A few years ago, nobody would have considered what an important asset an almost 200-foot long blank white wall could be. But in the current mural-obsessed environment of Nashville, Andy and Charlie Nelson discovered that they had a gold mine hiding in plain sight with a huge potential canvas stretching along the back side of their building.
Nelson’s Green Brier Distillery has always honored their company’s legacy and connection to strong women, naming their still after Louisa Nelson, their great-great-great grandmother who ran the original NGB for years at the beginning of the 20th century, and sponsoring an annual awards program to recognize female achievers and leaders in the community. So it makes a lot of sense that they should partner with a statewide initiative called “Walls for Women,” a celebration of the centennial of women’s suffrage and Tennessee’s important role in the ratification of the 19th Amendment.
Walls for Women is the ambitious project of DMA-Events, a non-profit formed by Kristin Luna and Scott van Velsor to promote public art projects in Tennessee and beyond. Working with an all-female slate of talented muralists, Walls for Women has been instrumental in the creation of many striking murals across the state during 2020.
For the Nelson’s Greenbrier project, DMA-Events recruited Cymone Wilder and Sarah Painter (great name!) to design and execute a huge mural visible at the corner of 16th Ave North and Clinton Street. Their blank slate was so huge it necessitated the use of a rented scissors lift to cover the entire wall, and the result of their efforts is outstanding!
Temporarily referred to as “Seeds” until a permanent title is decided on, the mural revolves around a couplet by Greek poet Dinos Christianopoulos, a victim of discrimination in the 1970s because he was gay and out. Wilder’s and Painter’s mural portrays two determined-looking women surrounding bold lettering that reads “They buried us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.” (The quote is popularly translated as the slightly longer "They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.”)
This massive work of art is worth a visit just to see it, but if you want to go ahead and take the tour of Nelson’s Green Brier while you’re in the neighborhood, so much the better!
