2010 october nashville arts magazine

Nashville Arts Magazine | October 2O1O | 1

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http://www.andrewsaftel.com/index.html

http://www.artclectic.org

18 | October 2O1O | Nashville Arts Magazine

18Red Grooms and Andrew Saftelexhibit at Cumberland Gallery November 6–december 24.

Mark your calendars for simultaneous exhibits of two celebrated Nashville artists, Red Grooms and Andrew Saftel, at Cumberland Gallery November 6 through December 24, 2010. An opening reception and opportunity to meet the artists will be held on November 6, from 6 to 8 p.m. The idea to show their recent works was warmly received by both artists who share a friend-ship and respect for one another’s work and careers. For this show, Red Grooms’ body of work interprets art history by filter-ing portraits of artists in their milieu through his own signature vision. Andrew Saftel’s collection, Footsteps, depicts subjects and unique characters in movement, utilizing various modes of transportation to suggest notions of how two very different cultures share common underlying values. “Both artists have a way of looking beyond the everyday and extracting the substance, the essence of what they want to say in their work. Andy has recently done a lot of experimentation with wood block prints in Mexico. His traditional work is largely painting on panel, as well as panel with collage. This show will also feature dry point etchings, which he has been exploring recently. Grooms will focus on paintings but will also exhibit some of his prints,” Cumberland Gallery owner Carol Stein shares.

right: andrew saftel, Early One Morning, 2008, Mixed media on panel, 36” x 48”

Spotlight

Red Grooms is an international artist from Nashville and is based in New York City. Andrew Saftel is originally from Rhode Island but lives and works in Tennessee and exhibits nationally. For more information call

615-297-0296 or visit

www.cumberlandgallery.com.

right: red Grooms, R. D. Yellow Porch, 2010, acrylic on panel, 24” x 18”

Second Harvest Food Bank Harvest Moon ball–October 29.

Two local artists, Nate Griffin and Jacob Blaze, have donated their talents and art to benefit Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee’s fundraising efforts this fall. An original painting by Nate Griffin, They Mock the Moon, and an original linoleum print by Jacob Blaze, Union Station in Winter, will be available at the Harvest Moon Ball auction on Friday, October 29, at the Hutton Hotel, 7 to 11 p.m., to help raise funds for Second Harvest’s mission of feeding hungry people and working to solve hunger issues in our community. So get ready for great food, fabulous wines, wonderful music from Burning Las Vegas, and a large silent auction of these works of art benefiting Second Harvest Food Bank.

to purchase tickets to this event call

leigh Clark at 615-627-1565.

www.secondharvestmidtn.org

They Mock the Moon by Nate Griffin


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Gallery 202 Grand Opening.

Historic Clauston Hall in downtown Franklin is now the home of Gallery 202. The grand opening of the gallery will be held on October 23 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The beautifully renovated, steeped-in-rich-history, Federal-style home has proudly hosted past presidents Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and Andrew Johnson and now features work by local and nationally renowned artists. Since 1964, the home has attracted and nurtured artists through its transformations, becoming both studio and gallery spaces. If only those walls could talk perhaps they would tell the story of Elizabeth Taylor’s or Neal Simon’s purchases of artwork by the previous owner local artist Bun Grey. Original paintings, sculpture, art glass, and handmade jewelry adorn its many rooms. Kelly Harwood is thrilled to be the new owner of Clauston Hall and opens his doors to art appreciators and collec-tors, bringing a wonderful, quality selection of artistic styles and mediums represented by the whole country.www.gallery202art.com or call 615-472-1134

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22Spotlight

Eve Fleishman Peace or Drama art and Music tour

by Kami L. Rice

When singer-songwriter Fleishman completed her most recent album, Peace or Drama, last year, she felt there was something more she needed to do. Recalling the way art had inspired her song “Van Gogh Heard” as well as classes and workshops she’d observed in which participants created images based on the classical music they were listening to, and, additionally, an article she’d read about a music duo who asked authors and artists to create works inspired by their songs, Fleishman’s “something more” took shape.

She began searching for artists from the seven states—Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Texas, California, Massachusetts, and Tennessee—she’s lived in since she and husband Mark were married sixteen years ago. Each of the thirteen Peace or Drama songs received an artist who would create a painting inspired by the song. Size was the only limitation Fleishman gave the artists.

Paintings have been arriving at Fleishman’s home since January. Though she always knew they wouldn’t live there forever, she hung each one immediately. “I find it inspiring to have the art up. It pushes me forward,” she says.

In September the next piece of the project launched as Fleishman began the Peace or Drama: A Journey through Music and Art tour. She is touring with the art for over a year, performing in art galleries and music venues. The shows will be part storytelling, part concert, and part art show.

In late 2011 at the end of the tour, the art will be auctioned to bene-fit PeaceTones, a charity that helps artists in war-torn and under-developed countries sell their art or music and help their commu-nities. During the tour Fleishman will sell an exhibition book with her CD, proceeds from which will also benefit PeaceTones.

“When I finally decided to do this, I felt so compelled. I don’t know why, but I have to do this,” says Fleishman. She’s been amazed at how nearly some of the paintings mirror the images in her head when she wrote the songs. The paintings “add another dimension to the song that I never thought about. [They] got the songs outside of me.”

Other local artists featured in the project are daniel dennis

and lori Putnam. the tour comes to Nashville on October 21

at simon ripley’s Music & art. Visit www.evefleishman.com for

more information.

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top: Do You Remember by lori Putnam

above: Pretty Moon by daniel dennis

above right: Not A Day by libby smart

right: Gold Cries and Silver Dusts by Hillary Williams

below: Van Gogh Heard by Wendy bull Oakley

http://www.humanitiestennessee.org/festival/index.php

http://www.chapter16.org


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27On The Horizon

Tracie Grace Lyons by Beth Inglish

sweet, southern, and seriously

talented—that’s Tracie Grace Lyons. She’s smart, fun, and very ambitious about her art career. With a bachelor’s degree in draw-ing in one hand and her suitcase in the other, the 23-year-old said goodbye to her Mississippi upbringing and has boot-scooted her way right into the Nashville art scene. Her watercolor work is influenced by her personal history, so it will be interesting to see how this young art starlet will change now that all she knows is firmly in her past.

Technically she has a distinct process and follows a formula of steps for each piece. She said, “First is composition, then the characters, color, light, and environment.”

Lyons gives new life to historic architecture, creating intricate, everyday scenes around buildings influenced by her surroundings

and memories.

She sees peeling paint and broken brick and wonders about the history of the building. More interested in truth than in fiction, Lyons researches a building’s history through books and interviews to depict accurately its essence in her paintings. She incorporates small, detailed scenes into the buildings like small, private windows into her character’s world. The building’s beauty is often enhanced by the personality of the people who occupy it.

Each character in her work is a direct reflection of her own life and personality. For Lyons, traditions are meaningful. She is inspired by her childhood memories and continues to see herself as the little girl who never quite grew up. Lyons approaches her drawings with a childlike sense of wonder. Her innocent spirit is refreshing, and each piece captures that pureness in her soul. Nashville Arts welcomes this bright young talent.

tracie Grace lyons can be contacted through her website at

www.traciegracelyons.com.

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far left: Ascent of Unity, Watercolor, pen, and ink on paper, 20” x 14”

center: Condemned Shack, Watercolor, pen, and ink on paper, 12” x 17”

above: Commercial Dispatch, Watercolor, pen, and ink on paper, 13” x 17”

bottom: Age of Enlightenment, Watercolor, pen, and ink on paper, 14” x 21”


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“ Throughout the show, pieces by celebrated artists such as Courbet, Degas, Manet, Monet, Pissarro,

and Renoir can be seen in abundance....”degas, Ballet Rehearsal on Stage


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The Birth of ImpressionismMasterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay

Frist Center for the Visual arts by Lindsey Victoria Thompson

in Paris during the late nineteenth century, there was perhaps no greater controversy than that of the validity of a new, expression-ist style that has come to be called Impressionism. Interestingly though, the term was first used to describe the movement by an unrelenting critic following the first Impressionist show in 1874. “Impressionism,” however, was not a coinage unique to the artists of the late 1800s; it had been used as an expression in the art world in reference to sketches. The critic referred to the word to denounce the new approach to painting, asserting that the imperfection in brush strokes lack of precision reduced the paintings to little more than sketches made with paint.

There is a sense of haste and impulsiveness, most common in pencil sketches, in Impressionist paintings that cannot be ignored. Impressionist painters aimed to convey a single instant or a particular feeling—in essence, anything that could be lost in a second. It was the goal of painters of this era to capture the increasingly industrializing Paris as they knew it. The late 1800s marked the end of rigidity, immaculate precision, and artistic dogma and began to embrace the imperfections of a growing Parisian society.

The opportunity to experience the fleeting feeling of the Impressionist movement will be readily available to Nashvillians as the Frist Center for the Visual Arts hosts The Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay. During the renovation of the Musée d’Orsay for its twenty-fifth anniversary next year, three cities worldwide were granted the privilege of keeping premier works of art from the establishment’s collection. The exhibition debuted in Madrid, continued on to San Francisco, and will conclude in Nashville when it opens on October 15 of this year. The show will feature one hundred works from the Musée d’Orsay’s permanent collection, boasting seventeen pieces—including works by Impressionist icons such as Monet, Renoir, and Degas—that will be displayed only in Nashville.

right: Monet, Les barques. Régates á argenteuilbelow: renoir, Charles Le Coeur


32Throughout the show, pieces by celebrated artists such as Courbet, Degas, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, and Renoir can be seen in abun-dance throughout the Frist Center’s galleries, and even James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s Arrangement in Gray and Black, No. 1: Portrait of the Painter’s Mother (1871), the work familiarized as Whistler’s Mother, will be on display. Masterpieces that might otherwise have been studied in a textbook or viewed on a projector will be at the disposal of Nashville residents and the city’s visitors.

“The Musée d’Orsay has the finest collection of French mid-to-late-nineteenth-century art in the world,”

said Frist Center Executive Director Susan H. Edwards, Ph.D. “In shar-ing these masterworks with the cities of Madrid, San Francisco, and Nashville, the Musée d’Orsay offers an unparalleled cultural experi-ence to people who might not have the opportunity to travel to Paris.”

top left: Morisot, The Cradle left: Manet, Berthe Morisot With a Bouquet of Violetsbelow: Manet, The Fife Player


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below: Cézanne, Pont de Maincyright: Caillebotte, The Floor Scrapers

above: Manet, La Damme au Eventails


34Physically, the exhibition will be divided into thirteen sections or themes. The show will begin with rooms dedicated to the history behind the Impressionist movement, notably the emer-gence of Realism and the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871. Prussian victory in the war pillaged French patriotism and served as a catalyst for artistic revolution.

“Beyond including works of breathtaking attainment, the exhibition teaches about the complex intersections between academic art and the avant-garde,” added Edwards, “convey-ing the creative vitality of a particularly fertile moment in French intellectual and social development.”

advance timed tickets are on sale on the Frist Center’s website

(fristcenter.org) and on site. tickets for the exhibition will be

specially priced, with adult admission costing $15. the show

will close January 23, 2011.

below: degas, The Parade

left: Whistler, Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1


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Photo: anthony scarlati


41confidence that I could do what I wanted to do. We’ve never lost respect for each other.”

They also have a keen sense of when to lean in with advice for each other and often encourage each other to “let go.” “She’ll be laboring over letting go of the clay,” Brent says, “and I’ll have been looking at it for days saying, ‘It’s perfect! It’s perfect!’ And I’ll be fussing over a mix, making little adjustments, no one would ever be able to tell the difference, and she’ll tell me ‘It sounds great! Put it to bed.’”

Given what they do, it’s not surprising that the environment they have built is a creative one, rich with inspiration, but also freedom with no restraints. “I don’t feel pressure in sculpting,” Janel says. “And when Brent goes to work, he’s not thinking he has to please me.” They also give each other plenty of space. “I never peek over her shoulder,” Brent says. “And if she sees me pick up a yellow notepad and wander off somewhere, she knows

I have an idea of how to finish up a verse and doesn’t interrupt and say, ‘Well, dinner is like—dry.’ And I can tell if she’s really locking in on something.” Further proof of the creative environment they have built, and the products of a perfect union, are their two children, Dianna, who runs Moraine Music, and Brian, a hit songwriter.

“What’s really great,” Brent says, “is that both of us not only found our soulmate, we were both given the opportunity to pursue our true being. We comment all the time about how blessed we are. Janel has always been my center point. Always.”

Janel says it more simply. After more than forty years together, “we still enjoy each other’s company.”

www.janelmaher.com

www.morainemusic.com

She works with her hands. He works with his ears. Creativity is the blood of their lives.

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LithographicsFULL


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“ Ask any kid here, and they will tell you what their plans are. They

have a purpose in life. Here is where

people believe in you and what

you’re about.”

Nashville School of the Arts“The Greatest School on the Planet”by Rebecca Bauer | photography by Anthony Scarlati

the school motto is a simple one. There’s no ambiguity, no gray area, no soft sell. It states boldly that this is the great-est school on the planet, and after spending a few hours with Bob Wilson, principal of the Nashville School of the Arts, I’m inclined to agree.

His office, a spacious room resembling a teenager’s bedroom, is covered in comic-book-superhero paraphernalia. Superman is his favorite, and although Principal Wilson may not be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, his accomplishments at the school have been nothing short of remarkable.

After graduating as a speech and theater major from Illinois State, the Chicago native arrived in Nashville with music on his mind. Teaching secondary education revealed his calling, and he went on to earn a spot as principal of Bellevue Middle School. “People used to hear about that crazy principal—that was me,” he jokes.

It was during that time that he built his foundation as an educator.

“You’ve got to do your research, know what makes a kid tick. These are the times that are life changing.”

He knew the importance of recognizing and drawing out special abilities in a child and that the arts had the power to do that. “I’d put them in chorus. They couldn’t even sing, but they wanted to do it.” The result was an increase in confidence, self-esteem and higher grades.

While admission to the Nashville School of the Arts is based solely on an artist portfolio or audition, students are also expected to fulfill the same academic requirements as other metro schools. And it just so happens that this art institution ranks number three academically in the county.

I tour the building with Principal Wilson, and along the way I meet two students who make a quick impression on me. Jasmin Offei-Nkansah, 15, loves sculpture and playing the viola and plans to study psychiatry after high school. She names Georgia O’Keefe as her favorite artist and explains, “I like the way her mind works. It’s about reflecting on yourself, not just what’s on paper.” When I ask Jasmin what she loves about her school, she tells me she loves the freedom and choice she has to explore her talent to the fullest.

Principal bob Wilson


Education


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Sam Hunter, 17, plays Mr. Sandman on his acoustic guitar, the same song he sang at his NSA audition. I ask if he plays in any bands after school, and I’m taken aback by his answer: “I do some session work on Music Row.” He adds very humbly, “It’s hard to find players my age to play with that are as committed as I am.” His love for making music has his mind made up on a career. “If I don’t do music, there’s nothing I can imagine doing.”

Walking past classrooms, I see dancers stretching and moving in front of mirrors, painters working at easels, a group gathered around a piano composing a song. The theater has seen its share of major productions. It is alive and bustling with creativity. There’s a tech room, a guitar lab, and an elaborate recording studio. The tools of the trade are everywhere.

Demographically, they are a diverse student body from all corners of the county. Many are honors students. There are some, according to Wilson, considered special ed, though he offers, “I have found that many ‘special ed’ students really are not. We may have thirty to forty kids that have been labeled special ed, but really they are just artistic. It’s a common tale.”

The correlation between the arts, academics, and student performance is evident here. Wilson knows that when artistic skills are stimulated and appreciated, the students flourish in other subjects; they’re more engaged. NSA demonstrates an atmosphere where minds are challenged and imaginations are used. Under positive leadership, all this can have a profound effect on how the younger generation will take on the world as adults with the ability to make a difference.

These gifted students have gone on to enter music programs at Belmont and Berkeley. Some don’t make it to college because they’ve been offered a job on Broadway or in a Vegas show, as staff on The Oprah Winfrey Show, or dancing behind Celine Dion. Still others go off to West Point or become biologists. The possibilities are as high as the stars and as numerous.

“So many great kids come out of this program. You look at some kids, and it’s sad when they’re lost. Ask any kid here, and they will tell you what their plans are. They have a purpose in life. Here is where people believe in you and what you’re about.”

It is clear that Principal Wilson loves his job, and students revel in the opportunities the Nashville School of the Arts offers them. He affirms, “So many cool things happen here; it’s a happy creative place to be. What else would you expect from the greatest school on the planet!” www.nsahs.mnps.org


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Think Wiley Coyote looking at the anvil approaching his head, or Elmer Fudd stalking his wabbit. Even though the celluloid anima-tors of Warner Brothers predate the young artist by many years, their marvelous mini characters have somehow mysteriously channeled their mirth into Trevor’s work.

left: Garden Delight, 24” x 24”

bottom left: Big Dog, 6” x 12”

below: Sunshine Flowers, 30”x 30”

His subjects speak volumes in their quirky, yet hilarious expressions.


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That same capricious spirit is the electricity that powers his mind and creations. This gifted artist began drawing and painting at age 8. As part of the gypsy migration of autoworkers, his family moved to Nashville from Michigan for work at the newly estab-lished Saturn plant. Once here, the family put down roots in Spring Hill, a world very different from Detroit. However, Trevor and his identical twin brother adjusted to the move quickly. His brother remains his best friend and hanging pal.

Trevor eventually followed his muse to Nashville Tech and MTSU for graphic design and printing. But the enthusiasm for creating art overpowered his interest in obtaining a degree. When he was asked by a friend to do a solo show for Artrageous, he was off to the races with favorable odds.

Shows at Rumours and other places eventually led to Trevor’s being picked up for representation by the prestigious Bennett Galleries in Green Hills. His brilliant use of only a palette knife and electrifying color endeared him to gallery patrons from the beginning of his tenure. And the demand for his work hasn’t slowed down. Dierks Bentley and many prominent collectors continue to purchase his work, a lot of it. To feed the voracious hunger of his fans and galleries, Trevor works constantly.

above: Orchids, 30” x 40”

right: Main Squeeze, 8” x 16”

top right: Plums Be Yums, 12” x 36”


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Consistent with his personality, his color choices are happy and breezy. Kiwi, mango, banana, watermelon, and turquoise are but a few of the canvas backdrops for his characters that impart a sweet narrative to the viewer. Birdie Legs, Where’s Dinner? Us Two, and Time Out are hard to describe without the correspond-ing visual. Suffice it to say these amusing pieces become funnier the longer one looks at them. If less is more, Trevor has got the bead on complex simplicity, meaning that while his art appears to be simple, it completely captures the nuances of emotion and expression. Neatly.

“I never know what I am going to do or what the subject will be. Once I have chosen a color for the background, I let the canvas and ideas create themselves. I am just a channel,” he said. Fortunately for his audience, his ideas and creations come continuously, often taking unexpected turns.

“It doesn’t turn off,” he says of his creative thinking. “I am constantly finding ideas in the life around me. For example, I don’t know why I started creating these,” he says of a new set of clay animal sculptures. They just sort of happened,” he adds.

Another new direction for Trevor is his experimentation with black backgrounds, scratching figures and objects from the density of the color. “It’s another way to bring light out of dark-ness, to trick the eye, to provide whimsy,” he observes.

Trevor loves art and exploring new places. His travels have taken him through North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia. He has been influenced by a lot of contemporary artists but especially loves the works of Helen Frankenthaler, Wayne Thiebaud, Wolf Kahn, and Carolyn Evans.

His love of seeking new places and things translates into Trevor’s hopes for the future as an artist. “I don’t want to be pigeon-holed as only a painter. I want to try lots of things and become more international,” he states. He is contemplating several new avenues to expand his work. The thought of producing tee shirts, posters, and many other pieces to make his work available to a greater audience has intrigued him, although no decisions have been made at this time. I for one cannot wait to see where this gifted young artist’s talent will take him next.

trevor Mikula is represented by bennett Galleries.

www.trevormikula.com

left: Stretch, 24” x 12”bottom left: Black Vase, 22” x 28”

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67

bottom left: The Flying E Tree, a very strange totem at the

entrance to the Flying e ranch in Wickenburg, arizona.

left: Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, a statue of the patron

saint of Cuba tucked away in a small chapel room in Our

lady of Grace Cathedral. Hoboken, New Jersey.

opposite page middle: Lake Island #2, i have taken one hundred

photographs of this island from the same point, and every

image is completely different. dawn on lake Keowee, south

Carolina, winter.

bottom: Sidewalk Lion, this image is a reward for always

taking my camera with me. Union City, New Jersey.

opposite page bottom: The Gears, i can’t explain my fascination

with machinery, factories, and gears. sloss Furnaces in

birmingham, alabama.

far left: The Abandoned House, My family dreads road trips

with me—inevitably they wake up pulled over at the side of

some country road. an abandoned house in south Carolina.

below left: Beach Umbrellas, a very peaceful early morning on

the beach in Florida. Occasionally the best stylist is Mother

Nature (and the guy setting up the chairs).

above: The Ballet Dresses, i was picking up my daughter from

a birthday party at a dance studio, and i turned and there

were all these dresses hung up against the far wall.


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below: The Circus Tent, a tent at sunset at the bonnaroo music festival in

Manchester, tennessee. sometimes the show is not the show.

above: The Radio Tower, the WsMV radio tower set against the sky as a

storm was just clearing out.

above: Carnival Game #1, i’ve always been drawn to

photograph carnivals and street fairs because of the

abundance of images. i looked down—there was my

photograph. the midway at the Wilson County Fair.


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“Harry Underwood, pop artist.” the moniker has panache. The artist would get it. And it would ring true with the hipsters of East Nashville, the ones who stroll the aisles of trendy food stores in their jeggings and post-post-post-ironic geek glasses. There they pick up Saint-André cheese and overpriced six-packs of Pabst Blue Ribbon, then head home to their “Harry” (his signature), the one hanging next to the wooden antelope head. Like those historically ahead of a curve, they dubbed him a rising star years ago, when it became de rigueur to own “a Harry.”

But Harry Underwood isn’t known as a pop artist. He’s often labeled a folk artist, or an “outsider artist.” The elements of the folk genre are there. The Florida native is completely self-taught. The nostalgic figures are painted in a (seemingly) naïve range of colors, some just a few shades shy of Necco wafers. It is a dream world of retro romanticism, where penciled-in observations might say, “Rusty was the dog who loved to eat spaghetti and tomato sauce,” or a ham sandwich might fall out of the sky to land on a putting green. Women may wear ’50s-style bathing suits or perform a burlesque show. Titles are blissfully poetic: The Virtue of Sunlight and the Labors of Truth; History of Wishful Thinking; The West Wind Drift.

But unlike folk art, where the artist is typically thought to be grasping at the wispy vapor trails of childlike impression, Underwood’s art is painstakingly planned. What results is more a cocktail of realism, surrealism, and pop, of Edward Hopper meets Salvador Dali meets Andy Warhol.

On a sunny summer day in Springfield, Tennessee, Underwood stands in the studio of his 1942 bungalow wearing a white t-shirt littered with tiny paint marks. A train whistle wails mournfully

Harry UnderwoodReveries of a Complicated

Sign Painter

by Karen Parr-Moody


73History of Wishful Thinking


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opposite page: The West Wind Drift

below: Ligeia

right: Light for Tomorrow

above: Island


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“ I feel like I’m the guy mopping the floor really.

That’s the kind of job I’d probably prefer if I

wasn’t doing art.”

When his newest collection, An Atmosphere for Living, hits Nashville’s Estel Gallery on October 2, viewers will read about Underwood’s reflections on youth. One penciled passage, writ-ten in his cramped hand, reads: “Enthusiasm is the protein that commits purposeful errors. Nature’s propellant for young years, the guiding light and the will of an individual who believes that where ever you are, ‘Ready Feels Good’.”

The largest piece in this collection—the seven-foot-wide West Wind Drift—illustrates Underwood’s technique of grabbing a viewer from twenty feet away. The closer he or she comes, the more they become attracted to the smaller details.

“It’s planned that way, completely; it’s what I always wanted to do,” says Underwood of being inspired by Southern signs that have quirky misspellings and strange phrasings. One of his earlier works, A Southern Energy Home, is the epitome of the sign style, with a couple languidly cruising through a coastal landscape on their bicycles. “I’m just a really complicated sign painter,” he quips.

This complicated sign painter got his start in 2003. By now, the story of this laborer-turned-artist is the stuff of legend. “I used to install tile floors and paint houses,” he says, adding that the nature of his work led him to conjure up many an artistic idea on the clock.

“I like work where you can just daydream,” he says. “If you go to a job laying brick, you’re going to be writing novels in your head all day long is the way I see it.”

He points to a painting titled Hummingbird, a pop Edward Hopper-style design in which a group of men populate a clas-sic diner. “I feel like I’m the guy mopping the floor really,” Underwood says, noting the central figure. “That’s the kind of job I’d probably prefer if I wasn’t doing art.”

As a by-product of house-painting jobs, Underwood says, “I would collect the paint, and it hit me that these are the colors I should make paintings with.” He points to a deep, sea-foam green that first got his attention. “It’s actually like the color of Andy Griffith’s sheriff’s office,” he notes.

The palette remains carefully guarded, and Harry mulls over possi-ble additions as if they are rubies for an incredibly exclusive tiara.

“It seems like every year I add a color,” he says. “I’ve been really, really careful about it. When I started out, I had four or five colors.”

When viewing his latest collections, guests will notice a ravishing dark blue that imparts sophistication to the work. “My palette’s gotten larger,” Underwood says of one of the latest shifts in his work. He points out an orange—the blue’s “partner,” he dubs it.

left: Hummingbird

bottom: The Volcano of The Daredevils



77right: Spur

below: Sun Plaza

“I’m still crazy about orange backgrounds. They have the quality of French New Wave movies from the ’60s. The color from the mid ’60s and early ’70s movies, I’m trying to imitate that.”

“He comes across in his work as a very old soul,” says Estel Gallery owner Cynthia Bullinger. “And there’s a nostalgia there that even if you didn’t live though it, we all long for. I think that’s what captivates a lot of people about his work. It’s got to be better than it is today, right?”

In the new show, in which Underwood pulls from a whole category of emotions, guests can expect to see the now-familiar visual cheer tinged with an undercurrent of sadness. Underwood is guessing at what the audience response might be. “I think people are going to see the show and go, ‘Wow that’s really pretty and colorful,’ and they’re going to see it as room décor, which it is,” he says. “But it’s subversive.”

House paint subversive? Now that’s a decorating trend those ahead of the curve can jump on.

a collection of new work by Harry Underwood exhibits at estel

Gallery located at 115 rosa l Parks boulevard. there is an

opening reception for the artist October 2 from 6–9 p.m. and a

closing ceremony November 6 from 6–9 p.m.

www.artbyharry.tumblr.com

www.estelgallery.com

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98My Favorite Painting

Bonnie GarnerRetired music industry executive, animal rescuer, and therapeutic riding instructor

i found Shaman Chant at a char-ity silent auction several years ago. He spoke to me immediately, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Several people have told me he is frightening. To me he looks as if he knows every-thing there is to know. He has a calm-ing influence on me. I have the paint-ing hanging in a high place in my house so he can watch over me. I love all the art I have collected over the years; they all speak to me. But the Shaman defi-nitely speaks the loudest.

artist stateMeNtWhen i was a child, i would look out through my bedroom window, nose close to the old metal screen, smelling the dust of the day overlaid by redolent darkness. i would stare into the night and think about being inside and outside, about being large and small, about when and, mostly, about why. there must be answers there, i would insist to myself, and i felt that i could find them if only i knew how to form the questions. if the questions could transcend my words and, somehow, find their own magical shape, they might themselves shape the answers, and i would be able to see and understand. i tried to place cold brass handles on the edges of infinity. i tried to unwind the noose of time and spread it out before me so that nails could be placed just so—here, and another here—that i might measure a life along its length and find the place where time began.

lee earned his M.a. in art education from Northern arizona University in 1970. He spent many years living and working in tucson, arizona, and belize. He now resides in Paris, tennessee.

www.lawrencewlee.com

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Shaman Chant by lawrence W. lee

2010 october nashville arts magazine

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