Good news for Nashville's art scene.

Press release from David Lusk Gallery :

David Lusk Gallery | Memphis & Nashville | 901.767.3800 | davidluskgallery.com 

David Lusk Gallery will open in Nashville in early 2014. The new endeavor continues the Gallery’s commitment to artists and clients – now in a second city. Formed in 1995 in Memphis, David Lusk Gallery promotes a roster of artists from the mid-south and well beyond to clients across the country. The Gallery’s program is distinctive – one that matches the diversity, ingenuity and excitement of Memphis. Gallery owner David Lusk comments, “It has been a blast creating opportunities for our artists on both a local and national level. For me, working with clients and arts professionals to incorporate contemporary art into their everyday lives is tremendously invigorating.”

Now the Gallery will broaden its reach by opening a new Gallery location in Nashville. That city is growing quickly; cultural industries like food, film and fashion are booming. David Lusk Gallery will fill a gap in the Nashville art scene, while also providing Nashville artists and their collector base with new opportunities.

The Gallery in Nashville will be located at 516 Hagan Street in the burgeoning Wedgewood/Houston neighborhood. Dane Carder will serve as the Gallery’s day-to-day Director. Carder, a Nashville based artist, has previous experience promoting the local art scene through his gallery Threeesquared. Carder says: “It has long been my desire to expand the scope of Nashville’s art community. David Lusk Gallery’s program will bring a welcomed component to what is an established and vibrant art scene.”

The new Nashville Gallery will have 20-foot ceilings, a series of operating industrial garage doors, pristine exhibition galleries and a large viewing room. The building, formerly a large truck machine shop, has been redeveloped to house three distinct businesses. The location is already a recognized arts locale: next door to David Lusk Gallery is Zeitgeist, a long-time Nashville art space, noted for cutting-edge installations.

David Lusk Gallery will create an artistic program tailored to Nashville. The Gallery will showcase recognized artists previously unrepresented in Nashville, others well known in the city, and a few without any Nashville recognition. The Nashville Gallery will build a reputation related to, but unique from David Lusk Gallery in Memphis. These artists, among others, will be represented during the opening exhibition of David Lusk Gallery Nashville:

Carroll Cloar (1913-1993): nationally recognized painter of the Southern cultural landscape.

Maysey Craddock: gouache drawings on found paper describing the beauty of dilapidation and

deterioration;

Hamlett Dobbins: abstract paintings about emotional attachment, described through shape, texture and color;

William Eggleston: internationally renowned for beautifully mundane color photographs;

Mary Addison Hackett: contemporary paintings of everyday objects given new life with fast brushwork and unexpected color;

Greely Myatt: sculptures of domesticity, communication and wit, using widely varied found materials;

Kit Reuther: large, minimally-marked abstract paintings and totemic large wooden sculpture;

Tad Lauritzen Wright: subject matter includes, among other things, one-line drawings, word-find paintings and shuffleboard tables.

David Lusk Gallery is excited to join the active art scene in Nashville. A formal exhibit schedule will be released shortly. David Lusk Gallery in Nashville will open at 516 Hagan St in January 2014. David Lusk Gallery is located at 4540 Poplar Ave in Memphis. For further information contact David Lusk at 901 767 3800

or david@davidluskgallery.com. Or, contact Dane Carder at 615 598 5600 or

dane@davidluskgallery.com.

Although the map is not the territory, the territory is still in need of a map.

I'm tremendously happy that Le Rayon Vert caught the attention of some of the area's writers. Tremendously. Not that I would been totally disheartened had the other show garnered all the attention, but I was rooting for the dysfunctional work.

Jim Ridley, The Nashville Scene. Go Green with Mary Addison Hackett's Le Rayon Vert.

Joe Nolan, Arts Nash. Le Rayon Vert is Mysterious and Masterly.

Laura Hutson, Nashville Scene's Arts & Culture Blog, Country Life. Installation View: Mary Addison Hackett at Belmont's Leu Gallery

And this small blurb:

Many thanks to everyone for checking the show out.  

The show is up through October 17. And in case you're armchair gallery hopping, here's the link to all the works in the show, including the Kitchen Painting (#Drifters).

In the studio it's business as usual. 

I started a new painting and due to an upgrade in wood shop skills, I'll be taking some time to build some nice stretchers. Tonight I will be watching the final 3 episodes of Breaking Bad. #Research & Development.  

Hi-five.

Two studio visits in one month. Yes.

And just when I thought I had worn out my welcome.

Zen and the Art of Dado

Test cut. First attempt at actualizing the dado. Not bad, but room for improvement. 

Nashville is not known for it's plethora of fine-arts industry related services and I have had to resort to building my own stretchers (strainers, really, but no one is keeping track.) It's been a good thing. I actually like the prep work and I'm not too shabby.

I have owned a simple chop saw for 25 years. Crosscuts and miters were as fancy as it got. A couple of years ago, my friend Carla, and sage guru in all things DIY, taught me how to cut  beveled edges using an inexpensive table saw. I added the table saw and beveled miters to my skill set. I make cuts as needed to build small to medium stretchers. For years, I was spoiled by living in cities where quality stretchers were actually affordable, and without certain tools I could only get so far in my DIY stretcher building when I wanted to work large.* Enter, the elusive dado cut cross-brace. And also, most of the time I believe in using quality materials and craftsmanship, though not always.**

I've also known about dado cuts for about 25 years. I've read about them in my hardware books. I've looked at diagrams. I've studied them close-up after purchasing stretcher bars made by professionals. I knew how to make dado cuts, and yet, no dado cuts were made.

There are at least 4 ways to make dado cuts. There are others, but these are the ones seemingly accessible if you don't run a major woodshop:

1. A hand router.

The hand router is a lot of work and frankly seemed a little heavy and prone to operator error.

2. A table saw with a dado blade.

The dado blade is a myth. I've never seen one and no one I know has ever used one. To change the blade for a single dado cut is apparently so labor intensive that no one wants to do it. There is no dado blade. 

3. A coping saw, a chisel, and nothing to do for the rest of the day. Maybe some band-aids.

Need I go into detail? 

4. An inexpensive table saw with an all-purpose blade.

I finally asked someone to show me the mechanics of making a dado cut, specifically, how to handle the wood as it glided over the saw blade. It sounds simple, but when there's a whirring blade inches away from your fingers, anything is possible.*** It came to my attention that they assumed I didn't know anything about dado cuts, saws, or lumber for that matter, but I listened patiently and watched a single cut being made on a megafancy table saw at the school woodshop. I paid attention to the wood and the position of the hands as they went back and forth over the blade. I was concerned with potential kickback and keeping my lumber straight as I made multiple passes- the action part of making the cut. 

Yesterday, I finally made the elusive dado cut on my home table saw. The test cut came out at 90 degrees and perfectly flush. That is all. 

*sometimes I also support crappy cheap labor from China, but only because it's impossible to find crappy, cheap store-bought canvases made in the USA. 

**I quit using a stretcher-builder out in LA when  in a snarky convo, he told me that most of his work (stretcher bars) winds up in landfills. I didn't want that as the foundation for my paintings. I don't know where my paintings will wind up, but it seemed like a rotten place to start knowing that the guy who made the stretchers was already thinking "landfill.") I think about these things in terms of karma. "Take care of your work and it will take care of you."

***Allow me to make the analogy between lane-splitting on a motorcycle and making a dado cut on a table saw. When discussing the pros and cons of lane-splitting, a friend in California explained that when you (the motorcyclist) are between cars, you're relatively safe. The cars on either side are parallel to you; they are not converging to single point. They will not crush you. True enough, unless one of them wants to radically change lanes. I grew to love lane-splitting, but back to the saw. The saw blade is lowered to about half the depth of the wood and it's not roving around all willy-nilly on the table, so making a dado cut using multiples passes on the table saw is a rather safe cut, but like anything you do more than once, there are odds to beat and conditions to be alert to.