The mural I recently featured in Here and gone (part 2) is no more. I drove past the Salon Mogulz/Fancy Lash and Beauty Bar building at 951 Main Street earlier this evening, and the mural is replaced with a dark grey wall. Perhaps a new mural is planned. I’ll keep an eye out.
Sometimes you have to start small. There are certain sites around town that are intimidating to tackle because there is simply so much art. One place I drive by a lot is Jerry’s Market on Gallatin and it’s impossible not to notice that it and the surrounding buildings have a lot of art on them. Get out of your car, though, and you’ll discover there’s a lot more than you probably realize. Jerry’s Market, Hookah Kings Lounge, Street Customs, and (to a lesser extent) Collision Repair Service are simply bursting with art. It’s way too much to manage in one blog post. So I.m starting small with this Dustin Spagnola piece. Spagnola is an Ashville, NC artist who has done a fair amount of street art. The flamenco dancer is a theme he has used elsewhere. He’s one more example of how Nashville is not just a canvas for local artists but has become a destination for artists around the country and around the world.
Located at 1401 Gallatin Avenue, at the corner with Straightway Avenue. This Spagnola piece faces Gallatin, on the east side of the road. Some parking at Jerry’s, as well as some street parking on Straightway.
This piece, on the south wall of Twelfth and Porter, went up almost precisely two years ago (your intrepid blogger aims always to be current) and is credited to the artist Kim Kennedy. Try looking for the “artist Kim Kennedy” in your favorite search engine. I found at least four. But I nailed it down to this woman, who is both a visual artist and a musician. I kind of like the work of Australian artist Kim Kennedy as well, but he did not come to Nashville to make this mural. The Kim Kennedy who made this mural is Nashville-based, so it wasn’t such a long commute. The musician depicted in the mural is Dave Baker, and, wouldn’t you know, there’s more than one musician by that name as well. The Dave Baker depicted here is a Nashville guitarist – but there’s also a recently deceased jazz composer by that name as well (who sported quite the beard himself).
Located, where else, at the intersection of Twelfth Avenue North and Porter Street. Parking during the day is fairly easy in this area, but at night you might have to compete with people going to a show.
So I’ve been posting a little less because I’ve been working on the map. I figured out how to add photos to the map markers. Now bear with me, this is complicated. In the edit box for the marker, there’s a camera icon. You click on that and you can upload a photo. I know! Who would have ever imagined? Anyway, now when you click on a marker, you see a photo, as well as a link to the relevant blog post. All future markers will have photos as well. This should make for a more useful map.
Coming soon – more art!
Blog is sort of quiet at the moment. Much travels by your intrepid blogger. Will update as I can – don’t expect many posts if any this week.
Your intrepid blogger is off to foreign lands for a week, so no posts for a few days. I did see some Norf Collective guys buying a bunch of paint at Home Deopt yesterday, so be on the lookout for a new piece by them.
Keep looking for art in all the odd places!
Gibson Guitar is selling the building at 1117 Church St., so the fate of this giant guitar and the guitar mural on the other side (see below) is uncertain. I’m putting them both in the category “endangered art.” If you have any insights or inside information, please post in the comments.
The mural is on the west side of the building, best seen from Church St, though at present a construction fence complicates the view. Park below the bridge and take the stairs — they come out right in front of the building. The guitar, on the southeast corner, is a little harder. The land closest to it is inside a locked fence. If you can’t get in, the parking lot across from Chauhan Ale and Masala House on Grundy St is your best bet, where I took my photo.
