NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — "I'm right by the road, so I won't be trespassing," artist Peggy Snow said, adding swipes of paint to a canvas. "I'm really not totally sure what the laws are, but I think there's public domain on the sides of the road."
Snow believes it's better to ask forgiveness than permission.
"I've been operating on that for decades!" she laughed, continuing to work. "This particular building I'm portraying has been abandoned for a few years."
It's over on Sidco Drive, and abandoned places are often Snow's subjects.
"I love to paint the old buildings," she nodded. "Like so many people, I'm just aggrieved at many of our historical buildings we've lost in Nashville."
Some of Snow's subjects are places about to be torn down.
The last time I saw Snow was in 2024. She was painting a historic firehouse on Charlotte Ave. Sure enough, that building isn't there now.
"I feel a bit like the grim reaper!" Snow laughed. "Oh no! I'm a curse to buildings! I hope that's not true!"
Snow's work is often a tribute to a place before it's gone or it changes. The Rock Block, for example, is still here, but Snow's piece captured it before the Gold Rush bar was closed in 2019. Same thing with her painting of Printer's Alley, which shows it before it became a more boutique destination over the past decade.
"The greater community just hates to see the history get lost," Snow said.
Snow's a lifelong painter, but she's done more than 30 of these paintings preserving city memories since 1991.
"It's 35 years," Snow said. "It goes by in a moment."
Now comes a chance to reflect.
Snow's work has just gone on display at an exhibit at Gordon Jewish Community Center.
For everyone at a reception, the pieces were bringing them back to certain moments in time.
"We're seeing about half still around and about half gone," one woman said.
"This one was over there by the Vanderbilt area!" said exhibit visitor Howard Wiggins, looking at a painting of a house.
"I live on Belmont Boulevard, and I remember this house until it was taken down," said exhibit curator Carrie Mills.
"She's got the Gold Rush that I got kicked out of back in 1979!" one woman said.
"What'd you do to get kicked out?" I asked.
"This guy flirted with me. My husband threw a drink on him, and it was fisticuffs."
Ah. Memories.
"So much of it's now been lost, so her paintings speak to me," Mills said.
"Without our history we cannot make a good future," added Wiggins.
"She's a Nashville treasure right there, Peggy Snow," a visitor to the exhibit said.
Snow continues painting a quickly, constantly changing city.
Do you have a positive, good news story? You can email me at forrest.sanders@newschannel5.com.
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