TO: Nashville Arts Organizations,
3 March 2003
Metro Arts Commission to receive Governor's Arts Leadership Award
The Metro Nashville Arts Commission will receive an Arts Leadership Award from the Tennessee Arts Commission Tuesday, March 11, at the annual Governor's Awards in the Arts ceremony. Governor Phil Bredesen will recognize recipients in the Ryman Auditorium at 8 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
The MNAC will be honored for its "outstanding work in bringing financial stability to local arts organizations, fostering quality, proliferation and diversity of the arts, assisting in the development of individual artists, increasing the value placed on the arts in both the public and private sectors of the local economy, and implementing ways of bringing the arts into the mainstream of life in Middle Tennessee."
"This is a very significant honor and achievement for the Metro Arts Commission and its staff," said Tom Turk, executive director. "We have worked long and hard over the past decade to develop a public arts commission of the highest quality. With the help of committed commissioners, terrific citizen grant panelists and other volunteers, and elected officials, our small staff has accomplished a great deal. We are proud to receive this recognition."
The Governor's Awards in the Arts were established in 1971 to recognize those individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to the cultural life of Tennessee. The awards are Tennessee's highest honor in the arts, recognizing the outstanding and significant contributions of artists, arts organizations, volunteers, schools, educators, local governments, legislators, and corporate citizens in the state or nationally.
Other organizations honored this year include The Southeast Center for Education in the Arts at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and A! Magazine for the Arts & Antiques, a monthly publication that is part of The Bristol Herald Courier.
Individual Winners
Singer, songwriter, and actress Dolly Parton will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award for her achievements as a musical entertainer and her contributions to Tennessee's cultural heritage during the Governor's Awards in the Arts.
Receiving Distinguished Artist Awards are Roland Carter of Chattanooga, Jim Gray of Knoxville, and Luther Hampton of Memphis. Folklife Heritage Awards will be presented to fiddler Howard Armstrong, a native of Dayton, Tennessee; Ralph Blizard, fiddler and 2002 National Heritage Fellowship recipient from Blountville; artist Clara Fodor of Linden, and musician Roy Harper of Manchester.
Three individuals receiving awards include Bob Cannon of Memphis for a $5 million gift to the Greater Memphis Arts Council, H. Grant Law of Lookout Mountain and a generous supporter of Chattanooga area arts groups, and George L. Mabry of Clarksville, director of the Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts at Austin Peay State University and director of the Nashville Symphony Chorus.
Tickets are available at the Ryman Auditorium Box Office, 116 Fifth Avenue North, Nashville. For ticket information call the Governor's Awards in the Arts Information Line at (615) 458-8720.
| top |
Restless Magician James Surls to give Public Art Forum talk
Artist James Surls creates giant flowers of wood and steel, diamonds that walk, tree limbs that sprout eyes, and houses with twisted branches growing from them. His large-scale anthropomorphic forms have a poetic quality that draws viewers to them and prompted one writer to call Surls "a restless magician."
Surls will be guest speaker on the Public Art Forum series Thursday, March 13, at 7 p.m. His illustrated talk will be presented in room 126 of Wilson Hall on the Vanderbilt University campus. The event is free and the public is invited to attend. Wilson Hall is located at 111 21st Avenue South, adjacent to the Law School.
Series sponsors are the Metro Nashville Arts Commission, the Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery, the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Office of Cultural Enrichment, the Visual Arts Alliance of Nashville (VAAN), and the Frist Center for the Visual Arts. The Public Art Forum series is funded in part under an agreement with the Tennessee Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.
While his work is "organic" and abstract, Surls views his sculpture as strictly ordered. "One of my criticisms of minimalist art is that it was too rational and conscious, too mechanical and mathematical," he says. "Yet I think the flower, believe it or not, is all those things! Flowers in my art are based on a pattern of rotating threes, or a pattern of rotating fives. It's a system of order just assuredly as the [Minimalist] row of squares on the floor in the 1970s.
| top |
Arts Advocacy Day 2003 brings hundreds to Nashville
Arts advocates from throughout the Volunteer State will heed the call from Tennesseans for the Arts to come to Nashville Tuesday, March 11, to speak out for the arts in these times of uncertainty.
Registration begins at 10:30 a.m. at the War Memorial Auditorium at 6th and Union Streets. At 11:30 a.m. advocates will hear a series of presentations. Rich Boyd, executive director of the Tennessee Arts Commission, will talk about the "ABC's of Arts Funding." Kelly Barsdate of the National Association of State Arts Agencies will tell the assembly how Tennessee stacks up with other states in terms of arts funding. Stewart Clifton, TFTA legislative liaison, will conduct an arts advocacy training session.
Participants will meet with their legislators from 1 to 5 p.m., then hold a debriefing at the War Memorial Auditorium before attending the Governor's Awards in the Arts.
To register for Arts Advocacy Day, call TFTA at (615) 292-2232.
| top |
Artist Registry continues growth
Visit MNAC's website at www.artsnashville.org to see artworks by new Artist Registry participants Shawne Brown, Mitchell Chamberlain, Dale Crawford, Linda Illingworth, Farrell Morris, and John Reed. Also see new images from long-time Registry participant Edie Maney.
| top |
Grant deadline
Nashville arts organizations are reminded that Wednesday, March 19, at 4 p.m. is the deadline for submitting grant applications to the Metro Nashville Arts Commission. Grant guidelines and application forms are available online.
| top |
MNAC meeting date changed
The April meeting of the Metro Nashville Arts Commission will be held on Thursday, April 10, at noon instead of the third Thursday of the month as originally planned.
| top |
Successful slide session held
Twenty artists participated in the MNAC's Slide Session this past weekend at Ruby Green gallery. Photographer Gary Layda worked with the artists to document their images.
| top |
|
© 2009
Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission 800 2nd Avenue South, 4th Floor P.O. Box 196300 Nashville TN 37219-6300 |
arts@nashville.gov (615) 862-6720 fax (615) 862-6731 |
Americans with Disabilities Act
|
|