Jewelry artist Melanie Rilling was born and reared in Mississippi, where the very land seems to be steeped in the eccentricities and literature of the Faulkner and Welty tradition. Love of the written word was ingrained from an early age.
In her early thirties, when she came to Atlanta, she…
Mal McEwen is a north Georgia chainsaw artist with family roots in the area dating back to 1746. He has always enjoyed working with his hands and creating works of beauty, including being a mechanic, machinist and trim carpenter.
Mal picked up a chainsaw for the first time in 2002 and has never…
Asha Lightbearer has been writing and performing music since the age of six. The question she is asked most often is, "From what tribe are you?" The answer is, "None, officially," although she does participate in activities with Thunderbird Nation, a mixed group of Native American and non-native…
Jennifer Bull is a violinist, teacher and author. She was born in Mt. Vernon, Ohio and grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia. Raised by parents who believed in encouraging their children to follow their dreams, Jennifer received a bachelor of violin performance from Furman University and also worked…
Virginia Dupre is an artist, art therapist and a former ordained minister.
She graduated from Candler School of Theology in 1994. While serving as an ordained minister, Virginia was a client of art therapy as a way of tending to her own needs and issues so that she could better help others. In…
Harry Boone is a pottery artist. A native of Georgia, Harry grew up in the Atlanta area, attended Georgia Tech and served in the Navy. He worked in the building and development industry for 38 years.
Watching a potter work at his wheel while attending a North GA fall festival around 1968 sparked…
About 10 years ago, Laura Strickler bought a few beads and a little bit of bead wire, hoping to replicate a key chain she admired at a craft fair. She quickly learned that you only need to know how to do a couple of things — crimping and wire wrapping, to be exact — to make just about anything you…
Sybil MacBeth is a dancer, a doodler, and a former community college mathematics professor. When she moved to Memphis in 2004, author Phyllis Tickle nudged Sybil to write about her prayer frustrations and the visual and active prayer practice she developed as the result of them. She now combines…
Alice Ball is an explorer in the art of papermaking — gathering raw materials, sometimes embedding things in the wet paper before it dries and creating small collages.
“One of the commandments of papermaking is ‘thou shalt not love any piece of paper better than another.’ You learn from the…
