Will Red Grooms' whimsical, wonderful Tennessee Fox Trot Carousel ride again?

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — For a few years at the turn of this century, Nashville was home to a remarkable carousel.

Described by its artist-creator Red Grooms as a sculpto-pictorama, the “horses” were 36 whimsical figures related to Tennessee. Legendary country musician Chet Atkins rode the neck of a guitar. Davy Crockett wrestled a bear. You could even ride a chigger, a summer mite that latches onto ankles causing an intense itch.

The Tennessee Fox Trot Carousel was magical but was perhaps in the wrong place at the wrong time, perched on the riverfront at the edge of downtown Nashville when the area was up-and-coming but not quite the tourist draw of today. When it could no longer support itself financially, the carousel was disassembled and given over to the care of the Tennessee State Museum, which placed it in a storage facility where it sits to this day.

Now, more than 20 years later, momentum is building for the carousel to ride again.

Tennessee State Museum Executive Director Ashley Howell says the question she most commonly hears from the public is: “What about the Red Grooms carousel?”

The museum was planning a grand new building when it took custody of the ride, but it didn’t create an area for the carousel due to a lack of funds, Howell said. The new museum opened in downtown Nashville in 2018 with a retrospective of Grooms’ work but no carousel.

In November, the museum put out feelers for private parties interested in “partnering with the Museum in the restoration, placement, and operation of the Red Grooms Fox Trot Carousel.”

Howell, who took the top job at the museum in 2017, said she had planned to turn her attention to the carousel sooner, but was hindered by twin disasters in 2020: A tornado clipped the new museum and destroyed a storage building then, just days later, the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down.

However, all the questions about the carousel's return underscore “how beloved this work of art is to the community,” she said.

“It was only on the riverfront for a short time, but it has sort of lived in memory much longer than it was in operation,” Howell said. “We're excited to think about next steps.”

Grooms, who was born in Nashville in 1937, left the city after high school and spent most of his career in New York.

His work is colorful and whimsical, and he often creates large installations that viewers can enter and touch.

One of his best known exhibits is Ruckus Manhattan, from 1976. The New York Times described it as “a walk‐in carnival reconstruction of Manhattan landmarks and the sometimes bizarre fauna that inhabit them,” including a subway car that was “a form of participation theater.”

Marina Pacini, who curated a Grooms exhibit for the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in 2016, said he is really a storyteller whose work is filled with “absolutely riveting” details.

“They operate on multiple levels, but you do not have to be an art expert in order to enjoy unpacking what’s going on in them,” she said, adding: “People adore his work.”

While selecting pieces for the exhibit, Pacini visited the carousel in storage. She said it was hard to choose from among them.

“The generosity of him making something like a carousel — that he put that much thought and effort into the individual characters and into how he defined them — and then to create them into something that you can actually climb on! I mean, most people go to museums and you’re not allowed to touch anything,” she said. “Here you are, you’re actually getting to climb onto a work of art. How much more fun could it possibly be?”

Grooms, who is 89 years old, did not respond to questions about the carousel.

Some of Grooms' biggest fans and collectors are in Nashville, so when his Manhattan gallery closed a few years ago, he moved his representation to David Lusk, who operates galleries in Nashville and Memphis.

An exhibition last year of drawings and ephemera from the making of the Fox Trot Carousel reminded people about the carousel, Lusk said.

He said the question remains as to “whether it's an artwork or whether it's meant for people to be straddling and riding it.”

If it has to be restored like an Old Master painting, then the cost is likely prohibitive. But if the goal is for it to be a working carousel, it need not be in pristine museum condition.

“He’s pretty assured that it is in good shape and ready to go again. So it’s just frustrating that it's not out there for people to enjoy,” Lusk said. “Red wants it used — looked at, used, loved.”

A figure of Eugene Lewis from the Fox Trot Carousel is seen in a state government storage facility Wednesday, June 24, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

A figure of Andrew Jackson from the Fox Trot Carousel is seen in a state government storage facility Wednesday, June 24, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

FILE - Artist Red Grooms poses in New York, July 16, 1998, with one of the figures for the Tennessee Fox Trot Carousel he has created for Nashville, his native town. (AP Photo/Suzanne Plunkett, File)

A figure of Chet Atkins and other parts of the Fox Trot Carousel are seen in a state government storage facility Wednesday, June 24, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

A figure of Mr. Fox Trot from the Fox Trot Carousel is seen in a state government storage facility Wednesday, June 24, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Ukraine launched a major nighttime attack on a dozen Russian regions, Russian-held Crimea and the surrounding seas, Moscow’s Defense Ministry said Friday, in what appeared to be one of Kyiv’s biggest drone assaults since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion more than four years ago.

Russian air defenses intercepted 660 Ukrainian drones, Russia’s Defense Ministry said. The previous biggest Ukrainian attack over the past year, as Ukraine has accelerated its drone development, involved 556 drones on May 17.

In an effort to turn the tables on Russia’s grinding war of attrition, Ukrainian long-range drones have been battering oil production and energy facilities behind the front line and deep inside Russia.

The campaign has choked Russian fuel supplies and military deliveries, stalling Moscow's efforts on the battlefield, Western officials and analysts say, and has heaped pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Initial damage reports from Russia after the overnight attack provided scant information. Russia’s Defense Ministry usually doesn't say what was targeted in Ukraine’s drone attacks, nor does it detail any damage.

Russian independent online outlet Astra reported that a chemical plant and a hydroelectric plant in Novomoskovsk were attacked and caught fire. The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify the report, and there was no official confirmation.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported that 47 Ukrainian drones were downed as they flew toward the Russian capital. He did not report any casualties or damage.

Ukraine’s Security Service said it used drones to strike Russian navy ships and air defense radars in Kerch, an important port city in Crimea.

The targets were two reconnaissance and minelaying ships, the Volga and the Vyatka, and the cargo-passenger ferry Petropavlovsk, the agency said, claiming that the strikes started a large fire. The claim could not be independently verified.

The major attack came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X that he had ordered “a 40-day influence operation,” believed to mean an escalation of attacks, aimed at “compelling (Russia) to end the war” after U.S. peace efforts over the past year yielded no breakthrough.

Still, as they have occasionally in the past, Russia and Ukraine exchanged prisoners of war, with 160 from each side returning home on Friday, officials said.

Ukraine has racked up a list of successful strikes, including hitting targets in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Zelenskyy said he got further promises of foreign support when he attended a recent summit of G7 leaders, including from U.S. President Donald Trump, and that the promised aid will help Ukraine step up its effort to force Putin to the negotiating table.

A NATO summit next month could be another key moment in beefing up Ukraine's military.

Two people were killed and seven were wounded in Russian attacks on the northeastern Kharkiv region over the previous 24 hours, regional head Oleh Syniehubov said Friday.

Russian forces struck the city of Kharkiv and 16 other settlements across the region, Syniehubov added.

On Friday morning, another Russian drone attack on downtown Izium, a city in the Kharkiv region, killed a woman and wounded three other people, emergency services said.

Attacks in the capital, Kyiv, the southern Odesa and Zaporizhzhia regions, and Sumy in the northeast, also left at least 19 people wounded, including a 9-year-old, according to authorities. Some of the Russian attacks used powerful glide bombs and also targeted gas stations.

Ukraine’s defenses overnight stopped 174 of 189 Russian drones, the Ukrainian air force said. However, four of seven Iskander-M ballistic missiles that were fired got through air defenses and struck various locations, it said.

Russia is expanding several of its military sites deep inside Belarus, but there is no buildup of forces near the Ukrainian border, a State Border Guard Service spokesman said Friday.

Russia launched its 2022 invasion of Ukraine from Belarus, which borders both countries, and Kyiv has kept a close watch on developments there during the war.

Ukrainian intelligence units have detected no grouping or reinforcement of Russian units, equipment or personnel close to the border, spokesman Andrii Demchenko said in remarks to Ukrainian television.

However, Russia has a growing number of training grounds, bases and other sites deeper inside the country, according to intelligence units.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Rescue workers put out a fire at a building destroyed after a Russian strike on Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Rescue workers put out a fire at a building destroyed after a Russian strike on Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

In this photo, provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters extinguish a fire in a residential building following a Russian drone attack in Sumy region, Ukraine, Friday, June 26, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

In this photo, provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters extinguish a fire in a residential building following a Russian drone attack in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Friday, June 26, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

A woman holds her cat after it being found during search and rescue works in the damaged residential building following Russia's missile attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Saturday, June 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko)