'Free the Carousel': Artist rallies to resurrect the old Red Grooms riverfront ride

A local artist is whipping up support to revive the popular riverfront carousel created by internationally renowned artist — and Nashville native — Red Grooms.

"It’s a jewel of Nashville that’s been sitting in a drawer all these years. It’s time to put up or bury the thing," said artist Myles Maillie, 66, who went to school at Hillsboro High a decade or so after Grooms graduated.

"It has been 15 years. Do you wait 30? 45? Come on, guys!"

Grooms' Tennessee Fox Trot Carousel — which whirled on Riverfront Park in the late 1990s — featured large caricature figures from Tennessee's history.

Grooms, 80, gained fame in the 1960s and '70s with big, colorful, often cartoon-like pieces that mixed painting and sculpture. After Hillsboro High School, he went to art school in Chicago before going to Nashville's Peabody College, now part of Vanderbilt University. He has lived most of his life in New York City.

Grooms returned to Nashville Nov. 27, 1998, for the grand opening of his carousel at Riverfront Park. He was joined by then Nashville Mayor Phil Bredesen and U.S. Senator Bill Frist in an event that garnered national attention.

The carousel lasted only a few years. The city shut it down and turned it over to the Tennessee State Museum after ridership fell off, and it started to fall into disrepair. The carousel has been in pieces in storage since the early 2000s.

Maillie is planning a Free the Red Grooms Carousel Art March for 1:30 p.m. April 8 in front of the downtown Nashville Public Library. He designed "Free the Carousel" T-shirts for marchers to wear.

"Red Grooms put his heart and soul into this piece, and for it to be sitting there for 15 years?" Maillie said. "Should we just stop talking about it, act like it’s died? Or bring it out?"

Though the march has the feel of a protest, Tennessee State Museum leaders are on the same side as Maillie.

The museum — which plans to open its new facility next to Nashville Farmers Market in the fall — also wants to see the carousel spinning again.

That could happen in the next three years or so, executive director Ashley Howell said in an interview this week.

The major obstacle: money.

The museum has the $100,000 or so it needs to restore the carousel, a process that could take three years.

But Howell said it could take another $1 million to secure land and a structure needed to operate and house it in a way that would preserve the valuable artwork.

Howell plans to ask the museum's commission at its April meeting to form a study committee to start looking at options for reviving the ride.

Maillie said he doesn't think it's up to the museum to raise the money: He's hoping some wealthy art supporters will be moved to donate the cash.

And he's hoping his march — and his "Free the Carousel" T-shirts and posters — will raise the awareness needed to attract the attention of such donors.

So far, his efforts have attracted several hundred people to the Facebook page, including many of Maillie's longtime friends, and some contributors to the original carousel.

"It seems to be such a waste that this treasure sits in a warehouse run by the Tennessee State Museum. I would love to see it have a permanent home," said Joe Hendrick, who retired as a buyer from H.G. Hill Stores, which contributed money for the creation of the carousel in the '90s.

Regardless of what happens with the carousel, the state museum plans a Grooms exhibit when the museum's new home opens in the fall, Howell said.

Reach Brad Schmitt at brad@tennessean.com or 615-259-8384 or on Twitter @bradschmitt.