My goal for this mural was to design an artwork that would resonate with the essence of this iconic street. Aiming to blend music and design seamlessly, I wanted flowing lines to mirror the rhythm of 16th Avenue, evoking the smooth, soulful quality hhof a bluesy guitar ballad (I listened to so much Zeppelin). The colors were chosen to elicit nostalgia during a time of so much newness in our city. I am proud to be part of a project that took an approach to polishing the past rather than replacing it in its entirety.
Design: Mary Stengel Bentley
Painted By: I Saw The Sign
The Vinyl on Music Row is available for short term rentals on VRBO.
I designed and painted this mural for The Standard Assembly, a residential building located in the heart of Wedgewood Houston in Nashville, TN. I played with the idea of balancing masculine and feminine shapes to create a harmonious and energetic composition. I was also inspired by the building’s architecture which was designed by Zeitgeist Architects as well as the wall’s location next to the railroad tracks. I wanted the design to feel like it was moving yet static at the same time.
This site-specific mosaic is a result of a special collaboration with Iva Design Studio for the Elevator Lobby of a new residential high rise in Nashville, TN called The Alcove. We worked with Artaic in Boston to translate my design into 3/4” inch tiles to create a site specific work of art for the space and its residents. Developed by Giarratana, LLC.
This column is a product of collaboration at its finest. Based on an original drawing from my Downtown Series, New Hat, a local surface design firm reinterpreted the composition and unique marking into a hand-pressed tile manufactured by Red Rock Tileworks, another local, female owned operation. The collaboration was also first conceived by Iva Design Studio for the great development team at Giarratana, LLC.
Photos by Quinn Ballard
Title: Spring I
Client: The Harpeth Hall School
Location: Bullard Bright Idea Lab, 3801 Hobbs Road, Nashville, TN 37215
Dimensions: 20’w x 10’h
Medium: Digital print on Acoustic Paneling
Concept: The idea behind this artwork came from the desire to record a painting made in tandem to listening to Spring I by Max Richter, from his album Recomposed Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. I tried to capture the song’s energy, speed and uplifting measures through strokes of color and abstract, flora-inspired imagery. The goal was to create a work of art that could aid in the energy needed to produce an new idea within this exciting STEM research lab for girls at The Harpeth Hall School in Nashville, TN.
Title: In Formation
Client: Montgomery Bell Academy
Location: The Burkholder Wellness Center, Montgomery Bell Academy, 4001 Harding Pike, Nashville, TN 37205
Dimensions: 26’w x 10’h
Concept: Impatiens, an all boys-school, sunlight falling through leaves and the location of a wall inside this particular building all came together to inspire the design of this mural. Entering into the design-phase of this project, I had to consider that sculpted wooden hawks by another local artist, Brenda Stein would hang from a skylight above while a digitized vinyl graphic of a mountainscape were going to be installed in conjunction with this mural. My wall was at the foot of the 3 story grand staircase and I felt it was necessary to close the visual loop between the sky, the earth and what I was to consider, the ground. The colors of the impatiens were chosen to represent variations of the school’s color, a maroon-red and reflect that under the umbrella of a united color one’s own color value within the collective whole can vary based on environment. I also chose to represent the flowers in a youthful stage of a flower’s life, bright, strong and full of a sense of wonder. The title also suggests an ongoing dialogue with growing, in formation, together.
Title: Sequence
Client: Yale University
Location: Yale University Science Building, 260 Whitney Ave, New Haven, CT 06511
Dimensions: 75’w x 10’h
Concept: As a self-described "non-objective artist", Stengel Bentley has devised a visual language comprising three elements: Line, Shape, and Color. She likens her creative method to that of a musicians-composer - Line and Color are layered into a visual rhythm that gives birth to Shape when competing rhythms intersect. Making a line dance is one of her fundamental goals; and she feels she has succeeded in this if she experiences the subtle "percussion" that manifests when two Lines cross and thereby create a new Shape.
Choosing "Sequence" as the title for the work derives from the many connotations of the word, particularly in the context of the mural’s specific location in the Yale Science Building. Sequence is a process of advance, for example, for both scientist and artist - the former driven for the most part empirically, the latter propelled predominately by intuition. Stengel Bentley purposefully selected the mural’s colors according to mathematically inspired color values. The result is a progression on intersections that not only configure as blue shapes but also evoke the famed Fibonacci Series (here excerpted as 13, 8 and 5) and its unmistakable association with the Phi, or Golden, Ratio whose immemorial mysteries pervade both order and process throughout animate and inanimate creation.
Additionally, the colors were chosen based on their connection to nature and universality - blue to represent the sky and green to represent the earth. And this precise shade of blue is important since it happens to evoke ultramarine blue which boasts symbolic connections to life, energy, and purity. Color, for both the artist and the scientist, is a physical sensation that can be both objective and abstract, communicating ideas that either transcend beyond the immediate experience of it or express profound, specific, even diagnostic meanings.
Stengel Bentley approaches her work in the conviction that artists and scientists are both seekers of truth. Somewhat playfully, she has composed her mural as an experiential exercise relevant to its setting: As observers enter YSB, color values progress from light to dark - from entropy to density, as it were. Upon exiting, the process is reversed, with this intended exception: the observer moves back again out of the building from its recesses of deep concentration and approaches the light of the entryway - progressing by degrees not into binding chaos but towards brilliance of inspiration.
Title: Vertical Garden (Spring I)
Client: The Harpeth Hall School
Location: Bullard Bright Idea Lab, 3801 Hobbs Road, Nashville, TN 37215
Dimensions: 24’w x 20’h
Concept: To illustrate “Spring 1”, an orchestral movement by Max Richter in Recomposed: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Richter’s 20th-century re-interpretation of Vivaldi’s original 18th-century quartet distills through music the energy produced by the phenomenon of growth in nature. There is a compelling sense of urgency in Richter’s “Spring 1” – as if intentionally releasing, but also managing, the energy of a coiled spring. It is akin to that feeling many will recognize when an idea so overpowers one’s attention that nothing can stand in the way of transforming a subjective figment of an idea into objective words on paper.
By illustrating a musical composition, Mary’s intention is to suggest that innovation is born of combination. Or, to re-state Richter’s approach to Vivaldi, exploration and discovery are the twin-offspring of the re-composition of a beloved tradition within a novel framework. Whether musically or visually, an artist working in this way hopes an audience will react to something new that has been elicited out of a well recognized and beloved form. This approach rejuvenates the original, traditional idea – and in so doing, adds to its longevity by re-adapting the older form to its inevitably changing and modern context.
Title: In Tandem
Client: Workday
Location: Workday Headquarters, Customer Experience Center, 6110 Stoneridge Mall Road, Pleasanton, CA 94588
Dimensions: 37’w x 15’h
Concept: The loops in this Ribbon Series mural were inspired by the curved arch over Workday’s logo. The concept was to create a single thread to illustrate an ongoing dialogue. The changes in color between overlapping lines were inspired by the dynamics of conversation and exchange of ideas.
Title: Strength in Numbers
Client: Covenant Heals
Location: anonymous location
Dimensions: 40’ x 9’
Concept: This mural was designed for a special place called Covenant Heals - a space where families of the Covenant School can gather for therapy and community events. I designed this mural with a narrative. As you enter, flowers float in space, petals torn from their buds and as you move to the right, they come together as whole, standing tall, together with their community.
Title: Sound Cloud
Client: Anzie Blue
Location: xxx
Dimensions: 8’w x 18’h
Concept: I was inspired to paint a mural that would provide an atmospheric backdrop for local musicians at a small café in Nashville’s Hillsboro Village. Having grown up in Music City, I am in tune with an internal rhythm that was born from the landscape of living with music. It is one that is alive, creative, soulful, energetic, kind, and deep. I wanted to call upon these feelings to make a bold statement that balanced areas of negative space and ribbon-like “chords” in a melodic duet.
Title: Riptide
Client: Lift Partners
Location: 2619 Seventh St, Berkeley, CA 94710
Square Foot: 2300 sq ft
Concept: This is where my mural business began - the first, the foot in the door and to date, the largest mural still in my portfolio. I am forever grateful for Lift Partners for granting me this opportunity to turn a dream into reality. The concept for this mural was to create movement and energy like a riptide. I wanted the viewer to feel the scale and have the composition pull you with its movement, constantly changing as you walk alongside the wall.
Title: Patience
Client: Boston Properties
Location: 20 CityPoint, 480 Totten Pond Road, Waltham, MA 02451
Dimensions: 45’w x 30’h
Concept: I received the inspiration for this mural from a song by the Lumineers, titled Patience. I loved the idea of turning this word into a theme for a mural that was to inhabit the lobby of an office building occupied by an architectural engineering firm. I began by choosing colors from the reflection of the building’s glass facade. I then started weaving bold, sinuous lines throughout the complicated space, making sure each intersection produced another beautiful shape. The composition I produced was tested during installation as the long lines and large curves provided careful construction. The title then became a mantra, testing me along the way. Patience is not only just a virtue but a very effective tool in the production of a mural.
Title: Downtown Plaid, Magnolia Room and Wonderland Botanical
Client: Giarratana for The 505 Nashville
Location: 7th and 8th Floor Amenity Deck restrooms, 505 Church Street, Nashville, TN, 37219
Dimensions: Unspecified
Concept: Custom wall coverings to create a sense of place and style, specific to The 505, a premiere residential skyscraper in downtown Nashville. Each unique wallcovering design was created from original artwork.
