND at writersstage.com. jreyland@audioproductions.com.

BY JIM REYLAND

Photograph by Matthew Murphy

Eva Noblezada in a scene from Miss Saigon

“Nashville is home to world-famous music and art, and we’re thrilled to bring a season of diverse, fresh, and accessible titles as well as classic revivals and fan favorites for our patrons to explore and enjoy.”

2018-19

Kathleen O’Brien TPAC President and CEO

HCA/TriStar Broadway at TPAC W

e’ll have to wait until September but the anticipation is worth it, as TPAC rolls out another great season of Broadway hits for Music City.

Photograph by Matthew Murphy

School of Rock – September 11–16, 2018. Dewey Finn, a wannabe rock star posing as a substitute teacher, turns a class of straight-A students into a guitar-shredding, bass-slapping, mind-blowing rock band.

The cast of School of Rock

The Play That Goes Wrong – October 9–14, 2018.

Welcome to opening night of The Murder at Haversham Manor where things are quickly going from bad to utterly disastrous. It’s a “ton of fun for all ages.”

The Phantom of the Opera – October 24–November 4, 2018. Critics are raving that this breathtaking production is “bigger and better than ever before” and features a brilliant new scenic design, making this Phantom one of the largest productions now on tour.

Irving Berlin’s White Christmas – November 13–18, 2018.

The story of a song-and-dance team putting on a show in a magical Vermont inn and falling for a stunning sister act in the process. Full of dancing, laughter, and some of the greatest songs ever written.

On Your Feet! – January 15–20, 2019. From humble beginnings in Cuba, Emilio and Gloria Estefan came to America and broke through all barriers to become a crossover sensation at the very top of the pop music world, and one of the most inspiring stories in music history.

Nick Cordero as Sonny, Will Coombs as Young Calogero (center), and the cast of A Bronx Tale

Fiddler on the Roof – June 25–30, 2019. A heartwarming story of fathers and daughters, husbands and wives, and life, love, and laughter. Featuring a talented cast, lavish orchestra, and stunning movement and dance.

A Bronx Tale – February 12–17, 2019. Broadway’s hit crowd-pleaser takes you to the stoops of the Bronx in the 1960s where a young man is caught between the father he loves and the mob boss he’d love to be. A Bronx Tale is an unforgettable story of loyalty and family.

EXTRA, EXTRA! Coming in the 2019–20 HCA/TriStar Health Broadway at TPAC Season, the international sensation, Hamilton!

No matter your musical-theatre taste, there’s something on stage for everyone this fall. Tickets for the 2018–19 HCA/ TriStar Health Broadway at TPAC series are on sale now at www.tpac.org, and the TPAC Box Office, 505 Deaderick Street. na © Joan Marcus 2016

The Book of Mormon – March 12–17, 2019. A nine-time Tony Award®-winning Best Musical, this outrageous musical comedy follows the misadventures of a mismatched pair of missionaries sent halfway across the world to spread the Good Word.

Photograph by Matthew Murphy

Photograph by Joan Marcus

Miss Saigon – June 4–9, 2019. In the last days of the Vietnam War, 17-year-old Kim is forced to work in a bar run by a notorious character known as the Engineer. This new production features stunning spectacles and a sensational cast of 42.

Anastasia – March 19–24, 2019. This dazzling show transports us from the twilight of the Russian Empire to the euphoria of Paris in the 1920s as a brave young woman sets out to discover the mystery of her past. Pursued by a ruthless Soviet officer determined to silence her, Anya enlists the aid of a dashing con man and a lovable ex-aristocrat.

Rock of Ages – April 12–13, 2019. Stacee Jaxx returns to the stage and rock-n-roll dreamers line up to turn their fantasies into reality. Featuring the music of hit bands such as Styx, Poison, Twisted Sister, and Whitesnake, among many others.

Hello, Dolly! – April 30–May 5, 2019. Breaking box-office records week after week, receiving thunderous raves on Broadway, and hailed both then and now as one of the greatest stagings in musical-theatre history.

Mauricio Martinez as Emilio and Christie Prades as Gloria Estefan in On Your Feet!

Photograph by Matthew Murphy

Photograph by Matthew Murphy

Chris De’Sean Lee & Company–Hamilton Chicago Company (2019–20 TPAC Season)

Christy Altomare, Derek Klena and the original Broadway Cast of Anastasia

Like “Fall Fest at The Hermitage� on Facebook

CALL TO ARTISTS Arts Festival October 6-7 FALL FEST AT THE HERMITAGE is produced by the Hermitage, home of President Andrew Jackson, a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, advocate, and support original visual art and artists.

For more information and to apply visit: www.zapplication.org

STUDIOTENN

BY LOGAN TREADAWAY

American Idol Alumni Are Burning Up Studio Tenn’s Grease Jamison Theater May 10–27

W

“

I seriously feel like this role was written for me.

Always classy, but loads of sass.

hen Studio Tenn’s production of the classic musical Grease hits the stage this May 10–27 in the Jamison Theater at the Factory at Franklin, three of American Idol’s most beloved alumni will be joining the cast for a one-of-a-kind production that will leave audiences in awe.

Diana DeGarmo (American Idol, Season 3) and Ace Young (American Idol, Season 5), who are portraying Rydell High’s most popular couple, Danny Zuko and Sandy Dumbrowski, will be joined by Melinda Doolittle (American Idol, Season 6) who takes the stage as the illustrious Teen Angel.

The three are perhaps best known for their appearances on the reality television sensation, where DeGarmo, Young, and Doolittle found themselves as finalists in their respective seasons.

Melinda Doolittle as Teen Angel

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Photograph by MA2LA

“Grease has always been one of my favorite musicals, and this cast is amazing,” Doolittle said. “The fact that I get a front row (well, backstage) seat to this brilliance every night is blowing my mind.”

Following their time on Idol, DeGarmo and Young went on to marry in June 2013 after a live, on-stage engagement during Season 11 of the hit TV show. Together, they have conquered the world of Broadway by co-starring in both Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Hair, where they initially met. Doolittle continued her pursuit of music with her debut album Coming Back to You, garnering rave reviews from critics across the country, including The New York Times.

“I am thrilled to once again be working with Matt Logan and his team of creative experts,

alongside my fabulously talented American Idol, Nashville, and New York friends and family,” DeGarmo said. Soon after her time on Idol, she released “Dreams,” her first hit single, which topped the charts across the U.S. and Canada. Her most recent EP, Gemini Vol. 1, hit iTunes in September 2017 to critical acclaim.

Recording music is just the tip of the iceberg for DeGarmo’s post-Idol accomplishments. She later went on to star in Broadway blockbusters such as Hairspray and the world tour of Jekyll & Hyde, as well as multiple national tours such as Brooklyn: The Musical and 9 to 5, to name a few. Additionally, she has had numerous film and television appearances, including The Young and the Restless, where she portrayed Angelina Veneziano, the daughter of the daytime television show’s resident mobster.

DeGarmo’s on-stage love interest and real-life husband, Ace Young, makes his first appearance in a Studio Tenn production as Danny Zuko, though he is no stranger to the role. In September 2008, Young made his Broadway debut as Kenickie in the Grease revival. He played the role until the show closed in January 2009 and later joined the national tour, this time playing Danny Zuko.

Ace Young as Danny Zuko and Diana DeGarmo as Sandy Dumbrowski

“I couldn’t be more ecstatic about working alongside my beautiful, talented wife again,” Young said. “Not to mention my excitement to be taking the stage in this all-American classic with the ever-so-talented performers that not only live right here in our hometown, but across the country.”

Following his stint on Idol, Young found success as a musician, working alongside Season 5 co-star Chris Daughtry to write the chorus for Daughtry’s hit song “It’s Not Over,” which was nominated for Best Rock Song at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards.

Melinda Doolittle, the Season 6 sweetheart of American Idol who quickly won over the hearts of all with her stunning powerhouse vocals and personal charm, has recently joined the all-star Grease cast as the dreamy Teen Angel. “I seriously feel like this role was written for me. Always classy, but loads of sass. I can’t wait to get on stage every night and play with ‘Beauty School Dropout’,” Doolittle said as she commented on her take of the role and its prime fit for her performance style. Since her success on Idol, Doolittle has given fans yet another opportunity to hear her impeccable vocals while revealing a bit more of her personality.

Photograph by MA2LA

A perfect pick for the role of Sandy Dumbrowski, DeGarmo has had long-time dreams of starring as the iconic Sandra Dee and mentioned how lucky she feels to be cast in the role.

“My childhood self cannot believe that I finally get to live out my Sandra Dee/Grease dream with my Studio Tenn family and friends,” she said. “My life is always full of such great surprises; I am one lucky girl.”

In 2013, she released her sophomore album You’re the Reason while becoming a prominent television personality—by starring as the well-loved co-host of TV Line’s Reality Check— and an accomplished author by penning her book Beyond Me: Finding Your Way to Life’s Next Level. Today, Doolittle continues to thrill audiences everywhere, from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to the White House, and is currently headlining her own soulful show Great American Soul Book.

For a production immersed in bright lights, big colors, and a stunning trio of American Idol superstars sure to rock the jukebox, join Diana DeGarmo, Ace Young, and Melinda Doolittle as, with this Studio Tenn musical masterpiece, they take audiences back in time to where Grease is always the word! na Grease takes the stage at the Jamison Theater in the Factory at Franklin May 10–27, with performances Thursday through Saturday at 7 p.m. and 2 p.m. performances on Saturday and Sunday. For tickets, visit www.studiotenn.com.

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Abby Sparkman and Ryan McCabe at The Arts Company

M. McCullough and L.R. Marios at The Rymer Gallery

Adam Charney at East Side Project Space

Carleigh Thomas at Zeitgeist

ARTSEE

ARTSEE

Michael Shane Neal and Everett Raymond Kinstler at Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery

Artist Olivia Leigh Martin at Julia Martin Gallery

ARTSEE

Artist Sarah Shearer at The Browsing Room

Photograph by Peggy Kintsler

Artist Jaq Belcher at Tinney Contemporary

Jamina Jackson and Noah Carder at Dane Carder Studio

Photographers Alan Messer, John Partipilo, Will Jordan, and Bill Steber at O’More College of Design

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Photograph by Carl Lambert

At Davis Lusk Gallery

Alycia Pride and Latrell Wiggins at The Rymer Gallery

Rachel Wayne at Julia Martin Gallery

Everett Raymond Kinstler and Eddie George during painting demonstration at Sarratt Cinema

PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN JACKSON

ARTSEE

Photograph by Kristi Irving

Cori McGuirk at mild climate

ARTSEE

Thomas Das, Elizabeth Wynne and Richard Martin at Julia Martin Gallery

ARTSEE

Kyle Hamlett, Kelly Diehl and Karen Seapker at David Lusk Gallery Dylan Ruff at Zeitgeist Nozomi Takasu and Etsuko Takasu at Blend Studio

Jennifer Lawson at The Arts Company

Antonisha Mcintosh and Jay Johnson at Dane Carder Studio

Alexis Grigsby, Matt Christy and Adam Nicholson at COOP Gallery

Carleigh Thomas and Aliyah Allen at Zeitgeist

Candy Bradley at David Lusk Gallery

Blake at Channel To Channel

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TEXT & PHOTOGRAPHY

BY HUNTER ARMISTEAD

Photograph by Jerry Atnip

FYEYE Instagram: @hunterarmistead

Capturing the Creative Culture of Our City

Sarratt Youth Art Institute A WONDERFUL WORLD OF ART

Helen Bransford Silversmith, Author, and Pig Whisperer

Of Pigs and Silver Spoons “I’m jumping in with all four feet” was Nashville native Helen Bransford’s answer to her plans for resuming silversmithing after her daughter’s wedding this month.

“Whenever I meet an animal, I talk to it just like a friend,” says Bransford. “I’m basically feral, and probably was an animal last time.”

Bransford’s love of pigs is perhaps greater than her love of other animals. It all began in 1997, when she sent a pot-bellied piglet (dressed in a bridal veil) to a friend whose wife had left him. He promptly returned it. Bransford fell in love with its intelligent eyes, and the pig became a member of her family.

Bransford is the GOAT of animal caregivers. The pig, Forkie, was a ripe 21 on her passing. Living with Bransford in secret for years in the Carlisle Hotel in New York (cloaked for her walks in a dog suit) probably prolonged the pig’s longevity.

In his story for Esquire, “Sleeping with Pigs,” ex-husband and noted author Jay McInerney speaks fondly of a certain fringed custom ramp to their bed. Then there was a popular raccoon café on her front porch for years.

Her marriage to a literary figure was no accident. An author herself (Welcome to Your Facelift), Bransford has contributed to Vogue and wields a wickedly wonderful vocabulary, often weaving her love of words into her silver pieces. Favorites from her current crop are teaspoons engraved with such memes as “Mental Vegan,” “Serial Monogamist,” and her favorite, “Eat Drink and Remarry.”

Along with the spoons, inspired silver pieces such as a hawkskull pendant and earrings, tortoiseshell belts, wishbones, and Maltese crosses look like they belong at Barneys New York. In fact, Bransford’s creations were at a coveted counter there for years.

Finishing our interview, Bransford walked outdoors with a vast tray of vegetables for her bevy of backyard friends. “Life’s better with critters to care for,” she smiled as she walked towards the calls of the wild.

Bransford is thrilled to have her work here in Nashville at the Belle Meade Shoppes.

POTTERY DRAWING JEWELRY PAINTING PHOTOGRAPHY FUSED GLASS AND MORE WE ARE NOW REGISTERING FOR SARRATT YOUTH ART INSTITUTE ï Ages 5-16 ï ï Early bird discount through April 1, 2018 ï ï One week sessions beginning June 4, 2018 ï For more information and to register: www.vanderbilt.edu/sarrattart/ summer-youth-art-institute

Courtesy of Stephanie Berger Photography

Arts Worth Watching

PAGE, SCREEN A new, two-part adaptation of Little Women (by Call the Midwife creator Heidi Thomas) airs Sunday, May 13 and 20, at 7 p.m. The cast includes Emily Watson as Marmee, the mother; Michael Gambon as Mr. Lawrence; and Academy- and Tony Award-winning actress Angela Lansbury as Aunt March, the family matriarch. Nashville’s own Willa Fitzgerald plays Meg, the goody-goody eldest March sister; with Maya Hawke as the spunky Jo; Annes Elwy as shy Beth; and Kathryn Newton as Amy, the baby of the family.

Courtesy of Louis Mélançon / Metropolitan Opera Archives

The Louisa May Alcott fest continues Monday, May 7, at 11:30 p.m. with

Soprano Leontyne Price as Cleopatra (1966), from Great Performances: The Opera House

Orchard House: Home of Little Women, a visit to the New England property where the novel was set and written. On Sunday, May 20, an encore presentation of the American Masters profile of Alcott airs at 9:05 p.m.

A new American Masters airs Friday, May 18, at 8 p.m. Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story was featured in last fall’s Jewish Film Fest and included a Q&A with Lamarr’s daughter, Denise Loder-DeLuca, who appears in the documentary. Bombshell uses a newly discovered interview with Lamarr to tell the story of an innovative scientist whose work on a covert communication system during World War II is the basis for secure WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth today. Lamarr was also a Hollywood star considered to be the world’s most beautiful woman, a fact which overshadowed her technological contributions.

WORLD OF MUSIC Live from Lincoln Center’s Broadway run has two final performances this month. Stephanie J. Block in Concert airs Friday, May 4, at 8 p.m. and is an evening of cabaret by the Falsettos and Wicked performer. On Friday, May 11, at 8 p.m., Andrew Rannells in Concert features the Book of Mormon star.

We’ve been hearing a lot about diplomacy lately, but the role of arts in foreign policy often goes unmentioned.

Meredith Vieira hosts The Great American Read

The U.S. State Department was particularly adventurous in its use of cultural diplomacy during the Cold War, as documented in The Jazz Ambassadors, airing Friday, May 4, at 9 p.m. During the 1950s and 60s, jazz musicians Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman were asked to represent the United States around the world, in an effort to counter Soviet propaganda that played up racial tensions.

Music City Roots continues Fridays at 7 p.m. and goes local on May 11, when Nashville’s Paul Burch is among the guests.

Viewers who enjoyed the mid-1990s series about London’s Royal Opera House shouldn’t expect the same kind of realityshow drama from Great Performances’ The Opera House. Still, this two-hour program on Friday, May 25, at 8 p.m. offers a detailed look at the Metropolitan Opera’s iconic Lincoln Center home and includes interviews with stars such as Leontyne Price.

Encore presentations of many of NPT’s shows are broadcast on NPT2; enjoy 24/7 children’s programming on NPT3 PBS Kids. To make a contribution to NPT, please go to wnpt.org and click the donate button.

Courtesy of Louis Armstrong House Museum

Two highly anticipated literature-related programs come to NPT this month. One, The Great American Read, an ambitious series exploring America’s 100 best-loved books, kicks off Tuesday, May 22, at 7 p.m. with a two-hour program hosted by Meredith Vieira. NPT is partnering with Humanities Tennessee, Parnassus Books, and Nashville Public Library on The Great American Read activities; stay tuned for more information on how you can take part.

Louis Armstrong and his wife, Lucille, at the Sphinx near Cairo, Egypt (1961), from The Jazz Ambassadors

May 2018 Weekend Schedule 5:00 5:30 6:00 6:30 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30 10:00 10:30 11:00 11:30 12:00 12:30 1:00 1:30 2:00 2:30 3:00 3:30 4:00 4:30 5:00 5:30 6:00 6:30

5:00 5:30 6:00 6:30 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30 10:00 10:30 11:30 12:00 12:30 1:00 1:30 2:00 3:00 3:30 4:00 4:30 5:00 6:00 6:30

Saturday

am Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood Dinosaur Train Bob the Builder Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Pinkalicious & Peterrific Splash and Bubbles Curious George Nature Cat Sewing with Nancy Sew It All /P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home* Garden Smart Martha Bakes Nick Stellino: Storyteller in the Kitchen Food Over 50 noon America’s Test Kitchen pm Cook’s Country Kitchen Joanne Weir’s Plates and Places Lidia’s Kitchen Simply Ming Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting Best of Joy of Painting Woodwright’s Shop American Woodshop This Old House Ask This Old House A Craftsman’s Legacy PBS NewsHour Weekend Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville

This Month on Nashville Public Television

Sunday

am Sid the Science Kid Dinosaur Train Sesame Street Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Pinkalicious & Peterrific Splash and Bubbles Curious George Nature Cat Tennessee’s Wild Side Volunteer Gardener Tennessee Crossroads Nature Washington Week noon To the Contrary pm In Principle Samantha Brown’s Places to Love Joseph Rosendo’s Travelscope Globe Trekker Travels with Darley Two for the Road America’s Heartland Rick Steves’ Europe Antiques Roadshow PBS NewsHour Weekend British Antiques Roadshow *Beginning May 19

Weekday Schedule 5:00 5:30 6:00 6:30 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30 10:00 10:30 11:00 11:30 12:00 12:30 1:00 1:30 2:00 2:30 3:00 3:30 4:00 4:30 5:00 6:00

am Classical Stretch Happy Yoga with Sarah Starr Ready Jet Go! Cat in the Hat Nature Cat Curious George Pinkalicious & Peterrific Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Splash and Bubbles Sesame Street Super Why! Dinosaur Train Peg + Cat noon Sesame Street pm Splash and Bubbles Curious George Pinkalicious & Peterrific Nature Cat Wild Kratts Wild Kratts Odd Squad Odd Squad Arthur NPT Favorites PBS NewsHour

Sundays, May 13 & 20, 7 pm ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY

A Place to Call Home Season 3 of the Australian drama continues.

Saturdays, through May 26, 9 & 10 pm

Aging Matters: Loneliness & Isolation Combating social isolation of senior citizens.

Premieres Thursday, May 31, 8 pm

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7:00 Antiques Roadshow Newport, Hour 1.

8:00 Antiques Roadshow Tucson, Hour 1.

9:00 Royal Wedding Watch A Wedding Is Announced. The bride and groom; royal protocols and rules.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Reel South Gip. The fight to keep the last juke joint in Alabama, Gip’s Place, open.

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7:00 Little Women on Masterpiece Part 1. A new adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved novel.

8:00 Unforgotten on Masterpiece Season 2, Episode 3. Has Cassie cracked the case?

9:33 Victorian Slum House The 1900s.

10:30 Articulate with Jim Cotter 11:00 Independent Lens No Man’s Land.

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7:00 Antiques Roadshow Green Bay, Hour 3.

8:00 Antiques Roadshow Charleston, Hour 3.

9:00 Independent Lens No Man’s Land.

The 2016 standoff between anti-government protestors and federal authorities at Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife refuge.

10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 BBC World News 11:30 Orchard House: Home of Little Women Where Little Women was written and set.

Monday

7:00 Call the Midwife Season 7, Episode 8.

Nonnatus House prepares for Sister Monica Joan’s birthday.

8:00 Unforgotten on Masterpiece Season 2, Episode 2.

Sara’s scandalous past is revealed, and Colin is blackmailed.

9:30 Victorian Slum House The 1890s.

10:30 Articulate with Jim Cotter 11:00 Independent Lens True Conviction.

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Wednesdays, through May 30, 8 pm

NOVA Wonders

Sunday

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Wednesday

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7:00 Civilizations Renaissances.

Connections and rivalries between Renaissance Italy and 15th- and 16th-century Islamic empires.

8:00 First Civilizations Trade. The ancient civilization of the Indus Valley.

9:00 Royal Wedding Watch What to Wear.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Pacific Heartbeat Being Bruno Banani.

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7:00 Civilizations Encounters.

Interactions via art as trade and exploration flourished.

8:00 First Civilizations Cities. The Middle East.

9:00 Frontline Myanmar’s Killing Fields. Attacks on Rohingya Muslims.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Pacific Heartbeat Making Good Men. An athlete and an actor discuss experiences with bullying.

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7:00 Tennessee Crossroads 7:30 Volunteer Gardener 8:00 Nazi Mega Weapons V2 Rocket.

9:00 Nazi Mega Weapons Super Tanks.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 A Place to Call Home Somewhere Beyond the Sea. 12:00 A Place to Call Home Too Old to Dream.

7:00 Tennessee Crossroads 7:30 Volunteer Gardener 8:00 Nazi Mega Weapons Atlantic Wall.

9:00 Nazi Mega Weapons U-Boat Base.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 A Place to Call Home The Things We Do for Love.

12:00 A Place to Call Home L’chaim, to Life.

Thursday

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7:00 Music City Roots Live Paul Burch; Nikki Lane; Session Americana.

8:00 Live from Lincoln Center Andrew Rannells in Concert. The Book of Mormon star.

9:00 Penny & Red: The Life of Secretariat’s Owner The life of the legendary horsewoman.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Soundstage Manhattan Transfer; Take 6 (The Summit).

7:00 Music City Roots Live Bill and the Belles; Town Mountain; John Oates.

8:00 Live from Lincoln Center Stephanie J. Block in Concert.

9:00 The Jazz Ambassadors Jazz musicians embarked on State Department tours in the 1950s.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Soundstage Katharine McPhee.

Friday

7:00 Nature 7:00 Tennessee Crossroads 7:00 Music City Roots Live Super Hummingbirds.

7:30 Volunteer Gardener Grant Farm; the Jeff 8:00 NOVA Wonders 8:00 The Queen’s Garden White Band; The Can We Build a Brain?

A year in Buckingham Travlin’ McCourys.

The latest advances in Palace Garden, a royal 8:00 American Masters artificial intelligence. treasure in the heart of Bombshell: The Hedy 9:00 Royal Wedding Watch London.

Lamarr The Ceremony.

9:00 Royal Wedding Watch The Hollywood legend 10:00 BBC World News How to Celebrate. The was also a brainy 10:30 Last of Summer Wine procession, banquet inventor.

11:00 Austin City Limits etiquette, etc.

9:00 Royal Wedding Watch Florence + The 10:00 BBC World News Happily Ever After.

Machine; Andra Day. 10:30 Last of Summer Wine Titles, the Royal 11:00 A Place to Call Home Marriages Act. Living in the Shadow.

10:30 Last of Summer Wine 12:00 A Place to Call Home 11:00 BBC World News In the Heat of the Night. 11:30 Soundstage Michael McDonald.

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7:00 Nature Natural Born Rebels: The Mating Game.

8:00 NOVA Wonders Are We Alone?

Astronomers, engineers and the next generation of telescopes, probes and robots exploring the universe.

9:00 NOVA Life’s Rocky Start.

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

7:00 Civilizations 7:00 Nature God and Art. The Natural Born relationship between Rebels: Survival. religion and art.

8:00 NOVA Wonders 8:00 First Civilizations What’s Living in You? Religion. Shared Microbial forensics beliefs provided explores the human stability and cohesion body’s ecosystem. to Ancient Egypt.

9:00 NOVA 9:00 Frontline Search for the Super Blackout in Puerto Battery.

Rico.The economic 10:00 BBC World News crisis in PR after 10:30 Last of Summer Wine Hurricane Maria.

11:00 Austin City Limits 10:00 BBC World News TV on the Radio; 10:30 Last of Summer Wine The War on Drugs.

11:00 Pacific Heartbeat Poi E: The Story of Our Song.

Tuesday

Nashville Public Television’s Primetime Evening Schedule

May 2018 5

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7:00 Lawrence Welk Show Grammy Award Songs.

8:00 Keeping Appearances 8:30 Still Open All Hours 9:00 A Place to Call Home Sins of the Father. Rene decides to undergo brain surgery.

10:00 A Place to Call Home Till Death Do Us Part.

Regina tries to persuade James to return to Ash Park.

11:00 Globe Trekker Myanmar.

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7:00 Lawrence Welk Show Mother’s Day. 8:00 Keeping Appearances 8:30 Still Open All Hours 9:00 A Place to Call Home Living in the Shadow.

Anna confides in Olivia.

10:00 A Place to Call Home In the Heat of the Night.

Sarah fears for the life of her baby.

11:00 Globe Trekker Food Hour: The Story of Beer.

7:00 Lawrence Welk Show Big Band Days.

8:00 Keeping Appearances 8:30 Still Open All Hours 9:00 A Place to Call Home Somewhere Beyond the Sea. Regina organizes a party to help George’s political aspirations.

10:00 A Place to Call Home Too Old to Dream.

Olivia dreams about Lloyd.

11:00 Globe Trekker Food Hour: The Story of Beef.

Saturday

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for NPT, NPT2, and NPT3 PBS Kids.

Visit wnpt.org for complete 24-hour schedules

2

6:30 Perry Como: ’Till the End of Time (My Music) 8:00 Celtic Woman – Homecoming: Ireland 10:00 Memory Rescue with Daniel Amen, M.D.

Tuesday, May 29, 7 pm

1

American Experience: Chinese Exclusion Act

June

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7:00 Lawrence Welk Show Salute to the Armed Forces.

8:00 Keeping Appearances 8:30 Still Open All Hours 9:00 A Place to Call Home The Mourners’ Kadish.

George and Regina’s wedding.

10:00 A Place to Call Home The Love Undeniable.

Tensions run high at Ash Park.

11:00 Globe Trekker Tough Boats: The Arctic.

Monday, May 28, 9 pm

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Independent Lens: Served Like a Girl

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7:00 Tennessee Crossroads 7:00 The World of Ice Dance 7:30 Volunteer Gardener International 8:00 Nazi Mega Weapons Olympic champions Jet Fighter Me262.

JoJo Starbuck and 9:00 Nazi Mega Weapons Ryan Bradley host.

Fortress Berlin.

8:00 Great Performances 10:00 BBC World News The Opera House.

10:30 Last of Summer Wine The history of the 11:00 A Place to Call Home Metropolitan Opera’s Sins of the Father.

Lincoln Center home.

12:00 A Place to Call Home 10:00 BBC World News Till Death Do Us Part.

10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Soundstage RSO (Richie Sambora and Orianthi).

7:00 Nature 7:00 Tennessee Crossroads 7:00 ’70s Soul Superstars Giraffes: Africa’s 7:30 Volunteer Gardener A My Music special Gentle Giants.

8:00 Loneliness & Isolation: featuring Patti LaBelle, 8:00 NOVA Wonders Aging Matters the Commodores What’s the Universe A new NPT and others.

Made Of? The documentary explores 9:30 Rick Steves’ Tasty mysteries of dark a common aspect of Europe matter and dark energy. growing older.

10:00 BBC World News 9:00 NOVA 9:00 Nazi Mega Weapons 10:30 Last of Summer Wine Inside Einstein’s Mind.

V1: Hitler’s Vengeance Retracing the Missile. scientist’s thought 10:00 BBC World News experiments.

10:30 Last of Summer Wine 10:00 BBC World News 11:00 A Place to Call Home 10:30 Last of Summer Wine The Mourners’ Kadish.

11:00 Austin City Limits Sturgill Simpson; Asleep at the Wheel.

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7:00 Nature The World’s Most Wanted Animal. Scaly mammal pangolins are the most trafficked animal in the world.

8:00 NOVA Wonders Can We Make a Life?

Breakthroughs in genetic engineering.

9:00 NOVA Extreme Animal Weapons.

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

Friday, May 18, 8 pm

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7:00 The Chinese Exclusion Act: American Experience The impact of the 1882 barring Chinese workers from coming to the U.S. 9:00 Frontline Un Sex Abuse Scandal.

An investigation of sex abuse by peacekeepers in conflict zones.

10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Roadtrip Nation One Step Closer.

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American Masters: Hedy Lamarr

7:00 National Memorial Day Concert Gary Sinise and Joe Mantegna host the 29th broadcast of this night of remembrance.

8:30 National Memorial Day Concert Encore presentation.

10:00 Next Door Neighbors: Between Two Worlds An NPT production.

10:30 Articulate with Jim Cotter 11:00 Independent Lens ACORN and the Firestorm.

7:00 Antiques Roadshow Newport, Hour 3.

8:00 Going to War Authors and veterans discuss the realities of combat.

9:00 Independent Lens Served Like A Girl.

Five competitors in the Ms. Veteran America Competition.

10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 BBC World News 11:30 Reel South Jonah Stands Up.

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7:00 Antiques Roadshow 7:00 The Great American Newport, Hour 2.

Read 8:00 Antiques Roadshow The two-hour premiere Tucson, Hour 2. of a new series that 9:00 Independent Lens explores America’s 100 ACORN and the best-loved novels.

Firestorm. The Meredith Vieira hosts. politically charged 9:00 Frontline battle to take down Weinstein.

ACORN. 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 BBC World News 11:00 Human Face of 11:30 Reel South Big Data Divided City.

Conflicting opinions about monuments to the Confederacy.

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7:00 Little Women on Masterpiece Part 2. The family must come together to face their most difficult challenge yet.

9:05 Louisa May Alcott: American Masters The double literary life of the celebrated author, who wrote scandalous works under a pseudonym.

10:30 Articulate with Jim Cotter 11:00 Independent Lens T-Rex: Her Fight for Gold.

SOUNDINGOFF

BY JOSEPH E. MORGAN

Susannah the Nashville Opera

Photograph by Anthony Popolo

On the weekend of April 6, the Nashville Opera closed its season with a performance of Carlisle Floyd’s gothic American tragedy, Susannah.

Largely based on the Apocrypha tale Susanna and the Elders, the story is reset in the small, fictional mountain town of New Hope Valley, Tennessee. The plot emerges when a number of the town’s elder men, all lechers, stumble upon the young and beautiful Susannah bathing in a stream. When they tell their wives of what has happened, the entire town descends into a state of rabid moral indignation. In Nashville, this descent was led by Mrs. McLean, one of the elders’ wives. Played with a hateful zeal by soprano Emily Tweedy and sung with an icy cold tone, Mrs. McLean was downright odious from the opening chorus.

It is against this foil of Mrs. McLean that the dramatic arc of Susannah’s character is forged. Beginning with a naïve joy and ending in murderous insanity, soprano Chelsea Basler in her Nashville debut brought her character through from glee to bitterness in a subtle yet striking manner. Her Act One aria, “Ain’t It a Pretty Night,” a standard in the repertoire, was majestic.

Her brother Sam, played by tenor Aaron Short, helped to guide Susannah in the ways of the world. Reverend Olin Blitch, played with a great deal of charisma by bass-baritone Gustav Andreassen, followed his own dark dramatic arc from a preacher of gravitas to a lonely and small man.

Indeed, while critics have historically lauded Floyd’s score for its uniquely American sound, in my opinion its real strength lies in the depiction of character. With such a strong cast, and under the detailed baton of Maestro Dean Williamson, this short, barely two-hour work, packs an emotional punch that can compete with the greatest of the Romantic and verismo masterpieces.

For more information, visit www.nashvilleopera.org.

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BEYONDWORDS

Photograph by Anthony Scarlati

BY MARSHALL CHAPMAN

Finding comfort where you can ...

Some people don’t like to be touched. I am not one of them.

Back in the day when I was playing rock & roll across the American landscape, my first order of business upon arriving in any new city was to find a good masseuse or masseur.

But back to not being touched. My good friend and Vanderbilt classmate Ruthanna Jolley (yes, that is her given name) cannot stand to be touched. Once while staying at her home in Atlanta, as a parting gift, I took her to a local spa. Because she was my friend, she surrendered to having a massage. But I could tell she hated it.

“How did you ever conceive children?” I asked.

“Oh, well, that’s different,” she said.

My top-three massage experiences from my rock & roll days are as follows: 1) Memphis, Tennessee I was staying at the Peabody Hotel. Exhausted from the day’s travel, I called the health club as soon as I checked in. Fortunately, they had an opening.

My masseur looked to be 18. His name was Bernard. He never said a word. No plaques on the wall proclaiming his proficiency.

Bernard didn’t need any of that. That’s because Bernard had the gift. Words fail in describing this experience. To quote an old friend from South Carolina, “If it gets any better than this, it’s not much more.”

2) The Great Lakes School of Massage—Cleveland, Ohio I found this place in the Yellow Pages. No appointment was necessary, so I took a taxi to the listed address.

Red-Handed Symposium Memorial Day Weekend

•

May 25-27

Featuring Marty Fielding, Liz Zlot Summerfield, Amy Sanders and Ronan Peterson Keynote: Linda Arbuckle Panel: Ben Carter $325 register on-line at www.theclaylady.com (click on the Red Hand)

1416 Lebanon Pike, Nashville, TN, 37210 • 615.242.0346 Hours: M-F 8am-4:30pm, Sat 10am-2pm

This so-called “school” was in an old warehouse with an interior that looked like a library that time forgot. Massage tables lay waiting between rows of books with plastic replicas of human body parts serving as book ends—a heart here, a leg there, an elbow over there. If that wasn’t odd enough, the hands on the clock across from my massage table ran backwards. At any moment, I expected to see Rod Serling walk in. But instead, I got an old woman bent over a walker. She looked older than Methuselah, as she slowly step-clicked her way toward my table. How is she going to give me a massage without first dying of old age? I soon found out. Her boney hands were so strong, I thought I’d die from the pain ... and the pleasure.

“You should come back on Thursdays,” she said after it was all over. “That’s when the blind boys are here.” I could only imagine.

3) The Osaka Health Spa, New York City Okay. I’m out of room. I could probably write a book about this one, but I’ll try and fit it into my next column. Till next time ...

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 BRIAN DOWNEY, MUSEUM MANAGER, 21c MUSEUM HOTEL NASHVILLE

ARTIST BIO: Aron Wiesenfeld Aron Wiesenfeld was born in 1972 in Washington, D.C., and is currently based in San Diego, California.

He studied painting at Cooper Union in New York City, and following a brief career illustrating comic books, he continued his studies at Art Center in Pasadena, California. His work has been the subject of eight solo exhibitions in the United States and Europe since 2006 and has appeared in many publications, including Hi-Fructose, Art in America, American Art Collector, and The Huffington Post.

Wiesenfeld has participated in museum shows at the Long Beach Museum of Art, Bakersfield Museum of Art, and the Museum Casa Dell’Architettura in Italy. His paintings have been used on covers of eight books of poetry, including The Other Sky, a collaborative project with acclaimed American poet Bruce Bond. He was recently named one of the top 100 figurative painters by BuzzFeed. Wiesenfeld is represented by Arcadia Contemporary in California. www.aronwiesenfeld.com

Aron Wiesenfeld, The Fish Gatherer, Etching on Arches paper, Edition of 35

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Brian Downey

Photograph by Sheri Oneal

I

appreciate Nashville Arts allowing me to bend the rules a bit to feature an etching instead of a “painting.” There is just something about the look and the process/technique of etchings that I have always been drawn to. Contemporary etching is my favorite type of artwork to collect, and I feel very fortunate to own this beautiful piece

by Aron Wiesenfeld. There is a moodiness, an element of darkness, in his work that I love. Even if the scene is one of beauty—a figure surrounded by a field of flowers, for example—there is something in the work that gives you an uneasy feeling. It may be the look on the subject’s face, the dark sky, the ominous surroundings, or an unseen danger approaching. It’s often hard to tell if the figures in his work are in search of something . . . or escaping something. I’m also drawn to Wiesenfeld’s paintings and etchings because they blend some of my favorite elements and styles from other artists whose work I love—for example, John Currin, with his exaggerated or elongated figures, and Edward Hopper, whose paintings of lone figures in isolation remain a constant favorite of mine. na

Marti Jones Dixon

American Gothic, 30 x 40, oil on canvas

Green Room at the House of Blues, 20 x 24, oil on canvas

Whiskey Bar, 30 x 24, oil on canvas

4304 Charlotte Ave • Nashville, TN 615-298-4611 • www.lequiregallery.com