rebecca invited some girlfriends over for coffee, cookies, soup, and eggnog to hang out and do a little crafting.  who can resist colored felt?  she made a bare tree wall hanging out of felt, and everyone had a great time visiting and cutting out things to sew on the tree.  rinne’s mom, lucy, made a white possum hanging upside down.  now that’s a southern tree, for sure.

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• wedding flora
• new books
• spring fun in the country

our friend hope lives out in the country, across the road from nancy and kat & susan.
we visited a few weeks ago and were taken with her sunny kitchen windows, full of rooted specimens & other findings…

we asked hope a few questions about her house and all the lovelies that line her sills:

- how long have you lived in your house?
one year and one half

- which direction do your kitchen windows face?
South

- did the cuttings and specimens move with you to this house? or did you begin your collection of cuttings and specimens because of these great windows?
Many of the cuttings came with me from San Francisco and some came from Etsy. The rest? Our garden herbs. Because of the windows, it continually grows and shifts.

- anything else you would like to share about your lovely kitchen?
Our kitchen used to be a porch but was enclosed by Nancy and made into a kitchen. (we feel so lucky to live in a Nancy house!) It sank a tiny bit lower than the rest of the house when it settled from it’s move here so it feels like a really special place – the windows, especially. Because it’s sunken only a tiny bit, there is a shift in the architecture that makes the room feel very separate. It’s so open and amazing. Easily our favorite room in the house.

hope is an artist, designer, curator, and writer; her *new* husband Stewart is a stand-up comedian.

- here are some of their upcoming projects:

” I’m currently working on a project about a quilter and freed slave from Winterville named Harriet Powers, who has two quilts in public collections at the Smithsonian and M of Fine Arts Boston. Her grave wasn’t found until the last few years, and we learn more about her every day. Getting ready to exhibit the project at ATHICA in 2012. Also, my botanical drawings of medicinal herbs will be on view at the Botanical Gardens in 2012.

Stewart will be one of 3 artists featured in a documentary about comics who go on the road in late 2012, by Susan Seizer, an anthropologist at Indiana University Bloomington. He’s also performing in Aspen, CO as a winner of the Aspen Laff Festival. “

and,
did we mention that hope and stewart just got married? on 11.11.11…

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• outside my studio door
• studio visit: block and brayer
• garlic scapes, tied up

founded in 1993, rural studio is a branch of the architecture program of auburn university, one that was founded to give its students working knowledge of the design-build process, but also one that would serve the needs of the surrounding community.

a group of us r.wooders visited rural studio 13+years ago and we helped build the foundation of the bath house shown above (the brick and metal building- i drove the bobcat that held the mixed concrete, hee hee). back then the super shed was just framework; the concept of liveable student housing ‘pods’ just an idea, an aspiration. now multiple ‘pods’ reside underneath and the shed creates a large covered area for communing. when we visited back then, we were lucky enough to spend time with the late samuel mockbee, one of the founders of the program and it’s enigmatic, inspiring leader. utilizing salvaged and recycled materials before it was cool, sambo- as he was known- empowered his students by not only giving them the responsibility of designing structures, but also by allowing them to actually build them. in doing so, the students’ ideas of architecture were physically manifested before their own eyes, by their own hands. they had to work through the problems their designs created, but they also saw firsthand the beauty of a successful, completed concept. but more so, their projects had the additional benefit of helping real people- either by providing needed shelter for a family or just a place for the community at large to gather.

this building holds one of the classrooms and is at the crossroads of the settlement of newbern. beauty in the vernacular.

these were some of the early rural studio projects. the butterfly house and the glass chapel are both located in mason’s bend, a community that is rural with a capital ‘R’- located off a dirt road off a dirt road off a dirt road, etcetera. when there, you feel like you are at the end of the earth. the butterfly house is passive solar, and the glass chapel’s windows are fabricated from cast-off car windshields.

the carpet house is made of stacks of carpet scraps- keeping them out of the landfill, but also contributing a high insulation value to the structure. the ‘crushed can’ tower to the side holds the bedroom with a view of the sky and stars.

community projects are the main focus of the program now. the perry lakes pavilion (shown above) and related outbuildings rise up out of the landscape rather than feeling placed there irreverently.

affordable, the houses have always been. many of them were built from donations and/or grants. this home here is from a series of what they call ’20K’ houses- all built for under $20,000. attempting to serve as an antidote to design-less affordable housing, they are each unique.

even though sambo passed away many years ago, the program thrives. a visit to the area will reward the traveler with views of beautiful, ingenious architecture, but you will also feel the power of such a deep commitment to service & community. we will end our (brief) virtual tour, here at the subrosa chapel.
built by sambo’s daughter in his memory, based on his own sketches, it is an underground open-air chamber nestled in a hillock behind a 19th home. welded spires reach to the sky, and a shallow well catches water below. go and here and contemplate what you have seen. or, as mockbee proclaimed, “proceed and be bold”.

http://www.ruralstudio.org/

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• crafting in the country
• country windows
• an everlasting meal…

last week, design*sponge was in town for their book tour.
it was fitting to welcome them with a southern flora sampler:

while some may think the ingredients weedy, to us they are the prettiest things to be found right now:
sweetgum, chinaberry, and ligustrum…along with beauties like hydrangea, maple leaves, and viburnum.

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• country windows
• outside my studio door
• garlic scapes, tied up

so, we have had some great athens-related food/book news as of late…
in addition to hugh’s book, former athenian tamar adler also released her first book, an everlasting meal, last week.

{tamar was the founding head chef at farm 255…}
yesterday, on a perfect fall day, a group of us gathered in the country and ate good food and listened to tamar read from her book, under huge oak trees.

some of us played on tractors, too.

’twas a great day on the farm.

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• A New Turn in the South
• summer supper at the idea shack
• a spring luncheon

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• studio visit: block and brayer
• country windows
• fall flora

here is a sampler of the colors and textures in my garden today:

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• country windows
• fall flora
• stickwork – - – patrick dougherty

our friend hugh‘s cookbook came out on tuesday:

A New Turn in the South introduces hugh & his food through his writing, his sketches and, most importantly, his recipes.

those who know hugh know that the community of athens is as important to him as it is to us ladies here at beauty everyday.
so, the book feels like an introduction to athens, as well.

please pick up a copy, from our new local bookstore, if you love food, the south, or just enjoy a good book!

(and i must add, that i had the great fortune to help by taking photographs for it and helping with it’s design, as well…)

some images from this shoot were included:

as well as illustrations from our friend susan:

jordan helped too:

kudos to clarkson potter for letting us all collaborate and for their creative imagery selection!

the end.

keep up with hugh here:

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• an everlasting meal…
• summer supper at the idea shack
• a spring luncheon

many years ago we went to visit an installation at clemson university by patrick dougherty. (for you old school readers out there, we featured photos from this excursion on ideas for creative living, the predecessor to beauty everyday…)

it featured this woven castle…made from bent, woven, and wrapped saplings, or sticks.

it was to our delight that we recently found a copy of his book, stickwork, while on a visit to terrain.
enjoy looking!

read more about the sculptor here.

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• country windows
• outside my studio door
• andalusia, flannery o’connor, and the southern landscape