Rose Littrell Sculpture Exhibit

Release Date: 2/10/2000. Expired: 3/25/2000

Rose Littrell’s art doesn’t hang from walls; it hangs from ceilings. It doesn’t sit on easels; it sits at the bar.

At least that’s where you can find a few of her pieces.

The Tennessee City resident is gaining national recognition for her papier-mâché sculptures which can be found everywhere from amusement parks and saloons to F.A.O. Schwartz and television stars’ homes.

Littrell’s work will be on display March 3-25, 2000 in the Visual Arts Gallery at The Renaissance Center in Dickson.

In addition, Littrell will conduct two papier-mâché workshops at The Renaissance Center, which have already reached capacity.

“The size of her work is what’s so eye-catching,” said Curtis Southerland, gallery coordinator at The Renaissance Center. Littrell is the first strictly sculpture exhibit at the center’s gallery and will feature a life-size Pegasus outside the gallery, one of Littrell’s newest pieces.

Littrell’s work can be found in the Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville where her horse sculptures race across the ceiling, sit casually at the bar or show the signs of one drink too many, legs sprawled out and cowboy hat slightly askew.

A steer she made went all the way to San Antonio to become a fixture at Fiesta, Texas, while before it closed a Littrell sculpture welcomed riders to the Hangman at Opryland in Nashville.

Other pieces include a 10-foot rocking horse at the Mall of America, the nation’s largest shopping mall, and a piece sold to television actress Kirstie Alley, former star of Cheers and currently starring in Veronica’s Closet.

Most recently, Littrell completed a sculpture of Daren, the mascot for the DARE program, which was presented to the program during a recent DARE graduation at Dickson Elementary School.

A Franklin native who now resides with her family and sculpture menagerie on a farm on CCC Road in west Dickson County, Littrell has developed her own style with no formal training, taking pieces of what she learned in an early career in theatrical set design.

“I’ve just kind of added to or taken away from the things I’ve done to develop my own style,” Littrell said.

Southerland said Littrell even did some set design work for The Renaissance Center’s production of “A Christmas Carol.”

From the clay animal figures and paintings she did as a child, Littrell progressed to larger-than-life-size figures, each of which displays a unique personality.

“I really like animals,” Littrell said. “To me they have as much expression in their faces as people do... I love animals and I study their faces.”

Southerland said it is almost misleading to classify Littrell as strictly a papier-mâché artist, because her work is much more involved.

“Rose tends to be stereotyped as a papier-mâché artist, but it tends to just be the foundation for the fiberglass,” Southerland said.

After drawing out her sculpture on paper or cardboard, Littrell uses what she learned in set designs to create her pieces. She welds together a steel frame that can withstand up to 300 pounds, meaning her pieces at the Wildhorse Saloon are tourist friendly to climb on for a picture.

Styrofoam is then used to fill in over the steel skeleton and this body is covered with papier-mâché, usually using brown paper for its sturdiness. The sculpture then is coated in fiberglass and synthetic adhesive, such as Bondo. Littrell then has to cover herself in protective gear to sand the surface, protecting her eyes, face and lungs from the tiny shards.

After all the heavy stuff gives the sculpture its shape, Littrell’s work then takes in many different treatments that start to give each piece its personality. For an 8-foot bear playing hockey, Littrell used burlap to make shin guards and obtained fierce-looking teeth from a taxidermist to give the hockey mascot its bite.

After hand-sanding in the little details, Littrell finishes off with a primer coat and then the final paint that brings the sculptures to life.

But not all Littrell’s sculptures are animals; she also has done the Christmas figures for Opryland Hotel and her grandmother washing clothes in an old-fashioned tub turned the heads of a few drivers going down CCC Road. She even created a life-size cigar-store Indian, which was the centerpiece of the first Creative Arts Forum show in 1995 at Peoples Bank.

And not everything she has done has been on such a grand scale. Littrell made some pieces for the Minnie Pearl Museum several years ago and said the people she created were only an inch and a quarter tall.

She jokingly claims, “My eyes were getting worse” as the reason she began working on life-size sculptures.

She recently showed some of her pieces at the Antiques and Garden Show in Nashville and was featured in the February issue of N.Focus magazine.

Littrell also will be the featured artist in the 3rd annual Quebecor Art Exhibit April 16-22 at the plant on Old Columbia Road in the William D. Field Industrial Park. The exhibit will feature works by students from The Renaissance Center and Quebecor employees in the plant lobby and will be judged by qualified jurors, Southerland said. Award ribbons will be given in several categories.

The Visual Arts Gallery of The Renaissance Center is open 8 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Admission is free.

For more information, contact Curtis Southerland at (615)740-5519.

Visit the Visual Arts Gallery page for more about the gallery.

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