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Handlebar Mustache

Mustache Bikerack sculpture Nashville street art

One of the first works of art which inspired this blog was this whimsical bike rack designed by Jenna Boyko Holt. It was installed in 2014 as part of the Metro Arts program of artist-designed bike racks that ran from 2010 to 2015. I’m not sure why I’m only getting around to it now, but there’s a picture of it in a collection of photos I made one day of art in my own neighborhood that was in many ways the genesis of this blog. It is in fact called “Handlebar Mustache,” appropriately enough. Here’s the design Colt originally submitted to Metro Arts. It was a little shinier when it first went in, but otherwise it has been gracing Porter Road for about six years now.

Mustache sculpture Nashville street art

Colt is also part of Vermilion Murals. Some of their best-know work are the two murals on each side of Carter Vintage Guitars, one of a gigantic guitar, and another featuring  Maybelle Carter. If you’ve been on 8th Avenue South near Division Street, you’ve seen them. As well as murals and designing bike racks, Colt also does her own paintings, some of which you can see at the link to her site above.

I often say I never see bikes attached to the Metro Arts bike racks, but the photo I took of it five years ago proves that’s wrong.

Mustache Sculpture

Today I wouldn’t even bother taking that picture because I like “clean” shots for the blog. Here’s the bike rack from one end, which may give you a better idea of how it is meant to be used.

Mustache bike rack Nashville street art

Located at 715 Porter Road, the complex that includes Pomodoro East. It lies directly in front of Brightside Bake Shop, and is quite visible from the road. Their is ample parking at the complex, and street parking in the neighborhood on the other side of Porter.

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Arrows Bike Rack

Arrows Bike Rack sculpture Nashville street art

When this set of metal arrows designed to be used as a bike rack first appeared outside the late, great The Post East, I assumed it was part of the Metro Arts Artist-Designed bike rack collection. It certainly looks like it does. Of course, I should have known better, as the arrows were installed in May 2017, while the last Metro-Arts sponsored bike rack was installed in 2015. But who keeps track of such details? A tell-tale clue is the lack of a plaque describing the work and naming the artist – Metro Arts is very good about doing that. Fortunately, the Post East has not deleted its Instagram page, where they credit the artists they commissioned to do the arrows, Ferrin Ironworks. Ferrin Ironworks has been on this site before – check out the fence they made that’s featured as part of Dancing in the alley. I have to say that like the Metro Arts bike racks, I rarely see these arrows being used for their intended purpose. Right now they are hosting a banner indicating that Frothy Monkey East, which has taken over the space, is currently open under pandemic conditions.

My pictures are from last Spring, while this was still The Post East. In the featured photo above, you can see a sliver of the Oliver and Sinclair mural featured in Olive & Sinclair Chocolate Co.

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Located at 1701 Fatherland Street, at the corner with 17th Street. Street parking is available.

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Microphone Bike Rack

Microphone Bike Rack sculpture street art Nashville

If you Google “microphone bike rack Nashville” you will discover that this particular bike rack is popular indeed. It’s been written up by Roadside America and the Smithsonian Magazine, you can buy a photo of it from Getty Images, and it pops up several times on Pinterest. And it’s perfectly located, just steps from Music Row. It is of course part of the Metro Arts bicycle rack series. It’s the product of a 2010 contest open to artists from within 200 miles of Nashville, though in this case the artists involved were quite local. Franne Lee, who has since moved to Wisconsin, once was a co-owner of the now-closed Plowhaus Gallery. Plowhaus was a pioneer art gallery in East Nashville that went through multiple versions before its final demise. (Lee is also probably the only artist I’ve featured who has her own IMBD page. She has a long history as a costume designer.) Speaking of East Nashville pioneers that opened and closed twice, one of the other two artists is Mac Hill, former owner of the Radio Cafe – both of them. Keith Harmon rounds out the trio. He’s also an East Nashville artist and has done signs and murals for several local businesses. (Not to be confused with the other Keith Harmon responsible for The Riders bike rack near the stadium – two different people.)

As you can see from the slideshow below, there wasn’t much traffic or many people around when I shot this recently. The stretch of Demonbreun between the interstate and the Musica sculpture (not on the blog yet!) has a number of bars and restaurants and is usually bustling with tourists and locals, a kind of mini-Lower Broad. But in these days of pandemic, it’s also eerily quiet. Someday, the tourists will be back, and we will be complaining about pedal taverns again!

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Located at 1538 Demonbreun Street. That’s actually the address of TailGate Brewery, which it sits in front of. There’s a fair amount of parking in the area, very little of it free.

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The Riders

Riders Sculpture street art Nashville

Between 2010 and 2015, Metro Arts sponsored a series of artistic bike racks by local and regional artists that are now scattered around town. One of the first to go in was this one, The Riders (2010) by Seth Conley. Being based at the foot of the Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge, it’s seen by thousands of commuters and tourists every day, even more on a game day. The sculpture is something of a cheeky visual joke, a set of peloton riders racing along to which you to can attach your very stationary bike. (A peloton is a pack of riders who take turns riding in front, where they are fully exposed to the wind, while those behind draft off of them.) I’ve featured a few of these bike racks on the blog before – rarely do you see any bikes attached to them. Those scooters in the back, however, had been neatly placed all around the bike rack when I went to photograph it. They beeped at me a lot when I moved them. The artist, Conley, took a little work to verify, in part because none of his other work looks anything like this. But on his artist Facebook page, where you can see much of his art, there is a picture of the work when it was barely halfway done. Conley hasn’t updated that page since 2018, perhaps because his current job likely keeps him busy – Senior Creative Art Director at Wizards of the Coast, the home company of both Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. (His Instagram page is a little more up-to-date.)

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Located on the 400 block of First Street South, just south of Nissan Stadium and of Victory Avenue, across the street from the east end of the Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge. This is in the middle of a giant parking lot. The only part that is reliably free is the part labeled “Cumberland Park Parking” right across the street from the bike rack.

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Corn and Tomatoes

Tomato1

It’s another Metro Arts Commission bicycle rack! Seriously, there are holes in the tomatoes you can slip a chain through. This is half of a rack found on the east side of the Nashville Farmer’s Market at Bicentennial Mall. The other half is below, which you see actually has a bike strapped to it, something you don’t see much with these Metro Arts bike racks. This piece, “Corn and Tomatoes”  was done in 2010 by Lebanon metalsmith Dan Goostree and Nashville painter Paige Easter. Sadly, it is something of a memorial, as Goostree passed away in 2013 at the age of 57.

Corn

Located at 900 Rosa L. Parks Boulevard. The rack actually faces Seventh Avenue,  in front of the main entrance on the east side of the building. There is plenty of free parking around the market, though with current construction, it can be hard to park at lunchtime. Load up on local veggies and enjoy the art!

Tomato2

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Lock it up

Emerge

Would you believe this is a bike rack? That’s what Metro Arts says it is. “Emerge” (2010) by Matt Young is one of a number of bike racks Metro Arts has commissioned, including, of course, the rack featured in Bee Cycle. I don’t think I have ever seen a bike attached to any of these racks, but I’m not monitoring them 24-7. Young is a prolific artist, including designing some interesting furniture.

Located in Chuch Street Park, on the 600 block of Church Street, at the corner with Capitol Boulevard, across from the main Nashville Public Library. This is downtown — plenty of parking, not much of it free. The library has 90 minutes free parking with library validation, so grab a book and enjoy the art! (The picture below was taken during the 2017 March for Science.)

EmergeandMarch.JPG

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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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