NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Giant arachnids and rarely-seen art await guests at Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art this summer.
Come tour the beautiful, 55-acre property with a limestone mansion and multiple gardens once owned by the Cheek Family, who were connected to the Maxwell House coffee brand.
This summer, the traveling exhibits David Rogers’ “Big Bugs” and Andy Warhol’s “Flowers” come to inspire and amaze Cheekwood visitors.
‘Big Bugs’
David Rogers’ “Big Bugs” is an outdoor art installation that brings some of Earth’s tiniest creatures to life in a big way. Ants and a dragonfly, along with several other distinct critters, can be seen rising into the sky throughout the gardens.
“I think the exhibit helps folks to realize that we are sharing the garden and our entire natural world with insects,” said Patrick Larkin, Cheekwood’s senior vice president of gardens and facilities. “… By changing the scale, by having the insects be the things that are larger than life and are looking down on us, I think that it helps to shift the scale a little bit and helps people pay attention a little bit more to that part of the living world.”
Each of the bugs is created from organic and natural materials, such as wood, twigs and twine. Don’t miss the nearly 20-foot-tall praying mantis, which is carved entirely out of black locust wood and weighs in at 1,200 pounds.
“I think my favorite is actually the ants … they’re just so large, and ants are almost ubiquitous. I mean everybody sees ants all the time,” Larkin added. “When they think about ants, they think about ants with picnics and those sorts of things … They’re just a lot of fun and probably, I think, the most enjoyable out of all of them and the most accessible.”
Guests can view this exhibition while being led by Cheekwood’s Garden Guides every Saturday through the end of August at 11 a.m. in an “interactive safari journey” where they will learn more individual facts about each bug. Self-guided tours are also available.
Two local architectural installations, one about the metamorphosis of a butterfly and the other about a beehive, allow children to have an interactive experience.
Crawl in quickly, as the exhibit closes Aug. 31.
“It’s a fun exhibit all around and great for Family or date night or you know, any of those sorts of things,” Larkin said. “It’s an intergenerational, accessible exhibition.”
Warhol’s “Flowers”
The work of Andy Warhol (1928-1987) is arguably one of the most distinctive and enduringly popular of the American art scene. His pop art style focused heavily on representing images of popular American culture and illuminated American mass production.
The “Flowers” exhibition displays a Warhol both familiar, but slightly different than the one we know as depicting Campbell’s soup cans and Marilyn Monroe prints. The collection includes silkscreen paintings of flowers, as well as additional lithographs, ink drawings, photographs and more, and it depicts a theme Warhol first started pursuing early in his career.
“It might surprise some visitors that Warhol was so prolific with flowers,” said Jochen Wierich, Cheekwood’s art curator.
While the art museum housed on the property does not focus on just botanical art, Wierich calls the exhibition a “multi-sensory experience.” The exhibition offers guests the unique opportunity to compare, visually, real-life flowers with their depictions. It is an experience not to be missed, Wierich added.
“Number one, you will probably never get a chance to see all these multiple, sort of creative interpretations of flower imagery by Warhol in one exhibition,” he said. “Plus, number two, you get to see them here in the sort of botanical environment that Cheekwood offers. In some ways, it’s a double winner.”
Andy Warhol’s “Flowers” opens Saturday. Guided tours of the exhibition will be offered Saturdays at 1:30 p.m.
Before You Go
Cheekwood is located at 1200 Forrest Park Drive in Nashville. Military personnel with a current Department of Defense ID card receive 50 percent off their admission rate. There are fees for admission and parking (see box for more information).
Cheekwood is open from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Extended hours are available on Fridays until 10 p.m. through October, and on Thursdays until 8 p.m. in June and July.
During extended hours on Thursdays, only the garden and Visitor’s Services will be open.
“We’re open Friday evenings, and so you can come out into the garden and see the bugs in a different light, but also see the garden in a completely different light,” Larkin said.
Special events throughout the summer include Friday Nights at Cheekwood, where music and drinks flow, and Family Night Out on Thursdays beginning at 6:30 p.m. with performances, a dance zone for children and more. Adults may also enjoy the Annotations: Authors at Cheekwood series on the second Friday of the month throughout the summer. Don’t miss the first event at 6:30 p.m. this Friday.
Families should plan to spend at least two hours on the property in order to see all Cheekwood has to offer. During the summer months, New Guinea impatiens and caladiums bloom, and visitors can catch glimpses of other works from other famous artists such as Roy Lichtenstein and John Singer Sargent.
For more information, call (615) 356-8000 or (877) 356-8150 or visit the website at www.cheekwood.org.
EVENT schedule
Cheekwood Admission:
$14 – Adults
$12 – Seniors (65+)
$10 – College students with ID
$7 – Youth (ages 3-17)
Free – Ages 2 and younger; Cheekwood members
50 percent discount for military personnel with ID
Parking fees: $3 per car
Members park free Upcoming Programs:
Friday – Annotations: Authors at Cheekwood featuring Victoria Schwab, 6:30 p.m.
June 19 – “Hansel and Gretel” performance by the Nashville Puppet Truck, 6:30 p.m.
June 26: Coal Train Railroad performance, 6:30 p.m.
July 3: Magic of America magic show, 6:30 p.m.
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