You may have walked past Building 10 at The Factory at Franklin and wondered what, exactly, is happening inside Experimart.
The answer involves custom-printed shirts, vintage pencils, an unusual radio, and a pair of brooms whose significance is better discovered in person. Those are only a few of the experiments and displays inside. Part retail store, part interactive museum and part working art studio, Experimart invites visitors to touch, participate, ask questions, and look more closely at objects they might otherwise overlook.
Some visitors leave with something they helped create. Others contribute a drawing, observation or reaction to an ongoing project.
“Literally everything’s an experiment in here,” founder Bryce McCloud said. “Without people coming and doing it, it’s not a thing.”
McCloud describes Experimart as “the only experimental retail store and museum this side of the Earth’s crust.” It is a fitting description for a place where shopping is only part of the experience, participation is encouraged, and no two visits are guaranteed to be exactly alike.
How Experimart Came to The Factory at Franklin
Experimart opened at The Factory in January 2026 after McCloud and his team spent approximately a year designing and building much of the space themselves.
The idea had been developing for years. McCloud has long created interactive art, public installations, portraits, and printed work throughout Nashville, often bringing temporary projects into neighborhoods, events, and other public spaces.
“I’ve always wanted to have one place where you could come, and all of these crazy ideas are here,” McCloud said. “You can come back next week or the week after.”
Experimart gives those ideas a permanent home without requiring them to remain static. Exhibits can expand, disappear, or change direction as new questions emerge.
The space also serves as a working extension of Isle of Printing, the Nashville letterpress and custom art shop McCloud has operated for more than 30 years. A letterpress in the back of Experimart is used to produce posters and other printed work, while the public portion of the shop makes printing and art more approachable.
McCloud’s earlier projects include Our Town Nashville, a public art initiative that invited residents across the city to participate in a collective portrait project. That interest in accessible, collaborative art carries into Experimart, where visitors do not need artistic experience or specialized knowledge to take part.
McCloud has also helped guide creative decisions during The Factory’s recent redevelopment. One of his most visible contributions is the logo displayed on the property’s water tower.
“It’s literally a big thing,” he joked. “It’s fun to come down Franklin Road and see something you’ve made.”
Experimart’s location also connects naturally to The Factory’s history. The former manufacturing complex has long been associated with making things. Experimart continues that tradition through printing and hands-on creative work, although the results are less predictable than those of a conventional production line.
Create a Hand-Printed Shirt at Experimart
One of the first experiences visitors encounter at Experimart is a hands-on shirt-printing project built around choice and a little physical force.
Guests select from hand-carved woodblocks featuring images and phrases that can be combined in different ways. McCloud compares the process loosely to a Mad Lib, with each person arranging the pieces to create an original design.
The idea traces back to a childhood memory. McCloud remembers visiting a shop in Madison, Tennessee, where children could choose an image from a book and have it printed on a shirt.
“I don’t remember how old I was, but let’s say I was six,” he said. “I got the Hydra shirt. I wanted to recreate that experience for other people, but we kind of did it in our own way.”
At Experimart, visitors do more than choose a design. They also participate in printing the shirt using a machine McCloud and his team built for the project.
Before building the machine, the team experimented with a more direct method.
“We used to print the shirts just jumping on them,” McCloud said. “Then I was like, ‘Well, let’s make a Stompatron.’”
The resulting device presses the woodblocks firmly against the fabric and allows visitors to help reveal the final image. Because the blocks and words can be rearranged, each shirt reflects the choices made by the person wearing it.
The shirt project continues the participatory approach McCloud has used in earlier public art projects. The finished item matters, but so does the experience of choosing, arranging, and making it.
Everyday Objects Become Part of the Experiment
Beyond the printing station, Experimart turns its attention to objects most people rarely stop to consider.
A collection of pencils introduces visitors to their changing design, materials, and history.
“I’m really interested in the history of pencils because it’s kind of a common object,” McCloud said. “Everybody’s familiar with it, but you don’t really ever think, ‘Where did they come from?’”
The collection includes reproductions of earlier designs and examples gathered from around Middle Tennessee, some dating back decades. Together, they show how an ordinary writing tool developed into the familiar combination of wood, graphite, metal, and eraser used today.
The display connects to Experimart’s Communication Station, which explores how the tools available to people can shape the way they exchange information.
“The different ways that we communicate affect the conversations that we have,” McCloud said.
One part of the station highlights the Nashville Talking Library, a free service that provides readings of newspapers and periodicals for people who are unable to read standard print. Visitors can listen to the dedicated broadcast through a specialized radio displayed inside Experimart.
Another part looks back to the first transatlantic telegraph cable, which allowed messages to cross the Atlantic far more quickly than letters carried by ship. McCloud is particularly interested in the optimism surrounding the new technology and the belief that faster communication could bring people closer together.
“There was a true belief that if we could be better connected and communicate more easily, a more peaceful world would be possible,” he said.
The technology has changed, but McCloud sees similar questions in the way people communicate today.
“Satellite communication and TikTok and all of these things that are part of our life are affecting how we communicate with one another in ways that our grandparents didn’t deal with,” he said. “It’s changing us as it changes the world.”
Visiting Artists Bring New Ideas to Experimart
Experimart is also beginning to make room for temporary projects by artists whose work fits its experimental approach.
During my visit, London-based songwriter and doll restorer Jeni Hankins brought the Jeniland Doll & Bear Hospital to the shop for a one-day residency. A longtime friend of McCloud’s from Hendersonville High School, Hankins is secretary of the Doll Club of Great Britain and a member of the United Federation of Doll Clubs. She repairs and restores dolls, bears, and other stuffed animals.
“My mission is to save as many dolls and bears from the landfill as possible,” Hankins said.
Some arrive with damaged hair, marked faces, missing clothes, or broken parts. Hankins cleans and repairs what she can, from simple plush toys to antique bisque-headed dolls more than a century old. When one toy cannot be fully restored, she may use parts from another damaged doll to save at least one of them.
Hankins’ temporary doll hospital showed how a visiting artist can introduce a new subject and creative process to the space.
“We want to have sort of guest residencies and have folks that I think are doing interesting things,” he said.
McCloud envisions the program as another way to introduce new ideas, processes and unexpected subjects into the space.
Experiments Continue to Change Over Time
Experimart is designed to remain unfinished.
Some projects may grow into larger displays, while others may be replaced as new questions emerge. McCloud and his team pay attention to how visitors respond and use what they learn to decide where an idea might go next.
“People are coming in, and we’re meeting them and learning,” McCloud said. “They’re telling us things we didn’t know.”
Future plans include creative workshops where participants may learn to print shirts, make custom bandanas and try other hands-on processes. McCloud also plans to develop the Experimental Club through future gatherings where members can share what they are observing, studying, collecting, or testing.
“I don’t know what you’re into,” McCloud said. “Maybe you want to count red cars in Franklin. Everybody’s got something that they’re into.”
Some of the simplest questions have become long-running projects: How far can one pencil write? Will people follow a prompt exactly or interpret it in their own way? What happens when visitors begin paying close attention to something most people would overlook?
Then there are the brooms.
McCloud would rather not explain that experiment in full. Visitors will have to stop by and see what the team has been tracking.
Curiosity, Creativity and a Kinder World
Beneath Experimart’s humor and unusual collections is a sincere philosophy about the value of observation.
“I want to live in a kinder world,” McCloud said. “I think observant people make kinder people.”
He believes paying closer attention helps people recognize the differences, details and individual qualities that make people and places meaningful. Experimart is built around what he calls “living an experimental life.”
“That doesn’t mean test tubes and magnets,” he said. “It means approaching every day as if it’s an experiment.”
That mindset also changes the meaning of failure.
“When things go wrong, it’s not the end of the world,” McCloud said. “It’s just some data to be like, ‘Oh, that didn’t work. Let’s try something else.’”
McCloud hopes visitors leave with a hand-printed shirt, an unusual keepsake or a story to tell. More importantly, he hopes the experience encourages them to revisit an interest or begin a creative project of their own.
Several visitors have contacted him after coming to Experimart to say they returned to pursuits they had set aside.
“They’re like, ‘After I came in, I was like, I’m just going to give it a whirl,’” he said. “That’s literally what this place is about to me.”
Visit Experimart at The Factory at Franklin
Experimart is located in Building 10 at The Factory at Franklin, 230 Franklin Road. It is currently open Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 5 pm and by appointment. Visitors can create hand-printed merchandise, explore the current experiments, and see what has changed since their last visit.
Because Experimart continues to evolve, McCloud encourages visitors to follow its social media accounts and subscribe to the newsletter at Experimart.fun for updates about workshops, visiting artists, and new projects.
And before leaving, be sure to check on the brooms.
