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nashville public art

Nashville murals, street art, graffiti, signs, sculptures and more

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Face the line

Rolf&DFront

Rolf and Daughters is one of the top restaurants in town, with a national reputation. And it’s got a special mural to go with that reputation. This mural, put up in 2014, is the work of Shantell Martin, an artist based in Buffalo, NY who is known for her black and white line compositions that mix words, faces, and other imagery. On her website, there’s a page where you can see how the mural progressed. Be sure to scroll to the bottom to catch the photo of the Rolf and Daughters staff posing in front of the mural.

Located at 700 Taylor Street in Germantown. The mural faces south, dead across the street from where 7th Avenue North dead ends into Taylor. There is street parking available, though depending on time of day you might have to walk a bit. R&D only reserves a portion of their tables. The rest are for walk-ins. Reserve a table, or try your luck. Either way, enjoy the art!

RolfandDSide

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What’s in a face?

Baxterface

Corporate America is not big on public art. Oh sure, major corporations routinely fund art projects, often to beautify their own facilities or to gain some good publicity, but when it comes to the brand, the brand must be pure. And if the company is building chain stores across the country, be they restaurants or retail, little deviation is allowed. Chain stores and restaurants seem to exude some kind of cloud that kills public art. The worst place to look for public art of any kind are those four-lane thoroughfares that have miles of national chains up and down them. Which is why I’m 99.99% certain this face on the property of the Family Dollar at the corner of Home and Gallatin was not authorized, and will probably be painted over soon enough. This is found on a concrete enclosure protecting the store’s garbage dumpster. Less interesting graffiti is found on the other two sides of the enclosure. A note to business owners tired of cleaning up graffiti – you should put in murals. Taggers are mostly respectful of mural art. You could save yourself the trouble of cleaning up graffiti and make the neighborhood more interesting in one go!

Located at 3407 Gallatin Pike. The face is found on a concrete “box” behind the store, at the corner of Home and Baxter, facing Baxter. Load up on unnecessary plastic objects and enjoy the art!

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Someone was here

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This tag is found on the wall of a nondescript small warehouse on Hermitage Avenue. I don’t know what it says, and I don’t recall seeing a similar one around town, so I’m not sure if it’s by a local artist or a visitor. Grafitti artists will often leave their mark on cities they visit. I do though think it’s elegant in its simplicity, standing alone on this long brick wall. Google Maps shows it in a March 2016 photo, so it’s at least a year old.

Located at 280 Hermitage Avenue. The mural is found on the east side of the warehouse, facing a small open lawn. This is an industrial area, so not much street parking. You will probably have to park at one of the local businesses.

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Fly me to the moon (2.0)

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This is an Emily Miller piece, she of the guerilla poster art (and more!). Keep an eye out, you’ll see more of her work around town. A lot of it is animal-themed, but here she goes in another direction – up! This particular space traveler is found on the backside of 1006 Buchanan Street. If you look for that address on Google it leads you to Otis James, who makes bespoke clothing. The web page suggests the business is in Oak Ridge, but the Facebook page puts it here in Nashville on Buchanan. Call them, or just order online if you are interested. I might need a new hat. Regardless, this is paper art outdoors so I have to call it endangered art.

UPDATE: I added 2.0 to the title because I realized this is the second time I’ve used that headline.

Located at 1006 Buchanan Street. The mural/poster is on the back wall. There’s a large green space around the building so it’s easy to approach. Street parking is available.

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Arctic colors

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This is one of those miracle shots, a mural that always has cars parked in front of it momentarily free. Around the corner, you’ll find Nomzilla and Pepperfire, two popular eateries with not nearly enough parking, so cars are a near constant at this spot. But the mural itself reflects another business in the building, Friendly Arctic Printing & Design, a company that makes custom t-shirts, hoodies and more. The mural represents a step in the printing process. Members of the Friendly Arctic team put the mural up a little over a year ago, and their Instagram page has a set of videos detailing the process.But wait, there’s more! Walk around to the back side to find a completely different but also quite colorful mural (see below). This work is signed by Sterbo, a tag used by a prolific local artist. The signature also contains the phrase “Betor Forever.” Betor is the tag of a prolific local graffiti artist who died last December. There is a very large memorial mural in his honor a few blocks north of these two murals which I will feature soon. (Again, cars tend to park in the way.)

Located at 1045 Granada Avenue, at the corner with Gallatin Avenue. The mural above faces Granada and is quite visible if you are driving north on Gallatin. Street parking is available, as well as parking in front and behind the building. Grab some grub, or maybe inquire about your newest favorite t-shirt, and enjoy the art!

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Guitars and automobiles

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Just because of how many artists are involved, this is a complicated mural to talk about. The “Gibson Tribute Wall” is a product of the Nashville Walls Project. The NWP is a collective of artists and local leaders, organized by Brian Greif, that seek to cover much of downtown and beyond with major art pieces, and are already responsible for a number of major projects. It’s sponsored in part by Gibson Custom Division, and FirstBank donated in particular for this piece. While the NWP seeks to bring in international artists for its projects, this mural was put together by Nashville artists. Starting at far left, the striped deer with butterflies is by Herb Williams, who is known for his multicolored animals, large and small, including a tiny butterfly that seems to have escaped the main mural (see below). Next is a work by Chris Zidek, who signs his work Zidekahedron and among other things did the octopus in Uncovered! Sam Dunson is responsible for the laughing hashtag man, while Emily Miller‘s work is recognizable to anyone who’s been in this town for very long (and keeps their eye open for guerrilla poster art). Finally, the young boys fishing on Leggo blocks are the work of Brian Donahue, who, like your intrepid blogger, is a professor at Tennessee State University.

Located at 213 Third Avenue North, between Chruch and Union, on the north wall of the building. The lot in front of the mural is a Premiere Parking lot, which Google Maps labels as Bank Alley. Bank Alley crosses Printer’s Alley just to the right of this mural. Obviously, there’s parking, but like just about everywhere downtown, it’s not free. The mural is well lit – grab a taxi or a ride share and make it part of your pub crawl on Printer’s Ally!

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Oz Arts Inside/Out, Part 4

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Seems I missed one of the Oz Arts Inside/Out installations when I first reported on them. There is, in fact, a display at Meharry Medical College. Many of the people in this mural are wearing Meharry gear, and there was a shoot for the project at Meharry last June, so I’m assuming all of these people are Meharry folk. See Part 1 for more details. The two blocked faces are below.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Located at 1003 Dr. D.B. Todd Jr. Blvd, on the east facing wall of the Office of Information and Technology (otherwise know as the Computer Center, per the sign). The Computer Center lies on the block between Meharry Blvd. and Albion Street. This is dead in the middle of a large university complex (Fisk University is across the street), so parking is problematical. There is a paid parking garage on Albion. The spaces in front of the mural are reserved, though for a quick visit in the late afternoon you can probably get away with using them.

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