A Nashville painter reflects on scenes from the Stones River, an unsung tributary of the Cumberland

When parks across Nashville filled with people escaping indoor confinement in 2020, Megan Lightell sought refuge in her kayak. 

She paddled along the Stones River, a stream that feeds into the Cumberland River and contains the J. Percy Priest Dam in Nashville. She noted the dense development and poor water quality along the stream, but she also reveled in the life winding through her city. 

“I started wondering what was going on upstream and what was the story of the river as it flowed through the suburbs and in the city,” Lightell said. 

Lightell is a painter, and her latest project is “Watershed,” a collection of large oil paintings now on display at Zeitgeist Gallery that capture the unique features of the Stones River. 

Lightell spent the past year camping along the watershed and observing how the river changed throughout the day and evening. She took a field journal with special paper to make mini oil paint sketches of different locations. 

Courtesy Megan Lightell

The “Watershed” exhibit highlights natural features of the Stones River, a tributary of the Cumberland River.

Lightell uses only four colors in her palette, a technique called tonalism. She mixed red, blue, yellow and white to create a misty atmosphere with subtle shades of green and gray in “Watershed.” 

The first painting of the series is massive, measuring 96 inches wide, and depicts a bend in the West Fork, one of the three forks in the Stones River.

“As soon as I saw this spot, I could already just feel the painting,” Lightell said. 

Lightell has created collections of paintings with environmental themes before. In 2013, she asked farmers in Ohio to show her their favorite views on their land before an expected gas drilling expansion in a region near the Utica and Marcellus Shale formations. 

“I wanted to document that moment in time before I sensed a big change coming,” Lightell said of the project. 

The “Watershed” exhibit will be at Zeitgeist Gallery through Oct. 1.

For the Watershed series, Lightell examined all segments of the Stones River. Near the headwaters, which are the sources of the stream, she discovered swaths of clearcut logging and various industries bleeding into the riverscape — which eventually spills its contents into the Cumberland River, the drinking water source and home for many lifeforms in the Nashville area. 

“I know that in Nashville we’re living in a time of a lot of development,” Lightell said. “I think it’s easy for us to lose sight of what the land means to us in the midst of that.”

The exhibit will be at the Zeitgeist Gallery in Nashville until Sunday, Oct. 1.