Author: Andrew Caldwell

When “I Love Memphis” blogger Kerry Crawford posted a photo of herself holding a hand-written sign with her blog’s namesake nearly two years ago, she had no idea she was inspiring a future city-branding project.

Last Thursday, the first of 10 “I Love Memphis” murals, painted by Brandon Marshall and Siphne Silve, was unveiled on a concrete wall on Cooper between Central and Young.

Inspired by Crawford’s campaign by the same name, the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau, the UrbanArts Commission, and the city of Memphis have commissioned 10 murals by local artists to be painted in various locations across the city. All will incorporate the “I Love Memphis” slogan in an effort to create instant photo-ops for locals and tourists.

“Let me tell you why this fazes me,” said Mayor A C Wharton to those gathered around the brilliant-red mural last Thursday. “[When I see the mural,] I can say I’m home again. I want to see this all over town so that wherever you live, there’s something that lets you know, here’s my welcome mat.”

The “I Love Memphis” slogan was born nearly two years ago when the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau approached Crawford with the idea of creating a social media campaign for Memphians and visitors. The result was the popular “I Love Memphis” blog (ilovememphisblog.com), which serves as an outlet for Crawford to share the city’s hidden gems.

In an effort to highlight her Memphis love, Crawford created an “I Love Memphis” paper sign.

“I made [the sign] so somebody could take my picture with it when I first started the blog, and then other people started asking me to take their pictures with it,” Crawford said.

She estimates that since creating the now well-worn sign, several hundred people have taken their pictures with it.

“[With the murals,] we wanted to do something that would give more people access to that,” Crawford said.

“The sign is getting all decrepit and it’s falling apart,” Marshall said. “The idea is to put these murals all around town to continue that momentum from her sign.”

Out of the 10 artists commissioned to create the “I Love Memphis” murals, seven, including Marshall, are participating in the UrbanArts Commission’s mural project. Each artist is free to present the “I Love Memphis” slogan in a theme of their choosing.

In a contest on Crawford’s blog, the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau is calling for proposals for three murals to be designed by artists who are not involved in the project.

Artists may submit proposals through May 27th. Then the public will be given the opportunity to select the winning designs from a group of finalists.

While some of the mural locations are still up in the air, Crawford remains optimistic that they will be finished within the next couple of months.

In the future, Memphians traveling east may have the option of ditching their car keys in favor of cheaper and greener high-speed electric trains.

Virginia-based RAIL Solution, a grassroots group advocating rail as the most efficient form of transportation, is proposing high-speed freight and passenger service along Norfolk Southern’s Crescent Corridor line.

Dubbed the Steel Interstate, the pilot project features a system of electrified, high-capacity rail lines designed to move freight and passengers on the same tracks at speeds competitive with interstate highways. The 1,000-mile line would stretch from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to Memphis, passing through Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Huntsville, Alabama.

The Steel Interstate comes on the heels of Norfolk Southern’s groundbreaking for the $129 million Memphis Regional Intermodal Terminal in Fayette County April 29th, as well as the refurbishment of the Crescent Corridor rail line. Norfolk Southern and RAIL Solution are meeting next week to discuss the proposed project.

If the Steel Interstate becomes reality, rail terminals would have platforms allowing truck drivers to drive their rigs onto a train. Rees Shearer, chairman of RAIL Solution, said the rail alternative could lessen the emissions from diesel-run big rigs now traveling on I-40 and I-81.

In a 2005 study, the Tennessee Department of Transportation found that 31 percent of emissions produced in the state came from car and truck exhaust. Of that percentage, freight traffic, with nearly 250,000 long-haul trucks traveling on I-40 every day, was the fastest-growing source of emissions.

“[The Steel Interstate] concept allows rail to integrate with trucks, complementing their service. It’s win-win,” Shearer said.

The pilot project uses a combination of public and private funds to improve existing rail alignment and electrify it.

The high-speed rail would allow freight operations to move at an average of 80 miles per hour and passenger operations at 110 miles per hour.

Shearer said climate change, efforts to reduce emissions, and the transition from foreign oil to domestically produced energy all support the decision to move toward the Steel Interstate system.

“What are the consequences for communities like Memphis, and the entire nation, if we’re not prepared to make the transition from petroleum?,” Shearer asked. “We’re currently hostage to oil. If we continue to depend upon oil, we’re not economically or militarily secure. The movement of people and freight with domestically produced energy is in our best interest.”

“It’s the only [transportation] infrastructure that could fuel and pay for itself, which reduces the cost for shippers and improves air and water quality,” said Steven Sondheim, a board member of RAIL Solution and the Sierra Club’s National Transportation Leadership Team.

“The only possible competition would be to convert semis to run off of natural gas, but that’s impractical and inefficient,” Shearer said.

With an estimated 200 high-speed trains scheduled to run daily on the Crescent Corridor under the Steel Interstate plan, Memphis would have the chance to participate in creating “the premier intermodal transportation in North America, which would serve as a model for the rest of the country,” Sondheim said.

“Memphis would also improve their connections with the East Coast, particularly cities like Atlanta, as well as the richest market in the U.S.: D.C. to Boston.”

Just in time for spring cleaning, a new thrift store may be the greenest means of getting rid of leftover building materials and unwanted home furnishings.

On June 9th, Habitat for Humanity’s Memphis chapter will open ReStore, a local branch of its national chain of resale outlets. Unlike other thrift stores, ReStore focuses specifically on building materials and home furnishing items, which are sold at 50 to 90 percent below retail value. Proceeds will fund the construction of homes for Memphis families in need.

“We live in this world that, if something goes wrong with a cabinet or a fridge, we just throw it away,” said ReStore manager Joe Davidson.

The average American generates about four-and-a-half pounds of waste per day and approximately 1,600 pounds per year, making for a grand total of 243 million tons of trash, according to a 2009 Environmental Protection Agency report.

“Thirty percent of our regular mainstream waste that goes into the landfill are construction materials like concrete and metals and only about 30 percent of that is recyclable,” said Davidson. “We’ve got this idea of being green, but we sometimes forget that we don’t need to go out and buy a brand-new solar panel. It can be as simple as recycling or using those twisty light bulbs.”

ReStore offers a tax-deductible alternative to the landfill by diverting gently used pieces of furniture, building materials, appliances, books, and artwork from the city’s dumps and giving them new life as inexpensive resources for individuals and families.

In the three years Davidson managed the Clarksville ReStore, nearly 780,000 pounds of building materials were saved and enough money was raised to build five homes. Davidson said he hopes that the Memphis location will be able to maintain, if not exceed, that amount.

With its first store established nearly 20 years ago in Austin, Texas, ReStore was developed for those who can’t donate time, but want to contribute to Habitat for Humanity’s effort.

Memphis Habitat opened the first local ReStore near its Midtown office several years ago, but it closed in 2008 because the space was too small and not visible from the main thoroughfare. The Winchester space is larger and highly visible from Highway 385.

 “The ReStore will be a great community resource for those looking to renovate or update their home on a small budget, ” said Lauren Hannaford, a spokesperson for Memphis Habitat.

Though it’s not yet open for business, ReStore is currently accepting smaller items at the store on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and offering a pick-up service on Wednesdays and Thursdays for larger items. Habitat is also seeking volunteers to work in ReStore.

Dirty diapers and moldy food aren’t the only nasty things in Memphis landfills.

Low-level nuclear waste sits alongside household trash, old tires, and other items, and that won’t be changing anytime soon thanks to a recent decision by the Tennessee General Assembly.

Last Wednesday, the Senate Environment, Conservation, and Tourism Committee killed a bill that would prohibit dumping low-level nuclear waste into landfills. That means the state will continue its Bulk Survey For Release Program, which allows and regulates the disposal of low-level nuclear waste in Tennessee landfills.

Two of the four Tennessee landfills currently accepting low-level nuclear materials are in Memphis.

The bill, which was co-sponsored by Senator Beverly Marrero of Memphis and Representative Brenda Gilmore of Nashville, was voted down based on a 2007 Tennessee Municipal Solid Waste Advisory Committee report that determined the danger of low-level nuclear waste in landfills to be insignificant.

“This is being allowed, and people don’t really have a good sense about what’s going on,” said Rita Harris, environmental justice organizer for the Sierra Club’s Memphis chapter. “Most people think it’s a minute amount. … If you’ve got millions of pounds of waste going into the ground, when does that become significant?”

The North and South Shelby County Municipal Landfills received nearly two million pounds of radiated waste in 2009, more than one million in 2008, and nearly 2.5 million in 2007, according to the most recent figures available from the Tennessee Division of Radiological Health.

Nuclear waste includes items that have been contaminated with radioactive material or have become radioactive through exposure to neutron radiation, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That can include items ranging from debris, soil, or construction material from a nuclear plant to nuclear reactor hardware.

Studsvik, Inc., an international company with a facility on Presidents Island, offers radioactive waste treatment services to nuclear power plants and other nuclear facilities. A company spokesperson said Studsvik is pleased Marrero’s bill wasn’t approved.

“The committee’s action reaffirms the Municipal Solid Waste Advisory Committee’s findings back in 2007. Tennessee’s Bulk Survey for Release Program is a well-regulated and safe program,” reads a company statement following the bill’s defeat.

But Harris said there are significant problems with disposal of radioactive materials in landfills.

“These landfills were built for household waste, not radioactive waste,” Harris said. “They’ve got polyethylene liners, but there can be breakages. … It’s scary.”

“‘Low-level’ radioactive waste … is not always ‘low-risk,'” reads Marrero’s recent bill. “Federal regulatory agencies are once again moving to generically deregulate some man-made, so-called ‘low-level’ radioactive waste, and such deregulation could result in dissemination and release into air, water, commercial recycling systems, land disposal sites, incinerators, sewage systems, consumer products, and other parts of the environment and food chain.”

Tennessee is one of only a few states that allow the dumping of nuclear waste into landfills. It’s the only state that allows companies to operate under a single license rather than seek government approval for each shipment of waste deposited in landfills.

“It’s the Tennessee loophole,” Harris said. “We don’t want [low-level nuclear waste] in our landfills. It’s not the proper place for it.”

It took thousands of bricks to build the new 12-story Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital at the corner of Dunlap and Poplar, a $340 million project made possible by local donors.

Now the people and companies who helped fund construction are honored in the lobby of the facility with a permanent art installation featuring nearly a thousand precariously stacked wooden blocks.

Ben Butler, a local artist and sculpture professor at Rhodes College, has been putting the finishing touches on his donor recognition wall for the past several weeks, marking the conclusion of his nearly eight month project.

The wall of hundreds of irregularly shaped blocks, constructed from mahogany, sapele, and oak, are stacked upon one another in a way that looks like a rugged and fantastical mountain range crafted by an imaginative youngster. And that’s certainly the desired effect, Butler said.

“There’s a thread in my work that’s kind of playful in a sophisticated way. I think it stands out. There’s a lot of great art [in Le Bonheur], but often our preconceptions of what kind of art belongs in a children’s hospital is kind of simplistic — bright colors and simple forms.”

Butler said the wall serves as a visual metaphor recognizing that donations to the hospital were the building blocks that made the physical building possible. The hospital’s new location opened in December.

“Ben’s piece has this unexpected, whimsical, and child-like component to it,” said volunteer Linda Hill, who’s heading a project to fill Le Bonheur’s halls with original, local artwork. “Ben’s work is so elegant, involved, and sophisticated. Kids just want to go and hold on to it and be a part of it.”

Block sizes, ranging from roughly a few square inches to three square feet, correspond to the amount donated. For example, the Urban Child Institute has the largest block. It donated $25 million toward Le Bonheur’s fund-raising campaign. Other blocks recognize FedEx, Harold Ford Sr., the Hyde Family Foundation, and Smith & Nephew, among others.

“It’s an inversion of the traditional donor recognition wall,” Butler said. “Normally, you have the big donors on top, and these various categories going down. I needed to stack the large blocks at the bottom, and those recognize the larger donors: the metaphorical foundation of the hospital.

“There’s less of a hierarchy [of high-paying donors], because every donor is important. Every donor has their place, and in a way, if any one of them were removed, you get the sense that the entire wall would topple,” Butler continued.

Butler’s donor recognition wall joins more than 200 pieces of art created for Le Bonheur by regional schoolchildren and professional artists. Hill said the hospital plans to create a recorded phone message visitors can call for a guided tour of the art collection.

Anyone downwind of the Wolf River last Friday evening may have felt a peculiar and undeniable calling to the mythical beings in its murky waters.

Folks gathered in the mist along the shoreline of the Wolf on Friday to listen to the siren’s song of mermaids for the closing of artist Emily Stout’s week-long sculpture installation off the bank of Mud Island. The mermaid statues, made of silicone-coated insulation foam and burlap, were the product of nearly six months of work as a part of Stout’s master of fine arts thesis for the Memphis College of Art (MCA).

“I’ve concentrated on art in the public sphere in the past, and for this project, I wanted to play with the whimsical, the grotesque, and the unexpected,” Stout said.

Indeed, Stout’s mermaids have taken eerily misshapen and otherworldly forms. Stout said that, in creating their bodies, she was interested in manipulating the human form by exaggerating their twists and folds, a statement on society’s tendency to view the human body as unnaturally disfigured.

“They were strangely grotesque,” said MCA sophomore Clare Freeman, who attended the closing reception on Friday. “It was startling because, growing up, mermaids were never portrayed that way. [Stout’s mermaids] were beautifully crafted and fantastically ugly, and along with the music, there’s kind of a treacherous undertone. It leaves you feeling like nothing is quite what it seems.”

The mermaids’ whispered song, which Stout wrote and recorded, played from speakers placed inside the figures’ tails, creating an accompaniment to the strangeness of the sculptures themselves.

Though the mermaids were removed from the Wolf River after the closing reception on Friday, they will be on display at the Jeff Nesin Graduate School at 477 South Main from April 16th through May 14th, with a reception held on April 29th during the South Main Art Trolley Tour.

Because the mermaids have held up remarkably well for a week in the Wolf, Stout said she thinks it would be fun to implant tracking devices in the mermaids and set them adrift in the Mississippi.

“They just lose something when they’re out of the water,” Stout said. “It’s where they were meant to be.”

Memphis Art Park proponent John Kirkscey has been talking up the idea of converting a stretch of Front Street into a public art park for more than three years. Now, a group of University of Memphis architecture students are giving new life to Kirkscey’s plans.

If he can convince Mayor A C Wharton to back him, Kirkscey hopes to transform the Cossitt Library into a community arts center, replace the library’s neighboring parking garage with an underground garage and rooftop art park, and revamp the Front Street fire station into a visual arts center.

Last fall, a U of M architecture class led by the department’s assistant director, Michael Chisamore, created designs for the fire station to include a gallery and studio spaces, a cafe, and an event venue.    “I wanted something pretty amazing for the fire station,” Kirkscey said. “Michael and I were so pleased with the results from that class that we’re doing it again this spring.” This semester, Kirkscey is working with five U of M graduate students to design an outdoor art market and a performing arts center in the Cossitt Library.

Because the fire station and library are currently in use, the city would have to agree to relocate those operations. Kirkscey said it’s possible to incorporate the Cossitt Library into plans for the community arts center. Costs for the park are estimated at $20 million to $38 million, some of which would come from private funds.

In a letter written to Kirkscey on March 2nd, Wharton calls the art park idea “commendable,” but he mentions budgetary concerns and reservations about selling the public-domain properties “without an extensive process to determine the highest and best use” for those sites.

Kirkscey said he has no intentions of purchasing the land. Instead, he’d prefer the art park to be maintained by the city.

Wharton is working with the Center City Commission on a formal public survey of future uses for the parking garage property But Kirkscey and the U of M architecture students aren’t giving up on their ideas.

At the beginning of each class, Kirkscey presented his idea for the park and students have been free to pursue the assignment as they see fit. “I’ve been blown away so far. I couldn’t be happier with what they’ve come up with,” Kirkscey said. Chisamore is equally enthusiastic. “By all accounts, John believes in this city and the students have responded,” he said. “The idea of creating artistic collaboration space downtown that can connect to so many existing strengths is provocative.” In his business plan for the Memphis Art Park, Kirkscey writes that the park is “created for emerging artists … designed by emerging artists.” By providing a space where the arts are allowed to flourish, Kirkscey said he hopes his park plan can help shape Memphis into a thriving arts city.

“Looking at what both classes have done so far, it makes you have faith in the younger generation,” Kirkscey said. “It’s not about throwing amenities their way. It’s putting your faith in

them, trusting them, having them get involved. That’s what this

is all about: turning to that grass-roots level. You want something that’s unique to Memphis, and the people who are best at

that are the ones actually living here, the people who know and love our city.”

Ghost River Brewing Company halted production on Monday, but not to worry beer-lovers: good things are a’brewin.

The local craft brewery closed this week as work began on plans to double its production capacity over the next three to four months.

Chuck Skypeck, who co-owns Ghost River and the regional chain of Boscos brewpubs with partner Jerry Feinstone, said the expansion will involve adding additional fermentation tanks. Along with the increased production, the downtown brewery will, for the first time, offer some of its beer in six-packs thanks to a new bottling line, which will be installed later this spring.

Skypeck said Golden Ale, the brewery’s best selling beer, is the obvious candidate to christen the bottling line this summer.

To prepare the brewery for increased production, additional refrigerated storage space and an extensive drainage system will be installed during the next couple of months, which means the free Saturday tours of the facility will be intermittent until construction is completed.

After expansion, Ghost River should be able to produce approximately 10,000 kegs annually. That’s up from 5,000 kegs in 2010. Until then, Ghost River is only available on draft in area bars.

“For the moment, we’re planning to continue distributing exclusively here in Memphis. There’s clearly a strong local demand for our product. We feel fortunate to have been able to brew at capacity for the last six months or so, and we felt it was the appropriate time to make some changes to meet that demand,” Skypeck said.

Skypeck and Feinstone started Boscos, Tennessee’s first brewpub, nearly 20 years ago in Memphis. They’ve since opened branches in Nashville, Little Rock, and Franklin. The pair opened Ghost River in 2007, offering handcrafted beers made with water from the Memphis Sands Aquifer.

“In the past, Boscos has been more conducive to playing around with non-standard styles, like our bottle conditioned series and HopGod Ale,” Skypeck said. “But with the additional storage and bottling line, we may be able to introduce some of that experimentation to Ghost River sometime in the future.

“We’ll stick with our regular lineup for now,” Skypeck continued,”and if everything goes well, we’ll start thinking about introducing some more unique styles to our portfolio.”

Skypeck said there is also a possibility that Ghost River might eventually apply for a distilling license. That would allow Ghost River to brew beers that are stronger than 6.3 percent alcohol-by-volume.

The national craft beer industry has seen considerable growth over the past few years, according to the Brewers Association, a national organization that supports independent, small American breweries.

Last week, the number of craft breweries in the U.S. exceeded 1,700 for the first time since before Prohibition. As recently as 1980, there were only eight craft breweries in the entire country.

Skypeck, who serves as the brewpub representative to the Brewers Association’s board of directors, said that while the Memphis craft beer scene is trailing behind the national trend, the local market for beer brewed by small artisan breweries has been steadily growing.

Said Skypeck: “That we have been selling all the beer we can make for the past six months or so is a clear indication that the number of Memphis craft beer drinkers is on the rise.”