| Take a peek inside the Antiques & Garden Show
It may not feel like it outside, but spring has sprung at the Nashville Convention Center, host to the 17th Annual Antiques and Garden Show of Nashville through Sunday. The show features six elaborate gardens, created by Nashvilles leading landscape designers. In keeping with this years show theme, "Masterpiece, each garden is inspired by a famous painting from Sandro Botticellis 15th century Primavera to Grant Woods 1930 American Gothic. .
A 'belle' in bronze
The small, empty bamboo chair was found at an antique shop and sat around for months while Savannah sculpture artist Susie Chisholm awaited inspiration. "I wanted to put someone in that chair. I just didn't know who," Chisholm said. Then it came to her: "My Aunt Polly, she's the embodiment of all that is a Southern Belle." Aunt Polly is Polly Brooks, 92, a resident of Isle of Hope and the inspiration for Chisholm's sculpture of a gentile woman sitting in the chair. The sculptor wanted the subject to look as if she had just come from her garden, so she had Brooks pose for her several times with a gardening hat and flowers in her lap. "She is the figure of true Southern times that are leaving us," Chisholm said. Satisfied with the pose, she took photos of her and came back to her studio in City Market to go to work.
Firefighters' windfall comes with a catch
When the fire department in the tiny Berkshire hamlet of Cheshire needed a new fire truck, it asked Uncle Sam for a little help. The response last month was stunning: a $665,962 homeland security grant. The award was nearly 26 times the annual budget of the volunteer fire department in the town of 3,500. And the rub: The department is not allowed to spend it on a fire truck. Instead, the town won a grant to fortify the ranks of its volunteer brigade. Its selectmen plan to huddle later this month to hash out a spending plan. Asked how the money will be spent, Cheshire Fire Chief George Sweet cryptically replied yesterday: "Rome wasn't built in a day." Sweet said he couldn't say much more about the windfall. Indeed, Cheshire's officialdom is a nervous wreck over it and is reviewing federal grant guidelines.
At local antiques show, everything old is new again :
Annapolis is a city steeped in history, but this weekend the scope expanded beyond the state capital to the world with a cornucopia of rare and artful antiques. Everything from medieval European manuscripts to 18th- and 19th-century French and English barometers are for sale at the annual Historic Annapolis Antiques Show.
"It's a great location," said dealer Philip Dubey of Baltimore. "Annapolis has got such history. It's a perfect place to (show) stuff off."
The three-day event, which also includes plenty of unique furniture and art, concludes late this afternoon at Medford National Guard Armory. One of the show's 32 dealers hails from England and two are from Annapolis. The rest are from other parts of the country.
"We like it here, it's very intimate," said Tom Dawson of Dawson Gallery in Annapolis, who has been a dealer at the show for about 17 of its 37 years.
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