Elaine Slayton Akin is currently working at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, TN. She is the guest editor of the 81st issue of Number: Inc. magazine. A former member of the Board for Number: Inc., Elaine received a Master of Arts in Art History from the University of Memphis and has continually worked in the arts pretty much everywhere Number: Inc. magazine covers (Memphis, Little Rock, AR, and now Nashville). I met up with her recently after an East Side Storytellin’ literary/music event that I hosted that she and her husband Tim attended, and we discussed our mutual love of Number: and how the art of the South has pleasantly affected our worlds and how we see everything.
Can you give me a short bio as if you were making a new website for your life right now?
Elaine Akin, photo courtesy of Heather Canterbury
My “right now” is all about being new in Nashville, so I’d say I’m an Arkansas transplant navigating my way through Music City and hoping to take in as many art, culture, and people experiences as possible in the process. It’s ironic—I never thought that moving away would put me more in touch with my roots. I just started a new position at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and am now constantly surrounded by…wait for it…country music; catching bits and pieces of early ‘90s songs by George Strait, Dolly Parton, Vince Gill, or Trisha Yearwood as I walk through the building reminds me of my very Southern, very rural childhood. Although I miss Little Rock for a myriad of reasons, I couldn’t be more excited about this adventure and opportunity to explore a totally new slice of the South.
Maybe tell us a little more about yourself beyond the bio too: interests, goals, and fun things you haven’t done or accomplished yet but want to do so going forward, in art and life in general.
