In the harsh winter of 1779, as the leader of a flotilla of settlers, John Donelson loaded his family and thirty slaves into a forty-foot flatboat at the present site of Kingsport, Tennessee. Their journey into the wilderness led to the founding of a settlement now known as Nashville-over one thousand river miles away. In the fall of 2016, photographer John Guider retraced the Donelson party's journey in his hand-built fourteen-and-a-half-foot motorless rowing sailboat (named Adventure II after Donelson's boat) while making a visual documentation of the river as it currently exists 240 years later. This photo book contains more than 120 striking images from the course of the journey, allowing the reader to see how much has changed and how much has remained untouched in the two and a half centuries since Donelson first took to the water. Equally significant, the essays include long-ignored contemporary histories of both the Cherokee whom Donelson encountered and the slaves he brought with him, some of whom did not survive the journey. From his platform just a few feet above the waterline, Guider, a professional photographer, created images of the thousand-mile trip along three of Tennessee's most notable rivers.

Before there were guidebooks there were just guides--people in the community you could count on to show you around. I'll Take You There is written by and with the people who most intimately know Nashville, foregrounding the struggles and achievements of people's movements towards social justice. The colloquial use of 'I'll take you there' has long been a response to the call of a stranger: for recommendations of safe passage through unfamiliar territory, a decent meal and place to lay one's head, or perhaps a watering hole or juke joint. In the pages that follow, more than 100 Nashvillians 'take us there,' guiding us to places we might not otherwise encounter. Their collective entries bear witness to the ways that power has been used by social, political, and economic elites to tell or omit certain stories, while celebrating the power of counter-narratives as a tool to resist injustice. Indeed, each entry is simultaneously a story about place, power, and the historic and ongoing struggle toward a more just city for all. We hope the result is akin to the experience of arriving in an unfamiliar place asking directions, and rather than simply getting pointed in the right direction, receiving a warm offer from a local to lead us on, accompanied by a tale or two.

The Sculpture of William Edmondson: Tombstones, Garden Ornaments, and Stonework is the first large-scale museum examination of the artist's career in over twenty years. Organized by Cheekwood Curator of Sculpture, Dr. Marin R. Sullivan, the exhibition draws upon new scholarship and methodologies to contextualize Edmondson's sculpture, both within the histories of Nashville during the Interwar years and the art histories of modern art in the United States. Edmonson has largely been confined to narratives that focus on his artistic discovery by white patrons in the 1930s, his work's formal resonance with so-called primitivism and direct carving techniques, and his place in the traditions of African American ""outsider"" art. This exhibition revisits Edmonson's work within these frameworks, but also seeks to reevaluate his sculpture on its own terms and as part of a comprehensive practice that included the creation of commercial objects rather than strictly fine art. The exhibition's title references the sign that hung on the outside of Edmondson's studio, advertising what was for sale and on view to the public in his yard, including tombstones, birdbaths, and statuary meant to be used and intended for outdoor rather than gallery display. This catalog expands upon the exhibition, including photos of Edmondson's grave markers and his yard art.