When local artist Valerie Harrell began searching for a theme for a new show at the East Nashville gallery and event venue Bohéme Collectif, she found inspiration in a slice of cherry pie, a man from another place and a damn fine cup of coffee. That may sound like an odd list, but for fans of the cult-classic TV show Twin Peaks, it's a collection of fondly remembered icons.
"Twin Peaks showed people that the cookie cutter wasn't all there was [in regard to TV]," Harrell says. "It was the doorway for me into all of David Lynch's work and more. There were just so many bizarre surreal things that I never would have experienced if that had not been on TV for the hot second that it was. I don't know if television would be what it is today if it hadn't been."
Premiering in April 1990, Twin Peaks was the brainchild of surrealist artist and film director Lynch and television writer Mark Frost. The series was a dramatic reimagining of American small-town life as a soap opera that freely mixed realism, soapy melodrama, dream imagery surrealism and horror movie tropes. Although it lasted only two seasons (and spawned the prequel theatrical film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me in 1992), the show continues to fascinate and intrigue new and old viewers more than 20 years later.
That appeal will be on full display this Saturday at Into the Night, billed as an art show and prom. The event will feature works by more than 25 Nashville-area artists, including popular comic book creator Eric Powell, Nashville fringe/outsider artists Jeff Bertrand and Anjeanette Hoer and many others. The event will also feature burlesque performances inspired by David Lynch's movies, a Twin Peaks costume contest and live music from local jump blues/swing combo Eight O'Five Jive.
Although Twin Peaks ran for only 30 episodes, Harrell says that's a portion of the show's continuing appeal. "Part of the obsession is that it is unfinished business," Harrell says. "We're all like, what happened? And that's part of why this art show is going to be so fun. People get to work through their pain of the show ending so abruptly. That sounds melodramatic, but that fits in perfectly with the soap opera aspects of it."
Hoer agrees with that appeal. "I kind of like that almost every single character in the show was like, were they going to die? Were they going to live? I can imagine whatever I want for them. The cliffhanger ending brought endless possibilities."
Bertrand also finds possibilities in the many eccentric supporting characters who never got a chance in the spotlight during the show's short run, like the mysterious and possibly psychic Log Lady (who serves as a medium for a small wooden log) or the one-eyed manic-depressive Nadine Hurley (who possesses inexplicable superhuman strength). "I immediately wanted to take the weirdest characters in the show and make up my own stories," Bertrand says.
That same enthusiasm has carried over to the burlesque performers who will be appearing at the event, Harrell says. "Everybody wants to be part of the Twin Peaks thing in their own idiom. The sexuality that simmers under the surface is something that David Lynch touches on a lot in his work. I think he'd be very pleased that people are artfully taking off their clothes as an homage to him."
Such enthusiasm is a must for the creation of any art, but since Twin Peaks was a TV show, it's worth asking, where is the line between geeky fandom and creative inspiration? For Harrell, that's an arbitrary border.
"I think art is more accessible to people when they can say, 'I've heard of that.' Some people might consider art based on a TV show lowbrow, or even call it pandering. But it's what moves me, and I'm not going to apologize for something I'm passionate about. And why wouldn't I make art about something I'm passionate about? I see an event like this as a doorway to a good time, to express your geekdom and be exposed to art in a way you might not at a conventional show."
And for Twin Peaks fans as well as devotees of art that sits at the nexus of surrealism and pop culture, it's the best news since hearing — to borrow a phrase from Twin Peaks' dreamworld demon the Man from Another Place — "That gum you like is going to come back in style."
Email arts@nashvillescene.com.
