Nashville Downtown Arts Crawl. August 6th. Collector's Night

I've been in Nashville a little over a year now. I don't know if artists actually go to art crawls. I try not to. In my experience art crawls are for the civvies. Collector's Night thins down the swarm of urban hipsters to a smaller crowd interested in hearing the artist discussing their work in brief. This is more my speed. I like hearing artists discuss their work. Sometimes I've even been persuaded to change my mind about a work after hearing an artist talk about it. 

The Rymer Gallery presented works by Charles Clary, Jason Worsham and Natalie Andrews. I'm not certain, but I believe all three have southern connections and are fairly recent MFA graduates. 

Charles Clary with his meticulously cut paper concoctions at The Rymer Gallery

Jason Worsham works with found objects at The Rymer Gallery

Natalie Andrews at The Rymer Gallery

The 5th Avenue of the Arts celebrates it's 5th birthday this weekend. Susan Tinney of Tinney Contemporary mentioned the five year anniversary as she presented Claire B Cotts, a San Francisco based artist. Déjà vu. I was one of the artists exhibiting at the gallery's Grand Opening show five years ago when it was part of a partnership with TAG gallery (Note: no connection to the Santa Monica TAG gallery). I had actually forgotten this as I silently did the math and retraced my last 5 years in a flash. I was an Los Angeles-based artist then. How time flies. 

Claire B Cotts at Tinney Contemporary

Claire has been working as an artist for about 25 years. The show consisted of abstract works with one representational work in the atrium. She talked about the abstract works, citing gardens, fireflies, and a host of other influences. She mentioned evoking feelings about the work rather than intellectualizing the work. I would have liked to have heard more about her figurative works since my head's been wrapped around that in my own practice lately. 

Claire B Cotts

This painting was not in the show, but I like it. This being a blog, not a critical review, I feel it's acceptable to speak about works I didn't see in the show. She also has a blog though we didn't connect about that. I think when I try to be social I come across as someone who's never picked up a pen or a paint brush, much less articulated a sentence. My social skills are painfully awkward.

Unfortunately my driving skills are not painfully awkward. I was pulled over on the way home for going 11 miles over the speed limit on a hill. I was pretty sure I was keeping up with traffic but Metro's finest pointed out that the car in front of me moved out of my way. No one goes 35 mph here. It was a bogus bust.

The next post in queue will be about the pop-up show presented by ZieherSmith, a Brooklyn gallery importing works into the local art scene this month. According to the press release, "Though young, these artists have already been acquired by top museums and collections across the globe. They work in a variety of mediums and styles."

Being a Collector's Night post, I felt that an apropriate sentence to end on.