Nashville made the national news last week and, once again, it wasn’t a chamber of commerce moment. In a report on urban water shortages airing on ABC’s World News Tonight, Nashville surpassed Orlando and Chicago in ground water loss and came in a distant but dubious second to Atlanta. The ABC report was based on a new study conducted by American Rivers, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Smart Growth America. The study puts Nashville’s ground water losses at anywhere from 17 billion to 40 billion gallons a year.
The problem isn’t lack of rain or even wasteful water practices. It’s sprawl, ya’ll.
When rain falls on Mother Earth, it soaks it up like a sponge, replenishing groundwater below the surface. When rain falls on pavement, housing developments and malls, it heads directly down storm drains and into streams and rivers instead.
“It’s true that a greater amount of impervious surface increases the speed and amount of the runoff,” says Margo Farnsworth, executive director of Cumberland River Compact (CRC), a Nashville nonprofit group working to enhance the water quality of the Cumberland River and its tributaries. “We see streams and rivers rise fast and fall equally fast—but we don’t keep that water in our area. It goes on with the river out to the ocean.”
It’s exactly this kind of issue that Cumberland River Compact hopes to spotlight with its “Catfish Out of Water” public art project. Like Chicago’s Cows on Parade, New Orleans’ Festival of Fins, Boston’s Cavalcade of Cod and Toronto’s Moose in the City, the CRC project will consist of artist-designed images of a local animal icon—in Nashville’s case, the bewhiskered bottom feeder common to our lakes and rivers. The project calls for 100 fiberglass catfish created by artistic area residents to be displayed around the city from May to November of next year. “Our area is rich with water resources and with artistic resources,” Farnsworth says. “As one of our board members put it, this is an idea that works like ham and eggs.”
Unlike similar projects in other cities, Catfish Out of Water has a strong educational component. A $20,000 grant from the Department of Agriculture will fund such educational elements as a storm drain labeling initiative, in which individuals, businesses or civic groups can participate; a booklet for grades 4-8 on catfish and the effects of pollution on the species and its habitat; an expansion of the Warner Parks Junior Naturalist Program featuring a Catfish Out of Water badge; and interactive place mats on water resources that will be available at local restaurants and on the Web. Karen Smith, watershed coordinator for Cumberland River Compact, serves as the Catfish project’s education contact.
The compact’s partners on the project are Greenways for Nashville, a group that promotes public awareness and private financial support for local greenways, and Parthenon Patrons, a support alliance for the Parthenon. “Greenways and rivers go hand in hand,” says Jane Laub, Greenways development coordinator. “Greenways bring people to the rivers and are also one of the best ways of protecting and preserving the watershed. When CRC approached us with the project, we realized our greenways would be a perfect place to put some of the catfish.” Greenways are linear corridors of relatively undeveloped land that usually include walking and biking trails. Several exist or are in development along the Cumberland River.
An artist review committee that includes Parthenon curator and artist Susan Shockley and Parthenon director Wesley Paine is overseeing the creative side of the project. While the chief duty of the committee is to choose the winning designs, its members will also advise aspiring designers. “We want this to be a friendly and fun project,” Shockley says. “Artists can call me with questions and, if I don’t know the answer, I’ll find someone who does. I’m impressed with the variety of people involved with this—it’s not just for artists, and that’s what’s great about the project. It’s open to anyone.”
There are, of course, specific artistic guidelines that must be followed, and those submitting designs must reside, exhibit or work in Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Cheatham, Robertson, Wilson, Maury, Dickson, Bedford, Montgomery or Sumner counties. Under the guidelines, groups may also submit designs or they may partner with an artist and work with that artist to execute his or her concept. “We’ve already had calls from schools and teachers who want to participate,” Farnsworth says. “It’s definitely a project that everyone can get involved with.”
The blank canvas for all aspiring designers is a 7-foot fiberglass catfish, conceived by LeAnne Johnson, designer of the Tennessee iris license plate, and fabricated by Kern Studios, a New Orleans company renowned for its Mardi Gras floats. The artists whose designs the committee selects can pick up their 30-pound catfish Jan. 30 and go to work on them. While the fiberglass catfish is provided, artists are responsible for the cost of materials and supplies needed to execute their designs. Designs must be received by Oct. 1. (For more information or to request an official entry form and guidelines, call CRC at 837-1151 or go to www.cumberlandrivercompact.org.)
The completed catfish will be placed at various public sites around town. “There will be a number of catfish in Centennial Park,” Farnsworth says. “Most of the others will be downtown, because we want the public to see several at once and have as many as possible accessible on foot.” The Shelby Bottoms, Stones River and Downtown Connector greenways are also likely catfish sites.
Sponsorships of the winning catfish will help fund the project. Sponsorships are $3,700 and the sponsor’s name will appear on a plaque attached to the catfish, as well as in promotional materials on the exhibit. Another $1,000 buys placement for a sponsor’s fish at a high visibility site. After the art comes down next November, sponsors can choose to keep their catfish or donate it back to the project to be auctioned off to the highest bidder at a charity fundraiser. In San Jose, Calif., last year, an auction of fiberglass sharks created by local artists for that city’s SharkByte public art project raised $257,900, and New Orleans’ Festival of Fins auction of fiberglass redfish netted $550,000 for local nonprofits.
Comments (0)