I Love Memphis

I’m not sure who painted this rather bummed-out looking critter on the wood covering the windows on the old Tennessee Brewery downtown, but it’s one of my favorite pieces of random art in Memphis.
Take the critter’s advice – invest in good times.

I was invited to ARTjamN in Cooper Young a few nights ago to do a painting session. None of the guided paintings suited me, so I put on my headphones, squeezed some acrylic onto a paper plate and made this little…well, I can’t quite call it a masterpiece. I like it, though.
In other news:
- Goner [...]

A pole covered with colorful tiles outside of the old Smooth Moves on Union Ave.,
Memphis, Tenn.

I spent part of yesterday afternoon watching Kirt Gunn’s made-in-Memphis movie “Lovely by Surprise“, and here I am, nearly 24 hours later, still trying to process it.

“Lovely By Surprise” is about Marian, a writer who creates two fictional, boat-dwelling brothers who are attached to the non-fictional world. It’s also about childhood tragedy, love, death, used [...]

Two new (and very different) exhibits recently opened at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens. Museum curator Julie Pierotti was kind enough to show me around both “Metal in Memphis” and “Monet to Matisse”.
All of the works in the “Metals in Memphis” exhibit were created by the artists in residence at the National Ornamental Metal Museum [...]

Here’s another one for the Memphis scavenger hunt.
For several years, there’s been a giant mural covering the side and front walls of Whatever at the corner of Highland and Southern. The mural is painted legally by local graffiti artists (one of the artists, LeakOne, works at the shop) and changes annually.
Until a few months ago, [...]

When I walked into the lobby of the Orpheum Theatre last night for the opening night Jersey Boys, I was greeted with this sign:
I was instantly more excited about seeing the show.
Jersey Boys is the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons from their formation to fame to their eventual break up and induction [...]

Here’s a not-so-secret: I’ve always been a Memphis resident, but I haven’t always lived here. For four years, I attended Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. There weren’t very many Southern people in Muncie (and there were even fewer from Memphis).
My Hoosier friends weren’t quite sure what to do with me – I talked funny, [...]

Opera Memphis is taking a break from performing at theaters around Memphis to bring things back home. Beginning this weekend, the company will be staging “Orpheus”, their first show at the Clark Opera Memphis Center in East Memphis.
The Clark Opera Memphis Center is home to the Opera Memphis offices, set, wig and costume shops, and [...]

Christiana was kind enough to show me around Opera Memphis yesterday. One of the stops on the tour was the wig shop,  a room full of cabinets full of styrofoam heads and fake hair. The shop is maintained by a woman whose job title is “Wigs, Make-up and Marketing”.
This is a wig in progress, or [...]