Eileen Townsend surveys the Memphis art scene this week and finds a lot to like, including “steamroller art.”
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Month: September 2013
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Russell George Funeral/Celebration Set
The funeral and a celebration of the life of Russell George, the recently deceased owner of Earnestine & Hazel’s, will be held Friday.
The Achievement School District for low-performing schools in Shelby County will have eight or nine new members next year, including one high school that was targeted for closing.
The Innovation Zone, another new wrinkle in public education, will have five new schools.
The I-Zone schools are run by the school district. The ASD is a statewide, special school distrct. The I-Zone is a special group of schools, still under the auspices of the Shelby County school district, and run by its innovation department.
The new ASD schools include four elementary schools (Coleman, Denver, Springhill and Westwood), two middle schools (Southside and Wooddale), and two of these three high schools (Carver, Fairley, and Frayser). The two high schools were not identified. Carver has been targeted for closing due to low enrollment.
The Innovation Zone schools are Vance Middle, Grandview Heights Middle, Melrose High School, Hamilton High School, and Trezevant High School.
The announcement was made with some delicacy. Reporters were alerted Tuesday morning but asked to hold the story for release until Wednesday so that parents and faculty and staff at the targeted schools could be told first. The charter operators have not been chosen.
Both groups take schools in the bottom five percent in Tennessee for academic achievement. The goal is to move them into the top 25 percent within five years. Faculty and administration have to reapply for their jobs and may or may not be rehired. Families can opt out and attend another local public school instead. If they do nothing, they are assured of a spot in the ASD or Innovation Zone school in their attendance zone.
The schools have longer school days by an hour or more and some Saturday sessions. The pay scale for teachers is not based on tenure or experience but on student performance on tests. The pupil-teacher ratio is generally 25-1 or lower.
The inclusion of Carver is likely to raise issues about closing low-enrollment schools. The ASD could become a lifeline for such schools. Before it went out of existence, the Transition Planning Commission recommended closing 20 low-enrollment schools and identified several other candidates. The school board closed four of them.
(THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CORRECTED: An earlier version incorrectly stated that I-Zone schools will become charter schools.)
A funeral for Russell George, the owner of iconic dive Earnestine & Hazel’s who died earlier this week, has been set for Friday, September 13th at 11 a.m. at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church downtown.
Following the service, there will be a celebration at Earnestine & Hazel’s.
A makeshift memorial appeared at Earnestine & Hazel’s door shortly after news of George’s death.
There’s a flower wreath and a bouquet on the door. On the ground, is a poster with noisemakers and heartfelt words as well as burning candles and a Miller Lite can serving as a vase for more flowers.
The note with the bouquet pictured above reads in part, “Thank you for the best New Year’s Eve of our life. You will be forever in our thoughts. Rest in peace, you sweet man.”
Karen Lotts, a 38 year old Midtown resident and office administrator, lives in a perpetual state of outrage, according to co-workers and friends.
“Yesterday, she told me she was ‘totally outraged’ over the media’s reporting on Syria. Last week, she was ‘totally outraged’ over a joke someone made that she felt was offensive to people with Shingles. It’s pretty much a daily thing. Somebody’s going to say something that sends her through the roof,” said Lotts’ co-worker Bob Andweave.
Earlier this week, Lotts was observed expressing her outrage at a server who asked if she was ready for a check while she was “plainly not finished eating.” This was followed by a 45 minute dissertation on the ongoing problem of condescension in the service industry.
Other recent targets of Lotts’ outrage include city leaders, Republicans, polluters, meat, organized religion, and “racist undertones in the criticism of Miley Cyrus.”
“Yeah, we tend to not invite Karen with us anywhere these days,” said alleged friend Tara Cotta. “It’s just an all night series of gripes, complaints and anger. Last time we were out, she went on and on about how [WMC-TV meteorolgist] Ron Childers is insensitive because he, apparently, didn’t show enough sympathy for the homeless when he mentioned how hot it was going to be the next day. Ron didn’t make a joke or anything. He just didn’t remind everyone to be compassionate. Thirty minutes this went on.”
Calls to Lott were met with anger, recriminations, and accusations of pandering to the high fructose corn syrup manufacturers.
Joey Hack is a regular contributor to Fly on the Wall and member of the Wiseguys improv troupe.
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U of Memphis Has $20 Million Funding Gap
John Branston reports on a recently revealed $20 million funding shortfall at the University of Memphis.
Every once in a while, the college football or basketball season and the 24/7 recruiting wars are rudely interrupted by a public service announcement from an appendage otherwise known as the university.
The University of Memphis has such an announcement, and it concerns a $20 million “gap” in its finances due mainly to declining enrollment and reduced state revenue.
“We don’t have a deficit,” said David Zettergren, vice-president for business and finance. “We are not allowed to have a deficit. We had a balanced budget in the spring and we will have a balanced budget in the fall.”
He described the situation as a “gap” instead and said the university is doing several things to “shore it up” including restructuring workloads, voluntary buyouts, and “efficiencies” on the administrative side.
“We have done voluntary buyouts in the past, but we need to do more,” he said.
University faculty and staff were made aware of “the gap” this summer. On Tuesday, an email from interim president Brad Martin went out.
“A reconfiguration is required to address the funding gap and meet community work force demands, while also ensuring that tuition remains as low as possible,” it said.
“Beginning immediately, all vacant positions (including faculty, staff, part-time instructors and temporary appointments) will be subject to a strategic hiring review process. This review will evaluate whether to move forward with filling positions based on the implications for enrollment growth, productivity and overall institutional efficiency . . . Some vacant positions will be filled, but many others will be eliminated or combined in conjunction with reconfigurations of the work within some areas.”
The announcement comes in Martin’s third month on the job and when the financial fortunes if not the won-loss ratings of the football team are on the rise. Despite losing 28-14 to Duke, the Tigers drew an announced crowd of more than 40,000 to Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in head coach Justin Fuente’s second season. Fuente and basketball coach Josh Pastner are the university’s highest paid employees.
Academia, however, does not have the luxury of television money and boosters to pay for buyouts and more English professors. And, as the football program has shown, it is risky to raise prices for something people don’t want at the old price. In June, the Tennessee Board of Regents raised 2013-2014 tuition and fees at UM to $8,666, highest among the six universities it governs, including Middle Tennessee State, Saturday’s football opponent.
“Enrollment is down a bit, and that impacts our budget,” said Zettergren. “It is a critical piece of the revenue stream.”
Enrollment fell 2.7 percent last year, to 20,901. Zettergren did not have an exact number for this fall, but in a meeting last week with Mayor A C Wharton, President Martin said enrollment was lower than it was in 2009. A university spokesperson said Tuesday the decline this year is about 4 percent.
Student tuition and fees account for two-thirds of revenue and state appropriations for one-third, Zettergren said. A tuition increase is not seen as a good idea at a time when enrollment, especially among males, is declining. The university’s focus is on retaining and graduating more students, which triggers more state funding that is now based on graduation rates and outcomes, just like public elementary and secondary education.
“As state money has decreased we have had to increase tuition,” he said. “We are in the middle of our peer group and feel like tuition is still a good deal. We really want to hold the line.”
Martin’s executive team, he said, does “not want to alarm people” but does want to communicate the seriousness of the situation to the broadest audience in a campus forum “in the next few weeks” according to Martin’s e-mail.
The University of Memphis is participating in “Graduate Memphis,” a project started in 2012 by Leadership Memphis and the Memphis Talent Dividend to increase the number of adults with college degrees.
The thrust of the program so far has been on the benefits to individuals and the city. The new message, with some urgency, is on the benefits to the universities, and our biggest one in particular.
Now back to our regular programming.
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2013 Memphis Music Hall of Fame Inductees
Chris Herrington reports on this year’s inductees into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.
It’s a week of oppositions in Memphis galleries: high-brow meets low-brow, the natural meets the plastic, and the old meets the new. At David Lusk Gallery, the paintings of Leslie Holt and sculptures of Wayne Edge are (respectively) cynical and stoic; hot pink and earthtoned. At Memphis College of Art, the main Rust Hall Gallery is devoted calming depictions of the Gulf Coast, while the neighboring Alumni gallery is full of Chloe York’s bright, cartoonish paintings. At Five in One Social Club, artists have revisited oldtime woodcut printmaking with new(ish) heavy machinery.
Memphis College of Art is displaying “Horn Island 29.” The Rust Hall Gallery is packed out with student, faculty, and alumni work— all inspired by a May 2013 trip to Horn Island, off the Gulf of Mexico. This is the 29th year that MCA has sent a group to the island. The resulting works run the gamut from traditional painting, to cartoons, to metalwork and conceptual sculpture.
The best work this year comes from Slade Bishop, whose linocut prints of various forms of crustaceous life seem an appropriate reflection of the Island’s creative environs: meditative, simply executed, serious without being somber. Bill Nelson’s careful paintings and Adam Hawk’s fabricated steel-framed sculpture/painting also stand out.
Luke McDowell showed three enigmatic photographs that he shot at night from the actual inside of a dead jellyfish, using a waterproof camera. McDowell, a recent grad in illustration, said that he never expected to take photographs from the innards of sea life but, when he found the jellyfish on the beach, he thought, “Why not?” The results are as painterly as they are photographic, echoing a cross-media note that is repeated throughout the exhibition.
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Down the hall, in the Rust Hall Alumni Gallery, there is a painting show by Chloe York, “Decorators.” York uses cough-medicine pink, green and baby blue palette coupled with ocean-referent shapes to create her works. The paintings are flat, full of delicately patterned anemone-looking forms, and are about 50 shades past the sort of thing you’d want on a shower curtain or a throw pillow.
This weekend saw an opening at David Lusk Gallery that also had some coastal themes. Wayne Edge’s “River of Stars” is a collection of driftwood and kindling, shells and sea glass bundled and bent together into wall-mounted sculptures.
In the back galleries, lowbrow artist Leslie Holt’s “Help Yourself” features oil paintings of cupcakes and embroidered covers of self-help books. The best painting in the show is Holt’s Cakescape II (mound), an impressionistic take on a disgorged-looking pastry. Not for the faint of heart.
Though the project won’t be on view until September 19th, Broad Avenue’s Five in One Social Club completed a massive printmaking project this past week.
Over the course of the summer, the Social Club invited local artists to make a series of 8-ft tall woodcuts. The club rented a steamroller, attained some appropriately sized white sheets, inked up the woodcuts and spent four days driving the steamroller over the prints. The results are fantastic.
Artist Mary Jo Karimnia and her 15-year-old daughter, Rosie, collaborated on a woodcut. Said Mary Jo, “I hope they do this again next year. It’s a great thing for Memphis. It’s a great time to be involved with Memphis art right now.”
The Memphis Music Hall of Fame announced a 13-member second class of inductees this afternoon at Jerry Lee Lewis’ Café & Honky Tonk on Beale Street, with Sun Records legend Johnny Cash and Stax star Carla Thomas leading a diverse class.
As with last year’s inaugural 25 inductees, this year’s smaller second group stands as something of a microcosm of Memphis music history, tapping into the city’s major genres of blues, soul, jazz, and rock/country, highlighting both performers and behind-the-scenes contributors, and representing eras — in terms of each inductee’s heyday — ranging from the 1920s to the 1970s.
The full class:
The Bar-Kays: The “Soul Finger” instrumental hitmakers who served as Otis Redding’s road band. Surviving original members Ben Cauley (trumpet) and James Alexander (bass) lead a still-active version of the group.
The Blackwood Brothers: The Southern gospel quartet who were pioneers in the commercialization of gospel music and a big influence on the rise of rock-and-roll.
Reverend W. Herbert Brewster: South Memphis pastor who published more than 200 gospel compositions, including the standard “Move On Up a Little Higher.”
Johnny Cash: The most country of the major Sun Records artists, who launched one of the great careers in American popular music out of Memphis. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.
Roland Janes: The Sun-connected producer and engineer who connects the dots between multiple generations of Memphis music and still mans the board at Sam Phillips Recording Service.
Albert King: The electric blues guitarist and singer who was reared in Arkansas and moved to Memphis mid-career, where he recorded classics “Born Under a Bad Sign” and “Crosscut Saw” for Stax.
Memphis Jug Band: Early blues pioneers — starting in the mid-1920s — and proto-rock-and-rollers lead by Will Shade.
Phineas Newborn, Jr.: R&B and jazz pianist who is the most prominent member of a prominent Memphis music family.
Knox Phillips: Son of Sam, who fostered Memphis music — and beyond — in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s as an engineer, producer, and studio owner.
David Porter: Wrote classic Stax hits, often in partnership with Isaac Hayes, and was an underrated recording artist on his own.
Sid Selvidge: Folk and blues revivalist who also led the radio program “Beale Street Caravan” until his passing earlier this year.
Kay Starr: Pop and jazz singer who began her career as a Memphis teenager, both on local radio and at the Peabody Hotel.
Carla Thomas: Stax’s first female star and second-generation Memphis music royalty.
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This second group of inductees was selected by a committee of music journalists and industry professionals — operating both in and outside of Memphis — under the direction of Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum executive director John Doyle. The Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum launched the Memphis Music Hall of Fame project last year. Deliberations over this year’s class began in April and continued via a series of conference calls, with an initial target of 8-10 inductees swelling to 13 in the final accounting, itself down from roughly 30 candidates who were seriously considered, according to Doyle.
“I’ll be fielding phone calls this afternoon from people asking how could you not choose this person or how could this person be left out,” Doyle says. “But that’s the great thing about it. If we lived in another city, we’d be done already. Here we’ll still be inducting Grammy winners a decade from now.”
Doyle says it was hard to keep the number down to 25 in last year’s inaugural class and that the hope is to get to a smaller number next year.
The more manageable class this year should put a bigger spotlight on each inductee at a ceremony scheduled for Thursday, November 7th.
“This year, we will allow inductees to speak from the stage,” Doyle says. “The smaller numbers allow us to do that.”
After using the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts for last year’s induction ceremony, this year’s event will move to the more intimate and casual — and lately underused — Gibson Showcase Lounge, located inside the Gibson Guitar Factory, which Doyle suggests could become a permanent home for the event.