Irene Ritter | A Revelation in Stone

To sculpt shapeless stone into objects of beauty….To create riddles and jokes with the viewers of her work.

When asked about his sculpting technique, Michelangelo famously quipped, “I saw the angel in the marble and I set him free.” This insight into the sculptor’s task defines the work of the stone carver. The painter or draughtsman projects imaginative flights onto a blank canvas or paper. A stone carver must see the potential of her finished project in the raw—find form inert in something formless.

Nashville sculptor Irene Ritter has always been the kind of person to look beneath the surface. Her ability to find unique possibilities in seemingly bleak circumstances characterized her work long before she picked up a chisel and hammer. Irene employed these skills as a problem solver when she first came to Nashville as editor of Nashville Magazine and later when she began her career as deputy mayor of the Music City. Most importantly, Irene began to examine her own life and recognize that she had unrealized creativity and potential. Embarking on what she calls her “third life” in her fifties, Irene became a stone carver. A grandmother of five, she is excited and enthusiastic about a career that is still in its nascency.

Irene graciously invited Nashville Arts Magazine to her Green Hills cottage on three different occasions. These visits allowed us to see the artist flourish in different social settings and open up on a private, quiet summer morning. These glimpses into her life allowed us to recognize Irene Ritter as more than an artist; they demonstrated that she is a catalyst for the arts, an avid supporter of her peers and her community.

The setting for these encounters is the place where Irene lives and works. A petite cottage set in an idyllic patch of trees and flowers, the sculptor’s home is a ready example of her insight and vision as an artist and a human being.

“I liked to scribble, liked to draw. I had a visceral need to be around art.”

Irene says that when she first laid eyes on her home, “It was the wallflower of the world, but I could see what it was going to be.” Like Michelangelo and his legendary angel, Irene set to work on revealing the potential for this humble locale. With no experience in architecture or landscape design, she modified the house plans, designed her pool, planned gardens, and arrived at a space that inspires her to this day.

The daughter of a M.A.S.H. surgeon, Irene grew up on a farm in Missouri while her father was deployed in WWII. One of four siblings, she describes herself as a “Pippi Longstocking” throughout her childhood, spending long days exploring the farm or traveling with her sister Martha and cousins on the rodeo circuit. Irene claims she had the “best childhood ever,” and she does not seem to have lost any of the adventure, confidence, or curiosity that it inspired.

Irene’s personality is sparkling. Her laugh is mischievous. There is always a twinkle in her eyes. She speaks frankly, smiles often. Pippi Longstocking is still among us.

Her career and work are defined by her ability to see potential in unlikely sources and her knack for finding humor in the unexpected. To sculpt shapeless stone into objects of beauty, she possesses a transformative insight in her imagination. To create riddles and jokes with the viewers of her work, Irene peers through social masks, sees through some of the ironies of life. She goes one step further then envisioning figures in stone—she finds something warm, humorous, and altogether human in cold rock.

In the 1960s, Irene began college as an art major. She had always been artistic. “I liked to scribble, liked to draw. I had a visceral need to be around art.” Unfortunately, after a short time at university, Irene’s academic advisor urged her to leave her study of the discipline. She had A’s in other subjects and was barely scraping by in her art classes. Young and impressionable, she followed his advice. As a teenager, she put away her paintbrushes and pencils. She did not pick them up again for nearly 40 years.

Irene moved to Nashville from Cincinnati to become editor of Nashville Magazine. She decided to make visual art a focus of the publication. Amazed at the numerous factions that she observed in Nashville’s art world, Irene began exploring avenues to bring local artists together. Even before she became a contributing artist herself, Irene’s work impacted the Nashville arts community.

After leaving the magazine and acting as deputy mayor of Nashville, Irene began to feel the call of art once more. She announced that for her fifty-fifth birthday, she wanted to be a stone carver. Classes at Arrowmont followed, and soon Irene discovered that she had an innate talent for reductive stone carving. It became her new love.

A social butterfly by nature, Irene shared her work with her friends. They urged her to exhibit, but she hesitated. “This was the first career phase that was about me.” It was difficult to show and sell such personal work. “I finally got over the fact that I didn’t want to sell anything,” she relates. At her first opening, Irene sold nearly every piece and still holds a gallery record for that achievement.

In her late fifties, a time when most people consider retirement, Irene Ritter had launched an exciting new career. “I basically carve to make myself happy. If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t do it,” she says with a smile. Her love shows in her work. The pensive, internal Rock Bottom perches on a stand near her front door. It is worn smooth and slightly discolored from the number of people who walk inside and instinctively reach out to touch it.

Works such as Hidden Agenda and Image Maker reveal her insight into human character and her sense of humor about art. Hidden Agenda features a sexualized female nude wearing a unicorn’s mask of innocence. Image Maker consists of a hollow mold that could be used to create cookie-cutter-style businessmen on demand. In sculptures such as War and Peace Irene explores powerful iconic imagery that achieves mythic status. Her works possess a formal and spiritual unity. They are essential, geometric, mysterious, and superficially smooth and delicate. The eye of the viewer, like that of the artist, must peer through many layers to see their meaning.

A description of Irene Ritter that focused on her work alone would be incomplete, for part of her gift as an artist is her gift with people. She promotes the arts and celebrates the work of her peers.

Irene recently hosted an event to honor the hard work of Vanderbilt nurses. Inspired by artist Henry Isaac’s desire to honor the memory of his late wife, Vanderbilt treats a handful of nurses to a day of plein-air painting classes with Isaacs in an outdoor setting. Having been transformed into a beautiful outdoor retreat, Irene’s gardens were filled with nurses quietly enjoying oil painting on a rare peaceful morning. Irene delighted in this opportunity to share art and recognize the hard work of others.

“I basically carve to make myself happy. If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t do it.”

The following day, she and her daughter Tory Fitzgibbon hosted an outdoor art show around her pool and in her home for Nashville artist Greg Decker. Lacking competitive spirit, she promoted Decker and other artists whose work decorates her home.

A scintillating personality and a spirit of giving make Irene Ritter a woman who stands out in a crowd. Laughing, chatting, dancing, she radiates the same warmth and personality that she pours into her work. Speaking of sculpture, she exclaims, “I feel like it’s what I was always meant to do. I feel incredulous that I have this talent at this time in my life, and I’m not tired of it. I get goose pimples talking about it.”

by Bernadette Rymes