{"id":14229,"date":"2013-03-07T16:00:58","date_gmt":"2013-03-07T22:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=14229"},"modified":"2013-03-07T03:22:38","modified_gmt":"2013-03-07T09:22:38","slug":"austin-peay-state-university-to-exhibit-newly-donated-folk-art-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2013\/03\/07\/austin-peay-state-university-to-exhibit-newly-donated-folk-art-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin Peay State University to exhibit newly donated folk art collection"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"APSUClarksville, TN<\/strong> – In a small storage room in the basement of Austin Peay State University\u2019s Harned Hall, Marilyn Monroe is making things a bit awkward for President John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie.<\/p>\n

First off, the president and first lady are dressed formally, while Marilyn has opted to wear a red polka dot bikini. Then there\u2019s that big smile of hers, which seems to mock the uncomfortable expression on Jackie\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/a>

Two folk art sculptures that are part of the Crouch Folk Art Collection. (Photo by Beth Liggett\/APSU)<\/p><\/div>\n

The players in this little scene of domestic unease are actually elaborately carved wood sculptures, and they\u2019re part of a stunning new collection of folk art at APSU. Ned and Jacqueline Crouch donated the Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe statues \u2013 along with some 42 other folk art carvings, paintings and drawings \u2013 to the University last fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlways generous to Austin Peay and the Department of Art, the Crouches have gone a step farther,\u201d Dr. Dixie Webb, dean of the APSU College of Arts and Letters, said. \u201cThey have given the University a significant part of their life’s work collecting regional folk art.\u201d<\/p>\n

On April 16th, these unique pieces will be displayed in the campus\u2019 Mabel Larson gallery as part of the new exhibit, \u201cUnfolding Visions: The Ned and Jacqueline Crouch Collection of Outsider Art.\u201d There will be a public reception for the exhibit from 5:00pm to 7:00pm on April 18th, and the show will run through December 15th, 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey gave us an incredible collection of folk art,\u201d Paul Collins, APSU assistant professor of art and the exhibit\u2019s curator, said. \u201cThis is going to be a long-term exhibition, and the whole gallery will be displayed with the Crouch collection. But we\u2019re also going to place the collection with some of our existing pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Crouch gift will join an already impressive folk art collection at APSU. For years, the University has been the home of several statues by the noted self-taught Tennessee artist E.T. Wickham and paintings by William Shackelford. In 2010, the collection received a major boost when Dr. Joe Trahern donated three sculptures – \u201cThe Critter,\u201d \u201cThe Eagle\u201d and \u201cThe Lady with Two Pocketbooks\u201d \u2013 by William Edmondson, the first African-American to have a solo show of his work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1937. Many of those pieces will also be included in this exhibit.<\/p>\n

“The Crouch Folk Art Collection, coupled with the Trahern gifts of the Edmondson sculptures, lays the foundation for what can be one of the most important regional representations of folk art in the country,\u201d Christopher Burawa, director of the APSU Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts, said. \u201cBut more importantly, the Crouches’ focus on our regional artists makes it an ideal educational collection. It reflects Ned’s and Jacqueline’s vision of understanding how artifacts relate to larger, interrelated stories, histories and fields.”<\/p>\n

[320left]The collection, along with the statues of the Kennedys and Marilyn Monroe, is currently being catalogued and photographed in that storage beneath Harned Hall. That\u2019s where Collins is working with two student curators \u2013 Amber Kearns and Alex Poppendorf \u2013 to plan the upcoming exhibit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese students are helping me plan and execute this exhibition,\u201d Collins said. \u201cThey\u2019re doing everything from menial labor to planning out placement of the pieces to writing text and doing research on the different pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a large responsibility since the Crouches hope their gift catches the attention of their fellow folk art collectors around the country. If the pieces are received and displayed well by APSU, they see the University getting more gifts and developing into a major institution for the study of southern culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have big plans for the collection,\u201d Burawa said. \u201cWe want to make it part of a unique educational program that will engage our students and the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information on the upcoming exhibit or APSU\u2019s folk art collection, contact the APSU Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts at 931.221.7876.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – In a small storage room in the basement of Austin Peay State University\u2019s Harned Hall, Marilyn Monroe is making things a bit awkward for President John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie. First off, the president and first lady are dressed formally, while Marilyn has opted to wear a red polka dot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[16437,18094,23,589,5762,1761,12765,262,18092,2509,825,1641,14393,6062,9670,18091,11277,6061,2046,18093,18090,1894,12507,10097,6052,15444,6049,16029],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-3Hv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14229"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14230,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14229\/revisions\/14230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}