Household Happiness: Summer Lights poster

The items that hang on the walls in my home are chosen for their value to my life. There are prints by artists whose work I enjoy, there are photographs that I appreciate, there are graphic Americana propaganda posters. And then there is my Summer Lights poster.
In the early 1990s, I lived in Nashville, Tennessee. I loved everything about Nashville: the humidity, the verdant neighborhoods, the people, and the abundant Southern culture. Then (and now), Nashville was called Music City USA. Much of that music was country & western recorded in Nashville's historic music studios. But for every time I heard an old Loretta Lynn song in Nashville, there was also the music of a large and vibrant music community beyond the world of country & western. There was an abundance of talent and really great sound.

Each summer, there was a three-day downtown festival called Summer Lights. For less than $10 you could hear live music all day and into the night. It was a fantastic weekend and I went every summer that I lived in Nashville. This poster is from 1995, one of the last summers that I lived in the city. Lots of things in my life changed after that summer, but I still remember the heady feel of the city at the festival, one of my best memories of Nashville.
The poster is framed in a deep red thin metal frame with non-glare glass (that's a little hard to tell because of the light the morning I took the photos). It hangs in my dining room, on a yellow wall over a table where we store homework supplies. I see the poster every day and it always reminds of some of the happiest memories I have of a place that I still love very much.