WPLN is Proud to Partner with Nashville Area Arts.

Nashville Public Radio is one of the few broadcast news organizations committed to coverage of the visual arts. We invite you to listen to our most recent features:

Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson addressing the Republican National Con…

Read a transcript of the address here.
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Metro Water Usage Still a Problem (transcript)

By Blake Farmer

Last year’s record-setting drought strained water systems throughout the state, in some cases, to the breaking point. A few cities in the Southeast were living off bottled water. Even in Nashville, where city leaders have long-flaunted a bottomless supply of water from the Cumberland River, big users were asked to cut back. Pumps throughout the city could barely keep up with the voracious demand for H-2-0.

Despite this year’s rainfall and cooler temperatures, WPLN’s Blake Farmer reports that the Metro Water system has seen no relief.
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“Randy Waller & The Country Gentlemen Live”

For almost 50 years, Charlie Waller and the Country Gentlemen delighted, confounded, pioneered, explored, standardized, pushed, prodded and generally made the bluegrass world a better place.
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“Bluegrassizing Country #1’s: 1978–1980″

We’re looking at the songs that made country jukeboxes play between 1978 and 1980 … and then bluegrassizing the Monroe out of them.
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Aaron Douglas: Out Of The Shadows

In the midst of New York’s Harlem Renaissance, Fisk University invited a young African American artist to paint a mural for the library. Aaron Douglas squeezed trips to Nashville in between other big commissions in New York and Chicago. Because his best works were painted on walls, the starmaking machinery of galleries and museums ultimately bypassed him. Now a major traveling exhibition at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts promises Douglas some welcome visibility. WPLN’s Susan Knowles reports.
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“Field Guide” at Vanderbilt University Law School

Two years ago the Frist Center for the Visual Arts put on an exhibit of new artwork made by up-and-coming, Nashville-based artists. That show sparked the Vanderbilt University Law School to exhibit similar work — art that’s anything but traditional, art that’s edgy, contemporary and relevant to today. The law school’s current show, called “Field Guide,” connects the concerns of four young Tennessee artists, as WPLN’s Adrienne Outlaw reports.
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Nolensville Road’s New Mural

Drive under the railroad trestle on Nolensville Road near the Nashville Zoo and you’­ll pass a ring tailed lemur, a hyacinth macaw and a 13-foot Bengal tiger.

No, the animals aren’t loose. Nashville muralist Michael Cooper painted them on the support columns as part of a project to celebrate the gateway to the Flatrock Community. WPLN’s Adrienne Outlaw reports on what the mural means for the people who commissioned it. - To see more of Michael Cooper’s work, go to www.muralsandmore.com
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Ghost Ballet for the East Bank Machineworks

Across the river from lower Broadway, next to the Shelby Street Bridge and in front of LP Field is a new kind of Nashville star - a giant red super nova. A public sculpture that looks like parts of a whirling spiral galaxy come to earth. Fabricated of industrial steel like the barges that used to launch from this part of the riverbank, Its the creation of Alice Aycock, known worldwide for her industrial sculptures. WPLN’s Susan Knowles reports.
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Senior Thesis Show At Watkins College of Art

This weekend starts graduation season for most colleges and universities. While many liberal arts students receive their diplomas mostly through class time and credit hours, graduating art students must take an extra step - create a body of work and publicly exhibit it. Adrienne Outlaw reports on the work of three soon-to-be-graduates and their Senior Thesis Show at Watkins School of Art.
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Fabergé at Cheekwood

What is Easter without eggs? Long a symbol of fertility and rebirth, eggs achieved imperial status when Alexander III commissioned a Russian jeweler with a French name to make an Easter present for his wife.” That was 1885, and the Russian tradition of Fabergé eggs was born. Three of those imperial Easter eggs recently arrived in Nashville at the Cheekwood Botanical Garden & Museum of Art - but the eggs are not the stars of the show, as WPLN’­s Christine Buttorff reports. More info at www.cheekwood.org
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