How Great Thou Art...Is.

It was a great evening for the arts in downtown Nashville last night as we and our friends, Nate and Beth, took in several different styles around town.

VISUAL ARTS - We started with the Art Gallery Crawl that is held every first Saturday in downtown Nashville. This free-to-the-public event allows open-house access to several downtown galleries most of which offer complimentary wine and hors d'eurves while you browse. There are even free shuttles running between some of the galleries that are further apart. There were tons of people participating, but it was never too overcrowded thanks to the number of galleries participating including The Rymer and Estel. We concluded at the historic Nashville Arcade which seems to have really gotten a new lease on life thanks to many of the little retail shops being turned into small galleries for individual artists such as Andy Anh Ha. Never heard of him? Well, neither had we until last night when Ashlee and I fell in love with a beautiful acrylic on wood board he had done from his "Line Series" and decided to take the plunge by purchasing it. Here's a couple of photos of it now hanging in our living room:

Andy is a native Tennessean whose parents escaped from war-torn Vietnam. He's graduated from UTK and now lives in California.

http://andyanhha.com/

Thanks so much to our friend, Nate, for suggesting the Art Crawl and for being a great guide during it since he had done it before. Thanks as well to our friend, Beth, who was instrumental in getting the curator at the Anh Ha Gallery to knock 20% off the asking price of the piece we bought. Who said everything about a recession is bad?

PERFORMANCE - After we finished gallery crawling, we headed down 8th Avenue a half mile or so to The Mercy Lounge to catch our favorite regional band, Scott Miller and The Commonwealth. This is our 7th time seeing the boys (Ashlee's seen them 8 times and always likes to point that out for some reason), and they delivered in fine style as usual opening with "Wildcat Whistle" off their new album and not slowing down for the next couple of hours. The crowd was lively and appreciative, and we love The Mercy Lounge's no smoking policy. Ashlee got her second self-portrait with a band member. This time it was their big, burly drummer, Shawn McWilliams., who she said even smelled nice (of course, that was pre-show). Now all she needs is Jeremy and Chris and her collection will be complete since she got Scott himself last year at a show in Chattanooga.

CULINARY - We ended the evening with a 2 AM visit to Waffle House for some late-night sustenance with Nate (we lost Beth just after midnight who had early Sunday morning church obligations). We have always considered the folks behind the counter at Waffle House to be artists in their own right and the grilled cheese sandwiches, waffles and hash browns we ordered proved that once again.