If you have a parent or grandparent in their 70s or older, you’ve probably noticed that even the biggest neat-freaks among them have at least one weird old thing they won’t get rid of but no one can touch because “it might be worth something.” Contrary to what you see on Antiques Roadshow, it is invariably worth nothing. I mean, even if it is worth something, you have to put in the work to discover that it has value and then find someone willing to pay it.
The chances of anyone who owns something rare and valuable but doesn’t already know that it’s rare and valuable successfully jumping through those hoops is somewhere between slim and none. You, random person, just don’t have an unknown treasure unrealized sitting in your house.
Except for this one guy in Nashville who did. The way I heard the story was that this guy was trying to remember the name of a cool Black Nashville artist, so he Googled something along the lines of “Black Nashville artist,” and who is the first name to pop up? William Edmondson.
So as the story was told to me, this dude is curious and clicks through, and he sees examples of Edmondson’s work. Wait a second. He looks over at the stone statue he got from his grandma’s house years ago. He looks back at the screen. To the statue. To the screen. Holy shit. He has a sculpture from the most famous Black artist to ever come out of Nashville, just sitting in his house. And since his family bought it straight from Edmondson himself and then took it home and it just became a kind of family thing, it hadn’t ever been displayed in public before. Because no one else knew it existed.
As far as I can tell, this is the first Edmondson to come out of a Black Nashville family’s stuff (with the exception of the Whitlow headstone, which was given to Cheekwood by the Whitlow family because assholes kept vandalizing the cemetery it was in). But considering the fact that Edmondson made art depicting people like his family, friends and neighbors and sold it to them, this is likely not the only piece in town sitting unrecognized.
The famed Black Nashvillian's sculptures are art for living with and being a part of the everyday
It’s nuts to think about how, after two huge Cheekwood exhibitions and a yearly festival in his honor, Edmondson is still unknown in a large swath of his hometown — and that families might just have his sculptures sitting in their homes, being used as a bookend or a doorstop, because it reminds them of their grandma and how she used it for the same in her house. And how do you bridge that divide? You have one group of people (Edmondson collectors and museums and the like) and another group of people (Black Nashvillians who might own Edmondsons and who might like the money that comes from selling them to the first group), but they don’t know what they have.
There are good reasons for this. “You’re going to say ‘racism’ aren’t you?” Yes, I am going to say "racism." But not the jerks-in-hoods kind — the kind where no one is trying to be racist, but the kind with long-standing systemic issues. How welcome do Black Nashvillians feel in Belle Meade? How often do they go to Cheekwood? When cuts to public schooling often include the arts and Black history, how are ordinary people in Nashville going to learn about Edmondson? Plus, if you’re not familiar with how to sell art, what if you have an Edmondson? And how certain can you feel that you’re getting a fair price? And how does a mostly white, mostly rich art community approach Black people from Old Nashville families inquiring about their stuff without it coming across like they’re trying to exploit them?
But also, if the sentimental value of a piece is worth less to you than the monetary value it might have, wouldn’t you like to know that it has substantial monetary value? I have no clue how one navigates this.
BUT! This piece, which a dude just happened to realize might be important, is now up for auction. And it’s so great! It’s kind of a typical mom-and-baby sculpture from Edmondson. He did a number of them with the baby perched on the mother’s hip, usually being completely unhelpfully starfish-shaped. In this one, though, the baby does seem to be holding on. The mother’s arm weaves through the baby’s legs. And the baby even has hair! Both mother and baby have soft smiles. It’s just the best.
Edmondson’s talent at making stone look soft and for conveying a lot of emotion with very minimal lines always blows me away. Look at the mom’s face. There’s hardly anything to it, but you know she’s happy and maybe a little proud. If someone told me I had two circles (the eyes) and two lines (the nose and mouth) to convey happiness and pride, I would not be able to. At best, I’d have a wonky smiley face. But Edmondson conveys so much with so little.
I headed out to the Pegram area to look for gravestones made by the legendary local Black artist
You know what I wish? I wish there were reproduction Edmondson sculptures in Edmondson Park on Charlotte Avenue, but huge. Imagine this sculpture, but like, 10 feet tall. Or any of Edmondson's critters, but huge enough that kids could climb on them and sit on top of them. Make them a spectacle and a thing you would want to go get your picture taken with. OK then, maybe not 10 feet tall. Maybe human-being tall. But get them out there in a central location where people can see them, and then put up some signage saying that we had this cool sculptor in our midst and this is what his stuff looked like, and if you want to see the originals, here’s where you can go.
I remember hearing Edmondson’s niece reminiscing about how she and her cousins would play among the statues when they were small children. And if you look at the kind of stuff he made — headstones, birdbaths, sculptures on tall pedestals — he clearly expected people would experience them outside. Could you imagine bringing back the ability for Nashville’s children to play among his sculptures?
That would ensure future generations knew and loved his work.
