Note: All of the murals in this series were destroyed in the Christmas Day Bombing in Nashville. I will be doing a write up on the whole series and its loss soon. First, I want to complete the series. This is the final of eight.
Working left to right on what used to be the wall of window murals at the AT&T Central Office on 2nd Avenue (not to be confused with the more famous AT&T building in Nashville, the Batman Building on Commerce Street) the eighth work was by Elise R. Kendrick. This was the right-most window mural, right next to the entranceway.
It was part of series of murals on the building sponsored by AT&T, the Nashville Downtown Partnership, The DISTRICT, Nashville Metro Arts Commission, and The Studio 208. All were done by women, and the project was curated by Ashley Segroves of The Studio 208. They were are all on vinyl, and went up in the summer of 2018.
Kendrick is a graduate of Tennessee State University with a degree in Art (where I work as a History professor) and originally focused on jewelry and metals, before moving on to painting. Much of her work is portraiture, particularly of African-Americans. Abstract art is not a common theme, at least based on her Instagram page, and to my knowledge this was her first mural. She described the experience as “pushing me outside my comfort zone.” It’s a beautiful piece and a shame it’s been lost. She also made at least one studio version, but I do not know if it is available. Many of her recent works involve surrounding the portraits she does with a field of words and ideas.
UPDATE: I failed to notice when I first posted that this was the 700th post on this blog.
You can see the other murals in this series using the links below. There’s a bit more information about the project in Part 1. Later this week I plan to write a retrospective of the project and its destruction.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 9
This image gives you an idea of the setting, as it was seen with the other two murals at the right (north) end of the series.
Located (formerly) at 185 2nd Avenue North. It seems superfluous to talk about parking, but when this site can be visited again, remember that this is downtown – lots of parking, almost none of it free.
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