The Tulsa Artists’ Coalition in April will present “The Other Side,” a body of photographs documenting the changes occurring along Route 66 over the course of five years.
A collaborative project, “The Other Side” is an ongoing project by two artists based in Route 66 states, Melinda Green Harvey of Texas and VC Torneden of Oklahoma.
The public will have the opportunity to meet the artists at the opening reception on April 7 from 6 to 9 pm, which will feature live music by John Beauchamp and Trish Davis.
The opening is free and open to the public, and it is part of the First Friday Art Crawl in the Tulsa Arts District. The works will be on exhibit at TAC Gallery at 9 E. Mathew Brady St. from April 7 to April 29.
“Although Route 66 has been photographed many times over the decades, the works in ‘The Other Side’ bring fresh perspective on the Mother Road by taking a deeper successive five-year look, concentrated on the chronically overlooked miles by primarily bypassing the tourist attractions and instead seeking the quotidian, the overlooked, and the forgotten along America’s highway: the other side of the road.” VC Torneden said.
Harvey dabbled in taking pictures until the late 1990s, when she started a 10-year project shooting images of roadside crosses and other memorials. In 2009, she started a photography blog with the intent of posting a picture every day. She has since shown her work in various galleries around the country and is a member of the Texas Photographic Society’s board. In addition to “The Other Side,” she is continuing her ongoing documentation of the dying small towns in West Texas and the Texas Panhandle region.
Torneden is a visual artist who works in multiple mediums including photography. Her formal training in the arts extended into study as a young adult at the University of New Orleans and Memphis College of Art. Since 1995, her work has been featured in various publications and exhibited in multiple galleries. Her background includes education and work experience in painting, illustration, advertising design and both fine art photography and photojournalism. She creates and works in her home studio in rural Oklahoma. In addition to “The Other Side,” VC Torneden’s photography projects include a landscape series of Oklahoma as well as a photo essay about her years spent living in Tulsa.
(Courtesy image of “The Other Side, No. 10” by Melinda Green Harvey)