ELYSIAN Spring 2020 Southern Perspectives Issue

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STANLEY KORSHAK

SYLVA & CIE

WWW.STANLEYKORSHAK.COM

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— CHRISTIAN DIOR

ELYSIAN Volume 5 • Issue 1 • printemps 2020

Tranquility & Transformation

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Ava Gardner

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Plucked from poverty with no education, she enchanted Hollywood for decades with her beauty and sophistication. BY LAURIE BOGART WILES

Susan Hull Walker is working with some of the finest female craftsman in the world to bring you fashion and home goods while helping them reach economic self-sufficiency. BY KATIE WEISMAN

The

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Jewel of Her

Dreams

Ruby City is a celestial gem box containing locally and globally renowned contemporary artists as well as the conviction and dreams of its late founder, Linda Pace. BY MAKAYLA GAY

FEATURES

50 dreamweaver

How one Tennessee family has redefined southern luxury in the Great Smoky Mountains.

BY SUZANNE JOHNSON

Inspiring Women Jeanne Milliken Bonds page 96 Nancy O’Dell page 102 Carey Parker page 108 Betsy Robinson page 114 Katrina Shealy page 120 INTERVIEWED BY KAREN FLOYD

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Country’s Wild(wood) Child CHANGE CREATOR by Baker Maultsby

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art&culture

Re-envisioning the motherland. BY HANNAH SHEPARD

health&médecine

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The season of renewal. BY DR. KATHERINE BIRCHENOUGH

32 wellness

DEPARTMENTS

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Your inner child is calling. BY MARY ROGERS McMASTER

science&business IF/THEN. BY DEBRA SPARK

130literature

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Write what you know. BY KATHIE BENNETT

philanthropy

My soul has grown deep like the rivers. BY LATRIA GRAHAM

beauty

146expanding

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Not just for southern belles. BY KATIE WEISMAN

the

circle

From the ELYSIAN Connect App Launch in New York City to an Authors Reception in Charleston.

closing the circle

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Cover model Caroline Comer with ELYSIAN Inspiring Woman Nancy O’Dell.

the cover

Caroline Comer of Inman, South Carolina was photographed by Donald Latham. Hair and makeup by Tiffany Brown.

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the backstory

More on Caroline Comer and how ELYSIAN is empowering talent.

E publisher

Karen Floyd chief business officer

Jaclynn Jarrett

executive editor

Abby Deering

media director

Rob Springer

director of design

Ryan Stalvey

managing editor

/

&

arts

c u lt u r e e d i t o r

Hannah Shepard

editorial director

Rita Allison

comptroller

Kristin Eastwood

e ly s i a n i m pa c t d i r e c t o r o f p h i l a n t h r o p y

Kelly Nichols

art director

Erik Russell

director of photography

inspiring women

Karen Floyd

graceful living

Rhonda Fischer l i t e r at u r e e d i t o r

Kathie Bennett

style

&

beauty editor

Trish Carroll

wellness editor

Martha Wiedemann columnists

Dr. Katherine Birchenough, Mary Rogers McMaster senior writers

Laurie Bogart Wiles, Latria Graham contributing writers

Makayla Gay, Suzanne Johnson, Baker Maultsby, Debra Spark, Katie Weisman

copy editors

Diane High, Hadley Inabinet, Phil Randall &

director of web design

d i g i ta l d i r e c t o r

development

Elliot Derhay

Jessica Aldridge

d i g i ta l a s s i s ta n t social media manager sales

Ruby Kubac

Billy Leach, Amy Zimmer

style director

Angie Woodard

production stylist

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Sara Jarrell

Tiffany Brown

ELYSIAN Magazine is published four times per year by Palladian Publications LLC, 113 W. Main St., Spartanburg, SC 29306.

For subscription information, call 888-329-9534; visit subscriptions@elysianservice.com; mailing address: Subscription Service, Elysian Magazine PO Box 2172, Williamsport, PA 17703 All rights reserved. Printed in the USA.

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The ELYSIAN team together in the conference room. • Angie Woodard, Style Director, preparing the editorial board for review. • Jaclynn Jarrett, Chief Business Officer • Abby Deering, Executive Editor • Ryan Stalvey, Director of Design, reading through the ELYSIAN Winter 2019-2020 Issue.

Donald Latham

It

ABOUT SOUTHERN “ THERE’S SOMETHING WOMEN THAT IS SO UNIQUE YET SO UNIVERSAL . . . ” —CONNIE BRITTON

is with the idea of universality that our Spring 2020 Issue presents a worldview through the lens of the South.

As with every issue of the magazine, our mission is to connect and inspire women globally with a shared responsibility to the next generation.

For this edition, we continue that mission with a “southern twist.” Launched in 2016 from headquarters on Main Street, South Carolina, ELYSIAN champions our southern roots by sharing stories of southern women whose insights and experiences—be it in politics, culture, business or entertainment—have helped shape the future of our region. Their successes are examples for women worldwide.

This issue of ELYSIAN features stories that will showcase unique qualities of the South, as well as perspectives that transcend regional affiliations and are, as Ms. Britton suggests, universal.

Inspiring Women. (Anecdotal stories)

The cornerstone of ELYSIAN is the unique life stories of our Inspiring Women, all of whom share a commitment to giving back. This issue’s five Southern perspective profiles are celebrated within the context of the centennial of the suffragette movement in the United States.

South Carolina native, Nancy O’Dell is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and television host, best known for her almost decade of hosting Entertainment Tonight. She has also authored three best-selling books. In the face of the career pressures in Los Angeles, Nancy holds on to the values of her traditional small-town upbringing.

Two of our Inspiring Women have distinguished themselves as pioneers in government and politics: South Carolina State Senator Katrina Shealy is the first Republican woman to chair a major committee and served as the only woman in the state senate for a complete term of office. Jeanne Milliken Bonds worked for the Federal Reserve Bank, is a former mayor in North Carolina, and served as Chief Justice Special Assistant for the state’s Supreme Court.

We also share the perspectives of women who have made a difference in entrepreneurship and philanthropy.

Texan Betsy Robinson founded Fuzzy Friends Rescue almost twenty years ago, resulting in more than 16,000 animal adoptions, and supports educational scholarships for low-income youth pursuing higher education.

Finally, Carey Parker, of Tennessee, is the CEO and Firm Council Chairperson of LHP Capital.

The challenges associated with raising her son while tackling the demands of corporate leadership is a balancing act recognized universally by women.

Graceful Living. (Deliberate, spirited, bold)

Each quarter, we strive to connect our readers with women who are driving trends in travel, cuisine, arts and culture.

One of the South’s most unique locales is Gee’s Bend, Alabama, where a community of AfricanAmerican women have been making quilt masterpieces for more than 100 years. Their work is supported by the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, founded in 2010 to advocate for social and racial justice while redefining the canon of American Art. Texas, the South’s largest state, is a land of big, ambitious ideas. The Dallas-based initiative IF/ THEN promotes STEM education and spotlights women in STEM careers. In San Antonio, the recently opened contemporary art center, Ruby City, showcases the collection of late philanthropist and visionary, Linda Pace.

Ibu Movement, based in Charleston, South Carolina, supports female artisans from around the world, bringing their work to global markets and enabling empowerment and self-sufficiency. Susan Hull Walker shares her thoughts on lives she has helped change and traditional crafts she has promoted.

Philanthropy. (Creating legacy)

We are honored to continue our ongoing partnership with Silent Tears, a South Carolina-based philanthropy supporting the capital needs of organizations that assist victims (women and children) of domestic violence, sexual assault and abuse. In the years to come, ELYSIAN Impact seeks to replicate this template throughout the US and beyond.

FINALLY, Spring brings a sense of new beginnings. Azaleas, camellias, and magnolias are among the South’s most iconic flowers. Their splendor is both unique and universal, in keeping with this Spring issue.

May you find both beauty and inspiring, new universal perspectives through the southern lens of ELYSIAN.

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Thank you for taking the journey.

Karen Floyd Publisher

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Re-envisioning the Motherland

BY HANNAH SHEPARD

Double Paradise from Sad Tropics series, 2016, Archival Pigment Print

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art&culture

SET WITHIN THE VULNERABLE SOUTHERN COAST, ARTIST CRISTINA MOLINA TAKES US INTO A SPIRITED WORLD OF FEMALE EMPOWERMENT.

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S urrounded by the women in her family and dressed in matching garments, Cristina Molina’s grandmother reaches for a hand of support while precariously stepping from tall rock to ground. Molina has invited every female from both her matrilineal and patrilineal families to gather in the Florida subtropics in collaboration on a series of still-life photographs, portraits, and cinematic imagery. The idea for The Matriarchs project came about upon two untimely discoveries for the artist. At the same time of reading that her hometown Miami was at severe risk of rising sea levels, she was also learning that her grandmother was diagnosed with dementia. The dual erosion of her grandmother’s memory and the motherland that she grew up in roused an urgency in the artist to document her family legacy amid the disappearing landscape. “It’s not only about honoring us and our family, but also contemplating loss in general within those two very sensitive topics,” she explains.

The women all came willingly—her mother, aunts, cousins and grandmothers—out of love and respect for the artist. It was also something they had grown accustomed to: Molina always had a camera in her hand as a young adult discovering her artist identity.

Against tropical greenery and under the South Floridian sunlight, she staged the women in complicated arrangements that allude to the dynamics that exist between women in family units.

“I was looking at these turn-of-the-century images of human pyramids in the circus thinking about how we could create hierarchy with our body and how I could display or demonstrate tension and

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balance,” she said. “It’s support but also strain.”

The positioning was indeed strenuous for the eldest women of her family, and though there was no hesitation, Molina could not help but experience an ethical dilemma. Was she exploiting her family for the sake of her art? What she ended up discovering while photographing her two grandmothers, including one who is bedridden, was quite the opposite. Molina asked “Is this okay?” and “How do you feel?” and her grandmother responded, “I feel like a queen.”

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eing raised by this solid foundation of women was an undoubtable inspiration to Molina, whose work centralizes the female protagonist.

“In history, a lot of narratives about women have been obscured. I’m interested in reviewing those narratives and retelling those stories from a woman’s perspective that empowers a female voice,” she said.

In an effort to upend the traditional female subject who is ofttimes devastated or saved by her male counterpoint, Molina creates revisionist histories that present strong femme protagonists with brazen power that are set among landscapes both real and imagined.

While growing up in South Florida to immigrant families (her mother is from Cuba and her father from El Salvador), the artist was surrounded by a myriad of creative women, which grew in her a deep-

Cristina Molina as The Snake, from The Fall series in collaboration with The Crystal Efemmes, 2019, Archival Pigment Print.

Left: Maritza, from The Matriarchs series, 2016, Archival Pigment Print.

Opposite: Patrilineal Portrait from The Matriarchs series, 2016, Archival Pigment Print.

“YOU ARE A PILLAR WHO RESTS ON THE SHOULDERS OF HER MOTHER, WHO RESTS ON THE SHOULDERS OF HER MOTHER.” – Ice of the World from The Matriarchs series,

2016, Video

seated appreciation for craft. She was first trained in the dramatic arts in high school, but what truly piqued her interest was photography.

“That really changed my world,” she says, “the wonderful alchemy of making images you don’t see and then having them appear before you in the dark. That was really special.”

Nonetheless, performance survived as a fundamental method within her practice, alongside video, installation, photography and textile design. “I think about the body, and gesture, and how you can communicate ideas of unity, struggle, and intimacy. I think that could be from my training in theater and that sometimes one of the more empathetic approaches is to captivate an audience through the body because it creates a connection of giving.”

Molina is preoccupied with the viewer. She chuckles, “I’m like a deviant hostess. I’m always thinking about how the viewer can encounter the work, how can I captivate them, and then how can I make them my hostage.”

During Ear to the Ground at the New Orleans Museum of Art in 2018, Molina led visitors through a one-on-one exploration of the exhibition in an onsite performance titled Under Three Things. In this intimate experience, she personified the mythical queen of the underworld, Persephone, but reimagined herself as an empowered goddess who whispered a narrative of an imagined underground landscape where each artwork constituted its topography. Beyond NOMA, Molina’s work has also been featured at the New Orleans Contemporary Arts

Center, The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, The Polk Museum, New Orleans Film Festival, and Syros International Film Festival.

Continuing her studies, she earned her M.F.A. in art and technology from the University of Florida but not before completing a B.A. in psychology and B.F.A. in studio art from Florida International University. Molina ascribes the analytical aspects of her work to her understanding of psychology.

“I tend to privilege idea over form first, and a lot of the work begins with writing, and then I think about what I want the form to be afterward.” She continues, “I like to work in a constellation where there’s not necessarily one thing, but a series of things that all support each other, and I’m giving the viewer clues to solving the puzzle.”

Immediately following graduate school, Molina was hired as the associate professor of new media & animation at Southeastern Louisiana University in New Orleans, where she has lived for the past eight years. It was crucial for the artist to build a community around individuals who promote culture and share opportunities to create.

Since 2014, Molina has been a member of the New Orleans artist-run project, The Front, where she regularly curates and exhibits artwork.

“Part of my individual mission has always been to show other women’s work and to give other women as many opportunities as I can through [my role at The Front].” It was here that Molina met Vanessa Centeno, Robyn LeRoy-Evans and Ryn Wilson, three likeminded feminist artists who formed the collaborative “The Crystal

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Under Three Things, documentation of whispering tour performance, 2018-19.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ROMAN ALOKHIN

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Frozen Conch, from The Matriarchs series, 2016, Archival Pigment Print.

Efemmes.” Collectively, they share the mission of rewriting maledominated histories through storytelling, video and performance. “We became a family that transcends just art-making. It’s a sisterhood.”

In a recent multimedia installation titled The Fall, which took place at The Front, the collaborative reimagined The Garden of Eden as a site of paradise where “The Fall of Man” never occurred. “The Fall was about reframing the moment when Eve takes the apple so that she can still remain in paradise—reversing the idea that the reason for the fall of man was because a woman made a bad choice,” says Molina. “We wanted to reframe the aspect of choice as something to be celebrated and honored, not to be ashamed about.”

Visitors were invited to delight in the abundance of The Garden by exploring four chapters of the story, each as its own separate room filled with paradisiacal imagery, colorful fabric installations, whispering water elements and video projections. To support the project, the women held performative dinners where guests were seated within the space and served food cited in mythical lore as dangerous or forbidden while listening to spoken word.

Though Molina has certainly embedded herself within the New Orleans community, she has never truly left her hometown, always keeping one foot back in Miami to visit family and develop ideas about the vulnerable coastal landscape. She smiles, “Sometimes it takes you moving away from the place where you’re from to really see it.”

She often road trips back to Florida with her husband and fellow artist, Jonathan Traviesa, who also hails from the Southern state. The

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artistic duo began to recognize a peculiar quality about this popular “paradise,” which touts illusions of utopian fantasy.

“We always joke that people come to Florida to flee, to retire or to die,” she laughs. “We became invested in researching these utopian communities who move to Florida. We travel around to different sites in our home state looking—and it wasn’t very difficult to find—for these various aspirational images about paradise.”

Inspired by the title of Claude Levi-Strauss’s book Tristes Tropiques, the couple has been exhibiting and evolving a body of work called Sad Tropics for the past three years, which encompasses video animations, site-specific photo murals and various quirky yet recognizable consumer objects. With imagery of sunlit beaches, lush foliage, bananas and tricked out limousines, viewers experience a cross between tropical bliss and a beachside gift shop, both celebrating and critiquing the eccentricities of the Floridian culture.

Sad Tropics was featured in Art in America and Burnaway as one of the top exhibitions of the year to visit in 2016. And this year, Molina was one of 60 artists selected for the national exhibition State of the Art 2020 at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Currently she is working on a project called Never Glades that is situated within the Everglades territory in South Florida.

“I’m interested in retelling the story of the Women’s Clubs of South Florida, which were responsible for sanctioning the Everglades as a protected site,” says Molina. “What’s remarkable is that these women accomplished this before they even had the right to vote in 1916—but, of course, no one knows that.” ■

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ELIZABETH COOK, WHO GREW UP SINGING AS A CHILD IN CENTRAL FLORIDA, HAS CARVED OUT HER SPACE AS A SINGER, RADIO DEEJAY, AND TV PERSONALITY.

Elizabeth Cook taking a pit stop at White Sands National Park in New Mexico while on tour.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY JACE KARTYE

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change creator

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Country's Wild(wood) Child

BY BAKER MAULTSBY

ashville singer-songwriter Elizabeth Cook was discovered at age 4 by her first booking agent and promoter—her mother Joyce.

“One day I heard her out in the yard—she was swinging on her swing set, just singing away,” said Joyce in a 2005 interview.

The child had real talent, Joyce understood. It wasn’t long before young Elizabeth was singing at bars and fairs and festivals in and around her hometown of Wildwood, Florida.

Joyce, who died in 2008, had been an aspiring hillbilly singer in the Appalachian Mountains. After escaping a horrible marriage, she took her five children to live with family in central Florida. She fell in love with an ex-con who had several children of his own.

Thomas Cook had landed in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary for running moonshine. He learned to play the upright bass as a member of the prison band.

Thomas and Joyce “were madly in love,” and they shared a love of music, too, playing in honky-tonk bands together. Elizabeth, their only child together, was born when they were in their 40s and barely getting by. They were living in a motel room at the time of her birth.

When Elizabeth showed extraordinary promise as a singer, her career became their focus. They found backing musicians for her, and mom even wrote songs for her. One of those was called “Does My Daddy Love the Bottle (More Than he Loves Me)?”

“Daddy was a raging alcoholic,” Elizabeth explained. The song inspired Thomas to give up drinking.

Elizabeth recorded a handful of songs for a small Florida-based record label as a child. People took notice of her talent. Some good gigs came her way. It looked like Elizabeth Cook might really have a shot at a career in music.

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very year, hundreds of young singers migrate to Nashville hoping to gain a foothold in the world of country music. Few bring a personal background as fascinating and steeped in what-country-songs-are-made-of stuff as Cook’s.

And not that many have her combination of charisma, creativity, and powerful vocal talent: With an authentic, twangy— and beautiful—voice that recalls a bygone era of country music, along with a wickedly clever sense of storytelling and timing, Cook has been compared to the genre’s greatest female performers. “(Cook) has the sweet voice of Dolly Parton and the feistiness of Loretta Lynn,” declared a 2016 article in the Nashville Tennessean.

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At four years old, Elizabeth’s first appearance on stage with her mother, Joyce Cook, father, Tom Cook and Stanley Terry, in Fruitland Park, Florida.

So, naturally, back in the mid-’90s, when she moved to Nashville as a young adult, Cook had her sights trained on becoming … an accountant.

That’s right. The former child singer had taken a job with PriceWaterhouse as an accountant.

Though she had continued performing during high school, Cook was also strong in the classroom and decided that a college education held more promise than the uncertainty of the music industry. To the mild dismay of her parents, she attended Georgia Southern University, where she studied accounting and computer information systems.

Her job with PriceWaterhouse seemed like a great opportunity—a nice salary working at a top firm—but it didn’t take long to make her miserable. “I didn’t fit in,” Cook said. “I felt like this eccentric hillbilly person in that culture. And there was no creativity in the job—that killed me.”

In the meantime, Cook hadn’t really given up on music entirely.

During college, she’d sing for friends at fraternity parties or sit in with bands at local dives. And after moving to Nashville, “it was still a dream in back of my mind.”

While the music business can be cutthroat and talent alone is rarely a guarantee for success, the industry helps to support an active and interconnected community in Nashville of songwriters, session instrumentalists, and singers.

Cook quickly drew notice and landed a publishing contract as a songwriter. Her demo recordings earned additional attention, and in 2002 she released the album “Hey Y’all” on the Warner Bros. record label. The album earned critical praise, but it wasn’t a commercial success, and Cook was released from her contract.

This is where Cook’s story in the music business could have ended.

Instead, it’s where her place as an independent, ambitious, and creative woman arguably becomes more interesting.

Cook may not be a household name, but she has forged a career for herself in country music. She has released four albums since “Hey Y’all,” all to positive critical reception, and is set to put out another set of original material this summer.

Peter Cooper, a music journalist now on staff at the Country Music Hall of Fame, has known Cook since before she put out her major-label debut. He says Cook’s success is a rare thing: “We often think of success in the music business as making millions of dollars and playing arenas. After a few days in Nashville—a town that’s a magnet for people who want to make music—you come to realize that extraordinary success in music is being able to sing and play for a living. If you can do that, you’re in the 99th percentile.

Elizabeth has carved herself a place in music, through talent and personality, tenacity, and inventiveness.”

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Elizabeth singing in the vocal booth at Ruby Red Studios in Santa Monica, California.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JACE KARTYE

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ook’s niche as a singer and songwriter is in a style of country music that’s true to the genre’s roots but generally doesn’t produce contemporary radio hits. Fans and critics sometimes refer to this sound as “alternative” or “outlaw” country, or Americana.

Cook has performed at the Grand Ole Opry, the venerated Nashville and country music institution, more than 400 times. “The Opry is a show about tradition and reverence for tradition,” she said. “You participate out of respect, and I love that.”

Audiences at the Opry and far beyond loved her classic country sound and her earnest songs. Her music has taken her to stages in Australia, Europe, Asia, and all corners of the U.S. Cook’s world-class voice is the main attraction, but fans are also drawn to her natural charm and sense of humor.

Jeremy Tepper, program director for SiriusXM satellite radio’s Outlaw Country channel, interviewed Cook following the release of her 2007 album, “Balls.”

“I heard the way she came through during the interview, and I thought, ‘That gal’s got it,’” he said.

Tepper offered Cook a spot as an Outlaw Country deejay. She was reluctant but decided to give it a go.

Rather than working out of a traditional radio studio, she records

PHOTOGRAPH BY @ELECTROPOGRAM

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At Ruby Red Studios, Elizabeth with guitarist Gravy Andrew Leahey making their upcoming album.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JACE KARTYE

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Elizabeth with American country music singer-songwriter Loretta Lynn in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee.

PHOTOGRAPH BY PATSY LYNN

Opposite: Elizabeth performing at the Trans-Pecos Festival of Music + Love at El Cosmico in Marfa, Texas.

into a computer audio production program. That way, she can keep up with the radio program, which she calls “Elizabeth Cook’s Apron Strings,” from home or even when she’s touring for her main job as a singer.

The Outlaw Country format includes songs by classic artists, such as Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Loretta Lynn; rock ’n’ roll greats, including Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen; and contemporary Americana artists like Lucinda Williams and Buddy Miller.

Between songs, Cook tells stories connecting back to her childhood and her career as a musician. She comments on current events. She offers up pieces of homespun, offbeat advice.

“I’d had no training in radio,” she said. “I accidentally developed some sort of idiot savant approach to doing it: I just talk. I don’t plan it. I mix up my words. I stutter and cough. I cuss.”

It’s not the slickly produced, focus-group-tested program of your typical FM radio drive time segment. And maybe for that reason, “Apron Strings” caught on.

“Are you kidding? She’s beloved,” Tepper said. “She’s got avid fans who just hang on her every word.”

In any given radio market, a SiriusXM channel may have a smaller audience than a top-rated local station. But satellite radio programs can reach listeners nationwide. As Tepper notes, Outlaw Country’s audience is wide-ranging and diverse. It includes “truckers and country fans from a hardscrabble background” as well as urban hipsters and devoted folk and roots music fans.

One of those who discovered Cook’s “Apron Strings” was David Letterman.

“I’ve listened to you—I don’t know—five or six months on the radio, and I’ve taken quite a liking to your personality,” he told Cook when he had her on “Late Show with David Letterman” in 2013.

She was great on the show—funny and friendly and full of stories that had the audience and Letterman charmed. Letterman showed pictures of the prison band her father had played in.

Cook pointed to a prisoner shown in one of the photographs who didn’t play an instrument but had an important role nonetheless: “This guy right here,” she said, pointing at the old black-and-white image, “he didn’t play anything. But they let him come along on the gigs … he had to give them cigarettes to get to go.”

Letterman laughed throughout the interview, clearly disarmed

by Cook’s life story and quick humor. She returned to the show several times for interviews and as a guest performer.

Cook continued to chart her own path as a songwriter as well. Her 2010 album, “Welder,” garnered positive reviews and included deep reflections on her personal life. The album’s title is in honor of her father’s post-jail profession. The songs “Heroin Addict Sister” and “Mama’s Funeral” speak to tragedy and loss. Other tunes—“El Camino” and “Rock N Roll Man” among them—were a rollicking good time.

For all the exciting developments in her career, Cook was going through a difficult time personally. Her parents died within five years of each other.

She lost several other family members. Her marriage dissolved.

Cook went to rehab. She has acknowledged that she “needed some help,” but is critical of the rehab experience. Still, she came through it engaged creatively. “Exodus of Venus,” released in 2016, displayed a raw, bluesy side of her artistry—again, to a positive critical reception.

Cook is excited about the new material slated for release this summer and feels good about the process. “I’m getting my health back, and I feel I’m writing from a clearer place,” she said.

Meanwhile, Cook continues to grow as a multidimensional entertainer.

In addition to “Apron Strings,” she’s working on a television program.

The Circle Network, a subsidiary of the Opry Entertainment Group, is putting Cook on the air with her own fishing show, “Upstream.” It won’t necessarily be the place for advice on bait rigs—the idea is to showcase Cook’s sense of fun and her talent as a conversationalist as she takes interview subjects out to ponds and streams to drop hooks in the water.

“Sometimes we catch fish, and sometimes it’s a disaster,” she explained.

Surveying the landscape of her life and career, Cook is reflective about her upbringing and the choices she’s made. Had she followed through on her original Nashville plan—forging a career as an accountant—she would likely have enjoyed greater financial stability and predictable upward mobility.

But she’s fulfilling a dream—as much her parents’ as her own—and it means a great deal. She knows she made them proud.

“For a hillbilly girl conceived in a hotel room, moving into a trailer park in central Florida—to get to play music for a living, and to work with the people I’ve gotten to work with, and to go to all the different places I’ve gotten to go to and see, it’s really something.” ■

During a long recording session at Ruby Red Studios, Elizabeth takes a break to stretch.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JACE KARTYE

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health&médecine

The Season of Renewal

BY DR. KATHERINE BIRCHENOUGH

EFETOVA ANNA/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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DISCOVER THE SCIENCE OF REGENERATIVE THERAPIES AND REJUVENATION TECHNIQUES FOR OPTIMAL PHYSICAL FUNCTIONING.

Lately,

I’ve been thinking about how strongly we are influenced by light and the seasons. Have you ever noticed that in winter we are not only indoors more, but we are more introspective? Energy tends to be conserved and stored as we rest and prepare for spring, the season of hope and renewal. As we near the vernal equinox on March 21st, the center of the sun begins to spend a roughly equal amount of time above and below the horizon at every location on earth, so night and day are about the same length. Stimulated by the increase of light and warmth, we are able to summon the energy for new beginnings. In the spring, we experience rebirth—physically, spiritually, and emotionally.

In our bodies, rebirth happens every day as we rest overnight and repair the damage inevitably caused by just being alive. The waning of the light of the day signals cells in the back of the eye to communicate to a structure deep in the brain called the Pineal gland (also called the “third eye”) that it’s time to wind down. A cascade of hormonal regulation then occurs, allowing our bodies to get to the task of repair and renewal.

Many things can interfere with this process. Lack of exposure to natural light, too much artificial light and too much screen time all have a negative effect. Getting to sleep too late or lack of deep restorative sleep can also prevent this process of self-renewal, resulting in what I call a “repair deficit.” I see this in many of my patients in the form of chronic illness and rapid aging. Unfortunately, the lifestyle changes needed to correct this are very difficult and may be impossible for some people.

As a physician practicing functional medicine, my goal is to remove barriers to wellness, replace what may be missing and restore the body to its normal, healthy state. I also realize that busy professionals like myself may

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Platelet-rich plasma, also known as PRP, is a common regenerative therapy used to stimulate stem cell growth for hair restoration, facial rejuvenation and joint pain.

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be subject to a higher stress burden and more wear and tear, which may lead to having a harder time with schedule modification, sleep quality, meeting nutritional needs and all of the other things we need to do for optimal physical functioning. Hence my interest in regenerative medicine, defined as the “process of replacing, engineering or regenerating human cells, tissues or organs to restore or establish normal function.” Since the early 1990s, regenerative medicine techniques have been used to heal injuries such as burns or damaged joints by the application of living cells or growth factors to enhance the body’s innate healing and repair mechanisms. It only makes sense to me that these methods can also be used as age management strategies by healing and renewing joints, skin, hair and even the brain.

What are the current regenerative therapies available? Well, most of you have probably heard about stem cells. Derived from your own fat cells or bone marrow (autologous), or from donated umbilical cords or amniotic fluid (mesenchymal), they are being successfully used in the U.S. for joint pain and in other countries for disorders as diverse as autism to autoimmune disease. Stem cells are rich in growth factors, which act as messenger molecules that tell your cells what to do.

Platelets, the sticky cells in your blood that help form clots and scabs, are also rich in growth factors. This is the principle behind using platelet-rich plasma, or PRP, for regenerative procedures. PRP is being used for facial

rejuvenation, hair restoration, joint pain and even sexual wellness procedures.

I use a lot of PRP in my practice, but lately, I’ve been getting more excited about exosomes. Like small delivery trucks, exosomes are little packets of growth factors secreted by most cell types already found in the human body. They are also produced by stem cells in response to stress, and this is how they are made for use in regenerative medicine. Exosomes act as messenger molecules, and once they are bound with the target cell, they exert their effects by telling the cell to perform functions associated with repair, regeneration and healing. Unlike stem cells, they are small enough to cross the blood-brain barrier and thus have potential in regeneration of brain cells and cognitive functioning. Once exosomes are administered, cell reprogramming starts to occur. This can take several weeks, but the effects can continue to develop over several months.

Currently, I’m using exosomes for facial microneedling procedures, hair restoration, sexual rejuvenation and intravenously for systemic immune modulation and cognitive benefit. It’s part of a whole-body, whole-self makeover that includes metabolic and nutritional analysis and hormone balancing for the maximum effect.

Take some time this spring and reflect on the process of renewal.

Think about what you may be able to do to give your body and mind the chance to perform at their best. If you can’t do it on your own and need help, there are some incredible options available to us now. ■

ABOUT DR. BIRCHENOUGH Katherine Birchenough was the fourth MD in the state of South Carolina to be certified through the Institute for Functional Medicine. A South Carolina native, Dr. Birchenough is a University of South Carolina School of Medicine graduate, board-certified in pediatrics and emergency medicine, and has recently devoted herself full-time to her wellness practice. Dr. Birchenough practiced traditional medicine for more than 12 years, diagnosing and treating diseases but not really getting to the root cause. Over the years, she watched as unhealthy environments and poor lifestyle choices affected the health of her peers and her patients—at one point even herself—and knew that something had to give. She realized the pursuit of health, beyond just the absence of disease, is a specialty in and of itself but wasn’t available to traditional medical students. This realization brought her to a new career path in functional medicine and has fueled her passion to treat the patient, not just the symptoms.

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Your Inner Child is Calling

BY MARY ROGERS McMASTER

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hen you were a child, you did whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted. If you wanted to cry, you cried. If you needed to use the bathroom, you just went. Wailing and running and jumping and laughing weren’t attached to any story other than, “I’m alive.” For a very short time, you were able to relish these feelings of aliveness and act on impulse, whichever way it led you. You were often applauded for your spontaneity! Your creativity knew no bounds; there was no logical argument that the cardboard box wasn’t a space ship or that the family dog couldn’t speak perfect English. You just trusted and played and followed your fun, and you honed your ability to listen to your inner child. The voice is still there.

We’ve just forgotten how to listen.

I walked onto my first stage at age 6. I learned very quickly that a scene will only succeed if both people are listening to each other.

Yes, we may be acting out a scene where we know the lines and know what’s coming next, but anything can happen, and in order to replicate life, we must maintain a perpetual state of aliveness. As actors we are required to practice being in the moment; otherwise, we seem inauthentic and immediately lose our audience. Improvisational theatre works with this same premise of aliveness; you walk onto stage knowing absolutely nothing about the scene ahead. Your goal is to listen to your scene partner, follow the fun, and be in the moment—to connect. Improv training, if done right, teaches a fast track to inner trust because, believe me, when you don’t feel you can trust yourself, your feet magically become glued to the back wall of the stage. When you don’t trust yourself, you don’t get involved. When you don’t trust yourself, there is no fun to be had because there is no flow of energy; you’re spending every ounce on being afraid.

When we don’t trust ourselves, we step out of the moment, and step away from our sense of aliveness. This is where worry lives.

Shortsighted mistakes are made when the scene becomes about the actor or when you, as a superior to 40 employees, start making the entire company about you. This is bad improv because it’s ignoring half of the scene.

In another form of non-trusting, we sometimes completely ignore our part and make it all about our scene partner. Being an adult is tricky and full of conditioning, and we often don’t see the need to get back in touch with what makes us us. A lot of our energy as an adult is spent trying to be somebody else. This unreachable abstract version of us is often a product of the request of others, and not actually what we want. When we get back in touch with our inner child, we remember what we want. It’s when we activate our ability to play that we can find our flow, follow the fun and act on impulse.

In my coaching business, The Good Habit, we do a lot of trust work. I lead people back to trusting themselves through a series of one-on-one conversations and extensive inner work. I understand that in a session with me, my client needs to be unabashedly themselves,

just like when they were little. Together we free the body and the mind from the excess conditioning that’s just sitting there collecting fear. Inner child work is a huge part of finding trust again. It liberates the mind from the need to do everything “right” and allows us to move quickly away from fear of failure and into the arms of true expression. Many of our greatest struggles can be resolved by spending time in a nourishing environment that encourages us to be honest, self-reflective, and present. Inner child work is one avenue that runs straight to the essence of what makes you you. And like a child, when you see your reflection in the mirror, you will be delighted.

When you trust yourself, the world opens up to you. When you trust yourself, you activate your creative flow and are able to follow the fun, unafraid. When we practice living in this headspace, we expand our capacity for presence, and our resistance to the moment begins to disappear. When our resistance begins to disappear, we can see ourselves more clearly. When we can see ourselves more clearly, we can show up in the world fully with both feet on stage.

Now that’s good improv.

My invitation to you is to hop onto your stage with both feet.

Remember that the truest you is enough and the world will celebrate you in your state of presence. Every relationship you have will improve if you practice being present. Naturally, our energy is drawn to those in a state of presence because in our bones we know that we are designed to feel that same sense of freedom. Think of a dog—he’s never worried about yesterday’s conversation or how he handled an interaction, and we are fascinated by him! Children, of course, are perpetually in the moment. They don’t negotiate with their wonder; they simply move towards it. How many times have you looked at the child throughout an entire conversation with the adult holding her or him? You get it.

We are good at noticing connections. We are just out of practice.

So come on, try it for yourself. Focus less on the outcome and more on the moment. Make eye contact with someone and don’t worry about your next line. Give your scene partner a chance to surprise you! Trust that the moment you’re in is good enough, and watch as your resistance fades.

When we invite play into our lives, we drop all expectations of what the moment should be and tap into what is. This is total presence. This is where your magic lives. This is where your fun has been hiding. And it has been there all along. Get ready to step into the moment in a big way; get ready to see the world filled with new colors. Wield the confidence of a 3-year-old and run towards your fun unabashedly, perhaps clumsily, and wholeheartedly. Join the revolution of being joyful.

Activate your magic. Activate your presence. Welcome to the moment.■

ABOUT MARY ROGERS McMASTER Mary Rogers is a holistic wellness coach with over twenty years of acting experience. Her work in personal wellness spans many forms including chakra work, energy healing, Alexander technique, leadership training, executive coaching, fitness, dance, talk therapy, and emotional release. She is based in New York City.

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Tranquility & Transformation

by Suzanne Johnson

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From generation to generation, how one Tennessee family has redefined southern luxury in the Great Smoky Mountains.

By Laurie Bogart Wiles

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I can recall many breathtaking sights from my travels, but few remain as memorable as the one I saw at Blackberry Farm.

Leaving Blackberry Farm early one morning for a flight back to New York City, a breathtaking silhouette of a lone horse on the horizon, backlit against the brilliant rising sun, stopped us in our tracks. This beautiful horse, standing motionless and mighty on the graceful foothills of East Tennessee, took our breath away and reminded me of this poem: “The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.”

I am no St. Francis of Assisi or Soren Kierkegaard, the author of that inspiring poem, but I also believe in the life-affirming connection between us and the natural world. To me, this horse represented the enduring benefits of my time in nature at Blackberry Farm, and I took it as a symbolic invitation “to come back soon.”

Whether you experience something like a Victor Fleming movie scene when departing Blackberry Farm or not, once you’ve experienced this internationally acclaimed, awardwinning resort, you long to return.

Read the many articles published—

speak to the many patrons—and you will find there are hundreds of reasons “to come back” to Blackberry Farm. And in 2019, the proprietors of Blackberry, the Beall family, gave us one more: Blackberry Mountain.

Blackberry Mountain is the wellness-focused companion property of Blackberry Farm, one of only four resorts in the world to receive the designation of Relais and Chateaux before opening. Dedicated to preservation and wellness through nature, Blackberry Mountain is located on 5,200 acres in the Chilhowee Mountain ridge, just 7 miles from Blackberry Farm. Hospitality reviewers have rated Blackberry Mountain as “the most holistic adventure-wellness set-up in the United States right now.”

Blackberry Mountain was the vision of Sam Beall, the son of the original owners, Kreis and Sandy, who stepped into the role of proprietor of Blackberry Farm in the early 2000s. Through his vision and commitment to excellence, Blackberry Farm grew into a world-

Transformed out of an old fire tower, the Firetower restaurant now offers innovative cuisine prepared by Chef Joel Werner. Guests can dine from sunrise to sunset, soaking in the atmosphere while enjoying fresh, seasonal fare. Above: The Firetower restaurant is perched atop the peak of the mountain, where guests experience breathtaking scenery and an energizing meal to fuel their adventures.

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Blackberry Mountain offers a wide variety of spa and wellness treatments to align the mind, body and spirit. The services are conducted in spaces elegantly designed to blend the natural landscape with modern and state-of-the-art architecture.

renowned resort hotel garnering unprecedented industry praise. Mary Celeste Beall, Sam’s wife, helped in transforming Blackberry into the renowned food, wine and wellness destination that it is today.

Following Sam’s untimely passing in 2016, Mary Celeste became proprietor of both acclaimed resort hotels, and under her leadership, they

carry on Sam’s legacy by honoring the great outdoors with an unwavering commitment to the land and dedication to the highest quality of excellence.

Blackberry Farm and Blackberry Mountain are sister properties. As sisters, I would personify Blackberry Farm as the gracious, gourmet older sister with Southern charm and Blackberry Mountain as the more adventurous,

curious and creative younger sister.

The programming for Blackberry Mountain 2020 has recently been announced by Mary Celeste as “A Year of Illuminated Perspective.” Mrs. Beall described how she and her team created the concept by sharing, “When choosing and developing a theme, we asked ourselves, ‘What is it that we want to convey to our guests to look

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Guest can foster their creativity, inspiration and energy through a vast selection of artistic activities offered on the Mountain, including pottery workshops where they create one-of-a-kind pieces by hand.

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inward and outward?’ We hope to inspire them to take a look at the world through a different lens.”

Throughout 2020 guests will be treated to a yearlong lineup of guided workshops, celebratory weekends and holidays reimagined, each programmed with an illuminated perspective in mind. Each season, both Blackberry Farm and Blackberry Mountain will host a vast array of wellness and mindful healers, awardwinning chefs, sommeliers and beverage experts, athletes, musicians, artists and more, all with a unique and exceptional point of view.

At Blackberry Mountain, visiting personalities are abundant. Some examples include certified Kundalini Yoga Instructor Leigh Mallis, bestselling author Shauna Niequist, sommelier and creator of Ramona wines, Jordan Salcito, and ceramic

artist Keith Kreeger. Parties are planned as well, co-hosted with awardwinning restaurateur Will Guidara and James Beard Foundation Awardwinning chef Christina Tosi, as well as a special event with the Ryan Seacrest Foundation with Ryan Seacrest and the Seacrest family.

inspiration from the ancient, majestic Smoky Mountains and from years of award-wining excellence in service, Blackberry Mountain offers a vast selection of spa and wellness options, artistic and athletic classes as well as outdoor and indoor activities. These services and activities are conducted in spaces elegantly and creatively designed to blend the natural landscape with modern and state-ofthe-art architecture. I might ask Mary Celeste and her team to add a class on architecture and design to learn how they created this magnificent property, indoors and out.

A short drive from the mountain, one can explore horseback riding through wooded trails and across streams at the foothills of the Smokies and get tips from their amazing equestrian team with private instruction. The fly fishing is year-round, and the seasonal water sports are abundant on the lakes, rivers and wetlands located close to the mountain. There are over 900 miles of hiking trails in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, providing unlimited adventures, including expansive mountain vistas to relish and beautiful cascading waterfalls to marvel at. Hiking, biking, rock climbing, and trail running— you can do it all—are available, with 5,200 acres to explore. There is also the off-site Sports Club for individual precision sports like clay shooting and archery as well as an exciting game of paintball for the group.

Group fitness classes offer uninterrupted

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lackberry Mountain is a perfect getaway for family, friends or businesses, offering modern-day luxuries in an unencumbered natural environment with special offerings for “camp-goers” of all ages. Drawing

In addition to pottery, guests can enrich their stay by taking creative workshops that span painting, drawing, basket-making and even textile design, all taught by talented artisans.

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views of the mountains in state-ofthe-art facilities that seamlessly blend into the natural landscape, offering relaxation to heart-pumping exercises, all equally great for the mind, body and spirit. Classes range from GRIT in the gym to aromatherapy yoga in the Yoga Loft, rhythm in the Spin Lab or stretchand-release class in the Movement Studio. From calming to inspiring, there

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is something for everyone.

The Blackberry Mountain Spa “Nest” is incredibly lux, offering restorative treatments to foster mind, body and spirit rejuvenation. Cradled in the heart of the Lodge, it offers unique wellness treatments and therapies to help guests pause, relax and recharge, such as individual Chakra Balancing sessions designed to align, balance

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and activate the seven energy centers.

With the help of Dr. Jill Beasley, the on-property naturopathic doctor, guests can explore how Chakras have a direct impact on their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

Dr. Jill also offers “In the Classroom,” a forum where one can discuss a specific health condition or topic related to medicine. One-on-one discussions are

of the guests’ choosing related to the art and science of medicine, including Western and Eastern traditions, Chinese medicine, and other enduring and enriching practices.

Other services include Nervous System Reset, which helps restore balance to the nervous system through craniosacral therapy, qi gong tuina, tuning forks, myofascial release and chakra balancing as well as Aerial Sound Bath, Herbal Remedies and Creative Presence sessions, including a Meditative Watercolors experience, Mandala Stone Painting, Mindful Sculpting and Mala Making.

The Nest has a tranquility lounge, sauna, steam showers and a year-round heated pool with a scenic infinity edge.

Guests can take part in arts and crafts from hand-building ceramics, acrylic painting, sketching, basket making, and textile art classes. One can create her own piece of art inspired by the beauty and culture of the mountains. I really like the idea of being able to expand one’s creativity in a tangible way— yet another way to take this inspiring

place home when you go. Also located at The Hub, you can play basketball and rock climb indoors as well as sign up for outdoor activities, including creekside meditation, sound healing, forest bathing, endurance climbs, bouldering and mountain biking, just to name a few.

At the top of the mountain, an old fire tower has been transformed into a restaurant that operates from sunrise to sunset. Chef Joel Werner, who had been at Blackberry Farm since 2015, oversees the dining menus that incorporate international techniques, taking a more worldly approach to the cuisine than the Farm. The restaurant provides awe-inspiring views along with awe-inspiring dishes that are innovative, fresh, and delicious. The flagship restaurant, Three Sisters, located in the Lodge, boasts a screened porch with sweeping views of the 5,200-acre property as well as the surrounding Smoky Mountains.

Sunset’s a must!

All things mountain, there are 18 stone cottages offering sweeping views

During Chakra Balancing sessions, guests can explore how Chakras have a direct impact on their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. Above: With classes ranging from aromatherapy yoga to stretchand-release class to ropes wall yoga, guest can expand their practice to connect moment by moment, breath by breath.

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A delicious meal from the flagship restaurant, Three Sisters, serving shaved white turnips with banner butter, lemon and parsley, alongside roasted beets with pesto and cauliflower steak with smoked paprika, cauliflower purée, capers and toasted almonds.

PHOTOGRAPH BY BONJWING LEE

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of the Smokies and featuring stacked stone archways, iron windows, reclaimed oak floors, white walls and lime-washed ceilings as well as outdoor patios, wood-burning fireplaces and soaking tubs. Six other cottages, called the Watchmen Cottages, are secluded, providing the ultimate luxury retreat with floor-toceiling windows built in a traditional log cabin style.

Daily guided walks up the mountain to breakfast can be hiked or enjoyed in one of the resort

Lexus vehicles. Or you can take the wisps hovering over the mountainscape golf cart issued upon check-in. Yes, that cannot be described, only experienced. This exceptional effort they’ve thought of everything. to preserve the natural wonder of the mountains while creating a serene escape with the highest measure of excellence away from the stresses of modern life—all in a private national park setting—is the ultimate place to reconnect with nature and yourself.

It is certainly like a poem—a perfect example of where the highest and rom Blackberry Mountain’s 2,800-foot most beautiful things are to be lived… elevation, a mist is known to roll in, the and enjoyed. ■

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The Firetower restaurant effortlessly marries casual ambiance with sweeping scenery – perfect for enjoying a midday meal while appreciating the natural light and beauty of the mountains. Opposite: Joel Werner, Executive Chef of the Firetower restaurant, prepares a hearty meal of mushroom Bolognese with ancient grain pappardelle, roasted walnuts, lemon and parsley.

PHOTOGRAPH BY BONJWING LEE

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ie ur La by

A Woman of the World les Wi rt ga Bo

Ava Gardner, photographed by George Hoyningen-Huene, 1963.

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Plucked from poverty with no education, Ava Gardner enchanted Hollywood for decades with her beauty and sophistication.

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Gardner at the young age of 16 years old with beauty that would soon turn her into a motion picture star and break countless hearts. Opposite: Gardner had just won a contract with MGM when this early, flawless studio portrait was taken in 1942.

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W

HO WAS AVA GARDNER? Some would say she was the most beautiful creature God had ever created. Even as a teenager, so sophisticated were her looks that in film, she would portray duchesses, baronesses, and gentry opposite the greatest leading men of the day: as Guinevere in Knights of the Round Table (1953) opposite Robert Taylor; Venus, the Goddess of Love, in One Touch of Venus (1948) opposite Robert Walker; Pandora in Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951) opposite James Mason; and as Maria Vargas in The Barefoot Contessa (1954) opposite Humphrey Bogart. Even legendary director John Ford, who she considered “the meanest man on earth and thoroughly evil,” who directed her in Mogambo was smitten by her beauty. It was Ford, she acknowledged, who brought out the best in her as an actress and she came to adore him. Countless men adored Ava, and Ava adored men. Her greatest friendships were with men. As for female friends, she had few and took only two into her confidence—her sister, Bappie, and her longtime maid and companion, Mearene Jordan, a black woman who Ava loved like a sister. Despite her thick Southern accent and utter lack of experience as an actress, Ava, at 17, was signed by MGM as a Hollywood contract player in 1941 on the merit of her incomparable beauty alone. She became a movie queen, was heralded as one of the most beautiful women in the world, inundated with priceless gifts from her three husbands and a multitude of lovers, and swarmed by adulating crowds. Yet the loneliness that pervaded throughout her childhood, and ripened with her hourglass figure, haunted Ava until she died on January 25, 1990, at the age of 67.

AVA LAVINIA GARDNER was born in Grabstown, North Carolina, a one-road, unincorporated town in rural Johnston County that was so small, if you blinked driving through, you’d miss it. Her mother, Mary Elizabeth “Molly” Gardner, a warm, loving, devout Baptist woman of Scottish descent, was 39 years old when Ava, her seventh and last child, was born on Christmas Eve in 1922.

“It appeared that there was this whole other person, Jesus Christ, whose

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birthday a lot of people tended to confuse with mine,” Ava wrote in her autobiography, Ava, My Life, published posthumously at her direction, in 1990.

“I was personally outraged. It was a long time before I forgave the Lord for that.”

Her father, Jonas Baily Gardner, was a solemn, hardworking sharecropper and tobacco farmer who struggled to keep his large family clothed and fed.

“When you are dirt poor,” Ava reflected many years later, “and there is no way of concealing it, life is hell.”

At first, the child believed the candlelit tree decorated with homemade ornaments, and the many relatives who came for Christmas dinner were celebrating her birthday, not His. Her mother, whom she adored almost as much as she did her father, baked two special cakes—one chocolate, the other coconut—because “Mama understood how lonely just one present for Christmas and your birthday could be.”

It was her father, a strong, quiet man, who laid down the law of the household.

Jonas Gardner called his four other daughters by their Christian names but always called Ava, his favorite, “Daughter.” She favored him in appearance. He was tall, lean, with soft, wavy black hair, a cleft chin and the green, sparkling eyes, which she inherited. From the time she could walk, Ava worked alongside her father in the tobacco fields. Years later, she could relate in great detail how tobacco was planted, harvested, and dried; the many hours she spent working in the fields; and the many nights she stayed up with her father to make sure the proper temperature in the tobacco barn was maintained to flue-cure the leaves. Except for school and church, she went barefoot to save wear and tear on her one pair of shoes. All her life, being barefoot was one of her greatest pleasures. Feeling the warm earth between her toes brought her back to her happy childhood. Indeed, those early days would be the happiest period in her tumultuous, colorful, spectacular, too-short life. Her youthful rage against the Lord was fueled by one tragedy after another—not the least of which was the loss of both her parents by the time she was 20.

“God didn’t take care of anything,” she remarked bitterly at the end of her life. “I hated religion.”

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Gardner with her first husband, Mickey Rooney, at their wedding and on the golf course together. While Rooney taught Ava how to play golf, he also spent more time on the golf course than with her during their honeymoon, much to her dismay.

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AVA WAS VISITING HER FAVORITE SISTER, Bappie, and her husband, Larry Tar, a professional photographer, in New York City when Larry asked his sister-in-law to sit for him. Though only 17, she had a timeless elegance about her. Tar was so pleased with the results that he displayed the photographs in the front window of his Fifth Avenue studio. Soon after, a representative of Loews Theaters, which was then was owned by MGM, saw the photographs and reached out to the studio’s talent scouts. A screen test in New York was arranged for Ava; however, when she opened her mouth, the director ordered the cameraman to stop rolling. Her North Carolina accent was so thick, no one could understand her. The director simply had Ava walk across the room and arrange some flowers in a vase on a table. When MGM boss Louis B. Mayer saw her screen test, he exclaimed, “She can’t sing, she can’t act, she can’t talk, she’s terrific!” and Ava was offered a standard seven-year contract.

Ava was too young to go alone to Hollywood, and her mother, who was suffering from cancer, was too ill to travel. So Bappie, whose marriage was on the rocks, accompanied her as a chaperone. One of the first things MGM was determined to do was to get rid of Ava’s North Carolina drawl.

“I was sent to Gertrude Vogeler, the voice coach, a woman I came to love very dearly. She was a beautiful old lady, very old, very-gray haired, very overweight, with a million cats—well, it seemed like a million anyway—and an ancient Chinese cook who was funnier than anything ever seen in the movies. Gertrude worked out of her own house on Whittier Drive. She had a hard time with me, but she was so loving and skillful. I can remember her sitting opposite me, her motherly bosom going up and down, trying to get my voice a couple of octaves closer to my navel. ‘Sit on it, Ava,’ she said. ‘Sit on it my, beauty! Make your voice come up from down there—down there.

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That’s good, that’s good!’ Gertrude had the most beautiful voice herself. And she was not just a voice coach, she was an institution. You’d go back to the cottage, and by God, you’d find you were into yoga exercises and breathing and all kinds of stuff. You were not going to breathe just from the throat, you were going to speak from down there—down there. Every time I went back to Los Angeles for years after that—as I’m sure so many other of her pupils did—I went back to kiss her on the cheek and say thank you.”

Shortly after Ava separated from her first husband, Mickey Rooney, she met Howard Hughes. “What can I say about Howard Hughes?” she wrote. “A worldfamous aviator, a multi-multi-millionaire, a very complex man, courageous, bold, and inventive? You bet. But also, painfully shy, completely enigmatic and more eccentric, honey, than anyone I ever met. I was never in love with him, but he was in and out of my life for something like 20 very remarkable years.”

He made his intentions clear on their first date—and so did she. “Let me emphasize,” she explained, “that friend is the word for our relationship.

Howard didn’t make any extravagant passes, in fact, made no demands on me at all. A kiss on the cheek after about our tenth dinner was as far as he went. He made it clear that he was interested in me emotionally and

“

Maybe, in the final analysis, they saw me as something I wasn’t and I tried to turn them into something they could never be. I loved them all but maybe I never understood any of them. I don’t think they understood me.

Gardner with her second husband, big-band leader Artie Shaw, dining and dancing at popular clubs, including the legendary Mocambo. Prior to marriage, Shaw told Ava that she was “the most perfect woman” he’d ever met.

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Gardner with her third husband, Frank Sinatra, dining with friends and attending social functions. Her marriage to Sinatra was her third, final and longest marriage, only lasting for six years.

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Gardner with the Queen during a Royal Command Film Performance, October 1955.

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Because I was promoted as a sort of a siren and played all those sexy broads, people made the mistake of thinking I was like that off the screen.

They couldn’t have been more wrong.

romantically, but he was prepared to be very patient. For my part, sharing a bed with him was always one length I couldn’t imagine myself going to.”

But she liked him immediately and within a week of their first dinner together, they became fast friends. “He was a straightforward, non-bull Texan, direct and terribly helpful in practically every way you can imagine” and all through the years “he continued to make things easy for me when I wanted things easy,” said the woman who never got over her hardscrabble childhood.

However, their relationship—as with all Ava’s important relationships—soon became stormy and fraught with drama. It never boiled down to poor choices or bad luck. As a tomboy growing up, no water tower was too high to scale, no boy too tough to beat up, and no threat too threatening to face. She gave every bit of what she got, and that’s how she dealt with Howard. He would always appear before, during, and after Ava’s two subsequent marriages and countless romances, taking measures to thwart the advances of other men and filled with burning, unrequited hope of finally winning her over. She was, he thought, the loveliest creature God had ever made—and countless people felt the same way about her, too. He was determined to own her, and he had all the money in the world to buy her. But Ava couldn’t be bought.

Many was the time she threw a priceless piece of jewelry at him in a rage, or tossed a heavy, solid gold necklace parure out a hotel window. There was nothing she could do to keep him out of her life—and she liked it that way.

“When Howard Hughes wanted something, he went after it with tunnel vision, and he saw no reason not to use the same tactics on the gentlemanly seduction of me. He was, someone once said, like a spoiled child when he couldn’t get what he wanted, whining and wailing about it until he did. He could also be determinedly vengeful if anyone crossed or opposed him.”

In one particularly dramatic incident, Ava tells of the night she awoke in bed, alone, finding a wildly jealous Hughes hovering over her, in the dark, believing Mickey, from whom she was now divorced, was still sleeping with her. Rather than apologize, he pinned her down and began hitting her across the face with an open hand until her eye was swollen shut. Fearing for her life, she groped for something, anything, and felt the handle of a heavy, bronze, ornamental bell.

She threw it at him, splitting his face open from his temple to his mouth. She ended up with a black eye and he ended up the hospital.

And so, they continued to play at their cat-and-mouse games for the next two decades. “The saga of him and me was going to be one hell of a longrunning serial,” she sighed.

EVEN WHEN SHE WAS MRS. MICKEY ROONEY, Ava failed to achieve a breakthrough into a major role, and she continued to act in small parts until 1946, when she finally won the female lead as the deadly seductress Kitty Carlson in the film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s short story, The Killers, first published in Scribner’s in 1927. Her co-star was Burt Lancaster in his first major motion picture role. So powerful was their on-screen presence together that if you lit a match, the air between them would combust. “Burt had all the confidence in the world. He’d never been in a movie before, but he seemed competent enough to take the whole thing over, and if Robert (Siodmak) hadn’t been such a strong director, he might have.”

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The biggest takeaway for Ava from The Killers was the lifelong friendship with her “chum,” “Papa” Hemingway. The Killers launched Ava as a star in post-World War II cinema, a time when Greta Garbo, Norma Sherer, and Irene Dunne’s stars were waning, and age forced Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, and Marlene Dietrich to reinvent themselves.

But it wasn’t until 1947, six years after landing in Hollywood, that she really established herself, starring opposite her childhood idol, heartthrob, Clark Gable, in The Hucksters. Petrified to act opposite the Rhett Butler of her, and every young girl’s dreams, she was astonished to find him more handsome, more magnetic, and much more approachable than you’d expect of the King of Hollywood. Indeed, Gable was one of the kindest men Ava had ever met. Still deeply mourning the tragic loss four years before of his beloved wife and great love of his life, one of Hollywood’s brightest and most beautiful comedic actresses, Carole Lombard, in a plane crash, Gable became a paternal figure for Ava and took quiet measures to bolster the shy, insecure actress who, all her life, believed she had no talent. “Hey, kid,” he’d say quietly when it was clear Ava had lost her place during rehearsal.

“You stuck? Let me give you a lead.”

“He was always trying to calm me down, always telling me, ‘You don’t see yourself as an actress and I don’t see myself as an actor. That’s what makes us even,’” Ava fondly recalled.

Gable’s contracts stipulated he would leave the set punctually at five o’clock, even if the cameras were still rolling. It was long after five when Clark, and all the important actors in the film, had left the set of The Hucksters when director Jack Conway was ready to film Ava’s big nightclub act.

Fearing she’d blow her biggest solo scene in the film, they were about to start when “I saw this handsome man carrying an old wooden kitchen chair on to the dance floor. He placed the chair right in front of me, reversed it and sat down with his arms folded across the back. It was Clark Gable, grinning at me to begin. For God’s sake, how could I help but adore the man? There was never anything between us—ever. He’d lost his heart, and almost the sense in his life, when Carole Lombard was killed in that plane crash. I never met Carole, but Clark told me that at times her language had the same— shall I say—forthrightness as mine. When The Hucksters finally came out, I received some of the best notices of my career.”

IN 1945, AVA’S CLOSE FRIEND, Frances Heflin, the wife of actor Van Heflin, introduced Ava to the man who would become her second husband—jazz band leader, composer, clarinetist Artie Shaw, who was famous for his version of Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine.” Fifteen years her senior and recently divorced from Ava’s good friend, Lana Turner, Ava and Shaw were inseparable from the first time they met.

“Ava, I think that physically, emotionally, and mentally you are the most perfect woman I’ve ever met, and what’s more, I’d marry you tonight, except for the fact that I’ve married too many wives already,” Shaw said. That didn’t stop Ava from becoming the fourth of what would be Shaw’s eight marriages.

From the moment they wed on October 17, 1945, until their divorce, Shaw was determined to improve the woman he had deemed “perfect,” insisting she read

Gardner went from a young girl growing up on a tobacco farm to an international film star, though she still sought out activities that reminded her of her rural upbringing.

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Gardner with Antonio the Spanish dancer, July 1955.

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Publicity stills from Bhowani Junction (MGM, 1956), directed by George Cukor, starring Ava Gardner and Stewart Granger.

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Sinclair Lewis, Dostoyevsky, and Thomas Mann, learn about politics and psychology, introducing her to music and art. Catching her one day reading the bestselling period romance, Forever Amber, Shaw took the book from her hands and flung it across the room. “If I’m in charge of your education,” he reprimanded, “you’re not going to read rubbish like that!”

He demeaned her, lowering Ava’s already low self-esteem to new depths.

She saw a psychiatrist and took an IQ test, scoring surprisingly high. Intent on improving herself, she took literature and economics classes at UCLA. Shaw, a devoted chess player, hired a Russian grandmaster to teach her the game. The first time Ava played Shaw, she beat him—in less than 15 minutes. It was the only time they ever played chess together. The one-upmanship, the ever-flowing booze, the disparate personalities and family backgrounds and their frenetic Hollywood lifestyle battered their marriage. One year and one day after they vowed “I do,” Ava Gardner and Artie Shaw were divorced.

“THE FIRST TIME I MET FRANK SINATRA, I was still married to Mickey Rooney. We were out at some Sunset Strip club, probably Mocambo, and Frank was there. He knew Mickey pretty well—who didn’t—and he stepped across to meet the new wife. And being Frank, he did the big grin and said, “Hey, why didn’t I meet you before Mickey? Then I could have married you myself.” That caught me off guard. I guess I smiled back uncertainly, but I don’t think I said a word. Because in those early days, I was always feeling out of my depth. Even to meet Frank Sinatra was exciting enough. To have him say a thing like that left me dumbfounded.”

In October 1951, a week after his long, drawn-out divorce from his first wife, Nancy, was final, Frank Sinatra married Ava. Her third, final, and longest marriage only lasted six years. He was the love of her life, but their relationship was ill-fated from the start. Sinatra was accused of being snatched from his wife, Nancy, by the seductress Ava and their subsequent marriage was condemned by the Catholic Church. Their work kept them apart more than together and as her star rose, his career plummeted.

In 1952, Ava starred in the second of three adaptations of Ernest Hemingway’s works, The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), when producer Darryl F. Zanuck cast her as Cynthia opposite Gregory Peck, and the third and last, The Sun Also Rises, where Ava played Lady Brett Ashley with three of the silver screen’s most popular leading men, Tyrone Power, Mel Ferrer, and Errol Flynn.

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Once, when Ava stayed with Hemingway at his villa in Cuba, she swam in the nude in his pool. “Papa” ordered the pool water was never to be emptied.

Ava and Sinatra’s marriage had been tumultuous from the start, but the death knell sounded when Gardner became pregnant not once, but twice, within the span of a year. She made the decision to abort the first pregnancy, which she discovered while filming Mogambo in Africa, without consulting him. Nor did she consult him when she went through with the second abortion. “I think Frank, in his heart, knew what I was going to do, but it was my decision, not his. As long as I live, I’ll never forget waking up after the operation and seeing Frank sitting next to the bed with tears in his eyes.

But I think I was right. I still think I was right.” The jealousies, the rages, the endless drunken nights and the drama was simply too much for Sinatra.

“Though our love was deep and true, even though the fact that we couldn’t live with each other any more than we could have lived without each other sometimes made it hard for outsiders to understand. All I know is that if Frank had lost me or I’d lost him, our worlds would have been shattered.” They divorced on June 5, 1957—and indeed, both their worlds were shattered.

IN 1963, AVA STARRED WITH RICHARD BURTON in The Night of the Iguana, directed by John Huston. Though she had never met him, she knew his wife. “Elizabeth (Taylor) and I were friends from the old Metro days. It’s like we were two graduates from the same alma mater, pleased to find each other in the wilderness, and though this was the first time I’d met Richard, I felt the same way about him. He was like someone I would have liked to have had for a brother.” Like Ava, Burton and Elizabeth were ferocious drinkers.

Except for the news of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the cast and crew worked cheerfully and cohesively to make a first-rate film out of Tennessee Williams’ play—and the reason was Huston.

“Dear John. I have only one rule in acting—trust the director and give him heart and soul. And the director I trusted most of all was John Huston.

Working with him gave me the only real joy I’ve ever had in movies.”

In 1966, she was reunited with director John Huston when he again cast Ava in one of his films, this time as Sarah, wife of Abraham, in the Dino de Laurentiis spectacular The Bible…in the Beginning. It was, perhaps, the most unusual film in the repertoire of a woman who had spurned God. “Huston had more faith in me than I did myself,” she would comment. “Now I’m glad I

Still from The Naked Maja (MGM, 1958), directed by Henry Koster, starring Ava Gardner and Anthony Franciosa.

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Ava Gardner while attending the bullfight, madrid, July 1960.

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Gardner at The Barefoot Contessa premiere in Stockholm, Sweden, 1954.

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Ava Gardner Park premiere.

ARCHIVE PL / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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“

When I’m old and gray, I want to have a house by the sea. And paint.

With a lot of wonderful chums, good music, and booze around. And a damn good kitchen to cook in.

listened, for it is a challenging role and a very demanding one. I started out as a young wife in age through various periods, forcing me to adjust psychologically to each age. It is a complete departure for me and most intriguing.”

Her co-star was George C. Scott as Abraham. The two fiery personalities ignited instantly, and Ava entered into perhaps the most passionately explosive relationship in her life. “To make a long story short, I fell for George and he fell for me in those early weeks of shooting. George seemed highly intelligent and civilized, very gentle. So, what was the problem? The problem, honey, was booze. We both drank a fair amount, but when I drank, I usually got mellow and happy. When George got drunk, he could go berserk in a way that was quite terrifying.”

Ava recounted an episode where she and George “had gone out to dinner, and returning to the hotel, we’d gone back to his room for a nightcap. George had drunk quite a lot that night, and after another two or three, I could see he was getting into one of his rages. He began to argue with me, and I decided it was time to leave. Fat chance. Suddenly, out of the blue, his hand smashed across my face and punches fell on me from all angles. It felt like hours before I managed to get out. The next morning, I took my swollen bruised face and black eye to the makeup man. God, I was a mess. He took one looked at me and screamed, ‘For Christ’s sake, who did this to you?’ I didn’t tell him, but it wasn’t too hard to figure out.”

IN 1968, AVA UNDERWENT an elective hysterectomy in London to prevent any chance of contracting cancer, which took the life of her mother.

She continued to act until 1986. The woman who all her life believed she could not act and saw her success as a film star as “really quite a joke” is listed 25th among the American Film Institute’s “25 greatest female stars of the classic Hollywood cinema.” In 1951, Ava was nominated for a Picturegoers Gold Medal for best actress in Pandora and the Flying Dutchman. In 1953, she was nominated for Best Actress by the New York Film Critics Circle for Mogambo, and also for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role. She was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Foreign Actress in Bhowani Junction in 1958, a Golden Laurel for Top Female Star of 1960 and that same year, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Again, she was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Foreign Actress for On the Beach in 1964. In 1965, she was nominated for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for Night of the Iguana and won the Best Actress award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. Her range was limitless. Not only did she star in dramas, but famously, in 1951, in the smash musical film version of Show Boat as Julie Laverne, and in 1953 she starred with Fred Astair and Cyd Charisse in The Bandwagon. She appeared in 53 films alongside celebrated actors, other than those I have mentioned, including Adolophe Menjou, Agnes Moorehead, Ann Rutherford, Ann Sothern, Anthony Franciosa, Anthony Perkins, Anthony Quinn, Barbara Stanwyck, Beulah Bondi, Broderick Crawford, Burgess Meredith, Catherine Deneuve, Charles Laughton, Charlton Heston, Cicely Tyson, Cyril Cusack, David Niven, Deborah Kerr, Dirk Bogarde, Edmund Gwenn, Edward Arnold, Ethel Barrymore, Eve Arden, Flora Robson, Franchot Tone,

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”

Franco Nero, Frank Morgan, Fred MacMurray, Fredric March, Gene Kelly, George Kennedy, George Raft, Grace Kelly, Gregory Peck, Henry Fonda, Howard Keel, Ian McShane, Jacqueline Bisset, Joe E. Brown, John Carradine, Joseph Cotton, Kathryn Grayson, Keenan Wynn, Kirk Douglas, Lena Horne, Leo G. Carroll, Leslie Nielsen, Lionel Barrymore, Lorne Green, Margaret O’Brien, Mel Ferrer, Melvyn Douglas, Nanette Fabray, Norma Shearer, Omar Sharif, Oscar Levant, Paul Lukas, Paul Newman, Peter O’Toole, Reginald Owen, Richard Harris, Robert Mitchum, Robert Morely, Robert Young, Roddy McDowall, Rossano Brazzi, Shelley Winters, Sir John Gielgud, Sophia Loren, Stewart Granger, Susan Hayward, Sydney Greenstreet, Sylvia Miles, Tab Hunter, Van Heflin, Van Johnson, Victor McLaglen, and Vincent Price.

When, at the end of her life, she was asked about her faith, she pledged she had none. Her disdain can be traced to the death of her father when she was 15. In her autobiography she wrote, “Nobody wanted to know Daddy when he was dying, and he was so alone, he was so scared, I could see the fear in his eyes when he was smiling, and I went to see the preacher, the guy who baptized me. I begged him to come and visit Daddy just to talk to him—you know, give a blessing or something—but he never came. God, I hated him! Cold bastards like that ought to, I don’t know, they should be in some other racket. I had no time for religion after that. I never prayed, I never said another prayer.”

Ava was a lifelong smoker and suffered from emphysema. In her 50s, she was diagnosed with an unidentified autoimmune disease, and in 1986, she suffered two debilitating strokes. Ava and Sinatra had remained close friends, speaking on the phone every day. He succeeded in reinventing himself in the early ’50s as a dramatic actor, revived his singing career in the ’60s, and gained universal notoriety as the leader of the Rat Pack. His fortunes reinstated, he arranged for a medically staffed private plane to fly Ava from London, where she lived, back to America for medical treatment. However, shortly after her return back home in London, she suffered a bad fall in her flat. She died shortly after of pneumonia at her London home of many years, 434 Ennismore Gardens, where she had lived since 1968. Her final words were, “I’m so tired.”

Ava returned to where she came from, near Grabtown, where she is buried at Sunset Memorial Park in Smithfield, North Carolina, next to her siblings and her parents. The Ava Gardner Museum is located at 325 East Market Street, Smithfield, North Carolina.

Ava Gardner lived life to the hilt. And yet, of all the regrets she may have had, one stands out above all others: “If I could ever be born again, an education is what I’d want. My life would have been so different if I’d had one.”

Author’s Note: My mother wrote her own eulogy, which was read at her funeral to a congregation of over 500 mourners. It began, “Who knows me better than me?” Even though I have read, and watched, miles of film footage and read reams of paper on Ava Gardner to prepare this biography, who, indeed, knew her better than she? For that reason, the quotes I have included are taken from her book, Ava, My Story, published posthumously by Bantam Books in November 1990. ■

Gardner in London, 1969.

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ARTISANS IN OURIKA, MOROCCO.

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Dream

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dreamweaver

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by Katie Weisman

mweaver Through her business, IbuMovement, Susan Hull Walker is working with some of the finest female craftsman in the world to bring you fashion and home goods while helping them reach economic self-sufficiency.

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“

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Textiles are the language of women, according to Susan Hull Walker, a weaver, textile scholar and aficionado, and the founder of IbuMovement, a Charleston, SC-based online retailer of handcrafted fashions, home decor, jewelry and, yes, textiles made by women in developing nations.

IBU (pronounced “EeeBoo”) Movement, which has a second-floor showroom, office and studio on Charleston’s tony King Street, honors the craftsmanship that women practice around the world. Established in 2015, it is the evolution of a first business where Walker bought and sold vintage textiles privately into what is now an online emporium of exotic finished goods. It’s the result of Walker transitioning from being a woman of the cloth to a woman in the cloth.

A graduate of Harvard Divinity School and former minister, Walker began studying fiber arts at Savannah School of Art and Design (SCAD) after realizing that being a minister, an occupation which she loved and did for 18

years, was not enough. Walker understood, after some career counseling, that she needed to explore her creative side.

Walker plunged into her studies at SCAD, learning how to do everything on textiles from block printing to stitching and appliqué. She says, though, she was never satisfied with the quality of fabric she worked with. One of her professors said she had to learn to weave, and acquiring this skill made Walker think about women in history.

“When I started to loom, I realized that women were sitting in this same place for thousands of years,” Walker recalls. “They were not reading or writing, but this is where they recorded their lives.”

IbuMovement artisans use natural fibers to create extraordinary work with precise skill that was passed from generation to generation.

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In her early textile trading days after SCAD, Walker began more intensive traveling to find artisanal fabrics at the source. She met the skilled women who either wove or embellished the textiles and knew that in a generation or two, the skills would be gone. While on a trip in Timor, she stopped at a market and was discouraged seeing little trinkets that women had made for tourists that were clearly “dumbed-down after someone must have told the women how to make things for foreigners.” She later traveled into the forest and met women who were using leaves to create dyes or natural fibers to make fabric.

“They had built a place for women to work; they were sending their children to school and college all while making exquisite things and keeping fine skills alive,” Walker recalls. “As a weaver, I saw these women’s skills far surpass my own. I wanted to find a market for these women to use their skills and get paid for them—let them stay in their villages rather than move to work in a factory.”

Her “Aha” moment happened when she knew there was a market in the US where customers would pay a higher price for top quality artisanal goods. She also felt there was a rising demand for craftsmanship and value placed on provenance. The plan for a company was born.

“The head weaver [in the Timor group] was named Ibu. I learned that the word means: a woman of respect, mother, teacher, leader,” Walker says, in discussing the inspiration for her company’s name. “I hoped the artisans would come to feel that they and their skills are respected.

When you pay women to do what they have known to do all along, it changes everything . . . and their status in their community. To men, their work was just considered household responsibility. I love that they are now getting valued for what they have been doing all along.”

IbuMovement soon expanded out of textiles into finished goods developed and/or curated by Walker and a small design team. They introduced the “World Dress” in an A-line cut that flatters just about everyone, and a jacket, both of which used fabrics or embellishment techniques from 24 different groups. She called on Ali MacGraw, a friend from Santa Fe where Walker has a home, to be a brand ambassador and to create a capsule collection, dubbed Ali4Ibu, of fashion items for Spring 2017 and for Spring 2018. MacGraw’s latest collection will bow later this spring. For Fall 2017, Walker tapped renowned interior designer and Ibu ambassador Charlotte Moss for a collection. Grand dame and fashion icon Iris Apfel is also a brand ambassador, among a few others. Apfel, who started the Old World Weavers textile house in the 1950s with her husband

Learning from an artisan in Mexico. Walker discovers groups of artisanal women around the globe through word of mouth and travels in search of their skills, not products. Above: Susan Hull Walker, the founder of IbuMovement, with an artisan in Timor, Indonesia.

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The delicate work of artisans in Ourika, Morocco, who weave, stitch and embellish textiles. “As a weaver, I saw these women’s skills far surpass my own,” says Walker.

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Model wearing an IbuMovement citron and blue Ikat tunic in 100% silk, from Uzbekistan, with jewelry from Colombia, including earrings in mustard fiber and agave plant with wood and gold finish, and bangles in caña fleche fiber. Below: Model wearing an IbuMovement blue silk and cotton hand-embroidered caftan, from Morocco, with jewelry from Colombia, including an African glass bead necklace, that was handstrung in Charleston, and 24-karat gold covered orchid earrings with unpolished emerald stone. Opposite: Fashion icon and brand ambassador, Iris Apfel, wearing an “Inner Flame” coat in silk Ikat, from Uzbekistan, with coral-colored beaded necklaces from West Africa, hand-strung in Charleston, and African “Hip” necklaces in beads made from old vinyl records from Ghana. Her bangles include “Horn” bangles sustainably and ethically sourced by Ibu from the Peruvian meat industry.

PHOTOGRAPH BY SPENCER ANTLE

featuring decorative fabrics based on historical techniques and designs, has a love of fabrics and was introduced to Walker via mutual friends. Ibu has two beaded clutches featuring Apfel’s likeness for $250 each.

MacGraw says she’s honored to be a part of Ibu. She met Walker after seeing her nose around the annual International Folk Art Market/Santa Fe—an event that compelled Walker to lay down some roots in that city.

Their shared passion for ethnic goods and drive to do work that benefits others helped seal their friendship and collaboration at Ibu. MacGraw was also happy that her involvement created publicity for Ibu thanks to the many press articles that discussed her collection.

“I have collected ethnic textiles and jewelry for decades, and both of my parents were artists who made jewelry, weaving, enamel work and printed textiles: I have been drawn to these arts my whole life. Additionally, my first job after college was as assistant to the legendary Fashion Editor, Diana Vreeland, and after that (and before my film career) I was the Stylist for the top fashion photographer, Melvin Sokolsky,” MacGraw recounts. “I have been exposed to the very highest talents in the fashion industry, and so the idea of helping to create some special pieces for Ibu, using the incredible sources Susan had already found appealed to me enormously.

As a woman who knows that the artisans and women in general in many of these faraway lands are generally underpaid, under-respected, and massively talented, I was immediately drawn to Susan’s wonderful plan to reach out to them and try to make a difference in their lives.”

For her summer range, MacGraw says she’s planning on kaftans, skirts, and some tops, “what I think of when I imagine comfortable and beautiful clothing for

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women for Summertime. She will also come up with designs for unusual jewelry.

Ibu

Movement now works with 126 female artisan groups across 40 countries. Clothing includes embroidered tunics, hand-block printed caftans and other separates, but the

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most stand-out items are the coats, notably the hand-embroidered pieces that take over two months to complete and cost $2,495.

Jewelry includes everything from $20 woven bracelets from Columbia, bestsellers, to a $295 silver cuff bracelet from Mexico. Goodies for the home include a set of four cocktail napkins in fabric with embroidered mirrors from Afghanistan for $55 to woven leather throw pillows for $385. Walker and her

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The IbuMovement store, located on King Street in Charleston, S.C., offers a showroom full of original designs that are elegant, bold, powerful and all handmade.

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team do not impose Western “style” on Ibu’s manufacturing partners; the few changes they might request generally revolve around sizing, proposing clothing patterns that corresponded to Western bodies, or color suggestions to make sure the palette appeals to Western taste. Currently, she is working to introduce more neutral colors and increase the number of tailored fashion pieces.

“What I do now seems to me a continuation of my ministry—elevating women and celebrating their brilliance which often is overlooked,” Walker observes.

IbuMovement is a for-profit business.

Walker says it’s critical for women to learn how to place their skill set into a business model to be economically self-sufficient, whether it be by setting up local credit unions or quality control systems. Fashion and home goods are hard businesses, and Walker wants her artisan groups to be around after she’s “long gone.”

In the past year, Walker started the nonprofit weareibu.org, a 501(c) (3) foundation, after realizing that some IbuMovement suppliers needed extra resources for production.

For example, a group from Nigeria supplying excellent embroidery started to get late with deliveries. Walker learned that they needed lights to work late in the day. The non-profit, financed by donations which reached $280,000 in the first nine months, helps to cover the costs of these kinds of obstacles that prevent an artisan group from starting to work, or stop them in their tracks, among other initiatives.

“We’re not in it for the money,” says Walker, adding that she hopes this fifth year of business will break-even. “The IbuMovement business gives the artisans work, and the non-profit gives them the tools so that their design and business training can be profitable. It’s a hand-in-hand for-profit and non-profit endeavor.”

To keep Ibu’s assortment fresh, Walker scours the globe to find artisanal craftswomen. She came upon the group in Timor during a textile trip organized out of Bali. Because she studied textiles and is “in the field,” she learns about groups by word of mouth. She also hires local experts to take her through their geographic area. Walker loves to stake out the International

Folk Art Market/Santa Fe, an annual event which drew Walker to buy a home in Santa Fe. Here, she sniffs out skills, not products, in the hopes of finding a resource that will do custom work. Ibu has several requirements for suppliers: Someone has to speak English, someone has to be able to communicate by email, and the group should have a beading, embellishment or other textile tradition that’s at stake and needs to be preserved.

These days, Walker is particularly excited about female artisan groups in Colombia where young designers in Medellin are working with indigenous tribes making new items she’s never seen before; in Ethiopia, a country she loves for its diverse geography, where she sources towels and caftans made from some of the “softest cotton”; and Afghanistan, where she works with incredibly talented women who are likely surrounded by men in the Taliban.

“These are the women that keep me inspired,” Walker says. ■

Above: Susan Hull Walker in her exotic emporium of a home, including her living room (left) and her dining nook (right). Rich with intricate textiles, it is a clear expression of her colorful and eclectic style.

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Today, IbuMovement works with 126 female artisan groups across 40 countries, celebrating the imagination and skill of women around the world, while also putting money in their hands.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIC MINDLING

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The

Ruby City is a celestial gem box containing locally and globally renowned contemporary artists as well as the conviction and dreams of its late founder, Linda Pace.

Jewel of Her Dreams

by Makayla Gay

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Woman of the World With women-centric travel skyrocketing, one female-run, female-only travel company is offering the chance for lifechanging experiences.

By Angela Caraway-Carlton

Linda Pace, Red Project, 2001. Red found objects on wooden panels. 96 x 96 in. © LINDA PACE FOUNDATION. LINDA PACE FOUNDATION COLLECTION, RUBY CITY, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

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Ar

t

The late Linda Pace, founder, artist, collector and dreamer of Ruby City. Today, her legacy continues through the Linda Pace Foundation, which preserves, grows and exhibits her contemporary art collection at Ruby City and beyond.

PHOTOGRAPH BY TODD JOHNSON

Ruby City was realized by famed architect Sir David Adjaye OBE, in conjunction with Alamo Architects, using only a colored pencil drawing by Linda Pace as their guide. © DROR BALDINGER. COURTESY OF RUBY CITY AND ADJAYE ASSOCIATES

was a staple in Linda Pace’s life, just as her family’s namesake Picante sauce is a staple in every San Antonian’s kitchen.

Pace was born in 1945 to David Earl Pace and Margaret Bosshardt Pace. Her parents had started a small pickle, jelly and Picante business. Linda later played a major role in developing the Pace Foods brand nationally and internationally.

Pace’s mother, who taught at both the San Antonio Art Institute and at San Antonio College, stoked her love of art by giving her and her friends art lessons in the family garage. Pace furthered

her art education and married her childhood sweetheart, Christopher ‘Kit’ Goldsbury, in 1967. While rearing two children as her first husband maintained the family business, she completed a bachelor’s degree in art in 1980 from Trinity University.

Pace not only had an accomplished eye for art but also a dedicated hand for it as well. Her work has been included in the San Antonio Museum of Art, the Blue Star Contemporary Art Center, and exhibited in Texas and Colorado galleries.

Pace’s visionary dedication has garnered numerous awards. She was the recipient of the Woman of Achievement Award from the San Antonio Museum of Art, the Contemporary Legends Award from the Dallas Center for Contemporary Art, the Ethel T. Drought Founders Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts from the San Antonio Art League and Ford Motor Company’s Salute to Education award for arts education.

Pace shared her passion for art with her community. In 1993, she founded a nonprofit residency program, Artpace San Antonio, to support regional, national, and international artists to create art and bring global art practices and experiences to local communities.

Artpace has been home to eight MacArthur Fellows, seven Turner Prize nominees and 46 Whitney Biennial artists. Pace has described Artpace as a “laboratory of dreams—my own as well as the artists.”

Founded in 2003 on the conviction that contemporary art is essential to a dynamic society, the Linda Pace Foundation shares its collection with museums and institutions around the world. The foundation seeks out new works every year that explore the feminist perspective and engages in social issues while considering aspects of spirituality and beauty.

In her book, Dreaming Red, Pace said, “I had a hunger for contemporary art: for

Installation view of Waking Dream, featuring Wangechi Mutu, This second Dreamer, 2017.

Bronze. 6 x 15 x 16 in. © WANGECHI MUTU, COURTESY GLADSTONE GALLERY, NEW YORK AND BRUSSELS. PHOTOGRAPHY

BY MARK MENJIVAR, COURTESY OF RUBY CITY, LINDA PACE FOUNDATION

Above: Lari Pittman, Visceral and Needy, 1991. Acrylic and enamel on gessoed mahogany panel. 82 x 66 in.

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Installation view of Waking Dream, featuring Josiah McElheny, Charlotte Perriand, Carlos Scarpa, Other (White), 2000. © JOSIAH MCELHENY, COURTESY ANDREA ROSEN GALLERY, NEW YORK

Teresita Fernández, Burnout, 2005. © TERESITA FERNÁNDEZ, COURTESY LEHMANN MAUPIN, NEW YORK, HONG KONG AND SEOUL

Marina Abramovic, Chair for Man and His Spirit, 1993. © MARINA ABRAMOVIC, COURTESY SEAN KELLY GALLERY, NEW YORK

Do Ho Suh, Hub, 3rd Floor, Union Wharf, 23 Wenlock Road, London N1 7ST, UK, 2016. © DO HO SUH, COURTESY LEHMANN MAUPIN, NEW YORK, HONG KONG AND SEOUL PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK MENJIVAR, COURTESY OF RUBY CITY, LINDA PACE FOUNDATION.

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creating it, buying it, making it and, most of all, sharing it with others.”

Pace’s hunger for contemporary art, to both create and collect it, manifested itself in a dream as a crown of glittering reds and pinks. After experiencing the apparition in 2007, Pace captured the dream using a set of colored pencils and entrusted her vision to famed architect Sir David Adjaye OBE. The dream was realized in October

by Adjaye in conjunction with Alamo Architects. Born in Tanzania to Ghanaian parents, Adjaye’s revolutionary use of materials and sculptural aptitude established him as an architect with an artist’s vision that’s worthy of taking on Pace’s larger-than-life dream. He is known for his iconic design of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., in 2016. Adjaye’s acclaimed projects have earned him a spot on Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential list, and he was knighted

by Queen Elizabeth II in 2017. His next project is spearheading Barack Obama’s presidential library in Chicago.

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uby City is a dream manifested as part Spanish mission, part celestial gem case.

The polished precast concrete, fabricated in Mexico City, is swathed in glass and mica aggregate set in the sparkling crimson of a dynamic desert sunset. At pedestrian level, the concrete is ground to a polished finish. Further up, the concrete edifice becomes sharp with the encrusted red-hued glass. The dynamic texture of the building parallels an angular crag sharpened to be a shining jewel.

Upon entering Ruby City, visitors are met with a red-sheathed interior entrance and lobby. They’re beckoned onwards and upwards through an ambulatory loop. The hexagonal dune exterior houses white-walled galleries burning with light from the pitched roof

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Andrea Bowers, Your Whole Fucking Culture Alienates Me, 2006 Ed. 3/5. Archival photo print in lightbox. 84 x 115 x 7 in.

lights above. The cantilevered roof, with two crowning skylights, floods in Texas’ primary natural resource, a plethora of light and an endless swathe of blue sky. Two window lenses face Chris Park and San Pedro Creek, which carries a cultural epicenter for San Antonio’s vibrant downtown.

The 14,500-square-foot jewel box houses many gems of San Antonio’s thriving art scene and is home to the Linda Pace Foundation’s permanent collection and pieces by Pace herself.

The 900 paintings, sculptures, installations, and video works from both San Antonian artists, such as Ethel Shipton and Cruz Ortiz, and international artists, such as Do Ho Suh, demonstrate Ruby City’s importance to

Gillian Wearing, Me as an Artist in 1984, 2014. C-print.

51 1/8 x 63 1/4 x 1 1/4 in.

Ana Fernandez, Los Valles, 2017. Oil on panel. 78 x 54 in.

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Installation view of Waking Dream, featuring Robyn O’Neil, Staring into the blankness, they fell in order to begin, 2008. © ROBYN O’NEIL, COURTESY TALLEY DUNN GALLERY, DALLAS

Cornelia Parker, Heart of Darkness, 2004.

© CORNELIA PARKER, COURTESY FRITH STREET GALLERY, LONDON

Kim Jones, Untitled, 1974 – 2013. © KIM JONES, COURTESY ZENO X GALLERY, ANTWERP, BELGIUM

Per Kirkeby, Rückblick I, 1986. © Estate of Per Kirkeby, courtesy Michael Werner Gallery, New York. © ESTATE OF PER KIRKEBY, COURTESY MICHAEL WERNER GALLERY, NEW YORK.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK MENJIVAR, COURTESY OF RUBY CITY, LINDA PACE FOUNDATION

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Installation view of Waking Dream, featuring Linda Pace, Stay, 2006. © LINDA PACE FOUNDATION

Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Eight Shelves), 1995 – 1996 © RACHEL WHITEREAD, COURTESY GAGOSIAN, NEW YORK

Wangechi Mutu, This second Dreamer, 2017. © Wangechi Mutu, © WANGECHI MUTU, COURTESY GLADSTONE GALLERY, NEW YORK AND BRUSSELS. PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK MENJIVAR, COURTESY OF RUBY CITY, LINDA PACE FOUNDATION

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Installation view of Waking Dream, featuring Marina Abramovic, Chair for Man and His Spirit, 1993. Iron.

197 x 16 x 16 in. © MARINA ABRAMOVIC, COURTESY SEAN KELLY GALLERY, NEW YORK. PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK MENJIVAR, COURTESY OF RUBY CITY, LINDA PACE FOUNDATION.

the local and global art scene.

The inaugural exhibit Waking Dream is comprised of over 50 works that center on the ideals close to Pace’s own heart: the creative self, notions of home, vulnerability and resilience. The exhibit will be on view through 2022.

Ruby City’s adjacent sculpture garden greets visitors with large scale work by Nancy Rubins, 5,000 lbs. Of Sonny’s Airplane Parts, Linda’s Place, and 550 lbs. of Tire-Wire (1997), which was created especially for Pace by Rubins. The sculpture is structured of materials from a local aircraft supply.

The work’s multidimensional industrial qualities encourage viewers to survey the piece from all directions. Visitors can also submerge themselves in Susan Philipsz’s ruminative sound installation, Sunset Song (2003), which elevates the sensory experience as visitors stroll through the garden.

Ruby City’s campus also includes Studio, an axillary exhibition space that houses special programs and curated shows, and a public garden, Chris Park.

Chris Park opened in 2005 in memory of her son, who died in 1997. The one-acre public green space features a rhythmic layout of walkways, encounters with art and lush local and exotic flora.

Contemporary artist Teresita Fernández designed the park to include a Starfield, embedded stars in the park’s path to replicate the constellations on the day of Chris’s birth.

The museum received Wallpaper* Design’s Award for Best New Public Building in 2020, for the way innovative design can support local culture and communities.

The other-worldly design shines a spotlight on the local culture and burgeoning art community that’s nestled inside and around the museum in San Antonio.

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ith the art world’s eyes on Ruby City, the institution is already making moves to maintain itself as a contemporary art hub by bringing in known talent.

Elyse A. Gonzales is Ruby City’s newly appointed director. Gonzales previously served as curator, assistant director and acting director at the University of California Santa Barbara’s Art, Design and Architecture Museum. Gonzales is excited to be able to shape Ruby City alongside her colleagues in the institution’s most formative years. The Texas native is returning home and is eager to take on the helm of Pace’s vision.

“Linda Pace . . . did a lot for contemporary art and artists both in the American Southwest and internationally.

I think one of the most remarkable aspects of her legacy was . . . her mission as an advocate and philanthropist was focused on bringing the world to San Antonio and showing San Antonio to the world,” says Gonzales.

Gonzales is tasked to further Pace’s vision by mounting programs and exhibits that stem both from Pace’s own collection and reaching out to the local and global art world. Pace’s collection reflects her own daringness and reflects her own social consciousness.

“She had the courage and vision to support and buy the artists in whom she believed . . . she made sure to collect underrepresented artists before it became an overarching initiative for art institutions,” says Gonzales. “I would also say that there is a spirit of generosity and community that informed all of Linda’s efforts.”■ Editor’s Note: Ruby City is open Thursday through Sunday, free to the public.

W INSPIRING WOMEN Our Inspiring Women have been selected because each has carved out a unique path through life that is recognized by others as exceptional. You will see a commonality in the interviews.

These remarkable women have achieved greatness by following their internal compasses while facing the circumstances they are dealt in life.

None had a road map.

I N T E R V I E W S B Y K A R E N F L OY D For video interviews, visit elysianwomen.com

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JEANNE MILLIKEN BONDS

Born: Wilmington, North Carolina Resides: Wake Forest, North Carolina

Professor of the Practice, Impact Investment & Sustainable Finance, and Director of the Invest to Sustain Initiative at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School; Former Community Developer at the Federal Reserve Bank and N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Special Assistant; Former North Carolina Mayor; Entrepreneur; Youngest registered female lobbyist in D.C. in 1986.

KATRINA SHEALY

NANCY O’DELL

Born: Sumter, South Carolina Resides: Los Angeles, California

Former Co-Host on Entertainment Tonight; Emmy-award winning journalist; Accomplished television host who covered the Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Golden Globe Awards; Executive producer and host of HGTV’s Celebrities at Home; Published author of three bestsellers.

BETSY ROBINSON

CAREY PARKER

Born: Virginia Beach, Virginia Resides: Knoxville, Tennessee

Chief Executive Officer and Firm Council Chairperson of LHP Capital; Former Controller, Asset Management Analyst and Accountant; Has guided strategic growth at LHP, as well as managing assets and investments; Uses valuable lessons as a talented basketball player to excel as a corporate leader.

SHOP & EXPLORE

E

Born: Waco, Texas Resides: Waco, Texas

Founder of Fuzzy Friends Rescue; An entrepreneur and avid volunteer; Has saved the lives of over 16,000 animals and counting; Supporter of higher education, donating every year to underwrite scholarships for underprivileged students in Texas.

Born: Columbia, South Carolina Resides: Lexington, South Carolina

South Carolina State Senator, serving as the only woman in that body for four years; Founder of Katrina’s Kids, providing resources for foster children in South Carolina; First Republican woman to chair a major committee in the Senate; One of the first female underwriters for Lloyd’s of London.

Born into a family heritage of sustainability and philanthropy, Jeanne Milliken Bonds had an innate desire to make political, social and economic change. At the age of 23, she lost her father to brain cancer—a man who told her she could break new ground as a woman. In the same year, she became the youngest female lobbyist in D.C. As her career advanced, she not only became the first female mayor of Knightdale, N.C., where she served for a decade, but also joined the Federal Reserve Bank, was N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Special Assistant and started her own business.

Today, Bonds shares her expertise as a Professor at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School.

Jeanne Milliken Bonds Professor at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, Former Community Developer at the Federal Reserve Bank

Milliken is your maiden name, a name rich with Southern and textile history. Where did the family name originate?

The Millikens have been in North and South Carolina since 1697 when they came over from Ireland and Scotland.

Is there a responsibility with the Milliken name?

There is, and I think the family fulfills it well in terms of sustainability and philanthropy, no matter where they are in the country.

Is the Milliken heritage the reason you’ve kept your maiden name?

My husband’s name is equally special to him and well respected in his home state of Mississippi. When we married, I had already published material in my maiden name, so I felt it was important to keep my name.

Who had the greatest influence on you growing up and why?

My dad was in the construction business. I spent a lot of time on work sites helping him with time sheets. I met his employees and other people that worked for him, and along with that, learned some of the crafts involved in home building and historic preservation. My father taught me a major lesson: you might be a girl, but you can do anything you want.

You were very young, age 23, when you lost your father to brain cancer.

Because he had such an influence on you, did it shake your world?

It did. He provided structure in our lives. He told me I could break new ground and do things that had not been possible for women before. I still carry that with me. I had enough time with him that the knowledge is engrained in me.

And your mother was a traditional homemaker?

Correct.

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Your father raised a strong woman, saying you can be and do anything, and yet his personal choice was more traditional?

It is interesting. Nurturing is equally important. I learned that from my mom by the way she took care of the family.

I learned to read long before I went to school, and she was there as a reinforcement, motivating me and pushing me just like my father.

You are married with no children, other than your fourlegged adoptees? Tell me about your pet bull.

I have a pet bull. I regularly adopt and rescue animals, mostly dogs and cats. I did happen upon a situation with a little bull. I really fell in love with him and wanted him to live out his life on a farm.

How old is he now?

He is four.

Is he very trainable?

He is. I have videos of him. He responds. He’s like a very large dog. He’ll come when you call him and run along beside you. But you must be careful because he’s about 2,000 pounds.

Does he love you?

Yes, I believe he does. He definitely responds to my voice.

And does he respond to anyone as much as you?

If someone has honeysuckle vines, that’s pretty much the way to his heart. He responds to food equally well.

Do you foster animals, adopt or both?

We are failed fosters. Every time we foster, we end up adopting. Therefore, we have four dogs.

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What did you do between college and post-graduate school?

After undergrad, I worked for a little while as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., which probably heightened my interest in going back to grad school. I then attended the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and enrolled in the graduate school’s public administration and public policy program.

What did the stint as lobbyist entail?

I lobbied for small oil and gas producers located primarily in the South, many of which were in Louisiana and Texas. Several were family businesses run by women who had worked their way up through the ranks to the highest level.

For the four years you lobbied in D.C., how did Senator Long help you define your interests in tax?

As I lobbied, I learned the Tax Code from senators who knew it quite well including Russell Long from Louisiana. I’m a little bit nerdy in terms of reading Tax Code. Senator Long and other Senators definitely took an interest and helped me understand the tax structure while also introducing me to some attorneys in D.C.

What year was it, and how many female lobbyists were in D.C?

That was 1986. There were only 22 registered female lobbyists.

Now there are about 600.

Did you know many of the female lobbyists?

Yes. I was 23, and the youngest registered female lobbyist. I met all the other women when we had to wait in line for pay phones to call back to our offices. Any tips that you got or any cuts in line would come from that tiny group of women.

Did you make lifelong relationships with any?

I did. Today, there is a group in D.C. called Women in Government Relations that formed from that very small group of female lobbyists.

Are any still in play from 1986?

They are. A lot of them are still working, although most are probably not lobbying now.

Do they still convene in that group?

They do. The group has more than a thousand members now.

Do you ever participate?

I’m still a member, and I still attend events.

What prompted you to leave a successful lobbying career and head to graduate school?

I learned in Washington that a graduate degree would be invaluable in analyzing legislation and making policy impact.

I came back to Chapel Hill and worked as an economist at the Research Triangle Institute while I was getting my degree.

During the day, I went back and forth between work and graduate school classes. It was the best decision I ever made. I used my graduate schoolwork to enhance my job, and I used my job as examples in graduate school.

Jeanne at a Finance Charrette in Norfolk, Virginia, where public representatives explored innovative financing approaches and investment opportunities for the St. Paul’s Area. Opposite: Jeanne at RVAWorks, a small business entrepreneurs program in Richmond, Virginia, where she was a graduation speaker.

Q

You were married just after graduate school. Can you give us some details for perspective, like your age when you married, where your husband lived and what is his occupation?

I was 27. He had been in Atlanta but then moved to Charleston, SC. He is a banker.

After you graduated from graduate school in ’91, what did you do?

I went to work for a large nonprofit called the North Carolina Rural Economic Development Center.

When did you start contemplating a foray into politics?

The idea has probably always been there. All during school, I ran for office. I interned for Congressman Charlie Rose, my hometown Congressman. I was canvassing in seventh and eighth grade for him. The Rural Center was started by a group of politicians. When I went to work there, I traveled to all 100 North Carolina counties, meeting each county’s leadership. This continued to build and heighten my interest in politics.

When was your first run for public office?

That was in 1993. I lived in Knightdale, a small town outside of Raleigh, N.C. I went to a town council meeting to help negotiate a resolution to an issue between neighbors and the police about speed limits. It was not my intent to run for office, but a week later, there was a vacancy on the council, and I was appointed to fill that vacancy. I ran after that.

And your husband was comfortable with the campaigning?

Campaigning for me, absolutely. My whole family campaigned for me.

Q

You became a City Council member. When did you become Mayor?

When I ran for office, I ended up being the only woman that ran and won. When the Mayor was elected to the County Commission, I was appointed to fill that office. I struggled with being Mayor because I had to control the council with a gavel.

I had no vote. I think my professional training probably put a burden on the manager. But that really is when I learned to do a lot of the creative financing that I do in my position today.

Is life serendipity, or is it will?

What did he think about you entering politics?

He loved it. He’s from a much more political family than I am. His dad was a judge, his grandfather had been in the Mississippi Legislature, and his grandmother was one of six women in the Legislature in the ‘60s. She took her husband’s seat when he passed away, and later, she ran. So, he loved it.

And super proud of you doing it?

Very proud. Called himself the First Man. Loved it.

Very comfortable.

Does he ever talk to you about getting back into politics?

All the time. He thinks I should run for Governor. His latest is he thinks I should run for President. He is very supportive.

Is life serendipity, or is it will?

It is a lot of serendipity. In my job now, I find that you can’t replace the serendipity that occurs.

Is that God? Yes.

What is the population of Knightdale?

The population, when I first was appointed, was 500. The population now is about 14,000. So, that was a period of rapid growth.

How did you campaign? Old style, “door to door” or digital?

It was old versus new because of the rapid growth. The people that were the originals in town really expected you to go door to door.

And so, I went door to door. I also decided to try something new and was the first person on a local level to do mailers. I still did my walking, and by going door to door, I knew everybody in town and knew something about them. They knew me. When they came into the chambers, I could call people by name. I knew where they lived.

I knew what they were interested in. You know the old saying, “how you express yourself is what really makes an impression on people.”

Knowing their names really made an impression on people.

You served for more than 10 years as Mayor and left in 2007. Why?

I left because while it is a part-time job, it can easily become a full-time job. I was also working for a Chief Justice during that time as his special assistant.

How did that come about?

When I was at the Rural Center, I worked with former Governor Bob Scott who introduced me to the person who had just become Chief Justice. He wanted a special assistant, a public information person. The position later turned into a lobbyist for the Court system. The General Assembly in North Carolina was once dominated by attorneys, but at that time, it was down to about 15 attorneys in both chambers. He felt it would be better to have a non-attorney explain the Court’s budget to the General Assembly.

How did your constituents handle the decision to leave your post as Mayor in 2007?

They were fine. At that point, the town had grown. Although I encouraged women to run, I am sad to say there hasn’t been another woman elected since then.

Was there the dirtiness that you see today?

Not at all. It was very civil, like what I experienced in Congress in the late ‘80s. Very civil.

Do you pay attention to the political divisions and the consequential negativity?

Always. Because in my job today, I meet with members of Congress, their staff attend my events, and I brief City Councils and work with them. So, I very much take notice, but I try to stay above the divisiveness and set an example for how it really should work.

Does it affect and bother you to watch the discord?

Yes. It is almost to the point where it is difficult to maintain friendships. Because it’s so divisive, you find a lot of decisions are made in terms of one upping or out strategizing the other side, instead of basing the decisions on policy.

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A

It is a lot of serendipity. In my job now, I find that you can’t replace the serendipity that occurs.

Is that God? Yes.

Can that be changed?

I think it could be changed if a whole new set of people ran for office, were elected and made that their number one goal.

Let’s talk about women in leadership roles, specifically in politics. Why don’t women enter politics?

I think it’s because women tend to be negotiators. They want to find the middle ground, and the middle ground’s not popular or electable right now. So, everything’s being driven to the extreme.

There are a majority of people who want to consensus, but their voices are drowned out by the opposition.

And is that what keeps you from getting back into politics?

Yes. Who wants to spend 70 hours a week being attacked over the length of your hair or what you wear? I did TV shows, and my correspondence from women was so much crueler than it was from men. Your whole persona is attacked. Who can really focus on policy when you are faced with these attacks? I want to work in a more positive environment.

Between 2007 and 2014, what did you do?

I worked for the Courts, and then I had my own business. I was a lobbyist and an economic developer.

You joined the Federal Reserve Bank in 2014. Working in such an expansive private-sector institution is a big shift.

Can you explain your role in layman’s terms?

The Federal Reserve Community Development was created because when the Community Reinvestment Act passed in 1977, part of a series of pieces of Legislation; it focused on redlined neighborhoods. We were created to help banks and help communities navigate the Community Reinvestment Act. Every bank, no matter its size, has an obligation under the CRA. This does not include credit unions. The way the Community Reinvestment Act works is you can leverage it with all the other tools of the Tax Code. This whole field of community economic development has come into being as a subset of economic development.

What banks or other institutions have a strategic position like the one you have with the Federal Reserve Bank?

All 12 Federal Reserve Banks have the function. The Banks work together as a system. The FDIC is another regulator, and they also work on this. Then, in Treasury, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has a role in it as well.

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How many of these positions exist in these institutions?

Less than 200.

From a practical standpoint, you go into communities and “fill in the blank?”

The Federal Reserve’s focus is on low and moderate-income communities. They work with the banks to help the banks figure out how they can invest and lend and offer services. They go into the community to make sure they understand what the bank can do. So, together, they can make an investment connection.

The Federal Reserve Bank role is what exactly?

The Federal Reserve Bank has a monetary policy function and there is a payment system function. They are a regulator. So, on one side of our Reserve Bank, individuals regulate the banks.

Community Development serves as a bit of a liaison for community banks and their own examiners.

So, when you are in a presentation, who is the audience?

The audience can be local government, community groups, banks, different types of investors, institutional, social impact investors.

Who has the largest stake?

It’s really all of them. Local governments are still learning about how this works. The banks obviously know because they are required to find out what they can invest in in a community.

And then the communities and investors, that in general, are just now learning that this option exists.

Who is your primary customer?

Probably banks and the community at large.

That’s what I was thinking.

Yeah, it’s kind of 50/50.

And the investors?

The investors, more because of Opportunity Zones. In the past three or four years, as they’ve learned about the investment side of CRA, they’ve entered the picture more and more.

The Opportunity Zones sunset in 2027. Where is the program today, and can you predict long-term?

There are 8,700 plus zones. I think we’ll probably have projects in 2,000 of those zones in five years. There will still be tax breaks until the sunset, but probably in the next four years, as the first investors maximize their benefits and kind of lock in on their projects, you will see the most activity.

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Are there any current success stories?

Oh, yes. Rock Hill, South Carolina is a success story.

They already had development going in. They already had investment, but they’re able to use that Opportunity Zone and add to the development that they’re doing.

Had the Opportunity Zone not come about?

They would still be able to do it, but I think some elements have made it financially easier for the city to accomplish projects that are critical, like adding parking, for example.

In three years, will you be doing this?

I will be doing an iteration of this, but I won’t be doing exactly what I’m doing now because my passion is in social impact investing. I will be explaining to corporations and foundations how they can achieve the same types of results financially by working on the social and environmental side.

It’s just that the evaluation looks slightly different.

What is social impact, and can you give me examples?

A social impact would be one that invests in a longer-term solution to a problem and yields some social or environmental returns in exchange. Examples of social impact can be found in programs - reemploying the formerly incarcerated, early childhood development, generational workforce development (children and parents) and affordable housing/workforce housing and healthy communities.

Is that a private or public sector?

It is both private and public. It usually takes some combination of funding. So, on the public side, tax credits and subsidies, but private investment and philanthropy will be a huge piece of it.

There have been several initiatives to bring national foundations into the South, and that’s starting to happen. Soon, there will be more investors. Hospital systems and corporations are next. In most cases, it is 50/50.

Without the private sector, is it possible?

No, it is not scalable and really not possible to make that transformation

And without the public sector, is it possible?

It probably is possible but a lot more difficult because the sectors leverage each other.

Is social impact in the South where you are focusing the rest of your life’s energy do you think?

I think in terms of transforming Southern communities to make sure that the structure and the ability to have good jobs and acquire wealth for a changing population is pretty critical. If we want to see this country flourish into the next century, and these communities to be strong communities, then it’s essential that we remake a lot of them. The South just has some of the more difficult situations.

Why?

Concentrated poverty in areas, laws that were passed over decades that really restricted ability to acquire wealth or keep wealth or even the lack of proper education and skills.

Was it done purposefully do you think?

I think in some communities it was absolutely done purposefully.

In others, it may have just been replicating what was being done at the time. But it was done without a lot of foresight.

How long will it have to be tackled before there is a fair playing ground for everyone in the South?

I think 20 or 25 years before there’s some common ground.

Depending on immigration issues, with newcomers into the country, the cycle easily will repeat itself.

If you could ask God one question, what would it be?

Why are there so many people in poverty in the United States of America in 2019?

What piece of advice would you give a young woman that’s breaking into a world where they have real opportunity to make change?

When you go into communities, really get to know the people, know the history, and know the context. Do that very slowly so that you build trust, and then you can gradually assert yourself as a leader. You cannot lead unless you know the context of the conditions and know the history.

How do you build trust?

By talking with people, making sure you show them your

authentic self and what your goals and aspirations are and investing time in them.

Can you build trust without time?

It is easier with time, but I think you can. If you walk the talk, then you can acquire the trust pretty quickly. ■

Jeanne in an interview about Opportunity Zones at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, where she is now a Professor teaching financial sustainability and impact investment.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY SHOOTS & GIGGLES PHOTOGRAPHY

You may have seen her on CBS This Morning, Access Hollywood, Miss USA or Miss America (as a competitor and host) or even Dancing with the Stars, but most probably know Nancy O’Dell for her many years as a co-host on the popular entertainment show Entertainment Tonight. When her longtime talent representative passed away, she realized that life was too short. O’Dell shocked viewers by announcing that she would be leaving Entertainment Tonight in the summer of last year. After working for thirty years straight, six in news broadcasting and twenty-four in entertainment, O’Dell is finally able to take on the projects that she desires, as well as spend more time with her greatest accomplishment in life, her daughter.

Former Co-Host on Entertainment Tonight, Television Host, Author, Journalist, Producer and Entertainer

Nancy O’Dell What were your parents’ professions?

My father owned a construction company. My mother was a stay-at-home mom for the majority of her life, but she also was a real estate agent for a while. She was a very involved mom.

Her example is what really shaped me as a mom today. She and my dad were there for everything, attending all my events.

My daughter is very involved in every sport you can imagine. I remember how much it meant to me to look over at the sidelines and see my parents at my basketball games and my tennis matches. I want to be there as well. It is very important to me to attend all my daughter’s activities. My mom helped me so much with my schoolwork, which I think is what allowed me to succeed. And there was never a minute that I did not feel loved.

And your sister?

She is in Charlotte, North Carolina. We were close growing up and are even closer now.

Were you competitive growing up?

Not so much. My sister and I were drastically different as far as things that we liked and were drawn to do. She was and is very artsy and into music. She definitely has the art gene; she’s amazing and I can barely draw a stick figure! I was into sports. I loved fishing, basketball and tennis. I was a tomboy, the boy that my dad never had.

You have also remained close to your childhood friends?

Yes, they were instrumental in my younger years. I had this incredible group of friends. We went to the same school from first through twelfth grade in a class of 32 kids. Thirteen of them are still my best friends today, and we remain in constant contact. We talk regularly, get together about once or twice a year and purposely meet up wherever we can. We talk all the time about kids, problems, everything. They are a beautiful group of friends who are tried and true.

Is there a distinguishing characteristic with the group?

Most of them have careers, and a lot of them are very successful.

One is the attorney for Invisalign. Only three of us moved to California.

Most remained in the South. Many of them are in Atlanta, a couple of them are still in South Carolina, and some are in North Carolina.

You were raised in the South with a very traditional upbringing. How did that impact your success today and did you experience any tragedy?

I had a very Beaver Cleaver upbringing with two incredible parents, an amazing mom and dad. I didn’t experience tragedy until later in life. First, my mom was diagnosed with ALS and then my dad with Alzheimer’s. Those events were very shocking and hard for me. I was not prepared for them. The only tragedy I experienced prior to adulthood was elementary age when parents of schoolmates were killed in a plane crash; they were flying in bad weather. It was then that I realized something horrible can happen to your parents. I was so close to my parents, and I remember it really scared me. When the diagnosis of my mother came, it reminded me of the time as a kid that I realized that your parents are not invincible. But other than that, it was a pretty traditional, conservative Southern upbringing, probably a little sheltered. I was happy growing up in the South, but it probably would have been easier if I’d been exposed to a few other things early on. Maybe I would have had my guard up a bit more. I am a little too trusting. I’ve learned enough living in Hollywood that I’m not as trusting as I used to be, but I think I’m still a little bit innocent to “Hollywood.” I had parents who were very sweet and loving, so I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I wouldn’t.

Since winning Miss South Carolina, you limited your involvement in the world of pageants. Why?

Yes, I haven’t actually done much since I was Miss South Carolina 1987, a long time ago. I did serve as a judge one year and hosted Miss

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USA and Miss Universe when I worked for NBC because it aired on NBC. I was at Access Hollywood at the time. Pageants were the thing to do in the South during that time and were very popular. It was truly the first reality show. I do not regret having done it because it gave me a year of travel and speaking experience. So, it actually helped me career wise. For an entire year, I spoke as Miss South Carolina and traveled internationally in a trade relations program to Japan, which was a wonderful experience. It gave me scholarship money and paid for a full year of my college education, which was a wonderful thing.

What brings you the most joy, Nancy?

Spending time with my daughter and my family as well as going back to see my sister and my father and spending time with them.

But definitely my daughter. There’s no question. It’s like medicine.

When I get her from school, I am giddy and excited. I can’t wait to see her. Getting a hug from her is the best thing in the world.

Your greatest accomplishment?

Having my daughter. No doubt. No doubt.

If you could go back in your life and recast a path, what would you have done differently?

I would have had more kids, I think. I had my daughter later in life. It was just the way that life happened, the timing. But I love, love, love having a daughter. It is so much fun. I think it’s because of my own experience, being a daughter, a child of loving parents. The relationship with my parents was so great that it translates into my relationship with my daughter.

You recently experienced a significant career shift by leaving Entertainment Tonight in August of 2019. How do you fill your days without the intensity of such a rigorous career post?

That is so funny because I told somebody that I feel busier since I left ET. How did that happen? I realized when I worked, I couldn’t do the things that I wanted to do. Now I’m saying yes to the things that I always wanted to do but couldn’t do before. I have so many great friends. They used to invite me to participate in activities, but I always declined because in the position I held at ET, I couldn’t leave the studio. We had to be physically there in case of breaking news. When friends invite me now, I’m like, “Let’s go!” It is great because I’m actually living life. I have been doing entertainment for 24 years without a break. For six years before that, I was doing hard news in Miami, Charleston and Florence, South Carolina.

So, I had been working for 30 years straight. In the news business, you cannot take a lunch break, and people don’t understand that. You are there because the show has to go on the air, hit the satellite. If there is breaking news, for example, if a celebrity passes away, then you immediately have to go into the voiceover booth and change the narrative for the show. You cannot leave and go have lunch. It’s not your normal job where you can say, “I’m going to take a lunch break from 12:00 to 1:00.” You are not allowed to take any time away for things like a manicure appointment, a luncheon. You can’t do any of this. All that must be done after hours.

Consequently, I spent all my time outside of work with my daughter. Now, the time that I would normally have spent in work, I am now able to go have those friendships, work on projects and develop things that I’ve always wanted to do. I feel busier today than I did when I was working.

What’s next for you?

You have experienced significant loss this past year. Your talent representative for 20 years, John Ferriter, passed away two weeks before your departure from ET. How did he impact your life?

I think I talked with him about leaving two years before that. The irony is that we were talking about leaving Entertainment Tonight two weeks before he passed. I told him that I really wanted to be able to spend the time with my daughter. People don’t understand that even though it’s a wonderful job, and I loved it for 25 years, and I still do, it’s like being in a wheel that churns and churns and just keeps going.

There is a deadline every single day and up until that show hits the satellite. There is no break. Imagine doing that constantly for 30 years.

We had talked about it because at one time, John had been in a coma and almost lost his life. He said the one thing that he learned is that you have to know what the priorities in your life are. It’s not all about these things that, on the surface, seem so important. Yes, Entertainment Tonight is this incredible, legend of a show. But you really have to dig deep and decide what makes you happy. He and I talked about what’s most important in life and what you’re gonna remember when you’re 70 years old. Will you remember going to all your kid’s games or going in and doing the show that you did for 29, 30 years?

Would he have been surprised to know that, two weeks after his death, you would go on air and give your dedication to him and announce your decision to leave the show?

Oh, the dedication to him, yes he would be surprised. He would not be surprised I was leaving. Although he didn’t know for certain when, we had talked about the fact that I would leave the show. He had said, “Do what makes you happy.” His passing made me realize life is too short.

Did that impact your decision?

It did. I already knew at that point that I was going to say goodbye within the year. But that was certainly a validation of “this feels like the right thing to do sooner.”

Is the intensity the same?

No. ET has started to go outside of the studio, traveling a lot. That was not going to work because I was not willing to miss time with my daughter. I just couldn’t. I have had changes in my personal life, and I just wasn’t going to be away from her, miss her sporting events, unless some major, unavoidable event happened. Kids don’t understand if you miss something. I think the one sporting event I missed was when I covered the royal wedding. I just don’t miss her events. She’s my priority. It always meant so much to me that my parents were present.

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Q

I have received a lot of calls for projects, and I’m very excited about one that is coming up soon. I’ve wanted to work with this producer for a long time. She is very flexible. The great thing about it is that she had wanted me to come because of the relationships that I’ve built over the years. The opportunity has given me the ability to set my own pace and schedule and work with the celebrities’ schedules too. I do not have to come in five days a week. These will be long format interviews, and I’ll be able to have control over how they’re produced and what actually airs. What a lot of people don’t realize is that you go to an interview and then the story is written by a producer. So, you do the interview which may last 30-minutes, and then it airs as a two-minute piece. It may not necessarily be reflective of how or what you expected. My new projects will allow me a little more control and direction.

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Nancy O’Dell with actor and producer Michael Douglas at the Golden Globes in 2019, where he won Best Actor for “The Kominsky Method.”

Q

What do you want to accomplish in this next chapter of life?

Nancy with co-host Kevin Frazier on the set of Entertainment Tonight, the most watched entertainment news program in the world.

Has the #MeToo movement moved that ball forward for women?

I think it has moved it forward, some. I do. I hope that women are making forward strides and can be in the same powerful positions as men are. I also hope that they’re looked at as being capable to have the job of director or executive producer or hold a veteran position in a company. One of the things that used to drive me crazy, and I would always change it in voiceover, was qualifying women’s looks by age. I was asked why I changed them, and I would always say, because it’s just so wrong. We used to say, “Halle Berry looking amazing at 42.” Of course, she looks amazing at 42.

We would never say, “Brad Pitt looking amazing at 42.” It would drive me crazy. Why can’t a woman look amazing at 42? Why can’t she look amazing at 49 or 55 or 65? We would just never say that about a man. So, I would always cut it out. I would just say, “Halle Berry looking amazing.” Why am I shocked that she looks amazing at 49? It was nuts, so I hope that that’s changed.

Who do you go to for advice?

My sister and a “mom” friend of mine I have. I’m so lucky because I have such great friends out here and my high school friends too. But I would say my sister for sure, and I call her all the time. She can always tell by my voice if I need her.

If you could ask God one question, what would you ask him or her?

Why does he take the good ones? I always wonder. Why did you take my mom so soon? She was only 75. I used to call her for advice all the time and talked to her every day. She was just a great mom.

Your mother lost her battle to ALS, and you were later the ALS Ambassador?

I think after something that tragic happens, you feel you need to do something because hopefully something positive might come out of this. Muscular Dystrophy Association—MDA was so great in helping us. ALS is a rare, very fast progressing disease, and there were not a lot of resources out there. MDA was so valuable in helping us to figure it out. Keeping up with everything is really hard. If MDA hadn’t been there, I don’t know what we would have done.

Your mother was aware of what was going on the whole time?

Yes, the disease is cruel because mentally you’re totally there, but you become physically incapacitated. She lost her voice. She couldn’t speak, but mentally, she knew everything that was going on. Mom’s was bulbar ALS, so it started with her breathing and talking. In most people with ALS, the disease starts in their limbs. They lose the ability to walk and the use of their arms first. Mom’s was the quicker kind, as it affected her breathing and her speaking first. She was still able to walk and fortunately, able to write and to communicate that way. It was tough because I was in LA, and we used to talk on the phone all the time. She eventually would write things to my dad, and my dad would talk for her. We did email, but she wasn’t great with technology.

Your father now has Alzheimer’s. The same puzzle piece but a different side?

Yeah, that’s the weird thing. Mom was mentally so clear and strong and physically so bad. And dad is physically incredibly healthy and strong and has Alzheimer’s. He’s actually doing great.

If you saw him, I don’t think you’d even know he had Alzheimer’s.

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A

To be the best mom, just like my mom was.That’s always my biggest goal. In addition, I would like to produce a show with meaning behind it, something that makes a difference.

His personality is still totally there, always such a joker and funny. My daughter thinks he’s just the best because he’s so fun. I mean he plays pool with her and basketball. He’s still very physically fit and in shape at 85. And right now, it’s just the little things he doesn’t seem to remember.

What do you want to accomplish in this next chapter of life?

To be the best mom, just like my mom was. That’s always my biggest goal. In addition, I would like to produce a show with meaning behind it, something that makes a difference.

You went through a pretty rocky divorce. Is there a pearl of wisdom that you might share with women?

It was very tough. It’s very, very tough. I was very hurt and thrown off-guard, but my ex gave me the best thing that I could ever ask for, our daughter. So, I will forever have love for him because he gave me the most wonderful thing in my life. That is the thing that you have to remember. If you have kids together, then everything should be about the kids. Despite the things that happen between you two, your child comes first and foremost. She needs to know that you are okay because she is number one. That’s what I always keep in the front of my mind, for her sake. I will always remember that we created a wonderful human being. I think the one thing that you have to do is sometimes take a moment and breathe, especially when you’ve been through things. This is the reason that I made career choices, and that my life is like it is now.

I know when I was so immersed in my career and mom was diagnosed with ALS, and then with dad with Alzheimer’s, I made a decision to get healthy too. As women, we focus so much on others that we forget about our own health. You have to remember to take care of yourself too because you do need to be there for everybody else. Take that moment to breathe, and if that means that you have to take a step back from your career for a minute like I did, then that is what you need to do.

Do you see yourself remarrying, Nancy?

Probably not. I never say never, but I’m not looking for that. I’m not against dating again. I would like to spend time with somebody. I just don’t know. It will take a little while for me to trust somebody again, that’s for sure.

What is pivotal to your wellbeing?

Spending time with my daughter.

What piece of advice would you give to your “younger self”?

Enjoy life sooner. ■ Doing what brings her the most joy in life, spending time with her daughter. “Getting a hug from her is the best thing in the world,” says Nancy.

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Bilder Sagen Mehr Wie Worte Capturing Unique Moments BERGRESTAURANT WASSERNGRAT 3780 GSTAAD +41 33 744 96 22 info@wasserngrat.ch www.wasserngrat.ch

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Carey Parker is the Chief Executive Officer and Firm Council Chairperson of LHP Capital, a development and management firm for multi-family housing properties with a primary emphasis on affordable housing. Growing up as a gifted basketball player, Parker learned valuable lessons from the sport that crossed over into the corporate world. She held multiple management positions at LHP Capital before becoming CEO at the young age of 35.

Parker has played an important leadership role in guiding the company through years of strategic growth.

Carey Parker

Chief Executive Officer & Firm Council Chairperson of LHP Capital

As a young person, you played basketball…

You were a little starlet, I am told.

Laughter. I was the MVP, but let me say this. I started playing basketball, dribbling, when I was five years old because my dad played basketball. For as long as I can remember, I was always around the sport. My dad said, “Once you can dribble with your left hand, I’ll start coaching you.” So, when I finally got the hang of using my left hand, my dad started to coach the rec league I played for. I think my dad would say that we have a close connection because of those years together, he coaching and me playing. Sports provide a connection that cannot be explained. My sister also played. We both spent long hours practicing. We played AAU, and we were both on varsity. It really shaped me into who I am today.

Why didn’t you play basketball at the University of Tennessee?

I was ready for something different I think. I knew it was not something I would want to do as a career. Although basketball defined me for who I was growing up, I wanted to be more well-rounded.

What life lesson did you learn playing ball?

Oh, I could sit here all day and talk about that. Basketball is a reaction sport. It is very much a reaction sport. Everything about basketball is based on how well can you react to something, which requires planning and practicing. If you have the right team, a

team that has planned and has practiced together, you can react to anything. And, conversely, if you have a team that has not planned or has not practiced together, when the defensive team plays a maneuver that you have not prepared for, you will not know how to react. You may have the best players, but if they have not played together, and do not know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, they will not know what to expect from each other or be able to react as a team. I think that is very much like business. It is all about reaction. How do you react to the various things that happen on a day-to-day basis? How do you solve unexpected problems? Business is about making certain that the right team members are in place in the office. Basketball very much relates to and crosses over into the corporate world.

As Chief Executive Officer of a robust business, are you playing the same mental game that you played in basketball?

Absolutely. You have to. Having the right team members in the right place is critical for success. You have to have some team members who are comfortable in their position. You have to have some team members that are superior in their position. The team must have a lot of interpersonal skills. You have to understand the different personalities, each individual’s strengths and weaknesses to work with them. It is important to find the best place for them, so that they can contribute to the team. So, absolutely. Every day competitiveness never goes away. Growing up, there was never this notion that “everybody wins.” It was always understood;

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there’s a first-place winner and second place, which is not the winner. It is that differentiation that provides incentive to keep practicing. In business, we do not win every deal. But you just keep trying and keep practicing. If you research, work hard, and if you plan, you will get the deals. You will get the right deals, and good things will happen. Finding a team that knows how to work well together, and one that has a strong work ethic, makes the difference. Sometimes you have come in on Saturday, late at night, early in the morning, whatever it may be. Work is a priority. It has to be a passion, and not everybody has that passion. That was a hard thing for me to understand when I first started working. I didn’t really understand why some people didn’t have that same passion. I call them “nine to fivers.” They came in at 9:00 and left at 5:00 and that was it.

I almost felt offended. “What do you mean you don’t want to finish this assignment; do whatever it takes to get it done…work as much as needed!” I have come to realize, and to appreciate, that there are people like that out there. Wouldn’t it be awful if everybody was as passionate about work as me? I mean it would just be awful. I do think that you need to find people who are passionate and want to spend their energy on whatever profession or vocation they choose. They need to be challenged.

I am challenged every single day, and that’s fun for me. It is something that I enjoy.

What do you look for in a person when you hire? The top three.

Hiring is very difficult. It’s personality. It’s judgment. It’s a feeling that you get from somebody. It is hard to really know somebody in the first few minutes, at an interview, in one hour, just by having a conversation with them. I look at how authentic they are and try to understand who they are. You must dig deep, and sometimes you are not even really talking about the responsibilities, skill sets, and tasks at hand. Hiring is deciding whether the person will fit into the organization’s culture. Three things: First, my general feeling, or my sense about the person. I can’t explain it. It’s just a feeling you get from interacting and asking questions. Second, what are their morals? What do they believe in? You can only ask so many questions in an interview in today’s climate, but it is important to hire somebody who is synergistic. A new hire should share similar beliefs as the culture that you have in your company. This is difficult because it cannot always be found by reading a resume or talking to an individual. You might give a scenario to vet how a situation might be handled. This sheds light into the real, authentic person. The third one is probably education. I think education is important, though not a deal breaker. Growing up, the importance of education was instilled in me. The idea is simple, why wouldn’t you want to better yourself ? I would ask that question to a person I was interviewing who did not have a higher education background.

I feel like you should always want to be learning new things.

Q

How are you able to balance serving as CEO for this company and being a mother? How do you balance the two?

On a scale of one to ten, how important is loyalty to you?

Extremely important. A ten.

And how much time every day do you spend focusing, not on your core competencies as Chief Executive Officer, but on relationships?

A hundred percent. Without a doubt.

Do you find that your male counterparts have that same focus?

No, definitely not. I work with men and women, and both are great. Working with men is different because you have to realize that they don’t do anything maliciously. They don’t think about things the same way and are driven by different things. You have to be cognizant of the difference when working with men.

When you came here to Tennessee, did you ever think that this would be your home?

No, definitely not. I mean I didn’t really think that it wasn’t going be my home, but I did not come here with the idea that this was where I wanted to build a family. One thing led to the next, and this is where my life is, and this is home now.

Carey with her husband, Pat Curtsinger, at a signature event by Girl Talk Inc., an organization whose mission is to empower girls to become their best selves by reducing the likelihood of teen pregnancy and helping them to advance educationally.

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You have one son; tell me about him?

My son, he’s six years old. He was not planned, but it was a wonderful surprise. I mean, I believe wholeheartedly that everything happens for a reason. He definitely was a gift from God. At that time, I would never have thought I was prepared for or ready to have a child. He is full of energy. He’s all boy.

He is just a wild child. He has great wit about him and has

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The ELYSIAN production crew in Carey’s office at LHP Capital in Knoxville, TN, where they recorded her Inspiring Woman interview with ELYSIAN Publisher Karen Floyd.

Mom guilt is real. Balance is a challenge every single day . . . You need a supportive spouse, and, thankfully, I have a wonderful husband who is both supportive and very helpful. Pretty soon you learn that you can’t always attend all the school events or field trips with your child. You want to, but you just can’t. You just need to pick and choose. There are things that I do get to do.

It is a struggle sometimes to find the right balance. On the one hand, I want my son to know that both men and women can have jobs and be successful at them.That understanding in my son is very important to me. the best personality. He soaks up information all the time.

I’m thankful for Google because every day he’s asking me questions. If I don’t know the answer, I look on my phone and Google his question. It is amazing to me to see this little human develop into a young man—I love it. It’s the very best thing I think I have ever experienced.

How did you meet your husband?

We met at a tailgate. Low and behold, we both are huge Tennessee fans. He went to Tennessee, and I went to Tennessee.

When you saw him at the tailgate, did you know that you would marry him?

I can’t say that necessarily, but I knew that he was somebody I

wanted to be around. He is in sales and is a loud, gregarious, and big guy. He’s just—I don’t know. A part of me was very much attracted to him from the first time we met.

How are you able to balance serving as CEO for this company and being a mother? How do you balance the two?

That is a tough thing. Mom guilt is real. Balance is a challenge every single day. You have to constantly work at it and constantly try to find the right balance to achieve perfection, which will never happen. You need a supportive spouse, and, thankfully, I have a wonderful husband who is both supportive and very helpful. Pretty soon you learn that you can’t always attend all the school events or field trips with your child. You want to, but you just can’t. You just need to

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pick and choose. There are things that I do get to do. It is a struggle sometimes to find the right balance. On the one hand, I want my son to know that both men and women can have jobs and be successful at them. That understanding in my son is very important to me. In the mornings when I’m getting him ready for school, I talk to him about why I’m going to work and why it’s important that I’m going to work, and what I will be doing that day. I talk to him about school and why it’s important that he goes to school. I want him to understand that, in order to be successful in this life, you have to work hard. Both men and women can do this, and they both can be equally successful. Life is about finding the passion that is going to drive you in something that challenges you every day.

is not like the TV shows, where everything is candy canes and gumdrops. You must work hard. There are times when you just want to throw in the towel and say, “I am done.

This is just too hard and too complicated.” But that is when you cannot quit; you just can’t do that. Right when you think you’re about to break, you have to take one more step forward, and, generally, it will work out. We all are faced with challenges, and no one’s life is perfect. It seems sometimes that everyone is striving for more and more. Even the most successful and the richest people want more of this or more of that. Life is not about money. It’s about fulfillment and finding something that you can be fulfilled in, whatever that may be. Whether it’s sports, a wife, or whatever. I hope that you can find that purpose. ■

What was a childhood dream that was not realized?

I have lots of dreams. I dream all the time. I guess, as a child, it’s no different. As a child, I thought that I was going to move to New York City and work on Wall Street. Part of me still really is dying to do it. I sometimes just wish I could stop doing what I’m doing and move up there, live in a holein-the-wall and work on Wall Street. I just think that would be so much fun.

I want you to pretend that I am your son. Share with me an important life lesson you would want him to understand.

Things are not going to be handed to you. Figure out what you want to do. Whether it is playing a sport or a profession, a marriage, or anything. Just know you have to work at it. Life

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Carey with her son, Parker Curtsinger, an inquisitive boy who she says was “a gift from God.”

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In 1990, when Betsy Robinson heard the words “another shelter child,” her life changed forever. She immediately began volunteering for animal shelters, raising over $10,000 in a matter of weeks, followed by another $65,000 in the next two years. God had truly burdened her heart with the plight of homeless animals and she felt she still had more to contribute. With no formal business training, Robinson opened Fuzzy Friends Rescue in 1997, a no-kill shelter that has saved the lives of over 16,000 animals, with numbers continuing to rise.

Betsy Robinson

Founder of Fuzzy Friends Rescue

You are a supporter of higher education in Texas. Why McLennan Community College?

McLennan Community College is a local two-year college here in Waco, Texas. Each year, we give money to underwrite scholarships for students who wouldn’t have the money to go to school otherwise.

We also support Baylor University, but MCC is a great community college. They do a great job preparing these students.

Both your father and husband were in the insurance business?

You won’t believe the story, so here is the shortened version: when Clifton and I were about to get married, he called his uncle, who was his mentor, and said, “Uncle John, I’m about to get married,” and he said, “Well, who are you marrying?” He said, “Betsy Sharp.” Uncle John replied, “That wouldn’t be ‘Tomcat’ Sharp’s daughter, would it?” And he said, “Yes, it is.” As it turns out, his uncle and my father were friends and roommates right out of college, living in Houston, Texas, both selling insurance.

The circle of life?

Yes. Certainly, a small world.

Your father never met your husband. How old were you when your father passed away?

I was 26 years old. He had a stroke and an aneurysm. He was here one day and gone the next. It was horrible.

Your mother never remarried and passed away when you were in your fifties. Were your parents your role model for marriage?

Yes, they had a great marriage. They had ups and downs like everyone, but they had a very good marriage. They loved to entertain and they loved people. As an adult, my father was manager of an insurance company here in town. He came from a Baylor background and a lot of the younger agents were Baylor grads as well. So, daddy was Big Daddy and they were the Cubs. Our home was like the hub for everyone to come over and have fun.

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What person impacted your childhood the most and why?

My father because he was very, very steadfast. He never got loud. He was my go-to person. If his friends and co-workers had a problem, they would go to him. He was so easy to talk to, very, very smart, honest and just a good person.

Was he a religious man?

Yes. In fact, his father’s father, my grandfather, was a Methodist preacher and one of the founders of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

Where does your love of animals stem?

I’ve loved animals my entire life. My parents let me have every kind of critter in the world. I had horses, dogs, donkey, a lizard— my love of animals ran the gamut of the world.

Fuzzy Friends Rescue. Is that what defines you? Who you are?

Yes, it is. It is my passion and my whole world. I never had a passion to save animals until God truly burdened my heart with the plight of homeless animals. It was 1990, and at that time, we had three poodles.

I love dogs, but I really love poodles. I was clueless about the number of wonderful animals going through our city shelters nationwide. One day, I dropped in to see my groomer, and he was grooming a little silver poodle. I said, “Oh, my goodness, she’s just adorable.” When he said, “She’s from the pound,” I was horrified. This precious little 8-pound silver poodle was from the pound? I found her a home the very next day. She ended up living in Palm Springs in a wonderful home with a great family. Three weeks went by, and I went back to my groomers, and he was grooming an Old English Sheepdog. I said, “I love Sheepdogs. We had one when I was in college.” He said three words that changed my life forever: “Another shelter child.” Back then, there was no such thing as a “no kill rescue.” An animal was either adopted or euthanized in just a matter of days. Imagine being on Death Row and your only crime is being homeless. I couldn’t quit thinking about these two dogs. God had begun to work on my heart. When

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Clifton and I married, he told me to look outward, not inward.

Don’t be all about hair and nails. I had tried volunteering, but I never really found my niche. I made an appointment and I went down to the local city pound. Later, I learned that normally the director never sat in on meetings with volunteers. But that day she did. I was so excited. I said, “I want to make a difference and help homeless animals.” And the lady said, “Well, if you want to make a difference, we need money. Right now we can only keep puppies and kittens for a matter of days. Their immune systems are very fragile; they’re babies, and they catch every disease that comes through our shelter. If we could vaccinate them, maybe we could keep them five or six days instead of two or three and get more adopted and save more lives.” “How much money do you need?”

I asked. She said, “Oh, we need $3,000.” I said, “Order your vaccines. I’ll get you the money.” She asked who my veterinarian was and called my vet to see if I was legit. The veterinarian said, “Order your vaccines.” The very next day, I went out, on fire with this passion. Instead of $3,000, I raised $10,000 dollars in two weeks. I was so excited. A friend, who was the first person I called on, gave me a thousand dollars. He remains a great supporter and friend today. I had never done any fundraising in my life. I really was focused on hair, nails and playing tennis back then. I was so thrilled knowing I could do this. I began volunteering at the local pound five days a week and also fundraising. I was also looking at the dogs who needed a little makeover. So many dogs

driving out there about 3:00 in the afternoon and thinking, “What have I got myself into? I can’t do this.” I had just fixed a big Christmas meal and done all the Christmas shopping, and I was exhausted. But when I opened the front door and walked in, locking eyes with those animals reminded me that I could do it. I was doing it. It was like an adrenaline rush that renewed my strength and excitement. The discouragement just evaporated because God gave me the strength and determination to do what had to be done.

Q Do you still have that same feeling, that same passion, that same adrenaline?

Yes, I work with the same passion. In fact, I believe it is stronger than ever before.

What brings you the most joy? It can be anything. What brings you, Betsy, the most joy in life?

My greatest joy is knowing that we are finding great homes for animals and giving them a second chance at life. Our work celebrates the human-animal bond.

What is success?

Success is being able to, at the end of the day, feel good about what you’re doing, and to know that you are making a difference. God burdened my heart with the plight of animals.

But we all are here to do something, to make a difference in the world in which we live. Whether it’s animals or the elderly

If you could ask God one question, came through there dirty (especially the longer haired dogs) and matted with burrs. I would see a movie star under all that neglect and hair. I would have them groomed. When I would be out with friends at a party or having dinner, I would always ask what kind of animal they liked. A friend said, “We like basset hounds.” One day, low and behold, a basset hound was at the city pound. I was really tricky. I never called anybody or gave them advance notice.

I would show up at their doorstep, ring their doorbell and say, “Hi, I’ve got a basset hound for you.” I did that a lot. I just placed animals from the shelter all the time, and I loved it. I was there every day for six years. I learned how to read the cage cards and could tell when an animal’s time was up, and they were on the kill list. That experience truly brought God’s vision for me into focus: a no kill shelter where time was no longer an issue. If an animal came to us with a broken leg, a skin issue or a disease that was treatable and curable, we would go the distance to save their lives. I had never taken a business class or a management class in my life; I was an education major. So, to say it was a challenge is an understatement. But, when God gives you a vision, He gives you the strength. I am just thankful that He gave me the courage to answer His call.

Were there any dark times over the past twenty years at Fuzzy Friends?

Absolutely. Fuzzy Friends Rescue has been at our new location for 18 years. I started 21 years ago. In the early years, we had about threeand-a-half or four employees. Every holiday, the paid staff would do the feeding and cleaning in the mornings, and then they would leave to be with their families for the day. When you have living, breathing animals, they have to be looked after, and walked and fed in the afternoon. I remember leaving my family on cold Christmas days,

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what would it be?

or children or the homeless, God will speak to each and every heart. I challenge young women today, when God speaks to your heart, have the courage to answer that call. Don’t be afraid. I never had a business class, but I knew I couldn’t fail. That was not an option.

I want you to look at your life to this point, and give me only one answer.

What is your greatest accomplishment to date and why?

Fuzzy Friends Rescue. Think about the thousands of animal lives we have saved and the tens of thousands of human lives we have blessed and touched through our work.

Your mother passed away when you were 50. How old were you when your brother passed away?

Fifty.

And the death of both your mother and brother... How did that affect you?

I lost them within eight weeks of each other. It was very tough, but I had to be strong because of my niece and nephew.

My brother’s children were both going to Baylor, and it was very hard. An extremely difficult time.

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Betsy joined ELYSIAN Publisher Karen Floyd for this Inspiring Woman interview at Betsy’s beautiful home in Waco, Texas.

I would ask him why good people, who could make a positive difference, are called home at an early age and why others, who are bad, are still here?

Was it expected or not?

No, it was not. My mother had been sick for about five years.

She had emphysema (COPD), but then she had to have emergency gallbladder surgery. Because of her diseased lungs, she could not get off the breathing machine, and she passed away. It was a shock.

And your brother?

He had an aneurysm like my father. He was here one day and gone the next. He was only 56.

So, you’ve had three life experiences that were completely unpredictable. What is your take away from that?

I turned to God for strength. That’s the only way I got through it, with God’s help and prayer. When I grieved, I would cry. I would do it privately, just God and me. It was tough. You realize that you have to go on. I really didn’t want to, but I wanted to honor my mother and my father and knew they would have wanted me to be strong.

Is your faith the core of your strength?

Absolutely.

Had those life experiences not happened, would you be as strong as you are?

I don’t know. I didn’t think I was strong until I went through those life experiences, but I really am a strong person. They certainly did make me stronger. If you just go on, God will give you the strength.

Do you apply those life lessons to your work of passion at Fuzzy Friends Rescue?

Yes, I do. I do not believe that God will give you anything that you cannot handle. He has helped me get through many long days and many trying experiences.

Did you have fear? Were you afraid?

I didn’t really have fear. I just had just extreme grief and sadness, acute grief. It was very different because I’ve always been a very happy, upbeat person. My brother passed away first, and my mother eight

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weeks later. But after my brother died, before mother passed away, I had to go to the doctor. I said, “I think I’m losing my mind. I think I’m getting Alzheimer’s because I can’t focus; I can’t think.” He said, “No, it’s depression.” I was prescribed medication for depression. I was on this medication for nine months. Christmas morning, the first Christmas after my brother and my mother died, I went into a room by myself and I had a good cry again with God. At that point, I said, “No more drugs,” and I just quit cold turkey. You shouldn’t do that, but I did. I quit cold turkey on Christmas Day.

How do you pay your experiences forward?

I think God truly has given me a gift to encourage people. That’s what I do best and what I like to do. I have a friend who lost his wife last week. He called me Monday very, very sad and down. When the call ended, he said, “Oh, you’ve made me feel so much better.” I said, “You call me anytime.” I try to be a cheerleader to others.

If you could ask God one question, what would it be?

I would ask him why good people, who could make a positive difference, are called home at an early age and why others, who are bad, are still here?

What do you want to be remembered for?

I want to be remembered for giving back to my community, for my courage and for my commitment to helping those who cannot help themselves.

What inspires you?

I think my inspiration is need or being needed. Knowing that these animals have nowhere else to go. If we weren’t out there, probably 90 percent of these beautiful creatures would not have made it. So, the need and knowing that we’re making a difference inspires me to continue.

How did God direct you?

I had no business experience and hindsight is 20/20. If I had known I was going to be the founder of Fuzzy Friends Rescue, I would have majored in business instead of elementary education.

When God speaks to your heart, He gives you passion and

In 1997, Betsy opened Fuzzy Friends Rescue, a no-kill rescue facility that believes that all animals, as living creatures, are entitled to a quality life, respect and compassion.

determination and the strength to see it through. I didn’t know I couldn’t do it. In the early days, people thought it would never last.

They gave me a year because they said I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I said, “Well, they’re right. I have no idea.” But God knew what I was doing, and God has blessed us and given me the strength. In the early years, it was hard. We only had three-anda-half employees, and they had Mondays off. The board members didn’t know that they had dirty duty too. At Fuzzy Friends Rescue, there’s not one job that I have not done except give cats shots. I cannot give a cat a vaccination, but I’ve done every other job from scrubbing the floors, to mopping, bathing and grooming. You name it. I was there at eight o’clock every morning, cleaning kennels. At ten o’clock, we unlocked the front door for the public, and I put on another hat. “Welcome and what are you looking for?” I became the adoption counselor. You have to do everything. I’ve told people you cannot have any prima donnas at Fuzzy Friends Rescue.

You’ve got to walk the walk, stay the course and do whatever it takes to keep things on track.

Do you see yourself retiring at any point?

Not completely and totally. My husband is 82, and I am 70.

I’m not afraid to tell how old I am. I want to enjoy my life a little more. I would like to step away a little bit, but I’ll never retire totally because I am so committed to this and I’m a workaholic.

Now, can you give your beautiful granddaughters one pearl of wisdom or gift from your well-lived life experiences?

Don’t be afraid to follow your dream. Be bold and be courageous because God speaks to each of us in different ways. Listen to your heart, to your inner voice, because that’s God speaking to you. You are here for a purpose, to make a difference in your community, in this world, and you can do anything. If God puts it on your heart, don’t be afraid to follow your heart and your dream. Find your niche. If you turn to Him and ask Him, He will give you a plan, He will give you the strength, and He will direct your steps. We’re all here to make a difference in the world in which we live whether it’s with children, animals, the homeless or the elderly. Find your passion, and He will give you the strength, the wisdom and the determination to make a difference. ■

Silent tears.

Seven years ago, Silent Tears launched as a way to systematically address the pervasive and complex issues associated with child sexual abuse in South Carolina – considering best practices, the fragmented support system for victims, the culture and politics of South Carolina, and a lack of attention to the issue.

To learn more about Silent Tears, please visit silenttearssc.org

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Senator Katrina Shealy knew exactly how to climb the professional ladder as the only woman in the room: be indispensable. Inspired by the entrepreneurial pursuits of her father, Shealy progressed quickly as an insurance agent before eventually being elected to the Senate. After losing in the most vicious race that South Carolina has ever seen, she didn’t miss a beat and immediately began a successful campaign to become the only woman elected into the S.C. State Senate. She is the first Republican woman to chair a major committee and is the proud founder of Katrina’s Kids, a non-profit providing resources for foster children throughout the state.

Katrina Shealy

South Carolina State Senator, Founder of Katrina’s Kids

What was your father’s occupation?

My father was an entrepreneur and a grocer. He started out in the grocery business, and then he bought his own grocery store franchise. He wanted to own his own business. He worked for Powers Food Store, which later became Winn-Dixie, but there were no ownership opportunities with Winn-Dixie. When he found out he could own a Piggly Wiggly franchise, he bought a franchise in Leesville. He later built his own Piggly Wiggly in Batesburg.

A significant part of your career has been in insurance. Why insurance?

That’s another part of my father’s history. He also bought an insurance agency. He was a great businessman. He bought his own insurance agency, and I went to work for him while I was still in high school. I also worked in the grocery business being a bag girl first starting at age 13. I decided that I wanted to do something different than the grocery work, so I went into the insurance business with him while in my junior year in high school. I stayed in the insurance business and am still working today as a consultant. It was just a natural fit.

Did your other family members join your father’s insurance company or grocery store business?

No, my sister worked in the grocery business for a while when she was younger, but no one followed in mother and father’s footsteps. My mother worked in the grocery business with my father as the bookkeeper and was also at the Winn Dixie where she and my father met in 1948.

Your mother was revered for her strong work ethic. By watching her work alongside your father in the grocery business, did that change your aspirations?

I think it did. When I grew up, extended families lived together. My grandparents actually lived with us because my grandfather had had a heart attack. Before that, he worked in the cotton mill. They moved in with us, and they took care of us while my parents worked.

How old was your mother when she died?

My mother died when she was just 40 years old.

How old were you at the time?

I was just 15 when my mother passed away. I missed mother and daughter interaction as a teenager. She had cancer and was sick for probably about four months. She died in 1970.

We weren’t as advanced with cancer treatment back then.

Today, she would probably have lived longer because there are more treatments, and some could even be cured. In 1970, it was not possible because the lung cancer had metastasized to her bone and her brain before it was found. She was diagnosed in August and died in December. I didn’t have that mother figure growing up interacting with me during my teenage years, but I had a very strong father that stepped in, and it really helped me.

Your world was turned upside down at the age of 15?

Definitely. My mother passed away just 21 days before my 16th birthday.

How was your father able to navigate through that?

My father was a strong man. My parents were never very emotional people. We never saw them fight or even get in a disagreement. My dad took over after that. He became a stricter father after my mother passed away and took over the role of mother and father. He did get married again a year and a half later. I think he always needed a companion. My father has passed away, but my stepmother is still alive. While we weren’t close when I was younger, we have grown closer over time. I felt she couldn’t fill my mother’s shoes. I think all young girls, especially at that age, feel that way.

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Did not having your natural mother during your teenage years impact the way you raised your children?

I don’t know. I just have one daughter.

How many grandchildren total?

That’s a long story too. This is the second marriage for both my husband and me. Between us, we have three daughters. My husband has two, and I have one. We have five grandsons-total; five grandsons, and if you look far enough, we have two greatgranddaughters and one great grandson. I’m really not that old, but just so you know, my daughter and I have a very close relationship. I think I value that relationship so much because I didn’t get to have that with my mother. I think about all the times that my daughter and I spend with each other now. What would it have been like had I spent that time with my mother after age 15? My daughter and I have done so many amazing things together. Every year now, we take a long weekend and go Christmas shopping and have done that for the last 15 plus years. I never had those good times with my mother, so I cherish those times with my daughter.

Never able to close or complete that mother-daughter circle?

Right.

Your mother passes, and your father remarries. What next and why?

I went straight into the insurance business with my dad. I went to Hartford, Connecticut and got my insurance license. I never received a four-year college degree and have stayed in the insurance business all this time.

Was that a good decision or a bad decision?

At the time, in 1973, it was probably a good decision because I made as much money as a college graduate for that day and time.

I made a good salary for a woman at that time, and I moved up the ladder quickly. Do I think it is a good idea? I would never tell a person graduating from high school, “Don’t go to college.” But, at that time in my life, it was the best thing for me.

Take me through your career trajectory.

When I first started in the insurance business, I worked with my father’s company, which was property and casualty insurance and just general insurance. When my dad sold the agency, I was not at a time in my life where I felt like I wanted to own an agency. I had just had my daughter. So, I just moved and went to work for someone else. Then, I went to work for Davis Garvin Insurance Agency. My career there lasted for 30 years. I planned on dying at Davis Garvin Insurance Agency. I became one of the first female underwriters for Lloyd’s of London, underwriting insurance for the Forest Industry. When I was elected to the Senate seven years ago, it just didn’t work out. They didn’t see how it would work with me not coming to work from 8:30 to five o’clock every day. The Senate is not supposed to be a career but a part-time job, so it doesn’t pay like a full-time job. But, the Senate really is a full-time job if you do it right, so I went to work for Keenan Suggs as a consultant because I didn’t have time to get out and sell or sit behind a desk everyday.

You were the only woman in many insurance boardrooms, particularly in the forest industry?

At first, they didn’t pay any attention. I experienced that in a lot of the places I have worked. Somebody once said, “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, you take a folding chair and pull it up yourself.”

That’s what I’ve had to do a lot of times. When you learn your job really well, and you know it better than anybody else, they have to pay attention to you. All my life, I’ve worked really hard to do my job better

than anybody else. That’s what I did at Davis Garvin. When I went there, I learned the forest industry better than anybody else. Not a lot of people in South Carolina handle that type of insurance. You could set yourself apart from everybody else, be different and be that person that nobody else was. I learned what a fellerbuncher, a skidder and a loader were, and how to pull logs out of the woods. I learned how to underwrite and set rates on those. When nobody else knew how to do it, I could pull it out of my head. People called me from all over the United States wanting me to do that for them. When they had a meeting, eventually they had to ask me to go because nobody else really knew the business. When we would go to the forestry convention, they had to take me to the convention because I knew the answers to the questions. That is how I moved up the corporate ladder.

On the day that she was sworn in to the Senate, Katrina Shealy gives her first speech from “the well” in front of the President of the Senate, Glenn McConnell.

After becoming the only woman elected into the S.C. State Senate at that time, Katrina was named one of Glamour Magazine’s top 15 “Political Women of the Year” for 2012. The awards were presented by Chelsea Clinton.

Yes.

And what were those moments?

What’s the moral of that story?

The moral of that story is this: I think women have to work twice as hard to get to the same place as men. I don’t mind the journey. I don’t mind working twice as hard. I do expect, when I get there, to be recognized for what I do.

Were you lonely during those times?

Yes.

When you entered the political fray, your life drastically changed.

Can you take me through the decision to run for political office?

The first time I decided to run for the state Senate, I was Chairman of the Republican Party in Lexington. We tried really hard to get someone to run against my opponent, but nobody would run against him because he was a bully. He had a lot of money and a lot of power, and nobody would run against him. Nobody. I mean he was a Republican. I was a Republican. But he didn’t represent the things that we thought the Republican Party represented. I said, “Well, you know what? I will run against him.” Everybody said, “You can’t.

Why are you going to do it?” I said, “What will it hurt? The worst thing that can happen is he beats me.”

But you knew his reputation?

I knew his reputation. I knew it was not going to be easy. I knew that he would say bad things about me. He would talk about me. He would probably bash me. He would make up things about me, which he did.

Your race for the Senate was the most vicious South Carolina has ever seen.

It was the worst personal bashing. It was the most expensive campaign to that date that South Carolina had ever seen. He spent money he didn’t have. He won the primary with 437 votes in a 110,000 vote district. In the runoff, it came down to busing people to the polls that had never voted before. He beat me the first time.

Did you think that you would win?

Were there moments during that race that you were surprised?

I thought I had a good chance the first time. I really did. It would be foolish to go into a fight thinking you will lose.

I had to work very hard for campaign contributions because people were afraid to donate. They said, “If you don’t win, and we give you money, he will see that on your disclosure, and then he will take it out on us when he gets reelected.” That was people’s logic. “Why should we donate to you because we will pay for it later?” I think that probably hurt worse than anything else because they knew I was the better person. I think God has a plan for everything. I don’t think I was ready yet.

When the results came in, and you lost, how did you feel?

I was fine until I went to sleep that night. I woke up in the middle of the night with the biggest hole in the pit of my stomach. If you lose a race, and everybody that’s ever lost a race knows how it feels, when you wake up in the middle of the night, you think what am I going to do in the morning? I went straight back to Davis Garvin.

What precipitated the decision to run for the same seat again?

The next day, he was so cocky. “I told you she couldn’t win, and I beat her.” At the next Republican women’s meeting, his wife actually came across the desk wanting to fight me. I thought, “There is just something wrong with this.” You know what? I have four years. If I start working now, I believe I can beat him next time because he didn’t beat me by that much. I figured, why not? I started working right then. I campaigned anyway and worked hard for two years, and I began picking up momentum. The State changed their filing procedure, and I filed electronically but didn’t fill out the paper form for my Statement of Economic Interest. Because I filed wrong under the new law, I was kicked off the ballot after doing all this work. We took the case all the way to the Supreme Court who held that everybody else that filed electronically would be kicked off too.

230 some odd people in the state of South Carolina were kicked off the ballot. In order to get back on the ballot, you had to run as a petition candidate. In my case, I had to get over 5,000 signatures, and they had to be certified by the Election Commission. I got 10,000 signatures of which 7,000 were certified. A lot of people didn’t get back on the ballot that year because they weren’t going to do

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that work. In the state of South Carolina, I was the only petition candidate that actually got back on the ballot that won. Because we weren’t Republicans or Democrats, but just petition candidates, I had to go back and teach people how to vote for a petition candidate. In the last six weeks of that election, I knocked on 20,000 doors in six weeks. I know how many doors I knocked on because I had 20,000 pieces of campaign literature that we called a Big Sign Letter. On one side, it looked like a sign, and on the other side, it had everything you ever wanted to know about Katrina Shealy but were afraid to ask. I took them door-to-door, and I handed them out. I had people nailing them on trees, nailing them to their front porch. I mean it was a campaign like you’ve never seen. I had a lot of volunteers who were kicked off the ballot in other areas helping me because they were that mad at him. We beat him by 10 percent.

Have you seen him since then?

I have, and actually, he told me the other week I was doing

a good job.

Were you frightened?

The time I was most frightened was when he started threatening me and telling me I would be arrested because I hadn’t done my paperwork right. Until I got that straightened out, I would go in my den at night after my husband went to bed because I didn’t want to scare my husband. I would get on my knees, and I would pray. He had me that scared.

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Did you talk to anyone?

I didn’t want anybody else to think I was scared because they would have tried to talk me into getting out of the race. People asked, “Why don’t you just get out of the race and run again in four years?” No. I had worked too hard and come too far. I was not getting out How did it feel to be the only woman elected into the South Carolina State Senate?

That was scary, I won’t lie. There are 46 senators, and 45 of them were men. I had a lot of them telling me what I should do, how I should be, and what it was going to be like. One of the senators told me, “I’m the smartest person in here, and you need to listen to me and do what I say.” I’m thinking, “No, that’s probably not true.”

The Senate is very formal. When the Sergeant in Arms entered with the sword, they would always say, “Gentlemen of the Senate, please rise.” They kept forgetting I was there. I’d think, “Well, they’re not talking to me undoubtedly.” It was funny. Senator Sheheen would call attention to it, and say, “Hey, I think we have a lady in here now.”

Then they would go back, which made it worse, and they’d say, “Lady and gentlemen of the Senate, please rise.” Everybody in the balcony would start looking around to see where the lady was. We finally got them to say, “Members of the Senate, please rise.”

You were the first Republican woman to chair a major committee in the Senate.

Yes, and I am very proud of that. We also finally changed the committee name. It was called The General Committee, which I thought was very general. Senate committees are by seniority and

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QA

What life lesson can you share with a young woman? Advice that has served you well?

Don’t ever give up. No matter how hard you think something is, no matter how hard it looks ahead of you, and no matter what people tell you . . . Did I ever think I wanted to be a state senator when I was 20 years old? No, that wasn’t on my bucket list of things to do. But now that I’ve done it, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. Do I think I’ve done the right thing for children and families and people in South Carolina? Yes. I wouldn’t give it up for the world.

In 2017, the American Legion Department of South Carolina presented Katrina with an award recognizing her many years of outstanding service to her community, state and nation.

the majority party. You have to stay on a committee to move up.

So, if you stay on a committee, you move up in seniority, and then eventually you become the Chair. Well, nobody wanted to be on the General because nobody really knows what it does. It’s actually in charge of the Department of Social Services and Veterans’ Affairs.

They weren’t utilizing this committee, but when I got there, we actually started doing something. I don’t think it was because men don’t care about children’s issues and family issues, but it’s not very – it’s not a very sexy thing to work on. You know, children’s issues, family issues, nobody wants to really get out there and dig into that, and it’s something that I’ve put on the forefront of what I do. And so we started the subcommittee to investigate the Department of Social Services. We’ve worked hard on veteran’s affairs. We’ve worked hard on things that matter. So, I stayed on the committee, while everybody else, when they would get a chance to get off, would get on banking and insurance or something more glamorous. When Senator O’Dell passed away, Senator Bryant moved up as Chairman. Well, I was next in line after Bryant. When Bryant became Lieutenant Governor, I became Chair. I was watching that list, and I knew if I stuck it out, I would become Chair. We have really elevated this committee now, and we’re doing a lot of good work.

And they renamed the committee?

Today, the committee is the Family and Veterans’ Services Committee instead of General. Now, everybody wants to get on the committee because we have veterans there. It looks good to have that assignment. We even had some senior senators who have come back on this committee which puts them down at the bottom because if you move back to a committee, you go back to the bottom.

What is Katrina’s Kids?

When we started the subcommittee to investigate the Department

of Social Services, Senator Joel Lourie and I were dead set on trying to make that a better agency. In the process of doing that, we heard testimony from so many people about things that were wrong at the Department of Social Services. One of the things we found out is there

is this huge financial gap in what the Department of Social Services can do for children, as a state agency, and what foster families can do.

The State cannot fund sending a child to summer camp, ballet lessons, karate classes or just the fun things that kids naturally would like to do.

They just don’t have the money and often times, neither does the foster family, who may have their own children or maybe two or three foster kids. They just cannot afford extracurricular activities. That’s what we do. We pay for that. All they have to do is fill out an application.

We have yet to turn anybody down. It would have to be something really crazy for us to turn it down. We have even bought braces. Social Services would only pay a portion, so we finished paying for them.

We’ve bought band instruments, things that kids really want to do, but the State can’t pay for, and the families can’t afford. And we’ve touched a lot of lives. Just last year, we sent over 300 children to summer camps.

We have a big fundraiser every year. Last year, the fundraiser was held at Spirit Communications Park and we just completed another fundraiser in the Vista where we raised over $40,000 at one event. We serve children all over the state, and we do something in every county.

What life lesson can you share with a young woman?

Advice that has served you well?

Don’t ever give up. No matter how hard you think something is, no matter how hard it looks ahead of you, and no matter what people tell you. If they tell you, “You can’t do it,” take that as a reason you can.

If somebody tells you to stop, prove to them you can do it because sometimes that’s the best feeling at the end of the day. When you can’t do something, and somebody says, “Ah, you need to quit,” try again later. Just keep trying because you can do it. You might not win the first time you try something. It might take another chance, but never give up on something you think is the right thing to do. Did I ever think I wanted to be a state senator when I was 20 years old? No, that wasn’t on my bucket list of things to do. But now that I’ve done it, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. Do I think I’ve done the right thing for children and families and people in South Carolina? Yes. I wouldn’t give it up for the world. How long will I be here? I don’t know. But I will keep doing as much as I can as long as I’m here. ■

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IF/THEN Ambassadors, who represent a multi-ethnic, diverse group at all stages of their careers in STEM. Their collective mission is to demonstrate how interesting and exciting fields in STEM can be for young women.

A $25 MILLION INITIATIVE AIMS TO CHANGE CONVENTIONAL THINKING ABOUT WOMEN AND STEM.

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science&business science business

If/Then

BY DEBRA SPARK

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In the art world, women are trying to correct the canon. In business, break the glass ceiling. And what about STEM, the science, technology, engineering, and math fields? There the problem is underrepresentation with women comprising only 29 percent of those in the profession. Dallas-based Lyda Hill Philanthropies is betting $25 million that they can close the gender gap by encouraging young women to think differently about careers in STEM. Girls cite a lack of role models as a reason for not going into STEM, and half of the women familiar with The X-Files cite Dana Scully, the TV show’s FBI/physician character, as increasing their interest in STEM. (There’s even a name for the phenomenon: “The Scully Effect.”)

The problem is clear: Girls are not “seeing cool women doing cool jobs,” as Nicole Small, the CEO of Lyda Hill Philanthropies and co-founder of the IF/THEN initiative, says.

To change that, Lyda Hill Philanthropies and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have selected 125 STEM “ambassadors” from an applicant pool of 700 to demonstrate just how fun and interesting STEM can be.

Countering the cliché of the scientist as dullard slaving for long, boring hours in a lab, IF/THEN ambassadors include a shark researcher working in the South Pacific, an aviation maintenance technician climbing on planes for Southwest Airlines, and a set designer working on the backdrop at Taylor Swift concerts. If girls think science is unrelated to how they spend their days, a data scientist at Spotify and a co-developer of Fortnite prove otherwise. Even when a scientist’s interests might seem recondite—Ph.D. student Earyn McGee studies three species of lizards in the Chiricahua Mountains— her interface with the public is not. McGee’s #FindThatLizard is a super-popular game on Instagram and Twitter.

The ambassadors are intentionally a multi-ethnic, diverse group at all stages of their careers, simultaneously impressive and familiar. Can you have blue hair and be a scientist? Wear a hijab and be a scientist? Yes and yes.

“This is what a scientist looks like,” IF/THEN ambassador Danielle Twum, a cancer immunologist and field application scientist at California’s LevitasBio, posted on her Twitter feed in 2019. The

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accompanying photos show a lab-coated African-American woman with a shock of bleached hair, purple lipstick and purple vinyl gloves, alternately laughing and mugging for the camera.

Ambassadors are connecting with girls where you might expect—in classrooms and science education settings—but that’s merely the tip of the iceberg. IF/THEN has 35 major coalition partners who are helping get the word out. There are the usual suspects—like the Girl Scouts, Teach for America, and National Geographic—but also, as Small says, “less obvious partners,” like Project Runway (who devoted an episode last year to gaming and STEM in fashion) and U.S. Soccer (who are pledging to hire more female STEM professionals).

“We are going to girls where they are,” says Small, whether that is at soccer games, engaged with fashion, dreaming about the Olympics, on their phones, or in front of screens.

To this end, IF/THEN is co-producing “Fast Forward Girls,” a YouTube series with GoldieBlox; a 2020 Tokyo Olympics video series with NBC; and Mission Unstoppable, a CBS show with Litton Entertainment and executive producers Miranda Cosgrove and Geena Davis.

On each installment of “Fast Forward Girls,” a different girl meets two female scientists, then picks which one she wants as a mentor.

In one episode—viewed by over 750,000 people—11-year-old YouTube vlogger Bailey Ballinger burbles with excitement as she meets a neurosurgeon who explains craniotomies, then teaches Ballinger how to drill into a fake skull. Later in the episode, a professor who specializes in stroke rehabilitation helps a giggling Ballinger attach an EEG cap to a man so he can engage in virtual reality physical therapy. Meanwhile, Mission Unstoppable is a fastpaced 30 minutes geared to 13- to 16-year-old girls that shows everything from a woman making ice cream in 90 seconds to a woman driving robots on Mars. With NBC News Learn and NBC Sports, IF/THEN is airing 10 videos of “the STEM stars behind the 2020 Tokyo athletes,” as Small puts it, including a Paralympic athlete and the scientist for her prosthetic leg.

Other IF/THEN efforts include a call to science museums around the country to put more images of women on walls, and a Dallas-based exhibit of life-sized 3-D printed statues of IF/THEN ambassadors, the largest collection of statues of women ever shown at one time, an effort

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inspired by a recent study of 10 major American cities that found fewer than six statues of historical women in public spaces.

At an October 2019 IF/THEN summit at Dallas’s Perot Museum of Nature and Science, ambassadors were trained to do outreach. Experts coached them in public engagement, social media and communications as ambassadors scribbled notes on folders with “Steminist” stickers. In Dallas, the ambassadors also had a chance to meet each other, young girls, Laura Bush, Geena Davis, and Lyda Hill herself. Over the course of the sessions, Hill pledged even more money—$10,000 per ambassador—for those ready to spearhead their own outreach efforts.

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ong before she became an ambassador, J’Tia Hart, who is the program lead in the strategic security sciences division at Argonne National Laboratory, was involved in outreach to girls and African-Americans, simply because “I see myself in them. It’s a passion of mine.” Now her previously unpaid work has IF/THEN funding. “I am all about excitement,” says Hart. “That’s my wheelhouse. In STEM, we downplay how cool and awesome things are because we think people might not understand.”

On a recent day, Hart introduced 150 eighth-grade girls to her career journey, one that started in college, when she had the opportunity to ride a nuclear submarine and felt both the power and danger of that

An initiative of IF/THEN is to design an exhibition of life-size 3-D printed statues of IF/THEN ambassadors. This rendering depicts what would be the largest collection of statues of women ever shown at one time.

energy source. The experience led her to become a nuclear engineer who helps to shape responsible government policy. Behind all these imaginative efforts is Lyda Hill herself, the founder of Lyda Hill Philanthropies, a former businesswoman and venture capitalist, now full-time philanthropist, who took The Giving Pledge to donate the majority of her wealth to philanthropic causes. Her focus is on gifts to science and nature nonprofits that will make the world a better place.

Hill believes “science is the answer to most major issues,” and, as such, has invested in hospitals, medical centers, science museums, research and public policy organizations, natural landmarks, nature preservation organizations, schools, volunteer centers, and more. Her current focus on girls and STEM isn’t merely about perception, however. It’s about genuine transformation. Summarizing the raison d’etre for the entire initiative, Hill says, “We firmly believe that IF we support a woman in STEM, THEN she can change the world.” ■

Laura Bush, Lyda Hill, Geena Davis and Nicole Small at the IF/THEN Summit, held at Dallas’s Perot Museum of Nature and Science in October 2019, where ambassadors were trained in public engagement, social media and communications outreach.

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Kimmery Martin, with her latest novel, The Antidote for Everything, at the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain.

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literature

Write What You Know

BY KATHIE BENNETT

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R Kimmery was a budding novelist from a young age, but first, she had to become an accomplished emergency medical doctor to know what she wanted to write about.

einvention is a concept familiar to Kimmery Martin, a Charlotte, North Carolina, physician. A few years ago, spurred by her love of literature, Martin decided to try writing a novel.

Set in the world she knows best—the practice of medicine— her debut novel The Queen of Hearts revolves around a significant secret between a cardiologist and a trauma surgeon. Her highly anticipated follow-up work of fiction, a spin-off entitled The Antidote for Everything, explores what happens in the friendship between a female urologist and a gay male family medicine doctor when one of them is unjustly fired; it released February 18 with a 30-city book tour.

“I was completely unburdened by any knowledge of how to structure a novel,” Martin says with a laugh when asked about her decision to become an author. “My initial writing routine was an exercise in ignorance. I plunked myself in a chair and started vomiting out pages, which, let me tell you, is not the ideal way to write a book.”

You could be forgiven for assuming the final product of this effort might not qualify as exquisite fiction. But after several years of revision and the arduous process of seeking representation from a literary agent, Martin’s debut novel was published by Penguin Random House to great acclaim, garnering praise from Southern Living, The Harvard Crimson, The New York Times and many others.

Accolades from the press read like a writer’s dream list of adjectives: stunning, impressive, funny and real, excellent, engrossing, humorous, spectacular, insightful, haunting, irresistible.

Martin, a leggy, stylish woman with an easy smile, credits her years of practice as an emergency medicine doctor for inspiring her subject matter. “If there’s one piece of advice that’s hurled at all novice authors, it’s “write what you know.” And it’s good advice: to some degree, all novels

contain elements of the author. In my case, I threw myself into mastering the technical challenges of writing. I had to educate myself about character arcs and plotting and creating tension and all the other elements of good fiction. It would have been overwhelming to research an entire new industry at the same time. But as a reader, I gravitate toward those books in which you’re immersed in an insider perspective of a world the author knows well. There was no question in my mind that the setting of my novels would be medical.”

When asked if this means the novels are based on her own life, Martin laughs again. “Yes. And no! People always want to know if one of the protagonists is really me, or if the other characters were based on real people. At first I told everyone no, this is fiction. But then I realized I’d actually addressed the question in my author’s note, so I started reading a paragraph from that:

If you are one of those people who insist all fiction is autobiographical, please skip chapters nine, fourteen, and eighteen. Also skip these chapters if you are my mother.

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I meant that to be humorous, but, yeah, I gotta admit it: I did put a little bit of myself—or people I know—in several of the characters, though the situations were fictional. Much of fiction is that way: a bit sparked by reality, a bit of straight-up invention. It’s the second-most common topic I’m asked about when I’m speaking.”

This, naturally, begs the question: what is the most-common query Martin receives?

“That’s easy,” she says. “People want to know how I have time to do what I do. They hear me speak or see my very curated social media profile and assume I’m handling everything beautifully.”

By “everything,” Martin is doubtless referring to the

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Opposite: At the Cathédrale De Séville in Seville, Spain, Kimmery reading while enjoying her morning coffee. She is working on a travelogue for Spain, for which she also visited Barcelona, Grenada, Rota and Madrid, as well as Tangier, Morocco.

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Kimmery at her desk at home, where she lives with her husband and three children in Charlotte, North Carolina.

PHOTOGRAPH BY RUSTY WILLIAMS

Below: Set against a background of hospital rounds and life-or-death decisions, Kimmery’s debut novel, The Queen of Hearts, was voted one of “The Best Books of 2018” by Travel+Leisure and the “Most Anticipated Books of 2018”

by Writer’s Digest.

achievements listed in her biography, particularly her medical career. “Emergency medicine is a fascinating field—you work around the clock, including nights, weekends and holidays—and you encounter unimaginable things. To borrow from my first author’s note, physicians have “the immeasurable blessing of seeing life in all its anguish and glory.” We treat people from their first breath to their last breath. We battle death, and we try to ease suffering. It’s very rewarding and, at times, very difficult.”

Writing poses its own challenges. In some ways, the act of generating words on a computer screen represents the tip of the iceberg; in order to launch her novels, Martin handles travel and speaking engagements, blogging, a robust social media presence and even participation in conferences in which she teaches fiction writing. She’s also a wife and a mother to three young children as well as a dedicated volunteer and board member of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library system, which serves over 2 million people.

In addition, she’s active within her church. So, it’s a reasonable question: how does she balance her time?

“Poorly,” Martin answers. “People are right: writing and publishing and promoting a novel are enormously time-consuming.

The reality involved in spending that kind of time in a new pursuit means something’s got to give, and, in my case, I wound up restructuring my entire life to be able to do it. I joke a lot about giving up housekeeping and hygiene, but initially, I found myself so captivated by the writing process that I slid into a pit of disarray.

Eventually, after foisting a ridiculous amount of dysfunction onto my family, I admitted what everyone around me knew: I could not “do it all.” So I started cutting things out of my life. I gave up watching television, and I stopped volunteering, except with the library, which I’m passionate about. I changed my work hours and ultimately accepted a less demanding medical job. And finally, because I’ve been fortunate to have had a financially stable career, I hired help with the kids and the house. Not everyone has that kind of financial security, especially in the field of literature, and it eases a lot of burdens. And even with that blessing, I still screw a lot of things up; I’m not going to pretend I have superpowers.”

Martin, who was raised in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, may not be a superwoman, but she clearly cherishes her life. Her Instagram feed is studded with images of three beautiful children,

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global travel, gorgeous workspaces and, above all, a plethora of treasured books. “I’ve always been an obsessive reader,” admits Martin. “My social media tends to reflect some of the more visually attractive things I love: flowers, fashion, interior design. But there’s a strong inner geek in me too. Science fascinates me, especially biotechnology.

I’m interested in geopolitics, particularly in how we collectively address the issues that will affect future generations. I pay attention to social issues, especially material that challenges my assumptions. And all of this is reflected in my choice of reading material. I am, first and foremost, a huge book nerd; I read three or four books a week. I’d credit my love of reading for making my life exponentially more rewarding. To me, it’s incomprehensible that everybody doesn’t walk around with their nose glued to a book.” ■ Editor’s Note: Kimmery Martin is an emergency medicine doctorturned novelist whose works of medical fiction have been widely praised. Kimmery completed her medical training at the University of Louisville School of Medicine and the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. She lives with her husband and three children in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her latest novel, The Antidote for Everything, was released on February 18, 2020. More information on Kimmery is available at her website, kimmerymartin.com or on her Instagram handle @kimmerymartin.

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philanthropy

My Soul

has

Grown Deep Like

the

Rivers

BY LATRIA GRAHAM

Artelia Bendolph in the window of her house, Gee’s Bend. Arthur Rothstein, 1937.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY ARTHUR ROTHSTEIN/COURTESY FARM SECURITY ADMINISTRATION/OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION COLLECTION, PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

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D

HOLDING THE LARGEST COLLECTION OF WORKS BY AFRICAN AMERICAN ARTISTS FROM THE SOUTHERN UNITED STATES, THE SOULS GROWN DEEP COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP & FOUNDATION IS REDEFINING THE CANON OF AMERICAN ART.

own in the north-central section of Wilcox County, Alabama, sits a little parcel of land. Five miles wide, seven miles long, and surrounded by the Alabama River on three sides, this area is known as Gee’s Bend, population 275. An hour’s drive from the county seat of Camden, which is the closest source of food and medical services, the area is geographically cut off from the world. Mostly left to themselves for nearly 100 years, this close-knit historically all-black community’s folkways and traditions survived well into the twentieth century and stand as a symbol of their resourcefulness during a time of great duress.

Art admirers from all over the world come to this patch of fertile soil in Alabama’s Black Belt to get a glimpse of the artistic legacy of four generations of Southern quilters. Initially created for the practical purpose of keeping warm, the quilts created by the women of this region are known for their unexpected color combinations, bold patterns, and improvised designs. Though many are individual artists, the group is often referred to as the quilters of Gee’s Bend.

T

he area was named after Joseph Gee, who built a plantation on the peninsula in the early 1800s. In the 1840s, the Gee family sold their land to Mark Pettway, and he continued to operate a plantation there. After emancipation, the residents of the area worked the land as tenant farmers. With little material wealth to buy goods, families had to find a way to keep warm. Quilts made corn husk mattresses bearable and provided more warmth than their sheets made of fertilizer sacks. These quilts were the Gee’s Bend’s women’s way of recycling. At a time when they could not afford to let anything go to

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waste, they repurposed fabrics. When a piece of clothing was well past mending, it was deconstructed and placed into a quilt. Plaids and prints find a way to work together. Squares and rectangles were cut from old work shirts. Old dresses of chambray and gingham were given a new life and worn-out jeans would sometimes frame the edges.

As they worked, they breathed new life into the fabrics they found, taking the mundane materials and transforming them into art. The philosophies and subjects of the quilts vary from artist to artist, but meditations on equality, peace, hope, justice, truth and love can be found in their creations. Many families make their own versions of some of quilting’s standard patterns. Bricklayer, housetop, log cabin, nine patch, wedding ring, and bear claw designs can be found, but some artists eschew traditional designs completely, creating striking, bold, imaginative creations from a dream they had one night or a vision they received while sitting under the chinaberry tree.

The community’s story is woven into these works of art. From the hardships endured during enslavement to the unfair penalties that came with sharecropping and the harrowing upheavals of the civilrights struggle, quilting is, for these women, an act of remembering.

The cloth they often quilt with is imbued with the memory of the person who wore the clothes and may have already passed on.

Materials and techniques changed over time. Placed in the context of American art canon, these pieces became a study in the visual social history of a people and place over the course of a century.

Inspired by the message of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., when he came to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, several of the community’s residents registered to vote. Many were punished for desiring to exercise their civil

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Raina Lampkins-Fielder, Curator of Souls Grown Deep Foundation and Community Partnership.

PHOTOGRAPH ANA BLOOM

Above: African American quilts, vicinity of the Alabama River (possibly Gee’s Bend), Wilcox County, Alabama.

PHOTOGRAPH ATTRIBUTED TO EDITH MORGAN, CIRCA 1900

Below: Gee’s Bend quilter, Lucy Mooney and family. 1937.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ARTHUR ROTHSTEIN/COURTESY FARM SECURITY ADMINISTRATION/OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION COLLECTION, PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

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Gee’s Bend quilter Mary Margaret Pettway in the exhibition Souls Grown Deep: Artists of the African American South at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. COURTESY OF THE PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART/PHOTOGRAPH BY JUAN ARCE, 2019.

liberties and were fired from their jobs or lost their homes. Francis X. Walter, an Episcopal priest and civil rights organizer during the 1960s, saw the area’s quilts as a way to earn income. The community established the Freedom Quilting Bee, a quilting cooperative. Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdales began carrying their work, but the department stores desired uniformity, which did not suit the creative direction of many of the women. By the 1980s the quilts were out of the public eye again.

In the mid-1980s, William S. Arnett, an Atlanta-based writer, editor, curator and art collector, began to collect the work of black artists in the American South. In the 1990s, Arnett began a scholarly examination of the visual traditions of African Americans in the region. The result of his efforts was a two-volume book titled Souls Grown Deep: African American Vernacular Art of the South. During this time, he stumbled upon a photograph of a quilt draped over a woodpile. The artist in the photo was a woman by the name of Annie Mae Young. He set off to find her.

She told him about Gee’s Bend, where he discovered a trove of quilts.

These works were exhibited at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts in September 2002 under the title The Quilts of Gee’s Bend.

This exhibition showcased over 60 quilts made between 1930 and 2000. Glorified for their beauty and originality, art critic Michael Kimmelman of The New York Times hailed the collection as “some of the most miraculous works of art America has produced.” After breaking attendance records at the museum, the exhibition embarked on a three-year, coast-to-coast, 12-venue tour. Stops included the Smithsonian, the Whitney, and other major American art museums in cities like Atlanta, Minneapolis, and San Francisco. Recognized by museums and art experts for their elaborate quilts, on August 24, 2006, the artists of Gee’s Bend were honored with a series of commemorative stamps as part of the American Treasures series, which is meant to showcase beautiful works of American fine art and crafts.

The artwork collection Arnett amassed during his studies include 1,100 works of art by 160 African American artists. In 2010 the Arnett family created the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, an Atlanta-based nonprofit. The organization advocates for previously ignored artists of color who made artworks born in the struggle for civil rights. For the last five years, the foundation’s goal has been to pursue social, racial, and economic equity by promoting economic development in the Black Belt and creating access to basic needs including health care and education.

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he foundation’s four-person staff takes steps to reconnect artists with news of and plans for their creations. Making the artists part of the process ensures that they have creative control and can dictate how images of their work are used and can receive any income from the use of their art. In the age of fast fashion, commercialization, globalization, and social media, the opportunity for exploitation is everywhere. Social media is full of goods inspired by the community’s aesthetic, and there are plenty of Gee’s Bend imitations. Souls Grown Deep Foundation works to preserve art in the

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African American South by placing the collection’s creative works into the permanent collections of leading art museums.

“It’s a very challenging part of the world,” Maxwell Anderson, the president of Souls Grown Deep Foundation and Community Partnership, says of Gee’s Bend.

“There are houses, but the majority of people’s circumstances are really dire. There was a United Nations representative who visited this part of Alabama a few years ago and said he couldn’t believe that in the developed world people were living in these conditions. Part of what we’re trying to do is—after many years of promises from people to help this community—we’re trying to have a laser-like focus on a series of endeavors that can actually improve life there.”

For him, that means making sure the artist’s artwork is valued correctly.

Raina Lampkins-Fielder was the head of education at the Whitney Museum of Art when the Gee’s Bend quilt exhibition came to New York City. Now she serves as the Curator of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation and Community Partnership and sees correcting the record to include the quilters of Gee’s Bend as a social justice initiative.

“Notions of art and artifacts, ideas of folk art, the women as artisans— these are all things that the organization is beginning to question—that terminology. In some ways these [terms] are not incorrect attributions or ways of speaking about categorizing art,” she explains. Still, she mentions that the way art is talked about determines its value, and certain categories present barriers for artists outside of the culture’s circle.

“One of the goals that we have with Souls Grown Deep is really to look at why these artists had not been included, why they have been disenfranchised,” she says. “There’s a very obvious kind of institutional and systemic racism. It’s about the kind of bias about this particular region in the South not being quite as cultivated. You also have categorizations of artists that, while in some ways they’re helpful in other ways, are going to constantly position them in a space. Calling someone a ‘folk artist’ and not an ‘artist’ will absolutely determine their worth. It will determine who has access to see their work—the fair as opposed to the museum. [This art] should be in both,” she insists.

Lampkins-Fielder also mentions that the academy’s struggle to see artists like the ones they represent as worthy of recognition makes it challenging for scholars, curators, and people in education to use this work as part of their research or just anchor the artists in the larger conversation of American art.

“We’re really trying to change that narrative,” she says.

“The art market is very cruel to artists who don’t have the requisite background in formal education and connections, ascendancy and society,” Anderson says. “It took a long time to start putting in place a means by which these artists would be seen in the museum culture.

I’ve spent a lot of time in and out of the South trying to expand the canon of American art history to include these artists. We look at museums as our partners. We have now 20 leading art museums coast to coast that have acquired work from us. And we anticipate having another 30 or 40 museums nationally and internationally in the next few years acquire work,” he adds.

Souls Grown Deep Foundation’s board member Lola C. West experienced the art world’s disconnect firsthand.

“When I was in junior high, I had a black art teacher, and he liked my work,” West says. “So he would exhibit it in the school, and then he

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“

recommended me for honor art class in high school. When I got to high school, on my first day of honor art class, this white male teacher asked us to draw something. I drew. He came by my desk and he said, ‘You call that art?’ That was the end of me and art forever.”

The last r comes out of her mouth echoing the sense of finality.

“I am at heart an artist,” she muses, thinking back on the moment when she decided to put down her pencil. “I have a deep love for art, and my entire apartment has always been nothing but black art.”

The walls of her Manhattan home are covered from floor to ceiling in pieces by black artists, and she is amazed by the resourcefulness of the quilters down in Gee’s Bend. So, when the opportunity came to support their work, she took it.

Mary Margaret Pettway was born down in the Bend. A thirdgeneration quilter, the now-famous works of art were always part of her reality.

“When we were babies, we were wrapped in the quilts,” Pettway explains. “When we became children, we would be up under the quilts, threading needles and passing them back through the quilts

own style.

“I’m a two-color person unless I’m making something like a crazy quilt. Usually, I’ll come up with the idea for the quilt itself first, then I pick colors,” she explains. “Nature—she just has the best palette in the world. Who would have ever thought purple and green go together? I try to use as much of her palette as possible, but I love black and white too, burgundy. I use all of the colors,” she says with a smile.

Now that she’s older, she prefers quilting with 100 percent cotton if she can get it, citing the denim and corduroy of yesteryear as hard to quilt.

“Our quilts and quilting are my legacy for my children,” Pettway explains. Her son and daughter both learned how to quilt at an early age.

“My son Kyle recently made a quilt, pretty much by himself,” she says with pride. Even though he has decided to pick up the family pastime, he is also evolving his own style and prefers different fabrics than those treasured by his mother and utilized by his grandmother.

Still, Pettway worries about the future of quilting in the community.

Many youths consider the endeavor to be hard manual labor—

One of the goals that we have with Souls Grown Deep is really to look at why these artists had not been included, why they have been disenfranchised . . .

Calling someone a ‘folk artist’ and not an ‘artist’ will absolutely determine their worth. It will determine who has access to see their work— the fair as opposed to the museum. when they were needed.”

The girls are 9 or 10 when they start helping with the quilts.

“You would start sewing on the ends of the quilt, and if the stitches didn’t meet where your mama or grandmama wanted them to, you’ve got to take them out and do them again,” she says with a laugh.

By 12, many were working on their first full pieces. This is where Pettway learned her skills, seated at the feet of God-fearing wise women who discussed politics and Bible lessons as they sewed. They exchanged recipes and talked about their fears. Her mother, Lucy T. Pettway, was a perfectionist, and one of her pieces, Birds In the Air, is housed at the High Museum in Atlanta. Knowing her mother’s artwork is appreciated by art enthusiasts gives her a sense of pride.

Not content to follow in her mother’s footsteps, she works in her

”

something many wish to move away from.

“It’s something to put up a quilt,” Pettway explains. “You quilt it out, clip it, hem it and trim it. They don’t want the labor-intensiveness of it.”

When The Quilts of Gee’s Bend exhibition opened in Houston in 2002, the quilts took on a new meaning for Pettway. When she learned that the exhibition routinely broke museum attendance records, she finally understood the visual and aesthetic power of what her family created.

“That was pure pride,” she says. “I knew we had finally made it at that point.”

During the recent reveal of the Obama portraits at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Pettway’s pride only grew.

In the iconic portrait of Michelle Obama, painted by African American artist Amy Sherald, Mrs. Obama’s dress dominates the frame. The ensemble was designed by Michelle Smith, founder of the label Milly. Its geometric print, which mixes rectangles, triangles and circles, resembles the quilt masterpieces made by the women of Gee’s Bend. Sherald’s intentional choices sparked much discussion and acclaim, situating the culture and social history of the artists of Gee’s Bend in a way that allows the greater public to learn more about the quilting collective and cultivates more discussions about the art. With the help of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, art enthusiasts can keep coming to Gee’s Bend to learn more about the creativity, determination and survival of this community and their place in the narrative of contemporary American art. ■

Mary Margaret Pettway (Souls Grown Deep Board Chair) and Shontaye Mosely. © STEPHEN PITKIN/PITKIN STUDIO

Sapelo’s Renewing Serum is a synergistic breakthrough that utilizes two plant-based stem cells to boosts collagen and elastin production for promoting skin density. Hydrating the skin completely, the serum carries a carefully selected blend of cell-stimulating growth factors and micronutrients required for healthy skin rejuvenation.

Opposite: Sapelo Skin Care founders, Stephanie Duttenhaver and Cindy Edwards.

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beauty

Not Just for Southern Belles

BY KATIE WEISMAN

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S

ome of the ingredients in Sapelo Skin Care read like a fairy tale: oyster shell extract, Irish moss algae, gardenia, magnolia pines, and fennel, among others. But Sapelo, an independent luxury brand from Savannah, Georgia, embraces the reality of proven science-based formulas and is making a difference in beauty regimens.

“We replicate the immune system response to damage in the skin,” explains co-founder Stephanie Duttenhaver. “When your skin is damaged, it releases a cascade of cytokines,” cells your body discharges to repair damaged or inflamed cells. “We took that theory and went in search of Southern ingredients—gardenia, magnolia pines, seaweed— to support this process.”

Sapelo, founded by Duttenhaver and her friend Cindy Edwards in 2016, is all about nurturing, instead of abusing, your skin. When women flock to microdermabrasion or chemical peel appointments, they don’t realize that these “renewal” techniques actually damage the skin, observes Duttenhaver. She and Edwards, who met running the Savannah Book Festival as volunteers, conceived Sapelo to focus on skin nourishment using ingredients that the body can use to heal itself.

This science seems evident in Sapelo’s 3-Step system that includes the Renewing System brimming with powerful ingredients, including gardenia stem cells and a whopping 4 percent concentrate of hyaluronic acid; the Rejuvenating Cream boasting five collagen-boosting bio-active peptides, among other ingredients; and the Softening Emollient rich with lipids that works to protect the repairing and hydrating benefits from steps 1 and 2 from evaporating.

The Spring Tide Serum is one of the rarest skincare products in the world, and the first in the USA, to use the extract of unfertilized salmon eggs, Arctic Red Caviar, at a 5 percent concentration rate.

Sapelo claims that this bio-active ingredient was proven effective for

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skin repair and improved appearance in a clinical Phase III, doubleblind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial.

Later this year, Sapelo will launch a new serum with a high percentage concentration of a hyaluronic acid blend and “a lot of seaweed.” It will be the most expensive product in the collection retailing for $400 for 20ml. Significantly, Sapelo adheres to strict European regulations on cosmetic ingredients, which ban or restrict over 1,300 chemicals compared with the U.S., which bans roughly 30.

Sapelo Skin Care is the result of Duttenhaver and Edwards figuring out “what’s next” after the book festival. Previously, Duttenhaver had a career in marketing, notably strategic planning for a national nonprofit. Edwards, with a degree in journalism and public relations, worked at the Burn Center at Atlanta’s Grady Hospital before moving to Savannah. The company is self-financed, and a minority stake is held

by Bona Fide Beauty Lab, an incubator owned by esteemed beauty and luxury goods veteran Pamela Baxter and uber marketer Cathy O’Brien for independent beauty brands.

Duttenhaver and Edwards say that Sapelo’s approach reflects traditional Southern sensibility where women would take care of their skin simply and regularly as part of their daily hygiene. This ritual is perfectly expressed by Sapelo’s slogan: “Modern Skin Care Inherited from the South.”

The collection is sold on the company’s website, along with other e-commerce sites, including Saks Fifth Avenue. Saks also carries Sapelo in its Atlanta, Georgia, and Birmingham, Alabama, stores and is testing it in other markets. A handful of upscale spas and Southern hotels also carry the brand. Prices start at $40 for the Gentle Seaweed Cleanser and go up to $260 for the Step One: Renewing Serum. ■

Sapelo’s Anti-Aging Enzyme Mask is a gentle path to skin cell replication that safely renews radiance and hydration while exfoliating surface cells. Rich in all-natural, plant-based enzymes and botanical extracts, offering a safe alternative to glycolic and retinoic acids.

Silent no longer.

Silent Tears is proud to partner with ELYSIAN Impact, the philanthropic arm of ELYSIAN. The grant awards in South Carolina will be the first in a program of ELYSIAN Impact Partner Initiatives, creating a template that will be replicated and rolled out across mission-driven and charitable organizations nationwide.

To learn more about Silent Tears, please visit silenttearssc.org

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THE ELYSIAN APP LAUNCH IN NEW YORK CITY

On Thursday, December 12th, ELYSIAN hosted the ELYSIAN Connect App Launch at the breathtaking Castell Rooftop Lounge, an oasis high atop the AC Hotel New York Times Square. Designed by BHDM Design, the contemporary decor invites guests to relax in the comfortable yet sophisticated atmosphere. Guests at our event enjoyed the cozy fireplace, the luxe granite bar, and stepping outside on the lush, open-air terrace to take in the iconic view of the New York City skyline. This event served as Clockwise from top right: Angie Woodard, ELYSIAN Style Director, with Kelly Nichols, ELYSIAN Impact Director of Philanthropy, and Dr. Katherine Birchenough, ELYSIAN columnist & certified functional medicine physician. • Susan Taylor, former editor-in-chief of Essence magazine & ELYSIAN Inspiring Woman and Eboni Williams, American attorney, television host & ELYSIAN Inspiring Woman with guests. • Suzanne Johnson, ELYSIAN writer & actress; Fern Mallis, creator of New York Fashion Week & ELYSIAN Inspiring Woman; Chitra Narayanan, five-time ambassador of India & ELYSIAN Inspiring Woman; and Winter 2019-2020 ELYSIAN cover model Rachel Castellani. • Sarah Gunn, blogger & author of A Stylish Guide to Classic Sewing, with Angie Woodard. • Karen Floyd, ELYSIAN Publisher, with Chitra Narayanan.

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expanding the circle

the official launch of the ELYSIAN Connect App and cover reveal for ELYSIAN’s Winter 2019-2020 Travel Issue.

ELYSIAN’s partnership with AC Hotel New York Times Square provided the ideal event setting. The hotel is perfectly positioned within walking distance of the city’s bustling center.

For the most memorable visit to NYC, the AC Hotel is the place to stay, offering a modern design with sleek furnishings and exquisite original artwork throughout.

The celebration brought together women from all over the world, including the ELYSIAN Circle of Inspiring Women, ELYSIAN cover models, ambassadors, entrepreneurs and key female leaders in the media, entertainment, fashion and publishing industries. ELYSIAN would like to express sincere gratitude to all our guests who flew from near and far to join us for an unforgettable event. Thank you to our sponsors of this event: AC Hotel New York Times Square and ALOR, the California lifestyle brand celebrating 40 years of designing classic, yet contemporary jewelry and watches— works of art that can be worn daily. ■

Clockwise from top right: Sarah Gunn with Gloria Taggart, ELYSIAN Inspiring Woman, and Hannah Shepard, ELYSIAN Managing Editor and Arts & Culture Editor. • Jennifer Watkins • Event sponsor, jewelry, watch and lifestyle brand, ALOR. • Writer Suzanne Johnson presenting her feature in the ELYSIAN Winter 2019-2020 Issue. • A champagne tower for guests to enjoy, provided by event sponsor, AC Hotel New York Times Square. • Suzanne with husband, Mark Johnson, and guests.

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ELYSIAN AUTHORS RECEPTION IN CHARLESTON

ELYSIAN hosted an Author’s Reception celebrating Marie Benedict’s latest novel, Lady Clementine, at Charleston’s awardwinning hotel, the King Charles Inn. With its fascinating connection to the city’s legendary literary history and its location in the heart of Charleston’s Historic District, the King Charles Inn was the perfect setting for this intimate cocktail reception to recognize the New York Times bestselling author’s latest novel.

Lady Clementine, which has been nominated by People Magazine as “one of the best new books,” delivers the ferocious story of the brilliant and ambitious woman, Clementine Churchill, whose unsung influence helped shape two World Wars. Marie Benedict’s mission of sharing the extraordinary untold stories of women throughout history is incredibly impactful and speaks directly to the objective of ELYSIAN. As we herald the centennial year of the suffragette movement in the United States, it was a fitting occasion to reflect on Lady Clementine’s contributions to equality for women.

Clockwise from top right: The Charleston Library Society where the pre-publication event was held to release Marie Benedict’s latest book, Lady Clementine. • Anne Cleveland, Executive Director of the Charleston Library Society, introducing Marie Benedict. • Ray Berrouët, Director of Sales and Marketing at the King Charles Inn. • Karen Floyd, Publisher of ELYSIAN and Hannah Shepard, Managing Editor, with guests listening to author Marie Benedict share her vision. • Best-selling author, Mary Alice Monroe, speaking to guests.

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In the charming southern backdrop of the King Charles Inn, fellow New York Times bestselling author and Charleston native, Mary Alice Monroe, introduced Marie Benedict who later signed copies of Lady Clementine. Guests sipped on Signature Tito’s Cocktails, “Lady Clementine” and “The Inspired Woman,” and enjoyed a fabulous spread by Caviar & Bananas, the Holy City’s premier gourmet market & café, of delicious grilled shrimp skewers, duck confit canapés and house cured salmon & cucumber discs.

The night brought together the ELYSIAN Circle of Inspiring Women, accomplished authors and book-lovers alike who joined in championing the stories of the exceptional women of history.

Many thanks to our partners, the King Charles Inn, Caviar & Bananas, Tito’s Vodka, Charleston Library Society, Sourcebooks, Buxton Books and Magic Time Literary Publicity. This event was made possible by ELYSIAN’s Literary Editor, Kathie Bennett. ■

Clockwise from top right: Lori Klash Winkler with Farrah Follmann, recreating Winston Churchill’s iconic pose. • Guests enjoyed Tito’s Handmade Vodka signature cocktails. • A delicious spread of hors d’oeuvres provided by Caviar & Bananas • Mary Alice Monroe, Ray Berrouët and South Carolina Senator Katrina Shealy pose with guests for a photograph. • Kathie Bennett, ELYSIAN Literature Editor & Founder of Magic Time Literary Publicity with Marie Benedict and Mary Alice Monroe. • Marie Benedict with Lizzie Lewandowski of Sourcebooks, Marjory Wentworth, South Carolina Poet Laureate, and Mary Alice Monroe with guest.

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closing the circle EXPANDING HORIZONS

At

ELYSIAN, we continue to honor our commitment to the next generation of women by introducing them to exceptional women who have achieved success. In this spirit, we were delighted to introduce ELYSIAN Inspiring Woman Nancy O’Dell to our cover model, Caroline Comer.

Most will recognize Nancy O’Dell as the co-host of the popular entertainment news program, Entertainment Tonight, but would be surprised to discover that this Hollywood star was born in Sumter, S.C., and won Miss South Carolina in 1987. She is considered one of the country’s most respected and leading entertainment journalists and has proven to be a force in all areas of her career as a host, author, producer and entrepreneur.

As someone who also hails from the Palmetto State, Caroline considers herself a true southern gal, holding the south dear to heart. The young twenty-year old now lives in Santa Barbara, California, where she studies Business Economics at Westmont College. She has a broad range of other interests, including health, wellness, fitness and fashion, as well as a desire to travel. With a world of opportunities ahead of her and while still in pursuit of her ideal career, Caroline maintains her focus on receiving a quality education and growing her professional network. What better way to expand her horizons than meeting the Emmy Award winning Nancy O’Dell.

The two met in Los Angeles at the end of last year, where Nancy shared her career advice and keys to success for women in any industry.

“Never let anyone tell you that you can’t accomplish something,” she said, “I was told not to go into reporting or journalism because the field was saturated.” Beginning as a reporter in Myrtle Beach, Nancy went on to report crime in Charleston, followed by a position as an investigative reporter in Miami and then became the lead anchor on Access Hollywood.

Nancy understands the unique challenges that women face while advancing their career. She believes that women are making forward strides to be in the same powerful positions as men and discussed this with Caroline. “Women are made to feel like they can’t achieve equal success as their male counterparts. That may have been true in the past, but it’s not today.” Nancy continues, “One of the greatest parts of my career has been interviewing all of the female directors, producers and accomplished women over 50 that prove we can have a career that stands the test of time.”

Caroline admits that she has always enjoyed being on stage and after having the opportunity to meet Nancy, she has a new interest in entering the entertainment industry. “That was an exciting, yet nerve-wrenching experience, but spending time with Nancy O’Dell has opened a new career option for me that I would have never considered.” ■

Cover model Caroline Comer with ELYSIAN Inspiring Woman and popular entertainment journalist Nancy O’Dell.

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back story

C

aroline Comer is a self-professed natural born Southern girl. “I was riding four-wheelers and dirt bikes not too long after I learned to walk,” she says.

Caroline has never lost her sense of adventure. Indeed, it’s what inspired her to leave her hometown in Upstate South Carolina to pursue her dreams in California. She attends Westmont College, a Christian liberal arts school, where she studies business economics and is making plans to study abroad in Europe next fall.

“I have always held big dreams and will go to great lengths to achieve them,” Caroline says. She is a girl with boundless passions—health, wellness, fitness, fashion—and as a business major with an entrepreneurial mind, her goal is to design a career that incorporates all of these interests. “For now,” she says, “my main focus is getting a great education to nourish my foundation, make connections, and establish my network that will help me to accomplish this.”

She is taking part in an internship with Alice Ryan Miller’s A Company, based in Santa Barbara. She’s grateful that Miller, a legend in the world of event planning and public relations, has “taken me under her wing, opened many new doors for me, and speaks to me about my potential.” Caroline is learning a great deal about what it takes to run your own company. “I enjoy the behind-the-scenes work that goes into producing large-scale events and the process of crafting the perfect message when promoting a business.”

An only child, Caroline stays close to her parents—“the most loving, stylish, sweet and humble mother and an extremely kind, giving, and hard-working father”—and connected to her Southern roots. Regardless of where her education and career may take her, Caroline has a strong sense of loyalty and family values, qualities she attributes to her upbringing: “Southern communities certainly know how to band together and, without question, family was and is always the number one priority.” ■

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