Artville is Back! Meet Nashville Artist Keavy Murphree
Step into Keavy Murphree’s world at Artville, where clay, color, and creativity collide in a playful installation you won’t forget. Image: Anna Haas
Some artists find their calling right away; others take the scenic route (with a few costume designs, iPad cases, and production gigs along the way). For Nashville ceramicist Keavy Murphree, clay was always waiting in the wings, ready to spin back into the spotlight. Now, with her latest installation debuting at Artville, she’s inviting us to play with color, form, and community.
What inspired your career in the art world?
I grew up in a small town north of Chicago, where opportunities for the arts were somewhat limited. But my parents always said “yes” whenever I asked to sign up for a creative summer camp or workshop. As I got older, I would take the train into the city with a friend and walk from Union Station to the Art Institute.
Some of my clearest memories are visiting inspiring sculpture gardens, notably Foundation Maeght in Saint Paul de Vence, France, where I saw the sculptural work of Picasso and Miro for the first time. Seeing their styles interpreted in large-scale marble and ceramics was so exciting.
My love of ceramics began in high school. The connection I felt with the medium was immediate and still feels conversational today. While I knew I wanted to pursue something creative in college, I chose industrial design, a more “practical” route that felt safer in terms of career opportunities. In hindsight, it’s almost funny I didn’t follow my deep love of ceramics and fine art from the start!
My professional life took me in several directions: I worked as a production manager for a small accessories company in New York, as a costume designer in Florida, and later as an industrial designer working on iPad cases, here in Nashville, when the product was first released. Yet at every step, ceramics remained in the back of my mind.
Once my career shifted into freelance design work, I finally had the time and space to revisit clay. In 2016, I enrolled in a ceramics class through Metro Parks, and it couldn’t have been a better fit. It was the perfect way to reconnect with the medium and refine my skills.
Nashville is your home and creative base. How does the city influence your artistic process?
Nashville has been such an important part of my growth as an artist. The creative community here feels approachable and genuinely supportive. It’s not just about networking or opportunities, but about people showing up for one another, sharing knowledge, and celebrating each other’s successes. Shout out to everyone who took my call with questions about these Artville pieces!
Tell us about Artville!
Artville is a city-wide public visual arts festival happening September 26 through 28. The festival is free to attend and a great way to celebrate Nashville’s strong and growing visual arts community. I am so excited about this year’s project! The installation, Spin Your Story, explores identity, participation, and transformation through play and interaction. Each tower will have stacked, stylized body components that viewers can spin and rearrange to create new figures.
The work is partly inspired by Carl Jung’s theories of archetypes and individuation, inviting personal reflection and communal co-creation. Both sides of each component will feature vibrant colors, textures, and patterns, resulting in countless visual combinations. This idea of interchangeability, along with the body-inspired forms, is something I’ve wanted to explore for a long time.
I hope people first engage with the towers in a playful, tactile way, mixing and matching pieces like a puzzle. Then, as they step back, they may see themselves, their loved ones, pairings that are meaningful to them, or entirely new characters reflected in the forms they’ve created.
To me, this mirrors my own creative process, which is intuitive and exploratory at its best. I’m excited to share that creative experience and connect with the audience through this work.
Artville has awarded over $320,000 to artists over the past two years. What does being selected as a recipient this year mean to you?
It’s an incredible honor and truly feels like the culmination of years of hard work, laying the foundation to take on projects of this scale. I’ve always loved working in ceramics and feel a deep connection to the medium, but it does have some limitations when it comes to scale. Artville has pushed me out of my comfort zone, encouraging me to explore new creative mediums and tackle the technical challenges of working on a much larger scale.
More broadly, I think what Artville is trying to achieve is much needed for Nashville. Creating a free city-wide art festival focused on public art and interactivity with the community is an important mission for our city. I know the artists selected feel as excited as I do about the opportunity to showcase work to such a large audience.
What makes it even more meaningful is that it’s happening in the city I love and call home. The outdoor venue in Walk of Fame Park provides such a dynamic backdrop, and I’m thrilled that both Nashville natives and downtown visitors will have the chance to experience the festival.
While I have little experience working at this scale, I finally feel ready for it, and that’s been an exciting realization. I don’t think I would have had the confidence even a year ago. Now, I can see how my seemingly disparate experiences come together in these two works. The grant has given me the time, resources, and opportunity to push myself creatively, and I couldn’t be more grateful or excited.
What would most people be surprised to learn about you?
After spending my younger years traveling a lot, going out, and probably having a little too much fun, I am a huge homebody these days. I enjoy traveling and love to see new places and do new things, but I am ready to go home after about two nights, max!
What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
Years ago, my husband and I signed up for a 5K. I felt completely unprepared and turned to Facebook for last-minute training tips. An acquaintance replied simply, “The faster you run, the faster it’s over.”
It became my mantra that day and has stuck with me ever since. To me, it’s a reminder that while you can’t always control the circumstances, you can control how you move through them. As someone prone to overthinking and perfectionism, this perspective has been a game-changer.
It has also become invaluable motivation for tackling unpleasant but unavoidable tasks: just get them done, and then move on to the next thing.
Outside of faith, family, and friends, what three things can’t you live without?
Diamond Dots craft kits are my latest obsession. I bought a couple for my kids, and now I can’t stop. And my bed (literally my favorite place) and audiobooks.
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Jenna von Oy Bratcher
Jenna von Oy Bratcher is StyleBlueprint's Associate Editor and Lead Nashville Writer. The East Coast native moved to Nashville almost two decades years ago, by way of Los Angeles. She is a lover of dogs, strong coffee, traveling, and exploring the local restaurant scene bite by bite.