Some Firsts for the Nashville Arts Scene

The Eight Lenses and a Code photography exhibition and accompanying Festival of Salon Saturdays is now midway through a two-month run at The Arts Company.

Presented jointly by The Arts Company and South Light Salon, a group of Nashville-based photographers focused on the influence of southern light in their work, it took some three to four months of weekly meetings in advance between the photographers and the gallery to figure out how to present the art of photography in some new ways. All that time in planning has paid off.

The Arts Company has presented photography since day one, but never with the kind of consistent response and commentary this exhibition has attracted. It is hard to single out the highlights to date or to predict them for this next month. We have had unexpected large crowds for every event, plus much ado in the press on and off line. What all of this activity tells us is that there is something compelling about this series of programs.

Introducing the idea of the QR Code Reader set the series up with new ways to think about linking photography with new technology. The QR Code as part of every photographer's body of work was assumed at the beginning. How they each incorporated this new dimension to their photographs was up to each of them. Some used videos, some recordings only, and others used words and music to add to their images. Some were whimsical, some were serious, but all were inventive and interesting. That set the tone for the whole series of events.

The first preview session with the South Light Salon photographers, hosted by Paul Polycarpou, executive editor of Nashville Arts Magazine, laid out clearly the various kinds of depth of passion and intention these particular artists have brought to this exhibition.

It is a no brainer to single out the impact of Sylvia Plachy when she came as the group's legendary guest photographer for the first Salon Saturday event a couple of weeks ago to talk about her outstanding career as a photographer with the Village Voice, as well as more recently with the New Yorker and other publications. The many books of her work are now collectors' items. Her presentation transported the some 100 folks at the gallery that particular Saturday afternoon to another world. Having met her and learned from her, everyone there that day had a sense that she embodied a world of experience and insight all unto herself, fitting her life and her art together seamlessly.

The second Salon Saturday attracted some 80 guests to learn from South Light Photographer Robert McCurley about street photography in a "Taking It To the Street" session upstairs at the gallery, culminating in breaking up the group with some of the other South Light photographers and sending them out to do some of their own street photography. We hope to have some of the results up on Facebook very soon.

The good news is that we are only half way there. There is yet another month of exhibits and Salon Saturday Festival activities planned. Our Collectors Art Night scheduled for Friday, February 3, (5:30-6:45) will feature three outstanding Nashville photography collectors, hosted by Jerry Atnip, a master photographer himself, talking about what kind of photography each of them collects and why. Billy Frist and David Conrad, both photography aficionados, and Jack Spencer, a legendary Nashville-based photographer who also collects other photography he admires.

And then there is the First Saturday Art Crawl on Saturday, February 4 (6-9 pm). The entire photography exhibit will be installed Upstairs at The Arts Company, a great environment for viewing and talking about artwork. Nine folks selected for a Portfolio Review by the group will present their work.

Following that, the next two February Saturdays are filled with the last two scheduled Salon Saturdays. On Saturday, February 11, 2-4 pm, Robert McCurley will mix it up with some of his photographs, his own related poetry, and the poetry of two other Nashville poets--Randy Foster and Amy E. Hall, followed by an art film. The idea is to connect the dots among these art forms, making it another special Saturday afternoon destination for those of us wishing to cross the lines from one art form to another.

And yet, like the late night commercials say, "and yet there's more...." The Closing Celebration Event for the two-month extravaganza is scheduled for Saturday, February 18, 5:30-7:30 pm. It will be a celebration of the fact that this ambitious exhibition cycle did come to pass and did do what everyone involved with it hoped it would do--get the art of photography connected with more people.

A couple of things you should know:

All events are free, but reservations are required. We have just so much space, and that's it. See below what to do to RSVP.

If you have not read Joe Nolan's comments on the exhibit in this weeks Nashville Scene, we are attaching it here. It is an outstanding example of how a really good reviewer can help you know something about exhibits. He is a writer who looks carefully and writes well about what he reviews an exhibit. This is well worth your time. You will learn something about the exhibit and about Joe's well-deserved reputation as a reviewer. Here's the link:

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/a-new-photography-exhibition-offers-diverse-narratives-on-the-subject-of-the-south/Content?oid=2743066

The only other thing you need to know is dates and times and the RSVP reservation contact. For that, go to www.theartscompany.com to find the complete schedule of events. To RSVP for any event of your choice, art@theartscompany.com or 615-254-2040.

www.theartscompany.com

The Arts Company on 5th Avenue of the Arts Since 1996

Since 1996, we have become over the years a Nashville kind of place--always welcoming outsiders to Nashville and inviting Nashville insiders back downtown. We have introduced a lot of artists and artwork, made lots of friends, and taken on a lot of Partners in Art, helping businesses outfit their workplaces in distinctive ways. We have become an artistic concierge of sorts for Nashvillians as well as visitors.

We invite you to come drink a toast with us this Saturday, December 3, 6-9 pm, to help us celebrate our 15 years of presenting art in the middle of downtown Nashville. We'll be looking back and thinking forward.

We started as a lone gallery downtown. Looking forward, we are now in league with a variety of other nearby galleries and artistic enterprises on what we proudly call 5th Avenue of the Arts.

We are 15 years in the making...and counting, thanks to our friends, artists, business partners, and other art aficionados. Surely you fit one of those categories, so come join us for more time together with art and artists in a neat city.

Butterflies and space time, new art from gallery artists, and welcoming the new Parnassus Books to Nashville--It's all in a night's work...

The Art & Science of Space Time / Tony Breuer

Tony Breuer is returning to The Arts Company in October to present his new artistic commentary on the ways aesthetics and science intersect in space time, based on the leading physical theory of our time, the theory of relativity. This year, he has chosen the annual flight of the Monarch butterfly to demonstrate artistically through his paintings how time, light, and space move in and out of each other in the midst of the annual flight of a fragile but resilient insect.

Breuer's own artist statement about this exhibit sets the stage: "This series celebrates the Monarchs fluttering through spacetime on a wing and a prayer--a miracle--definitely a miracle," noting that "The Monarch butterfly undergoes a complete metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly capable of flying, with no training, within minutes of emerging from its chrysalis." Breuer's attraction to the beauty, fragility, and science of his subject prompted him as an artist to portray the fragile but powerful phenomenon of Monarch butterflies. The canvases in the exhibit offer a progression of studies of the intertwining shapes of physical movement and the movement of light that surrounds the butterflies in their flight.

This series of paintings are best viewed as they were created, in a series from one to eight, with two additional pieces focused on the same subject.

Tony Breuer began his professional life as a magna cum laude graduate at Princeton University, continuing his studies in neurological research at Oxford, and receiving his M.D. at Harvard Medical School. His medical career included the practice of medicine as well as research in neurology. For a few years he practiced medicine in Nashville. In the 1990s, he joined his scientific interests with his training in art, receiving a BA from the University of Southern Indiana in 1998, followed by an MFA in painting from East Carolina University in 2003. Since then, he has continued his medical practice while beginning to develop his style and technique as a painter. His paintings are devoted to his exploration of how two-dimensional paintings can represent some of the more complex multi-dimensional realities of the physical universe.

For years now, Tony has been transitioning from being a practicing neurologist to becoming a full-time practicing artist. Early next year, his time will be devoted fully to his artwork. he particularly enjoys talking about his work and what he hopes to achieve through his painting. Don't miss this opportunity to visit with this emerging artist.

Ann Patchett moves the Mount of Parnassus to Nashville

Friends of The Arts Company will know that new bookstores don't just pop up these days. It takes thought, courage, and commitment to the value of books themselves and to the role of books and reading in the life of a community. Within the last year, Nashville has lost all Border Books locations, plus the independent Davis-Kidd landmark store. Those losses, mixed with the recession, painted a bleak picture for the future of books in Nashville. However, instead of gloom and doom, a couple of folks saw an opportunity to put together a new book store concept designed by Nashvillians for Nashvillians.

Thinking mythically, they went to the higher reaches of mythology to brand their enterprise "Parnassus Books," after Mount Parnassus, a high mountain considered to be sacred by the ancient Greeks, a mountain associated with Apollo and the Muses, symbolizing poetry. Reaching high, they are bringing the mountain to Nashville.

Only famed Nashville-based writer Ann Patchett and her colleagues could pull off such a feat. Her total passion for writing and the inestimable value of books has prompted her to provide the primary financing for Nashville's forthcoming Parnassus Books. Tagged as "An Independent Book Store for Independent People," this new enterprise is making its debut against all odds of the shifting landscape of books and bookstores.

When Patchett and Karen Hayes, an experienced and savvy book professional, met and began to talk about what it would take to pull off a new approach to developing a book store, the gods were moving fast to keep up with them. Patchett made the initial financial commitment to support Hayes' business plan, and when they added another consummate book professional, Mary Grey James, as store manager, the new enterprise was on its way.

Lucky for guests of The Arts Company, the three of them will be at the gallery during the October First Saturday, October 1. Ann Patchett will sign her own books from 6-9 pm, and Karen and Mary Grey will be there to show off the plans and to recruit new Founding Members for the new store. Part of their new concept is an invitation to all Nashvillians to become founding members.

Ann and Karen and Mary Grey are bringing the heights of Mount Parnassus directly to us right here in our own city. And they are inviting us personally to participate in this new venture. Don't forget to thank them. Come join in to show your support for this enterprising new business.

And if that's not enough, the October First Saturday promises even more new artwork and more artists to meet...

Charles Keiger, painter

Charles Keiger's exhibit of his signature magical realism paintings in the exhibit Inside Out will continue through October 15. These paintings are polished, engaging, and deeply southern in their narrative feel and content. They are like reading the best Eudora Welty short stories in a visual incarnation. You will not want to miss seeing these gems. The images will linger in your mind....

Bernice Davidson, sculpture and painting

On rare occasion, we get new work from Bernice Davidson, as her time allows in addition to her responsibilities as head of the art department at Martin College. Armed with a master's degree in art from Yale, plus a long-time residency in Tennessee, she observes nature with a keen eye and wit. She will be presenting six new pieces from her mixed-media sculpture series, 4th Dimension Sculpture.

Edie Maney, painting

While Edie Maney does not regularly showcase her paintings at The Arts Company, we have asked her to share her series of Squares, groups of small, lively abstract paintings based on her travels and observations. They will capture your eyeballs on contact, but do not overlook the titles of each piece. Each one is an intentional abstraction of something she has seen. Her work is adventurous and exciting.

Judy Nebhut, photography

We first showcased Judy Nebhut's classy still life photographs just about a year ago. She has added a few new images to her collection that you will not want to miss. She creates a variety of still lifes using ingredients from marbles to sunflowers to stacks of books and paints them through her camera lens. On first look, you will swear you are looking at a painting. She has a style all her own, and she continues to hone it to perfection. There is a classic sense of joy in her work.

And that is a lot of what First Saturdays are like every month at The Arts Company--fresh, original, and contemporary....

Inside Out: New Paintings by Charles Keiger

Charles Keiger's paintings are great fun at first glance, and even more interesting when you try to figure out what the heck is going on. They blend a semblance of normal reality, obvious at first glance, with many mysterious and intriguing moments happening around the persons, objects, and activities presented.

Keiger paints inside out. He presents inside feelings and observations we all experience—the unspoken kind that go on inside the minds of each of us constantly—and shows how odd these feelings and thoughts seem when presented as part of the subject’s life in the real world. He often adds clues etched or carved into the frames that he builds for many of the paintings.

In each painting, people share the stage with the objects of their feelings or dreams or emotions. Keiger selects specific details from the tableaux he creates and presents them in larger-than-life images out of proportion to the setting. All of the pieces are there for the viewer to put together. A sense of fun, mystery, drama, and subtlety prevail.

Keiger builds in multiple objects or images and leaves them for the viewer to find all of the clues he painstakingly includes. It’s no wonder that his work continues to be fresh and mysterious. There’s never an answer to his work, only a continuing adventure with the clues he has left for us.

Keiger's words express it best: "As a person I am attracted to those absurd moments in life that offer a sense of clarity. Those brief occasions that occur where you say to yourself, 'I am overjoyed to be a part of thing called life.' When I paint I attempt to convey that emotional state to the viewer."

Known as a painter with a combination of southern gothic and magical realism, Charles Keiger is a painter with a southern sensibility--the isolated guitar players, the dog and pony show (above), the big piece of "Sunday night cake" in the sky, the jockey urging his horse across the jet stream in the sky like a modern-day Icarus. The more you look at the paintings, the more the connections are suggested between the paintings and the best of southern writing. Playful and serious like a Eudora Welty story, but never in the darker territory of a Faulkner story or the more sinister characters in Flannery O'Connor.

Keiger's figures are ordinary people stopped still in a particular moment while the artist shows outside what's going on inside--some fantasy or the other, or a narrative of disjointed images that express visually a state of mind or the crux of a particular situation or emotion. His style is reminiscent of Magritte, though not quite as stark. There's a whole lot of story-telling going on in Keiger's paintings.

Chances are you will be attracted to these paintings at first sight. You will be drawn to their elegance, wit, and mystery, and about how feelings often come at us in strange ways that are deeply felt, but often go unspoken. It takes a painter to show us new ways to think visually. When all is said and done, the paintings remain paintings. The narratives are never finished, only suggested. They are fresh every time you look at them.

Charles will be in town for the exhibit opening:

Saturday, September 3, 2011, 6-9 pm

at The Arts Company

215 5th Avenue of the Arts, North

www. theartscompany.com

Tradition matters at The Arts Company, and with good reason

The Annual Avant-Garage Sale (the 15th edition this year) is one of our top gallery traditions. It is a bear of an event to curate from the point of view of gallery staff, but it's a truly fun, affordable, festive summertime event for the groupies who come every year. Not to mention the new friends we make during the event, we think mostly because they didn't know coming to an artsy garage sale could be such an offbeat and surprising event...so "avant," you might say.

From the August 2010 Garage Sale

The selection of goods is wide and random, though our job is to try to corral the treasures we pull out and try to make sense of them. This year in particular, the sale kind of reveals what happens in the backstage areas of our gallery. Every year is like an archaeological dig with this year's treasures including: extra frames that have lingered long after the project was over; some gear for making shelving; and a few special baskets and boxes used for exhibit props. Our well-loved vintage drafting table and stool have long outlived our need for them, same with a couple of flat files.

Some great white empty frames that need a new home!

Photographs, paintings, and sculpture from estates and/or from our customers who collect and for one reason or another need to bring in pieces that no longer fit their decor or lifestyle or they are moving and can't take it all with them. This second chance for these pieces is a great opportunity for our avant-garage guests to find neat artwork or furniture or related artifacts that suit them perfectly.

Billyo O'Donnell, Last Light of the Construction, oil on canvas

This year in particular, folks have brought us a lot of pieces from a variety of regional artists.

Plus, we always add a lot of truly unexpected fun decor kind of stuff that has lingered for more than a few generations in people's closets far too long and needs new homes. Pieces such as odd assortments of neat bowls, pitchers, baskets, chairs, tables, lamps, some of which are true treasures that mix well in contemporary settings. To name a few: 2 book presses, vintage gold leaf cornices, a rare folding wooden farm table, and 2 sets of sofa chairs designed by Nashville's interior design legend, Herbert Rodgers. We even have signed, limited photographs by Eisenstadt, John Loengard, and others.

Vintage 4-part couch - by renowned Nashville designer, Herbert Rodgers

And then there are the art books and the vintage children's books and the cd's and a selection of classic record album covers (with the records still in them), and a few lingering art posters. Some are signed and rare.

Equally important, the prices are right. And the lemonade is plentiful and ice cold. We give up our two gallery parking spaces in the avant-garage for this one-week-long event.

This Arts Company tradition--our Avant-Garage Sale--continues each year just to see how much neat stuff we can pull out and make sense of so that our guests are inspired to give it a new life in their own lives. Remember, this is a curated exhibit, which means we have seriously searched through the remains of the past year and come up with some gems worthy of your attention.

How many curated art-related garage sales have you been to lately?

15th Annual Avant-Garage Sale

Opening Saturday, August 6, 2011

11-9:00 pm / Reception 6-9 during First Saturday Art Crawl

Continues one-week only: August 6-13

When Artists Collect Art, People Want to Know What and Why

...not just to be nosy, but to know more about the particular mindset, taste, and interest of the collecting artist. The why's and when's are particularly interesting in the forthcoming August Collectors Art Night guest collector/artist, John Nikolai, because John's work is seemingly eons removed from Andy Warhol's. Yet, John has collected more than one Warhol, and he has lived with them for a long while. The last one we helped him sell sold virtually overnight to an art dealer in London who specializes in Warhol.

John Nikolai in Ireland with his trademark toboggan

But before we put the information out online this time, we wanted to host a special collectors night with John--one of our favorite artists--as our guest so we could pick his brain a little about what has driven him to collect. He's also bringing along a rare hand-written letter from Greta Garbo and lots of Garbo memorabilia he has collected since he was a teenager. Reading the letter will show you just how cranky her mind could be; and looking at the photographs that are beside it reminds you how glamorous she could be.

Andy Warhol, Self-Portrait, offset lithograph on silver-coated paper, 243/300, 1966

The Warhol and the Garbo material will be available for purchase, along with a few other miscellaneous selections John is bringing. But, in addition, we have asked him to bring along other pieces that are of particular personal importance to him, though not for sale, but just there as samples of artwork he chooses personally. For instance, two pieces he is bringing just to show are related to two of his Nashville friends who are also artists--a watercolor by John Baeder and a classic photograph by Jim McGuire.

Greta Garbo hand-written letter and photographs

There is a sub-text to all of this as well. This is our gallery Bon Voyage to John, who will be moving to his beloved Ireland this fall. We will also be showing selected work from his exhibits at The Arts Company in recent years. Their subject? Mostly Ireland, of course. All hauntingly beautiful. Each one an original. No two ever alike.

John Nikolai, Waiting on Shore, archival photograph

We may have to whip up some Irish champagne if there is such a thing, and hope we can persuade him to continue to send us new work from across the water. He just now came back from a trip to Ireland, bringing many rolls of film. Since John prefers the old-fashioned method of shooting with film, it takes time to get everything converted, selected, and printed by him personally according to his most precise expectations. Maybe by the time he leaves the country, he will have a group of new photographs to leave with us.

Come join the conversation with John and consider what makes collecting passionate and personal in your own life. His artistic vision and energy will engage you, for sure.

John Nikolai, Self-Potrait

So, Bon Voyage, Farewell, So Long, and au Revoir to John...and come back soon bringing more fresh art and neat insights.

Visit with John during

Collectors Art Night at The Arts Company

Friday, August 5, 2011

5:30 Reception & refreshments

6:00 Conversation with John Nikolai

Remember: Space Limited. Reservations required.

and Complimentary valet parking

R.S.V.P. to 5thAvenueOfTheArts@gmail.com

and be our VIP guest for the evening

Nashville's tipping point in the arts Commentary by Anne Brown

You know for sure Nashville is nearing the tipping point in the arts when a national business publication makes the point for us. Here's the way Jason Ankeny put it in his article, "The art of online commerce," in the current issue (July 2011) of Entrepreneur magazine.

"Nashville is justly celebrated as Music City, but the Tennessee state capital's dedication to the arts doesn't end at the Grand Ole Opry. Downtown Nashville is also the nexus of a thriving visual arts community." Pointing out that the city's Fifth Avenue corridor now boasts more than a dozen gallery spaces that attract some 1000 visitors each month during First Saturday, Jason calls what's happening here "Nashville's creative renaissance."

"Spirit of the River" by Charles Keiger

The article then credits The Arts Company as the gallery that pioneered the idea of making the arts a central part of the Nashville marketplace by establishing an art gallery in the middle of a downtown block full of dark empty buildings in 1996, now a vibrant artistic block that boasts many other art venues today.

But that's only the tip of the tipping point to which this article refers. That was then. This is now. The real challenge ahead for the world of art galleries and related artistic enterprises is the same as for other businesses--how to define and build a bold and energetic role for the arts in the new online marketplaces that are evolving all around us. The Arts Company is still leading a charge forward to making an art business a successful player in the middle of the new online marketplaces.

"Dancing Feet" by Norman Lerner

We have learned already that a brick and mortar location is part of the new way of doing business, but expecting that to remain the one and only venue for showing and selling art is a pipe dream. Those days are over. Not gone. Just over. That cannot be the sole model. The business of art is being challenged to the bone like all other businesses. Fortunately, the new days promise to be more interesting.

Necessity number one is latching on to the online revolution. How to harness social commerce in tasteful, exciting ways requires turning a business upside down and recreating it. Constantly recreating it. It helps that art is a passionate and creative enterprise by definition. Clearly, this is no time to be timid.

"Shelby Street Bridge" by Steven Walker

That's why we were attracted to Moontoast, our online social commerce platform. They are open to the challenge of taking online commerce beyond widgets. We are still at the very beginning of re-thinking our online initiatives. What we can say is that it is very labor-intensive. And very exciting!

We can also say there is something about Nashville that brings out the entrepreneurial spirit in lots of folks. It's the spirit that tells you when you know you are on to something you just go with it however far you have to go. For The Arts Company, being singled out as part of "Nashville's creative renaissance" gives us incentive and responsibility to keep on keeping on.

We are ready to embrace the new online art frontier to complement the 5th Avenue storefront we established 15 years ago, and we're looking forward to this unscripted future....

www.theartscompany.com