2010 march nashville arts magazine

Nashville Arts Magazine | March 2010 | 1

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14 | March 2010 | Nashville Arts Magazine

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18On the Horizon

At Ensworth High School, the arts curriculum is based on a

Ensworth High SchoolStudents Share Larger-than-Life Aspirationsby Lindsey V. Thompson | photography by Anthony Scarlati

Calvin Settles II“I never like to look at myself as a drummer or a singer,” says Calvin Settles II as he beats constantly on a hexagonal practice drum pad. “I like to look at myself as a musician.”

A passion for music has been a staple in Settles’ home for genera-tions, as he notes both his father and grandfather as his major inspi-rations. Settles describes his father as a child prodigy on the piano, able to play in church when he was only eight years old. Settles’ grandfather, a pioneer in the gospel group The Fairfield Four, even won a Grammy Award for his work in the music industry. The love and talent for music have been cultivated in a third generation with Settles II, who could evidently play before he could walk.

Though within the walls of Ensworth High School Settles plays predominantly jazz, outside of school he plays anything and every-thing he can. “I try not to limit myself to a genre or to one particular style of music,” he says. “Country, rap, rock, if it’s music, I play it.”

And Settles plays his music on a variety of instruments, including the trumpet, saxophone, tuba, piano, guitar, bass, and is also a bass singer, with his priority being the drums. Settles’ main priority right now, though, is with his newest band D.R.E. Unsure of his plans after high school, Settles is considering the idea of going to college to study music. In the meantime, though, Settles plans on following his father’s ultimate words of wisdom: “practice and stay humble.”


21current project, Mayden says that typically there aren’t any patterns between her different series. In truth, she says, the only consistency with her works is inconsistency. The unknown factors involved in photography have fueled Mayden’s work, forcing her to adapt to different situations and embrace spontaneity. “I do go in with an idea, but there’s really no telling what it will turn out to be,” she says.

Next year, Mayden will be attending the University of Colorado at Boulder where she will compete in Division 1 track in the Pentathlon, a combination of five events. “The discipline I’ve learned to succeed in track has definitely helped me in photogra-phy,” she says.

After college, Mayden says that her future is uncertain but that photography will undoubtedly continue to shape her life. “Where I live and how I live my life is going to come from my photography,” Mayden says. I’ll let it lead me to wherever.”

Genny Mayden Genny Mayden’s interest in photography was apparent from the first time she picked up a camera as a sophomore in high school. “I don’t have a long history of myself in art like a lot of artists do,” says Mayden. “It wasn’t an epiphany when I was younger, but I really started to get into it when I took my first photo class.”

Working diligently, Mayden completed every photography class that Ensworth has to offer, all the while hoping to eventually work on a capstone project in photography her senior year. Ensworth’s capstone program allows students to work on individualized projects that the students create. The independence that Mayden gets in her capstone, she says, allows her to produce better works. “I find myself doing good work when I’m passionate about what I’m doing,” she says.

The concentration of Mayden’s capstone project is portraits. Working with people, she says, makes the experience entirely more personal. “I like relating to my subject and being able to direct,” Mayden says. “People are beautiful, and I like to represent that in photographs.”

Although there is an obvious cohesion among her works in her


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For centuries in Europe patronage of the arts and appreciation for the artfully arranged garden were inextricably intertwined. Wealthy dilettantes enjoyed a stroll in a perfectly trimmed maze of geometric hedges or a seemingly wild tangle of delicate blooms just as much as they thrilled at the beauty of a Titian or a Michelangelo. Artists looked to nature for inspiration, and gardeners brought an artful eye to the natural world.

This spring, Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art explores this connection in a self-curated traveling exhibit, The American Impressionists in the Garden. Through this show, Cheekwood president Jack Becker and Jochen Wierich, curator of art, hope to do more than display paintings of flowers near their lush gardens. They aspire to educate visi-tors on the vital relationship between American Impressionist painting and the garden.

Becker claims, “The American Impressionists in the Garden and its exploration of the relationship between painting and gardening is the perfect subject for Cheekwood. Just as Cheekwood beautifully blends art with the garden, visitors to this exhibition will not only gain a more in-depth understanding of American Impressionist art but will also take away a greater appreciation of the art of gardening.”

In the late nineteenth century, many factors conspired to make outdoor paintings a favorite for artists and collectors alike. Paint in tubes became widely available, making an artist’s studio portable. The thriving machine culture of the indus-trial revolution created hostile, mechanical, urban cityscapes from which many weary souls longed for retreat if only in the comfort of a painting on the wall. The Impressionist school of painting oriented itself in nature through its foundation on plein-air art, translated literally as painting in the “open air.”

CheekwoodAmerican Impressionistsby Sophie Colette

The United States was seized by a frenzy for gardening in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century that dovetailed with the growing popularity of the Impressionist movement on this side of the pond. Becker became increasingly aware of this connection while working at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut, many years ago. The site is the home of the famous Lyme Art Colony that became the epicenter of American Impressionism.


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When he came to Cheekwood, Becker brought with him the dream of creat-ing an exhibition that demonstrated the bond between painting and plant arts in American Impressionism. That vision became more tangible in late 2005 when Wierich joined the staff at Cheekwood. Together, the two of them began the painstaking process of sending loan requests for paintings, finding a publisher, and so on. Five years later, their dream will finally be realized in The American Impressionists in the Garden exhibition.

The show will feature approximately forty paintings and will include four garden sculptures made by American artists. It will be divided into three topical groups: “European Gardens,” “Gardens in America,” and “Garden

Sculpture.” The European group will include paintings executed at the famous Giverny gardens in France. Wierich relates, “The small subur-ban plot to the more-sprawling luxurious gardens will be represented.” Paintings by Mary MacMonnies, Childe Hassam, and Ernest Lawson explore the full range of gardens in and around Paris. The “Gardens in America” component celebrates Impressionist inspiration from “artist colonies in the Northeast to garden environments in the South and across the United States,” according to Wierich.

Visitors will enjoy interactive features of the exhibit in Cheekwood’s sprawling botanical gardens. Plein-air painters will take part in demonstrations outdoors while the grounds are in full spring bloom. On March 25, Cheekwood will continue its Entrekin Lectureship Series with a talk by William H. Gerdts, a leading scholar on American Impressionism. The presentation will take place at Cheekwood’s Botanic Hall at 6 p.m. The American Impressionists exhibition runs March 13 through September 5, 2010.

far left: Ernest Lawson (1873-1939)The Garden, 1914 Oil on canvas20" x 24"

bottom left: John Leslie Breck (1860-1899)Garden at Giverny, between 1887 and 1891Oil on canvas25" x 28"

left: Hugh Henry Breckenridge (1870-1937)White Phlox, 1906Oil on canvas39 ¾" x 34 5/8"

below: Louis Ritman (1889-1963)Flower Garden, ca. 1913Oil on canvas39" x 39"



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Whitney FerréCreatively Fitby Beth Knott

Whitney Ferré is an artist, teacher and author, but when you start

to peel back the layers, you begin to unveil both the complicated woman and the woman with the amazingly uncomplicated theory. My journey with the Chicago native began in the late 1990s as she was making her debut on the national television show called Our Place, which aired on HGTV. As her producer, I had no idea that she had far bigger plans than just to demonstrate crafty home projects for the eager-to-learn audience. In fact, her aspirations were to help people realize their lives’ dreams through the power of art.

As a painter, she is becoming well known around the Nashville area. In fact, she is often commissioned to paint for businesses and indi-viduals. This mother of three and step-mom of one takes care of the kids, runs the very artsy wine bar Rumours on 12th with her business partner Christy Shuff, teaches workshops and corporate training seminars, and travels extensively to promote her book. She is just like every working mother, with one exception: her purpose in life is to teach others that everyone has an artist within and that it is not as hard as you might think to bring the artist out.

Every step along the way of Ferré’s life has led to her endeavor to live and teach her theory, to “unleash the artist within” using the right brain, the creative side, to live more fully and more completely. This idea is both simple and complex and is one that has evolved over the years, starting with her childhood.

“As a child I was really active, so my mother was always buying craft projects for me to do,” she says. With her days filled with salt dough, Shrinky Dinks, and sewing projects which she sold in lieu of lemonade, Ferré recalls her workshop underneath the basement stairs with the words Art Center stenciled above the opening. “It was nothing fancy, but the neighborhood kids would come over, and I would lead art classes.” Even at that young age, it was a sign of things to come—namely The Creative Fitness Center, an art workshop that Ferré founded as the launching point for her platform of teaching people to reach deep inside and find their artist mentality.

“Our sense of hope is directly linked to our ability to create change.”

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Through each step of her career, she knew that she had a purpose, and even though she had little training and didn’t consider herself a professional artist, she had done the research and had lived the plan. She knew she needed to get the word out that Creative Fitness is real, and it can help people to fulfill goals and dreams in their lives, both personal and professional.

So what exactly is Creative Fitness and how is it used to release the artist within? The science aspect has to do with using the right brain (the creative side) in conjunction with the left brain (the analytical side). Ferré describes it like this: “Imagine that your brain is one of those old-timey switchboards where an operator has to pull the cords and get the information to the right spot. On the left side, the operator is swamped with calls coming in, and she’s constantly saying ‘hold please, hold please.’ On the right side, the operator has very little going on. She’s sitting there filing her nails, waiting for a ringy-dingy. Of course, the left side of the brain is getting a strenuous workout, while the right side sits begging and pleading to be worked and stretched just a little bit. So, if you give the right operator something to do, you strengthen your brain. That’s the theory in a nutshell.”

To take it one step further, Ferré says that the sheer act of doing some-thing artistic or creative will open up your mind to a whole new level, and even the decisions in your life will be easier to make. All you have to do is participate in creative exercises, which will work out your brain a bit more evenly, and your brain will work better for you.

Through her years of research, reading, and actually watching what happens when her students live “creatively fit,” she is convinced that science and art go hand in hand. She teaches this in her classes and seminars and blogs about it to her faithful following. With quotes from Albert Einstein and postings of results of scientific studies and readings, she makes it very easy for nonbelievers to believe.

As more people hear about and participate in Creative Fitness, Ferré gets great satisfaction from the results that occur. When speaking of classes that her students have taken over the years, she states, “The bottom line was people came to the classes and left with a twinkle in their eyes,” which gave them the renewed passion for life. Most importantly, that creative stimulation encouraged people to take on projects that they had put off for years and make positive changes in their lives. They were becoming creatively fit!”

Though no creative activity is discouraged, Ferré believes you can take a fast track to unleashing the artist within by painting. It doesn’t have to be good, and it certainly will never be perfect, but fears and chains will be broken once a blank canvas has been conquered. Painting is her tool of choice in both her Painting Made Easy classes and her corporate workshops, where she teaches how to work together as a team, overcome doubts about your abilities, and come up with solutions using your right brain, all through art.

below: I asked my Facebook members the kind of changes they

would like to create in their worlds. Their words inspired this painting.pho

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Paul Lancaster lives in his own world, though I am fairly certain that creativity has him on speed dial. Just a few hours with this shy and gentle man are enough to let you know you are in the pres-ence of someone very special, someone unique. Years before James Cameron ever conceived his groundbreaking film Avatar, Lancaster had already created a vast body of work that could have been used to storyboard the film.

Considered a visionary painter, he is much too shy to be called a mystic—that would imply he shares his visions with others verbally. However, inside his head lives a gentle world filled with finely detailed imagery and vivid palettes of color. Very privately, Lancaster breathes life into the many forests, faeries, angels and women he sees in his mind. Regardless of media, his work celebrates and articulates the magnificence of creation itself and the lush beauty of the femi-nine. There are very few men in his work.

Lancaster seems slightly frightened and exposed standing in the halls of Lyzon Gallery. He is clearly uncomfortable in the presence of the photographer and other people who surround him. Though he is almost skittish when spoken to, there is nothing artificial about this man. Wisps of days long past and hidden mystery dance across his eyes when he is asked to recall or comment on some aspect of his past or present work.

If there is one universal theme running through all of Lancaster’s work, it is the extraordinary connection to the energy of life. He took the time to show me some of the paintings and etchings he has created over the past fifty years. The gallery itself, long an important and integral piece of Nashville’s art scene, is frozen in time. Lyzon Gallery harkens back to a period when art was a simple affair between lovers—those who passionately create art and those who passionately seek to possess the unique creations of the artists. It is because of Lancaster’s long association with the gallery that his work was eventu-ally discovered beyond the intimate walls of security within his head.

Paul Lancaster by Lizzie Peters | photography by Anthony Scarlati

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left: Dancing Girls, 1998Oil on canvas, 40” x 40”


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above: Gathering at Moonrise, 1999Oil on canvas, 40” x 30”

below [detail]: Two Vases of Flowers, 1993, Oil on canvas, 24” x 30” right: Autmun, 2006, Oil on canvas, 39" x 17"

opposite page: Firefly Girls, 1978, Oil on canvas, 30” x 26”


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However, his incredible ability to use the graduations of color creates worlds within worlds in each piece. Exquisite detail and repetitive themes within every image are both fascinating and deliberate, almost as if some unseen pattern maker has used Lancaster’s brush as a marionette.

As a young boy raised in the poverty-stricken rural areas of Tennessee, Lancaster loved to explore the woods, enjoying the solitude and silence. He enjoyed carving small objects of wood with little designs. Filled with a strong desire to learn how to paint and draw, he hungered for the ability to translate the beautiful visions in his head to something tangible in the real world. “I went to a small school. It had a stage with a backdrop for one of the plays. I liked the back-drop and wondered how they did it, how it was created.”

But like lots of children during the Great Depression, Lancaster dropped out of school at age sixteen and went to work for the H. G. Hill grocery stores to assist the family. Asked by his employer to paint and letter signs, he would often embellish them with his own designs. Timidly, he was beginning to expose his inner artistry and his uncommon portrayal of common things.

Lancaster experienced his first major exposure to a museum and several art galleries during a stint in the army. “I loved it all

but was afraid I could never be as good as they were. I was very intimidated; it made me doubt my ability to paint,” he observes. After viewing some of his figurative sketches, his superiors recom-mended he reenlist and become a medical illustrator. Somewhat homesick, the artist returned to Tennessee and his family.

As we climb the steep, metal steps to a small, unheated space above the gallery, Lancaster is apologetic about the jumble of things stacked around the tiny room. It is evident the space holds many memories and pieces of his life, as he used it as a studio for many years.

“I have the hardest time talking to people. I know I should talk, but I don’t know what to say.” Fortunately for us, his art speaks volumes.

Exquisite detail and repetitive themes

within every image are both fascinating

and deliberate.

above: Sailboats on Lake, ca.1980s Watercolor, 11" x 17"


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Self taught, Lancaster admits to feeling safe when locked into his visions. “I don’t think much about it. I just sit for a while, and then I begin to see what I need to create. Sometimes I can get sort of restless, but when I’m doing art everything else goes away. The one place I’m happy is in my head; it’s my special space.” The visions are self-guided, as Lancaster never has an idea how they will progress on the canvas. “They just come. I start up in the left-hand corner and then just move across,” he says in a completely humble manner.

“I prefer brighter colors today. I love making different blues and greens; they just tell me when they are right. When I look at them I don’t know how I created a shade. My painting was a little dark way back, but it might have been that I wasn’t too sure of myself,” he says.

Lancaster is totally unconcerned about landing in important collections of institutions or individual collectors. Yet his work has been featured in major exhibitions at the American Visionary Art Museum, Art Chicago, the New York Outsider Fair, and other venues in Washington DC, Pittsburgh, and New York. Closer to home, Lancaster’s painting was included in a major exhibition at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts titled Art of Tennessee.

“People often don’t seem to understand what I’m doing. It used to bother me, but I never had any negative feelings about it,” he says. Even though Paul Lancaster lives in his own world, fortunately for all of us he is a local treasure. Our sincere thanks to Lyzon Gallery for their assistance

with this article.

Paul Lancaster is represented by Greyart.com.

left: Girl with Swan, 1997Oil on canvas, 40” x 14”

above: Nightfall, 1976Etching, 14” x 10”



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Bill Steber clearly remembers the pivotal moment in 1992 that fueled his obsession with documenting the disappearing culture of the Delta and northeast Mississippi’s hill country.

Steber, then a photojournalist, was assigned to shoot a travel story in Mississippi. On the return home via Highway 61, he visited James “Son” Thomas, a blues musician and folk artist. Entering the house, Steber passed one of Thomas’ more interesting creations—a sculptural figure of a woman lying in a casket. “It was one of those rare moments in life where you can feel the direction changing,” he recalls. The time was ripe for a new direction.

The geography that unfolds as one heads north from central Mississippi is compelling, for the Delta indeed is an otherworldly place where fields run for miles; massive pecan groves spring out of the flats, and little towns cluster around their churches. For a man steeped in reverence for the blues, the place was pure addiction.

“The leitmotif of all, everything I do is motivated by music,” says Steber. “That’s what’s behind everything.”

His total involvement and connection with the people and places he has photographed have made him an insider in the community of the Mississippi blues culture. He is able to get the most intimate images because he is one of them, and his subjects pay no particular attention to him. He reveres the culture both as a photographer and as a musician himself. “I am always trying to provide a visual to the soundtrack that plays in my head,” says Steber, whose black-and-white images of blues musicians, baptisms, cotton fields, and juke joints have graced the covers of many national publications.

Four years ago, Steber and his wife, Pat Casey Daley, attended a workshop by upstate-New York-based John Coffer, who is known for reviving the almost-lost art of wet-plate photography. A quiet new obsession ensued. “If you see this being done, that alone will make you fall in love with this process,” says Steber, referring to the all-day excursions required to produce even one perfect image.

“The fact is it’s so slow, you have to exert more control over the subject. It’s about as far away as you can get from street photography.”

He remains an artist focused on quality who holds onto the skills and techniques of traditional photography. For Bill Steber, the lessons that emerge from the past are good ones. “I’ve learned to trust the seren-dipity of accidents,” he says, “and be open to where it leads me.” www.steberphoto.com

The Photographs of Bill Steber

by Elizabeth Betts Hickman

Slow-Motion Soul Suspension

opposite page: Bonaventure Cemetery, Savannah, GA: I was very moved by this beautiful sculpture of a grieving young woman atop

a grave, framed by live oaks and Spanish moss.

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bottom right: Parchman Penitentiary: It took me years of trying before I was allowed to photograph in the infamous Parchman Penitentiary, a 20,000-acre prison farm in the central Delta. I was finally allowed in, mistaken for a Library of Congress researcher who had been there before me. I never let on.

top: 18th Century Chapel of Ease: The old ruins and landscapes along the coast in Georgia and the Carolinas are, to me, some of the most hauntingly beautiful in the world.

bottom left: Honeyboy Edwards: Born in 1915, Honeyboy Edwards is one of our national treasures. In the ‘30s, he was a friend and traveling companion to Robert Johnson. Edwards was playing with Johnson at a juke house outside Greenwood, MS, in 1938 when the legendary bluesman was allegedly poisoned to death by a jealous husband. This photograph is Edwards at his home in Chicago with his daughter Dollie.

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below: Dancers at Junior’s III: From 1993 to 2000 when it burned, I visited Junior Kimbrough’s juke joint in Chulahoma, MS, several times a year. The building at Junior’s was a folk-art cathedral of crazy architecture and joyful, primitive murals. But the real art was the hypnotic, meandering Mobius strips of sound created for dancers every Sunday night by Junior, R. L. Burnside, and numerous local Mississippi hill country musicians.

below right: John Lee Hooker: My obsession with the blues started as a teenager when I discovered a couple of John Lee Hooker albums from my father’s years in the Air Force. years later I found myself sitting on his couch in Redwood City, CA, talking about blues. How sweet is that.

right: Bentonia Blues: Jack Owens, along with his harmonica player Bud Spires, plays the beautiful and haunting Bentonia-style blues from Jack’s porch in Bentonia, MS. The song “Hard Time Killing Floor” played by Chris Thomas King in the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? is from the Bentonia tradition.


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above: Baptism II: Every year in early September, congregations of the North Delta gather at the same spot on Moon Lake to baptize the faithful just as they have for over one hundred years. It was an emotionally overwhelming experience for me.

right: Cotton: After calling literally every County Extension Agent and most of the cotton gins in the Delta looking for anyone who plowed with mules

or still hand-picked cotton, I got a tip about a couple in Shaw, MS, and went to find them. Moments after meeting James and Elvie Burgs one

September afternoon, I was riding on the tailgate of a pickup to go out and photograph them hand-picking cotton, like they had done their entire lives.

below: Jukin’ at Thompson Grocery: This was a wonderful little shotgun-style general store in Bobo, MS, along Hwy. 61 that, on occasional weekends, became a rollicking juke joint. To get to the bathroom, the guitar player

had to lift up the neck of his guitar so you could get the door open.

left: Son Thomas: Son Thomas was the first Delta bluesman I met. When I walked into his shotgun house, there was a full-sized sculpture of a dead woman in a wooden casket in his front room and a clay skull with human teeth on a shelf. He played some wonderful songs for me, and I played some harmonica with him and took some pictures of him with the casket. I couldn't wait to come back.


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left: John Dee Holman: This was one of my first attempts at an 8x10 wet plate collodion negative. Much of the beauty of the wet plate process comes directly from its unpredictable nature.

above: David Johnson: David Johnson was a musician and folk artist. His swept-dirt yard was filled with homemade rickshaws, sculptures, and creations of all kinds. He even made the heavy rings on his fingers by grinding down old sockets and shaping found metal into jewelry.

above: Carolina Chocolate Drops: This young African-American string band from North Carolina is one of the most exciting new musical voices to emerge in a long time. After this tintype shoot in 2008, I was able to convince Living Blues magazine to put them on the cover.

below: Sunday Night at Boss Hall’s: In many towns in the Mississippi Delta, Sunday night has traditionally been a bigger night for live blues than Friday or Saturday, as folks try to squeeze as much fun out of the weekend as possible before Monday comes. For a few years in the mid ‘90s, one of the places to be was Boss Hall’s in Leland, MS, where great players from Leland and nearby Greenville would play till early Monday morning.


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“The only way I know how to work is by telling my truth. That is part of being a storyteller,” says Atlanta sculptor Debra Fritts. “You let the intuitive process take over, and that’s where the magic happens.”

The magic of art is something that has long been a part of Fritts’ life. She was born in Nashville and grew up in Middle Tennessee. As the child of a Lutheran minister and a resourceful mother, symbolism and creativity were a natural part of her upbringing. Fritts credits her mother with introducing her to the magic of creativity. Raised in an orphanage with no opportunity to study fine arts, Fritts’ mom repainted furniture to save money and kept herself busy with house-hold crafts. “I grew up with a very creative mother. She was always a maker and a doer.” It was through this maternal connection that Fritts developed an abiding relationship with the visual arts: “It is something that came into my life, and it has never left.”

Experiencing Fritts’ sculptures, one feels pulled into the powerful story that each individual work tells. The clay figures could easily represent moments stolen from the pages of a diary—they are personal, mysterious, and honest. Fritts uses each of these words when she talks about her work. She feels that some figures end up looking like self-portraits, however unintentionally, because they relate so strongly to her own experiences as a person.

Speaking of her work, she says, “You look at it, and you connect. You look at life, and it is full of mystery. The mystery gives you growth as a person, and it challenges your feelings. I don’t want to know all the answers.” Through that willingness to honor mystery Fritts has developed an intuitive process by which she executes her works. The same intuitive power allows her sculpture to communicate so directly with the viewer. From the surface to the soul of each piece, Fritts remains a painter, a sculptor, and a storyteller.

Fritts was not always such a bold communicator. She was a shy child. When oral reports were due in grade school, she hesitated to speak. Instead, she illustrated books or turned in drawings for her projects. Even at an early age, art unlocked two worlds for Fritts. It gave her a means of communication with other people around her

Debra FrittsStories In Clayby Deborah Walden | Anthony Scarlati


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left: Listening to the Ravens Cry, stoneware

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The city of Edo, modern day Tokyo, Japan, experienced the rise of a new form of pop art in the period between the seventeenth and the twentieth centuries. Ukiyo-e, or woodblock prints, became all the rage because their mass production rendered them affordable to a broad audience. These prints were not the prize of royalty or nobles; they were manufactured to sate the visual appetite of towns-people. Ukiyo-e translates literally as “pictures of the float-ing world.” This concept refers to the realm of arts that includes kabuki and woodprints. The concept references the fleeting world of pleasure and enjoyment that allowed one to slip out of the mundane demands of quotidian life and into an evanescent escape from reality. In the ten months lapsing between May 1794 and February 1795, a powerful figure emerged in the genre of ukiyo-e. As mysterious as he was prolific, Sharaku produced over 140 works in this period of activity and then disappeared behind the veil of history. Who was Sharaku? No one really knows. Some suggest he was an actor while others contend that he was a more-prominent artist experimenting with new styles behind an assumed alias. What we do know is that Sharaku was a rule-breaker. He denied convention and played to a developing taste for new art in Edo. As such, he stands as a model of inspiration to Japanese pop artists today. In his own time, Sharaku’s avant-garde musings faded quickly in the public imagination. His work became more subdued, and demand for his art similarly quieted. Sharaku subsequently disappeared from the records of Japanese art. It took a later scholar, German Julius Kurth, to resurrect appreciation for the artist in 1910. From that time, Sharaku has held a lasting fascination with both Eastern and Western audiences.

This spring, the Tennessee State Museum offers Sharaku Interpreted by Japan’s Contemporary Artists. The show, which is sponsored by the Consulate-General of Japan and the Japan Foundation, takes part in the longstand-ing tradition of Sharaku’s art. The traveling exhibit hopes to resurrect Sharaku prints to a new audience and to breathe new life into his centuries-old art form. Like Sharaku himself, the show generates more ques-tions than answers. It is edgy, and it is immersed in the pop art culture of modern Japanese design.

Sharaku Who?by Bernadette Rymes


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The exhibition features lush, vibrant, original copies of Sharaku’s prints alongside the output of eleven contemporary Japanese artists who have forged unique, thought-provoking meditations on his vision. Sharaku Interpreted includes eighty-one works divided into three sections: “Reproductions of Sharaku,” “Sharaku in Graphic Art,” and “Homage to Sharaku.”

The first section showcases Sharaku prints reproduced from the original woodblocks by the Adachi Institute of Woodcut Prints. Few Sharaku originals survive, and many have dulled in color. The rich and saturated hues of the reproductions are a treasure to all audiences. The second section showcases the work of twenty-eight graphic designers who explore the links between Sharaku’s visual elements and contem-porary Japanese graphic design. Finally, the last section includes the painting, sculpture, and ceramic art of contemporary Japanese artists who respond to Sharaku’s prints in their own personal manner.

The result is a riveting journey through the history of Japanese prints from the polychromatic woodblock ukiyo-e of Sharaku’s


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time to the contemporary poster made for modern consumption. The old master’s prints capture the images of kabuki actors and actresses in charac-ter. These bust portraits are striking and dynamic with unusual freedom and playfulness in facial expressions.

The emotion and personal characteriza-tion of Sharaku’s original art set him apart from his peers. In Sharaku Reinterpreted, contemporary artists subtract key elements from Sharaku prints and let them play in their own imaginations. At times, we see compositions in which these elements are configured like the pieces of a puzzle. At other times, we see abstractions in which the original Sharaku inspiration is difficult to find. The common bond between all the works is their shared root in Sharaku’s seminal contribution and a stirring visual power.

The exhibit made its way to Nashville through a series of cultural collaborations that are changing the face of the State of Tennessee. In 2008, the Consulate-General of Japan moved its offices to Nashville. This particular branch of Japanese diplomacy serves the five-state region of Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. The offices demonstrate the expanding partnerships between Japan and the Southern states of the United States.

Director of the Tennessee State Museum Lois Riggins-Ezzell says, “The genesis of the exhibition was the Consulate-General of Japan relocating to Nashville. This show is the Consul’s way of saying ‘we want to share our culture with you.’” She believes that the show “creates cultural opportunities and exchanges” and acts as an education

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model for cultural harmony: “The more we can look and understand, the more we can work together in a progressive way.”

Curator Mark Hooper sees the show as an exciting way to showcase the old and the new, saying, “This show is a contemporary presenta-tion of the traditional.” Hooper has added his own touch to the exhibit by hand-constructing silkscreen walls and by arranging Sharaku prints and their contemporary counterparts alongside each other in a way that gives viewers a sense of the similarities and differences between them. Visitors can gaze at original prints and look directly across the room at massive oil-paint mutations of Sharaku’s portraits or digitized, fragmented explorations of the elemental components of his art.

Sharaku’s innovations brought new elements to a traditional form of print media. Sharaku Interpreted similarly offers new meditations on the time-honored story of his art. At the same time, the show celebrates the growing friendship between the Consulate-General of Japan and the City of Nashville and State of Tennessee, opening an exciting new chapter in the history of both city and state.

The show will be on view through April 11, 2010. It will be located in the Changing Galleries of the Tennessee State Museum. The exhibit will include an interactive component for children and is free to the public.

Sharaku


72Paula LovellWhat characteristic do you most like about yourself?

My ability to focus on a goal and go for it.

And what do you like least?

I’m not very patient, but I am getting better. I worry a lot too. I worry about everything.

What was the last book you read?

Ted Kennedy’s memoir, True Compass. I liked his honesty about his shortcomings.

Who would you most like to meet?

Barrack Obama. I’m a fan, but I would like to know more about where he gets his guidance for some of the decisions he makes.

What are you going to be when you grow up?

A mountain girl. I love the solitude of the mountains.

Who has most inspired you?

My father. He always told me I could do anything that I wanted to, and I have always believed that.

Who is your favorite artist?

I love local artist Jason Saunders and Van Gogh.

What are you most proud of? My son and starting my own business when I was a single parent.

What do you wish for yourself?

I wish that I could have a lot more time to spend with my parents.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I’d be more patient and eat less chocolate.

Are you happy with where you’re heading?

Enormously happy. My life is good.

What’s your mantra?

My family motto is Happy, Healthy and Kind, all at the same time.

What would people find most surprising to learn about you?

That I’m an introvert. I was painfully shy as a kid.

What talent would you most like to have? I always wanted to be a rock singer like Tina Turner.

What is your most treasured possession?

My twenty-four photo albums of the first twenty-four years of my son’s life.

What is your greatest regret? There are things I would have done differently, but I choose not to have regrets. I don’t have the time for them.

What about a do-over?

I would like to have gone to law school. I fancy myself as a female Perry Mason.

you have five minutes left to live; what are you going to do? Gather up everyone that I love and get into some serious kissy face. Lovell.com

Anything Goes

Paula Lovell is founder and president of Lovell Communications Inc. For more than twenty years, the firm has designed and implemented award-winning communications strategies that impact sales, customer retention, employee performance, public referendums, community engagement, and brand reputation.

She currently serves on a variety of civic boards including Abe’s Garden, Friends at Nashville General Hospital, and the Tennessee Breast Cancer Coalition. Lovell is also a former Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

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Back in 1991 (the dark ages) two amazing ladies, Connie Cigarran and Sigourney Cheek, had the idea of combining the ageless beauty of antiques with the natural beauty of horticulture in one show, and the Antiques and Garden Show of Nashville was born. The show would benefit Cheekwood and the Exchange Club of Nashville, two causes close to these women’s hearts. Twenty years later the show is bigger and stronger than ever, thanks to these two incredible ladies who will always be Nashville treasures.

Show chairs for 2010, Donna Dalton and Carolyn Hannon, have successfully continued the tradition with this year’s theme “The Shape of Things to Come” presenting shapes and patterns from the past alongside contemporary designs of the future. This show would not be possible without the participation of 150 antique and garden dealers bringing their expertise to Nashville from across the nation and Europe.

The Swans are out of hibernation and were nesting at Phyllis and David Vandewater's home to unveil plans for the upcoming white-tie Swan Ball 2010. Vibrant, movement, grandeur, modern, and memorable were the hints that Swan Ball Chairs Sissy Wilson and Collie Daily shared with the group. This is the fiftieth anniversary of Cheekwood, and to coincide with this date and the grand opening of Cheekwood’s much-anticipated Chihuly exhibit, the date of the ball has been moved to May 25.

Highlights will be jewelry by Verdura, the presentation of the Swan Award to Lynn S. Wyatt of Houston, and entertainment by Al Green, Burning Las Vegas, and Nashville’s own Craig Duncan Orchestra. Chef Danielle Kates will be preparing and presenting the evening meal as her father has for the past thirty years. Color, energy and elegance describe this year’s ball design by New York-based design team Van Wyck & Van Wyck. This ball was built on volunteers, which hopefully will continue—a Nashville tradition. (Oh the great days of Roberta!) It sounds to be a most glamorous ball! Missy Eason and Shannon Barton, Swan Ball Chairs for 2011, will be sure to take notes this year. Congratulations, Cheekwood!

Tennessee Repertory Theatre is celebrating its twenty-fifth anni-versary season this year. The season-opening show, Proof by David Auburn, proved to be a perfect example of the first-class talent that Tennessee Rep was founded on and has continued through the years.

Proof is based on math—a mathematician’s dream! (Lost me when the lights went out; I still remember those paper flash cards.) Prior to the show at the Andrew Johnson Theater in TPAC, the First Night Supper Club was held at Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis in the Nashville City Center. Hosting this event were Megan Barry, Chris Chamberlain and the lovely Sally Levine.

Hors d’oeuvres, cock-tails, silent auction, seated dinner…it was a delightful start to a most enjoyable theater evening. Congrats Tennessee Rep for your successful twenty-five years. (I still do not understand a2 + b2 = c2.)

below: Kenny Blackburn and Marty Dickensbottom: Martha Ingram and Hope Stringer

top: Deborah and Jerry Tannenbaummiddle: Richard and Beth Courtneyand Bennett Tarletonbottom: Chairs Megan Barry, Chris Chamberlain, Sally Levine


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As always there are parties: the first on the agenda was the Benefactor’s Reception chaired by Ann and Alex Buchanan and Mary and John Stone, hosted by Honorary Chairman Emeritus Albert Hadley with his sister Betty. (Of course we all know that Albert is a former Nashvillian.) An hour later the same evening was the Preview Party chaired by Susan Burns, Martha Hayworth and Devereux Pollock. Both of these events offered the patrons the opportunity to view and shop before the doors opened to the public the next day. (We just love a good pre-public party!)

The antiques and horticultural booths displayed period antique furniture, rugs, porcelain, silver, jewelry, paintings and other works of art from around the world. The gardens were rich in colors and textures, all following the show’s theme of shapes. My favorite garden was designed by Stephen Wells and Chris Crenshaw. These guys designed their creative garden around stripes, noticed in the paving patterns, fence boards, awning fabric, and rows of columnar flowers and trees. I guess I was so drawn to this garden because

it had a beach-y feel to it that was a welcome sight in this frigid weather. My buddy Jim Fowler, a Nashvillian exhibit-ing for the first time at this show, had an amazing array of antiques, collectibles, and jewelry. He had a green diamond that was to die for.

Jim is no stranger to fine antiques; he was born into the business.

As I was walking through the gardens (not tiptoeing through the many tulips) I spotted this life-size rocking horse—turns out this was a replica of a rocking horse that had been made for Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret by the Steven Brothers Rocking Horse Manufactory in England, the world’s oldest. These are not your basic carousel horses; they are made of mahogany, with leather saddles and real horsehair. Toby Rhodes and Ed Nash were kind enough to let me experience a ride (no, I was not deprived of a rocker in child-hood). Now that was a showstopper! This rocker may be yours for a mere $12,000— a steal: some range up to $35,000. Happy trails.

This year’s Antiques and Garden Show was in memory of Jesse Colton. Jessie was instrumental in developing the Lawn and Garden Fair, which was later reinvented as the Antiques and Garden Show. Thanks to Jessie, Connie, Sigourney, Donna, and Carolyn and the many past chairs and endless volunteers, this show has become the leading show of its kind in this country. Congratulations. You have given us so much to be proud of!

top: Paul and Beth Moore, Frank and Betty Fieldabove: Alex and Ann Buchanan, Mary and John Stone

left: Ann Tuck, Christy McClure, Steve and Evelyn Blackmon below left: Lisa Straight and Eric Vanpouckebelow center: Chairmen Donna Dalton and Carolyn Hannonbelow right: Bob and Ann Coleman, Dudley White, Jane Tarkington


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HopeFor more than 40 years the Legal Aid Society has been providing free civil legal services to families with nowhere else to turn. You can help by making a donation at www.las.org or by mailing a check to The Legal Aid Society, 300 Deaderick St., Nashville, TN 37201.

Artwork by Kennedy, age 8, daughter of Legal Aid Society client.Space donated by Harwell Howard Hyne Gabbert & Manner, P.C.

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Pretty early on, I was hitting lots of openings around Southern California. I always enjoyed being part of that scene, and it was a great source of inspiration. But the idea of actually owning any of the work still hadn’t dawned on me.

Then one evening at Gene Kelly’s home in Beverly Hills, I walked into a room and saw this big painting by a guy I’d never heard of, Stephen O. Sumney. I just stood there, kind of freaking out. At that moment I was inspired to begin purchas-ing art for myself.

Eventually a friend ended up introduc-ing me to Stephen, and we became great pals—even roommates for a while. He generally did a fairly tight sketch before he’d ever start in on a big canvas. The sketch for this one just spoke to me. I knew I wanted the final version even before he began painting it!

Stephen O. Sumney's A Deeper Understanding of Nothing Tastes Like Everything Elseby John Scarpati, Photographer

Stephen Sumney’s personal history plays a heavy role in his artistic style as well as his perception of the artist as a marketable product. Sumney’s father died when he was very young, and he grew up in California under his stepfather’s name. His mother was an artist, and he spent his childhood painting alongside her and fell in love with the art world she exposed him to. When he turned twenty years old, he moved to New york. In his seven years living there, he became highly disenchanted by how artists were made into a brand and escaped to LA. He immediately dropped his stepfather’s name and changed his identity by taking on his birth father’s name. He destroyed that contrived identity formed in New york, discovered a deeper evaluation of self, and studied the “branding” of artists. Embracing the father he never knew and fighting the branding of his own art are what drive Sumney to express himself in artwork every day.www.stephensumney.com

My Favorite Painting

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2010 march nashville arts magazine

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