August 2023

The Other Side

Melinda Green Harvey + VC Torneden

A body of photographs documenting the changes occurring along Route 66 over the course of five years ahead of her centennial. 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. “Route 66 has been photographed many times over the decades. However, the works in The Other Side bring fresh perspective on the Mother Road by taking a deeper look, concentrated on the chronically overlooked miles by predominantly bypassing the tourist attractions and instead seeking to find – and document – the quotidian, the overlooked, the forgotten along America’s highway: the other side of the road,” the artists said.

Melinda Green Harvey dabbled in taking pictures until the late 1990s, when she started a ten-year-long 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 in various galleries around the country and is currently a member of the Texas Photographic Society’s Board of Directors. Her photo series Where the Wind Gallops is in the permanent collection of Texas Tech University Library’s Southwest Collection. In addition to The Other Side, she is currently continuing her ongoing documentation of the dying small towns in West Texas and the Texas Panhandle region.

VC 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 galleries nationwide. 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 current photography projects include a group of landscape series of Oklahoma, West Texas, and New Mexico as well as a mixed media photo essay about her years spent living in Tulsa.