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From a Sneaker Parker
Thank you, Jack Neely, for giving away [June 24] what I have considered one of the best-kept secrets in town. Cheap parking.
Oh, it’s not that I have not shared this information myself over a thousand times. But more than a year ago, I started parking on the viaduct because $1.50 and an uphill walk were good for my pocketbook and my health. And because I could always find a space.
But now everyone is going to try to park on the bridge, and I will have to get up earlier than I already do just to get downtown to find parking.
Of course, what you didn’t mention was the downside to this cheap parking. I frequently have to clean trash out of the back of my truck because people seem to think my empty bed is the perfect place to toss their garbage. Further on, at the coliseum garage (only $15 a month), at least one coworker of mine had the lug nuts removed from her wheels. And in the winter, when it gets dark earlier, a woman alone is taking her life in her hands (especially is she is parking down below the viaduct where all kinds of miscreants seem to hover).
On more than one occasion, I have been “solicited” for everything from money to a ride by people who smell like they sleep in trash bins.
Mind you, when I have parked in the more expensive lots closer to work, I have had my door scratched and dinged because some people cannot park between the lines to save their lives (and that always makes me wonder how they manage to procreate, but that’s another matter).
So maybe it is a safety factor as much as a fashion statement. At any rate, all the women I know who do walk the long haul are smart enough to carry sneakers for the trek.
Laura J. Underwood
Knoxville
A Critic’s Disgusted Critic
Heather Joyner Spica, there is no life in your writing. Again and again your computer shits art reviews and articles that have the consistency of dry air. Your uninspired generic prose would be better suited for crafting third rate rock album reviews.
Undergraduate and graduate art students at UT are constantly producing challenging artwork, and there is a steady stream of shows. You should be at these shows, at the parties after the shows and in the studios of students who are lucky enough to have one. If you really cared about art you would be immersed in the local community of art students. You have great connections with the professors and visiting artists at UT’s School of Art, but you have very few connections (and no respect) among the young artists. You have no clue, but you do have the narrative voice of Jerry Saltz without the bark... which adds up to nothing if you’re counting.
Honestly, it is sad to watch you ruin the only widely distributed public forum for art in Knoxville. I’ve been in Knoxville for two years, and over and over I hear nothing but complaints about your articles. The complaints aren’t that you’re too critical but that you don’t ever seem to have a clue. Now, I have a feeling you’re a graduate of UT’s art history program, and it’s true the art history majors here are taught to memorize—not to think—in writing, so this isn’t totally your fault.
I had work in the Honors Show at UT last month, and you reviewed the show. You accused half of us of just being trendy and the other half of being traditional (meaning they were copying art world trends of the past). You liked neither approach, which means, if you’re counting, there is no art produced that you like. The very idea of simplifying and discarding us because we make art like the artists in the world that make art is absolutely absurd. I made my art. No one helped me. I’m not me because a professor or visiting artist tells me what they’re doing in New York. You are bitter, superficial, and your criticism is nothing more than bitchy nitpicking.
You say in your article on the Honors Show that bondage sculpture is trendy now. Maybe it is.... I don’t know and I don’t care because I don’t judge art like I’m flipping through a fashion magazine. I do know that there were two sculpture installations in the show and neither had anything to do with bondage. One installation aestheticized a form from popular culture, the dress, and the other installation used disease to infect the gallery space (a sort of 21st century minimalism). You say that plugging geometric objects in settings of sorts is trendy, and I suppose it is trendy and has been trendy since the birth of painting. Isn’t “plugging geometric objects in settings of some sorts” just the definition of pictorial space? You accuse me of being trendy because I have “incompetent photography presented in nonsensical series.” If you had looked at the photos you would have known they had a sensical progression not only left to right but up and down. I actually like the phrase “incompetent photography” because it seems to be in opposition, in your mind, to “art photos.”
I can go on and on. You used the most clichéd language when you described Alisha Kerlin’s paintings: “...whimsical... possesses a Robert Motherwellian sensitivity...” This is disgusting, clichéd language. Don’t ever add an -ian to an artists name in a review. It’s just bad taste. Describing Shinara Taylor’s work, you use the phrase “a la Mondrian.” You are disgusting.
Damien Crisp
Knoxville
Don’t Forget Farragutians
Joe Sullivan, thank you for your excellent editorials [June 17 and 24] on the subject of unification. You have perspicaciously identified and addressed most of the many diverse issues that must be considered. You have woven them together in persuasive and easily read columns.�
But I submit there is an egregious omission from your “...mistakes to be avoided list...” It is eight letters long and 20,000-plus strong. My reading of the law is that any unification charter must also carry within the provincial Town of Farragut.
Considering current population distribution compounded by rate of growth through 2008, with Farragut’s governmental attitude, its concurrence may be an underestimated hurdle to overcome.
Again, thanks for the contribution to active coverage of the Knox County area scene.
P.S. Words do have meaning, and we must always consider the connotation assigned by the listeners. You use one word in your editorial that I submit is an anathema to countywide support for our much-needed unified government.�
Metro this or Metro that has a very negative connotation throughout the county balance. I recommend it be purged from the vocabulary of anyone advocating government unification.
Andy Andrew
Knoxville
July 1, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 27
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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