Search

nashville public art

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

Tag

#flower

The flowers of 5th+Broadway

One of the largest developments of late in the Lower Broad area is the massive open-air mall, food court, and office building known as Fifth + Broadway, or just 5+B. It’s certainly been a hit with tourists, and it’s often packed, particularly on the weekends, even in these pandemic times.

And every new big project in Nashville needs murals, doesn’t it? The mall area of 5+B is L-shaped, and off the corner of the ground floor of the “L” is a covered walkway with a massive flower mural by Tarabella Aversa. Aversa is one of our more prolific local muralists, and flowers often feature strongly in her work, such as the double mural she did for Walden on Gallatin.

This mural, which went up back in March, is even more intensely floral, jam-packed with warmly colored carnations, with shades of pink, purple, yellow, and orange. A giant mural like this one can be a bit overwhelming for the selfie-seeker, so Aversa has added a black diamond near the middle to frame your next portrait.

Flowers mural Nashville street art

I can tell you it works. This is a difficult mural to photograph, both because of the tight angles and overhead lighting, but also the people passing by and all the folks who want their photo with it. Many use the diamond frame, but some seem to prefer a field of flowers behind them.

Aversa also decorated some doors that are on the opposite wall from the main mural. The lighting for them is even more difficult, but I think my photos accurately represent what you’d see if you visited them. For other views, check out Aversa’s own post about the mural, which includes a shot of her working on it.

This quite beautiful mural and its smaller companions tell a larger story about what’s going in the mural scene in Nashville. Where there are tourists, there will be murals. Sure, murals go up for a lot of other reasons, but tourism drives a big part of the movement. And corporate sponsors are becoming more common. The vast majority of sponsors are still local businesses, but corporate sponsors are seen more and more, so much so that soon I won’t even bother to comment.

Located at the 500 block of Broadway. From either the Broadway entrance or the Rep. John Lewis Way North entrance, simply walk until you get to the interior corner, and you will find it. This is downtown, so lots of parking, very little of it free.

The 700 (not really) Flowers of 12 South

It’s not 700 flowers, but this blog post does result in the 700th pin on the map – more about that later.

It’s difficult to talk about this mural. It’s been up for several years, and it’s undoubtedly been in many, many social media posts. It’s a splash of beautiful color at the southern end of the very trendy and very popular-with-tourists 12 South neighborhood. (You are so Nashville if you’ve ever said, “I remember when it was just called 12th Avenue South”). Do a search for something like “best murals in Nashville” and you are bound to find it. It shows up in a lot of people’s lists of the Nashville murals you must see.

And yet, I’m only now putting it on the blog. The mural right across from it, which I think is a little younger, appeared on my blog over four years ago. There’s a simple reason – I’ve never known who the Flower Mural artist was.

I try very hard to identify the artists who add so much to the visual fabric of our great city. Sometimes that research is hard. Not all artists are good at promoting themselves, maybe deliberately. I remember one mural where the artist basically asked me, “How the heck did you find me?” Patience, and a lot of real work.

I think more often it’s the fault of the sponsor. I don’t how many times I’ve seen on Instagram or Facebook some business crowing about their new mural or fantastic sign, without breathing a word about the artist’s name. It’s really satisfying to figure those ones out. I think these business owners are missing the boat, and they’d get more social media synergy (whatever that means) by naming the artist.

But the Flower Mural of 12 South (also known as the Flower Garden Mural of 12 South) has defeated me. Some bloggers who write about Nashville art that I respect have also failed to come up with the name. And a couple of different businesses in that building have come and gone since it went up, so no help there. Maybe the Flower Mural Artist wants to be anonymous. If that ever changes, I’ll update this post.

About the 700 pins – I reached 700 blog posts way back last December (and did not realize it at the time). There’s a lag mainly because early on when I started this blog I would use one pin for multiple pieces of art that were in one place. I don’t do that anymore. I plan to correct some of that, and also see if I’ve failed to put some pins in for some posts. So I will probably get to 800 a lot quicker. I also don’t remove pins for art that no longer exists. I would hazard a guess that ten to fifteen percent of the points on the map represent lost art. I try to keep posts updated, so check the link in the pin to see if I’ve noted it as lost. This is not a 100% guarantee though, as I don’t always know what is lost. And why so long since December? Well, particularly this summer I dropped from my usual three posts a week to barely one. I want to pick the pace back up, though I may never get back to a consistent three each week.

The patterns on the map are obvious – there are key areas where you find a lot of art. In particular, you find many pieces along Main Street and Gallatin Pike, Twelve South, Downtown, Nolensville Pike, the Jefferson and Buchanan corridors, and Charlotte Pike. The main thing these places have in common is a large number of local businesses. National chains have recently begun to sponsor more and more outdoor art, but this is still primarily a local affair.

The mural is located at 2900 12th Avenue South. That’s the address of the 12 South branch of United Apparel Liquidators. It’s on the south side of the building. It lies right across a small alley from Epice. Unless you visit in the wee hours of the morning, and maybe even then, you will take delight in the wonderous smells coming from Epice, and you will have a sudden craving for Lebanese food. You should listen to this craving, and march right into Epice and get your fill! (Well, during opening hours, of course.)

Riverside Revival

It is something of a small trend in East Nashville that some church buildings have been repurposed in recent years. The rapidly shifting demographics of the region and the even more rapid rise in real estate values is undoubtedly behind this. The members of Family Affairs Ministries decided its home at the corner of Riverside and Porter was too large and too expensive to maintain, so they sold it to The Boedecker Foundation in 2017. (They put the money to good use – their new digs ain’t bad.)

The Boedecker Foundation is the project of George Boedecker Jr., co-founder and former CEO of Crocs. His foundation renovated and expanded the church complex, reopening it recently as Riverside Revival, an event space as well as a nonprofit hub to be called the East Nashville Community Collaborative.

And of course it has a mural, because more and more, that’s what businesses and enterprises in Nashville do. It’s the work of Danielle Duer, with assistance from Andee Rudloff. While Rudloff has done a number of murals around town, I believe this is Duer’s first outdoor mural in Nashville. It went in last November, and its riot of leaves and flowers is in keeping with much of Duer’s work. While currently sold out, Duer even has a handbag called “Garden Grow” in her online shop with a very similar design.

If you look closely at the picture at top, you’ll see three small, young trees that are currently leafless in the landscaped area in front of the mural. In time, not only will they leaf out, but they will grow. The leaves of the trees will blend with the leaves of the mural behind them. This mural is destined to become part of a three-dimensional installation. It is even four-dimensional, for the trees will change with the years and the seasons. Often, something blocking your mural is detrimental, but in this case I think it will lend vibrancy and long-term energy to this piece.

Riverside Revival Mural Nashville Street art
Riverside Revival Mural Nashville street art

Located at 1600 Riverside Drive. The mural is on the Porter Road side of the complex, and faces towards Riverside. There is a small parking lot on the other side of the annex that the mural is on, and a much larger one on the other side of the church building. Not much street parking is nearby.

2nd Avenue AT&T Art Wall – Tess Davies

UPDATE: This and all the murals in this series were destroyed in the Christmas Day Bombing.

Working left to right on the wall of window murals at the AT&T Central Office on 2nd Avenue (not to be confused with the more famous AT&T building in Nashville, the Batman Building on Commerce Street) the fifth work is by Tess Davies. (And congratulations to Davies, for she is recently married and appears earlier on this blog as Tess Erlenborn.)

It’s part of series of murals on the building sponsored by AT&T, the Nashville Downtown PartnershipThe DISTRICTNashville Metro Arts Commission, and The Studio 208. All are done by women, and the project was curated by Ashley Segroves of The Studio 208. They are all on vinyl, and went up in the summer of 2018.

Like the work to the left by by Emily Leonard, it has a floral theme. The abstract shapes, lines and dots are characteristic of Davies’s style that you can also see in her contribution to the Off the Wall project and her contribution to the Nations Wall project. It’s been up for a couple years and has become dirty, in particular the marks down the left side of the mural are dirt, and not part of the original work. Below you can see it in context with some of the other murals. There are eight in total.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

ATT Murals Nashville street art

Located at 185 2nd Avenue North. This is downtown – lots of parking, almost none of it free.

Dolly by MuckRock

There’s been a spate of Dolly Parton murals lately. Sadly, the one by Bryan Deese was painted over right after I posted about it, but the one by Kim Radford still greets me whenever I drive down my street to get to downtown. And of course she’s on one of the fences by Scott Guion in Berry Hill. And now you can find her on Gallatin Road.

Jules Muck, who signs her work “MuckRock” is a New York artist who now lives and works in Venice, California. She has work all over the United States and around the world, and is currently touring the States leaving murals wherever she goes. She was here in mid-October to do the Dolly portrait, and is apparently travelling with a dog. (Scroll her Instagram page – the pup shows up in several places.)

Parton’s portrait is found on the south wall of Blue Door Framing, painted with poppies in her hair, as Parton is known to do. Parton’s hair spells out “Nashville’ and “MuckRock.” Muck also did some poppies on the front of the building.

(By the way, the funny crop on the lead photo is entirely a Facebook thing. They have really dumb cropping rules for shares.)

Dolly Parton Mural Nashville street art

Here you see them together.

Dolly Parton Mural Nashville street art

I imagine it’s only a matter of time before more Dolly murals appear in town. Wildflowers don’t care where they grow, after all.

Located at 2809 Gallatin Pike, at the corner with Burchwood Avenue. The main mural faces south towards downtown, while the flower faces Gallatin. Blue Door has limited parking, and it’s possible to park on the side of the building towards the back. There’s street parking a little ways down Burchwood.

One Way

Apparently, the Berry Hill Square shopping center has been having some trouble in its parking lot. The entrance off Thompson Lane is a little oddly designed, so it wouldn’t be surprising if traffic flow weren’t some kind of issue. So what’s the answer? Build a fence right at the entrance, and get a muralist to paint it. Or how about two, or even three? This mural is signed by Tarabella Aversa, and it features large images of lush flowers found in some of her other work, such as the murals featured in Flowers of Walden. But she must have gotten help from WHAT.Creative Group (Jake and Hana Elliot), as their signature is on the bottom as well. This went in back in February, and if you compare an image from back then to the mural now, it’s obvious it’s taken a little damage. One of the hazards of being in the middle of a parking lot, no doubt. Somebody probably backed into it.

Located at 718 Thompson Lane, right in front of the Applebee’s, and across the street from Guitar Center. It’s in a parking lot, so of course parking nearby is available.

Dolly Parton in The Nations

Dolly Parton mural Nashville street art

One of the most prolific mural artists in town is Bryan Deese. For some time, he has been maintaining a wall at the Stop-N-Shop on 51st Avenue, putting up a series of murals, primarily ones promoting concerts. By definition, they are temporary. Back in March, Deese put up a new mural on the wall that may turn out to be a little more permanent, not the least because not many bands have concerts to promote these days. It is of course of Dolly Parton, and it is sponsored by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. It seems to have been based on a 1977 promotional photo, seen here on her song-list page on Wikipedia. Parton frequently uses flower motifs and is often seen with one in her hair, which may have inspired the halo of flowers. It’s a popular mural, and I’ve seen it many places on social media. Hopefully, it has some staying power.

Located at 5100 Indiana Avenue, at the corner with 51st Avenue North. The mural faces east towards 51st. Street parking and parking at the Stop-N-Shop are readily available.

Powered by WordPress.com.

Up ↑