Southerland’s silkscreens a trip along Highway 70

Release Date: 10/5/2004. Expired: 11/20/2004

Before the days of Interstate 40, the Memphis-to-Bristol Highway was the main road that traversed Tennessee from east to west, passing right through the heart of downtown Dickson. Originally designated as State Route 1, since 1926 most of it has been known as U.S. Highway 70.

The Renaissance Center, located just two miles south of Highway 70 in Dickson, will celebrate life along the highway with a series of original four-color silkscreen prints called Scenes from Seventy.

Created by Curtis Southerland, curator for The Renaissance Center, the prints will be on display Oct. 7-Nov. 20 in the center’s North Wing Gallery. An opening reception will be 6-7:30 p.m. Oct. 8.

“Scenes from this extensive highway are often so familiar that we no longer recognize them,” Southerland said.

Beyond Tennessee’s borders, the road linked with other highways and became part of the Broadway of America Highway from New York to California.

Southerland has taken these common scenes and transformed them into a composition that almost idolizes each particular subject. The manipulated images are manually silk-screened to create the final pieces.

“This somewhat primitive printing process of limited colors and manual registration creates a visual appearance that amazingly enough reflects the full color spectrum,” Southerland said.

Southerland, an art instructor at The Renaissance Center, is offering a Silkscreen/Printmaking class this fall. The 15-week course uses hands-on demonstrations, classroom discussions and critiques. Students will study screening and other printing techniques in order to produce a series of original prints using traditional methods as well as computer technology.

According to the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture: “The 500-mile-long Memphis-to-Bristol Highway, although not originally an interstate route, tied in with other highways and functioned in much the same way. Local businessmen formed the Memphis to Bristol Highway Association in 1911 to promote its development. Soon after its creation in 1915, the Tennessee State Highway Department designated this corridor as State Route 1 and made it the top road priority. In 1926 the state designated about two-thirds of it as U.S. 70, the major east-west corridor in the region. In the late 1920s the entire route became part of the Broadway of America Highway from California to New York. State Route 1 remained the main east-west route through the state until the completion of Interstate 40 in the late 1960s.”

With the construction of I-40 and then the Henslee Drive Bypass around downtown Dickson, Highway 70 (College Street) became less of a major thoroughfare through downtown Dickson. Even a large map of the highway painted on the side of the former Dickson Furniture store in downtown has since been covered up, but is still faintly visible through the green paint.

For more information on Scenes from Seventy or other exhibits at The Renaissance Center, contact Southerland at (615)740-5519 or .

The Renaissance Center is an arts and technology education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.

Visit the Visual Arts Gallery page for more about the gallery.

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