Info compiled by Nancy Brannon
On December 3-4, 2016 at The Historic House, 5550 Leipers Creek Road in Franklin, TN, nine artists from the Leipers Fork area are exhibiting their work, with some of the proceeds to benefit the Heads Up Penny Foundation. Artists include Anton Weiss, Anne Goetze, Butler Sleltemeier, Dane Carder, Lisa Jennings, Michael Madzoo, Nathan Collie, Judith Kittredge, and Jacqueline Fisher. The exhibition is titled “A Season For Giving, 2016.”
The Heads Up Penny Foundation is the brainchild of a compassionate twelve-year-old: Thaddeus Bryant, who has been helping those in need since age 5. At age 12, Thaddeus first experienced how he could change lives through hunger relief when he was living in New York. After receiving a flyer in the mail, he excitedly pursued an opportunity to feed 210 of his homeless neighbors on Christmas Day. Since relocating to Tennessee, he has become an enthusiastic Second Harvest volunteer. His foundation is headquartered at 2019 Old Hillsboro Road in Franklin, TN. Read more about it at: http://www.headsuppennyfoundation.org/
Nashville artist Anton Weiss, who is Austrian, came to America from a Russian concentration camp. His father had been forced into conscription with Hitler’s army. Weiss had spent his boyhood summers at his mother’s family’s winery in Yugoslavia. His parents were both painters, and his early memories are dotted with recollections of their work. But then, the country was invaded by the Nazis at the outset of World War II. Forced into a Russian concentration camp in Yugoslavia, Weiss and his mother both courageously escaped. Weiss was 10 when he entered and 13 when he escaped six months after his mother. In the aftermath of the war, Weiss and his mother were reunited with his father by the Red Cross. After leaving the concentration camp, Weiss enrolled in an apprenticeship in which he restored damaged frescoes in venerable Austrian cathedrals.
The year 1945 is the watershed moment for Abstract Expressionism. Weiss’ experiences in a concentration camp fueled a greater freedom of expression in his paintings. Weiss enlisted in courses with the now-legendary Hans Hoffman. Time spent under the tutelage of this trailblazer of the Abstract Expressionist style opened Weiss’ eyes to a new thought process and way to approach and execute painting.
Anne Goetze is a resident in the Leipers Fork area and is best known for her paintings of the local scenery. Her specialties are oils and oilographs, an extremely rare technique. In this technique, photographs are printed on special fibrous photographic paper. Then, the images are carefully colored with oil paints. Anne documents in paintings and photographs her beloved rural landscape, lifestyle, and people. See more of her work at: http://www.annegoetze.com/ and on facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/AnneGoetzeArtAndPhotography/
She was born in Aurora, IL, but spent her formative years in Atlanta, GA and Memphis, TN. She is strongly influenced by a family background of artists and photographers, with training at Memphis State University and the Memphis Academy of Art. Anne’s art appears on the invitation to the exhibit – a painting of Bailey Road before it was paved. “I have spent years going up and down that road. It is ingrained in the patterns of my life through all four seasons for over twenty years now,” she writes.
Butler Sleltemeier also lives in Leipers Fork, TN. A watercolorist, Steltemeier specializes in animal portraiture with a twist. Dreamy settings and details of fashion accessories lend whimsy to her otherwise realism used to present goat, cow, dog and sheep models in natural pose. Steltemeier paints lifelike animal portraits on black backgrounds. Her fauna of choice is the sheep. Typically, her subjects are meticulously “blinged out” with earrings, clover chains, and/or birds or other animals perched on their heads.
Dane Carder was born, raised, and still lives in Nashville, TN. Carder utilizes Civil War images in a universal, symbolic expression of life’s ironic combinations of tragedy and beauty, of despair and hope. Yet his work is not simply about the Civil War. It is about being passionate enough to fight, compassionate enough to grieve, and honest enough to be open. It is about ghosts and hopes. “In painting some of these images out of focus, I am hoping to blur the line between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ It is the ‘us/them’ mentality that ignites war. The idea that we are separate from each other is about ego and fear; this art is not about that,” he writes.
Lisa Jennings says her art represents nature refined, bringing the old and new together. In both her paintings and sculptures, her inspiration comes from Mother Nature. “Sitting close to the earth, walking on quiet a trail, wading in a stream looking for stone and wood is as powerful as sitting with others in worship,” she writes. “One of the most enduring and closest influences in my life has been the love, wisdom and interaction with my mentor, artist Anton Weiss,” she adds. One of her more recent paintings is titled, “In Everything Give Thanks.”
Michael Madzoo is a Collage Artist. The various pieces of layered paper and paint in his collages are sewn together with a Pfaff sewing machine and tied together with colored thread. He generally uses “things at hand” in his collages. You’ll find plenty of whimsy in his art, some of which might remind you of “Through the Looking Glass.”
Nathan Collie is a videographer and photographer based in Franklin, TN. His DVDs are all about the beauty of nature in various places and times of the year. His photos of birds are stunningly “up close and personal” portraits of these feathered beauties. You may even like the close up of the Praying Mantis. See his photos on facebook at Nathan Collie: https://www.facebook.com/nathan.collie.5
On December 3-4, 2016 at The Historic House, 5550 Leipers Creek Road in Franklin, TN, nine artists from the Leipers Fork area are exhibiting their work, with some of the proceeds to benefit the Heads Up Penny Foundation. Artists include Anton Weiss, Anne Goetze, Butler Sleltemeier, Dane Carder, Lisa Jennings, Michael Madzoo, Nathan Collie, Judith Kittredge, and Jacqueline Fisher. The exhibition is titled “A Season For Giving, 2016.”
The Heads Up Penny Foundation is the brainchild of a compassionate twelve-year-old: Thaddeus Bryant, who has been helping those in need since age 5. At age 12, Thaddeus first experienced how he could change lives through hunger relief when he was living in New York. After receiving a flyer in the mail, he excitedly pursued an opportunity to feed 210 of his homeless neighbors on Christmas Day. Since relocating to Tennessee, he has become an enthusiastic Second Harvest volunteer. His foundation is headquartered at 2019 Old Hillsboro Road in Franklin, TN. Read more about it at: http://www.headsuppennyfoundation.org/
Nashville artist Anton Weiss, who is Austrian, came to America from a Russian concentration camp. His father had been forced into conscription with Hitler’s army. Weiss had spent his boyhood summers at his mother’s family’s winery in Yugoslavia. His parents were both painters, and his early memories are dotted with recollections of their work. But then, the country was invaded by the Nazis at the outset of World War II. Forced into a Russian concentration camp in Yugoslavia, Weiss and his mother both courageously escaped. Weiss was 10 when he entered and 13 when he escaped six months after his mother. In the aftermath of the war, Weiss and his mother were reunited with his father by the Red Cross. After leaving the concentration camp, Weiss enrolled in an apprenticeship in which he restored damaged frescoes in venerable Austrian cathedrals.
The year 1945 is the watershed moment for Abstract Expressionism. Weiss’ experiences in a concentration camp fueled a greater freedom of expression in his paintings. Weiss enlisted in courses with the now-legendary Hans Hoffman. Time spent under the tutelage of this trailblazer of the Abstract Expressionist style opened Weiss’ eyes to a new thought process and way to approach and execute painting.
Anne Goetze is a resident in the Leipers Fork area and is best known for her paintings of the local scenery. Her specialties are oils and oilographs, an extremely rare technique. In this technique, photographs are printed on special fibrous photographic paper. Then, the images are carefully colored with oil paints. Anne documents in paintings and photographs her beloved rural landscape, lifestyle, and people. See more of her work at: http://www.annegoetze.com/ and on facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/AnneGoetzeArtAndPhotography/
She was born in Aurora, IL, but spent her formative years in Atlanta, GA and Memphis, TN. She is strongly influenced by a family background of artists and photographers, with training at Memphis State University and the Memphis Academy of Art. Anne’s art appears on the invitation to the exhibit – a painting of Bailey Road before it was paved. “I have spent years going up and down that road. It is ingrained in the patterns of my life through all four seasons for over twenty years now,” she writes.
Butler Sleltemeier also lives in Leipers Fork, TN. A watercolorist, Steltemeier specializes in animal portraiture with a twist. Dreamy settings and details of fashion accessories lend whimsy to her otherwise realism used to present goat, cow, dog and sheep models in natural pose. Steltemeier paints lifelike animal portraits on black backgrounds. Her fauna of choice is the sheep. Typically, her subjects are meticulously “blinged out” with earrings, clover chains, and/or birds or other animals perched on their heads.
Dane Carder was born, raised, and still lives in Nashville, TN. Carder utilizes Civil War images in a universal, symbolic expression of life’s ironic combinations of tragedy and beauty, of despair and hope. Yet his work is not simply about the Civil War. It is about being passionate enough to fight, compassionate enough to grieve, and honest enough to be open. It is about ghosts and hopes. “In painting some of these images out of focus, I am hoping to blur the line between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ It is the ‘us/them’ mentality that ignites war. The idea that we are separate from each other is about ego and fear; this art is not about that,” he writes.
Lisa Jennings says her art represents nature refined, bringing the old and new together. In both her paintings and sculptures, her inspiration comes from Mother Nature. “Sitting close to the earth, walking on quiet a trail, wading in a stream looking for stone and wood is as powerful as sitting with others in worship,” she writes. “One of the most enduring and closest influences in my life has been the love, wisdom and interaction with my mentor, artist Anton Weiss,” she adds. One of her more recent paintings is titled, “In Everything Give Thanks.”
Michael Madzoo is a Collage Artist. The various pieces of layered paper and paint in his collages are sewn together with a Pfaff sewing machine and tied together with colored thread. He generally uses “things at hand” in his collages. You’ll find plenty of whimsy in his art, some of which might remind you of “Through the Looking Glass.”
Nathan Collie is a videographer and photographer based in Franklin, TN. His DVDs are all about the beauty of nature in various places and times of the year. His photos of birds are stunningly “up close and personal” portraits of these feathered beauties. You may even like the close up of the Praying Mantis. See his photos on facebook at Nathan Collie: https://www.facebook.com/nathan.collie.5
