Welcomed to the MHC (Metro Nashville Historical Commission) marker family, number 250 went to Woodcuts Gallery & Framing on historic Jefferson Street in Nashville. On Friday, March 24, the community came together to celebrate Mr. Nathaniel Harris and the entire Woodcuts team as their new historical marker was unveiled. Many thanks are due to those who braved the wind and threat of rain to commemorate this occasion, including Council Member Sharon W. Hurt, Council Member Freddie O’Connell, Vice Mayor Brenda Haywood, and former Mayor Bill Purcell.
“A Cut Above the Rest,” Woodcuts Gallery, at 1613 Jefferson Street near Fisk University, has a long-established history of providing framing services, especially to graduates of local colleges such as Meharry Medical College, Fisk University, and Tennessee State University, and this author has noticed how busy they are in particular during graduation season over the years. They also specialize in art, including original art, with bins full of open edition prints, limited edition serigraphs and giclée’s by African-American artists.
Woodcuts, founded over 30 years ago by an engineer who loves woodworking, Nathaniel Harris, has helped to change the course of economic development on Jefferson Street. Raised in Historic North Nashville, Nathaniel (affectionately called Nate) started his business amongst skeptics. Nate’s love for woodworking began as a child. His father, a contractor, passed away when Nathaniel was only 8 years old, but not before he passed along his love for entrepreneurship to his youngest son.
After graduating from TSU and beginning a burgeoning career in engineering, Nate still gravitated toward woodworking, doing picture framing and cabinet making after hours. His framing business started thriving when his wife Brenda started getting her cross-stitch artwork framed and showing them to her co-workers. They requested framing and word spread. What started out as a woodworking shop in his garage spread to the living room, and started to take over the kitchen, so his wife suggested he find a retail location to truly expand.
Once a building people went to for hamburgers, and later Whiting H&G fish sandwiches and bean pies, 1613 Jefferson had become a refuge for drug addicts, riddled with needles and trash. Using his construction background and experience as a draftsman, he worked nights and weekends, with the help of his wife, daughter, and other family members, to get the building ready for business.
Depleting his retirement account, securing funding from historic Citizen’s Bank and Trust, and with help from Nashville Minority Business Development Center, Nate secured an agreement with Fisk to lease the building, with a strict timeline. From May 1987, he had until September to have the work completed and his business open. Rising to the challenge, Woodcuts Gallery opened to the public September 23, 1987.
Nate, the first president of Jefferson United Merchants Partnership (J.U.M.P), used his own workspace as an example of what can be done with old buildings, many vacant, others in disrepair. Visit Woodcuts Gallery & Framing at 1613 Jefferson Street, Nashville, TN 37208. Email: WoodcutsArtGallery@gmail.com or call (615) 321-5357. See their website: https://www.woodcutsgalleryandframing.com/
