You know what Nashville needs more of? Muraled-up crosswalks filled with brightly painted dancing dogs and googly eyes on telephone poles. No, seriously — this is exactly what Nashville needs.
Hang out at the intersection where Gallatin Avenue and North 11th Street merge in East Nashville's Five Points neighborhood, and you'll see the brand-new offering from the cool kids over at Elephant Gallery — this is a Dancing Dogs and Sad Men collaboration, the brainchild of Ellie Caudill (Elephant's gallery manager, who designs the dancing dogs) and Alex Lockwood (Elephant's director, who makes the sad men).
The Scene spoke to Caudill via email.
"I was approached by my friend Eric Hoke,” Caudill says, “who works for Nashville Civic Design Center, about wanting a mural for this crosswalk. The goal of the project was to build awareness of the intersection in hopes to gain funding and make it a safer place. They added another crosswalk, temporary guards and a pedestrian island. This is where students cross every day from East High to get the the bus stop.”
Caudill has lots of thoughts about Nashville's need for public art — and that it needs to be more fun.
“My mission was to bring fun public art to Nashville," she says. "Being from here, I feel very passionately that Nashville needs more public art, and it needs to be fun! With all the committees' projects have to go through before being accepted, most of the artwork gets extremely watered-down and dull. There’s a monopoly on large public works, where you have to have projects with budgets of $100,000 and more to even be considered. This prevents most local, young and talented artists from ever receiving a chance to even be considered. This needs to change!”
Caudill's dancing dogs remind me of Keith Haring's interpretation of a wacky waving inflatible arm-flailing tube man, and Lockwood's sad men are hilarious and sadistic, like an adolescent boy's gory doodles. And get a load of that googly-eyed street pole!
“I was very happy Nashville Civic Design Center was so flexible with me,” Caudill says. “I gave them the design days before the project after a last-minute decision to make it a DDSM design instead of just my own. They didn’t flutter an eyelash and said yes, made no edits to the design whatsoever, and even added wacky components — it was Eric’s idea to wrap the pole on the rainbow paracord and added a face with googly eyes.”
Ellie Caudill
The team that made the mural happen — and in just two days! — includes Hoke, who gathered funding and permits, Gabby "Stinky" Barnes from I Saw the Sign, artists Hannah Taylor and Harry Kagan, and volunteer realtors who helped fill in the mural. Go see it for yourself, or check out more photos on Caudill's Instagram, @pinkpizzza, and via the Dancing Dogs and Sad Men collab with Alex Lockwood, @ddsm4u.
