2010 January Nashville Arts Magazine

Nashville Arts Magazine | January 2010 | 1

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4 | January 2010 | Nashville Arts Magazine

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8Spotlight

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The Pilates PlaceAt first thought an art gallery may seem like an odd, incongruous place for an exercise class. But as Julee Jones begins to guide the members of her Tuesday morning group mat class through a series of Pilates stretches and strength-building movements, Leiper’s Creek Gallery suddenly seems like the only appropriate place for exercises that are intended to connect the mind, body and spirit.

“I choose to teach in this serene, beautiful environment because that’s part of contributing to the spirit of the exercise,” Jones explains. There’s no loud music, no mirrors, nothing garish in the room. Instead, the women in the class are surrounded by paintings on the walls and are quietly inspired by a three-figured bronze sculpture in the center of the gallery.

“With Pilates we’re taking the human body and making it as lovely as it can be,” says Jones, adding that on an exercise mat you get a chance to make a difference in your body, just like an artist or a sculptor creating a work of art.

While she has been teaching Pilates since 2001, Jones opened The Pilates Place in Leiper’s Fork in July 2005 when she bought the historic home that now houses a studio, where she gives private classes, and a guesthouse called Miss Sweeney’s Inn. When she moved to Middle Tennessee in 1992, Jones was working in corpo-rate sales. She made a complete career change after discovering the way Pilates finally brought relief from chronic pain that had plagued her from a decades-earlier car accident. In her 40s by then, because of Pilates her body was stronger than it had ever been. She wanted to help others improve their health too.

Jones trained with Romana Kryzanowska, which is as elite as it gets in the Pilates world, Jones notes. Because her teaching was so authentic and pure, Kryzanowska was named his successor by Joseph Pilates, the German native who immigrated to the United States with his unique exercise system.

“Pilates offers exercises for individuals at any level of physical fitness,” says Jones. Workouts are geared to help clients strengthen their core, the collective muscles of the abdominals, gluteals and lower back. Verbal cues help clients connect their minds and bodies for a mentally controlled workout, leading to conscious control of all muscular movements. Jones explains that Pilates believed that strengthening your body strengthens your mind and improves your quality of life.

Her clients include athletes ranging from bicyclists and triathletes to golfers and dancers to dressage and hunter-jumper riders. She also works with women who have had mastectomies and with clients who have multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease or various injuries.

New group mat classes, which are offered in Leiper’s Fork and in Bellevue, begin in January. Visit www.ThePilatesPlace.us or call (615) 599-8700 for more information about group or individual classes.


14On the Horizon

Richard Greathouse is a 24-year-old Nashville native. Currently, he resides in Florence, Italy, where he is enrolled at the Florence Academy of Art. Studying in Italy has been an enlighten-ing experience for Greathouse both personally and professionally. The young artist traveled to the epicenter of the Italian Renaissance to further his art education. His intense training has introduced him to turn-of-the-century masters such as Sargent, Sorolla, Zorn, and Repin from whom he draws inspiration. Florence has also taught Greathouse the importance of a strong artistic community. He works with students and teachers from around the world who have joined forces in order to teach and learn art. On returning to Nashville for visits, Greathouse has found yet another thriving community of artists. He is inspired by the commitment of arts communities in both cities and their efforts to promote the fine arts.

Richard Greathouse

top: Mama

left: Epp

below left: Ingerlise

below: Gianni

right: Stefano

far right: Katarin

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left: Carola

above: Martina

below: Gea

top right: Self-Portrait

right: Eva

In Florence, Greathouse dedicated himself to the study of representational drawing and painting in the classical style. It is only fitting that he seek the birthplace of modern classi-cal traditions for such a pursuit. Although the artist enjoys pushing the edges of his artistic horizons through international travel, he hopes to bring his newly honed skills back home in the future. Touched by the spirit of unity in the artistic communities of both Nashville and Florence, he plans to become a major contributor to Nashville art upon his return

home. A humble artist, Greathouse believes he has a long way to go. Eager audiences in Nashville know his bright future is just a plane ticket away.


18Film & Television

What makes a good screenplay? A lot of books have been written by a lot of very good writers and producers trying to define exactly the formula for a good screenplay. Workshops and university writing programs around the world endeavor to teach their screenwriting students the secret that will make their every screenplay not only a

“masterpiece” but a screenplay that a producer will be willing to buy. The truth: a good screenplay is always in the eyes of the beholder. A screenplay that 20 producers reject may be joyfully scooped up by producer number 21 and turned into a successful movie, and the industry is drowning in stories just like that. One of the most famous examples is Star Wars, and George Lucas’s travails being rejected repeatedly by every studio in town (before Fox finally agreed to produce it for a very low budget) offers producers everywhere a lesson in humility. In hindsight, we all agree that the script for Star Wars was destined to serve as the basis for an astonishingly success-ful movie. But we’re all—even producers—geniuses in hindsight.

There are qualities that almost all producers expect to find in a professional screenplay. Few producers will bother to read past the first page of a screenplay that is full of spelling errors and typos. It only takes a few such errors to turn off a producer who has a huge stack of scripts sitting on her desk, waiting to be read. As to formatting, there are only a few acceptable screenplay formats, easily discoverable on the Internet. There are several good programs such as Final Draft and Movie Magic Screenwriter which automatically format a writer’s work so that it is correctly laid out on the page. It takes a small effort and investment to get formatting right. Producers often look for any excuse to reject a script. And really, why would a producer waste time unpleasantly wading through a written work that the writer didn’t have the good sense to spell check and properly lay out? The producer is being asked to raise millions of dollars to produce the writer’s work. Why should the producer do that for an unreadable, amateurishly assembled script?

Writing the Perfect Scriptby Ashleigh Prince

Most producers look closely at story, characters, and dialogue in a screenplay. The script should be a “fast read”—a page-turner that is always interesting. The first few pages are critical in this regard and must grab the reader’s interest. The story should then hold the inter-est of the reader. The characters should demonstrate traits worthy of an audience’s concern and affection. The dialogue should be well crafted, interesting, and appropriate for each character.

“I prefer a story and characters which move me and which I believe will improve the world we live in.”

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He befriended artist and Nashville resident Paul Lancaster, whose work makes up the largest part of his collection. It was a friendship that led to meeting other artists and an appreciation for different styles—plein-air, impressionist, abstract, folk, sculpture and carv-ings. In addition to Lancaster’s, on his walls and mantel are works by Creason Clayton, Paige Morehead, Joel Knapp, Anton Weiss, Tom Moore, Phil Ponder, Bitsy Hughes, Streater Spencer, Sterling Strauser, David Burliuk, Anna Ray, Philip Perkins, Vannoy Streeter, and others. Nature and floral subjects dominate his collection.

David became aware of how one artist can influence another and was driven to collect works among the “Strauser Circle”—those discov-ered by Sterling Strauser and who, like Strauser, were less known but still regarded as significant twentieth-century artists who employed their own techniques. David is intrigued by the fingerprints and strokes he sees on the surfaces of Strauser’s paintings.

He is a man that people may at first assume not to be an authority on art, but he sets a great example. “I have fallen in love with art, what it means, and grown to appreciate what it took to create it. I have found that to be a collector you don’t have to spend a fortune, and there are a lot of local galleries and artists willing to help anyone who walks through the doors to learn about their work.” In a strange twist of fate, as one fire consumed his home, another fire was lit in David Cheatham. Today he looks back at that painful day and appreciates the opportunities those burning embers have created in his life. He adds, “Stop and look at art; take the time to appreciate what [the artist] sees and welcomes you to see and you will be richly rewarded.”

left: Braxton Ponder

above: Helen La France above: Jack Savitsky Coal and Wood Hauling

that the posh homes in Brentwood and Green Hills had something to offer him. David began to notice that what were once, to him, just pictures on the wall were actually beautiful works of art.

One visit to a home stands out for him. Noticing a large wall filled with paintings, he asked the owners about them. Cheatham says,

“The couple explained that they were original etchings and paintings, and most were by an artist named Paul Lancaster, whom I had never heard of. Every Christmas they’d go to Lyzon Art Gallery and buy another etching or painting, and this was their only gift to each other.”

He decided to check out the Lyzon gallery (unfortunately, now closed). Walking in, despite wearing his uniform and feeling like

“the gas man” as he likes to refer to himself, David felt welcomed. “I guess that’s when my love and respect for art began. I started going in a lot after work to admire the talent that others had and shared through their creations.” David would continue to go back and buy original pieces. Acquiring them was only the first step as he found interest in learning more about the artists themselves.

left: Baxton Ponder


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above: Victor Joseph Gatto below: Paul Lancaster below: omar Hamdi Malva bottom: Canoe Rentals Down The Road, Tom Moore


32that the light is permeating and moving around the object, and you’re not seeing everything equally. It’s like music or poetry—you’re telling what’s more important, what’s less important, where you play, where you give a lot of attention and provide detail. When you are painting a landscape, how do you paint black and white that’s in front of you and black and white that’s a mile away? Everything that’s out there is reflected in air and is pushed away, so not only are we painting across the canvas but we’re painting the depth and the breadth. So when the sun comes in, you have the warm blues here and the cool blues there, and all that’s still reflecting into every tree, every blade of grass, everything. It’s a very complicated symphony.

Q: It’s obvious that in order to translate your vision you are using not only the skills of how to

draw and paint, but also craftsmanship in the creation of materials. How are the old-master

traditions influencing your techniques?

The old masters knew so much, and they were scientists. They studied how to put paint on a canvas and keep the quality, the brilliance of it forever. And a lot of that was lost knowledge, especially by the time of the Impressionists. We put a lead coating on the canvas to hold the oils on there permanently instead of acrylic, which is man-made. We make our own oils, our own canvases and our own panels. It makes a difference in the quality of the colors, in the brilliance that you get. It’s not that you want to be an old master—I wouldn’t want to be Rembrandt or Velázquez, because they were what they were, and I would just be a poor copy of that. So I’m trying to find out what about that sparks me. I’m painting in a different time, and my subjects are different, so I’m using those principles, but I want to live today.

Q: you’ve painted portraits, figures, landscapes and interiors, which are very challenging,

and yet you’ve become most well known for your still life work.

I evolved into still lifes. When I first left New York, it was difficult to get models. And then you learn how to paint objects with light so you set up still lifes, which is in itself difficult because, how do you set this up to be interesting? You go back to the old masters to learn how they did it and pull the ideas into your own compositions. Painting still lifes also allowed me to keep painting from life while I was having children and continue to evolve.

Q: Why do vegetables, fruits and flowers fascinate you? Is it their perishable nature that chal-

lenges you as an artist?

I think they’re beautiful, and flowers in particular are very difficult to paint. Even if you set up a flower, they’re changing, they’re dying, they’re moving…and so, like a landscape, you need to capture it as quickly as you can. Hopefully your skill set is present so that the craft is working for you.

Q: you’ve mentioned that one of your goals as an artist is to capture “connecting moments.”

Can you explain that for me?

It’s like the “ah ha” moment. Like you are looking at a beautiful sunrise and you think, oh wow, this is everything. If two people are talking about their lives or their friendship and they both understood something at exactly the same time, that’s a connecting moment. So to me, those are the moments when you feel most alive. If I’m painting an apple, and I got the apple just right, then it’s like there’s the apple essence. And I nailed it with just the right brush stroke. I don’t know how I got it, and I may not be able to get it again, but oh my goodness! And someone else will know it when they see it. So I think there are certain moments that are breathtaking—and they can be little breaths; they don’t have to be big—and you know it when you experience it. To me, that’s pretty exciting.

Q: you donated to the state museum and the governor’s mansion the painting Roses and

Eucalyptus. Why did you donate that particular piece, and how did that come about?

I think it’s a good representation of me because of the florals that I do. We toured the mansion after the renovation, and there was some really interesting art and there was still some wall space left, so I thought, let’s get a Brandon in here! Lois Riggins-Ezzell, who runs the state museum, wanted one of my paintings, so I suggested this one. She and [First Lady] Andrea Conte were really excited about it, and I was really pleased that they were so receptive to having the painting.

“…there are certain

moments that are

breathtaking and they can be

little breaths; they don’t

have to be big and you know

it when you experience it.”


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opposite page: Kundalini

above: Cherries and Peaches

left: Still lIfe with Violin


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above: Les Poules

top right: Magnolias and Vase

center right: Glen's Garden

bottom right: Roses and Eucalyptus

bottom left: Orange Peppers


35One of Brandon’s passions is art restoration and conservation. She is particularly concerned about current attempts to clean the artwork of the Realist masters in a manner that destroys the initial vision and science behind the paintings. She is a member of ArtWatch International, a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide a voice for these important works of art.

Q: There are obviously situations that require a damaged painting to be

restored or cleaned, but I understand you feel that many times this is

done needlessly.

For years there has been a problem with big business and politics and cleaning older paintings in a way that lacks knowledge about the process that was used. Sometimes they do need cleaning, but you have to be careful how you do it because you take off some of the paint and the oils and the glazes. Our teacher used to talk about this, and one day someone heard that they were going to take Rembrandt’s portrait The Noble Slav down and clean it. And we thought, they can’t do that! So we had a march on the Met, and we found out later that that really started the idea of ArtWatch. It’s in New York, London, and (I believe) Rome or Florence.

It’s just a voice to keep the old masters from being wiped off, because once they are, you can’t get it back, and the process will be lost again. So ArtWatch is really gaining ground, and the last big event they tried to tackle was the cleaning of the Sistine chapel. Well, it’s a different Michelangelo once you’ve cleaned off the breath that pulls it all together. You don’t want to use harsh chemicals, because chemicals can continue to work on the painting even after you are finished cleaning. So you have to have a knowledge of what the oils and varnishes were, and how they were put on there, and why they were put on there, and make sure the cleaning doesn’t penetrate too far. The first thing you notice if an old master has been cleaned is that all the shadows have been taken off. For us it’s important to preserve the old masters for future generations, and it even extends to sculpture. You can destroy a sculpture pretty fast by sandblasting it. When you have new administrations come in and they are more into the modern art, they are not watching carefully over those masterpieces in the way that others might in that field.

Q: With your work and the work of other Poetic Realists gathering

momentum, do you think there is a trend toward rediscovering traditional

methods of painting?

There’s been a resurgence of the nineteenth-century academia. Now, more people are wanting plein-air, and I see a lot of workshops all over the U.S. on this type of painting. I see people going back to painting a cast and learning how to draw. I think art will move further back to the old masters and past academia. I think that we have lost so much information that artists want to gain back. I see that coming around again, a thirst for that knowledge. Why are we attracted to the old masters? Why are there some of us that want to paint that way? It’s because it gives us a way to express ourselves creatively.

Brandon is currently exhibiting at the Whistle Pik Gallery in Fredericksburg, Texas, and the Edgartown Art Gallery in Martha’s Vineyard and has recently taken time off from painting to write and illustrate a children’s book she hopes to publish. Her painting Afternoon Stroll has been accepted in the 126th Annual Members Exhibition at the Salmagundi Club in New york—a world-respected center for fine arts. Please visit Brandon’s site for examples of her painting and writing at www.elizabethbrandon.com.

right: White Lilies and Pitcher

center right: Sunflowers and Wild Flowers in a Pail


38“ Ignate et ea nimillest, officii stendi digende ped maximet poribus sectiur epellab orepudignam”

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39Sculpture

“I would rather feel than think,” claims Nashville sculptor Buddy Jackson. The Tennessee native has spent his adult life in the visual arts. His desire for immediacy and autonomy of expression has led him through a series of career evolutions and modifications. Today, his sculpture, his home, and his aesthetic approach seem to indicate his sensitivity to beauty and his ongoing romance with creative expression. Art is in Jackson’s blood. “My great-grandfather on my mother’s side was a traveling portrait artist. He fell in love with one of his sitters—my great-grandmother. My granddad was a sign painter. He would design these signs at his kitchen table in a little house in South Knoxville.” Jackson used to sit with his grandfather and watch him paint simple small-town signs for local businesses. He says, “That is how I fell in love with making art.” This love for art acts as a catalyst for Jackson. “I like making things that weren’t here yesterday. I think it comes from my own appreciation of looking at things.” Jackson naturally majored in art when he attended the University of Tennessee. He entered college with a love for painting, and his style was studied and realistic. His professors, a generation older than himself, had all been students of abstract expressionism. Jackson was often discouraged or singled out for refusing to deny his own artistic impulses in order to pursue an abstract style. He set up a studio in the attic of an old building on campus and worked diligently at his canvases day and night.

As his college career was coming to an end, one of Jackson’s profes-sors advised him to switch from fine arts to commercial illustration, believing that his disdain for abstract expressionism meant he could never be a true painter. Jackson obediently followed his professor’s advice and left fine arts for over 20 years.

Directly after college, a young Buddy Jackson moved to Nashville. He intended to enroll in commercial art school, but his ambition and talent soon landed him a series of jobs as a designer. With a growing

Buddy JacksonFiguratively Speakingby Deborah Walden His sensitive connection

to the world and his innate capacity to bend the human form into expressive poses create a dynamic sculpture.

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left: Adelecia


40and loyal base of patrons he founded Jackson Design. Jackson saw great success through his business as a commercial designer. His company won several Grammy awards and produced the cover art for hundreds of albums. Jackson, though, felt that something was missing. “It’s a crazy, taxing business. Deadline after dead-line after deadline.”

A friend in the music industry asked Jackson to lend his hand to a music video project, and at that point his life took a dramatic turn. Jackson received the task of making small Calderesque figures made from wire, string, and other found objects and materials to be used in his friend’s video. Tired from long days in the corporate world he would sit in front of the television at night and lose himself in these small sculptures. He decided to take a sculpture class or two and soon found that he was spending more time on his art than on his business.

After 20 years in the commercial design industry, Jackson sold his business in order to devote more time to sculpting. Sculpture finally offered Jackson the expressive freedom that he had missed in the corporate world. Free to pursue his own muses, he often sculpts female figures in various powerful poses. He soaks up inspiration from travels and from encounters with interesting people. Most impor-tantly, Jackson is energized by the act of sculpting: “A huge part of the process is the touch. It’s me and the clay. In some ways, I have this very traditional sense of the importance of craft. I’m married to that. I can’t get away from it.”

Just two years ago, Jackson made another career change in order to achieve greater autonomy of expres-sion in his art. He stopped using artist’s models and ceased executing

right: Waiting

left: Emergence

left: Disciple

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His aesthetic approach seems to indicate his

sensitivity to beauty and his ongoing romance with

creative expression.

Annointed

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42preparatory sketches for his work. Jackson claims that when using models, “I find myself trying to repli-cate what is in front of me. Working without models is liberating in terms of subject matter.” Jackson says that with these changes he “tried to create a vocabulary” of figurative gestures and forms of the body. He now utilizes the human form as a vehicle for expression rather than a starting point for an individual study. “Part of the reason I gave up working with models is that I want those expres-sions to be solely my expressions—some sort of honest expression.”

Jackson also began experiment-ing with Hydrocal plaster, which presented him new opportunities in terms of media. He also sculpts fired clay, terra cotta, and Hydrocal with a wax coating and produces bronze casts of many of his works. Jackson sculpts with handmade tools that he carves out of ebony by hand. His medium of choice is water-based clay. Although many sculptors lean towards the oil-based variety because it does not dry, Jackson likes the added pressure of handling a medium that must be finished quickly. “I finish it while it is wet and mold it while it is wet. I like the immediacy of that.”

The result of Jackson’s adventures in new media and his newfound free-dom of subject matter is sculpture that produces poetry of the human form. Sculptors of the human body are faced with the challenge of producing more than a mere copy of a person’s physique. They must communicate mood, sense, feeling. Jackson’s sensitive connection to his world and his innate capacity to bend the human form into expressive poses create a dynamic sculpture.

In his figure Stretch, Jackson models the torso of a woman who appears strong, quiet, and liberated. The delicate curves of her body shape a

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43figure that is simultaneously at rest and in motion. Her head finds a soft repose in her rhyming sinuous arms crossed above her body at the same time that her stomach and breasts arc energetically out of the solid trunks of her thighs. Incline offers a female form that pulls the body into a ramp of muscular activity. Her shoulder blades pressed into the ground, chin straining towards the collarbone, the figure twists her thighs and legs into a taut line. The delicate, small sculpture seems to defy gravity with its careful and impossible pose in space.

Jackson claims, “I want to explore the trunk, the torso. I don’t always do female figures, but a huge major-ity of them are. It’s important to me to show the power of women instead of this screwed-up idea of beauty portrayed in the media.”

His figures each seem to have a story. Some strike exultant poses reaching towards the sky. Others, like Waiting, capture quiet, private moments. Waiting offers a glimpse into the world of a small, seated woman. Her head outreached but hung low, she folds her limbs into the central line of her body. This inward movement creates a soft tension between the limbs and torso, her leaning body perched on the edge of a bench. It also produces a sense of hushed inti-macy, a brief glimpse into an inter-nal and thoughtful experience.

Jackson asserts, “If you look at my work, there is not a straight line. Flesh that lives bulges. It has a life that pushes out. I want those figures to feel alive—like they could breathe, like there is life bulging out of them trying to get out. It is part of the beauty of the human form.”

Buddy Jackson is represented by

Zeitgeist Gallery. zeitgeist-art.com

right: Stretch

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BUDDY JACKSON

represented by

HILLSBORO VILLAGE

NASHVILLE

615.256 . .4805

z e i t g e-i s t- a r t . c o m


47Photography

Bob SchatzImages of Wanderlust

For Nashville photographer Bob Schatz, art often imitates life. His professional work has taken him around the globe on photographic assign-ments. In turn, private encounters on his journeys fuel his interests as a creative person.

Employed as a commercial artist for over 30 years, Schatz has garnered numerous awards for corporate, advertising, and editorial photography. He is also a fine-arts photographer, and his images can be found in the permanent collections of the Tennessee State Museum, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Metro Nashville Arts Commission, and others.

Schatz has published books that feature his photographs, including Tennessee: Simply Beautiful, Tennessee Impressions, and Nashville By Design: Architectural Treasures. He claims, “I always want to be an activ-ist in the community and to find ways to point out what good architec-ture and design are and what we should value in our community.”

Recent adventures have taken Schatz to Israel, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Italy, among other places. He was hired recently by Lifeway Christian Resources to take part in a mission to interpret historical sites. Schatz captured scenes of markets, streets, and locals in these foreign streets and neighborhoods. He enjoyed glancing into the worlds of other cultures and peoples. He explains,

“I have wanderlust; I love to travel, seeking what I can find along the way.” ph

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far left: Jars, Jerusalem

In the Arab section of old Jerusalem I found these antique

vessels sitting on an ancient staircase of an antiquities

dealer.

far left bottom: Luxor Crossing

Early in the morning we crossed the Nile at Luxor for the

west bank of the river where the Valley of the Kings and

Queens are both located. These people were waiting for the

ferry to take them over to the other side.

center top: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

The Grand Bazaar is still the largest mall in the world. It is a

series of barrel-vaulted skylight-lit corridors, which intersect

and wind for miles. A wonderful place to get lost for a while.

center bottom: Karnak, Luxor

In the temple of Karnak in Luxor I was lucky to capture this

conversation framed in an opening of one of the chambers.

above: Blue Mosque, Istanbul

This photo cost me $75. The night before I had noticed

there would be a full moon rising the next night, so I took

a compass reading to see where that would occur, as I

wanted that behind the Blue Mosque. At the angle I wanted

to shoot from there was a rug dealer. Inquiring if I could

go upstairs for my shot I was told of course...if you buy a

rug. I now have a great rug and a great photo.

right: Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is located on

the traditional site of Golgotha, where Christ was crucified.

The earliest parts of this orthodox Church were constructed

AD 330. This is the rotunda, under which is located the Holy

Sepulchre itself. Incense burns inside these hanging lamps.


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left: Bedouin, Giza

The archaeologist I was traveling with wanted to go for a late

afternoon walk. our hotel was directly across the street from the

main entrance to the pyramids in Giza. We gave the guard a

little baksheesh (a bribe), and we found the Bedouin living on

the grounds enjoying themselves riding the same horses they

had been selling rides on earlier in the day.

above: Sand Storm, Delta Region

We had driven north of Cairo into the Nile Delta to photograph

a couple of archaeological sites. The wind began to build as

did the heat, feeling like air from a large furnace. The air was

thickening with sand as I took this shot. Within five minutes we

could not see past the hood of our car.

top right: Simak, Turkey

The young shepherd and shepherdess are tending their herd

just about five miles from the Iraq border. While I was taking this

photo I heard a heated debate behind me. our interpreter said

we should leave quickly as another man was saying we were

spies and contacting the authorities.

right: St.Paul's Shipwreck Church at Valletta

In May of every year the gilded statue of Mary is carried out of

the church and through the streets of Valletta, Malta, heading a

long procession of the faithful.

below: Aswan Market

In Aswan, Egypt, we walked through the tourist market and kept

going until we found the market the locals use.


54

“My puppets have a name, a personality, a voice, and a purpose.”

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55Profile

The Pez dispensers in Kathleen Lynam’s home aren’t hidden away,

but neither are they the first thing you see upon stepping inside. To view them one must pass from the more formal living room through the kitchen to the back-of-the-house living space, where large windows gaze upon the trees surrounding the home. Here the Pez collection quietly catches one’s fancy as it smiles down from its room-circling shelf near the ceiling.

There’s something very Lynam in that. Tall, slender, dark-haired and gentle yet energetic, Lynam greets you as any comfortably situated family woman might. But step a bit further into her confidence and the creative quirkiness that feeds her art shines through. And you quickly find yourself smiling in response—even before she’s brought out her singing, dancing, story-telling, lesson-teaching puppets.

Both a performance artist and a visual artist, Lynam has been a self-taught puppeteer since the early 1990s, but one senses addendums to that artistic title could easily be lurking close by. With puppetry, she says, “There are so many different creative outlets. It keeps it fresh and interesting.” From painting, sculpting and sewing the puppets to writing the scripts, poems and songs for their shows to performing the shows and connecting with audiences, Lynam engages creativity from myriad angles.

Kathleen LynamThe Playful Puppeteerby Kami L. Rice

The puppets begin with a character, and, before they’ve received physical form, “they have a name, a personality, a voice, and a purpose,” says Lynam. Often working at her kitchen table, she creates five different types of puppets: finger puppets, rod puppets, glove puppets, hand and foam puppets, and weird-object puppets.

Like her kitchen, Lynam’s car serves as another type of studio. She keeps it quiet—never driving with the radio on—because this is where she gets much of the inspiration for the words her puppets perform. She writes down ideas and records songs in this mobile incubator.

Lynam and Bob, her husband of almost 35 years, moved their family to Franklin from Connecticut in 1988. Shortly after their move, Lynam stumbled on the art of puppetry while seeking to help their youngest son, Brendan, with his difficulty keeping sustained attention. When she created a puppet to tell him stories, he was able to sit through an entire tale for the first time. Though she hadn’t been looking for a career outside of staying home with her children, which she loved doing, she felt compelled to share this epiphany with others, knowing there were other children in Brendan’s position.

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56“I try to bring as much magic and beautyas possible into their lives because they don’t have a lot of that.”

Lynam’s first public performances were traditional puppet shows performed at libraries in the puppet theater Bob made for her. “That was actually a perfect way to start out,” she notes. “I’m actually pretty shy.” Which means she liked being hidden by the theater while she vocalized a character’s crazy wolf voice. “Most puppeteers don’t want to be in the limelight. The puppet’s the star.”

Twenty years later, she’s surprised by “how much I still love it, how fulfilling and satisfying it is as a career. I took what I love and made it into a job.” Her professional affiliations include serving as a master artist with the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning through the Arts, a teaching artist with the ArtSmart program, and a Kennedy Center artist.

Now Lynam spends much of her time in schools, using puppets to teach elementary and pre-school-age students and training teachers to do the same. She is more confident as a performer, and she and her puppets are fully visible now, surrounded by students, providing an interaction with her audience that she loves.

“When Kathleen gets up there, she has this connection with the kids,” says husband Bob, clearly proud of his wife. “She changes her routine every time depending on the kids she’s working with. That’s really her gift. She’s totally developed at the receiver’s end to make sure they come away with the skills and knowledge.”

Lynam’s puppets bring to life the books and concepts the students are studying. A caterpillar glove puppet transforms into a butterfly. Humpty Dumpty’s great fall—her prequel to the nursery rhyme explains that Humpty was on the wall because he didn’t obey his mother—teaches students about respect and safety. A Picasso puppet helps prepare older students for a visit to a Frist Center exhibit.

Lynam loves the challenge of helping teachers add art to what their students are studying. “It’s always new and unique,” she says. “They give me a problem, and I come home and work on it.” Sometimes the “problem” is figuring out a way to teach a life skill; sometimes it’s an academic subject; sometimes it’s literacy, and sometimes it’s language learning for students learning to speak English.

“The teachers and the children are inspirations for my work,” she says, smiling. The Head Start students “call me Miss Gasoline because they can’t say Kathleen. It’s the best job ever. I walk into the room and they cheer. The boys brush off a seat for me. They give me hugs. I try to bring as much magic and beauty as possible into their lives because they don’t have a lot of that.” The best job ever, indeed. ph

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59Painting

I first met Andy Warhol with my Parsons art schoolmate Tom Ford at Trader Vic’s in the Plaza’s basement bar. That was 1984. Andy loved hanging out there because that’s where the “preppies” and mid-America tourists hung out. He liked that ironic vibe.

I felt so cool, a NYC art student hanging with the ultimate pop artist/anti artist of that century. His thatch of bleached straw he called hair seemed to glow in the dark. When we all went to open-ings and clubs, my favorite thing to do was to walk about ten yards behind and watch the sea of people part as Andy walked through. At the sight of him, they generally fell into three basic categories: The Tourists—slack-jawed and frozen in their tracks; The Club Noirs—conspicuously hip and conspicuously trying not to look, and The Clueless—ever present.

Andy hated hospitals, and when Tom told me Andy had to go in, I felt inexplicably weird. Andy never came out. It was February 1987.

Fortunately for us, five years before his death Andy sowed the seeds for a gift that would be a generation in the making. Andy was a founding member of the New York Academy of Art, an atelier-format art school with a mission to give the same access to figurative knowledge as the great artists who have come before. Their mission statement read:

“At the New York Academy of Art, we believe that the world of visual art is built upon the essential cornerstones of figurative drawing, painting, and sculpture. Mastering these disciplines is critical to the development of an artist’s personal vision and, ultimately, to the creation of vital contemporary art.”

When asked by contemporaries and critics why he would do such an odd thing, being the pop iconoclast master of all time, he simply said, “If you teach a generation how to paint the way the masters did, you will change the art world.”

Twenty-seven years and a generation later I was in New York getting a teaching certificate from the Institute of Classical Architecture &

“If you teach a generation how to paint the way the masters did, you will change the art world.”

-Andy Warhol

opposite page: Portrait of Andy, 1976 by Jamie Wyeth Courtesy of Cheekwood

above: Sheena, Graphite and White Chalk,11" x 16", by Camie Davis

Andy’s Gift:The Paintings of Camie Davisby Eric Stengel


60

The artist, Camie Davis

left: Psyche’s Mourning, oil on Linen, 22" x 30"

above: Title Unknown, Graphite and White Chalk,11" x 16"

below left: The Athlete, Graphite on paper, 22" x 26"

below: Harpooneer, oil on Linen, 38” x 48”

opposite page:

top center: Narcissus, oil on Linen, 30" x 40"

top right: Narcissus, Graphite and White Chalk, 11" x 16"

right: Caroline, oil on Linen, 18" x 19.5"


61

Classical America (ICA&CA). As part of our instruction, our group went up to the sixth floor of the ICA&CA’s headquarters to the Grand Central Academy of Art for some life drawing. Reaching for the door and stepping into the blacked-out room, I saw it: a room full of that generation—Andy’s gift in the flesh.

What I saw froze me in my tracks; now I was slack-jawed. Students, mostly closer to 20 than 30 years of age, were refining their skills through a carefully orchestrated set of instruc-tions and drills. Like learning the piano or violin, each lesson is designed to augment the previous one, and progress must be made in order to move on to the next lesson. So in the end, the student, at least, had a gifted talent for anatomy, draftsmanship and painting.

Something else extraordinary happened that day—I met Ms. Camie Davis. She was working on a pencil drawing (it looked like a continuous tone sepia photograph) of a classi-cal nude with drapery. Having started my art training in 1982 at Parsons, I was well aware of the giant gift I was witnessing. She imme-diately stopped her meticulous process to take time for my basic questions, a clear indication to me that she had the heart of a teacher.

Once back in Nashville I started the Classical Arts Studio (CAS) with the mission of promot-ing all the allied arts through shows and seminars. Our first show had to be Camie’s first solo show. Present were Camie, her incredible canvases, and a three-piece string ensemble playing works by Stravinsky, whose ballets were the subject of two huge oils by her. She didn’t ask me to do any of this. Her talent compelled me to, and she helped me to see my calling at a broader level.

Andy was right. His gift did change the world, and Ms. Davis’s work is proof of that. Thanks Andy. What a great gift you left us. Eric Stengel Architecture, llc is a boutique firm

specializing in the language of classical

architecture. www.ericstengelarchitecture.com


63

We pulled into our driveway just as the fire trucks were leaving. Our house had suffered a major fire as we were returning from the holi-day vacation. It was the start of a long and emotional process of sort-ing through our charred and smoke-covered possessions, evaluating each as to whether it could be saved or should simply be thrown out.

When you look at your possessions, most really are of no great consequence and can easily be replaced. But what was devastating for us was seeing the portrait of my mother’s mother, who had died in childbirth having my mother, now lying on the floor, a pile of smoke-covered paint fragments barely clinging to a charred canvas. That painting was the only real memory of a mother she never got to know and a grandmother that we knew only from the life-size portrait that hung in our dining room. It was surely destroyed, beyond all efforts for salvation.

That’s when my family experienced firsthand the miraculous work that skilled art restoration professionals can accomplish. I was a young girl at the time, but the process of bringing damaged art back to life remains basically the same, whether a family heirloom, a favorite print or a valuable Monet.

Art RestorationThe Reversal of Misfortuneby Melissa Cross | photography by Tim Hiber

left, before and after: Wartrace Creek by Mayna Treanor Avent,

Nashville painter, 1868-1959. The painting belongs to Mary

Margaret Halverson of ooltewah, Tennessee.

below: The author’s house ablaze in January 1970

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65photographs and documents. She often works on art that has been damaged by water, and her projects include over 400 pieces damaged as a result of flooding from Hurricane Katrina. Surprisingly, one treatment for flood damage actually involves immersing the art in a water bath. Other common treatments include solar and ultraviolet light bleaching.

“Pastels are tricky because you can’t put those in a water bath,” Christine explains. She recently completed the painstakingly detailed conservation work on a Degas pastel for the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, a process that took a year and a half.

Another common condition of damage, especially in the South, is mold. “Everybody brings in their mold!” Christine declares. “Mold is a living thing that’s always in the environment. The adverse effects remain active,” she explains. Using tiny brushes, erasers and a small HEPA filtered vacuum, Christine removes as much mold as possible and completes the conservation by creating a low-humidity environ-ment that will prevent further mold growth.

As a member of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC), Christine has clients that include promi-nent museums and historical sites as well as private collectors. Her most time-consuming project was as part of the team of conservators who preserved the nineteenth-century block-printed scenic wallpa-per in the central hallway of The Hermitage, the home of President Andrew Jackson. The removal, treatment, reinstallation and recon-struction of missing sections of the Paysage de Telemaque wallpaper took over two years.

Although a relatively simple process, another common conservation task involves removing dried-up tape from works on paper, often on documents and manuscripts. One such project was for the Federal Reserve where Christine was escorted into the sub- sub-basement of the bank site and, under the watchful eyes of several armed guards, she carefully removed the tape from several large bills, including a $1,000,000 bill.

Across town in their studios off West End Avenue, Dee Minault’s and Cynthia Stow’s Cumberland Art Conservation is messy business. Working with traditional oil paintings and specializing in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Southern art, Dee and Cynthia are Fellows of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) and each has over 30 years of professional experience. They’ve seen just about everything, mostly dry-rotted canvases, paintings that have been damaged by fire or water, and canvases with deep creases from being folded for storage. Much of the damage is due to neglect or incom-petent restoration, often done at framing shops and even by artists themselves, such as a canvas that has been glued to a Masonite board. Perhaps the most dramatic damage was after Hurricane Andrew in the summer of 1992. “The heat and high humidity were devastating,” Dee exclaims. “We saw three-dimensional mold on those pieces!”

“Because there are several historic sites, museums and prominent collections here, Nashville is something of a mecca for art conservation.”

right: Christine young

67

While many paintings require only cleaning or repairs of tears in the canvas, complex conservation starts with stabilizing and reinforcing the support before tackling the “cosmetic stage”—the actual painting. In such a conservation the first step is to apply a temporary facing tissue over the front layers of paint and across any tears to protect it during treatment. Once the front is secure, they can then work on the back of the canvas, removing linings and adhesives that are causing damage such as cracking, flaking and mold due to the water content in the material. Another step is to use gentle heat to “relax” the canvas to remove distortions and creases.

Working on a vacuum hot table throughout this process, tears and holes in the canvas are patched, and new fabric lining is applied to complete the structural support. Then the facing tissue is removed so the paint can be cleaned and restored.

“Keeping in mind the whole structure of the piece, we continually think forwards and backwards,” Dee states as she inspects a recently relined piece. “We’re really problem solvers,” Cynthia adds. “If we know the materials and we know the chemistry, we can understand the why and how to prevent that damage in the future.”

Dee and Cynthia use a variety of lights, microscopes and visual aides to do their work, including ultraviolet light, which reveals where there has been in-painting and can disclose the conservation history and extent of previous restoration.

“The most important thing,” Cynthia adds, “is that restoration work should always be reversible, mean-ing that in 50 or 100 years, when there may be superior materials and techniques, our work can be undone, and new methods of conservation will continue to preserve the art for many years to come.”

above: Dee Minault works over a

vacuum hot table. Dee Minault peels

off the facing tissue.

right top to bottom: before and after: The Temple of Poseidon, watercolor

on paper. Varnish removed and paper washed and bleached.


68Literature

Lydia PeelleThe Reason for Breathingby Sally Schloss | photography by Anthony Scarlati

For Lydia Peelle, the South is a place where the past crowds the present. She is curious about the lives that came before. Who were the people that once lived in her house? What are the histories of people she passes on the street? What lives were lived in an old abandoned farmhouse?

Peelle’s award-winning collection of short stories, Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing, is rooted in Tennessee soil, populated by char-acters that she has imagined into life by walking the land and research-ing the past, not as a native but as a Northern transplant. Desire for understanding and connection compelled her to write her way into making Tennessee home.

“I’m drawn to a rural way of life because I’m interested in the inter-section between domestication and the wild. A farm is considered a domesticated place, but it’s where you can still see a hawk out in the field and the cardinal it killed on the top of the big hay bale—and you know there are snake skeletons out there.

“So much of my identity as a writer was developed in childhood by hiding away with a book and creating my own space. I think if you want to write, you have to do that. You have to separate yourself from your family and the people you love. You have to be an observer of all aspects of your life.”


72

They have the brightest eyes and smiles. They read Shakespeare and honor him in their monologues. They recently packed out the performance hall at Vanderbilt’s Sarratt Student Center where teens and college-age youth buzzed with anticipation for the spoken word poetry they were about to hear. For these performers, a bare-naked stage presents their art just right; their words, only, take the limelight. Turning words to action, these youth grow into movers and shakers of our cities.

As we look to the New Year, Nashville Arts thought it would be exciting to catch up with Youth Speaks Nashville, these bright minds and wordsmiths, to learn their wishes for our world.

The warm, steely-eyed Nashville director, Benjamin Smith, wears his paternal instincts on his sleeve when it comes to his poets. Protective and thoughtful, he pondered rather than jumped at the idea of doing an article. Fortunately, it took little persuasion once we starting talking about their goals and what the kids hope to accomplish in 2010. We hope our readers will tune in as these poets change the world with their words one performance at a time.

This month’s featured poet, Sebastian Jones on p.86, also represents youth Speaks Nashville, a civic

organization that promotes youth literacy and artistic development. www.youthspeaksnashville.org

our sincere thanks to New York City Magazine for the inspiration.

Youth Speaks Nashville

My Wish for the World Is . . .photography by Anthony Scarlati

“Through words, all

youth claim the

power and hope to

determine their

future.”–Youth Speaks

Nashville vision statement

My Wish for the World Is...We will stop marketing ignorance brilliantlyAnd brilliance ignorantly.Will quit selling our childrenAction hero dreamsIn plastic packagesToo hard to open.Pundits will behaveLess like battle rappersAnd more like question marks.Inertia will disquiet us,Like untied shoelace tapeTicking off concrete failureWith every step.

Benjamin Smith Director, youth Speaks Nashville


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My Wish for the World Is...To be as giving as my grandpaWho handed me a golden Mexican ring With upside down horseshoe jewels.It would take selfish stress off our necklike I remove my oak necklace when I go to bed.

My Wish for the World Is...To eliminate stressWith a decent pair of Chuck’s.See, if our minds are off our tired solesAnd our destination,Our hearts wouldn’t deceive us on the journey.So we’ll arrive ready.

Samuel Tompkins, 18Middle College High School

Rukiya Ellsberry, 15

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My Wish for the World Is...For dreams to be finishedThe murdering of our young dreams leaves the earth without its creativity.I’m specifically sayinAll this SlayinLeaves us plain like a lion without his mane.Creativity is like the heart with the uniqueness of its beatOr the grass with its emerald green color under my feet.So without the creativity of dreamsI deem the earth plain.A world without creativity is a dream unfinished.

Amy Ashida, 19Belmont University

My Wish for the World Is...That it would arise and rub the sleep from its swollen eyesSee the notes of new beginning Peeking through the still drawn blindsAwake and find that dreams are plenty And accessible likeThe red, yellow, green, white, sugar coated candyThat fills my 10 cent gumball machine.

Kavonna Cooper, 15Hume-Fogg


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Actors, directors, writers or even tech virtuosos, whatever the discipline, have all been known to start theater companies, and the reason is always the same. Something is missing on the boards, and they have the vision and fire to fill the void with their own special gifts.

Theater

The Amun Ra TheatreWalking in the Light!by Jim Reyland

Dr. Jeff Obafemi Carr is the founding artistic director of the Amun Ra Theatre. “When I began my acting career in Nashville, good roles for black talent were scarce, to say the least. I wanted to change that. The next few years, as I traveled the country, I devoted my spare time to studying what worked and what didn’t for African-American theaters nationwide.”

Anyone who knows Carr knows that he has a flair for the dramatic (really?). As a student at TSU he organized a sit-in to raise money for a new theater, and more recently he took to the roof of his own new theater space to raise awareness for Amun Ra.

“Artists have two things in common: we are creative, and we are fear-less. If we don’t step out there with new and exciting ideas, we grow stagnant. ART has the distinction of being the first black theater with its own facility in Nashville since The Majestic in 1906—that’s 103 years. Some people thought it couldn’t be done, but we believe in aiming out of the galaxy so we can at least reach the stars. Our philosophy is to be a professional theater ensemble, located in the heart of the community. People who live across the street from the theater actually helped us build it. In the spring, we’ll be opening the lobby as an after-school hangout for teens, and our Performing ARTs Academy is taking the unprecedented step of going to Ghana next summer. Our kids, ages 9 to 13, are going to join our professional actors/instructors and students from Lipscomb University and travel across the waters to add a theater annex/recreation room onto a needy school and jointly learn about the performing experience with kids their age. Our performances, as well as our training opportunities, are geared toward the symbiotic learning experience—we learn as we teach and vice-versa, all the while exposing the light within us all.”

Amun Ra Theatre’s ambitious new season is aptly titled The Future Is Now. It includes The Bluest Eye and Waiting for Godot (two challenging pieces Carr believes are going to light up the local landscape), Topdog/Underdog, The Colored Museum, Route 66: Finding Nat King Cole, and the perennial Christmas favorite The Black Nativity. The season kicks off, however, with Carolyn German’s new play Signs of a New Day, the story of a Civil Rights legend, performed in the theater that is named after him. A collaboration with Metro Nashville Parks, Signs of a New Day: the Z. Alexander Looby Story is based on the life and accomplish-ments of acclaimed Civil Rights attorney Zephaniah Alexander Looby.

Carolyn German: “This project began about two years ago, when I first took on the management of the Looby Theater. As I did more research about Looby, the more intrigued I became with him. So many aspects of his life are fascinating, and I knew I had to tell this

“Amun Ra Theatre—an Egyptian name meaning The Hidden Light. I’ve always believed it to be divine providence that the acronym ended up being ART.”

– Dr. Jeff obafemi Carr, founding artistic director,

Amun Ra Theatre

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left: The cast of Before the People Came written and directed by Dr. Jeff obafemi Carr.


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Jim Reyland is artistic director of Writer’s Stage Theatre (www.writersstage.com) and president of Audio Productions, Nashville (www.audioproductions.com). His writing and composing credits include Used Cows For Sale, A Sugar-Coated Pill, Stuff, Further Than We’ve Ever Been, Shelter, A Terrible Lie, Stand, Article 4 : and the musicals 21 Baker Road with Addison Gore and The Grand Band Ballroom. [email protected]

story on the stage.” Signs of a New Day runs January 22–February 6, 2010 (Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m.), tick-ets through Brown Paper Tickets, $15, Z. Alexander Looby Theater, 2301 Rosa Parks Boulevard, Nashville.

Dr. Jeff Obafemi Carr has created a strong foundation from which to create lasting good and enduring art. Dr. Carr: “Realizing we all are gifted with something, we are compelled to share with others. That’s the magic of theater, and that’s the gift that is Amun Ra Theatre.”

Amun Ra Theatre, 2508 Clifton Avenue, Nashville, TN, 37209

(615) 329-4228 www.theamunratheatre.org

right: Carolyn German,

Dr. Jeff obafemi Carr

far right: The adult

cast of Black Nativity

being taught by

dance instructor Ms.

Nomalanga Eniafe.

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84

Linda Dyer serves as an appraiser, broker, and consultant in the field of antiques and fine art. She has

appeared on the PBS production Antiques Roadshow since season one, which aired in 1997, as an

appraiser of Tribal Arts.

If you would like Linda to appraise one of your antiques, please send a clear, detailed image to

[email protected]. or send photographs to Antiques, Nashville Arts Magazine, 644

West Iris Dr., Nashville, TN 37204.

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Chinese Export Porcelain, 18th and 19th Centuries

Although Europeans had been trading with the Chinese since 1557, Americans did not enter the China trade until 1785. British mercantile regulations had prevented the colonists from trading with the Orient. Despite these regulations, seafaring men of the new nation entered into foreign trade. This is how this blue and white china became known to New Englanders as the tableware of the American Revolution.

Most of the porcelain shipped from China to the West during the 17th through the 19th centuries was known as China trade porcelain or Chinese export. Two of the most commonly known forms are the blue and white Canton and blue and white Nanking ware. Porcelain was manufactured and fired in the kilns at the Provence of Ching-Te Chen, then sent to the seaside ports of Canton and Nanking for the final decorating process by Chinese artists and craftsmen working in the enameling shops. The names Canton and Nanking allude as much to the decoration and design on the ware as to its port of export.

Canton has several characteristics that distinguish it from the very similar blue and white Nanking pattern. Both Canton and Nanking ware are hand painted with a composition of a coastal village scene consisting of tea houses, arched bridges, willow trees, meandering streams, distant mountains, and an absence of figures. The most obvious difference between Canton and Nanking patterns is the border designs of each. The border of Canton patterns has a blue lattice network and inner border of wavy or scalloped lines called clouds. Nanking borders are ornamented with a geometric lattice and spearhead design and may also have an application of burnished gold. Unlike the finer quality and reliable color of Nanking ware, Canton pigments vary in intensity from a washed-out gray-blue to cobalt blue, depending on the varied intensities of heat within the kiln during the firing process.

Chinese export porcelain was shipped to Europe and America in the holds of cargo ships, which resulted in its also beginning referred to as ballast ware. More than one ship was lost at sea. Technological advances have made it possible to salvage long-lost wrecks. The Oriental porcelain in their holds has driven the salvage efforts. The most famous recovered shipwreck cargo, known as the Nanking, came from a Dutch ship which sank in 1752. The hundreds of tons of tea on board would have netted the original owner a huge sum, while the 130,000 pieces of blue and white porcelain in the ship’s hold was a minor concern to the paymasters. Yet when the recovered porcelain cargo of the Nanking came to market in 1986, it made $20,000,000.

These handsome examples would typically sell for, in a retail setting, from left to right:18th century blue and white Nanking saucer, $50. 19th century blue and white Canton Chinese scallop edge bowl, $300. 19th century blue and white square saucer, $25.


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88Ron SamuelsWhat characteristic do you most like about yourself?

I have a lot of energy and enthusiasm. I make things happen.

And what do you like least?

I just can’t say no. I over commit.

What was the last book you read?

Rome 1960: the Olympics that Changed the World by David Maraniss

Who would you most like to meet?

Warren Buffett and Sarah Palin. Both are interesting people but for very different reasons.

What about you would most surprise people?

That I play the guitar and I started the Hummingbird band.

Who has most inspired you?

James A. Webb Jr., whom I worked for at Nashville City Bank. A true leader.

Who is your favorite artist?

My wife. I love the way she sees things and interprets them in her paintings. I also like Monet.

What are you most proud of?

Raising two wonderful kids, and my Avenue Bank family. I’m also proud of the fact that I was 60 years old when we started Avenue Bank. It is never too late to dream big!

Why Nashville?

I love the creative spirit of Nashville. It’s a place where those big dreams really do come true.

What do you like most about the city?

It’s a friendly place to live and an exciting place to work. Can it get any better?

What do you like least?

I hope we can figure out public education and reinvent our schools. And we need to do it soon.

Are you happy with where you’re heading?

Absolutely. I’m in the right place, doing the right thing at the right time.

What’s your mantra?

Show up. Be prepared, be dressed to play, and never forget that atti-tude is everything.

What’s it like being you these days?

My life is a mix of interesting people, interesting projects with a big dash of comedy.

What talent would you most like to have?

I always wanted to be an artist.

What is your most treasured possession?

My team-autographed 1956 New York Yankees baseball that includes Mickey Mantle, and my 1970 Mercedes 280SL.

What is your greatest regret?

That I waited too long to become an entrepreneur. Don’t wait! Find something you love and stick with it.

What would you most like to be remembered for?

Founding Avenue Bank and my love for the game of golf.

Who do you like to listen to?

Norah Jones, Rod Stewart, Taylor Swift, Amy Grant. The Beatles were good then, and they’re still good and, of course, the Hummingbirds.

you have five minutes left to live; what are you going to do?

Gather my whole family, go to the golf course, kiss them all, and drive that ball as far as I can.

Anything Goes

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Ronald L. Samuels is President, Chief Executive officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors for Avenue Bank. Samuels is presently Chairman of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce and a board member of the Country Music Association. He played an active role in recruiting the Houston oilers (Tennessee Titans) to Nashville. In addition, he served on the board of the BellSouth Senior Classic for several years, an event that brought professional golf to Middle Tennessee. Samuels received an M.B.A. from Vanderbilt owen Graduate School of Management and is a graduate of the University of Mississippi where he earned a B.B.A. in banking and finance.


97Nashville Arts Magazine Jan. 2010 Crossword PuzzleJunction.com

Copyright ©2010 PuzzleJunction.com

Solution on next page

51 1939 Fonda, Colbert classic, ___ Along the Mohawk

53 Peevish54 Traffi c marker55 Huffy state56 Neutral color58 Cave dweller59 Way back when60 Decompose61 Female lobster

Across

1 Spanish wave4 Discoverer of

New Zealand, ___ Janszoon Tasman

8 Blueprints13 Caddie’s offering14 Space suit insignia15 Kentucky Derby prize16 Bogdanovich’s classic

1971 tale of Texas life, with The

19 Preface, briefl y20 Needle continuously21 Horrifi ed23 Colony member24 Pipe joint27 Corporate V.I.P.28 Vessels31 1935 Astaire, Rogers

classic33 Sears’ partner36 Poetic “overs”37 2005 Crowe,

Zellweger boxing bio40 Percolate slowly41 Common cold

symptoms42 The ___: Kyra

Sedgwick TV series45 Indian buzzard46 Lawn base49 Summer shade50 Herd of seals52 Rio Grande city54 Rough-cut57 Red fl uorescent dye

58 The Adventures of___, Terry Gilliam’s comic look at a legendary German nobleman

62 Torment63 Swamp64 Spare, e.g.65 Clan emblem66 Knock for a loop67 Naval clerical types

(Abbr.)

Down

1 Juice source2 1937 Ronald Colman

classic3 Bone cavity4 Black cuckoo5 The Art of Fugue

composer6 This, in Taxco7 1944 Gene Tierney

classic mystery8 Magician’s word9 Red ink amount

10 Volcano output11 The Matrix hero12 Opposite NNE13 Hipbone-related17 Mailed, in London18 Diatribe22 Toothpaste holder24 1961 Marcello

Mastroianni crime & comedy mix, in English

25 Take home, like a salary

26 French connections?

29 Stickers30 Bloodhound's

signal32 Pear, quince,

apple, e.g.34 Change for a fi ve35 Fish Magic

painter Paul

37 Bubbly drink38 ___-majesté39 Spring bloomer40 Calendar abbr.43 Name of a person

after whom something else is named

44 Gad about47 Willow twigs48 Death, Be Not

Proud poetProud poetProud

Notes:

across: 1 ola, 4 Abel, 8 Plans, 13 Iron, 14 NASA, 15 Roses, 16 Last Picture Show, 19 Intro, 20 Harass, 21 Aghast, 23 Ant, 24 Tee, 27 CEo, 28 Tubs, 31 Top Hat, 33 Roebuck, 36 oers, 37 Cinderella Man, 40 ooze, 41 Sneezes, 42 Closer, 45 Tesa, 46 Sod, 49 Tan, 50 Pod, 52 El Paso, 54 Coarse, 57 Eosin, 58 Baron Munchausen, 62 Agony, 63 Mire, 64 Tire, 65 Totem, 66 Stun, 67 yNs.

down: 1 orange, 2 Lost horizon, 3 Antra, 4 Ani, 5 Bach, 6 Esta, 7 Laura, 8 Presto, 9 Loss, 10 Ash, 11 Neo, 12 SSW, 13 Iliac, 17 Posted, 18 Rant, 22 Tube, 24 The Assassin, 25 Earn, 26 Ets, 29 Burs, 30 Scent, 32 Pome, 34 ones, 35 Klee, 37 Cola, 38 Lese, 39 Azalea, 40 oct, 43 Eponym, 44 Roam, 47 osiers, 48 Donne, 51 Drums, 53 Pouty, 54 Cone, 55 Snit, 56 Ecru, 58 Bat, 59 Ago, 60 Rot, 61 Hen.


98

When I first saw this painting, I was drawn to it immediately. I knew that in most self-portraits, the artist usually tries to make a forceful, singular statement that says, “This is who I am.” Biel’s image is more complicated. The vulpine smile of his jowls masks the dark frown of sadness seen in his tight-lipped mouth. His eyes, set deep in their sockets, reveal the weari-ness of a hard-lived life. Still, his gaze remains bright and intelligent. This is a man who has literally witnessed the best and the worst of what life has to offer.

Encrypted in the artist’s brushstrokes of this provocative image lies the story of the enigmatic Biel. The son of Austrian aristocracy, Nazi resistance advocate, friend and acknowledged contemporary of Picasso, he came to paint this, his own portrait, while living the last years of his life in a modest two-room apartment in the heart of west Nashville.

Eugene Vitalis Biel-Bienne’s Self Portraitby John Guider

Eugene Vitalis Biel-Bienne was born in Vienna in 1902. Biel’s fame as an artist grew quickly, and by the 1930s the New York Times declared him “one of the most significant painters on the continent.” Biel’s form of expressionism was a favorite among the critics, and soon great institutions such as the National Gallery in Berlin, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Nationale D’Art Moderne in Paris were acquiring his work. However, his vehement and vocal outcries against anti-Semitism and the Nazi occupations in the late ’30s cost him the lives of his two children, the health of his wife, and his career.

My Favorite Painting

After near starvation and years of exile, he and his ailing wife were granted asylum in the United States in 1942. With the aid of two Guggenheim grants and a teaching position at Fordham University he was able to restructure his life and continue his work as an artist. once again his works were shown in major galleries alongside the likes of Modigliani, Seurat, and Kandinsky.

The death of his wife in 1959 left him devastated. He accepted a position at Vanderbilt as a professor of art history until 1965. He continued his life in Nashville and quietly passed away in 1969.

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2010 January Nashville Arts Magazine