UPDATE: This and all the murals in this series were destroyed in the Christmas Day Bombing.

Back in the summer of 2018, a group of women artists in Nashville created a series of abstract murals to spruce up the drab exterior of the AT&T building. No, not the Batman Building on Commerce Street, but the giant brick AT&T Central Office on 2nd Avenue. It contains offices as well as phone and cable service infrastructure, and is almost windowless. On an otherwise colorful and lively 2nd Avenue, it is something of massive, dull box. The colorful, playful murals provide a nice contrast to the the more severe building.

The murals are the product of a collaboration between AT&T, the Nashville Downtown Partnership, The DISTRICT, Nashville Metro Arts Commission, and The Studio 208. Specifically, AT&T participated through the Women of AT&T organization, reflecting perhaps that all of the artists for the project are women. Ashley Segroves of The Studio 208 curated the murals. The murals are all abstract, and are meant to display positivity, playfulness, and cheerfulness.

I’m going to post them in a series, running left to right (south to north). The first of these, featured above, is by Beth Inglish, a prolific local artist and founder of the Nashville Creative Group. Like all the murals, it was printed as a series of posters, and placed on what had been empty windows on the ground floor of the AT&T building. (Here’s a gif of it being installed.) It features the dynamic swirling lines and bold colors found in much of the rest of her work.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting the other murals in the series. There are eight in all. Below is a shot that gives you a better idea of the context of these murals. Though it looks like winter, I actually took the photo below in April, 2019. Some of the photos for this series were taken then, others in March, 2020.

UPDATE: I’ve been told by the artist that this is based on a larger work done on canvas that is as of press time still available.

You can see the other murals in this series (once I’ve posted them all, there are eight in all) using the links below.

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

Located at 185 2nd Avenue North. Inglish’s mural is at the south end of the building, near a parking garage. This is downtown – lots of parking, almost none of it free.