Gallery 202

Yesterday, I experienced one of the most profound aesthetic moments of my life—one woven through with striking dichotomies—while visiting Gallery 202 in downtown Franklin, Tennessee.

Walking up the front path, I was immediately caught by the harmony of Clouston House, where the gallery resides. Its symmetrical Federal façade, poised in classical proportion and restraint, whispered of reason, logic, and balance. Yet, stepping through the carved wooden doors was like being swept into an embrace—warmth, vibrancy, and creative brilliance spilling into the air. It truly embodies it’s tagline, Gallery 202, embracing history and art.

Built in 1821, the house bears history in its very bones—once a Civil War hospital, with faint bloodstains still etched into its floorboards, and even a scar where a cannonball struck. It is a place that has both absorbed and survived the violence of battle, yet now offers peace, order, and the generative pulse of art.

I could not help but recall the last time I wandered downtown Franklin—June of 2020, in the midst of pandemic, unrest, and upheaval. The streets then felt heavy with tension and broken rhythms. The police had just removed a stack of pallets containing bricks to be used by protestors to vandalize the town. Yesterday, by contrast, my steps were light, my mind open. That juxtaposition—the memory of upheaval paired with the present solace of art—echoed throughout my experience.

I have lived among great museums: as a student in New York, a designer in Chicago and Phoenix, and the daughter of an artist. I have wandered through thousands of galleries. Yet never have I encountered the aesthetic immersion that greeted me at Gallery 202. The foyer’s magnificient staircase and glittering Waterford chandeliers dazzled, but more than that, the welcome of owner Kelly Harwood was nothing short of remarkable. He receives strangers as dear friends, dissolving barriers in a way that intellectualism alone never can.

For centuries, art’s higher circles have drifted toward the head and away from the heart—valuing scholarly fluency over humanity, theories over stories. But Gallery 202 restores what art longs to be: a language of truth, beauty, and the human spirit. The artists represented there see the world in colors and vibrations that many only dimly sense. They breathe life into clay, canvas, metal, and stone, with works that embody resilience, empathy, and hope.

Leaving the main house, I passed through the walled garden, perfumed with flowers, the water fountain singing its liquid hymn, and into Kelly’s luminous studio. There, as he revealed works in progress, two unlikely visitors arrived: a pair of turkey vultures, descending upon the fountain for their daily drink. Often maligned as grotesque or base, vultures are, in truth, nature’s hidden custodians—their very Latin name, Cathartes aura, meaning “cleansing breeze.” Kelly reminded us of their sacred task: to purify, to heal the landscape, to quietly preserve balance.

And in their humble presence, I recognized a mirror of what the gallery itself had given me. A cleansing breeze. A breath of renewal. An oasis that slowed my heart and lifted my spirit.

Where so much modern art leaves one fragmented or sorrowful, Gallery 202 restores wholeness. It resists the dissonance of cynicism, standing instead for beauty, truth, resilience, and hope. It connects us, for a moment, to something beyond the material world.