Art Strategies builds bespoke art collections for our clients that align with the mission, vision, and values of each project, place, and space. The Vanderbilt University campus is also a 300-acre arboretum, home to over 6,000 trees and shrubs representing more than 190 plant species.

As part of our program for Kirkland Hall we invited artist Sam Falls to create a pair of site-responsive paintings for the building. This video captures Sam’s time on campus making the paintings outside the building where they now reside.

Time and mortality are the metaphorical undercurrent of his subject matter. Originally working with photography, Falls abandoned the medium-specific tools such as the camera, film, and printing over a decade ago to work more intimately with the conceptual precepts of photography – time, exposure, and representation.

Known for his site-specific, durational works that engage nature as both medium and subject, Falls creates artworks that serve as primary sources of prolonged exposure to the atmosphere and environment, bridging the gap between artistic production and the viewer of the finished piece and carrying the ecology of a place and the history of its experience.

Video produced by Vanderbilt University

Paul Villinski has been creating studio and large-scale artworks for over three decades. A pilot of sailplanes, paragliders, and single-engine airplanes, he often uses metaphors of flight and soaring in his work. He explains, “Much of my work has wings of one sort or another. As an ‘Air Force brat,’ I grew up surrounded by planes and pilots with clouds in their eyes, and eventually got my own license to fly. I can't glance out the window without studying the sky and wishing I were in it. I'm not alone in this: from Leonardo to Lindbergh to Lenny Kravitz, the desire to "fly away" has had a grip on our collective imagination for millennia.”
 
Villinski has also had a lifelong passion for environmental issues. His art often reuses discarded materials, resulting in surprising and poetic transformations. This custom installation for historic Kirkland Hall at Vanderbilt University features different species of birds made from LPs by musicians connected to Nashville. The artist aimed to create a piece that celebrates Nashville’s renowned and storied role in music.
 
Paul’s work with LP records mainly revolves around the ideas and efforts of musical artists sharing their work with the world, spreading influence and inspiration like migrating birds carried by the wind. It’s about how music, and by extension all art, can connect us, comfort us, shape us, and transform us in small and big ways – in ways its creators may never even imagine.

Paul Villinski (American, b. 1960)
Conversation, 2025
Vinyl LP records
Site-specific installation created for Vanderbilt University

Over the last 18 months, Art Strategies curated and installed an art program in Rowling Hall for the University of Texas McCombs School of Business. We worked closely with a small, dynamic curatorial committee under the leadership of Lillian Mills, the school's first female Dean in its 100-year history, and Caitlin Mullaney, the school's Associate Dean and Chief Operating Officer. With a generous gift from Carolyn and Preston (UT '62) Butcher, we installed 71 artworks by 23 local, national, and internationally recognized artists in public spaces and study rooms throughout the building.

Anchoring the collection is a monumental, site-responsive installation commissioned for the five-story atrium. The cloud-like form by artist Jacob Hashimoto is designed to be viewed from all sides, with each perspective offering a unique experience of the 47 foot sculpture made from over 5,000 paper kites. The piece interacts with all the artworks hanging in the building's public spaces by some of the finest artists of the 20th Century, like Ellsworth Kelly, Sol LeWitt, Julian Opie, and Robert Rauschenberg (b. Port Arthur, TX), as well as important artists working today, including Odili Donald Odita and Michalene Thomas. We also brought in art by some of Austin's best and brightest talent to round out the collection.

Friday marked a momentous occasion for Art Strategies as we celebrated the installation of the artist Zheng Lu’s first monumental, public sculpture in the United States. Thank you to Elanco Animal Health, our client and partner in this project, to Sundaram Tagore for representing Zheng Lu and bringing his work to the US, and to the  Arts Council of Indianapolis for promoting public art in Indianapolis through the Public Art For Neighborhoods program. Thank you also to our friends and colleagues from across the city including the Eiteljorgmuseum, Herron Art School, Indiana State Museum, Indianapolis Zoo, Indianapolis Prize, and Newfields for coming out to support us and this incredible artwork. It was a beautiful day in the City of Idianapolis.

Art Strategies served as the curator and project manager for Indiana Humanities in the development of Bookmark Indy. Launched in 2021. See more here and here.

The Public Collection is a public art and literacy project developed by Rachel M. Simon to improve literacy, foster a deeper appreciation of the arts, and raise awareness for educational justice in our community. The Public Collection was developed with support from the Herbert Simon Family Foundation and is managed in partnership with the Central Indiana Community Foundation and Mindy Taylor Ross of Art Strategies LLC. Learn more at http://www.thepubliccollection.org/

Through a curated process, Indiana-based artists were commissioned to design unique book share stations or lending libraries that are installed in public spaces around Indianapolis. Each book share station holds a varied selection of books for diverse audiences and age groups. The Public Collection stations are free and available to everyone. Passersby can borrow and return books at their leisure. Books are supplied and stocked by the Indianapolis Public Library. Rachel M. Simon is an artist, community leader, and investor. A graduate of Herron School of Art and Design, she is a dedicated advocate for the arts, education, and social justice.

One of a series of interviews produced by WFYI with artist Don Gummer on the occasion of the open of his exhibition in public spaces in Indianapolis, Indiana, his hometown. The exhibition was entitled Back Home Again and took place from August 2016 to August 2017 to celebrate the centennial of the Indianapolis Foundation.