Armon Means joins Renaissance Center as curator, teacher

Release Date: 1/9/2007. Expired: 2/9/2007

The Renaissance Center in Dickson announces that Armon Means of Nashville has been named curator for the non-profit fine arts education center.

Means will coordinate the visual arts displays in the center’s multiple gallery spaces, will oversee the center’s permanent art collection and will be teaching new art classes beginning in the Spring semester.

“We are thrilled to add Armon to the faculty at The Renaissance Center,” said Bob Kucher, senior director of Fine Arts. “He brings a wealth of experience in curating shows as well as a prestigious background crafted at some of the best known art institutes in the country.”

Means fills the position left by Curtis Southerland, who took a position teaching in the Dickson County school system after seven years as a teacher and curator at The Renaissance Center.

Means has taught at both the high school and college level, exhibited in group and solo exhibits across the country and served as curator for several galleries.

An Indianapolis native, Means studied photography and sculpture at the Lacoste School of the Arts in France, received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The Cleveland Institute of Art and his Master of Fine Arts in photography from The Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

In addition to photography and sculpture, Means has studied art history, film and video production and medical illustration.

He has taught on the faculties of Bethel College (adjunct professor of Art Appreciation), Belmont University (adjunct professor of Photography), Volunteer State Community College (adjunct professor of Fine Arts), Watkins College of Art and Design (photography instructor), Nashville State Community College (adjunct professor of Photography), The Cleveland Institute of Art (photography instructor) and The Cranbrook/Kingswood School (photography instructor).

Means has curated shows for Volunteer State Community College, Watkins College of Art and Design and Ruby Green Contemporary Art Gallery in Nashville. Additionally he is a freelance event and portrait photographer.

“I would love to see the gallery space at The Renaissance Center step into playing the role of a more contemporary art space,” Means said. “I’d like to challenge people and inform them at the same time with our exhibits.”

Means said he also plans to broaden the scope of exhibits at The Renaissance Center and make it a launching point for other art projects.

“I’d like to establish connections with other galleries and artists in the Nashville area and work on exchanging exhibits, as well as get involved with traveling exhibits,” Means said. “I want to look at ways to expand and change the permanent collection of The Renaissance Center.”

One program Means is interested in starting is an artist-in-residence program at The Renaissance Center, which would bring in professional artists to spend an extended stay at the center teaching classes and creating pieces to be added to the center’s collection.

“There’s nothing like it in the Nashville area,” Means said. “It would be a real draw for people outside of the state.”

Means also plans to start teaching photography classes at The Renaissance Center in the spring semester and hopes to broaden his offerings to include sculpture in the near future as well as “some new things.”

“I would love to get involved in some new programming,” Means said.

Means and his wife Melissa, director of Student and Residence Life at Watkins College of Art and Design, have lived in Nashville for about four years.

Means helped organize a contemporary art display at Ruby Green last year called You Are Here, featuring 16 artists in various mediums. The exhibit was named one of the top 10 shows in Nashville for 2005 by online art critic David Maddox.

Included in the exhibit was a multimedia work by Means that featured a display of photographs from Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis and Perry, Fla., illustrating graffiti and a very different outdoor advertising attitude taken by major companies in urban areas with high minority populations. Along with the photographs was a recording of Means interpreting some of his original poetry.

When he exhibited the same piece in Detroit in 2002, the Metro Times called it “refreshing,” and the critic said, “I can get trapped in it.”

Working with the artists in putting together You Are Here ignited a desire to curate shows for Means.

“It was one of the first shows that got me to thinking that curating might be something I want to get involved in,” Means said.

In addition to photography, Means still enjoys sculpting, drawing and working with the written word.

“I really love language,” he said. “I work with a lot of writings, characters and text.”

Means said he has been writing poetry for about eight years and for four years has been participating in “slam poetry,” a form of performance-based poetry that does not focus on movement or props but places emphasis on the delivery of the text.

When he’s not working or creating, Means enjoys movies and football as a lifelong fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers. He says that he considers himself a Steelers enthusiast, a role that has made living in Tennessee that much more exciting.

“Armon’s talents and experience will bring something totally new not only to The Renaissance Center’s galleries but in the classes he will be teaching as well,” Kucher said.

For more information on gallery exhibits at The Renaissance Center, contact Means at (615) 740-5545 or armon.means@rcenter.org, or visit the center’s website at www.rcenter.org.

The Renaissance Center is a fine arts education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.