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Paint the town

PainttheTownFull

Donelson is not a neighborhood overflowing with public art, but there are still some impressive pieces.  Near the junction of Old Lebanon Road and Lebanon Pike there are not one but two large murals celebrating community. This one specifically celebrates Donelson, while the other, which I’ll feature later, is more loosely focused. Here we see all the landmarks a Donelsonian would be familiar with — at least I imagine so, as I don’t live there myself! The mural, located on the east wall of Treasures Consignment,  is cryptically signed KOEL 2014. A little sleuthing (asking inside) reveals that KOEL is, in fact, Kristi Oakley Elswick, who works under the handle Where the Arts Is and apparently goes by just Kristi Elswick these days. A perusal of her page suggests that murals are not her main focus, but she has done at least one other for The Pub of Donelson. You can, if you choose, get a print of the mural above at Treasures, which reveals it is called “Paint the Town.”  I did, and you can see it below!

Located at 2628 Old Lebanon Road, in a building Treasures shares with Hues Salon and Southern Honey Workshop. There is parking in front and at nearby businesses. Get your hair cut, browse the antiques and knick-knacks and enjoy the art!

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No, I didn’t need my taste buds, actually (Bolton’s)

BoltonsAbstractChicken

Maybe you’ve heard we have this thing called hot chicken in Nashville. Maybe? Of course you have. There is the famous story of the cheating man who prompted the creation of hot chicken. But that was only the beginning of a long history. First, there was Prince’s, founded in the 1930s. In the late 1970s, one of Prince’s cooks, Bolton Polk, left and started his own restaurant, originally called Colombo’s. Both restaurants have been forced to move repeatedly because of development, gentrification, and deliberate efforts of city government to push African-Americans out of valuable property. Colombo’s was forced to close when the Titan’s stadium was built. In 1997, the family reopened in a little concrete box on Main Street, under the name Bolton’s Spicy Chicken and Fish, later expanding into a larger building behind the box. More recently, they’ve added new branches on Franklin Pike and in Chatanooga. The Main Street location is covered in art. Two main styles predominate. The older art has a more cartoon style, with jumping fish and hot plates of potatoes, while the newer works are more abstract, with chicken and fish surrounded by and belching flame. Which you will be doing when you get your food. I get the medium. It’s medium in the sense a Category 3 hurricane is medium compared to a Category 5. It’s still a hurricane!

Located at 624-B Main Street. The smaller building is right on the street and impossible to miss. Officially, the parking next door is for Center 615, though on weekends and evenings you’re fine parking there. Otherwise, you’ll need to walk a bit. Get some grub, buy some beer and milk, and enjoy the art!

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Bee Cycle

BeeCycle

It is fantastic that there is dedicated funding to produce works of public art in Nashville. Unsurprisingly, Metro Arts sometimes comes under fire for the projects it funds, because everyone is an art critic, and for perhaps being too focused on downtown. But they’ve also funded a lot of work that has become important to the fabric of this community. It’s hard to imagine the riverfront without the Ghost Ballet, otherwise known as that weird roller-coaster to nowhere. One of the more innovative things Metro Arts has funded is a number of funky bike racks around town, though I rarely see bikes attached to them. This one, called “Bee Cycle,” (November 2016) is the work of Randy Purcell, a local artist. The work itself was inspired in part because Purcell uses beeswax in his paintings. Purcell says the rack is his first work of public art.  Here’s hoping he does more!

Located at the Hadley Park & Community Center at 1037 28th Ave North. The bike rack is located on the south side of the building. If you enter the park from 28th street entrance, the rack is right off the traffic circle on the left side of the building, near the B-Cycle station. Ah, the name of the rack is also a pun! There is parking at the community center and on nearby streets.

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Now also available on Facebook

There is now a Facebook page where I will be reposting all of the posts from this blog, as well as some other things that don’t quite fit the format of the blog. I spent a fair amount of time sharing all the older posts to the new Facebook page. I also repost the main photo from each post on my Instagram account, which has a link back to the blog, so you can also keep up with the blog there.

New art coming soon!

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Just a few feet away

SpringStBridgeEastFull

SpringStBridgeWestFull

Thousands of people pass by this exuberant graffiti installation every day and never see it (or maybe get just a tiny glimpse). It lies underneath Spring Street, alongside the railroad tracks that wend their way through the spaghetti junction where Spring, Dickerson, Main and Ellington Parkway all come together, and with Jefferson and I-24 just a little way away. Make that tens of thousands, maybe more, come close every day but never see it. I first caught glimpse of these murals from quite a distance – you can just see them from where Foster Street crosses the railroad tracks, but it was a longer distance down the tracks than I cared to walk. After much map studying and driving around, I realized the best access was right off Ellington, where there is a pull off area right under the bridge. There is also a good sized homeless encampment just south of the bridge, also hidden from view of the many thousands of drivers who pass through here each day.

Located under Spring Street, as it passes over the railroad tracks that parallel Ellington Parkway. The easiest way to reach this site is to get on Ellington at or north of Cleveland Street, heading south. Just past the Spring Street/I-24/I-65 exit, there is an area where you can pull under the bridge. It may also be possible to reach it by foot from the west side of the bridge just west of 5th and Main. Google Earth shows a gravel “road” starting from First Street North at A-1 Fun Cycle that parallels the tracks up to the spot – maybe if you have a dirt bike? To be clear, I have no idea if any of this is legal, and there is a large homeless encampment less than 100 feet south from where the murals are.

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Out of the shadows (for now)

ZophieStBarn1

There used to be a Spanish language church on Trinity Lane, just a hundred feet or so from Gallatin. “Jesus te ama” – “Jesus loves you” declared the sign out front. It got knocked down. I’m putting my money on condos or apartments to take its place. But this has temporarily brought to light a graffiti mural that otherwise remained fairly well hidden. On the alleyway between Zophi Street and Trinity Lane (which Google declares to be “2036 Alley”), the backside of a small barn has become a canvas for the prolific local artist who goes by Rasmo, of the UH crew. The washed out psychedelic color palette is not something I’ve seen before here in Nashville, but I don’t claim to have seen everything. The man with the upturned cap is a common theme in UH installations.

Located in the alley behind 1076 Zophi Street. That’s a private residence, so I recommend parking at Checkers at 3001 Gallatin Pike, at the corner of Trinity Lane. The alley and the barn are just a few feet away.

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Now I know my ABCs!

GermantownCafeFull

More and more businesses in Nashville are coming to understand that art sells, and thus we have at least three professional mural “companies” in Nashville (two seem to be just one artist, one is a team of two). Germantown Pub at the corner of Monroe and Rosa Parks is a prominent adopter of this trend. A huge, long mural speaks loudly of neighborhood pride, forming an informal gateway into Germantown. Of course, the pub itself is a symbol of the transformation of this area. I forget the name of the restaurant, but I remember years ago going to this building and eating in the kind of place you got fried fish on a piece of white bread for just a few bucks, and most of the crew and clientele were African-American. You can still get a catfish sandwich here, but it’s a decidedly more expensive place, and like the neighborhood, the demographics have changed. The mural is signed “Billups & Tomasek,” as in Anthony Billups and Dean Tomasek of Music City Murals, also responsible for the mural in Have a beer! A really big beer! (As noted in that post, at least two people/teams in town use the Music City Murals moniker – I don’t know if there is a connection.) The mural references many facets of Germantown and the Bicentennial Mall. In some cases, the letters make sense. The “A” is the Church of the Assumption, the “M” is Monell’s, and the “G” is Gerst Beer, while the second “N” is the “N” of the Nashville Sounds. But what the “E” has to do with Werthan Mills Lofts, or the “R” with the Farmer’s Market (or maybe Smiley’s Produce?), or the “T” has to do with construction or the first “N” with the World War II memorial in Bicentennial Mall, I don’t know. The “W” with the First Tennesee ballpark scoreboard at least flows into the second “N” of the Nashville Sounds. The “O” is Bearded Iris Brewing. Oh, what a good beer?

The address of Germantown Pub is 708 Monroe Street, but both the pub and the mural face the 1300 block of Rosa Parks Blvd. The pub has plenty of parking, and street parking is available nearby. Grab a brew and enjoy the art!

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