Anne Brown at The Arts Company in 2018
Anne Brown opened her downtown art gallery, The Arts Company, in 1996. Last year, GHP Environmental + Architecture, which has owned the Fifth Avenue building that houses the gallery for more than 30 years, bought The Arts Company. Brown and her staff continued to maintain day-to-day operations, but in mid-August, they were informed that the gallery’s new owners would be closing down the space for a few months to make renovations in the building. The plan was to eventually reopen The Arts Company, but under different leadership.
In late October, the gallery announced through an email that Jorge Arrieta would be transitioning into the role of owner and gallery director on Nov. 1. Brown would move into an advisory role, and her staff of four would be moving on. Arrieta, who is married to GHP president and CEO Dominique Arrieta, has a background in business-to-business sales and education.
The abrupt change shocked the arts community. In its 23 years with Brown at the helm, The Arts Company has helped define downtown Nashville as an arts destination. Among the artists the gallery has represented and supported are Thornton Dial, Brother Mel, the Gee’s Bend quilters, James Threalkill and Denise Stewart-Sanabria. The gallery’s annual Avant-Garage Sale has long been a highlight in local art collectors’ calendars.
But Brown’s influence on Nashville’s art community extends much further than just her role as a gallery director. In the early 1980s, she founded the city’s legendary Summer Lights Festival, which, in a 1997 article, the Scene’s then-editor Bruce Dobie called “Nashville’s music festival, beer bash, high-brow arts concert, street-level dance-a-thon, face-painting fun-o-rama, and food fight.” (Dobie also named Brown “one of the city’s leading all-time, rah-rah arts boosters.”) More recently, Brown partnered with Atlanta’s National Black Arts Festival to create Culture Fest, which brought luminaries like visual artist Fahamu Pecou and filmmaker Jason Orr to Nashville.
“The Arts Company made a seismic impact on downtown Nashville and the shape of our art scene,” says Joe Nolan, a writer who has been covering art in Nashville since 2006 and authors the Scene’s monthly Crawl Space column. “It’s a big reason why we have so much visual art downtown. It’s a big reason why the whole city’s art gallery calendar revolves around First Saturday.”
The longtime director of Zeitgeist Gallery, Lain York, echoes Nolan’s sentiment. “At a time when there was almost no art industry infrastructure, [Brown] stressed the importance of creatives across the board being treated as professionals. ... We all owe more than we know to Anne Brown.”
Dominique Arrieta is the daughter of Ron Gobbell, co-founder of GHP. Her first job was at The Arts Company. Dominique says Gobbell brought Brown to the building “as a way to promote the arts on the street ... bringing art to this block and making a commitment to the city.”
“I know [GHP] wants to protect the legacy of that place,” says Brown, “and I assume that will happen. But meanwhile, I need to get my stuff out of the way. But I’m keeping my connections, and I definitely, definitely want to see [the gallery move forward] as soon as possible. I guarantee that something good will come of this, because we’ve come so far.”
Jorge Arrieta tells the Scene he originally planned to keep the name of the gallery intact, but now he plans to change it. He says he hopes the renovated space will remain inviting to locals and tourists alike, have a range of art for every budget, and “push the great qualities that are positive in humans.” He says his vision for the gallery is “to ignite the imagination” and “inspire the human experience with the power of art.”
The gallery — which is 1,600 square feet downstairs and 2,000 square feet upstairs — is still undergoing renovations, and Jorge plans to reopen in January. He says he plans to keep some of the The Arts Company artists on the new gallery’s roster, which he will be finalizing in the coming weeks.
“As for myself, I was born to be on that street,” Brown says of Fifth Avenue, which was christened 5th Avenue of the Arts during her time at the gallery. “I’ve been downtown working in the arts for a long time — since the ’70s. That’s not something I can easily not care about. And when I sold the business part of the gallery a year ago, we had big plans to do things, and that didn’t work out — sometimes that’s just what happens.”
Right now, Brown is moving all of her artwork out of the gallery — which was often packed with art from all over the world — and into four storage spaces. Brown says she isn’t retiring — she’s writing two books and will continue to put her experience to work as a consultant, both for The Arts Company (“at the moment,” she says) and elsewhere.
Says Jorge by email: “GHP played a critical role keeping The Arts Company operational in the past year and are pivotal in my transition into ownership. … I would like to express my gratitude for [Anne’s] efforts and accomplishments in helping Nashville’s art scene develop into what is today.”
As for tomorrow? Brown is optimistic.
“I’m not someone who takes sides,” says Brown. “I want everyone to win. I love collaboration. You always have to look forward, you always have to believe that whatever’s next is going to be great.”
