Interview with Lars Strandh

In honor of Lars Strandh’s first solo exhibit at Zeitgeist since 2014, we sat down to chat with our favorite Scandinavian painter about his work.

How would you describe your artwork?

I work with the paintings in a reduced way. I don't like calling them minimalistic but more reduced paintings that consist of many layers (usually 25), and every layer in a different color or color shade or different quality of the color, like matte or glossy or very translucent or opaque.

How did you come up with the concept for your new show, Spectrum Line?

Last time, in 2014, when I showed paintings here I made a boogie woogie installation with three different shades of blue mainly. And I was thinking of this very long wall. It was an opportunity to do one large piece. The spectrum is 12 canvases long. It's about testing out all the colors together as a spectrum.

Is that the first time you've arranged your work in that way?

Absolutely. Yeah. When I install shows, they're about the communication between the works, between the colors, how you move in the exhibition. How the architecture works with the paintings and with the viewers. This wholeness of experience and exhibition is also very important to me when I hang the show.

What art movement do you feel your work best fits in?

It's a difficult question because some of those who are into minimalism say that this is not minimalist because you have the hand in it. You have all the brushstrokes. They are quite often uneven; there are mistakes. But on the other hand, a lot of people who are interested in figurative stuff or more abstract stuff say that not enough is happening here. So I don't know but I think I feel more related to post minimalism. If I have to put myself somewhere.

What fascinates you about color?

I think our color memories and the perception of color, how we react to color is very interesting. We sometimes can imagine that the white painting is a snow landscape and the blue is the sea and the green is a field or and I think it's also based on our memories or our references and if we like a color or not. We can put in a lot of color theory and art history and talk about my art in an intellectual and complex way, but it can also be as simple as, like my mother said once, “I don't really understand what you're looking for, but I like the red one. It makes me happy.” It can actually be as simple as that and of course if you live with my paintings, they will change. Hopefully, you will explore them in more complex ways than just liking them.

Lars Strandh’s exhibit, Spectrum Line, is on view at Zeitgeist through October 28.

Keep Dreaming Q&A

We talked to local artists, Abraham Lara, Levi Morales, and Sebastian Lara about their upcoming show, Keep Dreaming, opening at Zeitgeist on August 6, 12-6pm. Together they make up Barbarian.

Question: How would you describe your work? 

Abraham (Abe) Lara: I approach my paintings as a songwriter would a song.
I think it’s about being honest and about seeking truth at some capacity. Sometimes it’s found in beauty, and other times being reflective of the world. Curiosity and play are big factors to how I approach it. 

Abraham Lara, Too Much Information

Levi Morales: My work is the accumulation of my experiences on this world. Following what sparks my curiosity and also what makes my heart break, is what I currently enjoy doing. My work is about waste and switching the perspective of how waste is viewed. The things we discard so easily can become beautiful/fresh again with the right vision. 

Sebastian Lara: I create as if it was a journal, with honest thoughts and colorful language. It’s usually a reflection of personal experiences and observations of what the world is going through at the moment. 

Q: How does this time inform your work? 

Abe: Up-cycling has become a big component of our creative process. Whether it be a canvas or a t-shirt, this is the time to use the discarded. Use what you have, and thrift stores are our best friends. 

Levi: We live in a time of fast fashion and constant Amazon delivery. Barbarian upcycles materials to create new pieces. My work specifically uses Cardboard, scrap papers, and thrifted fabrics. I use materials that there is a lot of waste of. Most of which just end up in landfills that hurt our planet. Abe and I believe we can make art with what we already have. 

Levi Morales, YOU TAKE MY BREATHE AWAY

Sebastian: Reusing and up-cycling have been implemented in my creations in order to prevent waste, I embrace and use what I have around me to make something greater. 

Q: What themes are you currently exploring? 

Abe: The theme of self has been pretty prominent. I find it as a true way to connect with the audience. When you’re able to tap into your personal experiences and share them, more often than not people find themselves in those experiences as well. 

Levi: I’m currently exploring upcycling, waste and the push and pull of the canvas. 

Sebastian: I’m addressing a lack of awareness and the disconnection from the world. My work is situated within the connecting threads of life and death. Each piece references elements of nature incorporating recognizable and exaggerated features that represent universal themes of environmental health, intentional acts of love, and our global fragility. 

Q: How does being part of a collective impact the way you create, and
how did it come together?

Abe: It’s great when there are conversations and you can feel everyone is in sync and it’s the greatest feeling. It becomes difficult when you fall out of sync. Not seeing eye to eye can make it hard for a creative collective to work in harmony. As far as how we’ve met, we’ve been knowing each other way before we became artists. So there’s a history and things we have in common that made this whole thing come about. 

Levi: I absolutely love working as a collective. Don't get me wrong, it's tough but there is nothing like a team in sync working towards one goal. Working together impacts my approach towards my work and gets me out of comfort zone. I see their process and it inspires me to fine tune my own. Being wrong or not always having a hand in the final piece teaches you to trust one another's abilities. It helps you grow. The team I have the pleasure of working with now are also childhood friends so communication is a little easier than most. 

Sebastian: Anytime you have more than one great mind in a group, there are moments where it feels and sounds like a church choir but there are moments when it gets difficult and things don’t fall into place. But because we grew up together, we’ve learned to listen, and have conversations that build us up as one. 

Q: Where do you see the line between art and craft, and where do you fit into that?

Abe: I actually had to google what craft was. Craft is supposedly something that is purely technical and about skill. Art is about trying to convey something, which I find the line between art and craft to really be subjective. All I know is that we learned about dada and pop art before we started making shirts and paintings. We’ve always had the question of why and what are we wanting to say with this with anything we’ve ever made. Shoutout to Guy! 

Levi: I don't see a line. I just create. I spend time perfecting my craft so I can make art that more clearly conveys what I want to express. 

Sebastian: Art always has something to say and craft is purely skill and technicality. You can always find a balance between the two. I find myself right on the line as a skilled and technical artist but still crave to say something with my work. 

Sebastian Lara, Apocalypse

Q: What artists inspire you? 

Abe: Sonnenzimmer, Kendrick Lamar, Levi Morales, The 1975, Sebastian Lara, Callen Schaub, Virgil Abloh, and always Duchamp. 

Levi: I draw my inspiration from everywhere. Music, shows, nature, and community. All forms of art fuel my creation process. I pull inspiration from the greats and in the artworld and the movements that they help start. Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Picasso, Basquiat, and a lot more. My friends and local artist Abraham Lara and Sebastian Lara are also a source of inspiration. It all inspires me. 

Sebastian: I pull a lot from Jean Dubuffet, Levi Morales, Tyler the creator, Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, Abraham Lara, and Prince. 

Q: What do you like about being an artist in Nashville? 

Abe: We’ve been here our whole lives, so it helps knowing fellow artists and having connections. 

Levi: I enjoy the diversity. The different perspectives from unique individuals. I also like the energy of a growing city. Even though traffic sucks. 

Sebastian: I’ve lived here all my life, so I’ve seen Nashville grow immensely, meeting new creatives and making new connections is what makes living in Nashville worthwhile. 

Q: What do you wish would change about the arts in Nashville? 

Abe: I wish there was a place where artists could rent for a studio space to have more of a community going. Having gone to Watkins College of Art it was nice to having been constantly surrounded by artists and seeing what everyone was working on. I would make a place where artists could work from and also have a gallery of sorts. 

Levi: I would like to see more opportunities given to the minority population in Nashville. In Antioch, Murfreesboro, and Laverne there is a rich diversity of artists. I would like to see more promotion in those areas to pull in local artists. There isn’t spot for artists to come together. Having a sorta home base would allow us to get more connected and organized. 

Sebastian: More artists coming together. 

Q: Where would be your dream to see your work one day? 

Abe: It would be nice to show at the Frist someday - that would be cool. 

Levi: It would have to be seeing my work being appropriated and inspiring new kinds of work by others . As far as what space I dream to see my work in, I would love to see my work on the walls of someone’s house. 

Sebastian: Showing at the Julia Martin Gallery would be absolute craziness.

Keep Dreaming is on view August 6-27 at Zeitgeist

Jeremiah Ariaz on We Hold These Truths

Jeremiah Ariaz’s newest exhibit, We Hold These Truths is a selection of photographs made across the U.S. during the Trump presidency. Drawn from the Declaration of Independence, the title implicates “We” the viewer as an active participant, acknowledging the collective responsibility shared in our democracy. The photographs reveal the anxiety felt across the nation and speak to this historic moment, as tensions run increasingly high in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election.

Below he shares the stories behind some of the images that appear in the show.

Gary, Main Street, Great Bend, KS, 2020

Gary said he was a counter-protester to the people gathering around the country in support of Black Lives Matter (there were no protesters in Great Bend). He said he was “...a big fan of Trump. My girlfriend too.”

Eric, Russell County, Kansas, 2020

Oil hit historically low prices last summer, largely due to the lack of demand as people across the country sheltered at home during the on-going public health pandemic. Eric transferred crude from one off his three pumping wells into storage tanks waiting to bring it to market, hoping prices rise. 

Sublette, Haskell County, KS, 2020

President Trump frequently refers to Covid-19 as the “China Virus.” Many people don’t realize the most deadly virus to spread globally originated in the U.S. though is commonly referred to as the “Spanish Flu”. Epidemiological evidence traces the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 to the sparsely populated Haskell County in southwestern Kansas where the first cases were reported. With the outbreak of WWI, men from Haskell County traveled to Fort Riley, KS then were deployed to Europe where the virus spread. US government censors minimized reportsof the deadly virusso as to maintain morale for the war. The virus came to be known as the “Spanish Flu” because Spain, which was neutral in the war, allowed press to freely report on the pandemic. The virus killed more people than any outbreak of disease in human history. Conservative estimates place the global death toll at 21 million though recent scholarship suggests the number of dead was between 50 and 100 million. A century ago the world population was only 28% of what it is today. Approximately 1/3 of the world’s population was affected. (Suggested Reading: The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John Barry.)

Former Darkroom, the Haskell County Monitor-Chief, 2020

More than 2000 American newspapers have gone out of business since 2004. For many papers still in operation, media consolidation has led to dramatically reduced staff. When citizens lack critical information to make good decisions, there is less political engagement, reduced local coverage and accountability, and weakening community tiesresulting in a diminished Democracy.At the time the photograph was made, The Haskell County Monitor-Chief, distributedweekly, had a one-person staff. (Suggested Reading: Ghosting the News: Local Journalism And The Crisis of American Democracyby Margaret Sullivan.)

Mortuary, Zachary, LA,2020

By October the death toll from Coronavirus surpassed 200,000 Americans. On average,over the month of September, about 40,000 Americans were infected by Covid-19 daily, and on average, 850 Americans are dying every day.

Though the U.S. has 4% of the world’s population, we have 24% of the world’s Covid-19 deaths.

Scarlett, Ellinwood, KS (Listening to the Supreme Court decision guaranteeing Civil Rights Protection for Gay and Transgender People), 2020

The landmark Supreme Court case was brought by Aimee Stephens after being fired from a Michigan funeral home following the announcement in 2013 that she was a transgender woman and would start working in woman’s clothing. Scarlett is a 77 year-old transgender woman who fought in the Vietnam War, then returned home to teach, but soon quit to drive a truck for the Coca Cola Bottling Company where she could wear a dress under her work-issue coveralls. She hid her gender identity and only began to come out to close friends and family in 1999. This year she is publicly identifying as Scarlett no matter what she is wearing or how others perceive her identity.

Wildfire, Idaho, 2016

The West is burning. Wild fires have increased in intensity in recent years. Climate change has led to dryer conditions and an increased number of dead trees that provide fuel for the fires. Construction has also providing additional fuel. Housing prices in urban areas have pushed many people out of the cities and into previously undeveloped land. These two factors have converged leadingto dramatically more destruction. This year in the West over 5 million acres have burned. 2020 is the worst fire season on record.

Aftermath of Hurricane Sally, Alabama (I), 2020

The 2020 Atlantic Hurricane season has featured tropical cyclone formation at an unprecedented rate producing (thus far) 24 named storms, 8 hurricanes, and 2 major hurricanes. The English alphabet naming system hasbeen exhausted and we are now using the Greek alphabet for only the second time in history. Hurricanes Laura and Sally made landfall in the U.S. on the same week.

Wilder on Front Porch, Douglas County, Kansas, 2020

Wilder graduated a year early from high school with plans to attend Knox College in the fall. In June when this photograph was made, it was unclear ifin the face of the pandemic it would be safe for himto leave hometo attend college. His apprehension is shared by students, teachers, and parents across the country.

We Hold These Truths will be on view through November 21, 2020. Please contact us to schedule an appointment.

Q&A with Artist Alex Blau

Alex Blau’s current exhibit at Zeitgeist, Chasing the Sun, examines gesture, color and complex abstract space through painting. Read our conversation with her about the new show below.

Alex Blau in her studio, points out a detail in her painting, Signal.

How does the work in this show relate to your earlier work? 

These paintings are an exploration of the spatial discoveries implied by the looseness of my last body of work, Night Swimming. I was particularly excited about the imposition of a variable grids/plaids on amorphous liquid pools and spills with super electric colors. It has allowed me to reconnect and tweak the obsessions that fuel my daytime seeing. 

Call and Echo, acrylic and airbrush on canvas, 36” x 36”, 2019

What new elements are you playing with? 

In keeping with this idea of knitting in snippets of past favorites, I have been compressing space, having the present exist with a daydream or a memory. This different type of space I have been moving towards has also allowed for shapes in some of the paintings to appear more like figures in dialogue. In terms of process, I have been a little more physical with this body of work, scraping, sanding and using indirect actions to create the image.

Where do you find inspiration? 

Geez, it’s  everywhere. These relationships exist in the micro and macro and visit me in the carpool line or walking the dog.

Inspiration wall in Blau’s studio

Where do you find new candies and snacks? When did you start saving the wrappers? 

I started taking/collecting photographs for an inspiration wall. I began to correlate some of the colors and patterns in signage to wrappers on the ground thrown away as garbage. I did pick up some of that, take pictures of it and started buying and saving items that caught my eye. By now my friends all know my weirdness and bring/send me wrappers from trips. The inspiration wall is growing even now!

What is your process like? How many pieces are you working on at one time? 

My process involves a lot of looking, verging on procrastinating. I normally work on 5-8 paintings at a time. In my attempts to find the next move, I often rearrange work on the studio wall to see if parts of paintings will run off into other paintings. I also arrange leftover patterns, drawings and other collected inspiration material to see if it can find a way to get it into the work. Things get played out in blue painters tape and paper fragments collage-style. For instance the checkerboard paper from the bottom of a takeout container could be used as a pattern. Once I make a decision, it usually involves a lot of tape and airbrush. Paint one layer over a tape mask and then - if all looks good - everything gets a coat of acrylic. Then do it again and again and again.

How does having a studio at home impact the time you spend in the studio? 

It has been great, beyond my typical working hours, there is nothing to stop an hour here and there. And, I can just take a peek before work or bed. 

Is it important as an artist to stay on top of what’s happening in other cities? How does travel inform your practice? 

It is, and I have a lot of wish-list trips, but don’t get to a ton of new cities. Honestly we get to NYC a lot, but the trips that make the biggest impact are camping/roadtrip flings that take us out of our routine to amazing places. We got to visit Yosemite this Spring for the melt. That place is mind blowingly beautiful! Travel gives me a minute to see things fresh and affords me time to get outside my everyday schedule. 

Beach Day, acrylic and airbrush on canvas, 24” x 24”, 2019

You can see Chasing the Sun showing with Caroline Allison’s A History of Snow, through October 26 at Zeitgeist.

Q&A with Photographer Caroline Allison

Caroline Allison’s current exhibit at Zeitgeist, A History of Snow, attempts to preserve our quickly changing landscape through photography and cyanotypes. Read our conversation with her about the new show below.

Caroline Allison in her home studio

What inspired you to seek out snow covered landscapes for this body of work?

Landscape has always been a focus in my work.  For roughly the past ten years, I have been at work on a specific type of image-making and mapping of our landscape.  Photographs from A Common Place and Underground Again looked at the deep social and historical roots of various landscapes throughout the South.  In these images, the photograph of landscape functioned as an index for a moment in our shared history.

In spending countless quiet hours in the landscape, I often returned to a thought I had as a child, that there is not one place on this wide earth that has not been touched or trodden upon or transformed by humankind.  And what does it mean for us as a species to be in this moment where our landscape is changing and passing because of our actions.  For this series, I was seeking landscapes that we know primordially: cave, ocean, forest, snow.  

Lake Winnebago

What made you want to experiment with cyanotypes and salt?

I had been thinking about the work of Anna Atkins, a 19th century photographer who collected and documented sea botanicals using the cyanotype process.  She made one of the first books of photography, comprised of photograms, a camera-less type of image making. While doing a residency in Wisconsin last February, I was thinking a lot about specimens and documentation of life that is considered fragile or compromised.  Making a cyanotype photogram of a snowball seemed like the logical thing to do.  All of the images in this show were made as an act of preservation and documentation of a landscape in transition. Snow and salt seem to be in ever more dramatic states of flux.  Salt, historically used as a preservative, was a material that made sense to experiment with.  

Winter Ephemerals, Snowball Cyanotypes in Caroline Allison’s studio

Even though we don’t see any people in these images is the impact of man still present?

Absolutely.  Though these spaces are photographed in a way that heightens the impact of the place, the landscapes are deliberately chosen as “in between” places.  A reservoir that holds water for a town, a manicured forest abutting a farm, they are pockets of landscape where there’s a tension between things as they were and as they are now.  Every square inch of this earth has been shaped by humankind, and the places that are not, are still under that purview because there has been a deliberate choice to leave them undisturbed.   

Forest

Do you think artists have a duty to make the world a better place? Do you feel this responsibility?

I feel the weight of what we are leaving behind.  My children are young, and I think about the heaviness of their unfolding relationship to the landscape and the earth, as we have entered this place of fully knowing the extent of our human impact.  I want them to feel a relationship to the land, to trees, to make a connection with the world around them that is momentarily unencumbered by what they are being handed.  Documenting the landscape as it is right now, I think about it as building an archive, and finding the beauty in its evanescence.

Double Plateau (Mist)

You can see A History of Snow, showing with Alex Blau’s Chasing the Sun through October 26 at Zeitgeist.

Zeitgeist in the Tennessean

Last Sunday, The Tennessean did a feature on Zeitgeist’s 25th anniversary, which takes place this summer. Read the full article by Melinda Baker with images here: https://www.tennessean.com/story/life/arts/2019/07/18/nashville-art-gallery-zeitgeist-celebrates-25-years-xanadu/1753478001/

What makes an art gallery great?  The answer may be as subjective as art itself.  The best ones, however, seem to share three traits: they represent great artists; enrich the cultural, intellectual and aesthetic life of their communities; and always reflect the spirit of the times. 

An exemplar in Nashville is undoubtedly Zeitgeist Gallery. With its roster of stellar artists, consistently must-see exhibitions of fresh, innovative contemporary artwork and an ongoing commitment to cultivating the Nashville art community, Zeitgeist has been integral to the city’s dynamic cultural ecosystem for a quarter-century.     

“Xanadu,” on view at Zeitgeist through Aug. 31, is a group exhibition that celebrates the gallery’s 25th anniversary and invites viewers to reflect on its legacy and ideas of artistic utopia.  The exhibition presents an array of work by 19 of the gallery’s outstanding represented artists: Caroline Allison, Gieves Anderson, Ky Anderson, Jeremiah Ariaz, Alex Blau, Patrick DeGuira, John Donovan, Richard Feaster, Vivienne Flesher, Brady Haston, Alicia Henry, Megan Lightell, Vesna Pavlović, Greg Pond, Ward Shumaker, Karen Seapker, Lars Strandh, Vadis Turner and Lain York.  Some of the artists here are relatively new additions to Zeitgeist – Turner and Flesher, for example – while others, including Haston and Feaster, have been with the gallery for decades.

Janice and Manuel Zeitlin opened Zeitgeist in 1994 in Cummins Station with a vision to create a space for Nashville’s creative community that brings together art, design and architecture. 

“We were inspired by the Bauhaus model and were excited to create a space for creatives that combines the artistic and the practical and that has social purpose,” says Zeitgeist owner Janice Zeitlin.  “At first, our closest neighbors were the Nashville Scene, a strip club and a gun store. Downstairs were working artist spaces. Eventually, other galleries and design-related businesses opened and the area began to evolve. Art openings would attract upwards of 1,000 people to Cummins Station.”

Zeitgeist, which doubles as an architectural design firm and gallery, later occupied a space in Hillsboro Village for 15 years before moving to the Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood in 2013.  Gallery director Lain York joined in 1996, and the Zeitlins’ daughter, Anna Zeitlin, has served as gallery manager since 2012.

“Lain has always added so much to the gallery, bringing the artist perspective and setting a high bar for every exhibition,” says Janice Zeitlin.  “The shows that Lain and Anna have curated in recent years have been especially fresh and exciting.”

For York, the goal has always been to nurture growth while inviting risk.  “We trust the artists to point the way,” he adds. “Nashville has always been a hub for focused, creative professionals, and Janice and Manuel provided a consistent space for us to pursue a holistic approach – to emphasize academic, museum programming while working with independent artist-run initiatives and commercial galleries, and to foster collaboration with other entities in the local creative community. I would like to think we helped raise the profile for more challenging artwork here.” 

City's growth brings challenges

Of course, running a contemporary art gallery is no easy feat, especially in a city where neighborhoods and real estate values seem to transform overnight.

“One of the biggest challenges Nashville faces is how to sustain the creative community with affordable spaces for artists to work and live,” says Zeitlin.

“Artists here have a terrific impact on the economy, but so little of that comes back to them,” says York.  “Artists are a hallmark of healthy neighborhoods, but if they don't find traction, they move to other cities, causing the ebb/flow cycle of creative capital to start all over again.” 

Still, Nashville’s growth is helping the city embrace more diverse, progressive ideas about art and how it can benefit the city socially, culturally and economically.   

“So many creative professionals come to Nashville from all over the world simply because someone told them they had to see what was happening here,” says York.  “Our city has the potential to become a cultural industry juggernaut.”

And Zeitgeist, with its ongoing dream to build its version of an artistic Xanadu in Nashville, will surely continue to play a vital role in how Nashville’s creative community evolves.     

“Zeitgeist has always been about showing art and artists that challenge the viewer to think about their place in the world and how they can make it a better place,” says Zeitlin. “It’s fun to look back now and see how many working artists got their first shows at the gallery. And it is always exciting to hear young artists tell us how they were influenced by Zeitgeist.”  

Thanks to The Tennessean for the touching words as we celebrate a quarter century! See Xanadu at Zeitgeist through August 31.

Interview with Patrick DeGuira about Land Derived Sentiments

Zeitgeist’s current exhibit, Land Derived Sentiments: Poems and Responses was curated by artist Patrick DeGuira. Each piece is a response to his new book of poetry inspired by nature, Land Derived Sentiments. The exhibit is on view through April 27, 2019. There will be a poetry reading in conjunction with the exhibit at The Bookshop on April 7. More info on the show and the reading here.

Patrick DeGuira

Zeitgeist: What inspired you to start writing poetry?

Patrick DeGuira: My process is open and I often work in a variety of mediums concurrently. That said, creative writing has always been an aspect of my visual practice.  Poetic writing and organizing exhibitions helps me visualize and better understand objects, space and materials, while experiencing the changing world more fully… directly, politically...  hopefully allowing me to be in conversation with a wider audience.

What did you consider when selecting artists for this show?

It was important that many visual forms be represented in this exhibition. Each of us experience poetic, political or observational spaces differently. For some it is more realistically or drawn from a documentarian space, others experience the world more abstractly, narratively or emotionally. Most importantly, each artist in this exhibition is empathetic and poetic in their own right. Each were excited to interpret my writing, trusted me to interpret their work and create an interesting dialogue amongst the final works on display.

You assigned each artist a poem to react to. Were there any interpretations that surprised you? Any that really excited you or expanded the meaning of the poem?

I am most excited about the overall flow of the show; its relationship to language, questions pertaining to human-nature struggles, and that Zeitgeist provides space for political assertion. I feel Adam Henry’s interpretation and the collaborative work of Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis were both stunning. Henry explores light, refraction and dualities in ways that feel true to the poem If a Window. And I really love the material, conceptual and economical presence of Clayton and Lewis’ Rock Fade (Moon Rock).

Lenka Clayton & Phillip Andrew Lewis, Rock Fade (Moon Rock), 2019

What made it so vital to talk about nature now?

Unfortunately for humans, “nature” and the destruction of nature are synonymous. In other words, the promise of our “nature” is dependent on ecological partnerships we’ve helped forge and misalign. And while environmental balance is of pressing concern to our own, nowhere is a crisis more evident than in our disregard for these fundamental life supporting systems. We have forced an environmental crisis to occur and we can no longer simply reflect on the destructive aspects of our cause, nor can we surrender to climate skepticism, because these partnerships must continue and thrive.

What can one do as an artist to have an impact on the environment?

Climate change is asking us to care about the environment as much as our own future. Artists can create emotional experiences as political spaces, can make more with less… they can focus on process rather than consumer product. These choices can impact environmental outcomes and bring attention to these issues. Although art represents space where people can come together to share an experience, I feel that it is important that art be liberating rather than simply entertaining. And each of us must find ways to develop a process; one that reaches beyond our chosen area of study. On a practical level, I work to live a considered and environmentally conscious life; to make art about this, and be in conversation with and promote the work of others who make similar choices. I am inspired to dismantle dirty industry, inspired to support government that insists future economies and political representatives not falsify climate imbalance. I am inspired to teach my children the same. I am in awe of the work of young activists Greta Thunberg, Xiuhtezcatl Martinez and Jamie Saraí Margolin, the writings of David George Haskell, and organizations such as 350.org, the Sunrise Movement, and the Land Trust of Tennessee… not to mention, concepts like the Green New Deal. In my mind, the very act of being an artist is being a bridge to the possibilities of a politically engaged life.

Greg Pond and Banning Bouldin win Art Prize Pitch Night!

See their show at Zeitgeist opening July 7, with dance performances August 4 and 18.

Pitch Night Nashville Winners to Install Exhibit Exploring Dance and Architecture at ArtPrize 10. Learn more about their winning pitch at artprize.org

Congratulations to Jeremiah Ariaz!

Associate Professor Jeremiah Ariaz has garnered critical acclaim for his photographs, Louisiana Trail Riders, a five-year project documenting Creole trail riding clubs in Southwest Louisiana. For the work, Ariaz was named the 2018 Louisiana State Fellow ($5000) and awarded the Southern Arts Finalist Prize ($10,000) from South Arts. On May 10th at a ceremony in New Orleans, Ariaz received the 2018 Michael P. Smith Award for Documentary Photography from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. Ariaz also received an ATLAS grant to support a series of national exhibitions of the work. The photographs will be installed this summer at the Duke Center for Documentary Studies then will travel to the Kansas State University Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art before returning to Louisiana for an exhibition in January 2020 at the Acadiana Center for the Arts.

A monograph of the work, also titled Louisiana Trail Riders, will be released this fall from UL Press. The book of 89 photographs and accompanying essay by Alexandra Giancarlo will be the most substantive document of Creole equestrian culture to date. The work reflects the celebratory spirit of the rides while sharing one of the many histories in the American story that has largely remained untold. 

Zeitgeist showed work from this series in 2016. See the show page here for more info.

Plan Out Your Art Gallery Day

On April 14, 2018, the weekend of World Art Day (and Leonardo da Vinci’s birthday) galleries all over Nashville will host special events including panels, performances, discussions and activities which celebrate local art galleries’ place in Nashville’s thriving creative community.

Art Gallery Day is free to attend and open to all ages, for art collectors, artists, and those curious about Nashville’s ever-growing art scene. Organized by NGA, this citywide celebration is part of a broader mission continue the enrichment of local culture through promotion and support of the visual arts.

Schedule

The Arts Company (Downtown)

1 - 2:30 - Meet and Greet and artwork delivery with Leonard Piha

Channel to Channel (Wedgewood-Houston)

10 - 12 Drink and Draw

2 - 3 Q&A with Christina Renfer Vogel & artists in Gallery B

Cumberland Gallery (Green Hills)

All Day - curation of new work by local artist in upstairs gallery

11 - 12 Panel Discussion 'Social Commentary in Art' with Bill Ivey, Brian Downey, Mark Scala and moderated by Paul Polycarpou

David Lusk Gallery (Wedgewood-Houston)

All Day - new works by Nashville artists on display

3 - 4 Perfomance by the band, The Hues

Julia Martin Gallery (Wedgewood-Houston)

12 - 6 Interactive painting and drawing

1 Guided demo/discussion with Olivia Leigh Martin

6 - 9 After party with live music by The Country Westerns (Joey Plunkett of Duke's and RI¢HIE & Brian Kotzer of Silver Jews) and beer provided by Jackalope

The Red Arrow Gallery (East Nashville)

11 - 1 Interactive, Large-Scale Balloon Installation with April Artist, Duncan McDaniel

12 - 4 Family Art Project Inspired by the current exhibition, Standing Wave.

3 - 5 Live Vinyl DJ set from Fond Object Records

6 - 9 Exhibition Grand Opening: Standing Wave w/ Duncan McDaniel

The Rymer Gallery (Downtown)

1 - 4 Participate in the creation of Herb Williams' new mural

Tinney Contemporary (Downtown)

11 - 5 floor "drawing" installation made out of tens of thousands of paper "seeds" by internationally acclaimed artist, Jaq Belcher

Zeitgeist (Wedgewood-Houston)

2 - 4 Collage Party with Nashville Collage Collective 

South Arts announces 2018 State Fellows

South Arts mission is Advancing Southern Vitality Through the Arts. The South Arts Southern Prize and State Fellowships acknowledge, support and celebrate the highest quality artistic work being created in the American South. The program is open to individual artists living in the South Arts region: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Many congratulations to all the State Fellowship awardees, especially to Zeitgeist artists Vesna Pavlović and Jeremiah Ariaz!

More info here.

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Jeremiah Ariaz, Louisiana Trail Riders, installation view

Vesna Pavlovic, Fototeka (Projection Still V)

Megan Lightell in The Tennessean newspaper

Nashville artist Megan Lightell paints protected Tennessee lands

by Melinda Baker

The landscape paintings of Nashville artist Megan Lightell seem to whisper.  Imparting a singular intimacy and stillness, her soft, open canvases urge you to come closer, to look and listen intently, just as you would for someone you hold dear.  

Rendering the beauty of the land is fundamental to Lightell’s work, but she is perhaps more passionate about exploring and nurturing humanity’s vital connection to it.  For her new series, “Saving Space,” on view at Zeitgeist Gallery, she partnered with The Land Trust for Tennessee (LTTN), a nonprofit dedicated to the conservation of public and private land, including wildlife habitat, working farms, parks and historic land.  From large-scale scenes to small studies, the exhibition captures protected sites throughout Middle Tennessee and helps raise awareness of the invaluable reasons why land conservation is important now and for generations to come. 

Megan Lightell, "Happily Ever After Farm, Lower Meadow," oil on canvas over panel, 48x72x2.5. (Photo: Courtesy of Zeitgeist Gallery)

Lightell spoke with the Tennessean about her work and current exhibition, on view at Zeitgeist through Dec. 16.  

What inspired “Saving Space”?  

For years, I have wanted to partner with the LTTN for a project, both to learn more about their work and to support it in whatever way I could.  I wonder what is lost when we think of land in terms of grids on a map, earth to be flattened by large machines and replaced with concrete and asphalt. What has drawn me to certain places is something deeper than profit, a way of seeing land that accounts for living things and more complex systems.

What did you hope to capture about these protected lands?

I was looking for a sense of scale, and a sense of why these places feel important to set aside. One of the things that most interests me about the idea of conservation easements is that people who make these decisions about land use are choosing to view the land through a different lens than most; rather than seeing the land as a commodity or source of profit, many of these people see value in other things: personal or historical ties to a particular piece of land, wildlife habitat, the value of land to sustain food production. They see the sacred in the landscape and hold space for natural processes and ecosystems to exist.

Megan Lightell, "Cornelia Fort Evening," oil on canvas over panel, 48x48x2.5. (Photo: Courtesy of Zeitgeist Gallery)

You work on pieces both en plein air and in the studio.  Tell me about this technique.  

Painting en plein air allows me to record qualities of a scene that are impossible any other way; the color experienced through the light changing and entering the eye, the feeling of the air moving, the warmth or chill, the sounds of the animals and leaves, the smell of the air and the earth. These elements find their way into the paint during that experience. What I am often more interested in, though, is how to convey the memory of that in the studio work. 

How do you decide the scale of each scene?    

Some places feel best encountered on a larger scale, while others call for a more intimate presentation.  In this show, one notable site in terms of scale was Berdelle Campbell’s garden. In contrast to the other sites that were anywhere from dozens to hundreds of acres with wide views, Berdelle’s garden in Germantown is about ¼ acre with close, dense vegetation. It felt appropriate that the piece be smaller and more intimate than the rest of the show.  

What role can art play in conservation?  

Historically, groups like the Hudson River School influenced U.S. culture to value conservation and were an important factor in the creation of our national parks system.  Artists have a way of seeing the world and reflecting it back to us that can challenge our culture and spur us to question our values. We may not be making policy or have control of financial decisions related to land, but through our work we can call on the deeper relationship that humans have with the landscape and invite people to consider the value of these places.

If you go

What: “Saving Space: Megan Lightell”
Where:  516 Hagan St. #100
When: Through Dec. 16 with a reception 6-8 p.m. Dec. 2.
Admission: Free.  Ten percent of proceeds from art sales will be donated to The Land Trust for Tennessee.  

Paul Collins - 14 Days on St Cloud Hill

On October 7, at Fort Negley Visitors Center, Paul Collins will present a series of 18" x 24" ink on paper drawings done on site at St Cloud Hill.

From Gabby's Overpass, Sept 18, Day 8

"St Cloud Hill is a landscape that embodies the dynamics of nature, history, and commerce that seem to define Nashville as I know it. It's almost as if Ft Negley's elevation is testament to the depth of competing claims to its site. By daylight, rung by highways and train lines, the old Sounds stadium might more aptly be called Ft Neglect, but by night the hill and surrounding lots offer a rare wide darkness and quietness to the nashville’s cloying irradiant skyline. I pass the hill everyday commuting to work. I’ve visited occasionally but mostly driven by."

Edgehill Developments, Sept 22, Day 12

"Fast forward to now. It’s 2017. After 30 years as a studio artist I’m trying to work in a way that is visible and that matters. It's time for me to look at the world with more urgency, with more openness, and outside of my comfort zone. It is amazing how wonderfully uncontrollable it is to make an on-site drawing by comparison to working in the crucible of the studio. The unpredictability shakes me up in a positive way and let’s me slowly see things that had become routinely unseen. This process is about paying attention and being paid back in moments of awareness. I am grateful for everything I learn in just a simple hour spent looking at the world while drawing. I am lucky for the days I have spent looking at and across this beautiful complicated hillock."

Sheep on the Walls, Sept 20, Day 10

Fossil Hunting with Charlie Blau, Sept 24, Day 14

More here: http://paulpaul.com/section/457122-St-Cloud-Hill.html

Watch for Paul Collins' next Zeitgeist show in 2018.

Nashville Artspaces I Miss

Artist and gallery director, Lain York, whose show, Ghost, opens September 2 at Zeitgeist, shares memories of his favorite bygone Nashville artspaces.

Fugitive

Of course I miss the Fugitive Art Center (having been a member).

Ruby Green

I also miss Ruby Green that closed about the time Fugitive did in 2005. Chris Campbell’s operation branched off from the untitled artist group in 1998 and originally hosted artist studios and informal critiques/art shows/performances at 514 5th Avenue South. Her outfit became a 501c not for profit that networked regionally, nationally, and internationally, moving the conversation of contemporary art forward at a critical time in the development of the scene here. Ruby Green went on to effectively fund raise and receive grants from the Warhol foundation. Named after one of Chris’ parrots (she lived with several including African Greys) the space’s presence continues to be felt in the shadow of the Music City Convention and SoBro Biz Centers.

Rule of Thirds

Another space operating around that time was Rule of Thirds. Founded in 2000 by Watkins College of Art students Ally Reeves and Shaun Slifer in a house adjacent to Belmont University, this artist-run space featured edgy work, performance, and a half-pipe skate ramp. It was a harbinger of a trend we are currently seeing today with galleries opening in residential neighborhoods where artists live and work. Both Shaun and Ally went on to become principals in the Pittsburgh contemporary art scene and beyond.

Secret Show

Secret Show never occupied a space for more than one night. Of course that was contingent on whether the show was shut down as it was a total guerrilla operation that you only heard about the day it happened. The brain-trust was an extremely focused group of younger artists that laid the foundation for many of the brick and mortar spaces we see today like Mild Climate. Interestingly, Secret Show picked up on preceding independent groups that severed as training ground for artists to learn how to organize and put their own shows on. This particular group spawned several other independent groups that hit and run in the Nashville area for years afterwards.

Q+A with Douglas Degges

untitled (props for pictures)

Zeitgeist: Your current Zeitgeist show, Split Ends, represents two bodies of work. Are you still working on both of them? Which came first?

Douglas Degges: I am still working on both bodies of work. The props for pictures work came first, but both projects share overlapping conceptual concerns. Both groups of paintings explore the relationship between the painted image and the painted object. The image, the immaterial thing we can hold in our mind, is both separate from and part of the physical material that contains or supports it. It is this complicated relationship between the skin of a painting and its bones that I am most interested in. The monochrome paintings, the making stuff like pictures works, approach this idea, as well as the nature of depiction in painting, from a more sculptural place. These works attempt to both depict some thing, object, or surface while, at the same time, being that object or surface. With the props for pictures works I’m interested in how the physicality of the support can be set at odds with the painted image. These works are highly textured and the top layers of paint rarely and only incidentally acknowledge the surface they sit on. 

Houghton College (making stuff like pictures)

Where did the idea to work with gypsum come from? What do you like about it as a medium?

The gypsum material is really just Durham's Water Putty, a water mixable powder that has a number of different applications. Mostly it's used as a casting material and wall patch. I enjoy working with this material because it allows me to build up the surface of my paintings quickly while suggesting the opposite. With the props for pictures paintings in particular, it is my hope that the physicality of the surface is mistakenly read as the accumulation of many layers of paint. I'm interested in how this causes the paintings to look heavily worked, both in terms of time spent and accumulation of material.

What is your process like? What time of day do you work best?

I work best during the day but I don’t really have a schedule. I try to get at least a few hours in every day while there’s plenty of daylight and then I often return to the studio a second time late in the evening. I enjoy having my studio at home because it allows for this to happen. I can work in fits and spurts and pop into the studio at any moment. I can begin something, walk away from it, and return again later in the same day and all without needing to commute from home or work to the studio.

What are the benefits of an arts education? How do you use what you learned in school?

There are so many benefits to an arts education. An arts education helps us find value in things that challenge us or exist outside of our own interests and known conventions. Of course, skills and tools are taught too. These are important and help us learn to give physical form to our ideas and interests with an increasingly aware and complex understanding of the context within which we make. An arts education opens up so many possibilities and connects an active studio practice with a much larger community.

Douglas Degges installation at Zeitgeist

Are there any ways that your students have inspired you?

I am inspired by my students all of the time. So many of them are hardworking, open, and eager to more fully and thoughtfully engage with the world around them. I’ve been teaching Foundations courses for the past year and I have thoroughly enjoyed working with first year college students. It’s so rewarding to guide them into the world of art and art making. I enjoy helping them discern what they want to say about the things they care most about.

Who are your favorite artists? Recent influences?

Amy Sillman

I look at a lot of different artists’ work but a few have consistently loomed large. The varied work of Amy Sillman and Michael Krebber have been major influences on my studio practice. I also worked as an artist assistant for Catherine Murphy and Thomas Nozkowski for a short time after finishing school. They have both greatly affected my work and taught me the importance of protecting your studio practice as so much of life conspires to keep you away from it. Recently, I’ve been looking at the work of Jutta Koether, Albert Oehlen, and R. H. Quaytman. I appreciate the way these three artists move seamlessly from figuration to abstraction and back.

Douglas Degges' show Split Ends will be on view at Zeitgeist through June 24. 

Mural Painting Project

Artist: Paul Collins

Title: Boomtown Beaver

Location: Elephant Gallery; 1411 Buchanan St. Nashville

Statement:

"Sunrise breaks upon an ever more populated clearing in the woods. An industrious beaver is carving people from trees in the woods, while nearby an ancient tree watches and waits its turn in horror. Is the beaver carving friends because he has none? Perhaps he is an artist. Perhaps he is an intrigued copycat inspired by the funny humans and their endlessly busy constructing. His hunger is insatiable and work goes on and on..."

Public welcome: Saturday 4/22 12-4

Update: Project finished!! Thanks to all who helped!

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Annalyse Clark on collaborating with Alex Lockwood

For his exhibition, Awful Things, Alex Lockwood collaborated with young composer Annalyse Clark on a soundtrack for the show. You can see the show at Zeitgeist through February 25th, and hear the soundtrack again at the reception February 4, 6-9pm.

Sad Shoe Tree by Paul Collins from Soft Bark

Zeitgeist: How did you connect with Alex Lockwood for this collaboration?

Annalyse: I connected with Alex because I had worked with Paul Collins on a string quartet for his “Soft Bark” collection back in spring 2016. Alex knows Paul and that’s how Alex ended up getting in touch with me.

What themes in his work did you respond to?

As far as themes go, one of the biggest things that Alex and I talked about (and one of the main things I wanted to connect to with this) was the juxtaposition in his work of these incredibly friendly, commercial, and colorful characters that are just having awful, violent things done to them. I tried to reflect this in the soundtrack by juxtaposing really bright, child-like, commercial, and whimsical sounds (children laughing, cartoon/TV commercial samples, etc.) with really harsh and uneasy sounds. I also tried to connect with different emotional angles on the whole scene Alex created with every piece, so there’s one that goes into the wrath and anger of the tormentor, one centered around the general sense of unease and horror that pervades the collection, one that reflects the anxiety and fear of the tortured, and one that reflects on the human sadness of the fact that these types of these types of atrocities actually have happened and continue to happen to so many people.

 What was the process like for this collaboration?

Alex originally approached me in August to see if I would be interested, which of course I was. We met up and talked about some of his ideas about the show and how he was approaching it. Around that time I started working on the soundtrack, but the first pieces were almost more of an imitation of the types of timbres and musical structures one would expect to hear in a classic horror soundtrack – big John Carpenter-esque synths, bells, and the like. Then I started talking about the project with one of my professors and I quickly realized that the work I was doing at that time was really just signifying horror to the listener rather than actually generating horror and discomfort with the music itself, and that realization changed the way I approached the rest of the project. With the idea of trying to create a sense of fear and unease with the music itself, I scrapped what I had and started again and Alex and I kept in touch over text and email. Closer to the show, Alex and I met up a couple of times to talk about the project as it was starting to take shape and I started shooting him demos over email, which we discussed and I tweaked according to our ideas. Just about a week before the opening night I finished the soundtrack.

Awful Things by Alex Lockwood

 Do you usually try to find things outside music to be inspired by?

I really love to look at things outside of music for inspiration in pretty much any project. Working with visual art is something I really like to do, which I guess is apparent since I’ve collaborated with two visual artists in one year, but I also really love literature in particular. I’m actually a Music Composition and English Literature double major because those are my two biggest passions. I love to set texts from literary works or even to just find other ways of incorporating inspiration from literature into what I do.

Red Assistant 1 by Alex Lockwood

You collaborated with an artist at Zeitgeist before, how was this time different?

I would say the biggest difference this time around was the emotions and feelings of the works with which I was working. With “Soft Bark,” the work was quite a bit more playful for the most part, certainly more playful than the gruesome violence of “Awful Things.” Also, the intent of my participation in each of these projects was different. For “Soft Bark” my work was meant as a response to the work, but my participation in “Awful Things” was more of a true soundtrack; it was meant to go along with the visual art and to really color the perception of the pieces themselves when viewed alongside my music playing. On a purely technical level, though, the process was very different in that with “Soft Bark” I was working with a string quartet and had to think of the limitations of what players could and could not physically achieve, which is not something I really had to worry about at all in a mostly electronic, pre-recorded medium.

What is your musical background?

I started playing guitar at 11, and started playing in rock bands at around 12 or 13. Also, when I was about 12, I got involved in my school’s band program on bass. I just stuck with playing in bands and playing in school band all throughout high school. In the middle of high school, though, I took a music theory course with one of my favorite teachers and kind of started to figure out that I had a knack for, and a real enjoyment of, music theory and composition/arranging. I started staying around after school to work on the composition software we had at school and then just kept writing more music and eventually applied to Vanderbilt, where I currently study composition.

"Earthling" David Bowie by Frank Ockenfels 3 who last showed at Zeitgeist in 2009

What are your main musical influences?

My biggest musical influence is David Bowie. I’ve loved Bowie since I was in middle school and his music has probably made the biggest impact on me of anything. In terms of stuff in the pop idiom I also really love and am influenced pretty heavily by Elliott Smith, Sonic Youth, Swans, The National, Sufjan Stevens, The Smiths, Death Grips, Danny Brown, Bjork, Oneohtrix Point Never, FKA twigs, MF DOOM, The Stooges, Sleep, Sunn O))), William Basinski, The Body, and more than I can really list here. I actually try to take as much influence as a composer from popular music as I do from the types of stuff we learn about in school (the serious, “composer-types”).  In terms of “classical”/art music, my biggest influences are Philip Glass, Erik Satie, Franz Schubert, John Adams, Steve Reich, Claude Debussy, and Arnold Schoenberg.

What are the benefits as a student of getting involved in projects outside your school?

I think getting involved in projects outside of school is pretty beneficial for a number of reasons. One is that it just helps me to get outside of the “Vandy Bubble” and participate in the Nashville art scene in general. Another important thing is that it really helps as far as getting hands-on, non-structured experience in my field goes. It’s also really important in terms of networking and trying to get yourself out there as a young artist, because there are a lot of opportunities at Vanderbilt, sure, but there’s also so much more out there.

Alicia Henry wins 1858 Prize!

Society 1858's Prize for Contemporary Southern Art went to Alicia Henry this year. We offer many congratulations!

Alicia Henry’s artistic practice includes painting, textile, and mixed-media installation work. She explores social relationships through depictions of the human figure shown in isolation and also figures interacting with one another. Henry lives in Nashville, Tennessee where she serves as an Associate Professor of Art at Fisk University.

Interview with Caroline Allison on Underground Again

Underground Again features work by Caroline Allison and Patrick DeGuira and runs through December 17 at Zeitgeist.

Interview with Susan Bridges of whitespace

This July, we have handed over the reins of Zeitgeist to whitespace gallery in Atlanta for an exchange show called Ineffable Domains. Gallery owner/director Susan Bridges took the time to talk to us about the difference between the Nashville and Atlanta art scenes and what we can learn from each other.

Bojana Ginn, Pete Schulte, Susan Bridges and Eric Mack in front of "As Above So Below" by Pete Schulte at Zeitgeist

What makes the Atlanta art scene special?

The scene is in ATL is special because we have a tremendous number of very talented artists living within our city.  We have several schools that support the scene; Georgia State, SCAD, Kennesaw and UGA, the students and faculty are energetic and supportive. We also have the High Museum, Atlanta Contemporary, MOCA GA and Art Papers.  That said, Atlanta is much larger than Nashville but I feel you have the same vibe, just on a slightly smaller scale.

What could Nashville learn from Atlanta about how it supports art or vice versa?

I think Atlanta could learn a lot from Nashville by providing an art bus like the one you have.  Our galleries are spread out in much the same way as yours which makes it a lot less fun to attend openings when you have to navigate traffic, worry about parking, etc.  I love the idea of a bus!

What would you like to see more of in Atlanta?

Atlanta needs more serious collectors who buy locally, not in LA or NYC.  Our artists are amazing and they need support.

How has the art scene changed over the years?

The energy here vacillates from year to year but, thankfully, we have an infusion of young people at this moment who are trying to create a district in downtown Atlanta. I think they will be successful because they are creative and have youth and energy on their side.  After all these years, I thought we would have an arts district but the price of real estate gets in the way and artists don’t have the funds to pursue their dreams.  I congratulate you in Nashville for your burgeoning district and scene at Zeitgeist, David Lusk and Packing Plant….it’s exciting!

What could the community/city be doing better to support arts?                  

Our city could do a better job of providing excellent public art and I mean art on an international scale.  How do you educate the public?  You give them something to think about.  Take Chicago for example, the Anish Kapoor Cloudgate (or bean) is something everyone can relate to and enjoy.  Cabbies, businessmen, students etc. everyone can find something they like about the bean.  That’s a conversation!  A positive thing that’s taking place here this year is the re-establishment of the Atlanta Biennial at the Atlanta Contemporary.  By showing Atlanta artists alongside those in other cities, it allows ours to receive the recognition they so deserve, to know they are GOOD!

What is your favorite part of running a gallery?

Two things; I love the artists I work with, they’re just the best.  They make me laugh and they make me cry but they always give me something to ponder. I love to see a client make a breakthrough when looking at work. When the “bulb” comes on, it’s exciting. It means they have connected to something deeper than they realize and then they’re hooked.  I love it!

Other thoughts?

One last thought, I think it’s important to do exactly what you are doing at Zeitgeist, by taking local artists into different cities.  If you do fairs that’s one thing but this is a more organic concept and I’m thrilled we at whitespace could be part of it.  We are looking forward to hosting Zeitgeist/Nashville next August in Atlanta.

Learn more about the show here.