Two years ago we asked Nashvillians to help us make a portrait of the city by making small stamped self-portraits. We traveled throughout the city, interacting with as many different people as we could find. The collective findings of our art investigation were spectacular! And as we now attempt to recount your enormous creative generosity, we find that we can only do so by working on an equally massive scale. Nashville, we offer you a celebration of our city in a large format edition we call Together Heroic.
The Act of Creation
After watching thousands of people stamp their art in their own unique way, it became clear to us that the way a person made their portrait was as interesting a part of the story as the result.
We saw that making things together built a sense of camaraderie in Phase One of Our Town. There is happiness in doing. Coming together in harmony is an important part of the creative process and of building community.
We are celebrating the act of making by exploring how we as a city create art together. By enlarging the scale we hope to better show how the creative process happens. We want you to be able to SEE it happen because really seeing things clearly is one step closer to understanding them.
Imagine that the team you see represents a giant Nashvillian. Each person on our team is one deconstructed part of that behemoth. Just as your hands, eyes and brain to have to work together to create a portrait on a piece of paper so to does our team of artists! Each person represents a part of that giant and can only succeed as a unit! As we all know sometimes it goes well and other times it gets messy!
Together Heroic
From the Personal to the Public
All of us have own stories. All of us own our personal actions. Collectively they form the larger public story of our city. We are the public and we are the community. Each action matters and each relationship is important. When we come together, together we can be heroic.
With support from the Metro Nashville Arts Commission