"Good Eats!"

Let's Eat! = Let's Eat! is a 16-foot-tall cooking whisk that lives on 21st Avenue and Broadway in Nashville, Tennessee. It is a bicycle rack made by Wayne Henderson and it is a piece apart of a larger collection. This collection consists of 21 completely distinct art bicycle racks that are situated throughout Nashville and surrounding towns. Despite the fact that Let's Eat! is a piece of functional art, it is often left alone with no bicycles stored in it, speaking to the idea on whether functional art can be deemed more art or more utility.

Background

The title Let's Eat! and idea of a whisk is in reference to the fact that there are many restaurants all along the street and the vicinity where the whisk is located. This whisk is right outside Vanderbilt University's campus, often seeing students pass by. It is across the street from the Kimpton Aertson Hotel with restaurants such as Ichigo Ichie, Henley, and Torchy's Tacos in the surrounding area. This large sculpture is made of stainless steel and concrete, with a powder coating. The metal was sourced from the fabricator Bellex of Nolensville. It was made in 2015 by Memphis, Tennessean Wayne Henderson, and it serves as a bicycle rack to the public. Let's Eat! is owned by the city of Nashville and Davidson County, but it was designed to be used by anyone. In front of the sculpture, there is a plaque that lists the title, artist, year it was created, and suggests to the viewer to visit publicart.nashville.gov for more information on this sculpture. Let's Eat! was created as a part of an art installation of 21 unique bicycle racks around Nashville.

File:"Good Eats!" bicycle rack whisk plaque.jpg

Plaque in front of the "Let's Eat!" bicycle rack in Nashville, Tennessee

Bike Racks around Nashville

In 2010, seven bicycle racks were installed in various parts of downtown Nashville and nearby neighborhoods. These bicycle racks are still there today, a part of a series of Artist-Designed Bike Racks that are all located in and around Nashville. This series is a part of the Metropolitan Nashville Arts' public-art collection. According to Metro Arts Nashville, "The racks promote our city’s green and healthy living initiatives while providing a fun opportunity to experience art around your neighborhood." There are 21 bicycle racks in total installed between 2010-2015: seven installed in 2010, ten installed in 2013-2014, and finally four installed in 2015.

Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission accepted applications for different bicycle rack designs that would later be selected and produced. Each artist was given a budget of $3,500 for their project and did not have to have any prior experience with creating public art. This budget covered the cost of the design fee, any possible project-related travel, and a consultation with Metro Arts. These bicycle racks are all unique and all represent or reference something different. An example of another art bicycle rack in the series is the Handlebar Moustache by Jenna Colt, which is a large handlebar mustache located on the corner of Porter Road and Eastland Avenue. Another popular art bicycle rack is Microphone by Franne Lee, Keith Harmon, and Mac Hill, which is a vintage-style microphone where the cord attached to the microphone itself coils outward and those coils serve as the loops to store the bicycles. Microphone is located on the Northeast corner of Demonbruen Street and Music Row and it was even selected by the Americans for the Arts 2011 Public Art Network Year in Review.

Functional Art

Let's Eat!, along with every other bicycle rack within the public-art collection, serves as functional art. Initially, they are detailed structures; however, they also serve a function, holding bicycles. According to Art in Context, functional art refers to "art objects that are created with both aesthetics and utility in mind." Some examples are an opulent chandelier, a decorative grandfather clock, or a ceramic vase. All of these items are aesthetically pleasing, but they also serve a purpose. Functional art is very common as house décor and it has been produced throughout history.

It is very common to see functional art pieces such as temples or pots in early Greek architecture, throughout the early Archaic period (before ca. 550 B.C.). For example, the Parthenon is a very architecturally beautiful piece of work, but it also serves a functional purpose, a place of worship for the goddess Athena. However, one difference that the Parthenon has to these bicycle racks, despite the obvious physical differences, is that these bicycle racks are often left alone and not used for their intended utilitarian purpose. The Parthenon is still used as a site to worship the goddess Athena; however, even though the sculptures were designed to be used as bicycle racks, there are rarely ever bikes parked in them. This clearly stems from the idea that since these artistic bicycle racks do not actually look like normal bicycle racks, then people don't use them as such. It is probably true that if one person consistently parked their bike in Let's Eat! sculpture, then people would begin parking their bikes there; however, a lack of awareness leads to a lack of action.

References

This article ""Good Eats!"" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:"Good Eats!". Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

---