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Athens of the South

ElGreko

Last summer this mural went up on a new restaurant that wasn’t even open at the time. Usually, you get the business first and the art later, but art seems to be a key element of Greko Greek Street Food, as the interior walls are heavily decorated as well. It makes some sense that Mobe Oner (nome de paintbrush of Eric Bass) would feature Athens as part of a mural for a Greek restaurant, but “Athens of the South” is a nickname for Nashville that rests on the presence of Vanderbilt and later many other universities. (Your intrepid blogger, as both a Vandy and a UGA grad, is torn about this, as there is another southern university town actually named “Athens.”) This is one of the reasons that Nashville sports a full-scale replica of the original Parthenon in the original Athens. The Nashville Parthenon is seen in the “H,” while “A” recognizes the Predators and the Titans, “T” the restaurant itself, “E” The Stage on Broadway, and “N” the Nashville skyline. “S” contains one of the best known though not best-loved pieces of outdoor art in Nashville, the Musica statue. I have yet to blog about it. Someday.

Athens

Located at 704 Main Street. The mural is on the east side of the building, facing the parking lot of the Mapco Mart next door. Greko has parking, and there is some free parking on 7th street. Grab you some skewered grilled meat and enjoy the art!

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300 – Map Edition

ArtMap

As of the last posting, That boat has sailed, there are now three hundred marked points where you can (or could) look for art on this blog’s map. Some points actually reference several pieces of art and multiple posts, notably for the Norf Wall and Off the Wall projects. Some of the art, including the one from the last post, no longer exists. I am working on updating the relevant pages. This isn’t just a guide though, it’s also an archive (I am an historian, after all), so I think it’s important to maintain a record of what has come and gone.

I went through all the markers to catch any editing problems. Along the way, I noticed something. Each marker has an image of the art that can be found at that spot. I have become a lot more particular about the photos I use on this blog. Whereas I once tolerated heavy shadows and bad light, I do so no more. I have several images for future posts filed under the heading “needs to be reshot!”

The blog is motoring along as we approach the second anniversary in June. In 2017, 400-700 page views a month was normal. Since January,  1400 has been the norm, peaking with 1675 in March. In all of 2017, there were 7583 page views. As of this posting, there have 6243 for all of 2018 so far, more than double last year’s pace. Still small potatoes, but a healthy growth trajectory. It helps that some posts remain perennially popular. The Kind Way is the reigning champ.

Located on a tab on the menu bar. Look for a new menu tab soonish for artists (though not right away – it’s a slow process and I’m about halfway through).

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That boat has sailed

PropShop

I was going to post this a few days ago, but I thought I would visit Prop Shop Sales and Services and see if anyone inside knew who had painted this piece. Sure, it’s not the most beautiful piece of outdoor art in Nashville, but it has some goofy charm, and it’s been a landmark on Main for many years. Well, it’s gone, and so is Prop Shop. I was never quite sure why a boat shop was on Main Street, as we are not exactly on the water. But for many years, Main Street and Five Points were where you came to get your car fixed in Nashville, and Prop Shop apparently did mostly rotor repairs, and so at one time, it fit the neighborhood just fine. Now, most of the auto repair shops have left, many of their buildings now housing restaurants and bars. The Prop Shop building has been gussied up and put up for sale, the goofy boat mural replaced with a business-friendly shade of green. Whether it becomes the nest trendy bar remains to be seen. Prop Shop doesn’t seem to have much of an internet presence, which is just as well given that, like the mural, it is no more.

Located (formerly) at 719 Main Street. Plenty of parking, if you’d like to get your portrait done in front of a green wall of a shade one might find in an office-sharing place.

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Building who’s Nashville?

ChurchStFull

Ordinarily, I like to keep people out of the pictures I use on this blog. But for this particular mural, done by Michael Cooper of Murals and Moore, that’s not easy. Church Street Park, known also as Library Park, has become a gathering ground for homeless Nashvillians. Some of this is because it lies across from the downtown Main Library, which has made efforts to reach out to the homeless. Not surprisingly, the presence of homeless people in such a prominent spot has raised controversy. That controversy is probably behind the willingness of Mayor David Briley to back a controversial proposal to allow developer Tony Giarratana to build a commercial high rise tower on the property in exchange for also building an apartment complex for the homeless on James Robertson Parkway. Ten years ago, the city bulldozed and rebuilt the park to rid the park of pesky starlings. Now they might just demolish it so they can rid it of the homeless. Whether the deal with Giarratana goes through remains to be seen. If it does, Cooper’s mural suggesting an unfinished but growing Nashville will almost certainly disappear. Call it endangered art.

ChurchStLeftChurchStRight

Located at 600 Church Street, across from the downtown library. This is downtown, so plenty of parking, almost none of it free. The library parking garage has reasonable rates, including ninety free minutes with validation. Peruse the stacks and enjoy the art!

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Carter Vintage Guitars (Part 2)

CarterFull

On the south side of Carter Vintage Guitars is a mural of a giant guitar (see Part 1, below), while on the north side we find this quiet tribute to Maybelle Carter. It’s a Vermillion Murals production (professional home of Jenna Boyko Colt and Brian Law) like the mural on the south side of the building. The image of Maybelle is taken from a well-known photo of her with A.P. and Sara Carter. While the south side features a full Gibson guitar, here we see just the head. Walter Carter, who along with his wife Christie Carter founded Carter Vintage, has in fact written a book about Gibson guitars. (No apparent relation between them and the Carter Family.)

Part 1

Located at 625 8th Avenue South. Most of the parking lot you see here is a paid lot, unless you are a customer of Carter Vintage or Arnold’s Country Kitchen. There is a small amount of free street parking on 9th Ave and the street between Carter Vintage and Jackalope Brewery that seems to also be called Division Street (unlike the Division Street one block farther south), and there are other paid lots in the area. Grab some grub, browse the vintage guitars, and enjoy the art!

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Porcine Angels

HogHeaven

Get the white sauce. White sauce barbeque you ask? Trust me on this. Get the white sauce. I first started going to Hog Heaven in my graduate years at Vanderbilt, just a few years after it opened, and I remain a fan. The sign/mural is signed “Atrau Palin 2010.” That name leads to a MySpace page that doesn’t seem to have any art on it. There is also a page entitled “Art by Atrau Palin” that also has no art on it. But this sign at least is fun, and perhaps someday Palin will come out of the woodwork to do more work in the future.

Get the white sauce.

Located at 115 27th Avenue South. The mural is on the south side of the building. Hog Heaven is right off of the 2700 block of West End behind the McDonalds and next to the world famous (well, it ought to be) dive bar Springwater. Hog Heaven faces Centennial Park. There is some street parking nearby and some in the park, so get you a BBQ picnic and enjoy the art!

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Treehouse Art

TreehouseMain

This would qualify as hidden (or semi-hidden) art were it not for the scads and scads of people grabbing some of the only free parking in Five Points. The mural sits on the backside of The Treehouse Restaraunt. Treehouse opened in 2013 and quickly gained a solid reputation, though the mural didn’t appear until June 2015. Treehouse’s Instagram account credits the Brothers Collective made up of Joseph Copeland and Alic Brock. Brock is better known (at least in his artist persona) as Alic Daniel, and has been seen on this blog in Off the wall (Part 2). Hans seems to have deleted his Instagram and other accounts, and I haven’t been able to locate him. The scribbled lines are characteristic of Daniel. The rest, including Daniel Day-Lewis as Bill the Butcher and various presidents, I’m uncertain as to the contributor. It’s impossible, certainly without a fisheye lens, to get the whole mural into one shot. See below for the rest and for close-ups.

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Located at 1011 Clearview Ave. Clearview is the narrow road not much bigger than an alley that is the fifth road in Five Points. The mural is on the back (north) side of the building, facing the alley. You are unlikely to get a clear view of the mural when Treehouse is open – your best bet is early in the morning. Free parking is available on Clearview and some neighboring streets, and there are numerous pay lots nearby.

 

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