FOLK | Ramble

FOLK LIVE AUTHENTIC

RAMBLE

The Journey Never Ends

Jen O’Connor Presents

Earth Angels & The Art Girls’ RoadShow Handmade Shopping Events March 10 & 11 • 11th Annual “heART of Winter” The Jeanine Taylor Folk Art Gallery, Sanford, FL April 1, 2 & 3 • On-Line Gallery Show & Annual Spring SALE! May 5 & 6 • Spring Soiree with Earth Angels at TRUE LILY Canandaigua, NY May 20 • BLYTHECon Europe • Málaga, Spain June 2, 3 & 4 • “Country Living Fair” Rhinebeck, NY

Visit us on-line for more info on our Appearances & Events and to SHOP NOW!

FOLK LIVE AUTHENTIC

INDEX 08 | Summertime

30 | Lindsey Smith

55 | Will Fryar

76 | Changed Forever

12 | Small Town Life

34 | Christina Nicole Studio 56 | Brothers Stories

80 | Joshua Tree

17 | Muddy’s House

40 | J & R Lanne

58 | The Lost Boys

84 | Jacob + Ash

18 | Ponderings

46 | A Passion for Coffee

60 | Charles Post

90 | A Gentleman Farmer

22 | Fount Leather

50 | Kyle Branch

64 | Explore

96 | Jody + Mackenzie

26 | LL Bean

52 | In This Skin

68 | Hudson, New York

98 | Chris + Jamie

28 | Forestbound

54 | Andrew Wagenhals

72 | Among the Giants

100 | Joel Bear Studio

PHOTOS: ALEX MCDONELL | COVER: BEAU SIMMONS | BACK COVER: FOUNT

WAXING WISTFUL CANDLE CO. • BEE IN YOUR BONNET INFUSED HONEY OUT AND ABOUT INSECT REPELLENT • PETALS+PROSE STATIONERY PURE SODAWORKS NATURAL SODAS

HANDCRAFTED IN CHATTANOOGA, TENN. ROGERSMADE.COM | @ROGERSMADE

FOLK LIVE AUTHENTIC

What is there to say. Chapter one has turned into chapter two, and the time is here to reflect on what was and what will live on.

Cheers to the future and thanks to everyone who has shaped the past. This is part one of three. Each issue will be a mix of pre 2013 stories as well as selections from our new found favorites.

PHOTO: JAKE WEISZ

FOLK VOLUME 5 NUMBER 1

BEN ASHBY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

editor@folklifestyle.com MASTER-OF-MANY-HATS

HEATH STILTNER heath@folklifestyle.com

CONTRIBUTORS ALICE HALE ADAMS

MELISSA MCARDLE

BEAU SIMMONS

ANNA ADDISON

ALEX MCDONELL

RIKKI SNYDER

CHRIS AMAT

JEN O’CONNOR

HEATH STILTNER

DARLINE ASHBY

BLAKE PACK

JOHN THATCHER

SHAN ASHBY

LINDA REID

LIZA TURNER

BRANDON ECKROTH

KRISTIN SHYLA

JAKE WEISZ

"You will have some failure. And you will be able to go on, add a new chapter, and have a more interesting time."

— Barbara Walters

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CONNECT

FOLK P.O. Box 195 Beaver Dam, KY 42320

Web: folklifestyle.com Instagram: @folkmagazine Pinterest: /folkmagazine

© 2014 FOLK. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying or electronic means, without written prior permission of the editor. For permission requests email contact@folklifestyle. com. FOLK, nor the owners of FOLK can in no way be held liable for any mental or physical injuries or duress caused by contact with FOLK. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 5

MADE AUTHENTIC AN ODE TO MAIN STREET

FOLK FINDS 9 goods made with serious integrity and authenticity.

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1) Bourbon Barrel Aged Coffee | District Roaster. 2) Ring | Melissa Tyson Designs 3) Blanket | Sackcloth & Ashes. 4) Cookies | Fancypants Baking Co. 5) Letterpress Print | Wildes of Port Press. 6 + 7) Paintings | Earth Angels Studios. 8) Candle | Great Bear Wax Co. 9) Sweatshirt | Kentucky For Kentucky. | Find more picks on our website: folklifestyle.com

LIVE AUTHENTIC #LIVENAKED

VISIONS OF SKIN FOLK followers share their images of summer sun and skin.

TOP TO BOTTOM | LEFT TO RIGHT: 1) @jtylerwhitmer. 2) @victorofvalencia. 3) @iamricharddouglas. 4) @_alexmcdonell.

5,7) @wadleywadley. 6) @michaelnewsted. 8) @danburke11. 9) chadosaurusrex.

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

— Steve Jobs 7

STORY

THE STORIES THAT CONNECT US ALL

SUMMERTIME ...in rural western Kentucky “No more pencils. No more books. No more teachers’ dirty looks.” “School’s out, school’s out. Teachers let the monkeys out! One went east. One went west. One went up the teacher’s dress.” So were the chants of the last day of school.

The garden always held something for me. Of course the early part of summer meant carefully planting the tomato plants grown in Dad’s tobacco bed. My part in that typically meant I placed the plants carefully beside the hills Mom or Dad had made. Then, with one of them helping me, I’d hold the plant in the hole while they pulled the right amount of dirt up around the stem of the plant. I still love the smell of tomato plants. I probably visited the garden daily to see if the plants had bloomed or if tomatoes were setting on or to see if I could find that first ripe tomato. I liked picking tomatoes when they finally ripened enough to eat. After all, they were, and are, my favorite garden treat. I never liked the spiders who managed to build their webs among the tomato plants but I didn’t let them stop my quest for filling a basket of delicious treats. As a young girl I thought it took the entire summer for tomatoes to ripen and beans to fill out enough to pick. I never was tall enough to pull corn but I did help to plant and shuck it once it matured.

Other vegetables grew in our family garden. Mom loved beets so we always had beets growing in our garden. Okra, another favorite of mine, brought a totally different set of tasks and challenges. I don’t remember planting it but I sure remember the harvest…but that’s for another time. So, the garden lured me out of the house but other things did, too.

Living in Western Kentucky means volatile weather. One of the good things about living here means we enjoy the weather of all four seasons…sometimes even in one day.

One thing is certain. We always count on long, hot, humid summer days. Along with the pleasure of school ending came the joy of planning all that free time.

Days could be filled with baseball in the pasture, riding horses, building earthen dams in Walton Creek (before the dry weather set in), wading the creek, climbing trees, playing outside all day and thousands of other things. I never lacked for anything to do. Boredom? Unheard of!

Even if it had tried creeping onto our farm, I never admitted it. Admitting to boredom meant a new chore could be added to my list and I still refuse to admit that I’m not a little care-free girl roaming the fields and avoiding work.

Believe it or not, I couldn’t wait until I was big enough to use the power mower. That probably came a little more quickly than I realized since my older brother, Ronnie, was plagued with allergies. Hay fever probably bothered him more than anything so mowing really took its toll on him. Of course, once he realized I was anxious to use that mower, I’m sure his hay fever worsened. As I said, I wasn’t very big in a physical sense. That meant pulling the cord to start the mower presented quite a challenge.

Someone always managed to come to my aid and away I would go. Two widowed sisters shared a home right up the road from us. I often went to help them mow using an old rotary cut mower…the kind with no motor other than

Helping out around the farm never seemed like work. I enjoyed being outside and the only tasks I considered work, or chores, were the inside jobs like making beds, dusting, washing dishes and such. Outside is where I wanted to be and usually where I could be found. I didn’t mind helping to “sucker” tobacco even though it meant a hard scrubbing at bath time to remove all the gooey tobacco gum. I even looked forward to being big enough to pull plants and ride the tobacco setter. We moved from the farm before I was big enough to wield a hoe. I think that I’m glad about that.

STORY: LINDA REID | PHOTOGRAPHY: BRANDON ECKROTH 9

human power. The grass always cut evenly and I really thought I was big using that old fashioned mower. Eventually, they decided I was big enough to use their power mower. The age-old problem of pulling the cord to start the mower followed me to Ms. Ida’s and Ms. Ora’s. One particularly hot day, Ms. Ora was trying to start the mower but the motor just wouldn’t crank. I remember how she pulled that cord, wiped sweat from her brow and pulled again. Finally, she wiped her brow, looked at me and said, “This would make a preacher cuss in the pulpit.” I nearly fell to the ground I laughed so hard! Mowing still gives me a sense of accomplishment. You can always look back over a day of mowing and see the results. Of course the days of using a push mower have given way to the riding mower but I do still enjoy a day of grass cutting as is evidenced by the 4-6 acres I mow nowadays.

fresh vegetables that we enjoyed in winter. I can certainly appreciate it now!

My paternal grandparents lived in Louisville, KY and worked factory jobs. They always looked for reasons to escape the city life and come to visit us. They helped with the garden, the cattle and the tobacco but they also helped with other jobs. Dad worked swing shift and farmed. He didn’t have a lot of time for sleep much less many of the day to day maintenance jobs around the house. He was an excellent carpenter and could fix just about anything needing his hand, but there often were just not enough hours in the day for all that needed to be done. Mamma Burgess and “Gus” helped fill in some gaps. Mamma loved to paint and “fix up” a place so it wasn’t uncommon for her to take her vacation to come help paint or hang wallpaper at our house. I remember thinking that a painter had to wear an old pair of panties on their head because that is what Mamma always did. I can still remember her having the leg openings pinned closed and those “drawers” pulled over her hair like a cap. She was a neat painter and probably never got paint in her hair anyway, but it sure makes for a happy memory seeing her in that rig!

Like most houses of the 50’s and 60’s in our area, our house was not air conditioned. We cooled with a large box fan in one window that drew air through the house. We didn’t want to spend much time indoors. The large maple trees of our yard afforded much cooler air than we found inside. When Mom did laundry, she hung it on a clothesline rather than use the dryer that heated the house even more. Nothing smells quite as fresh as towels and sheets dried in the sunshine and fresh air. As vegetables began to mature in quantity, Mom often sat in the shady back yard with baskets of beans or corn around her as she pulled the strings and broke the beans for canning.

She would pull the shucks from the ears of corn and we (the kids) would carry the shucks to the fence and throw them over for the cows. Mom had to do the canning inside and I remember how hot the kitchen would get and how she would sweat.

I didn’t realize then how hard she worked to can

Gus was also quite a handyman. Since we, like most everyone else of that day, didn’t have an indoor bathroom, he built a new outhouse for us nearly every summer, it seemed. If he didn’t build a new one he upgraded the existing one.

Yes, summer meant a new or renovated outhouse.

Now that’s a memory!! That may not sound too exciting these days but you can bet it sure was in those days! Gus also recited a lot of poetry. He had one favorite, “The Passing of the Pot” by Eva Davis Penrose. That title brings a brand new set of issues in today’s world. In his day, however, it referred to the Chamber Pot…our wintertime

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indoor bathroom. Thanks to Google, I found that poem. Though I don’t recall him reciting it, I also found “The Passing of the Outhouse”, by James Whitcomb Riley. Both poems certainly evoke mixed memories of my childhood.

Both of my grandmothers could sew. It wasn’t uncommon for Mamma Vance and Mamma Burgess to show up at our house ready to make new things for us. Though I never took an interest in sewing, I recall Mamma Vance teaching my sister to sew. That was another of those things that required staying inside and I just couldn’t be bothered with that. There were fields to roam, trees to climb and a horse to ride so I left the sewing and piano lessons to Janet while I escaped to the great outdoors.

One crop required all hands that were old enough.

Tobacco never seemed to be profitable to me because of all the many, many hours of work. Dad always had a plant bed in which he grew plants that he transplanted to the tobacco patch and the vegetable plants to the garden. After the tobacco plants grew to the right size we gently pulled them and put them in baskets. I thought I was so grownup when Dad finally allowed me to help pull the plants. I soon realized it wasn’t as much fun as I thought it looked. About the same time I grew up enough to help pull plants, I was big enough to ride the tobacco setter. Since I was small for my age, I couldn’t manage a hoe so that job fell to Ronnie. As the tobacco grew, small growths, or suckers, began to grow and big green worms attacked. I thought I was a real tobacco farmer when I would crawl along the rows and break off the small growths that sucked nutrients the main plant needed. It seemed to take days to wash the gum out of my hair and off my skin. Pulling worms might have been something most girls wouldn’t do

but I got a kick out of pulling them off the plants once I found them. I often collected them in a small bucket and then either threw them in the pond or mashed them with rocks I found in the short lane between our house and the plant bed. They weren’t good for bait so it wasn’t like I was wasting something of use. They were just nasty creatures who would spit tobacco juice on you if you weren’t real careful.

We always found time to play baseball. Of course we played in the pasture so we had to be extra careful where we stepped and what we used for bases. There usually weren’t enough of us around at any one time to field 2 teams so we always had a lot of extra “ghost” men helping us. As long as the ghost runners stuck to the game and didn’t spook the cattle or horse, all went well. We always enjoyed pretending to be Don Drysdale, Mickey Mantle and the like.

Whether crawling through the tobacco rows, wading in Walton Creek after a summer rain, making believe I was a master gardener, marveling at the handiwork of my grandparents or riding the range on my trusty horse (bareback, of course), summers brought new adventures with every day.

I often long for those days when I get caught up in the busy life of today’s world. I look about me and actually feel sorry for youngsters who will never know the joys of growing up on a farm, learning to work (even though I thought it was play) and play outside till the lightening bugs lit the night.

At the end of the day, Mom dragged the wash tub into the kitchen and filled it with water from the sink and we all took turns bathing before time to watch something like “The Rifleman” or “Have Gun Will Travel” before going to bed.

SMALL TOWN LIFE

Y

AT ITS BEST

ou know those people who say things like, “Well, I don’t ‘get’ that pop culture reference that every other person in the world understands because I really don’t watch much T.V.”?; the people who are too busy reading Tolstoy…or staging their nuanced-shadesof-white house for an upcoming Pinterest shot… or taking their inexplicably well-dressed child to some obscure musical instrument lesson? Yeah, I despise them, too (despite currently tackling War and Peace, snapping pictures of my dinner plates on a weekly basis, having had piano lessons myself and being fairly certain that if I have kids who want to play the didgeridoo, I will find the best didgeridoo instructor in the tri-state area).

Now, don’t get me wrong; I readily acknowledge that television is a ginormous time-waster. There is typically very little of substance to view. I can be as pretentious as the next person when frustratingly discussing the History Channel’s complete lack of history-related programming.

Constant news coverage transforms minutia into seemingly groundbreaking features daily. Does this mean, however, that I have been immune to the lure of America’s Next Top Model marathons?

Certainly not. Have I fallen victim to back-to-back Maury, “Who’s the Daddy?” episodes? You better believe it. Not my finest hours I will admit.

Occasionally, however, I remind myself that life truly is all about balance. It is no contradiction to listen to NPR in the morning and then get sucked into a few minutes of reality TV before bed.

BY: LIZA TURNER | FROM FALL 2012

“Living in a small town, festivals and fairs are something we look forward to each year. As fall approaches and the weather cools, festival time is in the air. Our small town has a Heritage Festival each year to celebrate who we are and where we came from. With food, music and crafts we relive the past and look forward to the future… So, what better way to commemorate our past than with a hillbilly picnic?

We are all hillbillies at heart and we love food, the perfect combination. Calling all family and friends, out came the flannel shirts, work boots, bonnets and I’ll have to admit, our own Bubba teeth. We loaded up the food, quilts, moonshine jugs and long rifles (just in case any varmints came along), and headed to the park. Good food, friends, family and lots of laughs were had by all. This is small town life at its best and we celebrate it!”

-TERRY STALEY

And, while perhaps flawed, this “will-make-youfeel-better” philosophy means I allow myself to indulge in a series every now and then, completely guilt-free­­— one I watch with reckless abandon to notions of “should be doing.” Growing up (not that I worried about responsibilities too much anyway), it was The Cosby Show; most recently, The Office and New Girl. And, in a few of those formative years in between, it was the masterfully witty Gilmore Girls.

Want to know why I own every season on DVD and still love this show— and the fictitious town of Stars Hollow – so very much? It makes me want to own a bed and breakfast. It makes me wish the coffee shop owner who refuses to let me use my cell phone or eat French fries at 10:00 pm (in the old hardware store he has converted into an eclectic, but cozy, diner) had a crush on me. It makes me long for “Bid on a Basket” fundraisers, town hall meetings, festivals to celebrate seasonal changes, and battling troubadours on various street corners. I want the sense of community so fundamental to a series also replete with fantastic character development and general charm, the sense of community so valued by those on this staff, the sense of community integral to the entire FOLK philosophy, the sense of community to which many of you are contributing in your own towns across the country.

The premise of the show is as follows: young girl from a wealthy New England family gets pregnant and subsequently shunned by said overprotective family when she refuses to get married and pursue the “respectable” life. She works hard, raises her daughter (who becomes her best friend), works at an inn in a small town that seems perfectly artsy and “down-homey” at the same time, and spends her days having dry, but irrefutably smart and hilarious, banter with everyone she meets— banter that showcases a knowledge of books, and pop culture, and small town quirks and culture. Oh, yeah, and did I mention it seems to perpetually be a gorgeous fall day every time I watch an episode?

And, if I want to live in a place where things like county fairs, and local theaters, and town decorating committees are valued, then I figure I need to participate. In fact, when I first moved back to my hometown, I honestly thought, “What

13

can I do to make it more like Stars Hollow?” Well, let me tell you what I did: I put on my father’s overalls and took some old whiskey jugs and hay bales to the town park on a Sunday afternoon in October.

“Fall festival” just might be my very favorite twoword combination. The mere mention of fall, the only season sane people could ever really love, is a three-month period I look forward to all year. I love the apple cider I drink from my favorite mug at my mother’s outdoor fireplace. I love stepping outside and thinking, “I believe I might need a hoodie today.”

I love taking drives on Saturday afternoons, drives that invariably provoke conversations about how much the leaves have changed in only a week. I love that people in my hometown still have hayrides. I love that I vividly remember how much fun hayrides are. I love orchards, particularly those that haven’t become commercialized to the point that a mechanized pumpkin launcher is the main attraction. I love carving pumpkins rescued from said contraption. So, yes, basically I love every stereotypical thing about this most noble of seasons.

And, “festival”? That just sounds fun, doesn’t it?

First and foremost, it reminds me of festivus on Seinfeld, which makes me giggle. Secondly, the word itself, derivative of “fest” in Middle English or “festivus” in Latin (which I naturally knew off-hand), implies all things Gilmore Girlish: food, celebration of a locale’s uniqueness, celebration, sense of belonging, religious and/or cultural significance, commemoration. Who wouldn’t like all that? …Only

crazy people who say summer is their favorite season.

And thus, for the past two years, I have eagerly anticipated my town’s fall festival, the earlier of the two was actually a four day bicentennial celebration.

Despite foolishly volunteering to help organize food and craft vendors (NEVER EVER do this. Trust me.), I was proud to be a part of the committee, a medley of community members, local officials, and business owners. However, it was last year’s celebration that provided both the fondest memories and the funniest photo opportunities. There was the sock hop on Friday night (I may or may not have won the hula hoop competition…while wearing a poodle skirt and a bandana around my neck; send me your magazines and I will be glad to autograph them); car show, singing extravaganza, craft booths, and delicious crap food so fundamental to any small-town festival on Saturday, as well as a community picnic on Sunday.

As most of you already know, I am a library director by day, a job that I love and with a staff I adore. We decided that the library should attend this community picnic, but in a manner that required a little more effort than simply throwing down a quilt and making an apple pie. On the heels of our county-renowned murder mystery fundraiser, we decided that we needed a theme, one that would inspire costumes, alter egos, and a whole bunch of unnecessary foolishness. For, if “public library” doesn’t scream “unnecessary foolishness,” I don’t know what does.

So, Terry, my dear friend and our beloved bookmobile

If we had just said, “come eat with us on Sunday,” our turnout would have been much lower. Themes are always a fun idea. People are more inclined to be involved if they feel like they are attending something unique. Plus, themes allow funny personalities to really shine.

City parks are not utilized nearly enough.

driver, and I brainstormed for days (and by “days” I do mean a few minutes in the back office) and decided that we should go with a cliché hillbilly theme. Why? Well, we all had stereotypical hillbilly clothes. We all had an assortment of “props” that would fit well with the theme. We understand that using and/or playing with stereotypes makes them neither true nor self-indicting. We simply thought it would be fun.

Getting kids involved in the community early in their life will help build a sense of commitment and investment. Investment can prevent both brain drain and apathy.

And so, the library staff and our various family members and friends showed up at the city park with hay bales, whiskey jugs, wagon wheels, traditional southern picnic foods, and a whole lot of denim and flannel. Were we the only picnic group with a theme? You betcha. Did we also win 1st place? You betcha.

Everyone loves my mother’s mini fried apple pies.

Creating photo opportunities doesn’t always have to be pure “showboat-y” in nature. When I look back on the pictures from that festival, I remember how proud I was of the library staff and of my little town.

Here are a few things I learned and/or was reminded of throughout that perfectly lovely fall weekend in October:

Thus, it is in activities like this that I am reminded how I can contribute to my own Stars Hollow, just as you can in your own respective towns. If we want to espouse lofty notions of community, small-town camaraderie, and citizenship, sometimes we simply need to show up. If we do so in our dad’s overalls, which we’ve stuffed with a pillow to make ourselves look pregnant, even better.

Feeling invested in a community will lead you to raise your hands in triumph…on a stage… in the middle of downtown…while wearing a borrowed skirt that has two poodles emblazoned across the front.

People notice, and appreciate, extra effort. Pictures of the library staff picnic still hang on the bulletin board at the local radio station.

Oh, and a little TV doesn’t make you a bad person.

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BRENTWOOD ~ COOL SPRINGS ~ FRANKLIN ~ LEIPER’S FORK ~ NOLENSVILLE ~ SPRING HILL

Stories as unique as you are.

S C A R L E T T S C A L E S -T I N G A S , O W N E R SCARLETT SCALES ANTIQUES

FIND YOURSELF IN OUR STORY. VISITFRANKLIN.COM

Hi, I’m Scarlett Scales-Tingas with Scarlett Scales Antiques. I’ve been in business for a little over ten years now. My old store was in one of Franklin’s only existing shotgun houses and now we’ve expanded to a much larger space right around the corner, which is in an old Sears and Roebuck house that they ordered from the Sears and Roebuck catalog. My family was among the first to settle Williamson County a long time ago. In fact I grew up in my family’s ancestral plantation home and I’ve always been surrounded by antiques. It’s always been a part of my life. My parents liked to go antiquing as a hobby when I was young.

At first I kind of got dragged along with them and didn’t really want to have to go. Then I became more interested in it and developed a passion for antiques and a love of old pieces and finding them new homes.

I decided to open an antique business and make my passion my living right here in Franklin.

MUDDY’S HOUSE STORY BY: ALICE HALE ADAMS

W

hen my mother was a little girl, trains ran across the trestle behind her grandmother’s house. She looked out of the square attic window to watch the L&N train. The lingering call of the whistle created a melancholy in my mother’s heart. Daydreams haunted her.

She spent time plotting adventures in far away places.

But, Muddy, her grandmother, had other plans for her. Muddy owned one of the richest garden spots in Fordsville, and she thought my mother’s time was best spent pulling the weeds that grew among her plants and flowers.

Pulling weeds was not my mother’s choice of how to spend a summer afternoon. She complied, though, as Muddy grabbed a hunk of her hair between her thumb and knuckle of her forefinger, shaking the tar out of her.

My mother listened for the train whistle as she pulled the weeds. As she removed the weeds from around the beans and okra, she would mumble, “Just wait until I get to be sixteen. I’ll get on that train and never come back. I’ll never pull another old weed. I’ll be rich and I won’t give anybody any of my money.”

My mother only left Fordsvile for short periods of time. When she came back, she moved into her grandmother’s house.

Fifty years later, my mother was still in the same garden, bent over, spraddled

17

out, pulling weeds. Hot sunshine beamed on her head.

She said to herself, “Yeah, old girl, you’ve come a long way, haven’t you?”

My mother made sure we had a good life in Muddy’s house. Laughter filled the rooms. There were slumber parties where my friends and I dressed up in my mother’s Eastern Star dresses. We wore her sparkly jewelry around our necks.

Mama always made time for me to read. I never had to pull weeds.

Once I was grown, my family and I had Sunday supper with my mother in Muddy’s house. My children and grandchildren played in the house and ran though the weeds in the garden. We visited with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Now, I walk the path that crosses the trestle behind the house. If I squint just right, I can see the small square attic window, and I can picture my mother there. She would have had gardening on her mind, or perhaps she would be thinking of how our lives would have been if she had followed her dream and hopped on the train when she turned sixteen. I am grateful for the garden, for the richness of life my mother built in Muddy’s house, and for the gift my mother gave me when she decided to stay. She abandoned her desire to leave Fordsville, and gave me the gift of family.

A DEDICATED STALLION & A FEARLESS WOMAN PONDERINGS James Anderson Park, a third generation Irish immigrant, served as a Union soldier during the Civil War. He was described as tall, with blonde hair and blue eyes. He was the grandfather about whom Grandmother loved to tell this story…typically on quiet nights, with family gathered around a fire burning in the coal grate and embers glowing from orange to bright yellow. The flames cast their eerie, dancing shadows in patterns and shapes on the walls and created the perfect stage for the tale to begin. She always told it with such passion and color it always felt that I was hearing it for the very first time.

long. As he scouted northward along Rough River, near McLean County, he knew that he was close enough to his home in Park Ridge and the Alexander community (now in a location north of the A.G. Daniel Road and Silver Beach Road in Ohio County, Kentucky) to ride home and check on the condition of his family. This was not a wise man’s decision for it meant certain death if he were caught, and at least a hard, four mile ride that his horse must to endure.

Riding his roan, eighteen hand stallion that he raised from a colt he moved quickly after spying some resting rebel troops around their late afternoon campfire near Hartford along the Rough Creek ford. He knew he would have to utilize the element of surprise as this was the best place to cross the waterway for miles up or downstream.

Holding the reins tightly in his rough hands, he pushed his fists into the base of the horse’s neck, secured a foothold in his stirrups and braced his knees tightly to the raging roan’s body. He leaned forward into the stallion’s neck giving all the slack of the reins that the horse needed to extend his neck to run. The horse knew the signal and dug in with all four hooves, his mane blowing in the face of his rider. He lunged forward with all his strength and might and ran like the southern wind in the traditional style of a Kentucky racehorse.

Together they broke through the Confederate lines on the Rough River, ignoring the inherent dangers. One Confederate recognized him as Park, a horseman, a true horse whisperer, and distinguished backwoods rider known and revered by true horsemen of the region regardless of their affiliation during the war of brothers.

The other southern riders knew that as he charged through their encampment on his valiant steed that the challenge to overtake and capture James Anderson Park would be daunting, at best, but a valuable token for the south should they succeed. Regardless of the impending peril, Park and his horse continued their urgent and enduring ride north of Rough River in this quest to ensure the safety of his beloved family.

James Anderson Park enlisted in the Union army in March 1863, seven months before his second was child born in October of 1863. Those days were among the most ruthless of the Civil War in Kentucky. The Bluegrass State was a pathway between the North and South. Our neutral Kentucky was not a safe place in which to be or reside during this troubled time in our nation’s history.

Aware of the chaos, James Anderson Park knew the danger and longed to verify the safety of his wife and babies as he assumed the role of a Union scout. A woodsman and superb rider, he could stealthily find his way along the fields and ridges of south central Kentucky from Bowling Green to the Ohio River.

His family lived in a log cabin (the one presently on display at the Ohio County Historical Museum in Hartford, Kentucky). He didn’t own slaves, but he and his wife, my great great-grandmother, shared that same cabin with a black woman and her children. This living arrangement existed both before and after the signing of Emancipation Proclamation by our President Lincoln. James Anderson had an inert feeling that he had been away from home too

ESSAY: SHAN ASHBY

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Even after the trek through the acres of corn field bottom land and open fields grown up with ragweed, late summer black-eyed Susans and saffron colored butterfly bushes, the broad-chested horse was still far from winded. Even while slicing through thickets of saw briars and honeysuckle the stallion rarely slowed. The horse and rider worked as one to find the easiest path to the more open, deep canopy of virgin oak and hickory trees and the relative safety of the familiar big woods. The horse never hesitated; never faltered. Trust was paramount between man and beast and each depended on the other for survival in this shared venture. They’d crossed at least two and a half miles of country and still had plenty of stamina to spare.

It was on one of the branches of No Creek as they crossed shallow, trickling, cool water flowing over moss covered rocks that the red roan recognized he was very close to home. After a few minutes of moving at this slower pace to catch their breath and compose themselves a bit, the warhorse began to increase his walk into a trot and then a faster gait.

Not being encouraged to run, the horse nonetheless began to run on his own for he knew where he was and how far he had to go. When the pair was but a half mile from home, they were joined on their journey by a red-tailed hawk sailing gracefully overhead. This was a good omen. Perhaps she, too, recognized the horse and rider and issued a familial screech several times before the trio reached the cabin.

Park was all too aware that the Southerners from the ford were bound to be in pursuit yet he continued with little concern for his own safety as he neared his destination. Upon arrival at the small cabin, he was surprised to see that the black family had not fled and that his wife and children were contained safely within the humble dwelling.

As he reached shouting distance of his cabin he declared his identity from horseback. He warned that he was being pursued and that he anticipated subsequent capture by the “Rebs,” but he called to his wife and requested to view, for the first time, however briefly, his second son.

With little time to spare, the quick thinking black female suggested that he should leave the cabin on the hill and go immediately to the secluded dry creek bed back of his family cabin. This would at least give him a chance, though seemingly futile, to avoid capture.

Trusting her judgment, he did go over the ridge behind the cabin to the washed out gully. His horse was lathered white from the hard run and was actually grunting to find each breath. James could see the steam rising from the animal’s body in the cool evening breeze. Come what may they had both given their all, and Park had seen his newest boy.

The big horse did as J.A. Park commanded. They passed the saw briar and sassafras bushes by the cabin and went over the hill to the sandstone gully and into the small, round rocks of the dry creek bed. Their footsteps in the smooth gravel pounded in the quiet of the afternoon as the yellow leaves from the willow trees swelled around them. Almost immediately after securing his position, James Anderson Park heard the group of Southern scouts approaching his family home.

The sound of the multitude of hooves riding to the front of his cabin was unmistakable. From the dry creek bed James Anderson Park could hear the Southern horses nickering and breathing heavily through their nostrils. It was obvious that his pursuers and their mounts were winded as well. He’d given them a good chase. He rubbed the length of his horse with his hands as he tried to quiet the stallion’s rapid, heavy breathing. The lather on the horse’s chest and the white foam that separated the hair down his strong legs held the unmistakable smell of a wet, hot, hard-ridden horse.

He forced the big steed down in the ditch. He pulled the reins of the horse’s neck and head toward the middle of his huge body on the left side of the horse then pushed back and down on the horse’s withers.

He stretched the stallion out in the gully rocks in the manner of a coon dog taking an afternoon nap.

Then James Anderson Park covered his horse’s side with his body. He stretched across the saddle to reassure and comfort his dedicated animal.

He could see the sides of his winded companion rise and fall under the girth of the saddle and wet saddle blanket. The steed’s gentle, dark eyes blinked as the salty sweat ran down his face from beneath his brow band. Suddenly, James Anderson Park realized, and then feared, that if his horse heard the horses of the Southerners that the big roan would respond with a polite nicker, a common courtesy extended to fellow horses. One nicker out of Park’s stallion would end it all.

It was critical now that his horse be quiet. Park reached for his horse’s head and pulled his own

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weary body up to the side of the giant, wet face and muzzle that was fitted with a fine leather bridle embellished with silver. The stallion’s ear! If he bit his horse’s ear, then his valiant steed might not answer the rebel horses with the customary acknowledgment of a whinny.

Park took the horse’s ear and placed it in his mouth between his teeth and clamped down…hard. He knew he’d have to bite as hard as the horse could stand, and that he did.

It went against his grain to hurt the horse, but this meant life or death for the both of them and his nearby family. The horse felt the pain, and in that instant, Park had the horse’s complete attention.

The stallion did not move, and he did not respond with a sound that would give away their position in the gully.

James could hear the Southerners shouting and their huge horses seemed to make the hard October ground vibrate with an impending sense of doom which seemed to surround the cabin. He heard, in the distance, the pounding fist of a Rebel officer on the cabin door. Then he heard the cries of children.

His heart ached with fear for his family.

Park took a deep breath and held it. As he slowly exhaled through his teeth he knew he’d rather surrender than let them harm his family and friends.

Then, as if to ease his fear and pain, he heard a voice in the vernacular of that precious southern drawl and the accompanying calm to go with it, a transaction perfectly offered for the moment at hand, from a faithful black woman willing to take the risk of a lifetime.

The dark woman opened the cabin door a few inches. She stood confident and showed no fear.

Her voice was strong and steady, but most of all, sincere.

The Southerner demanded, “You seen J.A. Park of the Union Army? We seen him break through our line at Rough River and we’ve been on his trail. We know he lives here and he can’t be far. Where’s he at, woman and don’t you lie to me, ya hear me!

Where is he? I demand the TRUTH!”

“Mr. Park?” the dark skinned woman responded as she boldly swung open the cabin door wide.

She calmly began to fan her apron up and down as she held the corners and cooled her face. “Lawsy mercy, Sweet Jesus! Why Mr. Park? We ain’t seen

nor heerd tell of him since he left for the war months ago. Why he gots a new baby boy he ain’t never even laid eyes on. Naw sir! Naw Sir! We ain’t seen Mr. Park. You is mistaken, cuz Mr. Park ain’t no where round these parts or we’d knowed for shore! If you want to come look inside here for him or check the barns, you’s welcome to. Come on in, if’n you like, but I’m a tell’n you da truth, he ain’t here. “ The soldiers hesitated and then the woman spoke to them again.

“Is you a comin’ or g’wine on?” She placed both hands on her hips in disgust as she spoke plainly, “If you ain’t comin’ in then you need understand.

You’s got these babies a cryin’ and you upsettin’ the lady of the house. If we sees Mr. Park, we tell him you’s a lookin’ fo ‘im.” She never moved and held her head high as she spoke directly to them.

Her comments were convincing. The scouts turned as quickly as they had arrived and began to ride back south to their encampment on the creek.

The red roan stallion, with the dent in his ear, and the conversation of a strong-willed woman saved Mr. Park that day or I wouldn’t be here to share his story with you.

James Park left the war when it was over. He fought at Shiloh and Perryville. He finished up the last of the war times in Wilmington, Virginia as a corpsman for injured and dying Union Soldiers.

After the war and upon leaving the army, he returned to his beloved Park Ridge, continued to farm, worked for the Federal Government, and served as a Magistrate in Ohio County, Kentucky.

Today, when I stand at the foot of his grave, marked with a Union Monument and family headstone, I’m reverent when I push the staff of a small American flag into the dirt that covers his body. I can quietly, easily place my hand on his head stone and slowly draw my fingers over the name PARK engraved therein. The silence in my mind is broken by the sound of thundering horse hooves and the echo of a woman speaking sincerely, “Lawzy Mercy, Sweet Jesus! We ain’t seen Mr. Park.” The echo becomes loud and long enough that it can be heard, especially as it floats above me, and resonates… across this garden of cemetery stones.

MAKER

GENUINE, AUTHENTIC, WELL MADE

FOUNT

H

AUTHENTIC LEATHER GOODS eath recently sat down and was able to chat with Jackie and Phillip Watcher of FOUNT, a leather goods business based in Cleveland, Ohio to learn more about them and their brand.

After several months of working on FOUNT and their growing collection of products, Jackie and Phillip were able to move their operation out of their apartment and into their own studio. “With the move came a lot of new opportunities,” Jackie explains, “we were able to hire people to help us produce the products and sharing a warehouse with a local furniture company opened the door to explore furniture design.” FOUNT Leather is most importantly about being able to produce quality, small-batch goods that ethically support local craftspeople.

FOUNT Leather Goods started when Jackie made Phillip a cellphone case and wallet in their apartment as a gift. They both loved leather because it was classic and timeless, and it spoke to them of adventure. Jackie is from Cleveland, Ohio, and Phillip grew up in from VA. With an education in fashion design, Jackie was no stranger to creating handmade goods, but for Phillip who studied video editing, it was an exciting new adventure. When they first got started, most of production was a lot of trial and error. Most of the advice we got in the earliest days came from an elderly couple in town who worked with leather,” explains Phillip. “They helped us learn which tools we needed to get started and suggested helpful guides and books…”

Having a separate studio to design and work in has also allowed them to start inviting people behindthe-scenes to see how their goods are made. They recently held an Open House that invited local customers to explore their space and meet with them as they celebrated their First Birthday. “We love to invite our customers and local fans in to get a look at how and where we work,” says Phillip, “It adds to the experience for them and we get to know more about our customer and what they want from FOUNT.”

“We quickly started making things we wanted to buy,” says Jackie. They were inspired by vintage clothing and American heritage brands to make bags that were not just functional but also classic in design. “We started making products by trialand-error, usually with about 10 prototypes before we finalize a design we really like,” Phillip says. In those first days they didn’t have an industrial sewing machine, so all of the stitching was hand-sewn.

Phillip and Jackie started selling their bags and wallets at their local Cleveland Flea Market and they were instantly popular.

For now, Jackie and Phillip are celebrating their successful first year anniversary planning. “We just keep thinking about where we’d like to go next,” they say. Producing quality handmade goods has always been their first priority alongside their other, supporting a group of talented and knowledgable craftspeople. “we are thinking about expanding our borders and starting a project in a country without many opportunities for work, or teaming up with a local charity that provides a stable and nurturing life group for women at risk,” Jack explains. “For us, this brand is about making products we love and believe in, and we want our brand to mean the same to the people supporting it and those we employ.”

—fountleather.com

STORY: HEATH STILTNER

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L.L. Bean

N

ONE HAND-MADE BOOT AT A TIME

orm Bellemare works away at his station, meticulously placing die after die onto the smooth, chestnut brown Bison leather in front of him and diligently cutting the pieces that will soon become leather uppers for the famed L.L.Bean Bean Boot.

“I’ve been working for L.L.Bean for 31 years,” he says, “I’d love to know just how many pairs of Bean Boots I’ve made in my time here.” For Norm and the other craftspeople that work in the manufacturing facility for L.L.Bean in Freeport, Maine, the factory has become a place they enjoy working and seeing their skills keeping an American tradition alive rewards them.

England Prep’ movement, and Bean Boots are a key ingredient to that style for both men and women.

L.L.Bean Boots are the icon of the L.L.Bean brand.

They’re authentic, back-to-basic, American made, functional, practical, and a good value with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. They’re not only a staple of the brand or of a trend, but they’re a staple of classic American Heritage style, a group of products that have endured over a century of use on good design.

Since 1912, the staff of L.L.Bean has grown from a small family operation to employing 5,000 everyday workers like Norm. The 350 employees in the Brunswick factory make more than just the world-famous Bean Boot; they also produce Boat and Totes, dog beds, belts, small bags, backpacks, and seasonally assemble skis and bicycles. Like the Bean Boot, L.L.Bean’s Boat and Tote has an illustrious past in addition to being the company’s highest-selling domestically-produced product. First introduced in 1944 as an Ice Carrier, the tote has become a staple bag for the brand because of its guaranteed quality construction and ability to withstand inclement conditions. They now produce close to 1 million totes annually and construct custom totes available in about 5,000 color combinations.

When Leon Leonwood Bean started the company we know today as L.L.Bean, back in 1912, the company was operated out of his brother’s basement and started on nothing more than a circular mailing list Maine hunting license holders and one product, the Maine Hunting Shoe. Sending a four-page catalogue describing his rubber-bottomed, leather hunting boot Bean sold a significant amount of his first run of boots, only to have them returned after a defect. That was the start of the legendary customer service that has come to be expected from L.L.Bean, fixing his design and returning every pair of Bean Boots to his customers, Bean turned the company and boot into household names for hunters all over the country and started the American tradition of L.L.Bean American heritage outdoor gear.

Last year L.L.Bean celebrated its 100th anniversary by releasing a red, woolen pair of Bean boots, based on an original pair held in their archives. When L.L.Bean celebrated its 100 years, the nation celebrated with them.

For their customers, the brand isn’t just a lifestyle brand, and it certainly isn’t just a job to the countless artisans the company employs. L.L.Bean has always meant the same thing to all of these people, quality.

Today the boots are made in much the same way that Leon Leonwood produced the original Maine Hunting Boots however the operation has grown somewhat in the last 100 years. L.L.Bean trains each artisan who helps craft the Bean Boot in a 16-week training program. The program teaches them all of the basics of industrial stitching and cross-trains them to be skilled in other jobs within the Brunswick, Maine manufacturing facility.

L.L.Bean now offers more than 60 different styles of their iconic Bean Boot, including custom colors like Aqua and Orange they produce for the Japanese market who loves the American heritage brand. Each year, the factory uses 3 million eyelets to produce Bean Boots, last year producing 400,000 pairs. For lined boots like their shearling Maine Hunting Shoe the craftspeople essentially have to make two boots, a fleece interior with the classic leather and rubber exterior.

When L.L.Bean started to announce its plans to celebrate 100 years in business, sincere personal memoirs of people’s experience with the company started to appear all over the world and internet. Most notably California resident Stephen Gadecki, in an ‘obituary’ mourning the loss of his 15-year-old L.L.Bean backpack, explained that ‘L.L.Bean doesn’t make gear, it makes memories.’ The story is the same for all customers, and also artisans of the brand. “I’d still love to know how many pairs of boots I’ve helped create in my 25 years as a leather cutter,” Norm Bellemare laughs, “but I know I’m leaving the craft to a new generation of leather cutters I am helping train.”

The popularity of the Bean Boot has increased in the last few years with a new resurgence of the ‘New

— llbean.com

BY: HEATH STILTNER 27

FORESTBOUND

A

FROM HOLIDAY 2011

s a photographer, I like to travel, it’s a favorite hobby of mine and sometimes it’s necessary for work. It does not matter if I am traveling nearby or distantly, I just like the adventure.

However, the adventure of traveling can sometimes be more stressful than one needs it to be, especially when what you can travel with is limited. The most stressful part of traveling is having a carryall bag that holds all of your last-minute items, toiletries you couldn’t shove into your luggage, and miscellany that you brought but will have no use for besides consuming space. When I need a bag like that, I don’t settle for a regular backpack. I carry many things with me daily and in my travels. My bag is the most necessary item I own. It is not only the bag I carry all of my notes, ideas, textbooks, planners, and photography stuff in, but it also becomes my luggage piece when traveling abroad. For this reason, I was ecstatic when we found the creations of Alice Saunders at Forestbound. Using her talent as a designer and artist she creates bags, purses, and totes from reclaimed and up-cycled materials in artistic and luxurious ways. The bags that Alice creates are as much a functional work of art as they are a masterful weaving of antique materials that carry the history of their previous lives.

Heath: Where did you develop the inspiration for the bags, and the style, that you create today?

Alice: I developed my inspiration from flea marketing originally. There was an old flea market in our hometown that I visited frequently and it was always filled with wonderful materials to work with. There were many older people around the town who would clean out their attics and barns. They would bring amazing military relics to these flea markets. I first started my love for hand-stitched military bags and duffels there. The next step was learning to do something practical with them.

Heath: Do you do the photography for all of your products?

Alice: I do about 95% of my photography for the shop. I have a friend who will sometimes photograph my special collections or limited edition pieces, though.

Heath: How did you start your pursuit of photography and product display?

Alice: I started the photography of my products by using household items. I originally started by using a shelf in my bedroom to learn how to position the products for display and photography. I am a firm believer in using what you have.

Heath: So when did you start your company and how did you get the name?

Alice: I started Forestbound about 4 years ago. The name kind of just came to me. I was thinking about where I grew up, back in the pines of New Hampshire, and the name Forestbound came to me and just sounded right.

I phoned Alice to see just what it was that started this passion of hers, and find out from her what making these amazing pieces means to her.

Heath Stiltner: So, Alice, where did you grow up?

Alice Saunders: I was born and raised in New Hampshire.

I grew up surrounded by trees in a small rural community only about an hour from Boston, MA.

Heath: I love farm totes, what made you choose to design a line of them?

Alice: I love farm totes as well. They’re my favorite bag for their functionality. I don’t like to add unnecessary frills. I carry a tote as well and I like it to be a great gender-neutral bag that looks great while carrying it but is also functional for everyday use.

Heath: Where do you live now?

Alice: I currently live in Boston, MA. I came here for college about ten years ago when I was attending Northeastern.

Heath: What do you have in the mix for the upcoming season?

Alice: I am currently working on a small line of all-leather bags and I will be finishing them soon. I always try to work with leather but for this project I wanted the experience of creating entire products out of it. They are still simple, practical, and gender-neutral, but are an alternative to my usual pieces. They’re also very durable. I wanted to include reclaimed material as well and chose to make us of reclaimed brass for the hardware and accompanying tags on the bags.

—forestbound.com

Heath: Did you study design while you were in college?

Alice: No, I studied History. My senior thesis was about the Vietnam War, which comes through in my love of military goods and the use of them in my products.

Heath: When did you first start making bags?

Alice: I have crafted since childhood. In high school I would use my Mom’s Singer sewing machine from Sears to make pouches and purses. Since then I have figured out more about myself and my aesthetic and have since crafted the purses and bags that people buy now.

STORY: HEATH STILTNER 29

LINDSEY SMITH “Embrace the art of discovery. Learn about the things you are buying, where they come from, and what they are made with. I think you will fall in love with the stories of these people just as I have.”

— Lindsey Smith, owner of Maker’s Workshop

T

graduation, I threw myself into the visual world of Anthropologie for several years. Later, I would take on event styling, jewelry, woodcraft, and anything else I could get my hands on. All the while, I was tormented by one simple fact; There was not one single thing that I loved enough to do just that. When anyone would ask what I wanted to do, my answer was simply, “I want to do it all.”

he American-made movement has brought together a host of makers, doers, creators, visionaries, and leaders.

For my second story in this series I have the honor of spending a few moments with Lindsey Smith, the owner of Makers Workshop.

When I first met Lindsey Smith it was at the Country Living Fair in Atlanta. From the start I knew she was someone I wanted to know. She came dressed in killer, American-made clothes, carrying a fierce camera, and well versed in the importance of preserving the past, and celebrating American-made, hand-made, and well-made. A few weeks ago she text me to let me know that she and her photographer were heading out to document the workshops of makers across the country, I, sitting at my desk in rural western Kentucky, am dying that I am not on the road and in the shops with her.

Then, a few years ago, I began working as a buyer for a retail store in Louisiana. This brought me to several trade shows each year in cities across the USA. With each buying trip, I was disheartened by what I had to choose from for our customers. Everything had a gimmick, was made overseas, and the sales rep knew little to nothing about the product in front of them.

I knew this wasn’t the way it should be. If I wasn’t connecting, then certainly our customers wouldn’t! But, every once in a while, I would discover a brand so full of heart and purpose that I wanted to run out of the building shouting in exclamation! My fast heart beat and admittedly sweaty palms told me THIS was how it should be.

MEET LINDSEY SMITH “I am Lindsey Smith; Louisiana native, rambler, and founder of Makers Workshop, a blog focused on Made in America quality handcrafted goods and the skills passed down from generation to generation.”

One day, sitting in my home office, a little light bulb went off and almost instantly the name, MAKERS WORKSHOP, came to me. I started the blog that day and haven’t looked back since. This Fall, we launched our online store featuring a select group of quality handcrafted Made in

WHAT INSPIRED MAKERS WORKSHOP “I have always been an artist of sorts. In college, my passion was fashion design. After

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Read more essays by Greta + check out her biography on our website folklifestyle.com

America products. When you purchase a product, you will see who made it, get a behind the scenes look at their process, and know that you are getting something that is made to last.

getting bigger, I dream about getting smaller and more specific.” And that is what you can expect from Makers Workshop.”

WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO WITH IT

Ask me today what I want to do and I will still reply, “I want to do it all.” Working closely with all of these makers gives me that and inspires me every single day.”

“Makers Workshop is always evolving. Our latest plan is to launch a kickstarter campaign early next year that would involve us and you and the whole of the USA. Telling makers stories and finding the last generation of men and women preserving handcraft and the new generations that follow.

There is a story to be told and my heart tells me it’s mine to tell. It’s a hefty goal but I’m in full pursuit of it.

WHY IS MAKERS WORKSHOP WHAT IT IS “We live in an age when we cannot even walk to the mailbox without some sort of product being pushed on us. I think we are at the point where we want the story, we want to be moved to buy something. At Makers Workshop, we give you that. If I wrote and supported everything that arrived on my doorstep, I would not be any different than any other blogger out there. We have never been the blog to visit for daily posts.

Quality is always better than quantity in our eyes and that is something we will always maintain.

There are thousands of Made in America products out there and while we love that, Made in America to us is not a trend or fleeting idea.

Made in America is quality handcrafted goods and the skills passed down from generation to generation. The timelessness and soul of those products is what makes our heart skip a beat (and we think yours too!) It is with a discerning eye, we offer a very well curated lot of craftsmen and products that resonate with even the humblest of makers. Our good friend Hall Newbegin of Juniper Ridge said, “My dreams aren’t about

As always, we enjoy partnering with brands that align with our mission and aesthetic. My hope is that enough people are passionate about this purpose and want to do something about it. Who knows what great things will happen from this little idea. It has the power to be pretty big if we let it.”

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO TELL THE WORLD OR AT LEAST AMERICA “Embrace the art of discovery. Learn about the things you are buying, where they come from, and what they are made with. I think you will fall in love with the stories of these people just as I have.”

— makersworkshop.net

PHOTOGRAPHY: ANNA ADDISON

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CHRISTINA NICOLE STUDIO “We believe that anything with a solid foundation is made to last. It is our desire as a family to live off the land, to work with our hands, to love our neighbors while sharing stories and making memories, living in the everyday.”

PHOTOGRAPHY: KRISTIN SHYLA

I

t’s hard to separate our livelihood from our journey together. Our narrative as artisans is intertwined with the story of our relationship and seems at times, the two are symbiotic in nature. As we are maturing, we are noticing our place in the journey reflects itself in our creativity and the inspiration of our craft.

The air was warm in early June that evening in Greenville, South Carolina on the bank of the Reedy River that runs through the heart of downtown. A crowd formed around the grand opening of a new artist studio. It was the opening night of Christina Nicole’s first retail space. It was also the

night Travis made the four and a half hour drive to surprise Christina after she stole his heart the weekend before. Since that time, they’ve been inseparable: best friends, lovers, crafters and artisans.

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Four years later...O ur home is filled with greenery, open windows, the smell of pine, rosemary and citrus simmering on the stove and the sound of hammering resonates from the studio. Christina is working a piece of sterling silver while Heidi, our german shepherd is laying around, getting up only to insist on her hourly head scratch. It’s our life. In between filling orders and crafting new pieces, Christina

heads to the garden to prune, cut and harvest vegetables. Chickens cluck and flap in anticipation of a treat or two.

We’ve learned to live with more quality and less quantity... and to work up a sweat from hard work. To be honest, we couldn’t be happier or more at peace.

Drive and determination have really been the fuel to ‘perfecting’ technique and craftsmanship in our

jewelry. Our love for nature, the beauty of creation, and our own wanderings through the property are what shape us and our work. The journey has led us to our homestead in rural North Carolina where we craft our handmade pieces from our home studio.

Travis acts as the sounding board for Christina and contributes mostly in the development stages of the jewelry while Christina takes the blueprints and brings them to life.

We utilize traditional metalsmithing techniques while incorporating some quirky touches of our own that make our jewelry unique to us. We don’t cut corners, we don’t let “easy” take the best of us. Whether it’s plowing the garden, working our land or shaping metal, we get our hands dirty and we work hard.

Our vision for Christina Nicole is the same for our lives and our home; natural, healthy growth and sowing what we reap. We believe that anything with

a solid foundation is made to last. It is our desire as a family to live off the land, to work with our hands, to love our neighbors while sharing stories and making memories, living in the everyday. Whatever it is that we set our minds to, we are committed to doing it well. Each piece of jewelry we make is a little part of our story...one you can wear.

— christinanicole.com

Jennifer & Richard Lanne AUTHENTIC.

Growing up in upstate NY Richard Lanne, Jr. dreamed of living off the land.

His childhood was full of adventures he recorded in many notebooks, documenting the fleeting knowledge of the land and being able to do for oneself that he learned from the many scoutmasters and old timers that passed through his world. He grew up in a story akin to the Foxfire books of old. He spent much of his youth learning how to forage, trap, hunt, build, and forge his future.

Richard grew up in a family that was very outdoor and nature oriented, a family of inquisitive and resourceful minds that always looked for clever ways to do things for themselves. Mother grew up on a farm and taught him the country ‘know-how.’

Father’s family were born hunters and trappers and knew how to live off the land, dad worked

in construction for 8 years and taught him basic principles of building and fixing buildings.

When Lanne joined the Boy Scouts it gave him a new opportunity and a new group of people from whom to learn practical skills. He says he learned all he could from the scoutmasters and was constantly asking questions, jotting his newfound knowledge down in field notebooks. Ed Theilman, the leader of his scout troop taught him survivalist lessons through edible forest roots, flowers, and berries. Pointing out each plant that was edible or ones that were used medicinally he passed down his knowledge of the local forests. Another scout leader taught him how to trap and hunt, and his father who was also involved in the organization lent his own knowledge of hunting to Richard’s troop.

He and his core group of friends in the scouts took their organization very seriously and learned as much as they could about nature, camping, foraging, and living sustainably. They often went above and beyond on their outings learning to

PHOTOGRAPHY: RIKKI SNYDER | STORY: HEATH STILTNER

41

supplement their rations with live frogs caught in nearby ponds and streams. His most vivid memory of the scouting days was seeing his first portable forge brought to the camp. He watched Scoutmaster Nick Schaper spark the fire and use the forge for the first time and quickly started learning the trade.

“He made a profound impression on me, not only as a scoutmaster, but that he could make anything he needed for his small farm,” Lanne remembers. “From a door hinge or a knife, to various tools he needed for woodworking, he made everything by hand and it’s something I try to emulate today.”

Richard is a Civil War re-enactor in his free time when he isn’t managing the farm he lives on with his wife Jennifer. The reenactments employ all his survivalist lessons he learned as a kid and allow him to have an avenue to share all of that knowledge.

As a born and raised Yankee, it’s odd to think that he would play the part of a confederate soldier but Lanne says he relates to the mindset of the men who served in their army. “They were a makeshift army without the strict regimen of the Union to guide them but with nearly half the number of soldiers carrying personal rifles and muskets held their ground through a four-year war by employing their knowledge of the land, home remedies, foraging, and hunting. That kind of resourcefulness is something I’ve always strived to learn more about and I think you can learn a lot from them when you strip away the reasons for the war and get down to that core knowledge.”

He uses his skills as an ironsmith in both his reenactments and his daily life on the farm. I try to use my knowledge of the land and classic trades to solve all of my problems. When something on the farm needs repaired or a part of his reenactment rifle needs replaced he employs his foraging skills to find the materials needed to fix it by scouring the woods on his property for the kindling to fire his forge, a forge he sparks by using an ignition strike he made on the forge itself. Everything on the farm is cyclical,

when there’s a problem it’s fixed using tools made from fell trees and found materials on property he crafts on his own forge.

Richard and his wife Jennifer moved to Ballston Spa twelve years ago to a historic farm property once owned by an exiled Scot named Agnus McDearmid.

The home was in fair shape when the two moved, but they were looking for a fixer-upper and the 1779 farmhouse was just what they were looking for. For both Jennifer and Richard, the most important part of finding a home was that it be historic and original.

“So many historic homes in the area were gutted somewhere between 1970-1990 and completely remodeled,” says Jennifer, “but this one had the original floors and low ceilings we wanted.”

Richard and Jen got to work restoring the home to its former glory by replacing the roof and appliances and fixing the septic. However, a bigger project came when they decided to restore the original barn. Using the skills he learned as a boy scout and those gained from his father’s knowledge as a former builder, Richard hoisted the barn using railroad jacks and restored the original stone foundation by hand. The barn now acts as Richard’d studio and forge where he creates tools as he needs them around the property.

“He can really make anything, and that came in handy when we bought this farm,” say Jen. “Anytime we needed a bracket for a door he was able to forge it, he really does know how to make just about anything. If he doesn’t he teaches himself.”

Richard is still involved with the Boy Scout organization and has now become a scout leader himself. He uses his position to pass down the skills he was taught as a child growing up in the are to a new generation. “It’s important for me to pass on skills I have learned,” he says. “As times change, knowledge that isn’t a part of the everyday dissipates and dies away with the old timers. I have read many books on forgotten arts but there is nothing like hands on learning.”

ICELAND

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A NATION TO DISCOVER

arly this February, I found myself needing something.

It was one of those nameless things a soul yearns for that you can only find through a journey. A break?

No, not really that simple, but close. Amidst all of the technological connection and overstimulation, though, that’s what it amounted to. When I found myself aboard a plane headed from John F. Kennedy Airport to Iceland, I was hopeful I’d find some kind of calm there. I didn’t know what to expect, but after countless beautiful images shared by friends of the lush and wild landscapes, I was hopeful. The first night of my journey in Iceland found me neck deep in a hot natural spring, a faint smell of sulfur wafting off the surface in a cool steam as it mixed with the icy air. Leaning back I stared up at a foggy night sky, waiting for my chance to see the Northern Lights, and though I didn’t see them, I discovered something else. Rest; Calm. That thing a soul craves that it can’t find in the soft-but-probing glow of an iPhone screen.

The morning before I found myself in a new place, a small country with a total population of roughly the same as my college-town home.

Winding through the small, inviting Keflavik Airport I found a cab quickly and headed out to rest up. A five-hour flight was nursed with a warm breakfast at the IcelandAir Hotel Keflavik, and after a short nap and a longer walk along the beautiful rocky coast I felt myself start to unwind.

Possibly because I had to leave my phone charging in my room*, but probably because of the calm sea swirling beneath me undisturbed and gently whispering away my troubles. Snapping back to the real world during a short flight to Reykjavik and long drive to Fludir, I found myself in that Secret Lagoon letting that warm water melt away my technotroubles.

My second day of my journey took me on expected and unexpected adventures. The day started normally. Shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, pack up, and leave. A couple miles outside of the small town of Fludir, our bus driver had to pull over. In a charming landscape of ice and snow and farmland we found ourselves stuck on the side of a road coated in a few inches of thick ice. Standing in the middle of that frozen country road, silence. Stillness. I popped open a tiny bottle of Brennivin and grabbed my camera and just enjoyed the view. Tiny homes belonging to farmers separated by miles of stretching snow, blanketing a fertile soil that I know these locals were eager to plow. Once again I found myself able to just breathe and enjoy my surroundings. A short while later, we were ‘rescued’ by another bus and taken to Gulfoss to see the 32-meter waterfall and the geyser in Thingvellir National Park.

On that day before I left Iceland, I found myself face to face with something familiar–coming from my native home of Kentucky–but

PHOTOGRAPHY: @helloamerica_

different, a horse farm for Icelandic Horses. The Icelandic Horse is one of the rarest and purest breeds of horses in the world. First brought to the island nation in the 9th and 10th century settlers it has survived volcanic eruptions, harsh cold, and extreme farm work by selective breeding. It is a protected species as Iceland has legislation stating that no horses may be imported and all those exported can never return as a way to prevent illness in them. Having two extra breed-specific gaits, this pony-sized, long-haired horse is today ridden for leisure, shown, raced, and used for traditional farm work. Avoiding near-extinction in a volcanic eruption in the 1780s, the Icelandic horse lives on to remind people of the country’s Scandinavian heritage, Norse Mythology, and agricultural history.

Another day went by full of fresh air and adventure, and calm.

My last night of my Icelandic adventure was spent in the national capitol, Reykjavik. That night I went out with a group of people I’d met along the way, fellow reporters and photographers mostly traveling from Europe.

After a family style meal in a local restaurant we spent the evening chatting and getting to know each other, the locals, and what everyone brought with them and were taking away from their trip. No phones, no social media, no disturbances. It was pure human connection. That was something I found most appealing, the ability to disconnect from all of the technology that binds us and find something real. That night I met two hilarious and fun ladies who worked with papers in England, a talented food columnist, a former National Geographic videographer, and a quiet but beautifully interesting young woman with enviable style. We talked. We learned about each other. We left friends.

Before heading to the airport and returning home we made one final stop. A short trip outside the city with a lively local driver who made a suggested detour at a Viking Village brought us to the Blue Lagoon.

Another natural hot spring just outside of Reykjavik. I’m sure you’ve seen it in recent news, especially following Jay-Z and Beyonce’s quick visit recently. It’s a natural lagoon full of nutrients and vitamins that locals and visitors still use to purify and refresh their bodies. With our new friends in tow, we took our first and last dip in the lagoon.

It should be noted that on the way over, our new friend the driver gave us a quick piece of Icelandic Farmer advice. ‘Should you ever be unsatisfied with the weather in Iceland, wait five minutes.’ Moments after getting neck-deep in the lagoon with a face caked with cleansing mud, it began to hail. In the middle of the warm lagoon, without my glasses and being pelted with hail, I began to laugh hysterically. Where else could someone have this experience? To me, it was the perfect sendoff and I found my soul and shoulders a little more lightened. Without electricity–knocked out by the sudden storm– I began packing up my things for the journey home and an hour later I was waving goodbye to new friends and new places that felt a little like home. Calmed.

STORY: HEATH STILTNER

A PASSION FOR COFFEE Melissa visits 2Girl Roaster in Sausalito, California

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era and Olja always have coffee on the brain. They roast it, pour it, drink it, and chew on coffee beans just because they can. 2Girl Roaster is their labor of love, and it goes without saying that their passion for coffee literally runs deep through their veins.

a time. American roasted, poured, and enjoyed to the very last drop.

Why is what you do so important?

The choosing of beans, roasting methods, offering the perfect cup of coffee, etc.

The process of “craft” has always been important to us personally and professionally. The steps we all go through every day of fine-tuning, examining, and contemplating the things that bring us joy. Businesses of process understand that OUR place of joy resides in the doing, in the work. We take the factors that we can easily control along side the factors that we control though thoughtful manipulation to create “craft”. We started our journey to the beginning of coffee from the end. We began as joyful consumers who then became interested in how such an amazing beverage was prepared. Questioning daily the changes that we tasted in that week’s roast. Or why does today’s coffee like to be extracted at 40 seconds while the coffee last week was happy at 32 seconds? Why is it that 21 grams of coffee pull a beautiful shot for one roast/blend, while in another 23 is the sweet spot? Why does the French press give you such a hearty cup, while a pour over makes the same coffee taste light and airy? Why, why, why…. Let’s taste more…. Lets see what others are doing… Lets roast our own.

This dynamic female duo roasts the beans in their café located in the heart of Sausalito, California. When it came time to brand the beans, they relied upon the wise advice of marketing friends and agreed upon using girls names.

Using the names of people they love as well as favorite customers, they have already created a line-up of wit-filled descriptive girl-names to perfectly define the choices of varietal beans. Currently Marcia is in the lead with her intense, never bitter flavor, Kim is strong with a sweet side, Liz is bold, Alison is well-balanced, and Dawn is a bit of a hippy with her incense-filled aromas. Clearly, 2Girl understands coffee and how to relate it to personalities, moods and the essence of taste with scent inspiring aroma.

An introduction from a Sausalito family, who taught English to farm owners in South America, led them to directly source the beans from a small farming family in Costa Rica. The people who walk into the café, baristas, and other roasting companies in the Northern California Bay Area inspire them daily. All of these people and the daily encounters enrich the coffee experience and inspire 2Girl Roaster to craft the very best. These 2 Girls had a dream, and they have made it a reality, one coffee bean at

Perfection in the cup is elusive. It depends on many factors outside from the cups contents. What was your morning like? How long did you wait till you were met with “ Hello,

STORY: MELISSA MCARDLE | PHOTOGRAPHY: REVERIE -DAYDREAM

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what can I get for you? All of this is part of the process too.

The process of cup perfection is what we strive for; we understand that what happens outside the cup can effect the perception of our attempt of perfection inside the cup.

The process of sourcing well, tasting well, roasting well and serving well are all the elements of the process to our craft.

Realizing sustainability is a very important factor for 2Girl Roaster, how do you determine what beans to purchase and have you personally met any of the suppliers?

We have a few carefully selected suppliers in the north bay. We are buying only local and we like to meet with them to see what they have to offer, and then we do a lot of cupping. We taste a lot of coffees from many regions and pick only a few that we really like. We choose to buy green beans that are in the session, so we have a small variety between four to six coffees from different regions.

Give us the scoop on your bright red roaster?

We should come up with a great girly name for that one!

She is a Geisen W6 6 Kilo gas fired Roaster. This is a top of the line piece of equipment, hand made for us in Holland by the Geisen Company. Geisen has been making the very best coffee roasters for decades. We started the build of the machine in November 2011 and it was finally delivered in June 2012. This excellent piece of machinery will be one of the keys to success of 2girl Roaster.

At what moment did you decide you could roast beans and make an incredible coffee?

There was no particular “a-ha” moment for us. We feel looking back on our journey it was more of a little voice that kept singing, “You have something to say, so say it!”

There is a lot of skill associated with choosing beans, blending varietals, roasting, and then offering it to the public. What is your favorite part of the process {from bean to cup} and why?

You have to be experienced with your equipment and be present / mindful with every shot and extraction.

You need to know the type of coffee, the age of the roast and be ready to change any number of variables in making sure the coffee is performing well. It helps to be interested in what other baristas are doing so that you can taste and see how they are expressing themselves through coffee. Finally you have to be interested in people because a coffee bar cannot forget that customer service with the cup is not the exception it is the rule.

What’s the best coffee you tasted? And do you still remember the moment it happened and where you were? Do you feel the aesthetic surroundings of where one enjoys a cup of coffee also plays an important role in the full experience of coffee drinking? {Olja}: What I thought at the time was the best coffee I ever tasted was in Greece about 15 years ago. Nothing tasted better on a hot summer day than an iced greek frappe. Believe it or not it is made from instant coffee. It is made with a teaspoon of instant coffee, sugar and little water blended in a cocktail shaker to form a foam and then added to a glass with the cold water, ice cubes and some milk.

I am not sure if I would enjoy frappe here as much as I have enjoyed it in Greece. With the beautiful Greek people, busy streets, and a sizzling hot day you need Greek Frappe. {Tera}: I have had many great coffee experiences, but my first Ah-ha moment was on a raining morning at Blue Bottle only a few weeks after they had opened at their Mint Plaza Location. I had a perfect shot of 17 Ft. ceiling (which is a hard coffee to work with as a Barista). It was the first time I acknowledged to myself how deeply I felt about this little cup of brilliance! I walked though the busy line to give my thanks to the caring Barista who pulled it. I do feel that the surroundings that day opened me to having my Ah-ha moment for sure. On that particular day I was quietly by myself, which never happens in my busy restaurant environment or with my 2 children! I think the surroundings and service should always be held in high regards.

What do you believe is the epitome of good coffee?

Our love with coffee began with the preparation of espresso coffees. Now we also enjoy developing the perfect blends. Our favorite part is definitely costumer feedback. When a costumer tells you that we took their coffee experience to another level, it makes us happy.

How do you keep your coffee making skills sharp?

Keeping your skills sharp at the bar requires you to work daily with the coffee that you are serving / roasting. A Barista’s job is not an easy one for many different reasons.

The epitome of good coffee is something like umami!

It contains that mysterious 6th sense that makes it undefinable. It must contain quality coffee, expert preparation, beautiful drinking vessel at a minimum.

Depending on the time of the day, beautifully steamed milk or perhaps cold brew over ice! But sometimes the experience can be enhanced by great music, friends, cold rain or a really beautiful warm fresh sugared doughnut!

—2girlroaster.com

RAMBLERS STORY TELLERS IN A NEW FOUND LAND

KYLE BRANCH “Summer is about relaxation, laughs, and long nights with friends.”

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Williams, and Olivia Rae James are a few of my favorite photographers. I identify with each through an open mind and an appreciation for the beauty in the mechanics of the everyday life.

ho are you? I am Kyle Branch and I can even. I am a painter, a plant fanatic, and I have no idea what moderation actually is. I like cheese, yard flamingos, black jeans, and my mental stability relies on the one bottombag fry during a morning hangover.

Favorite coffee shop in America? The Daily is a wonderful shop here in Charleston, and just a brief walk from my house. Their almond milk is money and the staff is one of the friendliest I’ve met in town. If the coffee isn’t enough, their sister spot Butcher & Bee is right next door and has given me more faith through taste and smell than any religion I’ve been exposed to.

Where are you? I presently reside in downtown Charleston, SC. Favorite summer destinations? My ideal summer destination doesn’t look far from home: a baguette from Brown’s Court Bakery, a blush bottle of MyEssential Rosé and a trip out to Sullivan’s Island. Summer is about relaxation, laughs, and long nights with friends. I’m fortunate enough to have all of that at home.

Best piece of advice for taking self portraits?

William Belli will be the first to call out a shoddy set prep. Fluff your pillows, clean the nightstand, and know what is behind you at all times. A photograph is a photograph–– don’t be caught with dishes in the sink.

What is the song for Summer 2015? Tennis will always remain one of my favorite artists.

Spending the summer without a full glass of rosé and “I’m Callin’” on repeat seems too unlikely and too unfair.

What does it mean to be a millennial? Pass.

— @kylealexanderb

Favorite photographers? Amos Mac, Nathan

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IN THIS SKIN A 21ST CENTURY VIEW ON SKIN

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We are covered in nearly two square meters of skin. It covers us and protects us from the elements, and along the way it gets bruised and blemished. That is beauty.

The most beautiful part of our skin is how it changes, from year-to-year, or from sunlight to shade. It changes. Evolves. Every twenty-eight days it renews itself, so even when we feel it’s looking old or tired it is making us new.

or the last few years it feels like we’v been bombarded with ads about beauty. Ads about making our eyebrows perfect, our teeth whiter, our muscles larger. We live in a society that has found more than one use cosmetic use for Botox, for crying out loud–an aside, it cannot be healthy to not sweat. For the first time in years, though, we’ve seen new kind of advertising emerge. A kind of image that tells us to not reflect on how others look, but on how we feel in our skin. Confidence.

Confidence in the way we walk. The way we talk. The way we see ourselves in the mirror…above all else, being confident in our skin.

I’ve always loved skin and the way each and every person’s is unique and beautiful in its own way. I’ve admired for years the art of many great sculptors, painters, photographers, and illustrators who taken on the challenge of portraying that beauty in their own medium. So this is our way of celebrating body confidence, being confident in one’s skin. We are the one’s who known them best after all.

STORY: HEATH STILTNER | PHOTOGRAPH: JOHN THATCHER

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ANDREW WAGENHALS 5 RAPID FIRE QUESTIONS WITH THE BUDDING PHOTOGRAPHER

Name: Andrew Wagenhals Age: 20 Location: Savannah, Georgia TOP 5 SONGS FOR SUMMER: Sun Hands, Local Natives | California, Delta Spirit | Diet In B Minor, Pacific Air | Trying To Be Cool, Phoenix | Tongue Tied, Grouplove 5 FAVORITE INSTAGRAMMERS: @olgadubai @grandmotherwolf | @herschelsupply | @taylortippett @socality TOP PLACES TO SHOOT: Hunting Island State Park (SC) | Skidaway Island State Park (GA) | Chimney Bluffs State Park (NY) | Taughannock Falls State Park (NY) | Irondequoit Bay (NY) WHY DO YOU PHOTOGRAPH: I photo as a form of journaling. When you take a picture it means something.

You aren’t just creating an image, but you’re creating a

portal to that moment in time and everything that came with it; the day, the people, the fleeting moment. A photograph is worth a thousand words, and those words change with time. What was once a beautiful memory can turn into a string, and a string can turn into a beautiful memory. I like having the ability to look back on where I’ve been, what I’ve done, but most importantly reflect on how I felt and how I feel about it now.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A MILLENNIAL: Millennials are gifted with an understanding of both sides of the technological revolution. We understand the benefits to technology and mass communication, but we are also aware of the negatives that come with it. Integrating technology into one’s life can be difficult if it was introduced late or if it was introduced too early.

Millenials have the power to use technology as a means to enhance their life-experiences and not let technology define them.

— @awagenha

WILL FRYAR THE MASTER OR THE PORTRAIT Name: Will Fryar Age: 27 Location: Arizona I am a filmmaker/photographer from North Carolina who now residing in the deserts of Arizona. I love shooting portraits because of the stories people’s faces tell. I love adding a human element in all of my photos because I feel it’s something we can all relate to. I am Inspired by people that I come across on a daily basis. Whether that be friends and family, or a stranger on the street. I love capturing people in their element, doing what they love. We all have a story to tell and memories to share. I feel my creative outlet is to share those stories. I am just a steward of memories.

FAVORITE PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER: My favorite portrait photographer/painter is Jeremy Okai Davis.

FAVORITE SUMMER MEMORY: My favorite summer memory is catching running around the yard with my sisters catching fireflys in the front yard...and homemade ice cream socials.

FAVORITE PLACES TO PHOTOGRAPH: I love shooting in the woods and mountains. I love tones of green and brown. I try to shoot as candid as possible. Letting the day u fold naturally on the film. Roanoke, VA Boone, NC Flagstaff, AZ are a few favorites.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A MILLENNIAL: Being a Millennial has great rewards and responsibility. I feel my part is stewarding meaning creative culture that will inspire the generations to follow.

— @cityonfilm

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BROTHERS STORIES INSIDE THE DIGITAL JOURNAL OF RYAN MILLAR

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top of my list, but the Colorado mountains and valleys have stolen my heart these days. I have a particular fascination with taking portraits of people. I love the idea of capturing someone in a single momentflaws and imperfections included. And as for coffee, I like it all! From black coffees to cappuccinos to iced sugary treats. I like to think my coffee palate is as diverse as my taste in music. Taylor Swift and Bon Iver rest side-by-side on most of my playlists.

y name is Ryan and I am a walking mess of inconsistencies and contradictions. 25 years old and living in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, I spend my time telling stories, taking pictures and drowning in coffee.

I started Brother Stories in 2011 as a personal writing project. It quickly became a place to process the messiness of life with as much authenticity and vulnerability as I could muster. Through the telling of my own story, I recognized an immense need to hear and share the journeys of others. The musician who is buried in unsung lyrics. The photographer with hopes of taking pictures across the globe. The small business owner who dreams of redefining community within her shop. Every adventure is rich with tales to be told. The goal of Brother Stories is to provide folks with an outlet to let their story be heard. We aim to shed light on businesses, entrepreneurs and creatives in a fresh and unique way.

One fundamental piece to Brother Stories that should be conveyed clearly is our love for people. Not perfect, composed and shiny people. The ones who recognize their shortcomings and embrace their mistakes. It’s all part of the story! We hope to be a reminder that the world is full of messy and struggling people. The most powerful thing we can do for others is look down the barrel of someone’s brokenness and say “Yes. There is beauty here.” The creative community is full of exclusivity. Checklists and expectations for how to live, what to wear and who to surround yourself with. We long to see those expectations shattered. Be yourself and celebrate your uniqueness! You have much to offer the world around you.

As for me, I enjoy seeing new places and getting my shoes muddy. Exploring the Pacific Northwest is most definitely at the

BY: RYAN MILLAR

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THE LOST BOYS

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BY: JAKE WEISZ nspired by the work of Ryan McGinley, Saverio Cardia, Ruben Brulat & Daniel VanFlymen this new photographic series aims at identifying the Australian male identity within its physical relationship of the country itself.

In this work I’m capturing young Australian males exploring a diverse range of Australian backdrops that fully encompass the wild and wonders of this great country.

Each muse telling their stories in their most raw and vulnerable state.

The work will eventually accumulate into a photography book and print exhibition in the following months. I have recently begun looking into a charity organisation to connect the work with so upon release of the book, a profit margin will be given as a donation. — Jake Weisz

FOR MORE VISIT JAKEWEISZPRODUCTIONS.COM

CHARLES POST IN HIS WORDS Home is where wild rivers meander through a moss-laden, old growth redwood forest, tucked away from it all, hidden in a cloak of cool northern California fog. With room to roam and space to breath high on my list, I’m drawn to the words of Edward Abbey, who eloquently reminds us that “wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.”

With these words in mind, I lead a life punctuated by adventure, while wielding a camera, binoculars, pencil and notebook. With time, photographs, memories and written words, begin to tell a story of life as it unfolds, highlighting relationships, both ephemeral and deeply rooted, which orchestrate the ebb and flow of our natural world. Mark Twain once said, “explore, dream discover,” so that’s what I’m doing.

to grab snacks, which probably consisted of nectarines and salt-water taffy, before slipping into my rubber boots and sneaking out the back door of our coastal Massachusetts home. I was going to explore the seemingly never-ending expanse of Cape Cod bay mudflats, which I learned from my grandfather, were exposed by the bi-daily tug of the moon. As I tiptoed into the early morning, I was wielding a bucket and my trusty net, eager to explore and capture an as many crabs, fish, turtles and worms as possible. Twenty years later, nothing has changed. I’m still passionate about nature and adventure. I live for wilderness, empty single tracks, vast expanses, camping with friends, starry nights and early mornings filled with sounds of birdsong and the aroma sagebrush, juniper or redwood duff. Edward Abbey, once eloquently stated, “wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.” At an early age, this ethos resonated within me.

Currently, I’m a PhD student in the Integrative Biology Department at the University of California, Berkeley, where I study freshwater ecology - so, I’m basically doing exactly what I did at age five, but now I travel throughout the western United States wielding nets and buckets, as I study the effects of climate change on river food webs. More specifically, I study the effects of hydrologic fluctuations (i.e. periods of flooding and drought) on North America’s only semi aquatic songbird, the American dipper (Cinclus mexicanus), which thrives in remote, unaltered streams. I’ve pursued this occupation because I’m fascinated by the

I owe my passion for adventure and love of nature to my upbringing and earliest adventures and one in particular, which took place just before sunrise on a warm summer morning, only a few days after my fifth birthday. I can clearly remember waking up overcome with excitement, tip-toeing upstairs

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structure and function of ecosystems, and love sharing my knowledge of and passion for nature with others. And, perhaps the best perk of the lifestyle I have chosen, is that I’m afforded a healthy amount of time in wilderness. During my field season, which lasts roughly three months, I am knee deep, wading through and exploring some of the West’s most pristine river networks.

There, I am in my element.

your first time standing beneath a behemoth, 5,000 year old redwood tree standing some four-hundred feet overhead. Or the first time you laid your eyes on Yosemite Valley, Delicate Arch, Monument Valley, Angles Landing or Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Park. That awestruck feeling of overwhelming excitement and solace is what I live for and aim to experience as long as I’m rambling around this planet.

When I’m not in a river catching and studying birds, fishes and insects, I’m analyzing data, writing, studying or teaching field biology to U.C. Berkeley undergraduates, as a graduate student instructor. Yet, with a healthy workload, comes a healthy respect for free time, which usually consists of long hikes or road trips with my girlfriend, Meg Haywood-Sullivan, who’s a seasoned adventurer and professional photographer. With surf boards, snowboards, fly rods, shotguns, hiking gear and tents packed away in my trusty Toyota Tacoma, the world is our oyster.

I will leave you with selection of wise words, eloquently articulated by Edward Abbey, which goes as follows, “One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”

There’s something about adventure, especially throughout the West, that captivates me. Maybe it’s the open roads, endless sky, small towns, wildlife, local beer, or the people you meet along the way. Or maybe it’s the wilderness coupled with a love for adventure, and it’s inherent qualities than cannot be easily described in words.

Yet, there are a few who have mastered this art.

Edward Abbey, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, John McPhee and Henry David Thoreau are among those have capture much of the essence infused in the natural world. If you haven’t read the rhetorical mastery of these luminaries, do. You’ll find yourself hungry for adventure and thirsty for solitude. For all you seasoned explorers, remember

Hope to see you around the river bend.

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JOURNEY THE PLACES OF DESIRE & INTEREST

EXPLORE ...freedom, exploration, and living in the moment...

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here is no map and no set direction.

It’s about freedom, exploration and getting outside to live in the moment.

When we embrace where we live, we create our own paths and experiences. We are lucky to live in such a geologically diverse, and mostly untouched, area of the world.

The pristine beauty and majestic colors make capturing the essence of the surroundings somewhat simple; the same way a photographer may feel with a beautiful model. To stand apart from the crowd means finding uniqueness.

same scene, what we each take from it is different. We savour the experience, and part of the thrill is making-up our own adventures with the goal of inspiring others to create and share their own stories.

My journey into photography has led me to a group of photographers with a similar craving for exploration and discovery. Together we have traveled the vast expanse of the prairies and rocky mountains in an effort to showcase what we feel is beautiful through our lenses. Some of the best moments captured have been just a few feet away from our vehicles on a random road because something has caught someone’s eye. And while we all may be shooting the

To me it’s about capturing the moment, the experience and the feeling. I have never been a great storyteller with my words. I have always been a visual person and, as of recently, design and photography have been my way of expression. The story I tell is though my photos.

This concept has grown into a project for our group. Our goal is to create a community of photographers who share and promote their unique and beautiful view of our country. The primary focus is within Canada, but we hope to inspire people from all parts of the world.

The places in these pictures range from Waterton, Pincher Creek, and Jasper, Alberta.

STORY: & PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRIS AMAT

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HUDSON, NEW YORK HUNTING FOR VINTAGE LOOT BY: JEN O’CONNOR

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n Columbia County New York, the Hudson river winds its way in gentle curves around the foothills of the Adirondacks. There, nestled on the eastern shore, the town of Hudson has made a renewed stand.

With credit due to a visionary band of antique dealers, Hudson is thriving once again. More than 70 antiques shops line the bustling, warren street, where lovingly restored buildings abound.

capital of New York State.

This port town continued to flourish during the Industrial Revolution, but steeply declined in population and productivity in the mid 20th Century.

By then the town had lost most of its manufacturing businesses along with residents who moved out when jobs became scarce. Hudson then became quite notorious through the 1950s for its “red light” district.

A peek at the history of the area tells us Hudson is no stranger to change and development. Hudson’s long history began in the early 1700s when whalers and merchants traveling to and from Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and Rhode Island via New York Harbor some 120 miles to the south, would anchor off a natural landing at the river’s edge.

These early traders sought to cultivate an inland port safe from piracy.

For many years the downtown lay dormant and fallow, but no longer.

In the last two decades, fueled by the energy and dedication of artful entrepreneurs and folk who sensed the soul of the town’s history and architecture, Hudson has re-emerged as one of the most dynamic centers for shopping and vintage hunting on the East Coast.

By the late 1700s and early 1800s Hudson was a well-established and growing city – among the largest in NY State and the 24th largest city in the US. It was noted for its manufacture and transport of goods including beer, matches, mushrooms and pocketbooks.

Indeed, Hudson was such a thriving port town it was almost chosen as the

The now active Historic District hosts a veritable dictionary of American Architecture and like many old towns hosts many wonders and secrets best discovered on foot by browsing the local retail businesses. The care and investment in the town is palpable and it presents a wonderful day tripping jaunt or a weekend getaway with

ABOVE: Jacqueline Flansburg-Diehl & her Mom Ida share their style and savvy at both “711” and their showcase in the “Hudson Supermarket”.

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restaurants, B&Bs, and the like to lure and entertain travellers who appreciate its many attributes.

I make the jaunt to Hudson at least once a season to take in the loot and offerings on Warren Street. Sometimes it’s a gal pal trip, other times we bring the kids and hit their favorite ice cream parlor on the planet, either way it’s always a success and well worth the trip.

JEN’S MUST VISITS: If you haven’t been to the Hudson Supermarket lately or ever, drop everything, go now, and come back and read this article once you have been to what is simply one of the coolest vintage showcases on the planet.

The Hudson Supermarket is 7,000 square feet of soaring space that once served as a (surprise!) supermarket and is now a dynamic antique and vintage furnishings market. Featuring a variety of dealers whose merchandise acts as a timeline from the very ancient to the very modern, their inventory is ever evolving and always inspiring. The market’s dealers have established reputations and built collections that include the very best from a wide variety of genres, era, and styles.

Lead among the Hudson Supermarket dealers is talented designer, Stephanie Lloyd. Stephanie is a purveyor of industrial, mercantile and one-of-a-kind furnishings and accouterments much of which is re purposed at Urban Indian, her husband, Ken Fougnier’s, workshop.

Her space at the Hudson Supermarket is her public showspace.

She’s also a champion of Hudson and it’s many dealers and keen to get her customers to take in the wonders of Warren Street. I cannot help but circling, and circling her displays ‘til the myriad of savory arrangements set in and take root in my lust for the old and worn, the revered and the not forgotten vernacular of yesterday.

READY TO GO? Are you ready to go? Make your first stop the “Hudson Antique Dealers Association” website at hudsonantiques.net. There you’ll find complete listings on what’s new and off Warren Street as well as information on directions, delivery services, shop hours, accommodation and dining info, and more.

Talented entrepreneur Jocie Sinauer runs Red Chair. She curates a wonderful array of pieces that nod to her elegant style, spare decorating and love of creamy whites.

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AMONG THE GIANTS Photographer Beau Simmons travels to Yosemite National Park with a group of friends and a spirit of wander.

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group of friends and I planned a short twentyfour hour trip up to Yosemite National Park from Orange County, CA. We headed out around 7:30 p.m. and arrived at about 1:30 a.m.. After a couple hours of sleep on the side of the road, we packed our bags for the 12 mile hike that awaited us at 4 a.m..

Switchback after switchback we slowly headed up the steep mountain with nothing but headlamps and the sound of the morning calmness. It was very majestic just being in the wild and watching the sun slowly rise through the valley. We made it to the top after about a good six miles of nonstop uphill madness.

It took about three hours along with a 3,200 foot elevation climb to reach our destination. Standing at the top looking

out over Half Dome and Yosemite Falls, I realized how small I really am in this world. The weather that we had there was so unreal.

Fog covered the tip of Half Dome and it began to lightly snow on us. After eating lunch we then packed up and headed back down the mountain. We arrived at the car after about 2 hours of hiking down and explored other parts of the valley.

Starting from random stops along the road to skateboard in the rain, to standing underneath the enormous Yosemite Falls.

This was such a quick trip but it was amazing experience. This was my first time ever visiting Yosemite and I fell in love with it immediately. I can’t wait to explore the other areas that surround it again soon! ­— @rseabve

THANK GOD FOR LEMONS “My life is like a lemon drop I’m suckin’ on the bitter to get to the sweet part I know there are better days ahead”

— Pistol Annies | Lemon Drop

As the age-old saying goes, ‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.’ There must be some history behind the phrase, how did these acerbic fruits get such a bad rap? Who decided the sweet nectar of lemonade was better than a sour lemon...

OK, I admit I can see how that won the popular vote. Sure, we love to think we make the best of our bad situations, but how do we do that?

oft to use his lemons in her lemonade stand in Via Mizner. Finding that squeezing so many lemons daily ruined her clothes, Lilly invented her own form of camouflage, shifts she designed out of bright and colorful cotton printed material that hid the frequent splatters. After receiving many compliments on her new wardrobe, Lilly began selling her custom creations from the stand alongside the lemonade for which their creation was attributed.

One day, noticing she was making more money selling shifts than lemonade, Lilly closed the stand and started Lilly Pulitzer, Inc. After a few key placements in the media, including one very notable appearance on school-friend Jacqueline Lee, at that time First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, in Life Magazine, Lilly’s shifts became a staple garment for the American public, preppy community, and high society. Lilly passed away last April; the Queen of her own wave of American style and prep, a legacy built on lemons.

Every day we are faced with an amalgam of situations placed in our path by that flighty wench called life, a series of challenges or obstacles meant to test us to see if, when faced with adversity, we are able to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and turn the darkness into light. The world’s most influential people have learned this principle of life, but it is still one everyone has had to learn and continually has to put into action. One of the most famous cases of someone making lemonade from lemons to create a positive change in their life comes from a lady who took the phrase quite literally.

It’s important to never forget where we come from, and the steps in our lives that lead us from the lemons to the lemonade. It’s not the lemon’s fault it was created an acerbic, bitter fruit-in fact, some people love that about it, myself included. Let us not forget, you can make lemonade out of lemons, but you can’t make it without them. So this spring let’s not just celebrate with lemonade, but celebrate the lemons from which it was made.

In their southern Florida home in Palm Beach, Peter Pulitzer—grandson to the famous publisher, journalist, lawyer, philanthropist, and union soldier of the American Civil War, Joseph Pulitzer—and his wife Lilly Pulitzer—Queen of American Prep—owned several citrus orange groves, from which Lilly was

BY: HEATH STILTNER

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CHANGED FOREVER

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BRANDON ECKROTH & NICARAGUA

t all started with the desire for family.

As I was taking a break and grabbing DOWNTOWN FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE something greater. My parents some water, this little girl came over to me were recently divorced, my heart with a soccer ball and asked me to play. I and mind were spiraling out of happily accepted her invitation and saw her control, and I didn’t know what eyes light up with love, almost sending tears to do next. So, I took to the one to pour from my own eyes. thing that has always held true in my life, my faith. I felt an extreme calling After passing around for awhile, sharing to take all the pain and heartache that I was laughter and smiles, she ran off to a nearby feeling and turn it into love, pouring it out house and came back soon after with a for all those who are less fortunate than I. handful of crackers. Thinking it was snack On January 15, 2015 I boarded a plane in time, I went over and started to talk with Minneapolis, Minnesota and took off to a her in my scattered Spanish. I found out her country 2,500 miles away to serve and love name was Marcel and that she was eight the children of the Arms of Love Orphanage years old, she loved soccer and wearing in Jinotepe, Nicaragua. colorful clothes. I also found out that the few crackers she had in the palm of her hand The adventure began as soon as I stepped were actually her lunch. As her hand began foot off the plane, grabbed my bags, and to empty of them, she had one left. She hopped into the back of a truck to be translooked at it, looked at me, and then handed ported up the mountains into Jinotepe. Every me it. Tears immediately fell from my eyes. single day was such a wonderful adventure, This girl, whose lunch was nothing but a opening my eyes in ways I never thought few crackers, wanted to share it with me. I possible. I went to serve at this orphanimmediately felt guilty and convicted. Her age and love on these children whom often heart, at eight years old, is already a million don’t even know who their parents are, times bigger than mine could and will ever but yet, I was the one being shown a love be. I was humbled beyond belief. greater than I ever knew existed. The culture I experienced there was unlike any other; Along with the truly amazing experiences I the amount of pure, selfless, unconditional had, I was able to travel the country, seeing love that was shown to me left my heart so some of the most beautiful scenery that my unbelievably full. eyes have ever witnessed. This trip showed me that it is when you step outside your One of my greatest memories from this truly comfort zone and immerse yourself in the life-changing trip was on my 20th birthday. beauty of this world that your life will be I spent the day serving in the community changed forever. So I encourage you, get out working on projects in the rundown villages there and get lost in the magnificence of this around the outskirts of Jinotepe. Myself mysteriously wonderful place we live. and a few others were digging a latrine for a

STORY: MACEY BAIRD | PHOTOGRAPHY: DEBBIE SMARTT

PHOTO + ESSAY BY BRANDON ECKROTH

FOUNT

BOSTON

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FROM SUMMER 2013

hrough the winding, cobbled streets of Boston, MA a crimson line of brick and paint weaves its way past the many cloisters of history throughout the city.

Like a bloodline to the past this path makes its way through the city offering patrons devoted enough to walk its 2.5 mile trek a glimpse at the faded signs, timeworn bricks, and sapient monuments. These obelisks stand stoically, left behind to share the stories of the brave pioneers who helped create this nation. The line curves its way through the city like the signature of John Hancock, unmoved and undisturbed it writes for us a tale of determination, revolution, and freedom.

There’s something unexplainable about the feeling one gets being in the historical seat of the United States as we know them today. From as early as the 1600s, and further back still, the New England states became the economic, commercial, religious, and educational center for a New World on the cusp of bursting into life.

It’s as if those early puritanical citizens have left that energy in those rivers, mountains, streams, forests, and cities to urge on the generations of patriots to come to pioneer the ideas and ideals of a people determined to make a nation that offers freedom to all.

It’s easy for me to admit that Boston is by far my favorite city in America. It’s true. From the warm

STORY: HEATH STILTNER

JOSHUA TREE ...in the desert.

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eroded by groundwater filtering through them as well as flash floods that washed away the topsoil. This process leaves behind Mars-like landscapes like the red and strange Giant Marbles.

The park is parts of both the Mojave and Colorado Deserts and reflects different aspects based on the elevation. Throughout the park are collections of inselbergs, large piles of rounded boulders created 100 million years ago by cooled magma which has been since

The park, now a full-fledged National Park thanks to the Desert Protection Act of 1994, is now larger than the state of Rhode Island.

Though it is still experiencing the drought-like ecosystem it has since the 1930s Dust Bowl it hasn’t deterred visitors. The landscape is an ideal setting for photographers of nature as it boasts many natural ecosystems and has some of the lowest light pollution in the state of California, an ideal condition and quality for stargazers and astrological photographers and watchers. Whether hiking, exploring, or visiting the infamous spot where Phil Kaufman tried to cremate Gram Parsons, everyone has a journey to take by the Joshua Trees.

amed for the unique tree that inhabits its rocky landscape, Joshua Tree National Park in southern California has had one of the more illustrious pasts of America’s National Parks. Though most people are probably most familiar with its infamous connection to Gram Parsons and his near-cremation in the park, it’s also popular for its unique and diverse landscape. The park, initially created as a National Monument on 10 August 1936, was spearheaded by activist Minerva Hoyt who first persuaded the state and federal governments to protect the area for its unique ecosystem.

STORY: HEATH STILTNER | PHOTOGRAPHY: ALEX MCDONELL

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BLISS

A SPECIAL WEDDING SECTION

JACOB + ASH YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK

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sh and Jake are a hair/makeup artist and photographer couple. They met in Manhattan and lived together in Brooklyn for five years. surrounded by hundreds of candles, Jake proposed to Ash on the same couch as three generations before him. In June 2013, they were married in Yosemite valley and celebrated at the historic Wawona Hotel. They designed and crafted every single detail of the wedding over the course of two years. They poured so much love into their celebration because they wanted it to be an unforgettable experience for their friends and families. They now live in the bay area and are loving life.

The ideas were based off of our venue being Yosemite and mother nature, herself. We are both really into astrology so we were inspired by that and keeping things as organic as possible. We wanted it to look almost as if we weren’t bringing any outside elements to Yosemite.

Every single event and memory made was filled with magic and love and we would do every part of it all over again and again. From meeting almost every Monday night with friends to make crafts to all the planning, I think our favorite memory was seeing it all come together. It was better than we could have ever imagined. It was amazing to see all of our loved ones get so festive.

Our advice to engaged couples is to make their wedding weekend as long as possible and no matter how stressful planning might get, let your excitement take over and enjoy every moment!

Vendors: photography: James Moes // planning + design: Bride (Ash Murphy) // venue: Yosemite National Park Yosemite Village, California // videography: Mallary of JBM Wedding Photography and Adam Simon (Edited by Ash Murphy) // cake + flowers: Sweet Dreams // custom jewelry + accessories: Sundays Gold // bride’s custom dress: Shelly Lang Design // maid of honor dress: BHLDN // groom’s custom suit: Indochino // polaroids: Groom // accommodations: Wawona Hotel // hair + makeup: Bride (Ash of JBM Hair & Makeup) // music: Anna Rose & Aaron Rheingold // event staging: Master Michael Quinn & Ron Rangelendors.

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A GENTLEMAN FARMER Jennie Love, of Love ‘n Fresh Flowers, fills us in on this richly-hued, earthy wedding inspiration shoot: America and the oldest rose garden in America still growing in its original foot-print. Wyck is a truly remarkable place.

As someone who works the land every day, I feel deeply connected to the seasons and to the heritage of farming. When I started brainstorming with the talented ladies at Love Me Do Photography on a photo shoot, we were all immediately drawn to the idea of celebrating the richness of a full harvest in an intimate setting ripe with agrarian history. We wanted to highlight the natural beauty of the late summer season’s flowers, fruits, and vegetables.

Everything in the shoot was locally sourced, including the flowers grown at our own flower farm, just a few miles away.

When it was first built, it was in wide-open rolling hills, the country estate for its Quaker owners who traveled to and from the city of Philadelphia by horse and carriage. Today, swallowed up by Philadelphia as it expanded over the centuries, Wyck is now a petite 2.5 acre green oasis in a tattered urban neighborhood.

Step inside its gates and one immediately escapes the dull roar of buses to hear bees from the farm’s hives buzzing around instead.

Wyck, the venue, was the absolute perfect fit for our vision, and it inspired so much of this shoot. Located in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, Wyck is the ancestral home of the Wistar-Haines family, colonists who helped build Philadelphia when they settled here in 1690. The home and property remained in the same family until 1973 when it went into a trust and became a National Historical Landmark. Today, it’s beautiful garden, house, and small urban farm are open to the public for exploring, including the original glass greenhouse that was likely one of the very first to ever be built in colonial

Our models for the shoot are a real-life couple deeply in love, and it was a pleasure to watch them giggle and blush together throughout the summer afternoon. We had them “marry” under the 250 year old Concord grape arbor beside the house, which was heady with the fragrance of ripening grapes. The foodieinspired bridal bouquet was quirky and fun with a mix of dahlias, zinnias, air plants, blackberries, raspberries, mint, sage, and garlic. Yes, garlic! The boutonniere included succulents, blackberries, gomphrena and celosia.

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The celebratory farm feast that followed was set-up in the rose garden. The handmade rustic farm table and antique chairs were provided by Maggpie Vintage Rentals. Birchtree Catering designed a scrumptious rustic late summer menu that was inspired by the colors and tastes of heirloom tomatoes. The table was decked out with a lush sprawling centerpiece of zinnias, dahlias, kale, sage, hydrangea, peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes. More heirloom tomatoes were placed down the center of the table and each place setting got its own garnish of either an adorable baby eggplant or string of green baby tomatoes.

We made one of my favorites, a Blackberry Shrub, for cocktails. A shurb is a tart drinking vinegar that was popular in Wyck’s heyday as a way to preserve fruit for consumption throughout the year. Today shrubs are an excellent mixer for cocktails and super easy to make. We served a “cheese cake”, literally a stack of locally-sourced

cheese rounds in lieu of traditional cake and a great idea for less traditional couples who love savory more than sweet.

All in all, this shoot felt so natural and joyous, especially when we all sat down at the end to enjoy a delicious meal together in the late summer twilight. A last hurrah for summer! And the perfect inspiration for an intimate farm or backyard wedding.

Wyck is available to rent for weddings and other special events.

VENDOR CREDITS: Photography: Love Me Do Photography | Venue: Wyck House in Philadelphia, Pa | Florals & styling: Love ‘n Fresh Flowers | Food: Birchtree Catering | Dress: Free People | Bow tie: Forage | Rentals: Maggpie Vintage | Paper goods: Loveleigh Invitations | Hairpiece: Lovely Bridal

JODY & MACKENZIE Toronto, Canada You know those fools who say they knew they loved each other before they met? I’m completely embarrassed and quite pleased to say that happened to us. I had been living and travelling abroad, first Africa and then South America. During that time I had my share of imaginary great loves; Latin suaves, dangerous and totally-wrong-for-me wanderers...

They had all failed.

I was on a backpacking trip in Bolivia with a friend from back home. She kept mentioning Mackenzie; and we analyzed his more real misadventures in love. I didn’t know him and was unaffected until she showed me a picture. He was in a tuxedo drinking expensive scotch. I had never liked people who looked rich. But he was really handsome.

Months later I met her again, this time in Chile. I tried to bring him up a few times, but it never really went anywhere. But when she got home she posted all our pictures online and Mackenzie asked about me.

She messaged me later that he had called me pretty. I knew something was going to happen right then. We would fall in love for sure.

When I came home we met officially. We hit it off right away, despite our differences.

In our first real conversation I established my views on factory

farming and informed him that dolphins can commit suicide.

He mentioned later that he appreciated my passion, though he did not share my views. He had a cheeseburger for lunch that day.

My friend told me later not to talk like that anymore, that it made me sound crazy. He was totally brilliant, and thankfully acted less rich than he looked. He loved to surf, play hockey, mountain bike, and he was a scuba diver just like me. He had also lived in Belize for months at a time and volunteered in the same organization as me.

Almost immediately we started spending all our time together.

He asked me out and 7 months later we were engaged. When it came to time we weren’t fussy.

Nothing felt like a rush or a panic. The only thing that may have been a little premature was my insistence on getting my adult braces off before meeting his knock-out of a mother. No regrets there, she was even prettier in person.

Three months after our engagement we were married and honeymooning in Central America. We continue to save our money to scratch adventures off our bucket list and work together in a volunteer program in Canada.

He would never admit to any type of premotion in love, but he lets me dream and I’m as sure of it as I am of dolphin suicide.

PHOTOGRAPHY: DZESIKA DEVIC 97

CHRIS & JAMIE PORTLAND, OREGON On December 26th 2014, I lied to my (now) fiance. Through a text I told her I was going to see Wolf on Wall Street, the movie was long and my phone would be off. In reality I was boarding a flight to Portland, OR, where she currently was visiting family. The next day she had planned to be hanging out on the Oregon Coast (Neskowin) with her family for the day and seeing the “condo renovations” that took place in the past year.

open to the public in the world.)

Confused and unsure, Jamie followed the directions and met me down the beach of Neskowin.

As Jamie and her family entered the condo a new record player sat on the table in the living room, captivating her initial attention. To the side of the record player was a vinyl record marked with a post it, “Play Me Jamie”.

As she made her way down the beach, she could see a white table cloth over a table on the edge of a distant cliff and knew that was where I would be. By then, she had a good idea of what was coming. There, I would waste no time dropping on a knee and asking Jamie O’Dea to spend the rest of her life with me. Jamie and I will be getting married September 27th 2014.

I had hiked up the side of a cliff that overlooked the ocean with a set up of a table, chairs, champagne, and a box of letters and notes she had written me since we were 15 years old, we are now 24.

The record was 1 minute invitation/directions for Jamie, that I had recorded at Third Man Studios in Nashville, TN. (Jack White’s Third Man Studios has the only active vinyl recording booth

PHOTOGRAPHY: BRITTANY SHARDAY brittanysharday.com

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JOEL BEAR STUDIOS STORYTELLERS—A HUSBAND & WIFE We wholeheartedly believe that everyone has a unique personal story to tell and we aspire to reveal it through handsome photographs. We love representing the bride and groom who have a passion for adventure, handcrafted moments and capturing the intimacy of their lives.

Whether from the picturesque Northwest Coast of Portland or the charming cultured look of Boston our style is to portray their adventurous moments. The joy of friendship, the roar of adventure, and the passion for life is how we aspire to reveal their story. Traveling as a husband and wife team we enjoy sharing peoples lives, whether a barista at a local coffee shop, a surf board shaper creating boards, or a family who believe in a wholesome and holistic lifestyle. We regard that each individual has a unique beauty and their craft needs to be captured.

We enjoy, as a husband and wife, telling your story together.

Adventurous at heart and creating with the passions of our soul‌ we are storytellers.

My name is Joel Ross and I am married to my best friend Maggie. We currently are residing in beautiful Temecula, California.

We are wedding and editorial photographers and our company is Joel Bear Studios. Born in Massachusetts and Maggie in Colorado, from childhood we have been raised with a great appreciation for the outdoors, hard work, quality craftsmanship and solid faith. With these instilled values, we began our journey with Joel Bear Studios, a storytelling photography company. As a husband and wife team, we believe marriage is an adventure in itself, that life is beautiful, hard work is captivating and faith is compelling. With these ethics we want to capture the characteristics in people that show the beauty of who they truly are, in the moments of their lives through quality photographs.

PHOTOGRAPHY & ESSAY: JOEL BEAR STUDIOS

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COMING SPRING 2017

The next print issue of FOLK will be released in spring 2017.

Click anywhere on this page to sign up to receive release and ordering information.

“—You are perfectly right, said Pangloss; for when man was put into the garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum, so that he should work it; this proves that man was not born to take his ease. —Let’s work without speculating, said Martin; it’s the only way of rendering life bearable. The whole little group entered into this laudable scheme; each one began to exercise his talents. The little plot yielded fine crops . . . and Pangloss sometimes used to say to Candide: —All events are linked together in the best of possible worlds; for, after all, if you had not been driven from a fine castle by being kicked in the backside for love of Miss Cunégonde, if you hadn’t been sent before the Inquisition, if you hadn’t traveled across America on foot, if you hadn’t given a good sword thrust to the baron, if you hadn’t lost all your sheep from the good land of Eldorado, you wouldn’t be sitting here eating candied citron and pistachios.

—That is very well put, said Candide, but we must go and work our garden.”

— Voltaire PHOTO: JAKE WEISZ

“Life is a journey that stops for no one, we simply have the ability to decide how fast or slow we go. To journey towards a never fully determined destination. If we are smart we will join good company on that journey and fill it with good conversation, good food, good sites, and good dreams.”

— Ben Ashby