Go Memphis

The metalsmith David Clemons scrutinizes and mocks racial typecasts in nine sublime pieces -- mainly forged from silver and steel -- now at National Ornamental Metal Museum. Full story »

Much of the work in “Ancestry & Innovation: African American Art from the American Folk Art Museum,” now on display at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, was created by poverty-bound Southerners who rarely, if ever, examined art in an institutional setting. Yet the Dixon’s austere, chapel-like galleries are the perfect environment for this vibrant collection of quilts, sculptures and paintings. Full story »

Travis Carrier is “Adam” in the Adam and Eve painting by the bar at the Mollie Fontaine Lounge. He painted the picture two years ago. “I worked on that straight for 40 something hours,” said Carrier, 20. “It was like the beginning to what was to come for me artistically. Adam and Eve was the beginning.” In addition to the Adam and Eve painting at the restaurant at 679 Adams, Carrier, who attends Rhode Island School of Design, is showing some of his paintings at Automatic Slim’s at 83 South Second. Full story »

Hardeman County rarely competes for tourists with Memphis or Nashville, but a new traveling exhibit that opens this weekend in Bolivar gives the 28,000 residents of that county a significant music attraction. The Smithsonian Institution's "New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music" kicks off its six-week residency at Bolivar's Little Courthouse Museum today with a music-filled, daylong celebration on the town square. Full story »

The Dixon Gallery & Gardens, 4339 Park Ave.: "Ancestry and Innovation: African-American Art from the American Folk Art Museum" opens 1-5 p.m. Sunday and runs through Oct. 12. New Ballet performs "Africa to Hip-Hop," at 2 p.m. Aug. 17 in celebration of the opening. Call 761-5250. Online: dixon.org. Full story »

“Delta Dogs” is the collection of Maude Schuyler Clay’s recent black-and-white photographs. “Suncoast Horses” could have been the title of her first creative black-and-white photo. Clay, 55, took the photo when she was 10 at her family’s winter home in Sarasota, Fla. “One day I had this epiphany that I was going to take my plastic horses and put them out in the St. Augustine grass in the backyard,” she said. Full story »

As a child, David Lynch expressed his creativity with trading cards. “You’d get little baseball cards or movie cards,” he said. “I’d piece together scenes and make my own movie poster. Like a collage. Then I’d draw it.” When he’s formulating an idea for one of his paintings, Lynch still does the same thing except he uses photographs he’s taken.
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Armed with just needle and thread, award-winning artists Niki Johnson and Melissa Farris explore -- and expound upon -- ideas of gender, sexuality, sociology and politics in "Moral Fiber," a two-woman show at Material which opens tonight. The 30-year old Johnson and 25-year old Farris, both 2008 graduates of the University of Memphis, are no strangers to sewing. Full story »

New shows:
Artists on Central, 2256 Central Ave: "Mid South by Southwest." Watercolors by Bill Branch, through Aug. 30. Opening reception 5-8 p.m. today. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Call 276-1251.
Askew, Hargraves, Harcourt, & Associates, 3009 Davies Plantation Road, Lakeland, Tenn.: Memphis/Germantown Art League (MGAL) Star Artist Exhibition runs through Aug. 20. Full story »

The Memphis art scene expands this month with the opening of the Hannah Davis Gallery on Huling Row Downtown. Full story »

Tomato season is all year for Mike Dudkin Berlant and people driving in the 400 block of Union. Berlant, 29, created the giant tomato mounted to the top of his two-story studio on Washburn’s Escape Alley between Union and Monroe. “When I first did that tomato they were having a drive-through art show at Marshall Arts,” he said. “It’s basically quarter-inch bar (steel) all bent up and welded together and then heat shrunk plastic all over it.” Full story »

Memphis College of Art on the street gallery, 338 S. Main: "Oh Lord, Won't You Send Me a Sign!" Show by 2008 Printmakers of University of Mississippi,. Full story »

With 33 works by nine artists, "Driven To Abstraction," on display at Joysmith Gallery, might be more aptly called "Propelled To Distraction." Full story »

Metal in, photography out: For the next three months, Jeannie Tomlinson Saltmarsh and Mary Catherine Floyd -- artists based at the National Ornamental Metal Museum -- will take over Downtown's Jack Robinson Gallery. Full story »

Art exhibitions around the region for the upcoming week. Full story »