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    • Publisher’s Note | May 2012
      Why is it that whenever there are budget cuts in our educational system it is usually the arts programs that are the first to go? Yet studies continually show that students exposed to the arts will often score higher in all subjects and will more likely continue their education to ...



    • ArtSmart | A Monthly Guide to Art Education
      We are proud to debut our art education section ArtSmart, sponsored by the Ayers Foundation and FirstBank. This feature will keep parents, teachers, and students of all ages in touch with educational opportunities and events in our community. The print component of this section is only one of its facets. ...



    • Kris Kristoffersen | Levels of Freedom
      It was a vast Texas landscape abundant with the smell of gunpowder, the sound of hoof beats, and those John Ford Stagecoach skies which seemed to go on forever that influenced the young, impressionable Robert Christian Kristoffersen. Later, his name evolved into Bobby Kris when he got an edgy rock-and-roll ...



    • Jose Santisteban | The Glass Effect
      Jose Santisteban was angst-ridden. Facing graduation from Vanderbilt University with a degree in literature and philosophy, he had yet to find his direction. A lecture on campus by Dale Chihuly changed all that. Jose was meant to be a glassblower; he just didn’t know it yet. But the lecture had ...



    • edie Maney | Art Down Under
      Many of us dream of taking a trip that will somehow change our lives, but few of us are able to let our travels affect us to such a degree. It’s different for artists—for them exposure to new environments often takes their work in entirely new directions. That’s what happened ...



    • Peter Cooper | The Writer, the Performer, the Teacher, and the Grammy That Got Away
      A February trip to the Grammy Awards wasn't exactly a new thing for Peter Cooper—he'd been at that annual music confab for eleven years straight, notebook in hand, scribbling down for the Tennessean the experiences of countless Nashville nominees. But in 2012, the longtime music scribe was out of the ...



    • Henry Isaacs | Expressions
      Paul Cezanne’s quote "Art is harmony parallel with nature" brings to mind the botanically buoyant paintings of artist Henry Isaacs. This modern-day itinerant artist is a self-admitted nature junkie who just this year has stalked the landscapes of Africa, Santa Fe, Maine, Vermont, and Nashville. Isaacs, who paints every day, ...