Read (or listen) along with us. #AlabamaChaninBookClub (Updated August 2, 2024) Some of the links below contain affiliate links. By purchasing a book or audio recording at these links, Alabama Chanin, The School of Making, and Project Threadways may receive a portion of the purchase price. Thank you.— This season—with its long days and travels and afternoons too hot to be outside—is the best time of year for reading (and watching, listening, visiting, and shopping). Here’s what’s on our list. Every Man for Himself and God Against All, by filmmaker and author Werner Herzog. Listen on Libro.fm, where he reads...
For the 2023 Project Threadways Symposium, Dr. Katie Knowles delivered a keynote presentation at the Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts in downtown Florence. Titled “Assembling a Life: Sarah Tate’s Things,” the presentation centers on a collection of items that once belonged to a woman named Sarah Tate, who was born enslaved and died in 1915. Tate saved many items that were important to her—her mother’s scissors, a string of beads, her wedding dress, her daughter’s infant gown, her emancipation dress, and her Bible—which were collected by her white employer after her death and now sit in the Witte Museum in...
An excerpt from Embroidery: Threads and Stories, by Natalie Chanin. The origin of the word Alabama is still debated. Some believe it is derived from the Choctaw language, translated as “thicket clearer”—hinting at the agriculturally adept tribes that cleared the thicket for cultivation. As a child, I was certain that this was the best interpretation, as, left untouched, the mesophytic forest of our region produces a landscape so dense and thick with vegetation that it can be difficult to navigate. With an annual rainfall just four inches shy of rainforest designation, the woods and creeks are deep, dark, breathing organisms,...
Above: from Embroidery: Threads and Stories by Natalie Chanin, page 106-107; photo by Cliff Billingsley The April issue of Southern Living magazine includes an essay by Natalie titled, “How The Singing River Inspires The South’s Creativity.” Read the full article below, explore our #travel series on the Journal for more on The Shoals, and find upcoming events here. “How The Singing River Inspires The South’s Creativity” The Tennessee River runs right through the region of northwest Alabama known as The Shoals—encompassing Florence and the cities of Muscle Shoals, Sheffield, and Tuscumbia. The river has shaped the landscape and the...
Dianna Settles was born in Los Alamitos, California in 1989. She grew up in Blue Ridge, Georgia and received her BFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 2014. Settles currently resides on an urban farm in Atlanta, Georgia, where she lives and creates in the company of a large community and co-runs Hi-Lo Press, a print studio and art gallery. Settles has exhibited at Institute 193 in Lexington, KY, the High Museum in Atlanta, GA, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the Zuckerman Museum of Art in Kennesaw, GA, among others. This interview was conducted on the eve of her...
There are times when you meet someone and immediately think, “Oh, there you are. I’ve missed you.” You feel as if you’ve known that person forever: dreamed, traveled, laughed, cried, and grown up together. Such was my first conversation with April Gargiulo. Our talk meandered seamlessly between subjects such as the meaning of craft, how to run a business, books we’re reading, raising children, and, of course, skincare. April is the founder of, and creative force behind, Vintner’s Daughter. If you’ve not yet heard of April or experienced her brand, you need to know that her family’s background in producing...
