Music City a little short on music (and other arts) funding

According to a report from Fox 17, Nashville spends less than half the money per citizen on arts funding than do similar cities like Austin and Portland.

Nashville Opera, which receives some of that public arts funding, has to make do.  “We operate on a razor thin margin so anytime we don’t have money in one place we have to find it somewhere else in order to make it happen,” Executive Director Noah Spiegel told Fox 17.

Meanwhile, the Metro Arts Commission is asking for the public’s input on how to allocate their relatively small pot of money.  Nashvillians can fill out a survey with their opinions about public art in the city.

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Centennial Park to Host Art Show for Black History Month

Starting with a reception on February 5, the Centennial Art Center’s gallery will host a show of 14 local black artists.  The site is the location of the Centennial Park pool that closed among the strife of the 1960s:

In 1961, a group of approximately 20 black teens decided to take a swim in the city’s ‘big pool with the concession stand’ at Centennial Park.  According to The Tennessean, by late July the pool closed.  Historian Leland R. Johnson wrote in his book, The Parks of Nashville, “The lack of funding was the official explanation for the closing… However, civil rights demonstrations were in progress at the time, and it is the opinion of some that Mayor Ben West and the Park Board ordered the pools closed to avoid the sort of disturbances that had occurred in other cities when swimming pools were integrated.”

The gallery, which is located in the northeast corner of Centennial Park, is only open during normal work hours 4 days a week.

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