The MARLENE AND SPENCER HAYS Collection Lois RIGGINS-EZZELL Denise STEWART-SANABRIA Jim WARREN Tom PFANNERSTILL
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Nashvillian of the Year Award Dr. Ming Wang, Harvard & MIT (MD, magna cum laude); PhD (laser physics) Presented by Kiwanis Club International, Nashville, TN The Kiwanis Club of Nashville is proud to announce Dr. Ming Wang, director of Wang Vision 3D Cataract and LASIK Center, world-renowned laser eye surgeon, author, and philanthropist as the 35th recipient of their coveted Nashvillian of the Year Award for 2015. Dr. Wang receives the award by exemplifying the qualities of Outstanding Nashvillian of the Year and the Kiwanis International Vision. Dr. Wang worked diligently to make the world a better place, when he established the Wang Foundation, helping patients from over 40 states in the U.S. and 55 countries, with sight restoration surgeries performed free-of-charge. “It is difficult to know anyone who works as hard giving back to the community and changing the lives of children as much as Dr. Ming Wang,” said Kenny Markanich, president, Kiwanis Club of Nashville. “He has helped countless children through the charitable outreach of his foundation, giving free surgeries to repair their vision.” Dr. Wang actively contributes to the Nashville community as the founding president of the Tennessee Chinese Chamber of Commerce and as an honorary president of the Tennessee American-Chinese Chamber of Commerce. The mission of these two chambers is to help educate Tennessee businesses about China, helping Tennessee to increase its export to China. He is also a co-founder of Tennessee Immigrant and Minority Business Group, an organization that provides support to the diverse cultural and ethnic businesses in our community. For the past 35 years, the 100-year-old civic club has bestowed the annual ac-
colade upon an individual who has gone beyond the expected scope of their abilities for the betterment and benefit of the Nashville community. The selection committee was spearheaded by George H. Armistead, III, one of the three original architects of the award (along with the late Gillespie Buchannan and the late Ralph Brunson). Past winners of note include Martha Ingram, Roy Acuff, Jack Massey, Phil Bredesen, Vince Gill, Tim Corbin, Mike Curb, Frank Wycheck, Darrell Waltrip and Mayor Karl Dean. A program saluting Dr. Wang was held at the Patron Club, Friday, July 29th at 11:30am. Dr. Wang was presented with
a commemorative plaque along a commissioned caricature.
About Kiwanis: Kiwanis Club of Nashville is a local chapter of Kiwanis International. This global organization of more than 660,000 members is dedicated to serving the children of the world. It annually raises more than US$100 million and dedicates more than 18.5 million volunteer hours to strengthen communities and serve children. Members of every age attend regular meetings, experience fellowship, raise funds for various causes and participate in service projects that help their communities. Dr. Wang can be reached at: drwang@wangvisioninstitute.com Wang Vision Cataract & Lasik Center 1801 West End Ave, Ste 1150, Nashville, TN 37203 615-321-8881 www.WangCataractLASIK.com
ADVERTORIAL BY WANG VISION 3D CATARACT & LASIK CENTER
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Columns MARSHALL CHAPMAN | Beyond Words ERICA CICCARONE | Open Spaces JENNIFER COLE | State of the Arts LINDA DYER | Appraise It RACHAEL MCCAMPBELL | And So It Goes JOSEPH E. MORGAN | Sounding Off ANNE POPE | Tennessee Roundup JIM REYLAND | Theatre Correspondent MARK W. SCALA | As I See It JUSTIN STOKES | Film Review
Nashville Arts Magazine is a monthly publication by St. Claire Media Group, LLC. This publication is free, one per reader. Removal of more than one magazine from any distribution point constitutes theft, and violators are subject to prosecution. Back issues are available at our office, or by mail for $6.40 a copy. Email: All email addresses consist of the employee’s first name followed by @nashvillearts.com; to reach contributing writers, email info@ nashvillearts.com. Editorial Policy: Nashville Arts Magazine covers art, news, events, entertainment, and culture in Nashville and surrounding areas. The views and opinions expressed in the magazine do not necessarily represent those of the publisher. Subscriptions: Subscriptions are available at $45 per year for 12 issues. Please note: Due to the nature of third-class mail and postal regulations, issues could be delayed by as much as two or three weeks. There will be no refunds issued. Please allow four to six weeks for processing new subscriptions and address changes. Call 615-383-0278 to order by phone with your credit card number.
TINNEY CONTEMPORARY
wild encounters DAVID
YARROW
S E P T E M b E R 2 4 - N OV E M b E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 6 Closing Reception: November 5th, 6 - 9 p.m.
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
On the Cover Albert Marquet
November 2016 18
The Red Stockings 1912, Oil on canvas, 32” x 26” See page 28.
Features
66
Body Languages New Dialect Premiere of FOCO
18
Anton Weiss Going Beyond the Surface
25
The Nashville Fashion Alliance All Dressed Up and Somewhere To Go
80
Sky’s the Limit Skyville Live Uses the Latest Technology to Redefine Music Television for the iPhone Generation
28 The Hays Collection World-Class Masterpieces Here in Nashville
80
25 28
62
40
Denise Stewart-Sanabria New Work: Paintings & Drawings
46
Lois Riggins-Ezzell The Interview
50 56
82
The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare Comes to Nashville
84
Nashville Opera Presents Glory Denied
Columns 16
Crawl Guide
Jim Warren Tops the Bill at This Year’s Artlightenment
38
The Bookmark Hot Books and Cool Reads
Archiving Appalachia Photographer Shelby Lee Adams’s Moving Images of Life in Eastern Kentucky
54
Arts & Business Council
72
Open Spaces by Erica Ciccarone
56
78 Theatre by Jim Reyland 86
Studio Tenn
88
Sounding Off by Joseph E. Morgan
90
Art Smart by Rebecca Pierce
94 ArtSee 96 NPT
100 Studio Tenn 62
Tom Pfannerstill Trash Talk: the Humble Object as High Art
101 Beyond Words by Marshall Chapman 102 My Favorite Painting
NEW WORKS: PAINTINGS & DRAWINGS BY DENISE STEWART-SANABRIA
“PAST FRESHNESS DATE” ©DENISE STEWART-SANABRIA
NOVEMBER 2016 the
arts
company
www.theartscompany.com 215 5th Ave of the Arts N . • 615.254.2040
5TH AVENUE OF THE ARTS • DOWNTOWN NASHVILLE
Titan of the West on Display at the Eiteljorg Bud Adams Collection of Western Art Hits the Trail Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art November 12–February 5, 2017
The exhibit will be on view from November 12 to February 5, 2017, purposefully scheduled to coincide with a game this month between the Titans and the Indianapolis Colts at nearby Lucas Oil Stadium. “The exhibit is an interesting glimpse behind the curtain of the man who owned the team,” says Blume, adding that Adams traced his own lineage to Cherokee ancestors in the Tennessee region. “A lot of what we talk about in the exhibit is his own personal history and his familial connections to Tennessee. I hope it’s interesting for Nashville residents to see how deeply rooted he is to that place and why he moved the team there.” Among Blume’s favorites in the collection are a circa 1893 Remington painting, A Buck-jumper, which demonstrates the artist’s growing interest in the imitation of wild motion that would become a staple of his later bronze work; a circa 1920 Oscar E. Berninghaus, Night of the Dance, depicting tied horses huddled in the snow as a colored window pane glows with revelry beyond; and a circa 1895 martingale painted and embroidered by members of the Crow Nation. “We’re hoping that visitors will take the opportunity to, by looking at Bud’s connection to the art, think about their own connection to the art,” Blume says. na Titan of the West will be on display at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, 500 W. Washington Street in Indianapolis, from November 12 to February 5, 2017. For more information, please visit www.eiteljorg.org.
Oscar E. Berninghaus, Night of the Dance, ca. 1920, Oil on canvas
“We weren’t aware that we had been written into the will,” recalls Johanna Blume, assistant curator of Western art at the Eiteljorg. “It was kind of out of the blue, but we must have made a really positive impression on him.”
Thomas Moran, The Grand Canyon, 1917, Oil on canvas
Adams bequeathed his collection to Indianapolis’s Eiteljorg Museum, and after years of preparation, the museum will host the collection in its exhibit Titan of the West: The Adams Collection of Western and Native American Art.
Frederic Remington, A Buck-jumper, ca. 1893, Oil on canvas
A
rtists and art collectors alike have a hard time resisting the mystique of the old American West. One such aficionado captured by its sunset-tinted magic was Bud Adams. An oil magnate and owner of the Tennessee Titans football team, Adams amassed one of the world’s most impressive private collections of Western American art before his death in 2013. Housed at his home and office in Houston, it included paintings by Frederic Remington, N.C. Wyeth, and Thomas Moran, as well as Native American beadwork, clothing, and other artifacts.
Jared Small slight
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GRANT SORY
BRIAN SHAW
Publisher's Note
A Great City Deserves Great Art I am always amazed at the quality of art in personal collections here in town. There are Richard Avedons, Damien Hirsts, and a whole variety of top-tier artists hanging quietly in people's homes. But nothing, and I do mean nothing, prepared us for the magnificence that is the Marlene and Spencer Hays collection. Here, lovingly displayed, are Vuillards and Bonnards, Matisses and Modiglianis, Renoirs and Degas, paintings that I had seen only in books and catalogs. The sheer joy that Marlene and Spencer shared with me as they walked through their home talking about each piece was infectious. A story here, a quip there, an anecdote along the way. Their enthusiasm was palpable, and I enjoyed every second of it. The Hays collection focuses heavily on the Nabis artists, and it is deep and comprehensive. It also reflects the couple's love affair with France, its people, and its art and culture.
THE ARTWORK OF HATCH SHOW PRINT’S DESIGNER-PRINTERS Celene Aubry
Heather Moulder
Jennifer Bronstein
Sarah Anne Murphy
Devin Goebel
Amber Richards
Alex MacAskill
Cory Wasnewsky
By the time you read this, the President of France will have hosted a dinner for the Nashville couple and announced that their collection in whole will be donated to the Musée d'Orsay. President Hollande also named them Commandeurs of the French Legion d'Honneur, the highest order of France. The impact that this collection will have on the art world is enormous. Hats off to Marlene and Spencer Hays for putting Nashville squarely on the international art map (see page 28). Paul Polycarpou | Publisher
Tennessee Art League Group Show at TSU
EXHIBITION OPEN NOVEMBER 18, 2016 – JANUARY 8, 2017 MEET THE ARTISTS AND SHOP SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3 • 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Downtown Nashville
•
615.577.7711
Visit HatchShowPrint.com for more information.
PHOTOS: JOHN PARTIPILLO
November 3, 2016— January 3, 2017 Opening Reception Thursday, November 3 6pm—9pm Avon Williams Campus Library Gallery 330 10th Ave North • Nashville, TN 37203
BENNET T GALLERIES New Work From
JOHN HYCHE
Unexpected Encounter, 48” x 60”
2104 Crestmoor Road in Green Hills, Nashville, TN 37215 Hours: Mon-Fri 9:30 to 5:30 • Sat 9:30 to 5:00 Phone: 615-297-3201 • www.bennettgalleriesnashville.com
November Crawl Guide Franklin Art Scene
Friday, November 4, from 6 until 9 p.m.
Vinci Kolodziejski Williamson County Archives
Susan Truex, Gallery 202
For November, painter Susan Truex is the featured artist at Gallery 202. boutiqueMMM is showing work by photographer, painter and writer, Tommie Flannery Baskis. Parks on Main is presenting photographs by Linda Arick. Shuff’s Music & Piano Showroom is exhibiting pastel, acrylics and oil paintings by MayLill. See photography by Jeanne Drone at Early’s Honey Stand. Finnleys Good Findings is hosting Nashville artist Lizzy Ragsdale. At Imaginebox Emporium find a variety of original works by Cory Basil. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church is holding a group show including artists Janeth Murray McKendrick, Caroline Thompson, Nan Jorgensen, Sarah Webster and more. Williamson County Archives is displaying watercolors by Vinci Kolodziejski. Enjoy a trunk show of antique, estate and new patterns of sterling flatware at The Registry. The art of faculty, staff, and alumni is on display in the Robert N. Moore, Jr. Gallery at O’More College of Design.
inspired by Anderson’s visit to Mesa Verde as well as his interest in Indonesian gamelan and dance. For those who wish to start crawling early, “O” Gallery is open from noon until 3 p.m. showcasing work by new artists Emily Newman, Linda Gardner and Dana Farley. Hatch Show Print’s Haley Gallery is showing new work by guest artist David Wolske who visited the print shop earlier this year to create his Synæsthetica series with some of the biggest wood type fonts in Hatch’s collection.
Arts & Music @ Wedgewood/Houston Saturday, November 5, from 6 until 9 p.m.
First Saturday Art Crawl Downtown Saturday, November 5, from 6 until 9 p.m.
The Arts Company is unveiling New Work: Paintings and Drawings by Denise Stewart-Sanabria (see page 40), and Musical Sculpture by Philippe Guillerm. As a preview to the exhibit, on Friday, November 4, at 5:30 p.m. Paul Polycarpou of Nashville Arts Magazine will moderate an art panel with the artists. Wild Encounters, photographs by David Yarrow, remains on view at Tinney Contemporary. The Rymer Gallery is presenting Southernacana photography by Don VanCleave. The Browsing Room Gallery at the Downtown Presbyterian Church is hosting a reception for presenting McLean Fahnestock’s Sounds Like, an exhibition of sound-centered sculptural works.
In the historic Arcade, WAG is exhibiting SUNDRIES, new works from Mali Hamilton and Tristan Higginbotham that navigate the spaces between objects, their histories, and our attachments to them. Open Gallery is showing new work by artist Benji Anderson in his first solo show, The Magnificent Journey of Kunky-su. This show features drawings and paintings
Fred Stonehouse, CG2 Gallery
Rebecca Green, Julia Martin Gallery
Zeitgeist is unveiling Underground Again, a new exhibition from Nashville-based artists Caroline Allison and Patrick DeGuira, which meditates on ways history manifests itself in the present. Channel to Channel is exhibiting Jonathan Edelhuber’s Cognitive Fields, which shows a playful yet organized way of achieving pattern and texture through illustrated abstract imagery. Coop Gallery is hosting an opening reception for Sound Enriched Objects by Justin Boyd, and at 8 p.m. Justin is presenting an electro-acoustic performance using a modular synthesizer, solenoid motors and contact microphones. mild climate is holding a group exhibition featuring works from Eric Cagley, Rachel Elder, Angelo Kozonis, and Tom Wixo. CG2 Gallery is showing New Works by C.J. Pyle and The Silent Singers by Fred Stonehouse. Julia Martin Gallery is opening ILLUMINE by Rebecca Green, an exhibition of shadowy tales and magical stories. Sauvage is displaying new work from visual artist Tara Walters, in a solo exhibit in conjunction with Et Al. Poetry Readings. See work by artist Andrew Smith at Refinery Nashville. Ground Floor Gallery is featuring Thrown from the Storm, a solo exhibition of vibrant paintings by Jason Stout, a professor at UT-Martin.
East Side Art Stumble Saturday, November 12, from 6 until 10 p.m.
Benji Anderson, Open Gallery
Mali Hamilton, WAG
The Red Arrow Gallery is opening Involuntary Occurrences, a solo show by Shawn Hall.
Shawn Hall, The Red Arrow Gallery
HISTORY EMBR ACING A RT
Moving Forward, 30” x 40” Featured Artist
SUSA N
BL A I R
T RU E X
Artist Reception • November 4, 6-9pm 202 2nd Ave. South, Franklin, TN 37064
•
www.gallery202art.com
•
615-472-1134
antonWEISS
by Karen Parr-Moody
Going Beyond the Surface Customs House Museum and Cultural Center through January 4
A
After a year of studying with the master, Weiss moved to Tennessee, where his art began to map a course of success and maturation. A celebration of his life’s work in painting and sculpture will be on display through January 4 at the Customs House Museum and Cultural Center, located in historic downtown Clarksville, Tennessee. Born in Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia, Weiss studied at the Villach Institute of Art and Museums in Villach, Austria, then emigrated to the U.S. in 1951. In Tennessee, he studied art at the University of Tennessee and at Watkins Institute (now called Watkins College), where he became the director of the art department in 1975 and remained so until 1980. He taught sculpture and painting.
“
Abstract Expressionism, with its untamed spirit, is tailor-made for Weiss’s life experiences. Perhaps that is because he understands, intimately, what it is to be truly brave.
Weiss also helped found the Tennessee Art League and the Tennessee Watercolor Society, and his art has been exhibited around the world. His influence through teaching has been felt broadly by students today, such as Romy Beeler, a renowned Swiss sculptor. She studied with Weiss at Watkins from 1979 to 1984, learning both sculpture and painting from him. “Anton really made us work our fingers to the bones,” Beeler says. “Anton was so inspiring for us. He showed us the right techniques and tools. He showed us how we can work with any material, like steel welding, stone, and woodcarving.”
18 nashvillearts.com
Opposing Arches, 2012, Copper, aluminum, wood, 87”x 19” x 13”
t a time when the most gifted members of the early Abstract Expressionist painters were emerging with their feisty splashes of paint, a young Anton Weiss came under the tutelage of Hans Hofmann, one of the most influential artists of the genre. This was in New York City in the early 1950s, when Hofmann, a friend of Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and other modernist painters, was teaching Weiss and other select students to use texture, color, and form to create depth and movement on a flat canvas. Hofmann called this the “push and pull” of the image.
Remnants 002, 2011, Acrylic, copper, aluminum, steel, panel, 48” x 48”
“I love when this happens,” he says, pointing to areas where he has scratched through a flat layer of paint with a palette knife to reveal multi-colored tones underneath. “You’re going beyond the surface. See, this looks like it is way beyond this flat area; it just goes back into the canvas. So we’re not talking about composing up and down and side to side; we’re going to infinity and back.” Abstract Expressionism, with its untamed spirit, is tailormade for Weiss’s life experiences. Perhaps that is because he understands, intimately, what it is to be truly brave. At the age of 10, Weiss was cast into a Russian concentration camp, along with other Europeans who were on the losing side of World War II. Russians shot his brother before him; his grandfather died laboring in the camp. Food was virtually nonexistent, and death was a grim reality. “I grew up in turmoil,” Weiss says. “It’s just what it was.” Out of that experience of daily fear was formed a man who became fearless in putting his paint to canvas or in creating sculptures of wood and metal. As Fredric Koeppel, art critic for The Commercial Appeal newspaper in Memphis, says, “There’s nothing tentative about any of Weiss’s works. They exude this sense of inevitability and great self-confidence.” And as his former student Beeler says, Weiss taught his students “to be authentic, to have a goal, and to never be scared of mistakes.” na Weiss’s paintings and sculpture will be on display through January 4 at the Customs House Museum and Cultural Center in Clarksville. For more information, visit www.customshousemuseum.org.
Untitled, 1989, Oil on canvas, 40” x 40”
Photograph by Anthony Scarlati
Black Dawn, 2006, Acrylic on canvas, 48” x 48”
Weiss still lives and paints today, at age 80, in the bucolic Pegram region near Nashville. Among the fields and oldgrowth trees, he still speaks as though he were in an artists’ salon of famous mid-century Abstract Expressionists. Standing tall before a massive canvas covered in a constellation of brushstrokes and palette-knife scratches, the white-haired artist explains his process.
Anton Weiss in his studio
A Master of Fine Arts and Martial Arts
Stanford Fine Art Gallery owner Stan Mabry
W
ith his salt-and-pepper hair and tortoise-shell spectacles, Stan Mabry looks the part of a successful art dealer and throughout the past 35 years has established himself as just that. On a recent weekday afternoon, he is walking the floor of his gallery, Stanford Fine Art in Belle Meade, wearing a gingham shirt, slacks, and a horizontal-striped tie. At first, you might not give a second thought to the telltale shuffle with which he walks. Then he sits—surrounded by French and American impressionist and abstract art that makes up part of the space’s robust 19th- and 20th-century collection—and a pair of tightly laced ankle weights emerge where dress socks should be, a sign of his dedication to a sport and his unique way of balancing his feet in two worlds: fine art and martial art. That’s when Mabry starts talking about his sixth Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Championship, an accomplishment many have tried for but few have achieved.
Stan Mabry in action
Photograph by Jerry Atnip
Photograph by Jerry Atnip
Gallery Owner Stan Mabry Wins His Sixth Jiu-Jitsu World Championship
major at the University of North Carolina and sold books through the Southwestern Company before landing a job at Sotheby’s in New York. He credits his time at Southwestern with giving him the discipline and fortitude needed to persevere on an international level. Mabry also credits Jeremy Akin, his instructor at Brentwood Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, with being an integral part of his success. In 1987 he opened his gallery in Nashville upon the recommendation of a client. Mabry has an incisive eye when it comes to choosing artwork. His career has been shaped by his astute connoisseurship enabling a well-tailored collection streaming from traditional and impressionist to modern and abstract. He started doing jiu-jitsu here as a break from his work and found himself going religiously every day, eventually turning to the Brazilian style that he practices now.
“It’s a very nervous-tinged atmosphere, so you have to train your mind to be able to perform the best you can,” Mabry says of competing at the World Master Jiu-Jitsu Championship in Las Vegas, which he won in August. “The pressure in a World Championship is a major hurdle.”
“I went and fell absolutely in love with it the very first visit,” he recalls. “Anybody that trains in the sport will tell you how addictive it is because it’s both mentally and physically challenging and you learn something every time you step on a mat.”
For years, the 60-year-old has been competing against fighters from all over the world, usually ones who are younger than he. For the last several years, he has been the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation’s number-one-ranked athlete in his division in the world and now holds the prestigious rank of black belt.
Mabry has a way of blending the incongruent worlds of martial arts and fine art. “Jiu-jitsu is an art form too,” he says. “When I look at a painting, I’m looking at the composition, the balance, the proficiency of the artist. When you train in martial arts, you become more proficient over time. Even though there’s a physicality attached to it, there’s also an aesthetic element as well.” na
It wouldn’t be a stretch to call Mabry mild-mannered, though the way he talks about armbars and pressuring opponents into submission contradicts that impression. He was an anthropology
For more information visit www.stanfordfineart.net.
20 nashvillearts.com
BNA EXPRESS PARK PARK SMART. PARK AT THE AIRPORT. A NEW WAY TO VALE T.
Traveling for Thanksgiving? Try Nashville International Airport’s new lot, BNA Express Park. It’s fast, easy and convenient, relieving a little stress out of the holiday season.
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845 BELTON DR $749,000 845belton.com Tim King 615.482.5953
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4305 IROQUOIS $735,000 4305iroquois.com Rick French 615.604.2323, Tim King 615.482.5953
downtown nashville 919 Broadway nashville, tn 37203 fristcenter.org/samurai #samuraiatthefrist
NoveMber 4, 2016–January 16, 2017 organized by contemporanea Progetti srl with the Museo stibbert, Florence, italy Platinum sponsor
supporting sponsor
the Frist center is supported in part by the FRIENDS OF ASIAN ART and
Haruta school. Helmet, first half of the 17th century. Steel, gilded copper, lacquer, gold, wood (Japanese foxglove), silk, and Japanese deerskin, 9 7/8 x 11 13/16 x 13 7/8 in. Collection of Museo Stibbert
The Nashville Fashion Alliance All Dressed Up and Somewhere To Go Words by Karen Parr-Moody Photography by Mayter Scott
“I
t’s our secret sauce,” says Van Tucker, chief executive officer of the Nashville Fashion Alliance. “That’s really what The Reclamation was all about: celebrating the values that are Nashville’s secret sauce.” That secret sauce—a blend of collaboration, support of the creative economy, and social collaboration— was celebrated during The Reclamation, a fundraiser held on September 29 by the Nashville Fashion Alliance (NFA), a nonprofit dedicated to building a sustainable fashion industry in Nashville, and Goodwill Industries of Middle Tennessee.
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The ultimate luxury is really to be able to support your own economy.
Produced at the contemporary event space Track One, The Reclamation featured six of Nashville’s most esteemed chefs who prepared a five-course dinner for guests. They were Sal Avila, Lisa Donovan, Kayla May, Julia Sullivan, Michael Matson, and Margot McCormack. Twelve local designers featured designs they had repurposed from materials sourced at Goodwill stores. They were Eric Adler of Eric Adler Clothing, Ashley Balding of Ona Rex, Kate Brown of Morton and Mabel, Debe Dohrer of Debe Dohrer Design, Otis James of the eponymous tie line, Edward Jones of Edward’s Shoes, Mary Mooney of Mary Mooney Art, Sandra Ney of Will & Ivey, Isabel SK of the eponymous brand, Diana Warner of Diana Warner Studio, Annie Williams of the AW brand of leather bags, and Anna Zeitlin of Fanny & June.
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For the event, Track One was decked out in art by fine artists Amélie Guthrie, Alex Lockwood, Bryce McCloud, and Vadis Turner. One piece was a large-scale sculpture that Lockwood made out of shotgun shells as a statement against gun violence. Guthrie contributed tree-inspired chandeliers. Following the dinner, the Nashville band Guilty Pleasures performed. On September 30, NFA produced a VIP preview event for yet another production, The Wardrobe Project, also at Track One, during which the designers' pieces made from Goodwill finds remained on display. The Wardrobe Project opened to the public on October 1. The largest of NFA’s events so far, The Wardrobe Project was what Tucker called “a shoppers’ market with an art gallery experience.” It was inspired by the Dover Street Market of New York City, a seven-story space in which fashion merges with cutting-edge art. More than forty NFA members displayed their fashion and accessories during the event. Installations from The Reclamation event remained in the space; additional artwork was created by Kelly Diehl and Elizabeth Williams for The Wardrobe Project to create a completely curated look.
Julia Dyer, Van Tucker, and Mayor Megan Barry
The Wardrobe Project’s intent was to raise awareness of the depth and breadth of design talent located in Nashville. Notably, “Local Is the New Luxury” is The Wardrobe Project’s tagline and its hashtag is #localluxury. “The ultimate luxury is really to be able to support your own economy,” Tucker says. “If you have a hard-to-buy-for person on your Christmas list, I’m pretty sure you can find something unique at Shop NFA,” Tucker says. na For more information on local brands, visit the Shop NFA page of the NFA’s website at www.nashvillefashionalliance.com/shopnfa.
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Words by Margaret F.M. Walker Photography by Jerry Atnip
HAYSCollection
THE
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Odilon Redon, Vase of Flowers and Profile, c. 1905–10, Oil on canvas, 26” x 32”
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On October 22, the President of France
hosted a dinner for Marlene and Spencer Hays. At the event President Hollande announced the couple’s decision to give their art collection in whole to the Musée d’Orsay. We were privileged to be given a tour of the couple’s Nashville home and to see many of the masterpieces in the collection. Ici c’est, pour votre plaisir visuel.
F
riendship. Family. Passion. These are principles
that guide the lives of Marlene and Spencer Hays and that are reflected in their distinguished collection of Nabis art, truly the hidden gem of Nashville. The Nabis Movement followed Impressionism in the story of French avant-garde art from approximately 1890-1900 and is often characterized by strong color fields and a flatness of the picture that presages the abstraction of the twentieth century. In 2013, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris mounted an exhibition titled A Passion for France: The Marlene and Spencer Hays Collection, which united the works that are divided between their Nashville home and New York apartment.
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Edgar Degas, Half-length Dancer Combing Her Hair, c. 1900-12, Pastel, 14” x 11” Edgar Degas, Arabesque sur la jambe droite, le bras gauche dans la ligne, Bronze, Height: 11”
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While it all began with a small oldmaster painting and several works by American artists, the couple discovered their love of Nabis art through regular trips to Paris.
To show their love for France, their Nashville home is modeled after one in Paris and is built with French stones, has a staircase crafted in France, 18th-century floors imported from France, and even the doorknobs were made in France. The Hays do have a passion for France, its art, culture, and people, though it is a relationship built in a uniquely American way. Marlene and Spencer Hays are an embodiment of the American Dream. Coming from humble beginnings in Gainesville, Texas, far from any great museums, the couple met in eighth grade. Spencer was able to attend college at Texas Christian University on a basketball scholarship. He began selling books with the Southwestern Company during college, a professional relationship that continues today. He has used those same values to build the Tom James Company and Athlon Media Group, which publishes Parade magazine. Spencer Hays lives by the principle “You can’t build a business—you build people. People build a business.” Behind their art collection is the heart of this philosophy: Art is
meaningful because it is about people and their relationships. To tour the Hays collection is to have a window into the lives of Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, Maurice Denis, and numerous other notable artists. While drawn to collecting Nabis works for many reasons, one of them is clearly that many of these artists knew each other from childhood. To tour the collection is to step back in time, to peer through a window into the friendships and daily lives of these men. Each picture is connected to the others in a finely spun web. The Hays speak of their paintings with an intimate knowledge and a connection to them that was built over countless hours lovingly spent getting to know them. Pierre Bonnard’s The Animals’ Luncheon (The Terrasse Family) is a scene of the artist’s sister, Andrée, and her husband, Claude Terrasse, with their many pets. It, like other Bonnard paintings in the collection, is a snapshot of regular life, friends, and family. They have enjoyed not just the nuances of the paintings’ aesthetics and stories, but also gaining a sense of the artist’s oeuvre as a
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Paul-César Helleu, Girl in White (portrait presumably of the Princesse de Ligne), 1885, Pastel, 51” x 39”
Henri Matisse, White Embroidered Smock, 1936, Oil on wood, 6” x 9”
Édouard Vuillard, The Seamstresses, 1890, Oil on canvas, 19” x 23” 31 nashvillearts.com
Pierre Bonnard, The Animals’ Hour: Cats, or The Animals’ Luncheon, (The Terrasse Family), 1906, Oil on canvas, 30” x 43”
whole and his artistic process. Similarly, The Table. The End of Luncheon at Madame Vuillard’s (c. 1895) by Édouard Vuillard, is a glimpse of family dinner. We know the identities of the figures (including fellow Nabis painter, his brother-in-law, KerXavier Roussel) and even, based on the date, an idea of what they could be discussing. The strong themes of family and friendship in these paintings and many others have clearly been a draw for the Hays. Another element of their love for this artistic movement is these painters’ ability to create a scene from life, but to do so in a way that is often a puzzle to be deciphered from the play of composition, blocks of vibrant color, varied patterns, and interpersonal relations. They are intellectual paintings that take many hours of looking to fully appreciate. In Mrs. Hays’ words, over time, “they become old friends.” The relational quality of art collecting lies in individuals of the contemporary era, too. For many decades now, the Hays have sought the help and guidance of Stan Mabry of Stanford Fine Art, who has been integral to the building of their collection. Many Nashvillians will be familiar with Mabry, who met the Hays selling books for the Southwestern Company but went on to work for Sotheby’s after college and then to establish his own art gallery in Nashville in 1987. Spencer credits Stan as their “advisor and consultant, and a fantastic art historian in
his own right.” Another Nashvillian Hays mentions is Suzanne Moore, who serves as curator of their collection. The Hays almost stumbled into collecting. While it all began with a small old-master painting and several works by American artists, the couple discovered their love of Nabis art through regular trips to Paris. Over time, works of this movement would become the heart of the collection, though they own works by other canonical artists of this era like Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, James Tissot, and Amedeo Modigliani. In fact a Modigliani of one of his beautiful women was Hays’ gift to his wife on their 60th wedding anniversary recently celebrated in June. As they began to acquire more pieces of note, they came to know more art historians. The couple loaned a panel by Vuillard, the only one of an original set of eight that is in a private collection, along with six other Vuillards to a traveling exhibition organized by their dear friend Guy Cogeval, an expert on the Nabis artists. The exhibit opened at the National Gallery in Washington, traveled to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and then to the Grand Palais in Paris. When Cogeval assumed the directorship of the Musée d’Orsay, Hays suggested that they begin an American Friends group for the Musée d’Orsay. The group, the AFMO,
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The Hays speak of their paintings with an intimate knowledge and a connection to them that was built over countless hours lovingly spent getting to know them.
Henri Matisse, La femme en jaune, 1923, Oil on canvas, 26” x 20”
Édouard Vuillard, The Table. The End of Luncheon at Madame Vuillard’s, c. 1895, Oil on board glued onto a floor panel, 19” x 27”
Pierre Bonnard, Three-leaved Screen – duck, heron, pheasant, 1889, Distemper on red dyed cotton, 3 panels of 63” x 21”
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Confidence,1897, Oil on canvas, 16” x 13”
Odilon Redon, The Red Flower, or The Red Bush, c. 1905, Oil on canvas, 22” x 19”
raises public awareness and financial support for the Musée d’Orsay and its sister institution, Musée l’Orangerie, which annually has over three million visitors from around the world. Membership perks include no-wait access, private tours with curators, tickets to Musée d’Orsay exhibitions in the United States, and more, depending on the level of membership. The group also organizes annual tours of Paris with firstclass events. This year it includes cocktails with the American Ambassador, visiting the Maison Mellerio dit Meller, Jeweler of Queens since Marie de Médicis, touring behind the scenes at the Ritz Paris Kitchen, and seeing the Château de l’Ermitage de Pompadour, the Home and Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Carlo Perrone. When collecting art, considerations include aesthetic value and the artist, but also the provenance of a specific work, and the Hays collection includes a number of paintings that carry a rich and interesting history independent of what one sees on their surface. One work is an anomaly in the collection, dating from the mid-twentieth century: a drawing by Henry Moore (British, 1898-1986). Hays relates that it was purchased in the sale for his good friend Stanley Marcus (of Neiman Marcus), carrying provenance from another great collection and, more important, a sweet reminder of his old friend. As the Hays gradually built a preeminent collection of Nabis art, they became cognizant of another notable collector, Samuel Josefowitz, who had literally built his collection by
Albert Marquet, The Red Stockings, 1912, Oil on canvas, 32” x 26”
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Édouard Vuillard, Little Girls Walking, c 1891, Oil on canvas, 32” x 25”
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Edgar Degas, Etude du nu pour la ‘Petite danseuse de Quatorze ans’, Bronze, Height: 28”
Art belongs to no one. Some of us are simply its temporary, fortunate, and delighted custodians. Similarly, art is for everyone—and failure to include everyone diminishes us all.
Amedeo Modigliani, Jeune femme à la rose (Margherita), 1916, Oil on canvas, 26” x 18”
knocking on doors in Pont Aven, asking residents to sell him these paintings. When he passed away, his son Paul began selling some of the collection. The Hays have several paintings with a Josefowitz provenance, but one in particular carries great meaning for them. Mrs. Hays first saw her favorite painting, Little Girls Walking (1891) by Édouard Vuillard, when it was on loan to the National Gallery, London. As Mabry says, “When you see a painting you love, you don’t forget it.” When Sam Josefowitz died, Hays approached Paul Josefowitz and attempted to buy it directly, but they couldn’t come to a decision. Years later, the very same painting came up in an important sale at Christie’s. Hays had to pay more, but he still acquired this touching piece for his wife. Provenance can create new layers of interest and value for a work of art. Other previous owners of works in the Hays collection include the actress Greta Garbo and the actor Edward G. Robinson. On October 22, the President of France hosted a dinner honoring the Hays at the Elysée Palace. It was attended by
their friends, family, and dignitaries from the art world. At this event, he publicly announced the couple’s decision to give their collection in whole to the Musée d’Orsay at their death. President Hollande also named the Hays as Commandeurs of the French Legion d’Honneur, the highest order of France. The Musée d’Orsay will install the collection as a permanent display, a true sign of its importance and the diligence with which the couple has built it over the past forty years. In a letter to family and friends announcing their decision, the Hays chose two quotes by Sir Richard Attenborough that they felt reflected the reasoning behind their decision: “Art belongs to no one. Some of us are simply its temporary, fortunate, and delighted custodians.” Similarly, “Art is for everyone— and failure to include everyone diminishes us all.” This was a carefully considered decision on the part of the couple and is rooted in their passion for this art and their desire to give it to the widest possible audience. The Hays collection truly will be a lasting legacy for the enjoyment of generations to come. na
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THEBOOKMARK
A MONTHLY LOOK AT HOT BOOKS AND COOL READS
In the Company of Women: Inspiration and Advice from over 100 Makers, Artists, and Entrepreneurs Grace Bonney It’s a business guide. It’s an inspirational viewbook. It’s a heartto-heart with 100 women who speak candidly about how they made their own paths in entrepreneurial and creative worlds. It’s all these things, plus a celebration of diversity, courage, and out-of-the-box thinking. No matter what field you work in, whether you’re a man or a woman (but especially if you are a woman), you need this beautiful, brilliant book compiled by Grace Bonney, founder of Design*Sponge.
Appetites: A Cookbook
The Mothers: A Novel
Anthony Bourdain
Brit Bennett
It’s been over a decade since the last cookbook from Anthony Bourdain, and when you get your hands on this one, you’ll agree it’s worth every minute of the wait. In Appetites he presents favorite, tried-and-true recipes acquired and updated over the course of 40 years worth of professional cooking, traveling, and writing. Brimming over with Bourdain’s larger-than-life personality, this book will entertain as well as instruct.
The staff at Parnassus have fallen hard for this memorable debut novel by Brit Bennett, recently named one of the “5 Under 35” by the National Book Foundation—an award given to writers whose work “promises to leave a lasting impression on the literary landscape.” It’s about three young people coming of age in a small town, the secrets they keep from one another, and the decisions they make that alter their lives forever. Bennett will visit Parnassus on November 10. The Mothers is the November selection for our First Editions Club.
THE TENNESSEE STATE MUSEUM FOUNDATION & BOUND|RY INVITE YOU
SPARKLE &
TWANG XI
PRESENTED BY
THE PATRON SPIRITS COMPANY
Bursting WITH FASHIONABLE CreativitY
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2016, 7 P.M. TO 9:30 P.M.
Turner: The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J.M.W. Turner Franny Moyle Art lovers and history buffs alike will dig into this fascinating biography of a renowned and oft-misunderstood artist, J.M.W. Turner, who lived from 1775–1851, a time when the creation of art was wrapped up in politics and conflict. Franny Moyle humanizes the great painter by telling a true story so full of drama and personal details that at times it reads like a novel.
EVENT CHAIRS
ANGEL & STEVE CROPPER Hosted By BOUND|RY, 911 20th Avenue South Complimentary Valet Parking Provided
$175 per couple $90 per person $50 per person Young Professional Attendees (Ages 21-40) Cocktail Reception with Hors d’oeuvres Induction of the 2016 Costume & Textile Institute Members Introduction of the 2016-2017 Young Professionals Council Members Silent Auction & Musical Entertainment To purchase tickets, visit tnmuseum.org, contact Beth at 615-741-2539 or email Leigh at lhendry@bellsouth.net
H AY N E S G A L L E R I E S PRESENTS
S TORI E S IN PAI N T INCLUDING B O B A RT L E T T ’ S T H E P R E S E N T THROUGH NOVEMBER 19
BO BARTLETT, B. 1955, THE PRESENT, OIL ON LINEN, 45 X 43 INCHES. INQUIRIES: GARYHAYNES@HAYNESGALLERIES.COM OR PHONE 615.430.8147 OR 615.312.7000. HAYNESGALLERIES.COM. GALLERIES: ON THE MUSIC ROW ROUNDABOUT IN NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE AND SEASONALLY IN TH O MA STO N , MAINE.
deniseSTEWART-SANABRIA New Work: Paintings & Drawings
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November 5–December 23
Post Atomic Candy, Oil on canvas, 36” x 36”
The Arts Company
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by Elaine Slayton Akin
W
hen you think about it, food as metaphor is everywhere in art. Giuseppe Arcimboldo constructed human faces out of fruits, vegetables, and other inanimate objects to indulge Renaissance-era patrons’ taste for enigma. Food is a popular medium in today’s maker movement; rarely a day passes when I do not see the headline “15 Examples of Incredible Barista Art” or “Artist Uses Plates as Canvas” on social media. In broader visual culture, food is personified in Seth Rogen’s controversial adult cartoon Sausage Party. Still, Baroque vanitas imagery is the most obvious visual predecessor to Knoxville-based artist Denise Stewart-Sanabria’s still-life paintings of anthropomorphized food, which are on view at The Arts Company this month. Stewart-Sanabria may share a similar brush treatment with the 17th-century genre, but when Moon Pies meet French toile, surface-level does not suffice.
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#130 Classic Coral Cream Glitter, Oil on panel, 24” x 24”
The art world has become so insular. The rules have become so autodidactic that, in a sense, they lose track of what people have any interest in thinking about, talking about, or even looking at.
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The Loss of Virginity, Oil on canvas, 36” x 48”
King Cake Glitter, Oil and glitter on canvas, 36” x 36”
Crazy Cakes #1, Oil on panel, 30” x 30”
18th Century French Pastoral Toile Culture Shock, Oil on canvas, 36” x 72”
R-rated content is not what it used to be. “Most people today would find a Judith Beheading Holofernes uncomfortable in the dining room, but the average Monty Python fan will enjoy living with a Spanish Inquisition scene reenacted by pears,” Stewart -Sanabria explains. Nothing like satire numbs the visual sting of blood and guts, such as in #130 Classic Coral Cream Glitter. The cream of a red Moon Pie screams against a white countertop like blood strewn across a gory battlefield, except the fallen soldiers are green yogurt-covered pretzels. Perhaps Stewart-Sanabria is equal parts Pieter Claesz and Rogen after all. Societal criticism for Claesz meant rotting food and plants as a reminder of impending death to lushes of the day. For Stewart-Sanabria, it is far more comedic, depending on viewers to acknowledge and find humor in humanity’s tendency to anthropomorphize, Stewart-Sanabria notwithstanding. “It’s cruel to have one,” she answers with good nature when asked her favorite medium. “If I say I love them all, none of them will try to exact revenge on me by engaging in hostile behavior.” In its simplest deconstruction, Stewart-Sanabria’s signature still-life composition features decadent, lifelike desserts in the foreground, set against a toile-style wallpapered background. As an ironic device, she inserts traditional toile patterns depicting Rousseau-influenced scenes of nature and bucolic life behind piles of artificially colored and flavored junk foods of the 21st century. In King Cake Glitter, a days-old-looking New Orleans king cake sits elevated on a pedestal and draped in colorful Mardi Gras beads in front of a classic black-and-silver French toile.
Sticky, Oil canvas, 36” x 60”
Stewart-Sanabria also twists patterns to include, for example, “Godzilla, Mothra, and Hydra frolicking alongside human flute players in an idealized landscape,” mimicking the Waverly Company’s Asian-inspired toile in Post Atomic Candy. According to the artist, “This painting’s confections reflect on the idea of nature creating mutations from exposure to radioactivity.” Does the toile work to expose these culinary posers for what they are not, or does it work to aggrandize our lowly snacks to a bourgeois status? Stewart-Sanabria’s vegetarianism and distaste for sweets support the former. This deeper criticism surfaces in knowing the artist’s social distance from the food she paints, same as one might experience with human strangers. Stewart-Sanabria tells a human narrative, her observations on popular culture and absurdities, that is easier
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People 61, 62, Charcoal, pastel pencil, metallic ink on plywood, 47” x 42”
for us to stomach (no pun intended) when the actors are, say, cakes. It is no coincidence that her perspective becomes more objective as the “caloric content” of her paintings increases. Stewart-Sanabria’s show also includes large-scale figurative drawings on wood. These nonallegorical human-shaped panels are “simple representations of individual personalities and how people interact in social settings,” she describes. A garment instructor for the theatre department at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and versed in scale-model stage layouts, Stewart-Sanabria understands better than most the nuances of human behavior: “When the panels are in a gallery setting, they virtually interact with the live humans that encounter them. The people who live or work around them actually bond with them.”
they lose track of what people have any interest in thinking about, talking about, or even looking at.”1 Alternatively, Stewart-Sanabria approaches her art with an originality that is not self-absorbed and with a subject that humans will never tire of: other humans. na New Work: Paintings & Drawings by Denise Stewart-Sanabria opens with a reception at The Arts Company on November 5 in conjunction with the First Saturday Art Crawl Downtown and remains on view through December 23. For more information visit www.theartscompany.com and www.stewart-sanabria.com. 1
Stewart-Sanabria’s paintings and wood panels represent two levels of reality—internal and external, respectively. Combined in the same gallery space, their interactions are exponentially complex and complementary. Because the food is an allegory for humanity, what’s transpiring on canvas could easily embody what’s transpiring in the minds of those depicted on wood. In 2014, artist Kehinde Wiley, who is also known to employ traditional painting conventions in a contemporary context, said to Interview magazine, “The art world has become so insular. The rules have become so autodidactic that, in a sense,
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http://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/kehinde-wiley-spike-lee/
Denise Stewart-Sanabria in her studio
artfully uniting For sommelier and owner of Salt & Vine, Mattie Jackson, artfully pairing food with wine cultivates a story worth sharing. At The Lipman Group Sotheby’s International Realty, we artfully unite extraordinary homes with extraordinary lives. By understanding what inspires you, we can help discover the home in which your visions and dreams can come to life. #liveyourextraordinary
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2002 Richard Jones Road, Suite C-104, Nashville, TN 37215 | 615.463.3333 Each office is independently owned and operated.
Photograph by Nancy Lee Andrews
LOIS Riggins-Ezzell The Interview 46 nashvillearts.com
by F. Lynne Bachleda
The Museum That Is My Heart: A Look Back with Lois Riggins-Ezzell
A
Photograph by Nancy Lee Andrews
recent interview with Tennessee State Museum Executive Director Lois Riggins-Ezzell took place in her East Nashville childhood home, where she has lived for many years with her husband, David Ezzell. The house, brimming with diverse and engaging objects and artworks, is solid evidence of an omnivorous and lively curiosity. With plans for the new Tennessee State Museum completed, after her thirty-five-year tenure as executive director, Riggins-Ezzell, who began her interpretive career as a state capitol tour guide in 1973, will become Director Emeritus at the end of 2016.
FLB: When you became director in 1981 what did you bring to the institution? LRE: When Dr. Ellsworth Brown, the director who opened the new museum in TPAC, went on to the Chicago Historical Society—I always said he was a man from someplace on his way to someplace else—I knew I was passionate about what I wanted the museum to be. I thought foremost that Tennessee’s story is vital and the museum should confirm the fact that Tennessee’s history is America’s history. I wanted it to include art by Tennesseans, because we were under the Tennessee Arts Commission (TAC). I had completed a year-long museology sabbatical developed by the National Endowment for the Humanities at George Washington University and the Smithsonian. I was one of only five people chosen nationally every year, and as a storyteller, my passion for artifacts was keen.
LRE: The museum’s first purpose is to collect, preserve, and interpret. The biggest thing we have done—meaning the curators and the legislators who helped to give money— is build a collection, unparalleled, I truly believe, by any other state museum or historical society in America.
FLB: During your tenure you shifted the focus to include art. The big burst onto the scene was the Red Grooms Retrospective in 1986. LRE: Yes, Grooms put us on the map.
Most museum directors move on about every ten to twelve years. I haven’t because my roots are here. I’m a fifth and sixth generation Tennessean. My ancestors crossed the mountains in 1803, settled in German neighborhoods, and built homesteads and farms on the Red River. This was and is my land, the land I know in my veins. I think that makes it so different. It doesn’t mean you can’t do it if you are from somewhere else, but I think it has been good in many ways to have a Tennessean serving Tennesseans, a Tennessean guiding the Tennessee story.
FLB: How does your initial dream of what you wanted to accomplish measure against your record? LRE: We’ve accomplished far more, far more than I ever imagined. I knew we could build a great museum. We had great people, such as wonderful Dr. Jim Kelly, very talented people committed to the vision. FLB: Institutionally, what changes have you seen in the museum over your thirty-five years?
FLB: Yes, James Lide, Vice President of History Associates, Inc. in Washington, D.C., told me he had never seen a richer state collection of artifacts. LRE: We hold magnificent collections in trust and have built a phenomenal permanent collection, thanks in large part to the efforts of Director of Collections Dan Pomeroy and his curatorial staff. For example, our Civil War collection is one of the foremost in America. That’s important, because artifacts are as close to history as you will ever get to that moment in time.
FLB: Why did you believe the artistic dimension of the collection and the exhibits program was so important? LRE: It was the legislature, not me, who, in its wisdom, determined that this museum should be more. They moved it from the Department of Education to the new TAC. It was still going to be a magnificent history museum, but it was also going to aggressively collect art, and, mandated in the legislation, it was to bring cultural enrichment to our citizens. These are traditions that I hope will continue. Nothing chronicles the human existence more than art—meaning a broad interpretation of art, particularly including costumes and textiles. We have built a phenomenal costume collection, thanks to our curator Dr. Candace Adelson and our costume and textile institute.
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We opened this now “old” museum in TPAC with the William Edmondson show, the works of an African American, primarily tombstone sculptor, and the first black artist to have a one-person show at the Museum of Modern Art. That show said art is multi-cultural, America is multi-cultural, and we want to celebrate that fact. Leigh Hendry has been invaluable in defining the State Museum’s impressive and diverse contemporary art collection.
This is Tennessee’s story; this is America’s story. So many of the things that changed America—good or bad— happened in Tennessee. For example, when you crossed the mountains we were the Western frontier, and that frontier spirit really became the American spirit.
FLB: Thinking in snapshots, what are some of your favorite moments, public or private, as director? LRE: The night that [TAC director] Art Keeble called to say I would be director, and Trish Rasbury, my curator of education and public programs, bought me a bottle of German wine, honoring my heritage, to celebrate.
Opening the Red Grooms show—the Red Hot Red Tie Gala. The Edmondson symposium when the people who were the blood of his blood told his story. When CEO Ishibashi of Bridgestone, well into his years, cut the ribbon on the Masterworks! show, and I knew that Tennessee children that would never otherwise see a French Impressionist painting would be able to do that.
FLB: Being TSM executive director is a politically sensitive proposition. How have you survived? LRE: My mission is good. It’s pure. It says, “Let us enrich. Let us educate. Let us take your spirit and let it soar. Let the museum give you history, art, stories. Give you heritage. Let me give you learning at your fingertips.” When you have a pure vision, you don’t have any trouble selling it. For all thirty-five years I have had very supportive, great, and powerful citizens commissions that did everything in their power to see our mission carried forward. The Museum Commission, that made the new museum possible, for good reasons bears the name of Senator Douglas Henry, longtime champion for the museum. FLB: Parting thoughts to the TSM staff? LRE: You’ve been glorious. Underpaid, overworked, and probably in violation of all the statutes of working way too hard. I always said if you can’t work all day, put on a cocktail dress, move a piano, and bag the trash at 12:45 a.m., you probably don’t need to work here. Many of the staff members that started the vision are now deceased. I treasure their memories, and I treasure the people that remain. FLB: To the citizens of Tennessee? LRE: We’re going to have a great museum. You’re going to be able to wrap all your stories, and all your artifacts, and all that passion in a brand new marble building with Tennessee wood, Tennessee stone, and the Tennessee spirit.
FLB: Anything else? FLB: What is the role of the TSM in LRE: I am leaving with the new the lives of children? museum finished. I have fought LRE: It’s the opportunity to come to the good fight, kept the faith, and a museum that they own. The finished the course. My work there Tennessee State Museum is is done. The curatorial packets are theirs. That museum should tell complete, the artifacts are selected, the story of their culture, and it Nancy and President Reagan with Lois Riggins-Ezzell the storyline is finished, as are the should make them know being architectural drawings. Even the a Tennessean is an elegant and marble is selected. splendid thing, and that they can achieve anything they want to achieve. FLB: What’s next for you? LRE: I’ll always be a teacher. I’ll always be a storyteller. Where I’ll FLB: What do you want to see carried forward? LRE: No story is complete as long as there is life and breath. teach and where I’ll tell those stories, I don’t yet know. I’ll That said, continue adding artifacts. Two, provide cultural always be an avid museum-goer. One thing I never want enrichment to children, who otherwise would never have to do is get in the way of the people who are the future of it. Find those shows, fight for them. Give people a good the museum, but I always want to be a part of that future museum experience so they will come back and learn in some way. I will always visit the museum that is my heart, more, and then go to other museums. Three, continue to and, of course, that is the Tennessee State Museum. na expand the borders of the museum. We have phenomenal traveling trunks and traveling exhibitions that go statewide For more information about the Tennessee State Museum, visit www.tnmuseum.org. to libraries, civic centers, and other museums.
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ONE OF THE MOST IMAGINATIVE TAP CHOREOGRAPHERS WORKING TODAY. -THE NEW YORKER
DORRANCE DANCE ETM: DOUBLE DOWN DECEMBER 9-10, 2016
MacArthur Fellow Michelle Dorrance, in collaboration with Nicholas Van Young (STOMP cast member) and Dorrance Dance, upends questions of tap’s cultural relevance through innovative, percussive choreography. Utilizing wooden floors, traditional instruments and Nicholas Van Young’s award-winning electronic tap dance floors, the entire stage becomes an instrument.
OZARTSNASHVILLE.ORG
jimWARREN
by Bob Doerschuk
Tops the Bill at This Year’s Artlightenment
|
November 5–12
Awkward Age, 1990, Oil on canvas, 30” x 24”
Celebrity Centre Nashville
Steve Jobs - Brainstorming, 2012, Oil on canvas, 24”x 20”
Hitchcock – Birds, 1990, Oil on canvas, 30” x 24”
J
ust ten months ago, Jim Warren was hard at work on his portrait of David Bowie, whose music he had admired since first hearing him perform back in 1972. Warren’s son Art was hanging out with his dad that day. At some point, while scrolling through various sites on his phone, something caught the young man’s eye. “I heard him say, ‘What the heck? Did David Bowie just die?’” Warren recalls, speaking from his studio in Clearwater, Florida. “I said, ‘No, I would have heard about that. Besides, he just came out with a new album.’ And Artie said, ‘Well, a lot of people online are saying that.’ So we turned on the TV and CNN was reporting that he’d just died—right in the middle of our doing this painting.” A coincidence? Maybe a nudge from the art gods? Whatever it was, the news prompted Warren to set his brushes down for a minute and ponder what this meant to his work in progress. “The first thing was that this inspired me to finish the painting right away rather than take it slow,” he says. “But I also realized
Bowie, 2016, Oil on canvas, 24” x 20”
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I had to take it more seriously than I had been doing. So Artie and I began to talk about Bowie’s life more than just his music. He did some research for me and discovered that Bowie had done the movie Labyrinth. I thought, how can we fit Labyrinth in? The painting was already pretty full but I did find room, right behind Bowie’s shoulder on the right side of the canvas, where I could paint the Labyrinth maze. So now it’s a tribute not just to David Bowie’s music but to his whole life.” Ever since high school, when he began teaching himself to paint, Warren has dedicated himself to depicting people he admires. Most of them are icons of pop culture, whose significance he seeks out and reflects through a style that has made him one of the world’s most celebrated fantasy/ neo-surrealists. These have included portraits of Prince, one of them a commission from the late artist; John Lennon, the Beach Boys, and Jim Morrison, which Warren painted on an actual door from Morrison’s house. “I pick people who have had a big influence in whatever field they’re in,” Warren says. “It’s usually personal too but not always. For example, I’m not a Jimmy Buffett fan, but because he has influenced so many things I had to think outside of my own box on that one.” That process stems from his early work designing covers for rock LPs—those big vinyl things that CDs supplanted back in the Eighties. Hipsters and audiophiles have kept albums from vanishing completely, though arguably their heyday as a medium for visual artists is long gone.
Second Childhood, 1976, Oil on canvas, 30” x 20”
“I don’t like how that has changed,” he admits. “I’m sure lots of musicians don’t. Nowadays people just download music into their phones. You don’t even know what the band looks like. But back then, they even put my Bob Seger cover on big billboards along Sunset Strip and on T-shirts. Now they just use logos, so you have no visual of who the artists are.” That same search for essence and love for symbolic expression animates Warren’s work today. “I’m doing more than just painting something,” he explains. “I’m using my imagination, just like you would if you were writing a book or making a movie. It’s not just a nice picture of something. I’d rather take that picture and make it into something nobody’s ever seen before. I can make it symbolic. I can create visual effects that don’t really mean anything but they’re intriguing to look at.” “I’m always inspired by everywhere I go,” he says. “When I went to Hawaii after the 1990s, I went off everywhere to see everything. I got a strong feeling for the water and the mountains there. That became a part of my thinking, my repertoire of ideas. I’ve got a feeling that there’s something specific to Nashville, too. So, yeah, it’s time for Nashville.” na Jim Warren’s art will be on view at Artlightenment November 5 through 12 at the Celebrity Centre Nashville. For more information, visit www.artlightenment.com. To see more of Warren’s work, visit www.jimwarren.com.
The Mind of Einstein, 2011, Oil on canvas, 24” x 20”
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YORK & Friends fine art Nashville • Memphis
DAVID NICHOLS
Kitchen Magic, Oil on canvas, 12” x 12”
LAUREN DUNN
The Clay Lady’s Studio Student Sale The best art for the best price in town! Saturday, November 12, 10:00-4:00 1416 Lebanon Pike, Nashville, TN 37210 • 615.242.0346 Hours: M-F 8am-4:30pm, Sat 10am-2pm www.theclaylady.com
Bouquet in Yellow & White, Acrylic on wood, 24” x 24”
107 Harding Place • Tues-Sat 10-5 615.352.3316 • yorkandfriends@att.net www.yorkandfriends.com Follow us on
at York & Friends Fine Art
BY SUZANNE KESSLER
ARTS&BUSINESSCOUNCIL
October 22nd - November 26th, 2016 Tuesday - Saturday, 10am - 5pm
In All Fairness This article is the second in a series exploring the fair use doctrine as it pertains to the visual arts. Last month’s introductory article discussed well-known examples of artists using third-party-owned, copyrighted materials in their own works and whether those uses constituted infringement or “fair use.” This month’s article looks more closely at the concepts of copyright protection and fair use. Copyright protects creators’ original expressions in pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works (e.g., paintings, drawings, and photographs). A copyright owner possesses the exclusive rights to make copies of the copyrighted work, make derivative works based upon it, sell and distribute copies of it, and publicly display it. Others wanting to use the copyrighted work in these manners must first secure the permission of the copyright owner; otherwise, the owner may claim infringement . . . unless the use falls under the fair use exception. The fair use doctrine allows the unlicensed use of a copyrighted work for purposes such as criticism, comment, and parody; and such use is not considered an infringement of copyright. In analyzing whether the use made of a copyrighted work is a fair use, four factors are taken into account (as set forth in §107 of the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976): “(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work [e.g., is the work factual or creative, published or unpublished?]; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole [e.g., has the ‘heart’ of the copyrighted work been used?]; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work [e.g., is the use negatively affecting the income generated by the work?].” Next month’s article will delve further into these fair use factors and their application to the visual arts.
Suzanne Kessler Suzanne Kessler is Of Counsel at Bone McAllester Norton PLLC and Adjunct Professor at Vanderbilt Law School, where she teaches courses in intellectual property licensing and entertainment law.
| www.cumberlandgallery.com | 615.297.0296 | 4107 Hillsboro Circle
Home for the Holidays? Spruce Up with Us!
GASLAMP ANTIQUES & GASLAMP TOO
100 Powell Pl Suite 200 & 128 Powell Pl, 37204 : GasLampAntiques.com Open M-Sat 10-6 & Sun 12-6 : 615-297-2224 / 615-292-2250 Holiday Open House! Sat, Nov. 19th, 10-6, BOTH Stores. Seasonal Sales & Refreshments!!
The Baldwin Photographic Gallery proudly presents
Relationships by
SHELBY LEE ADAMS
Brice & Crow on Porch © Shelby Lee Adams 1992
“Shelby’s portraits of the people of Eastern Kentucky have the kindness of the FSA, but also the intensity and focus of an Avedon or an Arbus.” – Tom Jimison, curator, Baldwin Photographic Gallery
One of the world’s premier portrait photographers shares his work and insights of his native Eastern Kentucky
Thursday, November 17, 7:00 p.m. Ned McWherther Learning Resources Center, Room 221 • Free to the public View an exhibit of Mr. Adams’ work at the Baldwin Photographic Gallery through January 19, 2017
Archiving Appalachia Photographer Shelby Lee Adams’s Moving Images of Life in Eastern Kentucky
Rooster
Baldwin Photographic Gallery through January 19
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Roy with Sister and New Bride
by Peter Chawaga
I
audiences all over the world. His photographs have been collected by more than 60 museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the National Gallery of Canada. He has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and Survey Grant, the John Simon Guggenheim Photography Fellowship, and has been given grants and had his work collected by the Polaroid Corporation.
t can be hard to believe the photographs are real. They depict scenes that appear lost in time if not from a different reality altogether. Crowds of children missing shirts and shoes stare ominously into the lens. Adults with weathered skin pose in front of ramshackle buildings and cluttered rooms. Structures barely emerge from the landscapes that host them, threatening to be lost completely at any moment.
“After 40 years of photographing in Eastern Kentucky, where I was born, I’ve dealt with all kinds of issues and all kinds of problems,” Adams says. “It’s not just a portfolio about poverty. There are all kinds of other issues, social issues, cultural issues, historical issues . . . My work is about people and the complicated relationships and lifestyles of the Appalachian culture. That’s really the arc of my work.”
Others are more hopeful, if just as uncanny. Hardened women holding babies on their hips. Grinning men with banjos and guitars. Families proudly inviting the viewer into their crowded homes or wildly green yards. The life’s work of Shelby Lee Adams has been to capture these moments that are very much a daily reality for his subjects in Eastern Kentucky and to share them with
A native of Hazard, Kentucky, Adams has never taken for granted the fact that these people, many of whom were
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his friends growing up, welcomed his camera into their lives and that his success has depended on their hospitality. When his first of four books, Appalachian Portraits, was published in 1993, he made sure that each subject received a copy. In many cases, the book stands on their mantles, opened to the pages on which they are featured. His feeling of obligation to the community he has captured has never left him. When it was time to decide where to archive his life’s work, Adams considered giving his collection to a school in the Southwest. When it refused to use the collection to raise money for his subjects in Eastern Kentucky, Adams called Tom Jimison, a friend from graduate school and a professor and curator for over 25 years at Middle Tennessee State University. The two arranged for the archive to live there. “It’s taken many years to get this thing to happen before I was able to sell the university on this idea,” Jimison says. “For his print sales, Shelby wanted some of that money to come back to the people in Eastern Kentucky. You can see that he remembers where his roots came from.” Adams agreed to make about 1,000 extra prints that will be for sale by MTSU. Half of the proceeds will go to the university Cockfighter
Ned in His Front Yard
“
It’s not just a portfolio about poverty. There are all kinds of other issues, social issues, cultural issues, historical issues . . . My work is about people and the complicated relationships and lifestyles of the Appalachian culture.
and the other half to the communities in Appalachia that have been the lifeblood of Adams’s work. “They will be able to offer works for sale and the money will then go into a fund to support a photo student scholarship at MTSU, and that would be matched with a special fund to help send money to my subjects and families in Eastern Kentucky that I’ve photographed for all these years,” Adams says. “This has never been done before to my knowledge. My work has been 30 or 40 years with certain families, so I have maybe 20 families that I’m going to give to MTSU to support after my death.”
Tyler and Sheba
The archiving will be celebrated with a months-long exhibition as well as a lecture from Adams. “I’ll be showing a lot of work that has never been published before but will be in this archive,” Adams says. “I’ve got not only my Appalachian work, but my other photography work as well, done in third world countries, the Middle East, Egypt, and South America. I will probably show some of that work as the arc of the whole archive.” Another benefit of having the collection housed at MTSU is that it will be accessible to those in Eastern Kentucky. Adams will invite some of his subjects and their families to attend his presentation. He’ll be sure they each get copies of the photographs that have brought their joys and pains to the rest of the world. na MTSU will be hosting selections from Adams’s archive in its Baldwin Photographic Gallery, 1301 E. Main Street in Murfreesboro, through January 19. Adams will lecture on the archive on November 17 at 7 p.m., followed by a reception. For more information, please visit www.baldwinphotogallery.com.
The Happy Baby
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Damico Frame & Art Gallery Celebrates 10 Years upon which he ever embarked, an activity he continues to this day in order to maintain mental clarity and decompress from the roller coaster that is life.
Michael Damico is an artist, consultant, and the owner of Damico Frame & Art Gallery in Franklin. More importantly, he is my younger brother. When it comes to self-assessments, he is modest but reasonable. So as Michael is about to celebrate his 10th year in business, I asked him if I could tell you the story of how he got started and what drove him to where he is today... from my perspective. Being six years older than Michael, I had little interest in him when we were very young, other than how frequently he annoyed me and, in hindsight, was probably simply dying for my attention. Once when I was about thirteen years old, however, I caught a glimpse of something truly phenomenal. I did a double-take as I walked past his bedroom that was strewn with Micro Machines and circuit boards from electronic toys and old radios that were in various stages of being taken apart and put back together again. Did I mention that this was during the mid-80s? Placed upon his bed was the most detailed drawing of the creature from the Ridley Scott film Alien I had ever seen outside of the promotional materials. Michael, who could not have been more than seven or eight years old at the time, casually owned up to the drawing without the least bit of pomp or circumstance. It was just a run of the mill drawing for him, nothing more. My mind was officially blown. Decades later, I am still barely capable of drawing legible stick people and yet, here was this second-grader drawing a perfect rendition of H. R. Giger’s creation for a movie that we were not even allowed to watch. Our mom had the good sense to identify the remarkable talent this youngster displayed and quickly enrolled him in private art lessons. Although, I suspect Michael actually taught the instructor a thing or two because he was clearly some sort of prodigy when it came to putting pencil to paper. Michael and I are essentially Gen X-ers, so we had our own brand of demons to work out, but Mom gave him the freedom to explore his dark places through his artwork. This turned out to be the single most therapeutic activity
Our step-dad fueled Michael’s interests in engineering and the insatiable desire to understand just how things work. Thus, the circuit boards and deliberately torn apart toys in his childhood bedroom. This matters because Michael later turned that obsession with the engineering of technology into an obsession with anatomical engineering, specifically the human face, which eventually led to the production of a series of richly complex and oversized portraits of celebrities. The series spawned private requests for commissioned portraits for which there is usually a waiting list, but I digress. A Hickman County school teacher for many decades, Miss Alma Gillespie, was Michael’s great aunt. Before her passing in 2005, she spent countless hours of Michael’s life teaching him arts and crafts. During his younger years, he did more painting with her at her home in Primm Springs, TN than anywhere or with anyone else. These rich opportunities fulfilled a deep need within Michael to create and fueled his self-described “obsession” to hone and perfect his skills as he grew older. By the time he got to college he knew he had to pursue an academic study of art as strongly as a fish has to pursue a life submerged under water. He attended the University of Central Florida (UCF) and graduated in 2005 with a Bachelor of Science in Liberal Studies and an Associate Degree in Studio Art. It was at UCF that Michael experienced one of his most profound and eye-opening moments as a student of art. Throughout a particular semester, the professor of Advanced Drawing, Robert Rivers, slowly kept removing Michael’s art supplies. By the end of the semester, he was left with only an eraser and one red pencil. No charcoal, no graded graphite pencils...nothing. Frustrated and confused, Michael finally asked Mr. Rivers why he was being punished since no other students were stripped of their art supplies. The answer: “Because this way you can’t lie in order to make it look pretty.” It was later revealed by another professor that Michael had been specifically targeted by Mr. Rivers because of his remarkable talent. Michael came to realize that the man actually
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forced him to work through his problems on canvas by refusing him the option of adding style in order compensate for deficits. How’s that for a life lesson? It is funny to think back on how frequently Michael would call me over the years and make the same declaration: “Hey, sis! I’ve finally figured out what I’m going to do with my life. I’ve decided to _______ (fill in the blank).” I got this call about two times a year for several years, with the answers ranging from teaching high school History to making and selling surf boards in Costa Rica. But one day, I finally got the call that made the most sense for my kid brother, the call that never had a follow-up with a new career path. Some time before graduating from college, Michael landed an apprenticeship working for an amazing Korean painter named Sonny Chin who also made custom picture frames. Sonny was amazing because he connected with Michael like a son, passing on all the tricks of the trade, knowing full-well that one day Michael would break off on his own. Michael apprenticed under Sonny’s guidance for a year and a half, during which time he found himself immersed in the world of Archiving, Framing, and Fine Art. That’s when Michael knew: this was it. This was the career path that had been holding out for Michael until he was ready to find it. The best part for me was that his career did not require a move to Costa Rica! Furthermore, not only did he now have a solid track to follow, but being absorbed in the art world where people actually paid good money for genuine works of art also gave him an audience to which he could present his own pieces. And so by December 2006, Michael gratefully hugged Sonny good-bye and entered the world of framing on his own by purchasing Frame & Art Gallery in Ft. Myers, FL.
comprehension of da Vinci. Usually we expect folks to be more one way than the other, not to excel so strongly with both characteristics. No, I am not saying my little brother is on par with Leonardo da Vinci. But for those that are intimately aware of how Michael’s mind works, they would agree that da Vinci is an appropriate analogy. Michael’s father, Nick Damico of Primm Springs, TN, has served as “a relentless motivator” as Michael refers to him. Acting in a capacity somewhere between business advisor and business partner, Nick has been the driving force that has pushed Michael to succeed. Not only has Nick given him specific direction as it pertains to growth and development, but he has also taught Michael how to work with people in a way that is fulfilling for everyone. Nick has been in the world of marketing and advertising since the days of Mad Men, making him more than qualified to teach Michael the lost art of relationship development. And it shows. I challenge anyone to walk into Michael’s shop and see if they do not feel like the most important customer on the planet. He treats every customer as if he is “Jerry McGuire” and they are “Rod Tidwell,” his only client. So besides being a gifted artist, what is Michael actually like as a person? Come meet him and find out for yourself. Since December marks his 10th anniversary, make a point of stopping by so that you can register for the give-away of various renditions of his Santa Claus portrait seen here. The contest closes on December 9th and the drawing will take place on December 10th, with prizes ranging in value from $150 to $2500. As a further expression of Michael’s gratitude for the Franklin community that has given him so much support, Damico Frame & Art Gallery will be donating 5% of its sales during the entire month of December to the Boys & Girls Club of Franklin. by Tiffany Vance-Huffman
During his first year, he dedicated a scant 300 square feet of the building’s 2,400 square foot total to living quarters, literally showering out of a bucket. Fortunately, the upstairs portion of the building opened up and Michael was able to move to the apartment above the business for the next three years. But the longing for community was strong, so he decided it was time to come home to his roots and his family in Tennessee. Thus, in December of 2010, Michael moved his business to Franklin and rebranded it as Damico Frame & Art Gallery. He opened his physical location on East Fowlkes Street near the historic Franklin square in March of 2011. In the West where we are obsessed with binaries, we tend to categorize people as left or right brained. All stereotypes and inaccuracies aside, Michael is still fairly anomalous because of his ability to make transitions within seemingly dualistic strengths. That is to say, he operates with the social perceptivity and agility of Huckleberry Finn while equally blending the technical
To learn more about my brother Michael or Damico Frame & Art Gallery, visit damicogallery.com or call 615-815-6015.
tomPFANNERSTILL Trash Talk: the Humble Object as
by Sara Lee Burd
High Art
Cumberland Gallery Through November 26
“
I want to express my connection with this object, not fool the viewer’s eye. If there is blue, I use blue. If the package is crumpled, I paint the crumple.
I
t’s one thing to see Tom Pfannerstill’s art in photographs and another thing entirely to hold it in your hand. That’s why Cumberland Gallery owner Carol Stein always posts a “PLEASE TOUCH” sign next to his installations. She finds that visitors stop and wonder when they see that declarative statement in a gallery, especially next to what appears to be dirty, smashed, and splattered rubbish. Once in hand, the masterfully made basswood sculptures defy expectations to humorous, confounding ends. Stein explains, “With all the focus on the serious things in conceptual and contemporary art, sometimes it’s fun to be incredulous and just laugh.” The subject of Pfannerstill’s art is trash, but his process of gathering, carving, painting, and documenting is as significant as the finished work of art.
Minute Maid, 2010, Acrylic on basswood, 10” x 5” 62 nashvillearts.com
“I stumbled on a piece of trash and it contained all of the things I was thinking,” Pfannerstill recalls of his initial relationship with the subject. Pfannerstill developed his artistic practice in school during the height of pop art and abstract expressionism and found himself in search of objects that would grab the viewer immediately and express the passage of time without relying on symbolism. He notes, “The art of Jasper Johns hit me in the gut. I had a visceral reaction that I really couldn’t explain in an intellectual way.” Pfannerstill continues to use that aesthetic sensibility when searching for subjects for his art. Not all trash is the same to Pfannerstill, though. He takes great care selecting the rejectamenta he brings into the studio noting, “It has to strike me. I have to have an affinity with it.” That which was once discarded becomes a live model for the artist. He works for weeks noticing and reproducing the piece of garbage in exacting detail. Everything is hand painted without transfers, and although made to look real, the works Cheez-It, 2016, Acrylic on basswood, 4” x 5”
Eggo Waffles, 2016, Acrylic on basswood, 8” x 12”
Wally the Trolley, 2016, Acrylic on basswood, 5” x 5”
are not trompe l’oeil. “I want to express my connection with this object, not fool the viewer’s eye. If there is blue, I use blue. If the package is crumpled, I paint the crumple.” While that mindset seems simple, the art is filled with meaning.
Brillo, 2016, Acrylic on basswood, 9” x 15”
The story Pfannerstill tells with his art is personal. “It’s me looking at the world in an unguarded way. A lot of people make art based on the news or part of another conversation. I am making art from a one-on-one experience I’m having with an object.” He emphasizes that he’s making “a diary of a sort.” By inscribing his sculptures with the location where he found the original refuse, he marks the beginning of his relationship with the object. As Pfannerstill expresses, “The sculptures mimic my paths through the world.”
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Swiss Rolls, 2016, Acrylic on basswood, 8” x 13”
His sculptures lend themselves to social-political interpretations about waste and consumption, and Pfannerstill acknowledges that his art lends itself to other significances outside of his experience. The sculptures he has made over years document changes in availability and marketing of popular culture. Stein notes that gallery visitors engage with Pfannerstill’s work on many levels—sometimes specific images, the packaging, the memories associated with the products, and then their astonishment in the skill involved in making these works of art appear real. While just hanging the actual trash he collects could communicate similar ideas, he uses traditional techniques of art to draw attention. As Stein explains, “He’s fascinated with the concept of trash. The idea that people could throw out things that then could be translated into art.” The question of whether the object is real or created commands people to stop, take notice, and look closely. Pfannerstill’s work addresses the paradox his art creates in contemporary life. “People
spend their lives not looking at things, simultaneously driving, texting, passing by advertisements.” The opportunity to pause and escape the reality of everyday chaos is something his art requires. Pfannerstill finds this aspect of his artwork satisfying, since as he says, “Stopping and looking at something carefully is almost a lost art.” It’s not often that you’d think that a pair of ragged work gloves would hang perfectly next to a painting in a living room, but Pfannerstill’s art rises to that challenge. It is finely crafted and conceptually strong. That his master work is based on trash, Pfannerstill says, “I suppose that if you find beauty in humble things you can find beauty in all things. That’s what I want.” na
Pfannerstill’s Trash Talk is on view at Cumberland Gallery through November 26. For more information, visit www.cumberlandgallery.com.
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A L L
T H E
B E S T
I N
F I N E
J E W E L RY
5101 Harding Road Nashville, Tennessee 37205 615.353.1823
40 Burton Hills Boulevard, Suite 230 Nashville, Tennessee 37215 | 615.250.7880 | www.worthproperties.com
Yin Yue
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Photograph by Anton Martynov
BODY
Languages
Photograph by Eric Hansen
David Flores and Mary Ruth Isbell
New Dialect Premiere of FOCO TPAC's Polk Theater
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November 11–12 at 8 p.m.
by Jonah Eller-Isaacs
T
hey come as a mad rushing flood of humanity, dozens of new Nashvillians each day. The few natives among the waves return to a city nearly unrecognizable as their place of birth. Having sensed that this transformed Nashville would make for a receptive audience, Banning Bouldin has come home after a successful international career in dance and established the contemporary dance collective New Dialect. Her company has quickly positioned itself at the forefront of a contemporary dance renaissance in Nashville. Bouldin left Tennessee as a teenager when her hometown couldn't provide the cutting-edge dance education she desperately desired; now she's a leading force in making Nashville a global dance destination. This November, New Dialect will perform at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Polk Theater as part of a program Bouldin calls FOCO, or Folk Contemporary. The phrase comes from Chinese choreographer Yin Yue, whose remarkable work blends traditional Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongolian folk dances with contemporary conventions. “What I love about dance as a language, and as an art form, [is that] we're not limited by the mother tongue, or linguistics, or someone's capacity to understand the verbal language that we're speaking,” Bouldin relates. “Our body languages unite us, in a way, in spite of our different cultural influences.” The FOCO program is a triptych of world premieres, with the dancers of New Dialect performing Yue’s revolutionary choreography along with works by Bouldin and Israeli choreographer Idan Sharabi. This is Sharabi’s second time working with New Dialect since their founding in 2012, and though his internationally celebrated improvisatory compositions are physically and emotionally demanding, his return to Nashville ostensibly signifies his seeing the company as up to the task. In conversation after a day of punishing
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rehearsals at the Centennial Performing Arts Studios, Sharabi states, “I like New Dialect. I actually like Banning a lot. I appreciate her as an artist…I really like a lot of her choices—not only because she chose to work with me!” He laughs, but adds seriously, “I like the direction she's taking with this group…I feel very comfortable and safe to create something.” Bouldin has worked tirelessly to establish a fertile environment for collaborative artistic creation. The artists that comprise New Dialect are supremely talented, but their most valuable skill as a company might be their adaptability. They are a sponge, rapidly absorbing new movement vocabularies and fusing them with Bouldin’s own unique style. Sharabi, shifting and twisting as he speaks—he is in constant motion, as if dancing endlessly to a music that only he can hear—admits that his challenging choreography is “very exposing for the dancer… It gets rough.” New Dialect's members thrive in that vulnerable space, and Bouldin's contribution to FOCO employs that ability to magnificent effect.
“
Photograph by Eden Frangipane
What I love about dance as a language, and as an art form, [is that] we're not limited by the mother tongue, or linguistics, or someone's capacity to understand the verbal language that we're speaking. Our body languages unite us, in a way, in spite of our different cultural influences.
Banning Bouldin and Ana Maria Lucaciu performing Emin
The sixteen-minute work HEAP will end the evening at TPAC. In articulating the intricate process behind the piece, Bouldin explains, “I developed a series of writing prompts that were entirely based on the dancers' own personal experiences with discrimination and privilege, having to do with their race, their gender, their sexual orientation, their religious background, [and] beliefs.” From those prompts, the dancers created abstract poems reflecting their experiences: some profound and enlightening, some devastating and raw. “It took a lot of courage for them to go to these places together,” she shares. Bouldin then isolated the natural patterns of speech contained in the dancers' poems, so, she says, “The syllabic rhythm of their text became the definition of how quickly they moved and where things were sustained.” The final product is melancholic, dense, and breathtaking. Dancers whirl between piles of old clothes, whisper untold secrets, walk atop each other's bent spines. With grace and focus, they move through their own stories. na New Dialect's FOCO is at TPAC's Polk Theater on November 11 and 12 at 8 p.m., with seats starting as low as $15. Visit www.newdialect.org/events/foco for more information and to purchase tickets.
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C U S TO M S H O U S E MUSEUM EXHIBIT
Anton Weiss: Reaching for Infinity October 27 – January 4
Fine Art & Gifts by Olga Alexeeva & Local Artists
www.OGalleryArt.com
Olga Alexeeva, artist and owner, is available for commissioned works for home and business Art classes by Olga are conducted weekly
Infinity #4, 60x46
Olga Alexeeva, Bay - Moscow’s Alley, Acrylic, 18 x 24
FEATURED ARTIST Terry Andersen Inspirational, conversational, redemptive local artisan
Open 7 Days a Week • Monday-Saturday 10-6 • Sunday 11-5 1305 Clinton St. Ste. 120 • Nashville, TN 37203 • 615-416-2537
Finestra, 46x66
200 S. 2nd Street In Historic Downtown Clarksville, TN 931-648-5780 • www.customshousemuseum.org Hours: Tues – Sat 10 – 5 • Sun 1 - 5
Joan Curry. Stoneware Cup
Carmen Noel. orange
Tad Wert. Polar Secant Plot
THE MARNIE SHERIDAN GALLERY Presents
THE HARPETH HALL
faculty
Doris Wasserman. I was once six
Marla Faith. Wishing My Daughter Well Peter Goodwin. Sharpshooter
ART exhibit November 3 – December 16
Ariel Williams. Forest (detail)
Joe Croker. Michael Rhodes
Cory Sanderson. Calder
OPENING RECEPTION Sunday, November 20, 2016 3 pm – 5 pm
3801 Hobbs Road, Nashville, TN 37215 615.297.9543
BY ERICA CICCARONE
Photograph by Tony Youngblood
OPENSPACES
Erica Ciccarone is an independent writer. She holds an M.F.A. from the New School in Creative Writing. She blogs about art at nycnash.com.
Upreyl Mitchell ‘cuz they ain’t make ‘em like you
“A
s a child I was given The Talk,” says Upreyl Mitchell. “My mother sat with me and my two younger sisters and explained that in America we were born with three strikes against us. We were black, we were women, and we were poor . . . We would have to work three times as hard to get anywhere in life.” It’s this intersection of race, gender, and class that is driving the artist’s work. Sculptures from her thesis, titled ‘cuz they ain’t make ‘em like you, recently showed at the Janet Levine March Gallery at the Gordon Jewish Community Center. Though Mitchell came to Nashville from Detroit to study photography, her work is now interdisciplinary, incorporating sculpture, sound, textiles, and performance.
To grapple with this heavy subject matter, Mitchell created three dress forms. The one she made first, titled 35”-25”-42”, is based on the dimensions of a video vixen as found on a standard call sheet. It has an impossibly tiny waist and a broad bottom. Mitchell bent and soldered iron rods to build the frame, then sculpted the form out of solid cotton that she decided to use so as “to represent the fact that this is not new,” she says. “Everything is rooted in the views [white people] had the day we walked in here.” A second dress form is called 43”-37”-46”, the measurements of an average black American woman. The third, 38”-30”40”, is based on Mitchell’s own measurements. Accompanying the dress forms is a recording of Mitchell reading a poem she composed in which she describes the double bind of femininity: women, we are taught, should be sexual, but our sexuality makes us also worthy of being raped, for which we will be blamed for being so sexual. Pretty little girl Ain’t ya got no sense ‘bout ya Walkin’ round here Wit’ ya back arched And ya head high Waiting on someone to see ya
Lady, 2015, Metal, cotton, and head wraps, 4’ x 2’
While a student at Watkins College of Art, Design and Film, she began to research slavery, paying close attention to descriptions and images of women. “When whites came to Africa,” she explains, “and they took us for slaves, they had this idea that we were already these hypersexual people. And so they would fetishize our behinds and fetishize our bodies in a way that made it seem like hypersexuality was rooted in us.” This notion was used to justify the rape of black slave women for centuries, and Mitchell sees it playing out in contemporary culture through music, videos, and television.
38”-30”-40”, (Upreyl Mitchell’s body measurements) 43”-37”-46”, (The body measurements of the average black woman as of 2012) 35”-25”-42”, (The body measurements required of a video vixen)
The other half of the work in ‘cuz they ain’t make ‘em like you balances the intensity of the dress forms by highlighting something that makes Mitchell feel powerful: her natural hair. When she was 18 years old, she shaved her head to grow her hair anew—without chemical relaxers. The reaction of her own community was hostile. People told her that she would never get a job with natural hair, that she shouldn’t even leave the house. “I had been going through all of that and discovered this side of the natural hair community that is pushing culture, pushing love, and pushing acceptance of all skin tones and sizes and just . . . love. That was really powerful.” She cast mannequin heads from a mold and adorned them with natural hair styles made from cotton. Naming them Afro Puffs, Cornrows, Bantu Knots, Afro, and Twisted Mohawk, Mitchell finds personal meaning in each. Her mother is a hair dresser and also went natural recently. Mitchell says that they both had to learn how to care for and style their hair because all they had known was how to abuse it. Whereas the dress forms signal the sickness of racism and misogyny, the mannequin heads represent the strength of selfacceptance, of cultural union, and of deep, personal love. To imagine Mitchell sculpting the styles from cotton presents a complicated image that speaks to the complexity and intellectual rigor of her work.
“
I want to take up as much space as possible. I want to intrude on your space. You’re gonna see me and feel me and you’re gonna deal with it.
she “began to shrink [her]self.” In order to avoid appearing the “angry black woman” and make her presence palatable to others, she had to play down her emotions regarding race. But over four years later, with a solid first solo show and a BFA under her belt, Mitchell is squaring her shoulders and growing. “I want to take up as much space as possible. I want to intrude on your space. You’re gonna see me and feel me and you’re gonna deal with it. I want to be as loud and intrusive and honest and passionate as I can be, and if you see that as a negative, well . . . it is what it is.” na Upreyl Mitchell will mount two shows with Sophia Stevenson at WAG in the Arcade in December and January. Find out more at www.upreyl.com.
Afro Puffs, Twisted Mohawk, Bantu Knots, Cornrows, Afro
Self-portrait
Mitchell told me that when she came to the South for the first time, she was shocked at the racism she experienced, and
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Beautiful Books at East Nashville’s Her Bookshop
Pair of Antique Zinc Corbels
Photograph by Melissa M. Mills
19th Century American $375 Set
Antique Tin Finial Salvaged From Benson Hall Vanderbilt University Campus $750
The Chevron Table Reclaimed Oak Top w/ Acid Wash Base $4,200
. N A S H V I L L E 6 1 5 . 3 5 0 . 6 6 5 5 W W W . G A R D E N P A R K . C O M
SIGNATURE SERIES
Isabelle Faust, VIOLIN &
Alexander Melnikov, PIANO The Complete Beethoven Sonatas for Violin and Piano Tuesday, November 15— Thursday, November 17 8 p.m. Steve & Judy Turner Recital Hall Over three consecutive evenings, internationally acclaimed duet partners Faust and Melnikov will perform all 10 of Beethoven’s sonatas for violin and piano. Tickets for these special performances are $15 per concert or $40 for all three, available at blair.vanderbilt.edu
2400 Blakemore Ave. Nashville, TN 37212
For the complete concert calendar, please visit blair.vanderbilt.edu
Those that claim print is dead just haven’t checked the vitals. Certainly the landscape for publication has changed, but there is evidence enough that hard-copy books remain irreplaceable. One need look no further than East Nashville’s Her Bookshop, which opened its doors in July. “The customers I’m hoping to draw are ones who appreciate the sense of a book as an object, beyond the words, as a beautiful thing,” explains owner Joelle Herr, “whether that’s through beautiful photography or illustrations or the design of the book itself, right down to the material.” Herr, who worked in publishing for 20 years, has an insider’s sense of the types of books that will compel customers to eschew the Internet in favor of the tactile. The store carries around 900 books about art, photography, cooking, design, and other topics that lend themselves to beautiful presentation, all at wide-ranging price points, painstakingly curated by Herr. “You’ll find just about anything there except what you’re expecting to find,” she says. “I really appreciate and miss the part [as a publisher] when you’re picking everything from the paper stock to the cover materials, all the thought that went into that. So I’m sort of drawing on that experience to select the books that I’m going to be carrying.” Herr grew up in Nashville and, after returning from years living elsewhere, she went from deciding to start the shop to opening its doors within just three months. While she’s been pleased with her sales in the early going, one disappointment remains. “The majority of the people coming in are not from Nashville,” she says. “That’s a little frustrating because I know that within a ten-mile radius there are so many book lovers who would love this shop.” Her Bookshop is located in the Shoppes on Fatherland, 1006 Fatherland Street, #103a. For more information, please visit www.herbookshop.com.
NOVEMBER
DECEMBER
JANUARY
Pop Goes the Easel
Main Gallery
Dawna Magliacano
featuring
Dina D’Argo
Billy Martinez
Café Precious
with
Michael Lax Ryan Frizzell Ian Forrester Bob Giordano Marisa Ray
small originals by various artists
John Cannon Marisa Ray Dawna Magliacano Peach McComb Dina D’Argo and more
BILLY MARTINEZ
DAWNA MAGLIACANO
DAWNA MAGLIACANO
DINA D’ARGO
BILLY MARTINEZ
MARISA RAY
MARISA RAY
MICHAEL LAX
www.coppervault.co • 116-118 6th Ave. Springfield, TN 37172 • 615-985-2155
VISIT DOWNTOWN SPRINGFIELD FOR YOUR HOLIDAY SHOPPING NEEDS THIS SEASON CALENDAR NOVEMBER 17 November Art Walk, 5:30-8:30 pm. Free food & wine, food trucks, arts & crafts, and vendors. Shops open late! NOVEMBER 19 Christmas on the Square Festival, 10 am - 3 pm, Christmas Parade 2 pm
NOVEMBER 26 #IShoppedtheSquareinSpringfield Shop Small Saturday. Participating shops opening at 8 am with special deals. Scavenger hunt with Grand Prize. Pop-up Boutiques and Food Trucks
DECEMBER 15 December Art Walk, 5:30 - 8:30 pm EVERY THURSDAY IN DECEMBER Shops open late until 8 pm, fire pits, carolers, and s’mores
To find out more about all the great shopping, dining, and activities in Downtown Springfield check us out at: Experience Springfield TN • @DTSpringfield • @ExperienceSpringfieldTN www.ExperienceSpringfield.com
Cherish the Night Returns |
November 17
Lassie McDonald Crowder, Garden, Giverny, 2015, Oil on linen, 10” x 8”
Musician’s Hall of Fame
Cherish the Night, returning for its eighth year, has a history of bringing the worlds of prestigious music and high-quality art together to serve the greater good. The event is hosted by and benefits Students Taking A Right Stand (STARS), a nonprofit network of school and community programs that help young people cope with emotional and social issues. On November 17, attendees are invited to the Musician’s Hall of Fame in downtown Nashville. The evening will begin with a cocktail reception and the event’s infamous silent auction. “This year’s auction is a great cross section of fine art, jewelry, and experiences,” explains Erin Daunic, chief development officer for STARS. “We get a lot of support from local industries, hotels, and restaurants. The arts community is also incredibly supportive of this event.” Following the auction will be a performance from Troy Gentry of the award-winning country duo Montgomery Gentry, along with special guests. “The concert area curves around the stage, bringing patrons closer to the talent, as if they were in your home playing just for you,” says Ron York, owner of Belle Meade’s York & Friends Fine Art Gallery and art chair for Cherish the Night. “Troy will ask his friends to join him on stage to share stories and songs. That part of the event is always a last-minute, welcomed surprise.” Though it seems like an all-star event—and it has raised over one million dollars for STARS — the organizers encourage attendees to let their hair down. “It’s a casual and festive event,” Daunic says. “We call it Nashville-chic.” The eighth annual Cherish the Night will be held at the Musician’s Hall of Fame, 401 Gay Street, on November 17, 6 to 11 p.m. For more information and ticket sales, please visit www.cherishthenight.org.
ARRATT GALLERY AT VANDERBILT
unmasked
October 17 - November 17, 2016
Radiation Masks Transformed by Artists: Nancy Cooley Kelvin Amburgey Susan Moody JC Johnson Heidi Welch Laurie Graham LOCATED ON THE MAIN FLOOR OF SARRATT STUDENT CENTER AT 2301 VANDERBILT PLACE, NASHVILLE TN 37235 Visit us 7 days a week from 9 a.m–9 p.m. during the academic year. Summer and holiday schedule hours are Monday–Friday 9 a.m.–4 p.m. www.vanderbilt.edu/sarrattart
TONY AWARD
begins
NOVEMBER 25 with
7:00 p.m. • TPAC’s Polk Theater
Enjoy festivities at the
MARKETPLACE 12/3
4:00-10:00 p.m. War Memorial Auditorium
PLUS MUCH MORE!
TPAC.ORG/WinterHolidayFest 615-782-4040
Some shows may contain mature content. TPAC.org is the official online source for buying tickets to TPAC events.
Your ticket to the perfect gift. Redeemable for ANY performance at TPAC or War Memorial Auditorium, our gift certificates support TPAC’s nonprofit mission.
TPAC.ORG/HolidayGifts
January 24-29 ON SALE NOW!
TPAC.ORG/Gentlemans 615-782-4040 Groups of 10 or more call 615-782-4060 Broadway series sponsored by
Loved one You
TPAC.org is the official online source for buying tickets to TPAC events.
THEATRE
Jim Reyland’s new book Handmade – Friendships Famous, Infamous, Real and Imagined is available at Amazon.com in paperback and on Kindle. Jim’s new Christmas music comedy, MOTEL NOEL, starring Barry Scott and Jamey Green, opens December 1 at the 4th Story Theatre. jreyland@audioproductions.com
WORDS BY JIM REYLAND PHOTOGRAPHY BY TIFFANI BING
“If audiences laugh and cry and leave the theater with a punch to the heart, you’ve done your job as a playwright. Jim Reyland did that with STAND; he’s been doing it for years.” —Director Barry Scott
MOTEL NOEL, A Christmas Music Dramedy December 1–December 17
M
ay I tell you a story? It’s not a long one; I only get eight hundred words. It’s about a theatre piece Writer’s Stage has been working on for over a decade that we now call MOTEL NOEL. It’s been staged and read aloud, talk backed and talked about in every conceivable and reasonable way. Through this long creative process, the script has matured from simple words and big ideas, from long nights spent on cold church floors, into a truly unique representation of what it was always meant to be—that punch to the heart Barry Scott talks about. Having spent years as an innkeeper for Room In The Inn, I’ve been blessed to meet many colorful characters. Wonderful, hopeful characters, and with each evening spent in their grace-filled presence, the story of this play has been shaped and chiseled into its true self. The essence of their lost and lonely journeys morphed into a powerful fictional drama that explores many corners of our world and our places in it. It’s dramatic, but it’s also very funny, and yes, there’s Christmas music. However, MOTEL NOEL is not a musical. It’s a play with music that contains one original song Addison Gore and I wrote for 21 Baker Road that didn’t make the cut. It’s called “We’re Each Other’s Angels” and it fits this new show like a glove. That’s a big part of creating new theatre. You write many things, deliberate in silence, and then move them around like checkers, until you finally take two out of three from Grandpa on the front porch.
Max Nolen, Barry Scott, Jessica Kuende, Jamey Green and Michael Adcock
“
Having spent years as an innkeeper for Room In The Inn, I’ve been blessed to meet many colorful characters.
The original title of our show was Shelter. It was edgy and dark in theme and language. Written in 2004, it was first presented in an all-student production at TSU in 2006. After that it sat, waiting to be reimagined. The creative arts are a mystery, and trust me, none of us who have ever tried our hand have come close to figuring it out.
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Jump ahead to 2016, many rewrites and crumpled pages later, and MOTEL NOEL is ready for the spotlight. Gone is the adult language, but still present at its core are the engaging characters and social justice narrative present in the original script. It might also have angels, and it certainly has plenty of redemption and uplifting themes evocative of the holiday season. So here we go, right? Wrong. One thing you discover early in this biz is that getting new works from the page to the stage is tricky. At the beginning of 2016, even though we were more than ready, it looked doubtful we’d make the Christmas window with our new idea. We might have to wait until next year, and none of us were getting any younger. Barry and Jamey were in, but finding a suitable space was proving difficult. Enter Kirk McNeill, the West End United Methodist Church (an original Room In The Inn partner), and their 4th Story Theatre. Like a Christmas miracle, they stepped up and threw in as friends, offering not only an amazing theater space, but the force of volunteers and the encouragement of the entire West End UMC congregation.
Barry Scott and Jamey Green will star. A long-time mentor and friend, Barry has either starred in or directed every one of a dozen plays that Writer’s Stage has put out there in the last twenty years. And Jamey Green isn’t in this cast by accident. He’s not only a wonderful actor but an amazing pianist. MOTEL NOEL also includes the talented Jessica Kuende, Morgan Fairbanks, Max Nolen, and Michael Adcock, with technical direction by Thomas Staples. I hope you’ll join us in December for a Christmas story that celebrates the potential for compassion, joy, and laughter in us all. MOTEL NOEL, A Christmas Music Dramedy, runs for twelve performances, Thursday, December 1, through Saturday, December 17. Evening shows at 7:30 with three Saturday matinees at 2 p.m. We’ll all get together for Christmas cookies at the 4th Story Theater at the West End United Methodist Church. Tickets are available at writersstage.com and at the door. If you belong to a group and would like to bring a busload of friends, we have discounts for that. If you have other questions or would like to support us with an ad in our program, send an email to info@writersstage.com and don’t forget, MOTEL NOEL benefits Room In The Inn, where it all started. na For more information and tickets, visit www.writersstage.com.
Barry Scott and Michael Adcock
Barry Scott
Director Barry Scott and Playwright Jim Reyland
Photograph by Dan Kellerby
Jamey Green
Sky’s the Limit
by John Pitcher
Skyville Live Uses the Latest Technology to Redefine Music Television for the iPhone Generation
S
kyville Live, the online series that streams live concerts out of a converted warehouse in Nashville’s Berry Hill neighborhood, has been around for only a couple of years. But that didn’t stop the show’s producers from attracting an overflow crowd to a recent performance.
Estelle, Gladys Knight and Martina McBride
Photograph by Philip Macias
Gregg Allman
“Do we have any Nashville fans out there?” asked singersongwriter Charles Esten as he mounted Skyville Live’s stage. The question elicited a tsunami of cheers and screams, suggesting the presence of numerous hardcore devotees. “Well, I’ve always been a sucker for cheap applause.” The intensity of that enthusiasm might have been an expression of genuine relief. When Skyville Live initially booked the program, it was intended to be a farewell performance following ABC’s decision in May to cancel the popular television drama. By the time Esten, Chris Carmack, Clare Bowen, Mark Collie, J.D. Souther, and the other stars arrived for their Skyville Live streaming, CMT had picked up Nashville for a fifth season and a full 22 episodes. “Our timing turned out to be perfect,” says Courtni Jackson, the program’s associate producer. That’s nothing new. Skyville
Photograph by Philip Macias
The headliners for this program were the stars of the hit television series Nashville, and many of the show’s most ardent supporters packed Skyville’s state-of-the-art TV studio to see their favorite singers in action.
Live and its organizers have always had a keen sense of the moment. The company got its start as a music publishing and artist development business called Skyville, which songwriterproducer Wally Wilson and Grammy Award-winning producer Paul Worley ran out of a house in Berry Hill. “We’ve written a lot of songs in that house over the years,” Wilson says. An important early mission of the company was the promotion of young, up-and-coming talent, performers Wilson calls his “baby acts.” To help these young artists gain valuable experience, Wilson took them to small venues like The Basement, where they got the chance to perform with more experienced musicians. “When we took our baby acts on the road, we called their performances Skyville Live,” says Wilson. Eventually, those Skyville performances attracted the attention of reality TV producers, who thought a show about Wilson’s young musicians could make for lively television. Wilson rejected their offer. But the proposal gave him an idea. Instead of taking his baby acts on the road, Wilson decided to live stream one of their concerts from the company’s Berry Hill house. “I remember thinking that if we could get maybe 300 or 400 people to watch the live stream, then that would be better than the 30 or 40 people who might see our acts in a club.”
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Photograph by Philip Macias
Ingrid Michaelson, Cyndi Lauper and Kelsea Ballerini
Songwriter-Producer Wally Wilson and Associate Producer Courtni Jackson
For its first live stream performance, Skyville paired two of its younger acts with the veteran neo-traditional country band The Mavericks, whose lead singer, Raul Malo, also happened to be Wilson’s brother-in-law. Skyville Live streamed that first performance in June 2014, and its success far exceeded everyone’s expectations.
Austin City Limits for the iPhone generation. The show now streams live over AOL.com and go90 Music, a free mobile video platform that allows fans to watch concerts on their phones and tablets. New shows air every few months, with Skyville Live’s strong social media presence keeping fans up to date with schedules and news.
“We ended up drawing an audience of 12,000 worldwide,” says Wilson. “Now a lot of that was due to The Mavericks. All the same, with those kinds of numbers, it looked to me like we had a business.”
Skyville Live’s July concert was intended to be a one-off show, a program that dispensed with the usual icon/mainstream act/ baby act formula in favor of celebrating the TV drama Nashville. And yet, the audience that packed the studio for that concert got to hear some icons.
Next, Wilson and his partners put together a format for the new program that has proven to be a winning formula. For each show, Skyville Live brings in an iconic act, often a living legend, who performs alongside an established mainstream performer and a couple of fledgling acts. Top-tier performers who have appeared on Skyville Live’s stage have included Gladys Knight, Kris Kristofferson, Martina McBride, and Gregg Allman. “For the younger acts, playing with an icon like Gladys Knight or Kris Kristofferson is like a bucket list experience,” says Wilson. During shows, the artists take turns singing. As one artist performs, the others remain seated at cocktail tables located right in front of the stage. The performers seem like part of the audience. “It creates an intimate and challenging environment for the musicians,” Wilson says. Skyville Live has seemingly spared no expense to create a highly polished music television show. Early on, the show brought in industry veteran Tisha Fein, a producer for the Grammy Awards and other programs, to be Skyville Live’s producer.
J.D. Souther, surely one of the great singer-songwriters of the past 40 years, gave unforgettable performances of some of his best-known hits, including “Faithless Love” and “Heartache Tonight.” Pam Tillis, a reigning country queen, was just as successful with her deeply felt rendition of “Maybe It Was Memphis.” The audience also got to hear one fledgling act that’s fast ascending into the big time. The Stella Sisters—17-yearold Lennon and 13-year-old Maisy Stella—were on hand to perform their song “Boom Clap.” Their video rendition of this song has already racked up nearly 10 million YouTube views. Judging from the screams the sisters received when they walked onstage at Skyville Live, one suspects that many of those viewers were in the studio. In all, the performance created a festive atmosphere that had Nashville star Charles Esten beaming from the stage. These good feelings are “what Nashville’s all about,” he says. na For more information, visit www.skyvillelive.com.
Together, Wilson, Fein, and the other producers have created a beautiful, technologically cutting-edge program, a sort of
The Skyville Studio
Photograph by Philip Macias
The first thing the new business needed was more space. A 10,000-square-foot warehouse and recording studio located directly across the street from Skyville’s Berry Hill house turned out to be the perfect site for Skyville Live’s new TV studio.
Photography courtesy of Folger Library
Interior of the Folger Library Reading Room in Washington, D.C.
The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare Comes to Nashville
Parthenon Museum
|
November 10–January 8, 2017
by Kathleen Boyle
W
hen Wesley Paine, Director of the Parthenon Museum, and her colleague Assistant Director Lauren Bufferd heard of the opportunity to exhibit a 400-year-old book written by William Shakespeare, they knew they had discovered a sizeable prospect. “The impact of this publication, not just within literature but all areas of arts and culture, is just extraordinary,” proclaimed Paine, teeming with an excitement equally shared by Bufferd. And it’s an excitement well deserved. Having applied to host the traveling exhibit, organized by the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., in partnership with the Cincinnati Museum Center and the American Library Association, the Parthenon was one of only a few Tennessee venues in the running to display this artifact. “The Folger toured a limited number of Shakespeare folios under the condition that every state in the U.S. will host a book; however, only one venue is allowed to exhibit the folio for each state,” explained Bufferd. “It is such an honor for the Parthenon to have been selected as Tennessee’s venue!” Compiled and published by Shakespeare’s colleagues John Heminge and Henry Condell in 1623—seven years after Shakespeare’s death—the folio is the earliest book that consists solely of 36 Shakespeare plays, half of which had never been
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The Bard of Avon, William Shakespeare
Folio Title Page
published prior. Having traveled the United States extensively over the past year, the exhibit will come to its close in Nashville from November 10 through January 8, 2017, at the Parthenon. At first one may question the relevance of exhibiting this artifact at an art museum. The folio is, after all, a somewhat modest object in its appearance. Bound in brown leather, it is not a book that harbors the same aesthetic presence as a weighty illuminated manuscript whose handwritten text and illustrations elevate it into the realm of fine art. Rather this folio, exhibited with its pages opened to the eminent Hamlet soliloquy that asks, “To be or not to be?”, maintains a visual calm in its appearance, offering balance to the rhetorical richness that saturates the text upon its black-and-white pages. “We recognize that the significance of the book lies more in its content than in its beauty,” stated Paine. But the content that she speaks of is nothing short of priceless. Grouping the plays into comedies, histories, and tragedies, the folio is the primary source for productions such as Comedy of Errors, Macbeth, The Tempest, and The Taming of the Shrew. Had the folio’s creation not occurred, these and other Shakespeare plays would have most likely been lost forever. A writer whose labors both construe and define the human psyche, Shakespeare’s literary mastery is rendered timeless. First Folio! acknowledges the importance of Shakespeare’s authorship while also spotlighting the significance of the printing-press process used to publish the book. “We want to make sure that we both address Shakespeare’s influence on the arts and recognize the beginning of mass communication—an invention whose effect is staggering,” stated Paine.
“Nashville also has such a rich printing-press history, with Hatch Show Print and Sawtooth Print Shop, for example, that we want to acknowledge this connection to our city,” Bufferd added. The exhibit links these aspects through public programs that investigate the ever-expanding definition of the term “icon.” “Shakespeare is an iconic writer,” Bufferd stated, “So we wanted to both celebrate this and connect it to the Parthenon.” Artwork selections from the museum’s collection are exhibited in conjunction with the folio as a means of illustrating the influence and understanding of icons throughout history. “And, of course, there is our building whose columns alone offer much contribution to discussion about the icon,” Paine mused. The dramatic arts are also included as a programming highlight, with Shakespeare performances—both scripted and improvisational—offered by troupes from the Nashville Shakespeare Festival, Nashville Public Library Puppet Theatre, and Montgomery Bell Academy. In addition, a free lecture about Shakespeare’s folios will be presented by Dr. Katherine Haynes, Associate Professor of English at Aquinas College, on November 17. “We are very excited to be exhibiting this folio at the Parthenon,” Paine stated. “It is a wonderful opportunity to bring so many different art forms together in one place.” na First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare is sponsored by Metro Parks, the Conservancy for the Parthenon and Centennial Park, Montgomery Bell Academy, and the English Speaking Union, with community partners the Nashville Public Library and the Nashville Shakespeare Festival. For more information, visit www.nashville.gov/Parks-and-Recreation/Parthenon.
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Glory Denied by Joseph E. Morgan
F
or nine years during the Vietnam war, Colonel Floyd James Thompson was held prisoner of war. When he left for war, he had three children, and his wife, Alyce, was pregnant with a fourth. It is the tragedy of Colonel Thompson and his family’s experience, first while a prisoner of war, then as a veteran trying to reassimilate into society, that is the topic of Tom Cipullo’s Glory Denied being produced by Nashville Opera this month. Cipullo adapted his libretto from Tom Philpott’s oral history, which was collected for a 2001 book of the same title. Thompson, who died in 2002, did not approve of the story, likely because Philpott’s text also provides Alyce’s side and complicates any potential for a heroic narrative by humanizing her actions. Thompson’s idealization of his marriage, a necessity of his circumstances, and the tension it creates with his wife’s actual life, becomes the central moral ambiguity that drives the plot. As Cipullo states: “Colonel Thompson is, in a very real way, a remarkable hero—but he is a flawed one as well. That does not make him any less a hero, but it does make him a human being. The biggest challenge in writing the work was how to make Alyce a real, comprehensible, three-dimensional person. Her actions during Jim’s ordeal were nothing short of shocking. Still, when Alyce sings, her music must be so beautiful and persuasive that people will say, yes, if I had been alone with four children—the last born the day my husband was captured— perhaps I could have done that too.”
Glory Denied is a chamber opera, written for two sopranos, a tenor, a baritone, and a nine-piece ensemble, and Nashville Opera has brought in a strong cast for the production. Emma Grimsley will play Young Alyce, while Rebecca Sjöwall will play the same character later in life. Similarly, tenor Eric Neuville will play Young Thompson, while baritone Michael Mayes will play Thompson later in life. The libretto, however, is not chronological. Indeed, the opera is all the more riveting because of the way its nonlinear narrative bridges time, space, and reality to bring specific moments into heartbreaking juxtaposition. Cipullo is also well known for his songs, notably his America 1968. Over the summer I had the opportunity to hear the second act’s “After You Hear Me Out” at Nashville Opera’s wonderful Opera on the Mountain program. In both pieces, Cipullo’s vocal writing is marked by an angularity that seems to resolve into moments of extreme beauty, a modernism mediated by intimacy and expressivity. However, according to Cipullo, “Writing an opera is different from composing a song cycle in a thousand ways. In its space, flow, development over time, depth of characterization, inclusion of extended interludes, limitations (practical, budgetary, physical) and grand possibilities, opera is a composer’s siren and fatal attraction.” Glory Denied can be seen at the Noah Liff Opera Center from November 11–13. na For more information, visit www.nashvilleopera.org.
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Photography by Ellen Appel
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STUDIOTENN BY A.S. PETERSON
Finding the Battle of Franklin: A Writer’s Perspective
In the tale of Tod Carter and the Carter House, we’d found a great story, a great cast of characters, and a wealth of perspectives from which to view the battle. But on a small theater stage with only a handful of actors and actresses, how was I to go about presenting the breadth, depth, and complexity of a battle that involved tens of thousands of men and left thousands of them wounded and dead? Was it even possible to convey the enormity of such a thing on stage? In my effort to answer those questions, I began digging, excavating the story, looking for its bones. I toured the Carter House. I read letter after letter written by the soldiers and families that lived in the area and knew the battle firsthand. I read every known word Tod Carter ever wrote or published. I read books like Eric Jacobson’s excellent For Cause and for Country. I asked questions. Who were these people? How did they think? How did they see one another? And then I began to inhabit the characters and bring them to life. Fountain Branch Carter—aging, intractable, bereaved. Tod Carter—smart, principled, clever. Mary Alice McPhail—alone, caring for her father, desperate for a family at peace. Calphurnia Carter—a slave caught in the no-man’s land between freedom and bondage. General Jacob Cox— war weary, disillusioned, homesick. I found what I always find when I write: that characters— whether fictional or real—are most alive when we see the complex ways in which they’ve been broken and the unlooked-for ways in which they might be made whole once more. So I peeled these characters open to see what might be hiding beneath the surface. By necessity, some in the show are fictional and some are composites, but I think the characters we’ve chosen to bring to life will give the audience a complex snapshot of the real men and women who shouldered the weight of the Civil War.
Matt Logan and A.S. Peterson
be riveting to many, but the personal stories of the men and women who saw the war and lived and died in it—that’s something everyone can connect with. The job of the writer is to open the viewer’s eyes to the perspectives at work in the story. Confederate, Unionist, slave—they each bring something different to the battlefield, and if we can understand what led them there, maybe we can learn to understand them as humans rather than as mere clichés or stereotypes. In the final analysis, the Battle of Franklin isn’t just about the Civil War; it’s about the absence of civility in mankind—in all of us. If we can tell that story well, then the details of the battle fall into place, because the battlefield isn’t merely a stretch of grass outside Franklin, Tennessee; the battlefield is the wrecked plain of the human heart, and we are all, in some measure, combatants.
I came to see that while the Battle of Franklin was fought with muskets and cannons, fists and swords, it was also fought in hearts and souls, between fathers and sons, between masters and slaves, between brothers and sisters. The battle itself was the vast backdrop for the intimate war raging between people who claimed to love one another but were blinded by their own illusions or ideals.
In remembering the story of the Carter House and the Battle of Franklin, by mounting that remembrance in the form of a stage play, we’re bearing witness to a history we’re forever in danger of repeating—and in remembering these stories we may yet find ways to resolve the past into a more civil future. na
The answer, then, to my question of how to convey the epic scale of the Battle of Franklin was this: Tell the human story. Meticulous details of battle lines and troop formations may
The Battle of Franklin: A Tale of a House Divided runs November 3 through 13, 2016, at the Jamison Theater in The Factory at Franklin. For tickets, visit StudioTenn.com or call 615-541-8200.
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Photograph by Anthony Matula of MA2LA
Studio Tenn asked me to write an original stage play about the Battle of Franklin, and I immediately said yes. Then I went home and thought, oh boy, what have I done.
SOUNDINGOFF BY JOSEPH E. MORGAN
Photograph by Reed Hummell
Nashville Opera’s Don Giovanni
On October 6–8 the Nashville Opera presented a funny, beautiful, and timely production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s masterpiece Don Giovanni at the Andrew Jackson Hall in TPAC. Typically, the difficulty with this opera is balancing a basic tension between its identity as a comic opera and the fact that its hero is a rapist and murderer. Some productions downplay this aspect; Hoomes accentuates it, beginning right in the overture. However, in Hoomes’s production, some characters are reinvented to emphasize the comic. This is where the production really shines. For instance, the aristocratic Donna Elvira is youthful, goofy, and downright sexy. In her beautiful Act Two Aria “Mi trade quell’alma ingrate” we see this prim and proper lady barefoot and in black lingerie, oddly risqué for a woman of her class, but the beautiful tone and subtlety of Alyson Cambridge’s voice, coupled with her intelligent physical comedy and charisma, made her the highlight of the evening. Mezzo Laura Krumm’s Zerlina, the cute but pragmatically wise village girl, sang with a clear and precise voice in the most lovable manner. Bass-baritone Donovan Singletary seemed to have the part of Leporello easily in hand; his rendition of the “Catalogue Aria” was marvelous. Baritone David Adam Moore’s Don was just as marvelous, and his confrontation with Peter Volpe’s Commendatore, and the way their voices blended in the grand finale with Amy Tate Williams’s (always) excellently prepared chorus made the Don’s entrance into hell exquisitely unnerving. Here, as throughout the night, Dean Williamson directed the orchestra confidently, but with just enough reserve to let the singers own the spotlight. In all, the production was timely and refreshing—in an age of “locker room banter” and braggadocio, it is nice to see a philanderer get his just deserts.
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ARTSMART
A monthly guide to art education
TENNESSEE ROUNDUP Equity and Inclusion in Arts Learning Working in arts education at a state arts agency provides an interesting perspective. On one hand, we have a sense of what arts education looks like from a vantage point of 30,000 feet. On the other, we speak with educators daily about the work they are doing in their districts, schools, and classrooms, hearing stories—both successes and challenges—about providing high-quality education for students. When it comes to arts education grants and programs at my agency, it is a balancing act to achieve both breadth and depth in funding to make the arts essential to learning for all Tennesseans.
Photograph courtesy of State Photography
We are very fortunate to participate in professional development that is tailored to our needs as state arts education program managers. Recently, my colleague and I attended the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies’ Arts Education Professional Development Institute or NASAA AE PDI. The PDI has been held annually for over 20 years and provides meaningful leadership development and technical assistance for arts education managers. Each year, we walk away with new ideas, tools, and strategies that often address both breadth and depth in terms of supporting arts education in all 95 Tennessee counties. But this year, the AE PDI took the idea of access further. We explored the question of “How can our efforts to characterize inclusion, diversity, equity, and access (IDEA) in arts learning support our development as champions for these practices within our agencies, states, and the larger arts sector?” I believe this is a question that we as arts leaders (teachers, administrators, artists) should ask ourselves. Carmen Morgan, Founder and Director of artEquity, which is an organization that provides tools, resources, and training to support the intersection of art and activism, led an in-depth session titled “Beyond Diversity: Practicing Equity and Inclusion.”
by Ann Talbott Brown Director of Arts Education, Tennessee Arts Commission
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The session examined ideologies of difference and explored personal identity and social location as influences to our work in arts learning. This session, partnered with training at the West Michigan Center for Arts + Technology in using Design Thinking as a framework to advance IDEA, allowed us to gain tools for exploring underlying assumptions, assessing personal and organizational approaches to differences, and examining organizational culture and barriers to equity and inclusion. As we strive to be more inclusive whether that is in a classroom, organization, or daily life, here are four takeaways from Carmen Morgan’s session on inclusion, diversity, equity, and access. • Recognize that IDEA is an ongoing process with values that should be reflected in mission, policies, practices, and cultural norms. • Research terminology for anti-bias language and be willing to learn how people refer to themselves. • Become familiar with approaches to differences and understand where you fall on the continuum. These approaches include: Exclusionary, Colorblind, Multicultural, Cultural Competency, Diversity, and Social Justice. • Consider your potential position as an observer or participant and strive to work from the perspective as an influencer in IDEA. For more information, contact artEquity at www.artequity.org and West Michigan Center for Arts + Technology at www.wmcat.org.
ARTSMART A Folksy Visit Getting up at the crack of dawn is something we art teachers do five days a week. However, Friday nights we do like to party. And by “party” I mean stay up ‘til the wee hours of the morn creating our own masterpieces. At least that’s my idea of a good time. Unfortunately, that usually means come Saturday morning, I’m still sleeping or, at the very least, in my pjs until a completely unacceptable hour. One Saturday a while back, I decided to rise with the rest of the world and visit the Franklin Farmer’s Market. It was there that I met the super sweet and kind folk artist Bebo. When you see the work of Bebo, it immediately makes you smile. It’s funny, bright, highly energetic, and colorful. And, as you’d imagine, so is the artist behind the creations. I chatted with Bebo for a while that day, picking up a sign for my art room (which says “My Job Is to Love You”) and dreaming up ways for him to somehow connect with my students. All of that was just a daydream until my dear friend Jennifer Alvarado, an amazing art teacher at Franklin Elementary, arranged a visit to Bebo’s home studio. When we arrived at Bebo’s cozy and creative home, we were greeted by his wonderful wife, Betty Blair, who showed us around. Both are avid collectors of folk art, and their home is like a funky museum. From there we were given a tour of Bebo’s recording studio where he recently cut his latest record, All Is Well, under his name, John Paul Daniel. Bebo then took us to his studio where Jennifer and I just about fainted: it was filled to the brim with wall-to-wall Bebo creations.
Folk artist Bebo with one of his crocodiles
Allow me to paint a picture for you: dozens of his Mojo Man sculptures, hundreds of his signs with his clever catch phrases like “Got My Mojo Workin’” and “Namaste, Y’all”, tons of crocodiles that ranged in size from 12 inches to 8 feet, and every creature and critter imaginable, all painted in bold primary colors and accented with black and white. Jennifer and I couldn’t believe our good fortune! How did we get so lucky to be invited into the home and studio of this creative? When I made the suggestion that I film Bebo chatting with us to share with our students, he said, “How about you film me creating a sculpture from beginning to end?” I hardly had time to pick my jaw up off the studio floor before running to the car for my tripod.
Art teacher Jennifer Alvarado, Bebo and Cassie Stephens
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by Cassie Stephens Art Teacher Johnson Elementary
Photograph by Juan Pont Lezica
I’m still in the editing phase of the video but I know it’s going to be great. How wonderful for my students to see an artist transform a piece of wood into a bright, colorful, and cheery masterpiece. I’m so thankful to Bebo for allowing our students a peak behind the art-making curtain. And I highly recommend you forego sleep every now and then, get up early, and check out the local artists at your Farmer’s Market. You never know who you might have the good fortune to meet!
ARTSMART
ON THE HORIZON
Dragon Rising The delight of children for 36 years, Nashville’s iconic and colorful Dragon sits alone, surrounded by fencing, in Fannie Mae Dees Park, awaiting a magic moment of renewal. After decades of weather and thermal forces, the climbing by little feet, and the caresses and rambunctious play of little hands, the Dragon, described as a “beloved touchstone” of Nashville, is awaiting restoration to strengthen its skeletal foundation and repair scores of chipped and missing mosaic tiles.
Student Photographer Daisy Portillo standing by her work
Photographby Tiffani Bing
Originally titled Sea Serpent and designed and created in 1980 by Chilean-born sculptor Pedro Silva, the 200-foot-long sculpture appears to undulate in and out of the ground as if on water. It was one of the city’s earliest public art projects. Over 1,000 people participated in the project, including school children who created many of the art tiles for the piece. Over years of devotion, the nickname Dragon Park was adopted by locals. Dominated by a vibrant turquoise, mosaic tiles in vivid colors are arranged to create scenes, animals, and people (including a likeness of Fannie Mae Dees) along the length of the serpent.
Under the Master Plan for the Fannie Mae Dees location, Metro Parks, along with local engineering firm Ross Bryan Associates, is concentrating on the repair plan, while the Hillsboro-West End Neighborhood Association has launched a Go Fund Me account (www.gofundme.com/SaveOurDragon) to raise needed funds for restoration and continued maintenance on the mosaic tiles.
Photograph by Drew Cox
In October, the Hillsboro-West End Neighborhood Association, in partnership with the Nashville Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, launched an additional fund-raising event, hosting a student photography exhibition at Flatrock Coffee, Tea & More on Nolensville Pike. Under the direction/mentorship of awardwinning photographer John Partipilo, seventeen students from
by DeeGee Lester Director of Education The Parthenon
Untitled Unmastered by Cristian Ramirez
The Academy at Hickory Hollow (an MNPS non-traditional high school for students 17–24) participated in a three-day photography workshop, which included a visit to Dragon Park. The project introduced students to iPhone photography and challenged their notions of what is possible with instruction on topics such as lighting and composition, followed by a trip to Dragon Park to create their own images of the iconic structure. Writing elements were introduced as students explored verbally what they had experienced visually. On the final day, students presented their photos to classmates. Peer review selected those for exhibition and for sale at Flatrock. The new experience of learning and applying photographic techniques, the exposure to close analysis of a piece of art, and both the verbal and visual retrospectives impacted students. “I had seen pictures of the park, but that was my first time to be there,” says student Daisy Portillo, whose image Take a Piece of Love sold on opening night at the exhibit. “I truly enjoyed the whole experience at Dragon Park. The different tiles were unique—something you wouldn’t expect. I’ve always thought about photography school. I love getting shots of anything that is colorful, old, and vintage, and I hope to do more things like this.” Student enthusiasm impressed everyone involved in the project. “I was touched by how engaged the students were and how excited and committed they were about saving the dragon,” says English teacher Patricia Johnson. Partipilo, a photographer for 16 years at The Tennessean, echoed those sentiments. “I am so proud of these great and creative students. I had so many people in my life that helped me, and it is so nice to give back and to have the chance as an artist to change one person and put them on an artistic path.” Once again, neighborhood, community organizations, and students rally to reawaken Silva’s vision as the Dragon awaits the return of his playmates.
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ARTSMART Lesley Patterson-Marx, The Apron Strings of Ancestors, Marbling on vintage table linens, vintage handkerchief, found fabric trim, found embroidery, inkjet print on cotton and organza, thread, beads, ric-rac, 18” x 11”
MAAP:
“Tennessee’s Hidden Jewel” selects a master/craft form from a list, explaining their desire to work specifically with that master, the intended goals of the experience, current skill level, and their plans for continuing the art form beyond the program. Following match-ups, the master and apprentice begin the one-to-one mentoring (December 1– June 15), supported by grant funding for each of the artists and providing unique learning experiences for both.
The rich tradition, throughout history and across cultures, of uniting master practitioners of traditional art forms with apprentices is honored by Tennessee’s Master Artist Apprentice Program (MAAP). The immersion in tradition and the deeper understanding of the art form garnered by the emerging artist through an intensive one-to-one mentoring experience with a master steeped in the tradition of the art form has been described by one participating apprentice as “Tennessee’s hidden jewel.” The fruits of such collaborations can be viewed through November 11 at the Tennessee Arts Commission Gallery at 4012 Charlotte Avenue. Envisioned as a way to celebrate, preserve, and expand Tennessee’s unique cultural heritage, MAAP is completing its seventh year as a partnership between the Tennessee Arts Commission and Tennessee Craft. Current master/apprentice matching includes master sculptor Jammie Williams (Nashville) with apprentice Brenda Stein (Nashville), ceramics master Lisa Kurtz (Knoxville) with apprentice Rose Spurrier (Rogersville), and textile marbling master Teresa Hays (Franklin) with apprentice Lesley Patterson-Marx (Nashville). Selected masters each year represent a variety of specialized crafts across a range of art forms, including furniture making, woodturning, glass, clay, basketry, textiles, sculpture, and more. Through an application process, the prospective apprentice
The apprenticeship can build upon the skill level of an artist in a familiar art form or expand the artist into the challenges of adding and experiencing a new craft tradition. “MAAP provides each apprentice and master with a programmed space of time, along with supportive funding, to take their art game to the next level,” says apprentice Brenda Stein. Known as a woodturner, she pursued an apprenticeship with Williams in the sculpting of the human form, mold making, and casting. “When I went to speak to Teri Alea, Executive Director of Tennessee Craft, about MAAP, she assumed I was applying as a master in woodturning. The fact that I was accepted [as apprentice in sculpture] proves that the MAAP program is all about artistic development and expression, not keeping us in a box.” Stein marvels at the program as a “masterpiece with a thoughtful jury process, specific checkpoints to reinforce discipline in the process, and wise guidance, all imbued with a fairygodmother-like wish for each apprentice to grow wings and fly.” Information on MAAP can be found at www.tennesseecraft.org/programs/maap.
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Jammie Williams, Selene, Painted terracotta, 37” x 8” x 20”
As master and teacher, Jammie Williams describes the value of working alongside an artist for an extended period of time. “It gave me a sense of solidarity and fresh perspectives which I think comes from working together over several months,” he points out. “Watching the apprentice grow in understanding of the techniques and to be able to apply them with confidence gives me a sense of accomplishment.” But beyond that, “I have developed a better understanding of working with someone on extended projects, and this new skill will transfer to team-related projects, large-scale commissions requiring the management of assistants, and the organizing of time or community involved in art projects wherein long-term goal setting, organizing, and project planning are necessary.”
B. Sunshine and Daniel Roosevelt at Fort Houston
Hans Schmitt-Matzen at The Browsing Room Gallery
Buddy Jackson at The Rymer Gallery
ARTSEE
At Zeitgeist
At The Arts doughjoe and Company Vickie Starr at Julia Martin Gallery
Faith Bugel, Lily Bugel, and Jackie Jutting at Tinney Contemporary
ARTSEE
Sheryl Spencer and Alan Waddell at Zeitgeist
ARTSEE
Travis Bly at Julia Martin Gallery
Jason Lascu and Carol Stein at CG2 Gallery
Veronica Young and Chelsea Lawson at Blend Studio
Vesna Pavlovic, Luke Lawler and Mark Hosford at CG2 Gallery
At The Arts Company
Brad Ulrich and Logan Wake at Logan Wake Art Studio
John Grimes, John Strutko, and Chris Grimes at The Lipman Group Sotheby’s Visiting Artist Series
ARTSEE
ARTSEE
Photograph by Tiffani Bing
Alecia Dotson and Mattie Boyd at Fluorescent Gallery
Josh C. at Tinney Contemporary
Dustin Hedrick and Jonathan Edelhuber at Channel to Channel
Sara Lee Burd at The Rymer Gallery
At Valentina’s Studio
Dr. Ming Wang, Artist James McArthur Cole, and Larry Lipman at The Lipman Group Sotheby’s Visiting Artist Series
Photograph by Tiffani Bing
PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN JACKSON
ARTSEE
At mild climate
Photograph by Andrew Eccles
Arts Worth Watching
ceremony with performances by Bonnie Raitt, Dwight Yoakam, George Strait, Billy Bragg, and others.
BEHIND THE MUSIC
FRIDAY NIGHT ARTS
Soundbreaking: Stories from the Cutting Edge of Recorded Music is an exhaustive survey of technological and creative innovations that redefined how music is made and experienced. The documentary series was the last project produced by George Martin, who died earlier this year. Using archival and new interviews, studio footage, and an extensive soundtrack, the series features artists, producers, and others from multiple genres and eras. Episodes include “The Recording Artist” (Monday, November 14), about the role of producers such as Martin, Sam Phillips, and Dr. Dre; and “The World is Yours” (Monday, November 21), which covers sampling and the rise of hip hop. Music videos, recording formats, and the human voice are the subjects of other episodes. Soundbreaking airs in eight one-hour episodes at 9 p.m. weeknights November 14 through 23.
In 1958, Alvin Ailey gathered a group of young modern dancers for a performance at New York’s 92nd Street Y. Since that time, the company he founded has been among the leading modern dance ensembles and is deemed the premier African-American dance troupe in the world. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, premiering Friday, November 4, at 8 p.m., includes Chroma, a contemporary work by British choreographer Wayne McGregor set to original music by frequent dance composer Joby Talbot and orchestrations of songs by The White Stripes.
Just a year after the Alvin Ailey company’s debut performance, Gypsy opened on Broadway with book by Arthur Laurents, music by Jule Styne, and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Inspired by the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, the musical features the stage mother to top them all. Jonathan
George Martin is one of more than 150 artists featured in Soundbreaking
Courtesy of © Abbey Road Studios
Music City Roots Live from the Factory continues Friday nights at 7 p.m. with guests including The Doobie Brothers (November 11), Gretchen Peters (November 18), and the Jon Stickley Trio (November 25). ACL Presents: Americana Music Festival airs Thanksgiving evening, November 24, at 9 p.m. This special episode highlights the 2016 Americana Music Association Honors & Awards
The Lincoln Center at the Movies special concludes with the company’s signature piece Revelations. First performed in 1960, Ailey’s masterpiece draws on AfricanAmerican spirituals, gospel songs, and holy blues to convey themes from AfricanAmerican history. Revelations is also known for the creative way dancers interact with undulating fabric used to suggest water and other aspects of place.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Linda Celeste Sims and Glenn Allen Sims in Alvin Ailey’s Revelations
Kent’s revival production stars Imelda Staunton (Harry Potter movies, Cranford) as Momma Rose, Lara Pulver (Sherlock) as Louise, and Peter Davison (Campion, All Creatures Great and Small) as Herbie. Staunton and Pulver received Olivier Awards for the London run of the show. Great Performances: Gypsy airs Friday, November 11, at 8 p.m. Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs reveals another side of the PBS Masterpiece Mystery host. In the special airing Friday, November 18, at 8 p.m., the award-winning actor (The Good Wife) and Broadway personality performs the cabaret show he created for New York’s Café Carlyle in 2015. Cumming has now toured the show across the U.S., Canada, and Australia. As always, we are thankful for your support of NPT. Simply go to www.wnpt.org and click the donate button. If you’d like to gobble up extra helpings of many of our programs and other favorite shows, turn to NPT2, our secondary channel.
Louise (Lara Pulver) and Rose (Imelda Staunton) in Gypsy
Courtesy of ©2014 Johan Persson
The PBS Arts Fall Festival continues this month with a selection of programs drawn from various disciplines and traditions.
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 WordWorld Bob the Builder Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Clifford the Big Red Dog Curious George Nature Cat Ready Jet Go! Wild Kratts Sewing with Nancy Sew It All Garden Smart A Chef’s Life Moveable Feast with Fine Cooking Jaques Pépin: Heart & Soul noon America’s Test Kitchen pm Cook’s Country Kitchen Mexico – One Plate at a Time with Rick Bayless Lidia’s Kitchen New Orleans Cooking with Kevin Belton Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting Best of Joy of Painting Rough Cut – Woodworking with Tommy Mac Woodwright’s Shop This Old House Ask This Old House Woodsmith Shop PBS NewsHour Weekend pm Tennessee’s Wild Side
Nashville Public Television
Sunday
am Sid the Science Kid Cyberchase Sesame Street Caillou Curious George Nature Cat Ready Jet Go! Wild Kratts Tennessee’s Wild Side Volunteer Gardener Tennessee Crossroads Nature Washington Week with Gwen Ifill noon To the Contrary pm Music Voyager Joseph Rosendo’s Travelscope Expeditions with Patrick McMillan Globe Trekker California’s Gold Travels with Darley America’s Heartland Rick Steves’ Europe Antiques Roadshow PBS NewsHour Weekend pm Charlie Rose: The Week
Weekday Schedule 5:00 5:30 6:00 6:30 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30 10:00 10:30 11:00 11:30 12:00 12:30 1:00 1:30 2:00 2:30 3:00 3:30 4:00 4:30 5:00 5:30 6:00
This MonTh
November 2016
am Classical Stretch Body Electric Wild Kratts Ready Jet Go! Nature Cat Curious George Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Sesame Street Bob the Builder Dinosaur Train Dinosaur Train Super Why! Thomas & Friends noon Peg + Cat pm The Cat in the Hat Curious George Curious George Arthur Nature Cat Ready Jet Go! ODD Squad Wild Kratts Wild Kratts Martha Speaks WordGirl pm PBS NewsHour
Nashville Public Television
Soundbreaking: Stories from the Cutting Edge of Recorded Music A fresh, star-studded series about innovations in music. Weekdays, November 14 – 23 9:00 pm
Aging Matters: Abuse & Exploitation NPT Reports looks at the risks faced by elder adults, and possible protections. Thursday, November 17 8:00 pm
Anne of Green Gables A new adaption of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classic tale. Thursday, November 24 7:00 pm
wnpt.org
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7:00 Nature: The Story of Cats Asia to Africa. Cats arose in Asian forests and moved to the African savannah. 8:00 NOVA: Treasures of the Earth Gems. 9:00 Secrets of the Dead Graveyard of the Giant Beasts. A 43-foot prehistoric snake or crocodilian. 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Austin City Limits Iggy Pop.
Wednesday
7:00 Antiques Roadshow 7:00 The Durrells in Corfu Junk in the Trunk 6. Louisa’s aunt arrives to 8:00 Antiques Roadshow a string of mishaps. New York City, Hour Two. 8:00 Poldark on Masterpiece 9:00 Soundbreaking Ross reaches a breakThe Recording Artist. ing point. The role of the music 9:00 Indian Summers on producer. Masterpiece 10:00 BBC World News Aafrin faces treason 10:30 Last of Summer Wine charges. 10:00 A Craftsman’s Legacy 11:30 50 Years of Wilderness The 1964 Wilderness The Cooper. Act at 50. 10:30 Tennessee Uncharted 11:00 Tavis Smiley 11:30 Scully/The World Show
7:00 Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise Out of the Shadows/ Move on Up. Henry Louis Gates Jr. hosts; Jesse Jackson, Nas and Donna Brazile appear. 9:00 Soundbreaking Painting with Sound. How the recording studio itself became an instrument. 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 American Originals: Made on Main Street Unique craft persons, shows and businesses across the U.S.
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7:00 Nature Honey Badgers: Masters of Mayhem. 8:00 NOVA: Treasures of the Earth Power. 9:00 Soundbreaking The Human Instrument. Adele, Amy Winehouse and Christina Aguilera. 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Austin City Limits My Morning Jacket; Ben Harper.
7:00 PBS NewsHour Election 7:00 Nature: The Story of Cats 7:00 Antiques Roadshow 7:00 The Durrells in Corfu Into the Americas. Night Coverage 2016 Celebrating AsianMargo settles into her From battles with the Pacific Heritage. new job. 11:00 BBC World News rival Canids to the rise 8:00 Poldark on Masterpiece 8:00 USO – For the Troops 11:30 American Graduate: of domestic cats. A 75th-anniversary look Ross sails into a trap. Translating the Dream 8:00 NOVA: Treasures of at how the USO 9:00 Indian Summers on An NPT original. the Earth supports American Masterpiece Metals. service personnel. Sooni chooses a hus9:00 Military Medicine: 9:00 Frontline band; Ian gets a clue in Beyond the Battlefield The Choice 2016. An a cold case. Bob Woodruff reports on analysis of Hillary Clinton 10:00 A Craftsman’s Legacy advances in military and Donald Trump. The Soap Maker. medicine. 10:30 Tennessee Uncharted 11:00 BBC World News 10:00 BBC World News 11:30 Leopards Among Us 11:00 Tavis Smiley 10:30 Last of Summer Wine Leopards and humans 11:30 Scully/The World Show 11:00 Austin City Limits in Pakistan’s Ayubia Natalia Lafourcade; National Park. Grupo Fantasma.
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7:00 Contenders – 16 for ’16 Bush/Obama – The Master Strategists. 8:00 Battle of Chosin: American Experience In November 1950, 10,000 U.S. troops found themselves surrounded in the Korean Peninsula. 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Will Rogers and American Politics How Rogers became a powerful political voice.
Tuesday
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Monday
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Nature: The Story of Cats Wednesdays, November 2 & 9 7:00 pm
Sunday
Primetime Evening Schedule
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7:00 Tennessee Crossroads 7:30 Volunteer Gardener 8:00 Aging Matters: Abuse & Exploitation NPT’s new documentary about dangers faced by older Americans. 9:00 Soundbreaking Going Electric. From the electric guitar to synthesized music. 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Journey to the Macy’s Parade
Saturday
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18 7:00 Music City Roots Live from the Factory Lera Lynn; John Moreland; Gretchen Peters. 8:00 Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs The Broadway star performs his cabaret show. 9:00 Soundbreaking Four on the Floor. The beat, from drum and bass to beat box, etc. 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Live from the Artists Den The Lumineers.
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7:00 Lawrence Welk Show Thanksgiving – America, the Melting Pot. 8:00 Keeping Appearances 8:30 Downton Abbey Season 4, Part 4. A yearly cricket match with the village sees old scores settled and new plots hatched. 9:30 Secrets of Highclere Castle The real story of the Downton Abbey setting. 10:30 Bluegrass Underground Sierra Hull. 11:00 Globe Trekker Food Hour: Sicily.
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7:00 Lawrence Welk Show Big City, U.S.A. 8:00 Keeping Appearances 8:30 Downton Abbey Season 4, Part 3. Love is in the air at Downton Abbey. 9:30 Grantchester Part 6. Sidney tries to stop a killing spree while Geordie’s life hangs in the balance. 10:30 Bluegrass Underground Drivin’ N Cryin’. 11:00 Globe Trekker Wild West USA.
7:00 Music City Roots Live 7:00 Lawrence Welk Show from the Factory Occupations. Folk duo Larry Campbell 8:00 Keeping Appearances & Teresa Williams; Blue 8:30 Downton Abbey Highway; Hot Rize. Season 4, Part 2. A 8:00 Lincoln Center at glittering house party. the Movies 9:30 Grantchester Alvin Ailey American Part 5. Sidney and Dance Theater. Geordie find murder 10:00 BBC World News while visiting London. 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 10:30 Bluegrass Underground 11:00 Live from the Artists The Lone Bellow. Den 11:00 Globe Trekker Sturgill Simpson. Delhi and Agra.
Friday
7:00 Tennessee Crossroads 7:00 Music City Roots Live from the Factory 7:30 Volunteer Gardener The Doobie Brothers; 8:00 20th Century Limited Jim Hurst. Michael Gross hosts this 8:00 Great Performances: look at the train that carGypsy ried celebrities and busiImelda Staunton stars ness leaders between as Momma Rose in the New York and Chicago. revival of the classic 9:00 Aging Matters: Living musical. with Alzheimer’s & 10:30 Last of Summer Wine Dementia 11:00 BBC World News NPT’s original 11:30 Sands of War documentary. Patton’s WWII Desert 10:00 BBC World News Training Center. 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Omaha Beach: Honor and Sacrifice
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7:00 Tennessee Crossroads 7:30 Volunteer Gardener 8:00 Pilgrims: American Experience Ric Burns’ film tells the brutal truths of the Pilgrims’ arrival in the New World and the myths of Thanksgiving. 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 Last of Summer Wine 11:00 Seized: Inside the Mystery of Epilepsy
Thursday
Nashville Public Television
wnpt.org
Free Bike Tour Explores Downtown Murals
Photograph by Colin M Day
November 6
FRANKLIN ART SCENE Every first Friday! celebrating Williamson County culture
Herakut - Cornerstone Square Building, corner of 6th Avenue and Church Street
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he worlds of fitness and art will collide this month as enthusiasts of both gather for free bicycle tours of Nashville’s downtown murals. A 5-mile and a 9-mile version of the ride will wind its way through the city, stopping at select murals to hear from experts or the artists themselves. The idea came from local artist Brenda Stein, who decided to get a closer look at the Nashville Walls Project but found it difficult to fully appreciate the work from her car. She invited her friend art consultant Sara Lee Burd to grab their bikes and take a closer look. The pair decided it was an idea they wanted to share with other people and began organizing the tour.
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TROLLEY RIDES REFRESHMENTS • LIVE MUSIC
The curation included with each stop is an effort to sweeten the payoff for all that pedaling. “If you’ve taken your energy to get up there and see it, having someone who’s educated to talk about it will add another layer of depth to the experience,” Stein says. As for the price of admission, it was important to the pair that they highlight one of the great aspects of public art. “We were interested in creating a free mural art tour because we consider the murals to be a free, democratized form of art,” explains Burd. The pair have augmented their art knowledge by teaming up with cosponsor Walk Bike Nashville to handle the cycling aspect of the tour. The group will offer a lesson on how to bicycle safely downtown. The tour will begins at 2:00 on November 6, departing from and returning to The Picnic Tap at the Farmer’s Market. For more information, visit www.walkbikenashville.org.
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www.franklinartscene.com sponsored by
Up where the air is rare ... I am not a big spender. Money has never motivated me. But if I won the Lottery—a BIG lottery ... say, a billion dollars—I don’t think I’d freak out. In fact, I like to think I would handle it quite well. There are only three reasons to have gobs of money. One, you can give it away and make a real difference in people’s lives. Secondly, you can use it to control your immediate environment. Don’t like your neighbors? Just buy the entire state of Montana like Ted Turner and you’ll never have to deal with them again. But seriously, let’s talk air travel. Can you imagine never having to fly commercial again? Never standing in a security line again? Flying anywhere you want at any time? I admit I have fantasized about having a Gulfstream with two pilots on call at John Tune airport. This usually happens whenever someone I love has died back home in South Carolina. How easy it would be to zip over to Spartanburg, pay my respects, then zip on back to Nashville. I’ve often said there is no hardship too difficult to withstand as long as I know I’ll be sleeping in my own bed that night. My father once said the only thing better than having your own private jet is having a friend who has one. And there’s a lot of truth to that. I recently flew to Cody, Wyoming, on a Gulfstream g600. I could write a book about the experience, but trust me when I say, this was the smartest group of movers and shakers I’ve ever been around. At our last breakfast together, I shared the following text from my adopted godson, Andrew Maraniss: “How are you going to cope with being around us morons once you’re back in Nashville?” Then my responding text, “I can’t WAIT to get back to being a moron. I need a brain massage!” But back to the Gulfstream. I think it’s safe to say that, of the six passengers on board, I was the only one taking photos of the food and the bathroom fixtures. So how does one come down to earth after such an experience? Well, for me, it was easy and it didn’t take long. After we landed in Teterboro, NJ, a car took me to LaGuardia to board my Southwest flight back to Nashville. Once airborne, I realized I had to go to the bathroom. So I wedged myself into the cramped lavatory at the rear of the plane. When I stood up, I bumped my head hard on the mirrored medicine-cabinet door which had swung open. After uttering a few choice words, I tried to slam it shut. When it swung back open, I ducked to keep it from hitting my head again. Then, just as I was about to start breaking things, I noticed the Band-Aids. Someone—probably an airline attendant—had stuck five Band-Aids on the bottom edge of the mirror to try and keep it closed. Welcome home, Marshall, you precious thing! na Marshall Chapman is a Nashville-based singer/songwriter, author, and actress. For more information, visit www.tallgirl.com.
BEYONDWORDS
Photograph by Anthony Scarlati
BY MARSHALL CHAPMAN
MYFAVORITEPAINTING BY JIM HOOBLER, SENIOR CURATOR, ART & ARCHITECTURE, TENNESSEE STATE MUSEUM
ARTIST BIO: Hunt Slonem New York-based painter and sculptor Hunt Slonem works with both the human form and creatures in the natural world. He briefly studied at Vanderbilt University but found the Nashville of the 1970s to be not to his liking and transferred to Tulane in New Orleans. The color and vibrancy of that city suited him more. Several years ago he purchased two Louisiana antebellum plantation homes and restored both of them. His art reflects his interests with tropical birds, butterflies, ocelots, monkeys, saints of many religions, and people that he channels through mediums, like Rudolph Valentino and Mary Todd Lincoln. He is represented by galleries all over the world and is constantly traveling all over the country and the world for gallery openings. For more information visit www.huntslonem.com.
Hunt Slonem, William Strickland, 2009, Oil on board, 29” x 24”
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Jim Hoobler
Photograph by Sheri Oneal
I
n 1997 Lois Riggins-Ezzell asked me to go to New York to meet Hunt and to put together an exhibition of paintings by him. The Tennessee State Museum hosted a showing of 70 of his works. I showed him around Nashville, and we became friends. Over the years he has donated 24 paintings to the museum, and I have been able to select all but one of them. The heavy impasto, bright colors, and exotic themes are something that I find quite appealing. One of my passions is architecture, and I particularly love the two William Strickland buildings in our city. I lobbied to have the Capitol restored in the 1980s and have been involved in each project there since then and also worked on Strickland’s other building, the Downtown Presbyterian Church. So when the Capitol was approaching its 150th birthday, Lois had the idea to ask Hunt to do a painting of it. We called him and he agreed to do it. I also asked him to do a version of the Neagle portrait of a young Strickland for us. He agreed to that as well. When the crates were about to arrive, Hunt called me and said that there would be a third crate and that the portrait in it was a present for me. It was of William Strickland at the time he was working on the Tennessee Capitol. It hangs in my living room beside the front door, so I can see it every day as I come and go. It is a reminder of my love for the architect and his work and of my friendship with Hunt. na
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