Murals Archives - nashville public art

‘Round Back at Capital City Computers

In my consistent effort to bring you timely updates on Nashville’s outdoor art scene, I bring you this mural by Jack Coyle that went up in late December 2020. Ok, so not that timely but I try!

The Capital City Computers building is something of a mini-art gallery. Besides this Coyle piece found on the back wall, there are two other murals. On the north wall, there is a mural of colorful, wavy lines by the artist who goes by Sterbo. That mural appeared at the same time this Coyle piece did. The south wall has long hosted what I call the Young Warlords mural, a portrait of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as they looked back in the 1980s which was done by Bryan Deese, wand hich Capital City uses on their webpage. There aren’t many buildings in town that are this thoroughly decorated.

The surreal imagery in this mural is in keeping with a mural Coyle did even earlier at 912 Main Street, which I am surprised has survived the fast pace of development on Main – so far at least. Definitely check that one out soon.

Located at 1106 Gallatin Ave. The mural is on the back of the building, away from Gallatin. There is parking at Capital City. Probably the best time to visit and see all three murals is on the weekend when Capital City Computers is closed. Capital City Computers is across the street from Publix.

March 15, 2022 0

The Commodore Grille, Part 1

Commodore Grill Mural Nashville Street art

Because I took a break from the blog for a while, I’ve missed some new art. But I also have a back catalog, if you will, of older art that still needs to make it to the blog. And the double mural at the Commodore Grille is an important work I should have put on the blog a long time ago.

What makes this work important is its location, for the Commodore Grille sits in the Holiday Inn building on West End. This makes the murals at the Commodore Grille some of the very first murals on a building owned by a national chain in Nashville. Depending on how you define “major,” it might also qualify for the very first on a building owned by a major chain. This mural and its companion (which I will feature soon in an upcoming post) were done by Mobe Oner (Eric Bass) in April 2019 in honor of the Grille’s 50th anniversary. As such, they beat out the mural at our local branch of Top Golf by a couple of months and the one at the Kroger near Five Points by a few more. The only mural at a national chain in Nashville that appeared earlier that I am aware of is the one at what used to be a Holler & Dash and is now rebranded as a branch of Maple Street Biscuit Company. That one was created by Meghan Wood of I Saw the Sign in early 2018. Ashley Bergeron of The Studio 208 helped Mobe Oner get the Grille and Holiday Inn to take this leap and put local art on a national chain.

It’s also an early example of an interactive mural, or at least it was. At one point there was a stool in the middle where people could get their picture made between the two songwriters. While the famous wings mural was probably the first intentionally interactive mural in Nashville, as a trend interactive murals didn’t really take off until around the time the Commodore Grille murals went up. (The Gulch wings mural went up in 2016, around the time I started this blog.)

The anonymous songwriters in this mural are an obvious theme for the Commodore Grille, as songwriters’ nights and open mic nights are a regular feature of the entertainment there. If you want to see a very different version of Nashville music from the one found down on Lower Broad, you might want to check out the Commodore Grille.

Located at 2613 West End Avenue. The mural faces west towards 28th Avenue South. This is a busy area with lots of parking, but most of it is tied to local businesses. You might try the parking garage on the 2500 block of West End or look for street parking on Vanderbilt Place a block south of the mural.

February 11, 2022 1

The Local Distro Youth Mural

Back last summer, in June, a bright, vibrant mural appeared on the side of The Local Distro in Salemtown, facing onto their outdoor dining area. It was the product of many hands, a true community mural put together by a number of artists, nonprofits, and the children of the neighborhood. (According to the Tennessean, many came from the nearby Chetham Place housing community.)

(I have been having technical trouble with featured photos. If you don’t see the full mural at the top of the post, scroll down to the bottom.)

Leading the project was the artist Omari Booker, who just happens to be a graduate of Tennessee State University’s Art Department (being a TSU History prof, I’m more than happy to point to the success of a TSU grad). Other artists were involved, including Lee Ann Love, Devone Marie, and Dough Joe. But as a community project, the mural also is the product of local youth, brought together by My Canvas Youth Arts (which was co-founded by Love). Family and Children’s Services also helped sponsor the project.

Booker and thirty-four youth artists worked with art therapist Devon Billions-Gomez of Inspritus, a social services non-profit, to develop the themes for the mural. The ideas they developed focus on many prominent current issues, such as police brutality and the work of Black Lives Matter. The tornado represents the March 2020 storm that devastated much of North and East Nashville. The mural was officially unveiled on June 13, 2021.

Booker is no stranger to this kind of work. He participated in the “We Are Seeds” community mural in 2019, which was also a youth collaboration, and he recently collaborated on a piece at the Oasis Center that I will feature later.

I almost made the mistake of saying this mural was in Germantown, but the blocks bordered by Rosa Parks Boulevard, Hume Street, 3rd Ave North, and the interstate are Salmentown, a neighborhood chopped up badly when the interstate was built.

Located at 614 Garfield Street, at the corner with 7th Ave North. The mural faces 7th. Street parking is available on 7th, and if you are a patron of the Local Distro, behind their building.

February 6, 2022 0

All Aboard the Shiner Express!

If you’re standing on the west side of the upper decks of Topgolf and look off to your right, you might see a train, because there’s a track down there. Indeed, if there wasn’t a net to catch golfballs, you could hit a passing train. Look across the street, and you’re guaranteed to see a train – well, a mural of one, anyway.

(I have been having some issues with featured photos. If you don’t see a photo at the top of this post, scroll down to the bottom to see the full mural.)

This mural of a fanciful Shiner Bock Train hauling a giant can and an even larger bottle of the brew went up in early September. It’s the work of Malcolm Byers, an artist out of Denton, Texas. That delights me because a bunch of my relatives went to college in Denton, I have a lot of family there, and I lived there as a little kid when my parents were in graduate school. In the before times, I was out there for a family wedding and saw a lot of murals, and maybe even some of Byers’s work.

This of course is an advertisement for the Shiner company, who sponsored it, and they have a great video of Byers working on the mural on their Instagram account. I scrolled through that account and didn’t see other murals, so this is something of a departure for them.

Perhaps not surprising for what is basically an ad, the mural was designed by Anat Ronen in conjunction with the ad agency Bakery. Like Byers, Ronen is a Texas artist. Bakery has done other work with Shiner, including a series of comic TV ads. This is all a Texas affair, as Bakery and Shiner are also out of the Lone Star State. (Me too – I was born in San Antonio.)

How long this mural and the apparent storage building it’s on will be around is anybody’s guess. This part of Nashville is slated for major redevelopment. Most of that development is planned for the other side of Topgolf, along the riverbank, but if it turns out looking anything like this rendering, everything is up for grabs in this traditionally industrial neighborhood. Even more so given that Oracle is building a major project just up the street.

But this is the new Nashville, and nothing lasts forever. So get your pictures while you can!

Located at 403 Cowan Street, directly across the street from Topgolf. There’s a gravel lot across the street that probably belongs to Topgolf. There is no street parking anywhere nearby.

November 30, 2021 0

One Drop Ink

I had already planned to write my next blog post about this giant mural at One Drop Ink when the Tennessean decided to feature one of the artists who created it, Elisheba Israel Mrozik, earlier this week. That was of course about yet another mural she’s produced (along with the help of a number of young artists) – I need to post more to keep up!

(I have been having some trouble with featured photos. If you don’t see a photo at the top of the blog post, scroll to the bottom where I repeat it.)

Mrozik is the owner and an artist at One Drop Ink, and this particular piece is a collaboration with another of the artists there, Michael “Ol Skool” Mucker. Mucker unfortunately was the victim of a hack, and the Instagram signature on the mural no longer works – you’ll find his new account here.

Talking about the more recent mural, Mrozik told the Tennessean (you can hear her talk about it in the video on this link):

“I feel like my place in all of this is to bring the Black form and Black art and the North Nashville communitty to the world and to the rest of Nashville.”

The art that she has done in Nashville certainly follows those themes. A mural that sadly has been recently painted over that she did a few years ago has some similarities to this one, featuring a regal black figure with bright white eyes and surrounded by the images of space, sky, math, and the sciences. Here in this mural that she did with Mucker, we again see the regal figures with the mysteries of space, but also symbols of wealth, power, and the African heritage of Black Americans.

The mural went up last summer, and you can see here that it was painted in stages, with the two portraits done first, and the space imagery and the masks added later.

This mural is part of several that have gone up in the Jefferson Street and Buchanan Street neighborhoods during the pandemic months that depict Black themes and issues, and Mrozik participated in some of those others as well. This region of North Nashville is one of the most vibrant areas for outdoor art, forming a critical part of the visual fabric of our community.

Located at 1511 Jefferson Street. The mural is on the east side of the building, facing towards downtown. There is a large parking lot in front of the mural.

October 28, 2021 0

Urban Roots

One casualty of the pandemic is that I don’t spend as much time driving around town as I did before, and so I didn’t discover this mural from February 2020, created at the tail end of the “before times,” until quite recently. That it’s somewhat hidden away in a less-trafficked part of Germantown didn’t help, but in a recent drive around the neighborhood, it’s one of a few new works of art I found there that have appeared during the months of the pandemic.

This particular mural is a production by the Murfreesboro artists Travis and Alicia Maynard, who work under the moniker Murfreesboro Murals. This is the second of their works featured on this blog, the other being a mural at Beaut Creations on Jefferson Street, which went up back in 2019.

While that mural also features flowers, that’s a coincidence and not a real theme for Murfreesboro Murals. Here it’s a nod to the sponsor, Urban Roots Market. Urban Roots bills itself as a purveyor of natural and CBD products and uses an image of roots in its logo. So a deeply rooted tree festooned with a wild abundance of flowers and symbols of Nashville makes sense.

Crowning the tree is the Nashville skyline, recognizable by its signature Batman Building. The seal from the Tennesse flag, a guitar and sax, and a musical score round out the Nashville symbolism. I tried playing the tune, but it’s not one I recognize.

The odd crop? I do like to show art in context, but really, it’s about not wanting Facebook to murder the crop when this article gets shared there.

Located at 1307 2nd Avenue North, near the corner with Monroe Street. The mural is on the south side of the building, facing towards downtown. Street parking is available on 2nd, and there is a small parking lot in front of the building.

October 21, 2021 0

All aboard! The Sylvan Supply Train Mural

After Madison Mill closed its factory off Charlotte Avenue and moved to Ashville, NC in 2015, the dilapidated campus of buildings it left behind remained empty for several years. With its abundant walls and concealed spaces, it became a favorite target for graffiti taggers.

In 2016, Stonehenge Realty Group proposed turning it into a mixed-use project with retail and 400 apartments, but this stalled after significant objection from residents of the Sylvan Park neighborhood, where the old factory is located. The following year, Stonehenge proposed a new project to be called The Millworks on Charlotte that would only be offices and commercial space, minus the apartments. This project also failed to come to fruition, and it seemed the site might simply be torn down.

However, in 2018, Third and Urban, a real estate development company out of Atlanta, took over the site with their own plans for a retail and office complex. Before serious construction took place, the soil itself needed to be rehabilitated after sixty years of industrial production. But this time the efforts to develop the site finally bore fruit, and in August 2020, it opened as Sylvan Supply.

Which finally brings us to our mural. This dynamic portrait of an L&N Railroad engine barreling down on us is by the prolific local mural team Eastside Murals, who lately have been signing their work “Out East Boys.” According to the artists, the design was inspired by the rail lines that run alongside the complex and even go inside the buildings, no doubt put there to ease the delivery of wood and the shipping out of products when Madison Mill was churning out dowels for 60 years. The mural sits on the wall of a parking garage which faces down a long corridor in the middle of the complex. The effect is very much like a train hurtling down a tunnel, coming straight for the viewer.

This isn’t the only mural at Sylvan Supply. Indeed, this retail/office complex is something of an outdoor art gallery, much as it was when it was covered with graffiti art. I’ll be writing about the other pieces later, but just explore a bit and you’ll find the other art.

Located at 4101 Charlotte Avenue, at the corner with 42nd Avenue. The parking garage lies at the back end (south) of the complex, the part farthest from Charlotte Avenue. The corridor splits the main part of the Sylvan Supply down the middle. If you are coming from 42nd, just walk away from 42nd into the complex, and you will find it.

October 12, 2021 0

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