On the first Saturday of every month, galleries around Nashville are abuzz for the Art Crawl — one of them being Lipscomb’s own OPEN gallery, located in the Arcade off of Fifth Avenue.
Students from Lipscomb’s Visual Arts Department have managed the gallery for the past three years.
Junior studio art major Cori McGuirk is the head curator of the gallery this year. Her job involves researching and contacting artists about showing their work in the gallery.
“I think they [the department] just wanted the students to be able to have a chance outside of their schoolwork here to connect with other artists,” McGuirk said in explaining the purpose of the gallery.
She said that with the gallery, the students will “kind of get a feel for what it’s like to be an artist, and create work.”
With free range of choosing the featured artist, McGuirk and other students have the opportunity to connect with other artists.
“They [the artists] can be from anywhere, be any age, have any medium,” McGuirk said. “It’s really nice to have that freedom.”
McGuirk primarily focuses on showing artists that are in her age group, often from nearby art schools such as Watkins School of Design or Belmont University.
“It can be discouraging wanting to be an artist at this age,” McGuirk said. “It’s cool to find these younger artists who I can relate with more, and I feel like they’re doing all these really cool things and I feel like I can do it, too.”
Along with local and national artists, OPEN annually features work by senior art majors at Lipscomb, as well as the art department’s chosen artist-in-residence. This summer there were two artists-in-residence — senior graphic design majors Scott Coffey and Kalai Davidson — who exhibited their work at OPEN on Sept. 5.
It’s unusual to have graphic design majors apply for the residency, but Coffey and Davison’s work was received well, according to McGuirk.
Coffey and Davidson spent the whole summer designing a board game and an app. The board game, titled “Bad Company,” was set up on a table in the middle of the gallery, and visitors were invited to sit and play a round with its designers.
The ability to show unique works by lesser-known artists and students is an important aspect of the gallery’s function, McGuirk said. It provides real-world experience for both the artists being featured and the students running the space.
The next show at OPEN is on Saturday, Oct. 3 from 6-9 p.m. and will showcase work by the artist Sharyn Bachleda.
More information on Lipscomb’s OPEN gallery can be found here.
Photo courtesy of McGuirk