On the Scene: The South, Urbanism and Art Galleries

Reportage by Matthew Clair

The South doesn't move like this, smell like this, look like this, or feel like this. Sometimes when in a big city too long, a Southerner, no matter how enthusiastic about cosmopolitanism and urbanism, just wants some shrimp and grits, some land and some freedom from the hustle and bustle of big city living.

It's just about that "some-time" for me. 

New York's wonderful. It's full of art and lit crawls, diverse people and intellectuals, dog poop and  -- Well, let's just say I'm starting to miss home. So, naturally, I was clicking through some photographs I took from when I was last in Tennessee. I came across some images of an art gallery my grandma, mother and I stumbled upon during one of our many wanderings. (Normal, I know -- who doesn't spend summers adventuring with grandma, mom, three bottles of water and a fanny pack?) 

The gallery is in downtown Franklin, Tennesse, a city perhaps better known for its Civil War history (or better yet for its distinction as one of the filming locations of Hannah Montana: The Movie) than for its art. So, the art gallery was a grand find, something quite unexpected. 

To get to the Southgate Studio and Fine Art gallery, you first must be able to make your way through the Factory at Franklin. By "make your way," I mean, somehow meander through the many shops and food options along the way without spending all of your money. If you succeed at this, then climb a set of stairs, admire some old, rustic windows (vestigial structures from the old factory) and take a left. You'll be at the gallery's entrance.

Most likely, it will be quiet and you'll think that, perhaps, you have stumbled into someone's private home or some small law office, closed for the day. The large room, sectioned off by free-standing walls, will be quiet. 

But upon further examination, you will realize that you have stumbled into a gallery whose walls are adorned with a variety of paintings and photographs from both local and national artists.

And as you make your way through the gallery, you may hear a footstep or two, a whisper or the patter of a paintbrush. These sounds will be emanating from a handful of rooms attached to the larger gallery. These rooms serve as studios for the painters affiliated with the gallery, some of whom run workshops and classes.

It is rather obvious what distinguishes this gallery from those I have come across in New York -- the quietness, the simplicity, the lack of people and the weight of their opinions. It is in these quieter moments, when there is nothing between you and the artwork in front of you, that you come to realize just how viscerally beautiful art and an art space can be. This unfettered-ness, this ability to breath in the moment in front of you, the object you wish to observe and nothing else, is one of the qualities, I have come to gather, that I miss most about the South. 

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