A stunning new art installation spanning nearly 180 feet has been unveiled at Nashville International Airport, transforming thousands of music festival wristbands into a tribute to Tennessee's rich craft heritage. The installation, titled "Twine With My Mingles," is located in the newly opened Concourse D extension and represents one of three major artworks created for the airport's Arts at the Airport program.
The massive piece, standing 8 feet tall and stretching along the entire wall above a moving walkway, was created by New Hat, a Nashville-based creative studio founded by artists Elizabeth Williams and David Meaney. The installation took a full year to complete from initial concept to final installation, requiring an extraordinary collaborative effort that involved 24 paid weavers who contributed over 1,250 hours of weaving work.
The artwork is constructed entirely from Tyvek wristbands - the same type typically distributed at music festivals and designed to last only a weekend. However, New Hat has transformed these temporary materials into a permanent display by applying multiple layers of epoxy to preserve and protect the woven bands. The installation incorporates eight standard wristband colors plus three custom colors developed specifically for the project: a muted peach, light pink, and pale green, along with an accidental screaming orange that resulted when a coral red turned neon during the sealing process.
"Color is joy," Williams explains, describing New Hat's fundamental philosophy. "That's just a part of everything we do." The studio draws inspiration from craft history and art history as cornerstones of their visual language, leading them to focus on rural Southern crafts to represent not just Nashville but all of Tennessee. The installation features traditional coverlet patterns including Cat Tracks and Snail Trails, Queen Anne's Lace, and Dolly Pratt - designs that have been passed down through generations of Tennessee families.
The project's title pays homage to folk tradition and the evolution of cultural expression. "Twine with my mingles" references lyrics from "Wildwood Flower," a Carter Family cover of an Old English song. Williams explains that the original lyric was "I'll twine mid the ringlets of my raven-black hair," but the rural singers interpreted it as "I'll twine with my mingles instead of ringlets." This linguistic evolution perfectly captured what Williams calls "a really very Tennessee thing."
The artists drew inspiration from a 1970s Tennessee Craft Guild project documented in a book called "Of Coverlets." Similar to Alan Lomax's folk music collection efforts, guild members traveled across Tennessee to collect specimens of old coverlets, documenting their provenance, weavers, county origins, and family histories. In the 18th and 19th centuries, generations of families too poor to afford store-bought bed covers would reimagine and adapt these coverlet patterns, creating a rich tradition of folk craft innovation.
The installation's construction presented unique technical challenges. Rather than using traditional two-color loom-style weaving with just warp and weft threads, New Hat incorporated up to four colors in some designs through meticulous over-weaving techniques. "I hope a weaver walks down here and thinks, 'That doesn't make any sense,'" Williams says. Meaney adds with a laugh, "Surely they didn't do this. Yes, we did."
The artwork is seamlessly integrated into the airport's architecture, appearing as one continuous piece despite being composed of 77 individual boxes. The hallway's five columns could have disrupted the flow, but New Hat chose intentional fragmentation, with some boxes protruding more than others to create an undulating effect that mimics fabric movement while maintaining the installation's structural integrity.
According to a conservative estimate shared on New Hat's Instagram account, the project required more than 160 hours of planning in collaboration with Jonathan Malphrus of Steric Design, plus materials equivalent to approximately 100,000 wristbands. Williams emphasizes the collaborative nature of the work, noting that "a quilting circle is a quilting circle for a reason - because it's a huge feat that takes lots of people to do. We didn't know how much help we would need, and how dedicated the people who were helping us would become."
The installation represents New Hat's largest project to date and involved developing entirely new concepts and processes. For the studio, the piece embodies Southern hospitality and serves as a welcoming statement to visitors arriving in Tennessee. "The coverlet was maybe the nicest thing in the room," Williams reflects about those historical rural Tennessee family homes. "We wanted this to be Southern hospitality, a statement of: Welcome to our home. We're putting out our finest china for you."
When the proposed plaque is eventually installed, its final line will encapsulate the project's mission: "We aim to take what's old, make it new, and keep it true." The installation stands as a brilliant example of how contemporary artists can honor traditional craft heritage while creating something entirely new, transforming the ephemeral materials of modern music culture into a lasting celebration of Tennessee's artistic legacy.
