These three artists have listened to the podcast, spent time with the participants, and worked with our community partners to create work that engages our three South Nashville communities. Come to WeHome Day on April 14 to see what they've made...and lend a hand in the process!
JANA HARPER
As Nashville neighborhoods undergo obvious architectural changes, it is perhaps easy to overlook the changes to natural features and habitats. Inspired by Bill Perkins’s love of trees and his passion for the Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood, Jana has worked with Bill to create an homage to trees both lost and saved in his neighborhood. Bill co-founded South Nashville Action People (SNAP), a neighborhood-advocacy organization that is responsible for preserving the thriving community that exists today. He tells the story of SNAP in “The Lorax.” Jana has created a pamphlet that maps and describes Bill’s favorite trees. On WeHome Day, the two will lead two tree walks at 1:30 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. You can view the map here to print for your own walks.
XAVIER PAYNE
Inspired by the podcast as a whole and conversations with Ms. Leola Cullom and Andrea Evans from “The Bridge,” Xavier Payne has created a WeHome coloring book that reimagines the stories of the podcast in Xavier’s signature style. Odessa Kelly from “Unicorns” appears as a little girl, standing awestruck before a resplendent unicorn. Audra Almond-Harvey from “Memory Keepers” meets “the kind of witch she wants to be.” Another page takes us back in time to when Ms. Leola could walk to buy groceries in her own neighborhood. Xavier has printed hundreds of coloring books for WeHome Day, and he’s blowing up some of the pages to color as murals.
ALYSHA IRISARI MALO
Alysha Irisari Malo is creating a current creative and visual snapshot of South Nashville by collaborating with community members to collect stories and images that are specific to Wedgewood-Houston, Chestnut Hill, and Napier. She is photographing the neighborhoods and composing poetic phrases that speak to the rich history and diversity of voices sampled in WeHome. She’ll create digital prints of these snippets, and on WeHome Day, participants can collage the material into pages that will be collected in a book. We’ll have a scanner and printer on hand, so participants can take a copy of their page home. The final book will be donated to Nashville Public Library’s Pruitt branch on Charles E. Davis Boulevard.
