Award-winning film celebrating the life of Tennessee Native, Puppeteer and Artist to be preceded by a fun art-making event with artist and White collaborator Mike Quinn
Independent Television Service (ITVS), Nashville Public Television (NPT) and the Nashville Public Library bring director Neil Berkeley’s award-winning documentary “Beauty is Embarrassing,’ a film focusing on the life of renowned puppeteer and artist Wayne White, to Community Cinema at the downtown Nashville Public Library on Saturday, December 15. The free film screening will be preceded by a catered reception and fun art-making exercise with Webb School art professor and longtime friend of White, Mike Quinn. The film screening will be followed by a Q & A with Quinn and Brian Griffin, writer, educator and former MTSU roommate of White, who claims White still owes him a six-pack for eating all of Griffin’s grandmother’s blackberry jam in 1978 in a munchies-fueled episode. The Q&A is certain to be an event. Quinn and Griffin both appear in the film.
The reception and art-making event will start at 2:00 p.m., followed by the screening and Q&A. The entire afternoon is free and open to the public.
Winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 2012 Nashville Film Festival, “Beauty Is Embarrassing” is a funny, irreverent, joyful and inspiring documentary featuring the life and current times of one of America’s most important artists. Raised in the mountains of Tennessee, White started his career as a cartoonist in New York City and then as a set designer and puppeteer on the NPT (then WDCN) show “Mrs. Cabobble’s Caboose” with Quinn, Alison Mork and host Fran Powell. He then quickly found success as one of the creative forces behind “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” which led to more work designing some of the most arresting and iconic images in pop culture. Most recently, his word paintings, which feature pithy and often sarcastic text statements crafted onto vintage landscape paintings, have made him a darling of the fine art world.
“Beauty Is Embarrassing” chronicles the vaulted highs and the crushing lows of a commercial artist struggling to find peace and balance between his work and his art. Acting as his own narrator, Wayne guides us through his life using moments from his latest creation: a hilarious, biographical one-man show. The pieces are drawn from performances at venues in Tennessee, New York and Los Angeles including the famous Roseland Ballroom and the Largo Theater. At its core, “Beauty Is Embarrassing” is a reminder that we should all follow our passion. It is those creative impulses that will lead us to where we need to go.
Quinn met White in a drawing class at MTSU in the late 70’s. “I’m pretty sure he got an ‘A,’ but I only got a ‘C’,“ says Quinn. “We partied hard back then and had fun performing gonzo-Dada puppet shows.“
After college Wayne asked Quinn to help out with “Mrs. Cabobble’s Caboose,” a music education show for first and second graders. He made the P.T. Pickens costume to Wayne’s specifications and “danced around TV with Fran and the puppet gang; for 16 years or more in some states!” he says. In 1987, Wayne went back to New York to work on “Pee Wee’s Playhouse,” and Quinn designed and built the set and puppets for Powell’s sequel for third and fourth graders, “Music Funfactory,” for which he won an Emmy.
“A few of years ago Wayne showed up to do a puppet building workshop with my students at the Webb School in Bell Buckle,” recalls Quinn. “He had Neil Berkeley and Chris Bradley following him around with cameras and microphones. It turns out our crazy college puppet stuff was a bigger deal than I thought, and somehow was an influence on Wayne’s now cinematic career. Those few days ended up as a small part of ‘Beauty is Embarrassing,’ and now I find myself falling through yet another door Wayne has opened while yelling, “Hey, get on in here…this is fun!”
Griffin is writer and educator living in Knoxville, who has taught creative writing at the University of Tennessee, Webb School of Knoxville, the University of Virginia, and other places. An award-winning fiction writer and poet with an MFA in Creative Writing from the UVA, he and Wayne and grew up in Hixson, Tennessee, where their fathers worked at Dupont nylon factory. They attended MTSU together and were roommates.
“We’re bosom pals,” says Griffin. “I spent several weeks with Wayne last summer helping with his “Big Lick Boom” installation at the Taubman Museum in Virginia. It was great to see him again and learn that he hasn’t changed one bit from our college days.”
ITVS Community Cinema Nashville, coordinated by Allison Inman, began in 2008 and has steadily built to an audience ranging from 70-200 per screening, with dozens of community partners contributing each month to reception activities and panel discussions. The monthly screening series features upcoming selections from the Independent Lens season, which airs locally on Nashville Public Television. Over 90 cities across the country participate in the Community Cinema program, making a real contribution on a range of current social issues by connecting communities with organizations, information, and the opportunity to get involved.
The remainder of the 2012-2013 slate of films is below. Films begin at 3:00 p.m. and are preceded by a reception at 2:30 p.m., at the downtown main branch of the Nashville Public Library unless also otherwise noted.
The series is presented by the Independent Television Service (ITVS), Nashville Public Television and the Nashville Public Library, with partners Nashville Film Festival and Hands on Nashville.
JANUARY 19, 2013
Soul Food Junkies
by Byron Hurt
Soul food lies at the heart of African American cultural identity. The black community’s love affair with soul food is deep-rooted, complex, and in some cases, deadly. Soul Food Junkies puts this culinary tradition under the microscope to examine both its significance and its consequences.
FEBRUARY 16, 2013
The Powerbroker
by Bonnie Boswell
Whitney M. Young, Jr. was one of the most celebrated and controversial leaders of the civil rights era. As executive director of the National Urban League, he took the struggle for equality directly to the powerful white elite, gaining allies in business and government, including three presidents.
MARCH 16, 2013
Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines
by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan
Trace the fascinating evolution and legacy of the original comic book Amazon, Wonder Woman. From her creation in the 1940s to the superhero blockbusters of today, pop culture’s representations of powerful women often reflect society’s anxieties about women’s liberation.
APRIL 20, 2013 (Presented at the Nashville Film Festival, Regal Green Hills Stadium 16)
The Island President
by Jon Shenk, Bonni Cohen and Richard Berge
Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed is confronting a problem greater than any world leader has ever faced — the literal survival of his country and everyone in it. His is the most low-lying country in the world; a minor rise in sea level would literally erase it from the map.
MAY 18, 2013
The Revolutionary Optimists
by Nicole Newnham and Maren Grainger-Monsen
Amlan Ganguly teaches the children of Kolkata’s slums to become leaders in improving their own community’s health and sanitation. Using street theater, dance, and data as their weapons, the children have cut malaria and diarrhea rates in half, increased polio vaccination rates, and turned garbage dumps into playing fields.
JUNE 15, 2013
Love Free or Die
by Macky Alston
Love Free or Die is about a man who has two defining passions that the world cannot reconcile: his love for God and for his partner Mark. The film is about church and state, love and marriage, faith and identity — and openly gay Bishop Eugene Robinson’s struggle to dispel the notion that God’s love has limits.
