Camping at Lock A, Cheatham Dam, This Past Week

 

I have a little photo album of my camping trip to Cheatham Dam Lock A Campground last Monday through Thursday. Well, to clarify...

I had reserved Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights at my bestest favorite campsite up at "Cheatham Lake," really just a wide spot in the mighty Cumberland River. From  HISTORIC CHEATHAM COUNTY TOUR SITES:

               ASSEMBLED AND WRITTEN BY
                     J. M. ALLEN
                        Corresponding Secretary CCHGA
                     FOR THE CHEATHAM COUNTY HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL ASSOCIATION

LOCK "A" & FOX'S BLUFF

CCHGA 3

    Located at the end of Cheatham Dam Road off Highway 12 North in Cheatham County. The Lock was completed and placed in operation November 26, 1904 at a cost of $490, 010 .77. It was 52 feet wide and 280 feet long. lt was erected to control the waters of Harpeth Shoals, a fivemile stretch of the Cumberland River between Ashland City and Clarksvillle which interrupted more steamboat business than all other natural impediments along the navigable course of the river.

    On November 19, 1906 Captain W. T. Hunter became the first Captain on the Cumberland todeliberately "Jump" a Dam with a Steamboat. He accomplished this feat at Lock "A" on the "H. W. Buttorff", while the water was at high level.

    The peak of the cliff overlooking Lock "A" is Fox's Bluff with one of the most scenic and picturesque views of the Cumberland Valley anywhere in the area. It used to be one of the local points of interest for visitors to the area but is now inaccessible due to the area being part of the Camp Grounds at the Cheatham Dam Recreation Area ..

NOTE: SEE: "Steamboating on the Cumberland" by Byrd Douglas

The whole story of the building of the site and the Army Corps of Engineers campsite there is an engaging one, and I recommend more research, and a visit if you are anywhere in striking distance. One of my favorite features is the grove of pecan trees that lines the river, lacing through the campsites and yielding delicious nuts every year, that is if you can time your harvest to beat the squirrels to them.

Anyway, long story short, I got to the campsite in a light drizzle and set up my tent and other gear, spent one rainy night and awoke into a chilly but lovely day riverside. I wanted to hike on Tuesday but the Cumberland River Memorial trail is closed, small bridges and who knows what else having been eradicated by recent heavy rains. So I spent Tuesday chilling in my chair and hammock, for which I had just purchased  a nice, heavy but portable stand, and fishing. Reading and playing mandolin. It was a very lovely relaxing day. Toward the end of the day I checked my Ventusky weather app and was convinced that it was going to start raining at dark and essentially not stop, with at times downpours, for the next three days. I made the difficult decision to pack it up. 

I did that, then I added all my remaining local firewood to the campfire and sat in my camp chair playing mandolin and enjoying the fall light on the Cumberland until the drizzle started to increase in intensity, threw my chair into the car, and headed home. I'm glad I did, since Ventusky had done me a solid. I enjoyed the next couple days as my usual ones, relaxing and painting in our lovely home in The Nations neighborhood of my birth city. 

Here's the few pics I took. One of them yielded a painting subject, and a piece to paraphrase Philip Levine, a long ago mentor at his teaching residency at Vanderbilt, to celebrate the exquisite in the mundane. That will be at my scottmerrick.me site when it is finished, but the photo is in the album. Look for the stone on the ground with a mossy bowl inhabited by a tiny, perfect, plant. Here, click the photo for the album, silly:

First snow of 2025...

 ...and I can't believe I'm still alive.

Well, it's true, it is. It's the 10th of January, 2025, and I awoke and arose at 5:50 am, peeked out the window through a raised slat in the blinds, pulled on my XXL flannel nightshirt (I know, I know) and came into my study. Been searching ideas for an indoor herb garden right off past my computer monitor, to become a reality on the new plant stands off to my left and right underneath the south-facing windows whose sills are just a couple feet off the floor. This'll be fun.

I'm going to dabble with succulents. Tell me not to do it. I challenge you. Tell me.

When I stole that look out the window earlier, there was no snow. Now, at 7:15, the white stuff is falling and there's a perceivable dusting on cars beneath my window, and driveways and sidewalks out there are also nicely dusted. The streets are not, though a spread of snowfall is beginning to inch out onto the road. It's been pretty much bitterly cold this past couple weeks, cold enough to host a solid snowfall, and it's predicted that it will be falling all day. 

Fun.

Funny how every snow reminds one of every snow before. That effect is stronger in temperate climes, especially one such as mine, which shares up every one of the four seasons and their annual sublties each year. When I lived in Alaska, of course, this would be a really mild winter day since, in the Anchorage winter I recall snow cover almost all winter long. No, the snows before that I recall every new snow are those in Nashville, the Nashville of my black and white then color youth.

Luckily, there's nothing on my calendar but "water the plants" today. I'll do that, and I'll lightly fertilize. Look at me, growing into my middle name, "Gardner" in my late blooming years. I'm going to fill those plant stands with 

To address the elephant, it's just that I'm daily awed by the fact that I still arise each morning with a curiosity, filled with wonder about how the day's going to go. What will I make today? I am pushing 75 this year and if this old body didn't betray it constantly, I don't feel much older than my 20s. Go Figger. 

Here. I'll take a picture of what I'm "working" on in the studio. Then later, I'll come back and post its sister image, its time-enhanced completion, its worthy product. Here:

my two current paintings and their digital photo sources onscreen for reference

underpainting for "lemongirl's lost tongue"

Okay, enough of that. If I forget to follow up on my earlier promise, you will be able to view the completed painting at my site, scottmerrick.me. I'm pretty good about upkeep there.

So yeah, though I've been telling people for years that I don't feel a day over 90, that's less and less true week by week. I'm listening to Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses on Audible, and I recently heard a segment where John Grady and Rawlings, in prison, marveled at the fact that an elderly prisoner had stopped being tortured in their current home, a Mexican prison. They mused that perhaps there was just no satisfaction in torturing the old, since they already live in pain. It struck a chord, pal, it struck a chord. 

I refuse to elaborate on mine, the only exception being when talking to my doctor. If my honey asks why I'm wincing, I tend to answer briefly and stop wincing, as much as I can. It's not that I'm too proud to admit to having pain, I just think that adding words to the world which create negative vibes is a counter-spiritual thing to do. Anyway.

After several diversions away from my desk, I return to close this out. It's 10:16am in Nashville and the snow is falling just the same as it was at 7:15. I'd guestimate a couple inches as of now, and the forecast is for heavy snow another 10 hours. We'll see. Here's a little vid taken earlier...

:

 

out my studio window, around and back

Peace out. Stay housed, fed, and loved.

Art Classes, Charles, and Painting

 Okey dokey. It's almost the end of September and I'm pretty good. (Cue the John Prine song).

I want to celebrate the patron's party opening for my painting master Charles Brindley's show at the exclusive private Montgomery Bell Academy this past weekend. I'm so missing his classes, even though with my cushy studio setup and fairly regular painting I'm making progress. Here's my latest finished "lakescape" from my 2nd home in a boat on Marrowbone Lake (don't I wish! What fun it would be to have a docked houseboat there, but it's a Tennessee Managed Fishing Lake, no docks, just rental boats and your own if you have the gear--no gas motors), from a photo I took in early fall of 2023. I'll also share an abstract that I finished this past week. More details at scottmerrick.me.

"morning marrowbone"

"that very moment"

All that said, I'm missing seeing him once a week for a full day of open studio, he having lost his lease at Scarritt-Bennett Center, right across from the school where I taught for 14 years, USN. It's a long story but suffice it to say his scores of students are disappointed in that property's handling of the situation. He's been there for over 10 years, y'all. 

Anyway, we've all been looking for locations for class locations, and I gather from our discussions that Charles may be sneaking up on one. Fingers crossed.

The opening was wonderful. There were probably 200 people attending, maybe more, and I got to see many of my fellow students, all of us pretty much in the "older" category, all them creative and filled with life and curiosity and a drive to make. Love all of them. We didn't stay long, but the show runs through March 2, though it's "appointment only" entry. I'll sure as hell make an appointment and go back. There are also a bunch of events that I will be attending. I have an iphone snap I took to share with my pal Rocky that details them. Hope to see some friends and you, if you can make any of them and are interested in the painterly arts. I don't believe rsvp is required for those, but if you read the fine print you'll see that you need an appointment to view the exhibit. I HIGHLY suggest you do so. 

That's all for this morning. Rocky just texted me to join him for breakfast at Mama D's in Ashland City and I have to get out of my jammies and into the car. Darn it and yay, I say. Be well.

And later, in Barcelona, at the Picasso Museum...

 there's this:

from https://uploads3.wikiart.org/images/pablo-picasso/las-meninas-velazquez-1957-4.jpg

There is a room full of paintings by the artist formerly known as P. Ruiz-Picasso that document his absolute obsession with Velazquez's Las Meninas, and later paintings continued to suggest that that did not abate. After my earlier fixation with the Velázquez painting at the Prado, I was charmed and fascinated by the master's consuming one, and perhaps a little smugly justified. Here, the subject and one of scores of interpretations/variations. Did that room demonstrate that the notoriously egotistical master was humbled? Maybe. I feel that perhaps he felt the balances in the paintings were iconic, sort of the Golden Mean, but not.

A story by our guide, Marta Rioge. Some time ago, two of her clients were told that they were to see the Picasso Museum here in Barcelona that day on their walking tour, as we had been. We were all for it, but that couple said, "Oh no, we don't want to see that. We don't like Picasso." It seems that a friend of theirs, an architect, had shown the painter an unearthed clay object that he was immensely proud of having discovered, whereupon Picasso dipped his fingers in paint and dragged them across the clay treasure, remarking, "There. That is now very valuable." Great story, I think. Another that Marta shared is that Picasso famously once remarked that "If I grew up to be a soldier, I would be a general. If I grew to be a clergyman, I would be the Pope. I grew up to be Picasso."

Side by side Las Meninias, the original by Velasquez, and Pablo Picasso's "copy", untitled by the painter, as were all his paintings (from https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f2/21/e9/f221e90671a5245412616446f2debdb2.jpg)

Puerta Barroca en el Día Internacional de los Museos

Our stellar guide for yesterday's exploration of Madrid--which included a perfect visit to the Prado National Art museum--created with his husband and installed with a team of 10 this amazingly beautiful "Baroque Door" piece. How fun that Pablo shared it with us before we entered the incredible repository of Spanish art and then proceeded to blow American minds with his historical knowledge and expertise around the history of the museum and the artists whose masterpieces inhabit it. Watch this awesome celebration of his own work:

Our 2+ hour long tour focused on the works of Goya, El Greco, Velazquez, and Reubens and I'll never look at any pictures of those paintings the same again thanks to Pablo. Here is one of our favorites, the "metapainting" "Las Meninas", by Velazquez. It's experimental nature was a hard fought win by the artist, whose main assignments were primarily traditional (though masterful) portraits for the King. Lee Ann had to come back for me after they proceeded on and I remained standing there, glued to its magic:

By Diego Velázquez - The Prado in Google Earth: Home - 7th level of zoom, JPEG compression quality: Photoshop 8., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22600614

As an aside, our stellar Madrid hotel, the Palacio de los Duques, is a renovated castle which is Velazques themed. That little girl's face is at almost every turn in the beautiful building!  I will probably never perceive a frozen Margarita the same.

Chilly Saturday Morning at Chez Merrique

Well well well. Early Saturday morning and I'll be taking out o' here in a couple hours to do deliveries for Tinwings, the glorious gourmet grab-and-go market conceived and made golden by my lovely wife. I'm the back-up delivery guy, and her former delivery person is herself taking off for a 3 month chef gig in Greenland (!) tomorrow. It'll be fine, and the sky is blue and though it's chilly outside again I do love to drive all over my hometown and leave amazing, delicious food fare on doorsteps of some of the hundreds of clients who partake of her scrumptiousness regularly.

Tinwings in The Nations Nashville

We went to a live performance in the tiny Basement venue Thursday, to see and hear a solo performance by Tommy Prine, and we were treated to one song featuring guest star Amanda Shires. What a treat, the whole thing. Tommy's first LP will release in late June and we were lucky to have heard many of its songs. I'll tell you this: Tommy has inherited his father's gift for storytelling with metaphore, irony, and humor, but he has already proven that he has his own distinct voice, and it's beautiful and I am now a hardcore fan. I taught him every week for years in my University School of Nashville computer lab and I am so proud of hisgrownupself. As we were leaving after he said, "Mr. Merrick, thank you for coming," and I responded, "Ha, you can call me Scott." Made me smile. And I did say hi to Amanda just before leaving, introducing her to my honey. Amanda sometimes comes by to work in Charles's open studio class and she is, besides being a powerhouse superstar musician and singer, a hugely talented painter. She is also one of the nicest human beings it has been my pleasure to meet.

I'm currently working on a couple paintings, and I made good progress on my 16x20 painting of my best pal Watson last week. Charles Brindley's painting class at Scarritt Bennett Center has been on break for a few weeks and starts up next week, so Wednesday I took the hour or so at his invitation I drove up to his home in Adairville, Kentucky and spent a few hours painting under his supervision/tutelage. I got home with this improved version of mah boy (note that some of what you see is visual "notes" for me to revise, but I'm increasingly happier with it):

"Watson", in progress

And Charles gave me some great ideas for directions I can pursue on this abstract, which I am thinking will be dubbed "metronome":

"metronome", in progress

Lastly, for now, I've been doing some recording, and this one below kinda fun, I think. I'm not happy with my melody line yet, or the recording quality (Audacity with a USB mic on my Dell All-in-One computer) but I'm confident it will get there. Here's the lyrics I'm working with. Can you envision a melody for it? I may just keep what I've got and enhance it with other instruments but I'm open to hear a rough recording. Post it here in a comment...

Goin' Somewhere

by Scott Merrick

We're walking in the morning
Breathing in the freshest air
We're walking in the morning
Looking 'round to see what's there
And in the sky
a jet plane
flying high
Somebody goin' somewhere.
It's all of life we're livin'
We laugh we cry we don't give up
Whatever we are given
Reachin' out to scoop it up
And in the sky
a jet plane
flying high
Somebody goin' somewhere.
Somewhere a baby cries
Somewhere a lover sighs
Somewhere laughter
Somewhere tears
Somewhere a song begins
Somewhere a train comes in
Somewhere hope
Somewhere good cheer.
BRIDGE
Somewhere the darkest night
Somewhere the sun is bright
Somewhere you're home
Somewhere it's time
Somewhere friends arrive
Somewhere no compromise
Somewhere alone
Somewhere just fine.
 We're sitting on the back porch
Talking out the day's events
We're sitting on the back porch
Wonderin' where the weekend went
And in the sky
a jet plane
flying high
Somebody goin' somewhere.

That's it for this morning. Gonna feed Watson, toss on some warm layers, and drive around Nashville.

Happy Birthday to my magical godson, Seamus. I miss y'all but we'll be gettin' out your way someday soon

 Hello.

The mid-February Nashville weather is just plain weird. Here on Valentines Day 2023 it'll reach a high of 65 degrees today. And...

HERE it is on Friday, the 24th, and it reached 80 degrees yesterday. I went to my art class in a short sleeved Orvis shirt and cargo shorts. It's now 41 with a predicted high of only 52. It's Spring, it's Summer, it's Winter again. The plants are going "hell yeah" and budding and even blossoming. Little do they know. 

On the bright side here's the entry into my online Gratefulness Journal today: "Nashville weather, for its perfect mix of moderate and surprisingly otherwise." 

I started that journal during the pandemic and, a lot like my blog, it suffers periods of neglect but I always come back to it. It's private to me, but maybe some inquisitive spawn of mine will discover it and share it one day after I've floated away. I am convinced it is good to me to reflect on my blessings, though I remain unconvinced that society has it right on who/what is doing the blessing.

I finished a painting yesterday that I estimate represents maybe 50 or 60 hours of devotion to light, color, texture, and reflection. It's called "reflection on the ridge" and owes to its existence my friendship with Rocky Alvey and if I counted the hours of light-watching in camping chairs at his home and photographic opportunities there (which most often required putting down my cigar and/or my glass of bourbon on the rocks), okay, maybe 100 hours. Maybe 200. Hmmmmm...

"reflection on the ridge", acrylics on stretched canvas, 2023 by scott merrick

I want to post an abstract in progress and I want you to look at it very closely and will welcome any advice in comments. I for one am leaning toward calling it complete. I'm calling it "vivid rorschach" for now...

"vivid rorschach", acrylic on stretch canvas, by scott merrick 2023

There. I've addressed the blog neglect issue for this day, and I hope you have a good one, whenever you may be reading/viewing this. Peace out.

did I waste 20 YEARS trying to "GO PRO"?

Hey.

My second son (technically my son-in-law, so as always kudos to his birth parents) Tim has created a short but fascinating video about music. If you are a musician, which you are if you make music, even if it's singing in the shower, you must watch. I promise it will make you feel good about yourself, in addition to exposing you to his own 20+ years career and all the promise it holds for the next decades. Do yourself the favor:

Painting and Learning

 So. I'm very excited about visiting renowned painter Charles Brindley's class at Scarritt-Bennet Center here in Nashville, across from the Peabody at Vanderbilt Campus I attended 'way back in the early '90s . I first met Charles at University School of Nashville's Artclectic, which my wife, Lee Ann, was leading (she did so for 10 years of its biggest growth). I taught at USN for 14 years, and Lee Ann was deeply involved in both, in part because both our beautiful children attended school there and in part because USN was her alma mater. I was immensely impressed by Charles' art--who could see and not be so?

I am not going to copy and paste evidence here, it's copious at his website: Get lost in the man's mastery of visual imagery at his online gallery at cbrindley.com. 

Charles' class info is at https://www.cbrindley.com/classes if you want more information about that. I am at least tentatively planning to enroll in one for the Fall semester to learn from the master and I'm buzzed about it. I haven't taken a class of any kind since graduating from Vanderbilt in 1995, and I am visiting tomorrow to see how they work and to assuage a little anxiety about doing so. We'll see.

I first started painting, again, during the pandemic, of course. I walk my dog every day. Just about to go out after jotting this down. There is a great deal of construction going on in my neighborhood, just like in virtually every neighborhood in Nashville, and people are moving in and out all the time. I keep an eye out in the construction lots and alleys for useful throwaways, and I started making Kountry Kraft signs for my front porch out of discarded 2x10s a couple years ago, first using Sharpie markers and graduating to a beginner's set of acrylic paints. Here's an example:

Hoppy Holidays, yes, a beer reference

Other signs include "Love Trumps Hate," "Only Love," REIMAGINE HOW SCHOOLS WORK," "Happy" (4th of July), "BOO!," "BeKind," and...you get the idea. I recently discarded my "Back 2 School" sign because, well, I ain't never going back. 

I am, however, going to class tomorrow and beginning regular participation twice a week starting September 8, barring some jolting turn-off during tomorrow's recon mission. I don't anticipate that. 

I take a lot of photos. Some are well-documented on my Facebook album, "ThingsOnTheGround." In November of 2021, I had to stop the car on the way down the hill from my dear buddy Rocky's home on the ridge above Little Marrowbone Creek Road to take a photo:

Some time later, likely around December, I took one of my reclaimed 2x10s and spray painted it flat white enamel, then spent the next maybe 3 months painting. On January 8 it looked like this:

and when it was "done," it looked like this:

I sketched it out in pencil, threw a plethora of color at it, mixing as I went, and just kept going until it satisfied me. I also extended its field to the edges of the lumber:

Since then, I've finished paintings from a photo of an ancient cinderblock building a couple blocks from my home and from a pic of a great blue heron perched solemnly atop a condo rooftop in Destin, Florida. I'm now working on a panorama view overlooking the grassy field of Brownland Farm horse ranch in Franklin, TN. I don't see an end to it. I've found the zone a few times where I am one with the brushstroke, intuitively understanding when something is right, or right enough, and smiling. I want that feeling again, often and deep.

Examining Charles Brindley's vast body of work at his website, I see that my own crude work with paints is just that, lacking realism, which is okay, and rudimentarily color mixed, which is understandable; and I know that anything I can learn from him will strengthen my experiences. I also believe I may be onto something with my choice of canvas. Building something meaningful and artistic from a discarded piece of lumber imbues it with something a little magical, I think.

That's all today. Watson is getting a little cranky and it's only getting hotter outside. Rain today though! And thankfully not flooding rain. Climate change is. Peace.

Alike

This incredible short film was shared on Facebook by my dear brother-from-another-mother, James Paige Morrison, and I want to share it out with everyone who might benefit from watching it. That's you.

It's almost a cliche' that the systems which control our growth from infancy to the grave can stifle creativity, almost as if they were designed to do so. They have, in fact, rather evolved to do so. Perhaps with a little more awareness, we can help them further evolve to embrace creativity. LOTS of discussion in the educational arena surrounding this. It's the essential reason that STEM became STEAM. The addition of the A, adding Art to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math is the best development in formal education since the addition of the pencil.

Let's keep the educational trend pendulum swinging in that direction (because you do know it swings, don't you?) and when it gets to its apogee, let's push it a little further! Watch:

Grades and...

Okay. I'm a parent who has two high school graduated children. One is a college graduate and who knows if the younger will ever get to that thang.

With both of these kids, we have been unconventional parents, or at least so I think.We encouraged them to pursue their passions, to explore the arts, and we did not ride them or micromanage their grades or their academic performance. My dear wife and I are not academic people; or rather, a part of me is but it's not a major part.

We set them free in many ways. They might argue that, but when our daughter went to college she was the one in charge. She figured out her path, made decisions about changing it, and did so with our support and blessing.

When our son entered his Freshman year at a Nashville arts school, we backed off and worked to let him manage his high school work. Until Fall semester of his Junior year all went well. He failed four of his classes that semester. He had never failed any class, ever, in the history of his schooling. We all went into triage mode. This past December, my dear son graduated early from an alternative school here in Nashville, where he found teachers who cared about him and also who held high expectations for his work.

Heavy sigh. So. Looking back I hear my brother's sing-songy voice "Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda Shoulda, Woulda." I somewhat resentfully sort of wish that I had bought in more to the academic thing.

Why?

Well, take a look a last week's release of a Pew Foundation study that compared incomes of high school graduates with those of college graduates. It's profiled in Feb. 11th's "Is college worth it? New PEW study says yes" and I heard it discussed several times on NPR this week, with the repeated tagline "The only thing more expensive than going to college these days is not going to college." According to that article, there has never been more of an income gap between college graduates and millennials with a high school degree or less. Get it from the horse's mouth at https://selectra.co.uk/sites/selectra.co.uk/files/pdf/SDT-higher-ed-FINAL-02-11-2014.pdf if you're the sort of bloke who needs to bypass the synopsis.

After looking at all of this, my rational mind wants to keep on developing this train of thought. What if I had been more positive with my children about the benefits of high grades? What if I had more encouraged academic learning and performance? But I have a confession to make. My heart wants to go "yay." Both of our young adults are going to figure it out so that their lives work best for them. I believe that their experiences in the performing arts and their love of artistic expression (and more importantly and more subtly, the understandings they gained pursuing those paths) will serve them far better than any externally applied assessment or any paycheck. They will struggle and they will figure it out: Heck, so did their mom and I. The big difference, I have to admit, is that it's a much more dangerous world that it was when we were figuring it out.

They are golden, and if we've given them anything, it's love and support, and a healthy skepticism about how things are said to work in the world. Screw PEW. And screw the worship of the dollar. Life is about more than that. Listen to this live recording of a song I wrote on this topic -- God I do love Dana's harmonies.

artclectic in Second Life--Please drop in!

Hey, all,

Been knee-deep, virtually and really, living and learning with artclectic this past week. I've also lost my cell phone, but I have to admit it's been kinda quiet and nice without it. Am I reverting? Likely not, just pausing.

I created a little machinima this week to share what I've been building in Second Life with folks who may not be able to come into the virtual environment to experience it first hand. If you can come inworld, the SLurl is http://slurl.com/secondlife/The%20Port/146/94/501 . If you can't, for whatever reason, maybe this will suffice:


Find more videos like this on Virtual Environment Education Videos!

More later, and lots of it!

Gearing up for artclectic 2009!

I should mention that I’m knee-deep in artclectic work as the season barrels down upon us ineluctably. From helping to maintain the artclectic website to working on emma.com mailings to snapping pictures and working the twitter and facebook feeds I’m there, sports fans.

If you’re in Nashville, or anywhere within driving distance, or anywhere within flying distance, I’m tellin’ ya, get here for the show. The USN Sperling Gymnasium becomes something in no way resembling a school gym, there are family events running virtually the entire time, and the art this year promises to be more varied and more exciting than ever before in the 13 years this unique event has taken place.

Last night, my son Colin and his friend and classmate Hope joined USN drum teacher extraordinaire Ed Haggard at Whole Foods in Green Hills to provide fun (and skilled) percussion to underscore the first public sneak peek at a few of the pieces that will be available for viewing and/or purchase from October 22-25. The show opens to the public on the 23rd after a private Patrons Party the evening of the 22nd and runs all weekend long. I’ll leave you with a link to the website where the schedule of events can be found, along with much more information, and with a little video from last night. Please check out the large comprehensive video on the website homepage as well, just put up by our media helper, Courtney Drake. It contains music by the USN HS Jazz band!

I also want to put in a word of praise for my lovely and talented wife, Lee Ann, Arts Coordinator at USN. Throughout the event and the days leading up to it, there are repeated times for all the volunteers who support the event to get praise and credit. Because she is so selfless and so proud of her people, Lee Ann rarely gets any of it, though one might easlily argue that she deserves it all. Don't think that this event would ever have grown into the one Nashville Parent Magazine calls "The Art Event of the Year" without Lee Ann Merrick's professional and careful nurturing and, most importantly, her wizardly people skills. Don't think it for a minute.

Here's the video!

Draxtor Despres Shares a Beautiful Mashup

This is a really moving mashup of Virtual Environments (the platform for the interview), social media, and real life filmmaking. Don't miss its 5:41 minutes of brilliance. Heck, watch it here, but then go over to the original site to comment. You'll want to favorite his work, "conversations about Art, Technology, and Social Justice."

I love the tagline on his profile: "Unless otherwise obvious, all music written and performed by Bernhard Drax (thanks Uncle Bernie)."

Right-Brain Ahoy

Last night, thanks to my lovely wife Lee Ann's mindful oversight of the arts programs at my school, with an eye toward faculty professional development and our school's commitment to balance in life, I participated in "Painting Made Easy," a two hour one-off workshop led by Whitney Ferre'. Whitney is the founder of Nashville's Creative Fitness Center and co-owner of Rumours Wine Bar. Thanks again to Lee Ann (the brains and powerhouse behind my school's annual art show, artclectic), I joined another faculty colleague, kindergarten teacher Jason Hooper, in the learning experience. It was fascinating, enjoyable, and most of all, relaxing.

I walked from the workshop with a 12x14 canvas, its thickly applied acrylic paint still drying (especially on the trees, perhaps a bit overworked but finally completed to my moderate satisfaction). Here's a photo of my masterpiece:

Whitney's philosophy of creativity and its role in the balance of life is expressed, quite eloquently, in her new book, The Artist Within: A Guide to Becoming Creatively Fit.

In the course of my little reaquaintance with how much fun it can be to push and pull paint around the surface of a stretched canvas, I learned that Whitney is a blogger. Her website at creativelyfit.com features blogposts from January of this year (welcome aboard, fellow blogger!), and they are looooong and innnnnnteresting! Anyone interested in balance in life should take a visit to her collection of insights and news centered around the "art" of art. As for me, I plan to read them while on my step-machine surfing on wireless-connected laptop, and I also plan to pick up some small canvases and to continue to take little relaxation vacations on a more regular basis! Thanks, Whitney!

artclectic Education Day 2008!

Education Day, the Friday school day of artclectic weekend 2008. See artclectic.org for more information.

artclectic2007 from Start to Finish

I put this up at TeacherTube and if it performs okay I'll leave it there at least during the week before artclectic2008! There's another, very much longer, video available at the USN website, but delivery mileage will vary greatly with the speed of your internet connection.