Leisa A. Hammett

Hardscrabble Rural Vet Turned Novelist, William Gay, Passes On

He was one of the most hard-scrabble-looking writers upon whom I've ever laid eyes. Numerous times over the years, I saw acclaimed rural carpenter turned novelist William Gay sit on author's panels at the Southern Festival of Books and not say a whole lot that I can remember. I *think* he may have mentioned once that literary notoriety had not changed his life much and that he still lived in a trailor.  His presence was most humble, as if he felt he didn't belong there. But belong he did. More so than most anyone else there. My friend, author-philospher Bill Peach, whom I hold in most high esteem, wrote the following about Gay who died Thursday:

"William Gay, the Hohenwald, Tenn., native who late in life earned a following as one of the most acclaimed Southern writers of recent years, was reportedly found dead last night from heart failure at his Lewis County home. He was 68.

"A Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy, Gay had been writing since he was 15 years old, supporting himself with carpentry and drywall-hanging jobs as well as a stint on a television-tube assembly line. It wasn't until 1998, however, that he published his first short stories, followed by his prize-winning first novel, The Long Home, in 1999.

"Its celebrated follow-up, Provinces of Night, made Gay's literary name as an heir to the tradition of Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. Of his three published novels and collected short stories — with a fourth novel, The Lost Country (excerpted here at Chapter16.org), as yet unpublished — Gay's works were twice filmed.

"Gay's hard-living reputation only enhanced his literary mystique. He traveled often, however, and was scheduled to do a reading Monday at Lincoln Memorial University with fellow writer Sonny Brewer."

 

Wow.

Read Serenity Gerbman's remembrance at Chapter16.org.

Provocateurs, Entrepreneurs @ Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, Part II

Artist Jerry Adams's dreamy watercolors first grabbed and held onto my heart in 2008 at a very special  exhibit. "The Artist's Voice: A Tennessee Exhibition Featuring Artists with Disabilities" bubbled up from a dream turned vision to a committee (of which I was a member) to the Conte Community Arts Gallery at Nashville's Frist Center for the Visual Arts where it hung in glory and then faced a sad, unfortunate death, failing to ever tour nationally as it was once envisioned.

 

Jerry Adams was but one artist whose work was discovered in the juried show of adult artists from major cities to Tennessee's rural nooks and crannies. Artists Yvette Renee Parrish-Cowden and Massood Taj, then both of Full Circle Art, took their magic artistry of love and encouragement on the road, statewide, teaching the workshop-attending artists with disAbilities how to compile a portfolio and market their work. Even four years later, I am struck at the oddity and the sadness, as I judge it, of that sentence. Like the rest of life that so many take for granted, artists with disAbilities are often disadvantaged, lacking supports and services to help them integrate fully into our society and do many of the things that others take for granted. For the duration of the project, "The Artist's Voice" helped spotlight the deserving Tennessee artists' talent.

Fortunately, Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, a national University Center for Excellence (UCED) and the first Intellectual and DD (developmental Disabiltiy) Research Center, established in a network of centers by President John F. Kennedy, continuously focuses on the work by and about artists and individuals with disAbilities in their lobby area gallery. Last week "The Journey with Grace" profiled currently featured exhibition artist, photographer Matthew Drumright. Painter Jerry Adams shares the current show's gallery space with Drumright.

 

Adams is driven by his passion to create art, but has little motivation, according to his website, for public accolades. Still, like all artists, he wishes to make his artistic endeavors a viable enterprise. Yet, with the hurdle of cerebral palsy, his challenges in this task are magnified as the disAbility impairs his motor skills.

His works of deep color and fluid motion are a kind of personal salvation for Adams, who has spent most of his adult life in segregated communal living environments where personal career gain is often out of reach. (Take note, special needs parents, please, about what you really wish for your children's future living).

Persistently painting since 1980, Adams has gained respect and recognition by private collectors and has been featured in exhibitions at Nashville International Airport's Arts in the Airport program, Vanderbilt University, The Tennessee Performing Arts Center and First American Bank. He received the 1993 Metro Davidson County Disabled Artist of the Year award, among other various honors. 

Go, Jerry, go. Paint, Jerry, paint....Your gift is an inspiration and a gift to eyes, heart and soul. Beautiful. Beautiful. Thank you, Vanderbilt Kennedy Center. More about Adams and Drumright's work, including photographs of the Vanderbilt show, here.

Above credits: photo, Farris Poole; painting by Adams, entitled "Subterranean Divide, Part One."

Whitney Houston's Death A Reminder of Our Humanity

 

Saturday, much of America apparently perched on their couches and watched Whitney Houston's funeral via television or live-stream internet. The Facebook community was stacked with commentary. Though I'm not a fan of celebrity, I believe in the importance of knowing the pulse of popular culture. And, I admired Houston's flawless beauty and incredible voice.

But, many of the comments emanating from the ethers of Facebook seared my spirit. Our culture is so quick to elevate. So quick to tear down. We deify our celebrities, causing us to forget the reality of their humanity. Blinded by the spotlights and sparkle of fame, we choose to hold them higher than our own selves and also from our media tethered perches, we impose upon them impossible standards. And, then, we crucify them when they fail, all the while forgetting that they are just like ourselves. Human. Vulnerable. Fallible.

I love my alma mater--a small Baptist, East Tennessee college, which, when I attended, had a student body less than 2,000. A former campus minister from those days posted on his Facebook wall a tribute from a D.C.-based Baptist Pastor, Elizabeth Evans Hagan, who pens a blog entitled Preacher on the Plaza. This exceptional young woman, who was born two years before I graduated, wrote in a post published Saturday, "Whitney Houston Took Us to Church." She noted that the televised experience demonstrated how (my words) real church, loving church, can hold space for, among many things:

"Those who have made some bad decisions in their life (i.e. Whitney) being celebrated for the good within them, not the bad because hey, we have all messed up in one way or another! (Who are we to throw stones?)"

I take it a few notches further and choose not to even label her choices "bad" or "messed up." Stay with me here a moment....In the recent events in my own life, culture would clearly entitle me to brandish labels of "messing up" and "bad." Instead, I tongue-in-cheek classify my experiences as "less than optimal choices." For, all our "bad," "the messy," the "less than optimal choices" hold great power to help us  WAKE UP! And CHANGE! To do differently whatever is not working in our lives. Houston had that choice and I do not condemn her for not going there. It appears she had great remorse and that she tried and her decisions were branches in her journey....

In our cultural iconization of celebrity, we forget that like us, they, too, are on a Journey. The. Same. One. As. Us. AKA: Life. And what we all need for ourselves and for our lives is...The "C" word. The biggie. The one of which we have in such short supply in our current culture: COMPASSION.

The loving tributes that resonated with me throughout the week were those that bestowed this compassion. As Spirit Coach and friend Gregory Fisher noted about Houston's interview with Oprah approximately three years back, she got a glimpse of her power if maybe only for a brief while. That power that, again, all of us, as creations of God, have in common--personal, God-given power. Also like myself and so many of us, she also forgot that she had that power within. And you know the rest of her story, which ended in her tragic, premature death. What would the rest of her life had been like if she'd lived on like the greats of her sisterhood, such as Aretha Franklin who graced Houston's funeral? We'll never know.

But...what we can take away are the lessons that in her/our shared frailty, we have a connection to a divine, strengthening source within us. And that, again, compassion--what the world needs--starts from within our own human hearts. Those human hearts that beat together in our global world....Furrowing her brow, leaning over and lowering her voice--meaning serious business--Mother would say to me when I was growing up, "When you point your finger at another there are four pointing right back at 'cha." So, in our rush to judge--which means me, too, here--we forget that we have and that others also have thumping, human, life-blood-coursing hearts that desperately need the resicutation of love, kindess, understanding and compassion.

Thump-thump....

I believe NOTHING. Nothing is ever in vain. Houston left her earthly life of pain for someplace better. Her death, however, holds lessons for those of us who remain behind....

Holiday Weekend Bonus: Movie Therapy

Add: Three whales trapped in ice + Drew Barrymore + a sprinkle of romance + a douse of suspense = A movie that can't go wrong. The previews for "Big Miracle" proved it would be a good family movie for February. And, it delivered all this plus more. My friends, Grace and I laughed, we held our breath, we cheered. This is a feel-good movie, based on a true story. It is also a story of Hope. The time was 1988, the iron curtain was beginning to fall, the Soviet Union was disolving. The effort to rescue three gray whales trapped in ice coalesced formerly opposing forces--tree hugging Green Peace activists, oil companies, Alaskan Inuits, village insiders, outsiders, and two enemy nations, plus more.

 

 

 

For weekend movie therapy, check it out. But note that true to Hollywood's turn-em-over quick philosophy, it's going fast as it'd already left Nashville's main theaters and was showing only deep in the burbs. It's also one that can wait on the Netflix que or a future Red Box trip. Either way, it's worth viewing. You'll leave with a happy heart.

Lastly: Pay attention to a vintage news clip at the end for a cameo appearance of the woman who made famous the line "I can see Russia from my house." (Wink.)

Enjoy.

Provocateurs, Entrepreneurs @ Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, Part I

 

This beautiful image:

 

...was taken by this young man ~

 

Matthew Drumright, above, has been taking pictures since he was age 10. His talent was nurtured by a teacher who "gets it." Marti Proffit-Strueli is also my daughter's art teacher and one of the main reasons I transferred Grace out of her cluster to attend Hillsboro High School. It is a story of the difference a teacher can make in encouraging a students' dream. It is also the story of parents who listened and nurtured their son's talent, who believed, dreamed big and believed in their special son's big dreams.

Drumright not only believed in his dream, he followed it and works as an intern for Michael Gomez Photography in Nashville. Like many artists, Drumright also holds a second job to help support himself and his craft. His photograph, “Night Snowfall,” was on display in the S. Dillion Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington , D.C., as part of the VSA arts ”Driving Force” art exhibit. In 2005, VSA arts of Tennessee awarded him the Professional Artist Award. Matthew enjoys photographing nature, people, sports and special events but mostly capturing his nephews in those treasured moments.

A Special Olympics athlete since 1991, Matthew trains and competes in multiple sports. He has been fortunate to have been selected to compete in three Special Olympics World Games and Two Special Olympics National Golf Tournaments. He served as the official Healthy Athletes photographer for the 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Boise, Idaho. As a Global Messenger, Matthew speaks to civic, corporate, school and church organizations about Special Olympics and how it has enhanced his life.

Provocateurs, Entrepreneurs is the current exhibit at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, in Nashville. The Center hosts four exhibits annually featuring work by or about people with disAbilities.

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To Matthew's parents and other similar special needs parents, I say thank you for lighting the way, blazing a trail that I and other parents of special needs artists can follow. You have gifted your sons and daughters, me, my daughter, and all who come in contact with your children's art. Bless you for thinking outside the box. The world is a more beautiful place because of the vision you held and encouraged.

Photo of Drumright: Michael Gomez, Gomez Photography, (who receives kudos for also thinking outside the box. We need more open hearts like Gomez).

Configuring an Artist Statement

It's about about the timing, they say. My Facebook plea for help went out no less than the night of The Super Bowl. Crickets....I've been writing since I was at least 10 and professionally since 1980. But the request from the Seattle gallery, HeART of the Spectrum, that's now representing my daughter, artist Grace Walker Goad, stumped me big time. They needed an artist statement. Uhhh....I've written her bio, website content, a resume, flyers, you name it, if not for her I've written a little of everything about almost everything. But how to write an artist statement for a nearly 18-year-old who rarely talks in complete sentences and only to request something she wants? She communicates to me and those around her about food, shopping, bed, bathroom. The basics. You ask her any question, unless it's something she clearly does not want to do and her answer is "Yes." For the others it's "Don't."

I held off the gallery for a week until the next Monday as GraceArt, my daughter's art business, has me so hopping right now with four shows, three of them in two months of this coming spring, that I've had to designate my weekdays. One day for GraceArt. Two days for errands and meetings. Another for  finishing the book, The Journey with Grace, by year's end, and another for the potpourri of household stuff like those stacks of paper that self-procreate. Blogging? It gets done when inspiration strikes, which luckily happens a lot. (How can a writer not write, I want to know.) So, GraceArt day came and the last document I created to send per request for the gallery was this:

Grace Walker Goad, Artist Statement

 

I love creating art. Though I am a very active late teen, (I love dancing to music, especially!) making art puts me into a Zen state. I create my best art when it is quiet. And, I work best one-on-one with preferably an art therapist because they best understand my autism and how to bring out my talent.

I love Life. And I love color. I study my palette very carefully and it’s said that both my color and composition skills have always been far beyond my chronological age.

I am pure Joy. And my art shows that Joy. I have no Ego about my art. I just kinda like it when I sometimes notice that other people think it’s really good. Honestly, I never demonstrated that I gave other people's reactions any notice until I got to go to New York City and be in front of a camera and on t.v. (The autism episode of “The View,” 2007.) After that I kinda began to get it that people liked my art.

I do not talk very much. I have a lot of difficulty expressing myself that way. My brain is impaired with a severe special language disorder so my parents are my voice for many things such as this artist statement.  I have intellectual disAbilities, too. I don’t care what folks choose to label me, I don’t notice and I don’t care. I’m ridiculously happy 99 percent of the time. My mother thinks, and many others, too,  that the ways that my brain is not “neurotypical” are compensated for with my ability to express myself through art. Art is my communication.

To See as Artists See: More Phillips Collection @ Frist Center!

 

We benefit by giving ourselves over to the direct experience of the work of art.  In this way one enters the artist’s world, learning to see as artists see. ~ Duncan Phillips

 

 

Lucky. Lucky. Lucky are we in Nashville to be only one of only two U.S. venues to host To See as  Artists See: American Art from the Phillips Collection. This dreamy show chocked full of 100 luscious works by 75 notable artists including Childe Hassam, Maurice Prendergast, John Sloan, Edward Hopper, Arthur Dove, Georgia O’Keeffe, Charles Sheeler, Stuart Davis, Jacob Lawrence, Adolf Gottlieb and Robert Motherwell was an international sensation in Roverto (Italy), Madrid and Tokyo before landing at Frist Center for Visual Arts until early May.

D.C.-based Phillips Collection brought Nashville, in 2004, one of the Center's most popular exhibits: From El Greco to Picasso: European Masterworks from The Phillips Collection. The current exhibit, which launches today, presents a comprehensive selection of the Collection's American treasures.

The paintings present a survey of American painters from 1845–1965. The exhibition begins with nineteenth century American art heroes, including Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins whose works set the course for modern art in the U.S. The exhibition concludes with works by the Abstract Expressionists whose efforts to create a new visual language in the 1940s caused the art world to turn its attention from Paris to New York and made American art a significant global force.

Many of the artists in this exhibition were influenced by and captured in their work some of the biggest changes transforming society during their lifetimes: the rise of industry and new modes of transportation, the growth and electrification of cities and the invention of everyday objects.   

Throughout this exhibition, specific paintings are connected to inventions and innovations that changed the world.  These include: the Erie Canal (Arthur B. Davies, Along the Erie Canal, 1890); the electric light bulb (John Sloan, Six O’Clock, Winter, 1912); tube paint (Theodore Robinson: Giverny, ca. 1889) and acrylic paint (Helen Frankenthaler, Canyon, 1965); skyscrapers (Edward Bruce, Power, ca. 1933) [one of my favorites]; the egg beater and electric fan (Stuart Davis, Egg Beater, No., 4, 1928) and mobiles [yes!] (Alexander Calder, Red Polygons, ca. 1950).

The Phillips Collection is considered a jewel among American museums and was the country's first museum of modern art, founded in 1921. From its inception, The Phillips Collection championed the very best in American art and artists. Duncan Phillips was a collector without peer in his time and still has much to teach us about how to appreciate, enjoy and collect art. 

A well-regarded art critic in addition to being a collector and museum director, Phillips believed we benefit by giving ourselves over to the direct experience of the work of art.  In this way one enters the artist’s world, learning to see as artists see.  In his extensive critical writings, Phillips was adamant: he sought “artists of creative originality and of sincere independence.”  

Source: Frist Center for the Visual Arts

I attended the Frist Center media tour for this exhibit yesterday and I'm making plans to return. I honestly cried as I so moved by certain portions of the exhibit starting with a Georgia O'Keefe painting that had palpable energy. And on to the enormous Augustus Vincent Tack, Aspiration, 1931, painting above and the Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1968. I am in awe at how esteemed our city's main arts center has become that we are continually attracting first times and limited tours as grand as this. Again, I was incredibly moved, and in at least one of my visits, I plan to take my daughter Grace, for I found where her style fits in the history of art. It's one of those times I wished they'd taught art history in my arts high school....More about that coming soon.

If you are in Nashville or planning a visit here, go see this amazing exhibit.

Two Current Movies Feature Asperger's

In theaters now, two movies highlight Asperger's syndrome. Viewed last weekend, Joyful Noise, alone, didn't charm enough with it's fun, fabulous music, and tender plot to demand anything other than a blurb on Facebook. But last night's take on Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close wrenched my guts and propelled me to the keyboard...not to mention that's two movies--released in the first month of 2012--both featuring characters with the high-functioning form of autism. (...Screw DSM-V. Details on the controversy on "The Journey with Grace" this Wednesday.)

 

Such an oddball match, it's alluring, Queen Latifah and Dolly Pardon play two deep-in-Georgia matriarchs with big hearts and opposing wills. The music score is riveting and rocking throughout. And hot newcomer Jeremy Jordan is ever easy on the eyes and ears. It's a heart-tugging story of hard times and big hopes. It's a bit cornball and thoroughly Southern. Any guy or gal, like me, that's grown up in an evangelical Protestant church (sshhh, don't tell anyone!) will be time tripped back into Wednesday night choir practice as it it were old home week. It's sweet and tendar and a bit mushy and a depiction of what small-town life might be in the best of circumstances where color doesn't matter nor does quirkiness, of which there is plenty. Not the least of which, in the quirky department, is Queen Latifah's son with Asperger's. A subplot of struggles in both families play out, with love, friendship and music saving the day. Unless your itching to grab a show out, save this feel-good flick for the Netflix list.

 

But the two-plus hours spent last night in a too-warm, packed theater to see Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was worth every minute. This is one of the most incredible movies I've seen in a long time. The acting was absolutely impeccable. Flawless. Every. Single. Actor....Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, John Goodman, Viola Davis (The Help,) Max Von Sydow (who impressively pulls off the role of a mute Holocaust survivor,) and the nine-year-old narrator, who has Asperger's--Thomas Horn. My friend pronounced Horn a child prodigy for his performance. (It's not the first time the young actor won accolades.)

The multi-layered and clever plot, based on the epononmously named 2005 novel by Jonathan Safran Foer is thoroughly engrossing. The tradegy of 9-11 is central to the movie and it painfully picks the scab left on the  American psyche. But, this is not a "9-11 movie." Instead, viewers are swept up in a little boy's Asperger's riddled and angst-ridden search. Metaphor is courses. And, cinematography stuns--especially with the close-ups of the child protagonist.

I'm one of those people who reads the playbill after the play. And, hence, movie reviews after the film. Reviews were a bit dour on Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close. (Blah-blah.) I judge that much like the audience's reaction at the movie's ending. Immediately around my friend and I were a number of twentysomethings who quickly stood up from their seats, as the credits began to roll, and loudly voiced their reactions. They were not parents, most likely. And, too, most likely unaware of the intensity of parental love and the grabbling experience of autism that they'd just witnessed. Yet, other theater goers eagerly appaulded the moment the screen went dark before the roll of actors appeared. Hankies dabbed, loud sniffs and sniffling sounded. And, I shook, literally, with tears at the movie's end. I'm not sure I've every been moved so viscerally by a movie, except maybe Farenheit 9/11, which incited intense anger within me.

So, thumbs up, Hollywood. You got us covered. Twice. Thank you. And for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, one word. Or, rather one more word: BRILLIANT. (And...one more: bravo!)

*Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close garnered two Academy Award nominations including for Best Picture. Not writing about on "The Journey with Grace," but Meryl Streep delivered her ever-classic and flawless performance on The Iron Lady. That's another one worth catching when out on a winter's eve.

"Life is Juicy;" The Art of Cindy Wunsch

 

The above collage is by one of my favorite Nashville-based artists. Not only is Cindy Wunsch's art inspirational and fun, she is one of the most positive, encouraging, genuinely caring individuals I know and also one of the best art teacher's I've ever experienced. Here's Cindy's artist statement that I loved so much I wanted to share here:

 

"I am someone who dreams about flowers,

who finds love angelic and  

who wonders about everything.

 

"I am a person who feels

that the most

romantic of life's moments can be found

in the ordinary.

 

"I am interested in creating works of art

as poetic as a classic song, yet make

you want to dance.

 

"Beneath the glossy covering of these

images you might find wallpaper, wax,

paint chips, and scraps of just about

any kind, as well as unique experiences,

old memories and simple thoughts.

 

"I hope they make you wonder."

 

I'm drawn to this particular (copyrighted) collage of Cindy's in part because of its' sentiment. So true....I have a magnet version of the image on my fridge. Learn more about Cindy Wunsch and her art at www.cindywunsch.com. The above collage was also featured in the annual Tomato Arts Festival art show at Art and Invention Gallery in our fair city's wacky, eclectic East Nashville region. "The Journey with Grace" featured Cindy's art last here in a blog post here.

Going Easy on the Eyes

It's been a wordy week here at "The Journey with Grace" with two long posts ("An Irreverent Homage to a Mentor" bookending the week on ArtsFriday tomorrow,) and with the week's kick-off post featuring a personal domestic affairs update and a short piece on personal "grace" wedged in the middle with only a tad of type art....We gotta get some visual ahhhhhrt in here this week. So, I'm pleased to slide in happy news and a peek at Nashville artist Lisa Ernst's painting, below:

Trumpet Diptych, “36” x 48,” permanent collection, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, copyrighted, Lisa Ernst

Ernst's above painting is one of several artists' works featured on the cover of the soon-to-be released book, Contemporary Painters. The coffee table book highlights the selected work of 100 artists worldwide. Ernst has five works included in the publication, including the above.

The artist's work was featured by "The Journey with Grace" in these previous posts: Art & Medicine, Arts at the Airport and Fruits of Summer.

It's been a bit cold, gray and dreary here in Nashville this week. I hope this splashes a douse of a needed color not only for your peeps but also for your spirit. Enjoy!