PAINTING THE SOUTH Wyatt Waters travels the South for a new book
Carolina’s East Fork Pottery is passionate about more than pottery ANDREW LEE This Alabama artist is taking his own path
Brevard, NC is home to nature’s beauty and full of art
In Mississippi, the arts are everywhere. Across our state, you’ll find cultural attractions celebrating the works and influence of Mississippi’s greatest painters, potters, folk artists, writers, and musical trailblazers – everything from art galleries to hands-on arts experiences. Start your travel journey today at VisitMississippi.org/Arts.
#WanderMS
Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art | Biloxi, Mississippi
Photograph by Andrew Cebulka
PG 6: EDITOR’S LETTER
Connecting to your community through the things you love
PG 9: OUR CONTRIBUTORS
The people who make our stories come to life.
PG 10: MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Charlie Worsham’s Follow Your Heart arts program helps kids discover their confidence through music..
PG 96: FINDINGS
Sarah Durst finds she has been deceived in her observations. See why in her notes and observa tions from the rural South.
PG 28: NOTEWORTHY
Try these unique takes on some local favorites.
PG 30: COOKING WITH
The Red Truck Bakery Farmhouse Cookbook’s savory hand pies with butternut squash and ham.
PG 32: ON OUR PLATE Rhubarb in Asheville, North Carolina, truly loves rhubarb.
PG 34: IN OUR GLASS Lucky in Roanoke, Virginia, brings us a perfect cocktail for this Perfect Weather.
This Tallahassee, Florida confectioner still makes candies the old-fashioned way.
PG 18: BY SOUTHERN HANDS
You’ll want these finds made by locals.
PG 22: JUST PEACHY
Photographer Amanda Greene pays homage to the peach in a beautiful book.
PG 24: DAVID BECK
The musical nomad has released a new album that may be his masterpiece, Bloom and Fade.
PG 72: ALONG THE ROAD
Director Tate Taylor is helping to breathe new life into historic Natchez, MS
PG 78: LAY OF THE LAND
Our readers submit photos of their special Southern places and people. Photo above submitted by Teal Williams, sunrise over Virginia Beach oceanfront.
PG 90: WHERE MAGIC HAPPENS Brevard, North Carolina holds many surprises from magical fireflies, beautiful waterfalls, to rustic music, shopping and the arts.
PG 98: WHERE WE WENT Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, Florida
FRONT COVER
Artist Andrew Lee of Auburn, Alabama
Photography by Craig Godwin of Godwin Photogrpahy
What is it about art that moves us so? How does it make you feel? Everyone reacts to a work of art with dif fering emotions. Art speaks differently to each of us. But it connects with us, and connection is always a welcome emotion.
It seems the most popular way to connect in these busy times is through social media and texting. And while it is a great way to keep up, all too many people substitute it for personal contact. We much prefer porch sitting, phone calls, dinner with friends and sitting down at the table for dinner with family each night to share our days.
Something as seemingly small as tending flow er beds in the front yard invites people to stop and look. These admirers ask questions about this flower or that plant. By the time they’ve left, a friend has been made–a new connection to the community, as it were. Next thing you know, your garden is on a tour and many more friends are made. Maybe for you, it’s music or cooking, or directly joining an organization to help those less fortunate in your community.
For the artists featured in our annual Made by Southern Hands issue, that connection comes through their art.
Mississippi watercolor artist Wyatt Waters trav els the South painting places and landscapes. During his travels he becomes connected to the places and people he visits. His paintings connect us to these same places. Outdoor enthusiast and artist, Andrew Lee, paints most of his work through commissions. The Auburn, Alabama artist loves how these com missions enable him to connect with his clients and gain lasting friendships.
Nils Westergard paints murals. These murals have changed the landscape of many towns. Blank walls become works of art and these towns see a rise in tourism, thereby helping the local economy. Connecting to people through his art helps the community. North Carolina’s East Fork Pottery gives back to their Asheville community through employment and social programs. Connecting to commu nity has become the focus of their company. Read about these artists and more who bring joy through their art and connect with their customers and communities on our pages. Grow your connections. They shouldn’t just be friends and family–connect with your community. Now, how you choose to do that is up to you, but if you follow our artist’s examples and use what you love, then you are bound to be successful.
Scott Speakes // Publisher Genie Gaither Jones // Editor-in-Chief
“WE ARE THE CRAFT OF OUR TOWNS.”
Vineet Raj Kapoor
SUSAN MARQUEZ is a lifelong learner who finds joy in the unexpected discoveries often found on the path less traveled. She began writing professionally in 2001 and 2,800 articles later, she is still telling the stories of the South. With one foot in suburban Mis sissippi and the other in New Orleans, she can pack a suitcase in record time. “Writing gives me an excuse to ask questions, and to learn more than what can be seen on the surface.”
DEBORAH BURST is a New Orleans native, author, and award winning writer/photographer with a portfolio of more than a thousand articles and photos including national covers. She has written five travel/photo books featuring the South, its people, critters, landscapes, mystical legends and historic architecture. From hidden graveyards and sacred temples to the shrouded bayous and forests, Deb gives a voice to all the spirits. deborahburst.com
JENNIFER STEWART KORNEGAY is a free lance writer and editor based in Montgomery, AL. Her work has appeared in Garden & Gun, Southern Living, The Bitter Southerner, The Lo cal Palate, thekitchn.com, Bake From Scratch, Paste, Travel&Leisure.com, Nashville Lifestyles, Birmingham magazine, Alabama magazine, Georgia Magazine, Alabama Living magazine and more. She’s interested in everything, will write about almost anything but most often reports on Southern culture, food and travel. jenniferkornegay.com
MARIANNE LEEK is a retired high school educa tor who continues to teach part-time at Tri-County Community College. She lives with her husband in western North Carolina, where she spends much of her free time enjoying the outdoors. Her work can be found in The Bitter Southerner.
JIM BEAUGEZ is a Mississippi-based writer whose work has been published by Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, Oxford American, Garden & Gun, Guitar World and other publications. He also created and produced “My Life in Five Riffs,” a documentary series for Guitar Player that traces contemporary musicians back to their sources of inspiration. jimbeaugez@gmail.com
ERIC J. WALLACE is a writer, avid lover of the outdoors, and devotee to the ongoing search for the Good Life. His work has appeared in many noteworthy publications, including Outside, Back packer, Canoe & Kayak, WIRED, Atlas Obscura, Modern Farmer and more. He is presently a con tributing editor for the internet’s greatest fount of culinary wonder, Gastro Obscura. drericjwallace@gmail.com
I BELIEVE SO STRONGLY IN STARTING WITH WHY, BECAUSE SO OFTEN IN TODAY’S WORLD WE GET CAUGHT UP IN THE WHAT.
“ “
Every time Charlie Worsham straps on a guitar, he’s reminded of why he picked one up in the first place. When he looks down to his fretting hand, it’s impossi ble not to see it—three words, tattooed across the inside of his left forearm, in the slanted handwriting of Marty Stuart: “Follow Your Heart.”
As one of Nashville’s secret weapons, whose playing has appeared on songs by Eric Church, Kacey Musgraves, Luke Combs and many others, and also a successful solo artist on his own terms, even Worsham needs a reminder every now and then.
“I believe so strongly in starting with why, because so often in today’s world we get caught up in the what,” he says.
Inspired by Stuart’s turn of phrase, which the country music icon wrote on a poster for him long ago, Worsham founded the Follow Your Heart arts program to help school-age kids in his hometown of Grenada, Mississippi, and across the northern part of the state, to discover and pursue their own dreams.
Follow Your Heart aims to build students’ communication skills and provide them with a sense of self confidence through musical discovery. To date, the organization has gifted hundreds of guitars to students in the region and pro vided guitar lessons taught by students from the Delta Music Institute at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi. The organization also maintains a scholarship fund for people who want to pursue an education in the arts.
Worsham has raised a lot of the funding for Follow Your Heart the old-fash ioned way—by hitting the streets and playing his guitar. Worsham founded the star-studded Every Damn Monday, a musical showcase held at the Nashville club Basement East, with proceeds going to the program. He pulls together a roster from his deep list of friends, including John Osborne of Brothers Os borne and Sadler Vaden of Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit band, for themed shows where they cover artists like Lynyrd Skynyrd, John Mayer and Prince.
“The why of Every Damn Monday is that I was going back home to Grenada, Mississippi, where I grew up,” where his mother is a schoolteacher, he says. Occasionally he would stop in to visit and chat with her students. One day, the topic of conversation veered toward their dreams of what they’d like to do when they grow up.
“There was this one girl—everybody in the class pointed at her the minute I brought this topic up, and she got real shy, and finally we got out of her that
she had this dream of being a Broadway actor in New York,” he says.
“And it just broke my heart to see young people growing up in my hometown without the kind of hope that I always had. Because man, I saw Vince Gill and it was game over. I saw Marty Stuart and it was game over. I heard a B.B. King record, and it was game over for me. That’s what I wanted to do, and so we started this program where we just put guitars in kids’ hands, and Every Damn Monday was the natural next step to have some fun raising money for the program. And starting with why made it easy to call up buddies.”
When his famous friends answered the call, Worsham paid it forward to stu dents in his hometown. But for some, he knows, the guitar is merely a symbol of freedom—the ticket to discovering their inner confidence, and hopefully their true path.
“We realized the power of putting an instrument in a young person’s hands does not lie in the proficiency that they developed with the instrument,” he says. “The power is the presence of the instrument in the first place. That kid may be dealing with poverty and hunger. Maybe there’s a bad situation at home, maybe there’s a divorce happening, but they get handed that guitar and they’ve got a friend.”
Knowing not everyone will have the abilities to excel at an instrument, Worsham stresses the array of jobs in music that don’t involve actually playing music.
“Maybe they’re not going to be that great on guitar, but they can get a degree in accounting and do taxes for their favorite singer. They can get a law degree and be an entertainment lawyer. They can drive the tractor trailer full of amps and guitars. They can run the sound or the lights or whatever.”
The ace in Worsham’s back pocket is the staggering number of ground breaking artists who have come from his home state. To wit, more Mississippi natives have won Grammy awards than any other state.
“I’m grateful that I have an opportunity to maybe shine a light for young people on some great stories about people that grew up right down the road from them, and maybe that can help them understand their own self-worth and go make positive change out in the world.” charlieworsham.com followyourheartarts.org
CHARLIE WORSHAM’S FOLLOW YOUR HEART ARTS PROGRAM HELPS SCHOOL KIDS DISCOVER THEIR SELF-CONFIDENCE THROUGH MUSIC
As much as we as a society seem to pride ourselves on how far we’ve come with technology, there are some things that all the tech advances can’t touch—the appeal of handcrafted candy and sweets made the old-fashioned way being one of them.
For Gregory Cohen, candy making wasn’t always in his plans. In fact, he started out manufacturing professional juggling equipment and selling it from a shop where he also sold kites and yoyos—all pursuits reminiscent of days gone by. All airborne pursuits—or, as he called the business, Lofty Pursuits. “The busi ness grew out of my love of making people happy and my passion for making things, says Cohen, whose Tallahassee-based shop has now grown to include boardgames and toys and is much, much more than a retail space—it’s a full experience.
Boasting an extensive menu of ice cream, sherbet, sorbet and even vegan ice cream flavors, Lofty Pursuits has been expanded and reimagined into a vintage soda shop, complete with a staggering list of ice cream soda flavors as well as breakfast, lunch, and dinner options. What makes it truly special, aside from the fun atmosphere and the absolutely delicious food, is the on-site candy making.
What inspired him is as multidimensional as a kaleidoscope. “Each part of the business had a different inspiration,” says Cohen. “I loved to juggle so that part started there. I also grew up with a local soda fountain that was so important in my childhood in Brooklyn that I felt I needed to capture the happiness of my youth and bring it to people in Tallahassee, but I think the question is deeper than that. It all goes back to the artist Alexander Calder. My mother took me to his retrospective in the Whitney Museum of Art in NYC on November 11 in 1976. I loved it. I saw the art as toys, as I think Calder did.
During our time in the museum, word came down that Calder had died. As an eight-year-old, I remember being sad that there would be no more of these ‘toys’ that he had created with his art. At that moment, I realized in a very simple, childlike way that the world needed more toys, more joy, more humor, and more play. This was the tipping point, where my life pivoted, and I started to see how much I could do to use creativity to make people happy. And it’s so simple to do. You just need to remember that art is play, and that life itself is art.”
And what he has done with the candy-mak ing side of things is, indeed, art. With a ta gline of “Public Displays of Confection,” Lofty Pursuits has made its mark in the can dy world with its array of handmade hard candies—and, of course, the candy canes they make during the Christmas season. Starting with sugar that has been boiled and cooled, the confectioners at Lofty Pursuits go about creating their various offerings, hand stretching and rolling them to achieve the desired result. In the case of the candy canes, burgundy and white are combined and rolled around a white center, then twist ed and stretched out into a rope. After the rope is cut into lengths, they are then shaped into the classic cane shape so iconic to Christmas.
As enthralling and entrancing as watching the candy making process is, one can’t help but wonder why…Why does Cohen put so much time and effort into making candy by hand? “Handmade candy is an extension of my love of art,” he says. “It’s something that touches all five senses. Very few things do that, and it makes me and others happy. We make it by hand in the most literal sense, and the product shows the love and care we take making it. One thing that makes it even more special is that being handmade implies that it was made in a small batch. In our case, this means not only that we use better
MAKING HANDCRAFTED CANDY AND SWEETS THE OLD-FASHIONED WAYGregory Cohen
ingredients, but also that we can create small, special runs with fun themes and flavors that nobody who mass-produces candy can compete with.”
While candies can be purchased onsite, Lofty Pursuits also operates a web site offering various seasonal hard candies as well as their signature sours, lemon drops and some very artistic candies created with the flag image and even flowers. Clearly, creativity and fun are two very important ingredients in the making of candy at Lofty Pursuits. “We don’t think of what we do as creat ing a line of products to sell,” says Cohen. “We believe we sell happiness. And hopefully, that means we have something for everyone.”
Naturally, Cohen’s plans include even greater expansion for the company. “We just got an offsite location that will let us expand in a few years,” he says. “This will allow us to diversify into chocolates and other low temperature candies and will give us space to make the things that we can’t buy, like hand made toys. Even with this, we do not plan to stop making candy out front in our store, where everyone can watch.”
Watching is, of course, part of the appeal—and part of the full-sensory experience that Cohen loves to offer. In a way, it’s like being part of the action in Santa’s workshop, seeing something magical being made right in front of your eyes. It’s also what has kept Lofty Pursuits such a singular business, even after 30 years.
In those three decades, Cohen has seen tremendous changes to Tallahas see—changes that have encouraged him to make changes of his own, but also some that have made it even more important to hold tightly to the same standards of high quality that have driven him since the very beginning. “Talla hassee is a place where everything can grow,” he says. “The real problem here is preventing things from growing too much. Still, growth has its benefits—one of them being the availability of fresh, local ingredients and locally sourced materials. Because of that, our candies feature local flavors, and the toys we plan to make will be made from local wood, hopefully harvested from trees cut down inside the city limits. How much more local can you get than that?”
In the interest of giving back, Loft Pursuits supports many groups including Big Bend Hospice and NAMI as well as sponsoring the Lofty Pursuits march ing band that plays all over the region. Candies can be purchased online at pd.net and can be shipped worldwide. Their ice cream, brunch and toys can be purchased in-store in Tallahassee, Florida.
Top to bottom: Cohen pours out the sugar syrup that has been boiled to cool • Hand stretch ing the cooled syrup to achieve the right consistency then rolling into logs. • Rolling the smaller logs to achieve the desired result. In the case of the candy canes, burgundy and white are combined and rolled around a white center, then twisted and stretched out into a rope. • After the rope is cut into lengths, they are shaped into the classic cane. Opposite: Like the entire candy making process, Cohen shapes each candy cane by hand.
“WE DON’T THINK OF WHAT WE DO AS CREATING A LINE OF PRODUCTS TO SELL,” SAYS COHEN. “WE BELIEVE WE SELL HAPPINESS. AND HOPEFULLY, THAT MEANS WE HAVE SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE.”
Even as adults, most of us remember having at least one very special toy growing up, that priceless companion that we couldn’t sleep without and couldn’t fathom not taking everywhere with us. Those toys left an indelible imprint on our memories, and for designer Sara Fulmer, creating those toys to be both beautiful and of exceptional quality has been the foundation of her boutique children’s brand.
“I have been an artist and creator my whole life,” says Fulmer, who has been a designer specializing in gift and baby for more than 20 years. “I was lucky enough to be able to use my talent for my career in the corpo rate world, and I then decided to take everything I’d learned about product, sales, design and manufactur ing and start my own line.”
And she did just that, partnering with a former client for whom she had worked as a design consultant in 2018 and launching MON AMI. Filled with plush an imals, cloth dolls, knit toys and various accessories for the nursery, the line is the stuff of which childhood dreams are made—all created from luxurious materials in a soft color palette that soothes rather than assaults the senses.
Fulmer’s inspiration—both for the name as well as the styling—was
found in her travels. “During my corporate career as a designer, I traveled around the world on inspiration trips,” she says. “I loved shopping in Europe, especially Paris. One of my close friends I met while I was living in New York City was a Parisian, and when she moved back, we actually got to see each other twice a year due to my work excursions. I still visit her once a year to get inspired and catch up, hence the name MON AMI—‘my friend.’”
Naturally, Fulmer’s background in children’s products and gifts gives her a unique perspective, and she admits that she constantly has stories in her mind, which she then brings into the line in some way. And while the MON AMI brand may technically be “mass produced,” Fulmer says it holds the personal touch not found in most bigger brands. “Something hand made is more personal, which is sometimes missing from mass production,” says the Atlanta-based de signer, “which is why I wanted to start this brand. We may mass produce, but every piece is made with love and thought.” MON AMI can be purchased online at monami.com as well as specialty gift boutiques, museums, ballets and select de partment stores.
Written by Liesel Schmidt
Sara Fulmer
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” – Aristotle As true as that statement may be, for designer Jenny Smiley, those parts are incredibly important to the whole—something revealed upon closer inspection of the patterns adorning the textiles and tableware she creates for lifestyle brand HONEY + HANK. And those parts are actually how it all got started.
“I’ve always loved design and been fascinated by pat tern,” says Smiley, who launched HONEY + HANK in 2019. “When I took my first graphic design class while studying abroad in Florence, Italy, during college, I be came enchanted with the concept of hidden design, which can be found in the logos of some of Europe’s old est brands. Many of the prints available now stem from a whirlwind night of inspiration when I decided to throw the traditional map of the US out the window and treat each of the states individually like any other shapes. Af ter sketching each state, I let my imagination loose. The patterns ballooned to more than a hundred that night, and I knew I was onto a totally unique idea. That was how #design withawink was born.”
HOME Jenny Smiley“design with a wink” style by creating commonly loved patterns out of uncommon shapes: states, pastimes or pets being just a few of the forms that make up the designs and make them all the more unique.
“HONEY + HANK was created to be a design and life style brand that celebrates the places and pastimes that bring people joy,” says Smiley. “We aim to bring people together and facilitate moments of connection.”
The hashtag’s inspiration? Simply that the Texas-based designer loves a good wink—both figuratively and literally speaking. She devised the
Each pattern design is a collaborative process translating Smiley’s hand drawn icons into digital design software, where she creates the patterns and arranges the icons into patterns that then make their way onto textiles like tea towels, napkins, pillows and embroidered cocktail napkins as tableware. “Each state is its own inspiration, because I always use the things endemic and meaning ful to each state to design the prints,” says Smiley. Find their products online at honeyandhank.com or at more than 300 retailers across the country. Currently, HONEY + HANK has a collaboration with Estelle Colored Glass, donating a portion of proceeds to Lowcountry Local First, which supports small business owners and entrepreneurs in the South Caro lina Lowcountry region.
Written by Liesel Schmidtheir·loom / noun - a valuable object that has belonged to a family for several generations
It’s a powerful word, and a powerful concept—especially in the South, where family and tradition are so deeply regarded. Build ing on that idea and the desire to create something that would eventually turn into an heirloom, Ashley Schoenith launched a lifestyle brand with a simple product—and turned a noun into a verb.
“We started with just a collection of ten hostess aprons that came packaged in large glass jars,” says Heir loomed Collection founder Schoenith, a self-described “old soul” who lives with her family in Atlanta. “Over the years, we’ve evolved into more of a lifestyle assortment, with kitchen and home textiles and keepsake gifts. The heart of each of our products has always begun with a notion of how we can make special pieces that will be used, loved and, of course, one day passed down through generations of family as a treasured heirloom.”
In its 16 years as a brand, Heirloomed Collection has come a long way from where it started. “I would sit with my grandmother, Cele, and sew linen aprons at her kitchen table,” says Schoenith. “She was a masterful seamstress who loved to bake and entertain. During visits to her when I was young, she would take one night and make her
signature homemade waffles with fresh fruit and a scoop of ‘icemilk,’ which was actually just vanilla frozen yogurt. For nearly ten years, our business was known as ‘IceMilk Aprons,’ selling only keepsake, linen hostess aprons. As our company grew, the concept of the family heirloom remained the leading presence behind our products.”
In 2015, they rebranded to become Heirloomed Col lection and now offer a product assortment of designer kitchen and home textiles including aprons, tea towels, tablecloths and cocktail napkins as well as hand-poured candles and “found” vintage goods. “All of our designs start from a story, and many are inspired by some type of vintage piece that I’ve come across,” says Schoenith. “Each of our patterns are hand-illustrated, and I gener ally work from our signature color palette. Every detail of the design, down to the packaging and photography has a story in mind that we can’t wait to tell.” Paying it forward, Heirloomed Collection supports the Alzheimer’s Foundation and The Georgia Trust. Products can be found online at heirloomedcollection.com as well as Nordstrom, Food52 and indepen dent retailers across the country.
Written by Liesel Schmidt
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Ashley Schoenith