VIE Magazine July 2017

New

TRAVEL SPOTLIGHT

CHARLESTON, HIGH ART SOUTH CAROLINA THE WORLD’S FAVORITE CITY

TEIL DUNCAN’S

TRANSFORMATIVE WORK

CREATIVES in a CHANGING CITY SAN FRANCISCO’S Legendary ART SCENE EVOLVES

THE

ART & ARTIST ISSUE

THE ART of OLESYA

BRUSHSTROKES of LOVE & GOLD SEALED with A KISS

July 2017

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CREATING PERSONALIZED, MODERN INTERIORS FOR 24 YEARS.

In this issue On the Cover

Born in a Soviet gold-mining town, Olesya Ianovitch is inspired by both her past and her experience as a designer for big-name brands in the United States when she creates her pop art paintings.

26

COLORFUL COAST

INSPIRED BY HER TRAVELS AND HER FAVORITE THINGS, CHARLESTON-BASED ARTIST TEIL DUNCAN TOUCHES ON HER EXPERIENCES TO CREATE IMPRESSIONISTIC INTERPRETATIONS OF LIFE.

Harking back to her roots, she often uses gold leaf and gold flecks in her work, as seen in Gold Champagne Bubbles Kiss on the cover. Read more and see more

FEATURE

SARTORIAL 81

of Olesya’s art in “Brushstrokes of Love

44 Brushstrokes of Love and Gold

82 Get Your Chic On!

and Gold” on page 44.

INSPIRATIONAL MUSINGS 23 Artful Grace

VISUAL PERSPECTIVES 25 26 New High Art: Transforming Life through Art 34 Artful Eye, Adventurous Soul 52 Find Your Way: Art That Amazes 56 Realism Personified: An Artist and His Journey 62 Dirtbag City: Art and Artists of San Francisco 70 The Tenth Annual Digital Graffiti Art Festival Converges at Alys Beach PUBLISHED BY

LA MAISON 76 The 30-A Real Estate Market Continues

84 A Dream Weaver: Living Life in Color

C’EST LA VIE CURATED COLLECTION: THE ARTIST 90 VOYAGER 97 98 Capturing Americana: The Spirit of Baytowne Wharf

108 Sophisticated South: The World’s Favorite City 114 An Insider’s Guide to Charleston 122 Staying Vibrant in Charleston: A Health and Wellness Agenda

LA SCÈNE 130 AU REVOIR! 137

Upward Price Trends

LA VITALITÉ TheIdeaBoutique.com info@theideaboutique.com

78 The Body Is a Masterpiece: A Q&A with Dr. William Burden

V I E MAGAZ INE . COM | 13

CREATIVE TEAM FOUNDER / EDITOR-IN-CHIEF LISA MARIE BURWELL Lisa@VIEmagazine.com

FOUNDER / PUBLISHER GERALD BURWELL Gerald@VIEmagazine.com

EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR JORDAN STAGGS Jordan@VIEmagazine.com

CHIEF COPY EDITOR MARGARET STEVENSON CONTRIBUTING WRITERS SALLIE W. BOYLES, HALEY CHOUINARD, PAMEL A DOWLING, BRIANNE FANNING, LIZZIE LOCKER, ERIN ODEN, TORI PHELPS, JANET THOMAS

ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY ART DIRECTOR TRACEY THOMAS Tracey@VIEmagazine.com

ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR LUCY MASHBURN FILMMAKER AMANDA CROWLEY GRAPHIC DESIGNERS RINN GARL ANGER, OLIVIA PIERCE, HANNAH VERMILLION

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS ADRIENNE BATTISTELL A, GRAY BENKO, JONATHAN BONCEK, ANDREW CEBULK A, RUTA ELVIKY TE, BILLY FARRELL, JACK GARDNER, BRAD GROWDEN, MINETTE HAND, STEFANIE KEENAN, OWEN KOL ASINSKI, ROMONA ROBBINS, TROY RUPRECHT, SCOTT SIMON, JOE VAUGHN, FOTO-SELECT, MODUS PHOTOGRAPHY, SARAH AND PAUL PHOTOGRAPHY

ADVERTISING, SALES, AND MARKETING DIGITAL MARKETING DIRECTOR MEGHN HILL BRANCH OFFICE MANAGER – IRELAND SHARON DUANE MARKETING MANAGER AMANDA CROWLEY CREATIVE STYLIST SUVA ANG-MENDOZA BRAND AMBASSADORS LISA MARIE BURWELL Lisa@VIEmagazine.com MARY JANE KIRBY MaryJane@VIEmagazine.com

DISTRIBUTION MANAGER TIM DUTROW DISTRIBUTION COORDINATOR SHANNON QUINL AN

VIE is a registered trademark. All contents herein are Copyright © 2008–2016 Cornerstone Marketing and Advertising, Incorporated (Publisher). All rights reserved. No part of this periodical may be reproduced without written permission from the Publisher. VIE is a lifestyle magazine and is published six times annually on a bimonthly schedule. The opinions herein are not necessarily those of the Publisher. The Publisher and its advertisers will not be held responsible for any errors found in this publication. The Publisher is not liable for the accuracy of statements made by its advertisers. Ads that appear in this publication are not intended as offers where prohibited by state law. The Publisher is not responsible for photography or artwork submitted by freelance or outside contributors. The Publisher reserves the right to publish any letter addressed to the editor or the Publisher. VIE is a paid publication. Subscription rates: Printed magazine – One-year $29.95; Two-year $54.95. Subscriptions can be purchased online at www.VIEmagazine.com.

14 | J ULY 2017

2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED A BOHEME DESIGN, LLC AA 26001879

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BOHEME www.aboheme.com

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C A L I Z A R E S T A U R A N T . C O M

Editor’s Note

CREATIVITY RULES THE ART MOVEMENT IS BACK

I

am at my best when I am at my worst. Every time I experience a significant change in my life, whether planned or unplanned, it is unsettling for me. There is no denying that change is in the air. It seems that anyone open to talking about it has been feeling a little restless and unsettled, no matter their stage in this journey called life. As much as the process of change can hurt, it’s one of the few situations that will spark creative revolution. And, because I’ve experienced such a transformation within my own life time and time again, I embrace change no matter how uncomfortable.

The companion to change for me has always been humility. When I’m comfortable, I seem to have a mistaken belief that I am secure and don’t need to push myself. Who doesn’t like security? But—whether you’re a creative soul, an artist, an entrepreneur, or even a stay-at-home parent, for that matter—how to make lemonade from the lemons that life doles out is a good lesson to learn because there is no escaping change.

Growth. We all need it, want it, and strive for it—at least until things don’t work out as quickly as we anticipated or the way that we’d hoped. If it weren’t such a difficult process, a lot more people would reach their highest potential more quickly.

But in our fast-paced, “give it to me now” society, very few will attain the heights of personal success because they give up before summiting. Die-hard artists understand the essence of this concept in every fiber of their beings. Driven by blind desire to attain distinction through their art, they must create—that is who they are and what they are destined for. That is why I have such high regard for artists.

Drawing, painting, sculpture, and architecture form the backbone of the visual arts. Then there are the performing arts: music, theater, and dance. And, being in the publishing business, I ought to mention the art of wordsmithing (writing), often overlooked as an art despite its requiring immense creativity. Artistic and aesthetic value can be found in numerous other pursuits as well, including photography, graphic design, and fashion, to name a few. Creating something from nothing is a thrilling experience. But, when things don’t go as planned, it requires much humility, patience, and fortitude to adjust for the changing tides of our culture. When there is a collective angst in the world as there is today, art and artists emerge to either celebrate the beauty or reflect the ugliness around us—hopefully inspiring us all to both appreciate the good things in life and be better contributors to humanity. I am in awe of the artists showcased in this issue, and I hope you enjoy learning about their challenges and life journeys.

Our contribution as artists here at VIE is the presentation of stories through the written word, photography, and graphic design. Our travel spotlight features Charleston, South Carolina, recently voted the best city in the world by the readers

Founder/Editor-in-chief, Lisa Burwell Photo by Romona Robbins

of Travel + Leisure magazine. Through the pen of our Charleston-based contributor, Tori Phelps, we are afforded an insider’s take on this beautiful city. As part of VIE’s Stories with Heart and Soul national tour, we will host an invitation-only meet-and-greet in the luxurious Residential Balcony Suite at the boutique Restoration Hotel in Charleston on June 22.

This 1,300-square-foot space has been taken from its roots in the eighteen hundreds and transformed into an upscale, sophisticated loft.

To all the artists of the world—I pray that your fires keep burning within and that you continue to create, as you make the world a better place!

To Life!

—Lisa Marie Burwell Founder/Editor-In-Chief V I E MAGAZ INE . COM | 17

Good Food. Good People. Good Times.

Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.

BudandAlleys.com 850.231.5900

La conversation We collaborate with talented photographers, writers, and other creatives on a regular basis, and we’re continually inspired by how they pour their hearts and souls into their crafts. Follow these Creatives on Instagram and don’t forget to check out our account, @viemagazine.

TEIL DUNCAN

CHANDLER WILLIAMS

Artist, “New High Art: Transforming Life through Art”

Photographer, “Artful Eye, Adventurous Soul”

@teilart | TeilDuncan.com

FOR THIS ISSUE, WE ASKED THE CREATIVES, “WHAT INSPIRES YOU TO CREATE, AND WHY DO YOU THINK ART IS IMPORTANT?”

@modusphoto | ModusPhotography.com

Traveling inspires me to create. Whether it’s a clothes line with brightly colored clothes draped across it or a snowcapped mountain range, something about seeing beauty in the world inspires me to run back to the studio and create my own version of it. Art of any kind is important. There are places in the world where artistic freedom is restricted; as a result, the area is dull, gray, and lifeless. I think art—or any form of creativity—is one of the main characteristics that make us human. We are made in the image of God Himself, who is the ultimate Creator.

I think finding peace and inspiration for my work comes from the combination of being near the salt water and being able to experience other cultures. I’ve always felt that photography is a universal language and my form of communication. I don’t necessarily think it’s so important to “do art.” I strongly feel it is important that you do what you love to do; find out whatever that is and then make it happen, and continue to grow in the passion. I’ve found so much joy in being a photographer and content creator. Every day offers something different. It’s a ton of work, but I can honestly say I truly love my job and career.

ANDY SACZYNSKI

OLESYA VALENTINA IANOVITCH

Artist, Au revoir!

Artist, “Brushstrokes of Love and Gold”

JORDAN STAGGS Managing Editor @jojomonster12

One of my favorite lines from Oscar Wilde is “All art is quite useless” (from the preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray). It sounds like it’s coming from someone who hates art, which seems hypocritical for a writer. But if you think about it, art is useless in the grand scheme of things.

You can’t eat it or wear it. A sculpture or a book won’t keep you alive if you’re starving, freezing, or sick. Wilde later went on to explain that “Art is useless because its aim is simply to create a mood.”

Its uselessness doesn’t make art unimportant.

Creating a mood, bringing joy or sadness or other raw emotion to an audience is important. Art can’t save the body, but it can save the soul—of the artist or the audience. This inspires me to create.

@artbyandyski | ArtbyAndySki.com

What most inspires me about art is that there is no wrong answer. There’s freedom in that, which is why it’s important to me.

Where I live and work also plays a big role in what I create. The local landscape and the wildlife of Northwest Florida often make appearances in my work. Who wouldn’t be inspired by the beauty of South Walton?

@dreamolesya | DreambyOlesya.com

Every day, I question my reality, which leads to questions about other perceptions. It inspires me to innovate within my craft and share beauty with the world. How is art not important? It is our innate form of expression that speaks a universal language and holds the keys to the past, the present, and the future.

V I E MAGAZ INE . COM | 19

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The Creatives

DROP US A LINE, ANYTIME! WE LOVE TO COMMUNICATE AND INTERACT WITH OUR READERS! AND WE LOVE IT EVEN MORE WHEN THEY PROUDLY SHARE THEIR STORIES AND POSE WITH VIE FOR A CLOSE-UP! THAT’S WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT: SHARING, LOVING, AND BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS. WE THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH AND WE APPRECIATE YOU!

HAIR & MAKEUP Your NEW GO-TO RESORT LOOKS

THE

HEALTH & BEAUTY ISSUE

LA BEAUTÉ FEATURE

TRUE BEAUTY is ALL AROUND US

DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY in

January / February 2017

@eatdrinkcarolinas Perfect morning. A flat white and this gem of a publication @viemagazine. #eatdrinkcarolinas #writerstephburnette #rosemarybeach #morningstilllife

@Carlo Pieroni Buon Weekend! Another image from the editorial I photographed for VIE magazine w/winning designer Richelle Valenzuela and model winners Isabella DeLeón and Jordan Canamar.

Congrats again everyone!

@Children’s Harbor Thank you VIE magazine for the shout out in your March/April issue!

“Children’s Harbor is one of the most iconic spots on Lake Martin. The property hosts children’s camps as well as other events throughout the year.” Photography: Jim Denney

ARUBA

THE PAINTED LADY

ASHLEY LONGSHORE and CLÉ DE PEAU BEAUTÉ

LIVING WITH

MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS in Your TWENTIES

@Elizabeth Wilson Love my VIE magazine and have a special love for its editor Lisa! … I take care of a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease— such a tough disease! Makes me so much more grateful for being a healthy woman! This magazine issue is so inspirational! Thanks Lisa, love you.

@shineonliving Getting our favorite beach essentials for this perfect sunny & toasty kind of day! #springbreak #prettyskin #natural #vie

LET’S TALK! Send VIE your comments and photos on our social media channels or by e-mailing us at info@viemagazine. We’d love to hear your thoughts. They could end up in the next La conversation! @theideaboutique Any morning in @AlysBeachFL is a great morning! Viewing the beautiful space at @FonvillePress cafe as we plan for @viemagazine’s launch party for @DGalysbeach 10th Anniversary.

@tracery_interiors Beach day or lake day— either way it’s a beautiful weekend to be out on the water! Check out this lake house feature in @viemagazine or online!

VIEmagazine.com

V I E MAGAZ INE . COM | 21

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Inspirational Musings

ARTFUL GR ACE When I hear the word art, my thoughts go to one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. It was nearly three years ago, and I lived in a third-floor apartment with a lovely balcony. I stepped out early one morning to see the most amazing sunrise, and it took my breath away.

But more important than what I saw, was what I felt. I had this thought: “Wow, God, you are amazing. There is no creator greater you!” I don’t think anyone would disagree. God says that we are created in His image, so could it be that we, too, have His artistic abilities? The answer may be in the eye of the beholder.

Qualifying as a gifted artist can run across a broad spectrum of genres and mediums.

Some have the gift of painting; some write great books of intrigue, adventure, and love. Others seem to have a melodic voice or possess musical abilities that can bring listeners to tears. Sometimes these gifts can take years to develop; sometimes the discovery of an innate talent can occur very early in life. Consider artist Akiane Kramarik. At the age of four, she began to paint, and by age eight, she had painted what is now known as Prince of Peace, a depiction of Jesus Christ.

Truly, Kramarik has a gift that others may not, but I challenge each of you to think beyond what you currently believe you can accomplish. My eleven-year-old granddaughter Bethany can sing, design clothing, and dance—I am in constant suspense as to what other artistic talents she might uncover.

You see, no gift is greater than the other. I often hear people say, “I don’t have a creative bone in my body!” But one’s metaphorical heart and spirit can be packed full of artistic ability. Most often we are simply too afraid to challenge ourselves to reach our full potential. We listen too much to self-criticism or negativity from parents, teachers, or peers.

not have the pleasure of seeing all the inspiring Disney movies or visiting any of the magical Disney theme parks. I am not saying that success came easy for Walt Disney, but in the face of criticism and adversity, he pushed forward, and I am so glad he did.

It is never too late in life to embrace all the talent that God has gifted to you. Just yesterday, I met Martha and her husband, Marion—a wonderful couple in their seventies who live in Huntsville, Alabama.

Not long ago, Martha took up her passion for photography and now her work is being displayed in a Huntsville museum and other area venues. Martha embraced her God-given talent and because she did, many people get to enjoy her photography.

Think of this: In 1919, Walt Disney was fired from one of his first animation jobs.

His editor at the Kansas City Star newspaper felt he lacked imagination.

Matthew 5:15–16 says that we are to let our light shine. We are not to hide it under a bushel. Let your light shine!

What if Disney had allowed his editor’s criticism to get into his heart and take root? The world might never have known Mickey or Minnie Mouse. We would

You are good enough, —Pamela Dowling

In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

MATTHEW 5:16

V I E MAGAZ INE . COM | 23

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Visual Perspectives

Visual Perspectives THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

PYGMALION AND GALATEA

By N.S. Racheotes

He sees her, as no other man could, With the mind’s eye, Focused by Tyche and Techne, His fingers are subjugated; They are tools of his passion.

She regards him from her ivory-walled chamber; Would read his lust; Could feel his hands Bringing her up, Out, Beyond, From featureless To features.

The chiseled strokes of procreation have ended In the labored respiration of birth; They have dangerously known love, Beyond calculation, But not beyond witness, She now stands in his embrace, And they in the world’s.

VIE readers may well recognize the surname Racheotes. Nicholas (N.S.), the author of “Pygmalion and Galatea,” is a gifted writer and a regular contributor to VIE. His brother Basil, whose artistic talents lie in sculpting, is the creator of Goddess, seen here. Basil studied at Brandeis University under the guidance of the late and famous Reuben Nakian.

After attaining his BFA, he worked full-time with Nakian until Nakian’s death in 1986. Currently working out of his studio in Fairfield, Connecticut, Basil focuses on fragmentary and impressionistic imagery. Learn more at BasilArt.com.

Goddess Figurative, ceramic sculpture 9" x 6"

V I E MAGAZ INE . COM | 25

Visual Perspectives

NEW HIGH ART TRANSFORMING L I F E through A R T

B y To r i P h e l p s P h o t o g r a p h y c o u r t e s y o f Te i l D u n c a n

G

ood art transforms a space; great art transforms its viewers. Teil Duncan is an artist with the rare ability to immerse people into a scene so thoroughly that they can almost feel the sun’s rays reflecting off the sand or the wind whipping around bare legs.

Through color, texture, and light, she invites you to experience the world the way she does.

Duncan’s world began in Columbus, Georgia, where she developed an early interest in visual art. It wasn’t unheard of in the family; her great-grandmother, also named Teil, was a painter who took up a brush at age eighty. The younger Teil, who counts herself lucky to have a mother who nurtured that enthusiasm, eventually earned an art degree from Auburn University.

What to do with that degree was the question.

The answer seemed to be in Charleston, though Duncan insists she had no real intention of pursuing a full-time career in art there. She was simply drawn to the same things everyone else is: the architecture, the food, the people, and the coastal pace.

Though she took on painting commissions, the majority of her income came from waiting tables and working at a preschool. It wasn’t until she stumbled upon Redux Contemporary Art Center—a studio work space filled with young, successful artists—that it occurred to Duncan to consider art as a viable career option. She immediately quit both of her jobs, took out a loan, rented a studio, and began to paint full-time.

V I E MAGAZ INE . COM | 27

Visual Perspectives

HER APPROACH REMAINED THE SAME WITH EACH SUBJECT: INTERESTING C O L O R PA L E T T E S , BOLD BRUSHSTROKES, M U LT I P L E L AY E R S , A DEFINITIVE LIGHT SOURCE, AND I N T R I C A T E PA T T E R N S COMBINED WITH LOOSE ABSTRACTIONS.

Previous page left: Photo by Gray Benko Previous page right: Plum Pier, acrylic painting on a 36" x 48" birch wood panel. Each painting in this series was inspired by the South Carolina coast.

Above: Photo by Minette Hand Opposite: Teal Gaze, acrylic painting on a 30" x 40" birch wood panel

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s excited as she was about this new adventure, she was also realistic. “I was absolutely worried about failing as an artist,” she admits. “It was already a very bold statement to claim that I was good enough at art to pursue it as a job.”

She lived with that doubt for about two years, during which she experimented with a variety of styles and mediums. One day, she took photos of a figure model during a drawing class and decided to paint her. Duncan switched from oils to acrylics, minimized her color palette, and started painting the same five poses over and over on a very small scale.

Voilà—a signature style was born.

28 | J ULY 2017

She launched an online shop and e-mailed every influential blogger she could think of, asking for exposure. Creatively, she concentrated on figures for about six months and then switched to beach scenes.

Her approach remained the same with each subject: interesting color palettes, bold brushstrokes, multiple layers, a definitive light source, and intricate patterns combined with loose abstractions.

Affirmation of her work came quickly, and the selfdoubt dissipated just as quickly. Her series were officially a hit, and she was emboldened to tackle new subjects. One of her first series, however, continues to be most in demand. “People seem to be most excited about beach scenes,” Duncan says. “I frequently receive comments about how happy they make people.”

Duncan’s studio manager, Laura Lea Vernon, explains that Duncan typically creates a sixteen-painting series on a single subject—all similar in style—and then takes a break between subjects. Social media allows admirers to stay up to date not only on her work but also on when paintings will be available for purchase.

“They all go within minutes,” Vernon says of newly released series.

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Opposite: On the Hunt, acrylic painting on a 30" x 30" birch wood panel Below: Plage de Carnoles, acrylic painting on a 36" x 48" birch wood panel. Each painting in this series was inspired

by Duncan’s travels in the South of France.

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hile her distinctive style is instantly recognizable—and lucrative—Duncan’s goal is growth and evolution as an artist.

She frequently travels with her husband, and those experiences often find expression in her paintings. Still, she can’t help but be most inspired by Charleston and its visionary residents. “Even though it’s a laid-back, beachy town, people are hard at work in the creative field, gaining national recognition,” she says, adding that her fellow artists are great motivation to keep toiling away in her studio. “I owe a lot of my success to the city of Charleston.”

“Success” may be an understatement. With famous buyers on speed dial and a demand that far exceeds

“TEIL IS NOT WHO YOU WOULD THINK SHE’D BE AS A SUCCESSFUL A R T I S T. S H E ’ S SUPERHUMBLE A N D A L WA Y S LOOKING FOR A WA Y T O U S E H E R P L AT F O R M T O H E L P O T H E R P E O P L E .”

her supply, Duncan has earned some swagger in her step and even the occasional artistic temper tantrum.

But it’s just not in her nature, according to Vernon, who also happens to be her sister. “Teil is not who you would think she’d be as a successful artist,” she confides. “She’s superhumble and always looking for a way to use her platform to help other people.”

Which makes it even easier to root for her. Duncan doesn’t know where the future will lead—geographically or artistically—but she’s excited to find out. “I’m not satisfied pursuing only one subject,” she says. “I’m consistently releasing new series of artwork and, thankfully, my audience seems to receive them well.”

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Visual Perspectives

A rocky isle reaches heavenward, striking against the vibrantly blue water and perfect Hawaiian sky. “Found this gem after a long paddle and tiring trek around the small island of Oahu,” says Williams. “Sometimes risks must be taken to get that perfect shot.”

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ARTFUL EYE, ADVENTUROUS SOUL

By Brianne Fanning Photography by Chandler Williams, Modus Photography

Imagine trudging through jungles in torrential rain to meet medicine men, paddling through turbulent waters in search of adventure, meeting new people and exploring diverse cultures—and experiencing all this while capturing unique moments, memories, and stories through a highdefinition lens. For most of us, it’s a lifestyle we only dream of living; for Chandler Williams, it’s reality.

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Right: “‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure’ is true for this Nicaraguan native searching a landfill for trash he can recycle for money or trade,” Williams narrates.

“Capturing authentic lifestyle moments like this one makes being a photographer worth every moment.”

Opposite top: People relaxing on the beach and boats floating in the water represent a typical day on the island of Tortuga, Costa Rica.

The unique shapes and vibrant colors illustrate the brilliance of this beautiful island.

Opposite bottom: Hawaiian green sea turtle swims effortlessly through the crystal clear water just off the North Shore of Oahu.

“Taking photos in the water is always a thrill because there is no time to review the shots taken, compelling you to live in the moment and be surprised by the amazing results later,” Williams shares.

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Visual Perspectives

An enthusiastic artist with a keen eye for detail, Williams has combined his passions—travel and photography—into a thrilling career. As a teenager, he realized travel was in his blood after buying a oneway bus ticket to live with his sister in New Mexico.

Shortly afterward, a sports journalist mentored him in the art of photography and developing film, and so his interest in photography was born. The next few years found Williams, camera in hand, trekking across the United States, Mexico, and Costa Rica on the lookout for awesome experiences and, of course, the perfect shot.

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"I look back at those moments now; I never imagined I would visit so many places, meet so many people, and take pictures for a living."

Williams’s adventures led to the launch of Modus Photography in 2007. From a small one-man operation peddling still images, Modus has now grown into a team of creatives offering a range of photography and cinematography services around the world.

When speaking about his career, Williams expresses pure excitement for the lifestyle he has built. “I remember the first time someone paid me to take photos,” he says. “It was the summer of ’99. After the shoot, I was so excited that I went directly to the local drugstore to get the black-and-white film developed. I look back at those moments now; I never imagined I would visit so many places, meet so many people, and take pictures for a living. I really do love my job!”

“In San Cristóbal, Dominican Republic, inspiring students support a local orphanage where even basic needs such as water, food, and fun are rare,” Williams shares. “An incredibly emotional experience, this image represents hope, regardless of an individual’s race, color, or denomination.”

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As an artist and a business owner, Williams constantly looks for new opportunities to expand his creative limits.

Exhausted mom and baby turtle battle their way back to their ocean home during the arribada or “arrival” in Ostional, Costa Rica.

“Observing these strong animals rest, rejuvenate, and continue their trek to the water was truly inspiring,” Williams says.

As an artist and a business owner, Williams constantly looks for new opportunities to expand his creative limits, from transferring images to a variety of mediums to building rustic frames out of locally salvaged and repurposed wood. He is currently adding a limitededition expansion to his gallery in Grayton Beach, Florida, to share more of the moments and emotions captured during his explorations.

With the support of his family and friends, Williams continues to explore the world through his camera lens, his photography forever revealing a traveler’s spirit.

Find Williams’s artwork for sale at ModusPhotography.com and see his travels at ChandlerWilliamsPhoto.com.

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Visual Perspectives

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By Sallie W. Boyles

hortly before Olesya Ianovitch was born, her mother, living in what was then a remote part of the Soviet Union, took a trip to the small mining town of Maikain, now part of Kazakhstan. “She wanted to give birth to me in a place that was special,” the artist explains. Apparently, the ground there glistened with

little flecks of gold. Considering Olesya’s affinity for sparkles and abundance, exemplified in her artwork and amplified through her personality, destiny was surely at play!

Artist Olesya poses in her New Orleans studio.

Photo by Scott Simon.

Opposite: Gold Champagne Bubbles Kiss, 30" x 48"

An optimist with a tune of laughter in her voice, Olesya looks back on her childhood and contrasts the “beautiful world” she interpreted in her mind with certain realities of Soviet life. “There wasn’t much color or many flowers in the shops,” she recalls. “The stores were minimalistic. Maybe I started to create abundant images because I was visually lacking something growing up.” Quite naturally, then, as someone who gets “really excited about color and simple things” and wants “to spread joy and happiness everywhere,” Olesya fell in love with painting.

She first asked for brushes when she was only three years old. Unfamiliar with the nuances of

different media, Olesya’s mother fortuitously purchased oils. “She didn’t know,” says Olesya, “but the rawness and texture of oil—its realness—makes it the best.” Oil remains her preference, and painting still captivates her like a charm. As a child who often bounced from one thing to the next, Olesya says, “I was painting for hours and hours.”

Those periods of getting lost in her paintings endure, and they happen organically. “When I paint,” Olesya divulges, “I want to be open and convey the energy that I carry. Colors express a state of mind, so the days I feel affected by something—maybe stress over a business decision—I will not pick up a brush.

I keep each session so pure and dedicated that if the

paint is not going on the right way, if it’s not flowing, I let it go and wait and do something else. Time does magic. It always does, and it always works.”

In addition to granting her time to create, Olesya’s parents instilled self-reliance in their daughter. “I’ve always been intuitive,” she says, “and from an early age, they gave me the freedom to think for myself.”

They further ignited her zeal for travel. (Naming Japan, Italy, France, Russia, and Spain among the countries she loves to visit again and again, Olesya claims she’ll travel until her “dying day.”) After traveling extensively with her family for their work in Russia, she left home at fourteen to live in the United States. “My father had moved here alone and invited me to join him,” she says.

Despite missing her mother and others back home, Olesya fell in love with the U.S. Already fluent in English from summer schools in Europe, including the United Kingdom, she attended a Waldorf school (a program that, in part, cultivates artistic expression) in New York. After high school, she entered Stony Brook University to study fine arts with a focus on graphic design and painting. Olesya also played Division I tennis.

During her last year of college, she got busy working as a graphic designer for HBO in New York. For over fifteen years, Olesya made a name for herself in the creative industry, building an extensive résumé—

e.g., catalog layouts, ad campaigns, product design, and retail space styling—with Under Armour, Abercrombie & Fitch, Hearst Magazines, and others. More importantly, her insights prepared her to succeed professionally as an artist, and a move to New Orleans three years ago eliminated any reasons not to try.

Olesya’s Floral Crown Portrait collection encompasses some of her most elaborate works. “The collection doesn’t identify a person fully,” she points out, “but the lips and eyes are prominent. I have a fascination with the features.” Obviously!

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issed with eighteen-carat gold leaf (remember, the artist was born in Maikain), magnificent flowers, luscious lips, and captivating eyes dominate many of her paintings, the ideas for which she often conceives when traveling. With a penchant for collage, Olesya often conveys the essence of a place in a mesmerizing blend of unexpected elements.

Whatever the inspiration, her handwritten story about the piece accompanies every canvas. “I share a little romance on the back of each painting so that the owner knows what went through my mind,” Olesya offers.

“It’s my personal, private letter—my way of opening up and giving the meaning of the color and brushstrokes.”

In addition to gold, Olesya uses Swarovski crystals, pearls, and hand embroidery to embellish her

paintings. The embroidery (her own) is a skill she acquired from her grandmother who sewed gorgeous tapestries. Olesya’s dimensional paint drip is yet another signature element. No matter the application, Olesya takes pains to perfect the dripping effect. As to the shine in her paintings, she says, “I’ve mastered the resin-gloss technique that I apply to the canvas.”

Other treatments—gold and crystals, for instance— allow the medium to “shift.” It’s a process of “marrying shapes and forms with materials.”

Drawn to three-dimensional art, Olesya says, “For centuries, we’ve painted in squares and boxes; I want to challenge the canvas and our minds.”

So far, taking a characteristically playful approach, she has collaborated with metal sculptor Garrett Haab to design candy sculptures for an original show she entitled Candy Shop. The candy sculptures

pair perfectly with her paintings of lips and flowers, but real candy—and not just any candy—makes everything sweeter.

Yoshikori Sakai 36" x 36" Opposite: Flower Girl series Photos by Adrienne Battistella.

In conceiving the idea for Candy Shop, Olesya, an ardent fan of Russian-born tennis star Maria Sharapova, thought of another great tie-in: the athlete’s Sugarpova candy line. Fittingly, psychedelic lips identify the brand. “I thought, ‘Why not make some giant lip sculptures out of candy?’” says Olesya, who successfully pitched the idea of using Sugarpova candy to Sharapova’s marketing team. “Next thing, they’re asking me how much candy I needed, so I very conservatively did some math. They tripled my estimate, so I got boxes and boxes of candy from Maria!” At the Candy Shop show, Sugarpova passed patrons’ lips as they savored the visual exhibition.

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Visual Perspectives

“For so long, I’ve been working and building myself up,” she says, “with a focus on getting things done, no matter what it took. Now, I realize I need extra help.” Happily, she reports, “My mom came on board as my gallery manager. When I put on a show, she helps with installation and can see my vision before I say anything.” Olesya is also adding full-time staff and interns, whom she hopes to nurture. “I want to teach others the tricks of the trade— the art, but also marketing and PR, the business side. I can pass that on and build a great team.”

To maintain control, Olesya has kept much of her work close to home, with pieces predominately displayed in galleries around New Orleans and on her website. Even so, admirers near and far seek her out for commissions.

Purple Fog 36" x 48" Photo by Adrienne Battistella.

Opposite: Denim Flower Girl 36" x 36"

48 | J ULY 2017

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eemingly a sweet deal for all parties, Candy Shop shows have popped up in different cities, and Olesya hints at future partnerships with Sugarpova.

Well into a phase of rapid growth, Olesya embraces new opportunities. She’s planning to become a household name with home goods, fabrics, wallpaper, and apparel. “I’m thinking of little summer jackets with floral linings,” she muses. Meanwhile, Olesya still escapes to work on personally inspired pieces and collections, and to satisfy her commissions, but she can’t do everything.

The Kaname group of Kanazawa, Japan, commissioned Olesya to paint on three oversize golden geisha fans as part of their new hotel group launch.

They based the project around tosenkyo, an ancient geisha game. Olesya spent two weeks in Kanazawa and painted the custom-built fans, each over six and a half feet wide, with various symbols of Japanese culture, such as geishas in traditional floral kimonos, cherry blossoms, a Noh theatre mask, a legendary samurai, and more. Olesya also included her signature lips and, of course, gold leaf in the colorful designs. By no coincidence, the production of gold leaf began in Kanazawa (the city’s name means “marsh of gold”) in the sixteenth century. “I was born in a city of gold,” says Olesya, “so years later, the Japanese built a bridge to their city of gold for me to tell their story.”

As the rest of her story unfolds, Olesya feels indebted to those who have supported her from day one; therefore, she honors collectors by making prints of only selected paintings and then limits the number of copies to two. Other items emblazoned with her art, such as notebooks and pillows, are also duplicated in controlled quantities. “When I say, ‘limited edition,’”

Olesya asserts, “I print x amount and sell out. Next time, I’ll change everything; the selection will be fresh. I get tired of looking at the same thing.”

Her favorite paintings hanging in her home are the exceptions. “I call it my permanent collection,” Olesya says, adding, “I would never part with them.” Unlike some artists who look back on their creations with critical eyes, saying they would redo certain things, Olesya usually loves what she sees. “You should be able to appreciate your work,” she insists.

Olesya’s perspective meshes with her overall attitude. “I embrace the world and see the good things,” she says. Pointing to flowers that blossom from “ridiculously awesome brushstrokes,” Olesya explains, “I make the little things bigger. My goal is simple: making people smile with my art. It’s a great energy to possess and spread.”

To view more of Olesya’s work or to contact her about commissions or other matters, readers should visit her website, ArtbyDreamOlesya.com. She is also represented at BRAND New Orleans Gallery located at 646 Tchoupitoulas Street.

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Visual Perspectives

AM MA AARRTT TTHH AATT A A ZZ EE SS

By Jordan Staggs

A

rt is meant to be interactive, whether you’re looking at a painting or a sculpture, reading a poem, or even finding your way through a maze of bright colors and crisp graphics. Labyrinth, a book of fourteen mazes by Paris-based designer ThÊo Guignard, was released in March of this year and includes artistic adventures for all ages. Readers can escape from the clutches of a dragon, navigate a mind-bending series of geometric shapes, and more.

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Visual Perspectives

This experience really shows through, and paired with the large format of the book, you can really immerse yourself into all the scenes and pore over the details for hours.

The fourteen mazes in Labyrinth increase in complexity as you work your way through the book. Each page offers not only a standard maze puzzle, but also a list of objects or challenges to complete, such as finding a blue towel with bananas on it in this beach scene (top) or a row of three plants as you help this man get to his date at the art museum (bottom).

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“Théo’s art is crossover in its appeal, which makes the book fun and challenging for people of all ages,” says the team at Wide-Eyed Editions publishing.

“We wanted to ensure there is something in the book for the whole family, so some of the mazes are simple, and some are more complex. Théo has created mazes that come from his own imagination, influenced by his background as an animator. This experience really shows through, and paired with the large format of the book, you can immerse yourself into all the scenes and pore over the details for hours.”

Guignard is one of the leading graphic artists in Paris and worked for Xilam, one of the largest animation studios in France. He also created artistic backgrounds for animated television at Je Suis Bien Content.

Publishers Weekly calls Guignard’s Labyrinth book “immersive fun for eagle-eyed readers, who will be impressed by his creativity and playful use of perspective, whether they’re threading their way through an overhead view of sunbathing beachgoers and their umbrellas or tracing a path through a neighborhood whose roads actually recede into the distance.”

Can you find your way? Enjoy a peek into the world of Labyrinth here!

Labyrinth is now available for purchase online from Amazon and other major booksellers.

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Visual Perspectives

ooking at a half-finished painting in Nick Sider’s Brooklyn art studio, you’d think someone had digitally cut out the middle of a photograph. The painting, a wildlife scene, though a work in progress, already has the disarming realness that is characteristic of Sider’s hyperrealistic work. Considering the skill shown in the many paintings that dot his workspace, it’s hard to believe that Sider picked up painting professionally only four years ago. In early 2013, while working in community outreach at a church in Canada, Sider decided to quit his job, move back to America, and give painting a try.

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“THERE’S A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ART YOU LOVE AND APPRECIATE AND ART YOU ACTUALLY ENJOY CREATING. I CAME TO TERMS WITH THE FACT THAT THIS IS HOW I WORK AND THIS IS THE TYPE OF ART I LOVE TO MAKE.”

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Visual Perspectives “I was twenty-five at the time and wrestling with the fact that I wasn’t happy with my career choice,” Sider says over coffee in a small shop in Gowanus, an industrial neighborhood in Brooklyn. “My parents actually suggested that I quit my job. They reminded me that as a kid, I always wanted to be an artist. They said, ‘What do you have to lose?’”

After moving back to the United States and completing his first original work, he was asked to do a commissioned piece. Three months after moving, he was comfortable enough to quit his side gig as a waiter and become a full-time artist.

Sider specializes in hyperrealism, a genre of painting that resembles high-resolution photography. He was drawn to the style before he even knew what it was called. “I experimented with other styles when I started painting, but I don’t like working in any other style as much as I do hyperrealism,” Sider says. “There’s a difference between art you love and appreciate and art you actually enjoy creating. I came to terms with the fact that this is how I work and this is the type of art I love to make.”

Sider’s influences range from Chuck Close and Robert Bateman (whom Sider refers to as a Canadian national treasure) to Pablo Picasso and Jean-Michel Basquiat. His own work consists mostly of portraiture and wildlife scenes, though he’s also tried his hand at more abstract works. Despite experimenting with other subjects, scenes of nature are his favorite to paint.

“Since I was a kid, wildlife and art have been one and the same to me,” Sider says. “When I became an artist, I noticed that wildlife art and contemporary art were completely separate from each other. I tried to get away from painting wildlife for a bit, but now I’ve leaned into it. I try and make it accessible to both audiences.

It’s become consistently what I sell the most of.”

This page: CHISOMO, acrylic on canvas Opposite: MORNING GLORY, acrylic on canvas

58 | J ULY 2017

He works mostly from photographs, which allow him to zoom in and integrate the tiny details that make his work distinctive. When he has an idea of what he wants to paint, he searches online until he finds what he’s looking for and then reaches out to the photographer to ask permission to use it. A painting can take him anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to complete, depending on its size. Sider paints in acrylic, which

“MY PARENTS ACTUALLY SUGGESTED THAT I QUIT MY JOB. THEY REMINDED ME THAT AS A KID, I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE AN ARTIST. THEY SAID, ‘WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO LOSE?’”

dries quickly and works well for paintings that have a lot of layers, as his do. He’s quick to add that he began working in acrylic because his mother, an artist herself, passed on her set of acrylic paints to him when he started out.

When he began painting, Sider started posting his work on social media. His use of platforms such as Instagram has provided a direct line to a clientele that he hasn’t found through the New York gallery scene. When asked if he’s found the New York art community receptive to his work, Sider chuckles and says, “No.” While many artists rely on gallery representation to sell their art with the gallery receiving a percentage of each sale, Sider quickly realized he wasn’t interested in working that way.

“When I first moved here, I started chasing after what I think is this ‘New York’ idea of success in the art world—to get into the biggest gallery, sell paintings for a lot of money, get big collectors buying your work and become famous,” Sider says. “I met a lot of people who had those goals, but, for whatever reason, that was never my dream. It made me question whether there was a place for me in New York.”

He left the city for about six months, but then his work started to amass an online following. He currently has over twenty thousand followers on Instagram, and one video of Sider working on a self-portrait has garnered eleven million views on Facebook and even got noticed by rapper 50 Cent. Sider decided to move back to New York, but with the understanding that he would do things differently and work on his own, without gallery representation.

Though he has done two gallery shows in Manhattan since returning to the city, most of Sider’s success has happened independently. “It’s been very organic,” he says. “People will message me on social media, or they’ll

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Visual Perspectives

“WOULD MY KID-SELF KID SELF BE APPLAUDING WHAT I’M DOING WITH MY LIFE? RIGHT NOW, I KNOW THAT HE WOULD BE. IT’S A GREAT FEELING.”

see one of my videos and e-mail me. It’s all been great because in the beginning stages, you’re so worried about how to get your art out there, and now I’m just keeping up with demand. I get to focus on the painting.”

His storefront-cum-studio is in Gowanus and sits on a side street that also boasts a trendy-looking kosher steak house and the Bell House, a popular music venue. Sider paints in his studio nearly every day. “Even if I have other things planned, my first thought in the morning is usually that I should be painting,” he admits. “I see how artists can get burnt out, and I’m working on striking a balance and actually taking days off.”

At this point in his career, Sider defines success as making enough money to continue painting.

“Someone recently asked me what my five-year plan is,” Sider says with a slight grin. “I don’t even know what’s going to happen month to month, let alone in the next couple years. Five years ago, I wasn’t even painting, so who knows? This whole journey for me can be boiled down to one question: Would my kid self be applauding what I’m doing with my life? Right now, I know that he would be.

It’s a great feeling.”

NickSider.com

FACE TO FACE, acrylic on canvas 60 | J ULY 2017

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Visual Perspectives

Dirtbag City ART & ARTISTS OF SAN FRANCISCO

By Lizzie Locker “It’s hard out here for a pimp,” I croak. My roommate Nikki giggles as she stirs her coffee over the sink. She drags the wet spoon across her paint-splattered hoodie absently, the same way she wipes her paintbrushes. Her eyes are puffy, her blond ringlets wild.

I am usually at our kitchen table at seven in the morning, bent over my laptop or my sewing machine, hammering away at some unimportant project I wish I could call art. Nikki’s hoodie, its front covered in streaks of coordinating blues and grays, is more worthy of the title. We are both getting ready to go to work (not our real work, you understand, just the work that pays us)—me to the couture fabric store where I’m little more than a shopgirl, she to run errands as a personal assistant to a local entrepreneur. I’m worn down from saying the same things all day, climbing ladders, lifting heavy stock, fetching, finding, matching, and measuring for the clueless or the color blind. When all that is done, I’ll come home, light a joint, turn on Netflix, and allow myself to dissolve. That is the kind of “artist” I am.

Nikki, though, is not. When she is done with work, she will go to her studio in the shipyard to paint. She will build frames, stretch canvases, and splatter and splash paint until the wee hours of the morning. She does her real work in the quiet of the night while I am fast asleep with the television leaking canned laughter and blue light. “Gotta get your forty hours in somewhere,” she says to me all the time. Most people don’t get the joke—that her forty-hour workweek only counts hours painting, not PA-ing.

Nikki Vismara, my roommate, is the real artist. She’s the one you’ll remember in a century, the great painter and party princess. When I tell you, I tell you truly, she is a hustler supreme and queen of the scene, from the loud and crowded hip-hop underground of Oakland to the wine-and-cheese rooftop soirees of LA. She’s the type of unforgettable, undeniable force you won’t forget: “that girl with the hair.”

I tell Nikki she looks tired, and that maybe she should go back to bed and go to work an hour or two later since she has that luxury.

“Motivate, don’t marinate!” she chirps, shrugging her sharp shoulders, grinning her bitter grin.

San Francisco, California, has long been known as an artistic capital in the United States, especially as part of the 1950s and ’60s beatnik and hippie cultures. Today, the growth of the city as a technological hub of the world has forced shifts in the art scene, but the Bay Area remains a mecca for artists, writers, and musicians.

V I E MAGAZ INE . COM | 63

Visual Perspectives

W

e’ve been flocking to San Francisco forever—the we irdos, the freaks, the wicked, and the wild. We came with the Gold Rush and never stopped. When what you do or what you are becomes illegal, you come to the Sanctuary City, where it

seems like no one is illegal and nothing is not allowed. San Francisco is where outlaws come to find shelter, where refugees and immigrants come to find a home, where long-haired children come to get high and enlightened, where those with leather-clad longings find the key to their release, where the weird come to be left alone—and where everyone else comes to strike gold.

I came for lots of sad and desperate reasons, but all you need to know is that I came to get a master’s degree at the University of San Francisco. I came to be a writer, an academic, an artiste of the champagne variety. I hoped.

I arrived in the city with my cat under my arm and one good dress, with no job, no place to live, and no friends. I landed in a one-room apartment with a shared bathroom (for which I paid $1,300 per month) in San Francisco’s infamous inner-city human litter box, the Tenderloin. I survived on cheap wine and cheaper Korean fried chicken from the shoebox-sized restaurant next door, and I spent my nights drinking overpriced Bud Light at Diva’s, the transgender dive bar across the street where no one bothered me in my back corner booth.

San Francisco has always been where outlaws came to find shelter, where the weird came to be left alone,where everyone else came to strike gold.

Those early, grungy days still reek in my mind— waking up to acidic, merlot-purple vomit in my sink and not remembering how it got there; playing a wry game of “Human or Dog?” with myself whenever I passed glistening feces drying in the hot summer streets; dodging needles in the gutters; breathing in the cloudy stench of mold in the basement of my apartment building, where unwashed folk occasionally snuck in and camped behind the washing machines.

Nikki Vismara is a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has a master’s degree from the University of Lyon in France. She has a studio at Hunters Point and currently serves on ArtSpan’s Open Studios committee.

NikkiVismara.com 64 | J ULY 2017

At the same time as all that, I led a second, much sweeter life. In my MFA classes I was the social butterfly who got everyone out to the bar after class, the bright and excited voice that charmed my professors. I got a job at Britex Fabrics, where I received a box of chocolates and a handwritten thank-you note from the designer who was working simultaneously on Steve Jobs and the original Broadway production of Finding Neverland. I pretended to be a brilliant academic and a truly exciting talent as a design consultant to the stars—while living in a single room and sleeping on the floor.

All this is to say that the San Francisco’s art scene is as dual-natured—or deceitfully natured, perhaps—as your humble narrator, if not more so.

There are, of course, perks to being an artist in the city—lots of them.

Carrie Sheppard is a writer and talented painter from the cohort that followed mine at USF. She submitted her thesis, a novel, in December, and recently she’s been able to devote a bit more time to painting. Her current series is full of literary inspiration. My favorite is a portrait of a stag dressed in drag with pearls and spectacles, inspired by Jane Austen’s style and snark.

Carrie lived in New York City for several years before moving to San Francisco, and as we stroll down Larkin Street after Sunday brunch, she tells me that in many ways, “It’s better here than in New York. You can have more actual space here. And you can approach people.”

As an example of this, she cites a bit of departmental gossip: another member of her cohort met novelist Marlon James in the bookshop where he worked and considered asking James to join him for a drink after his shift. He didn’t, and regrets it, because as Carrie says, “James might have actually gone with him, because here, he would probably have had time. You don’t have that in New York—and New Yorkers just won’t approach those kinds of people.”

Nikki agrees. “It doesn’t always feel like a big city here,” she says. “Things are accessible here; there are a lot of niche markets, niche scenes. We all know everyone.”

Marlena Gonzales is a fresh-faced, bubbly furniture designer with a passion for community involvement and development. She graduated from California College of the Arts a few years ago and now works as a prototype creator for a toy company. She also writes and illustrates craft tutorials for DIYers and hopes to be a design educator in the future. Marlena’s art is meant to be shared with others; that’s why living in San Francisco is important to her as an artist. “Overall, I love the diversity of the community I live in,” she says, “and I feel so happy to be a part of it. I’m learning so much living here.”

Ask any artist in the city what their greatest struggle is and they’ll all agree on one thing: housing. You’ve heard my story of high rent and low standards, and too many others have similar tales, but there are far worse ones.

You may be familiar with Ghost Ship, a warehouse in Oakland, just across the bay, which was poorly converted into an artist collective and dwelling. Last December, thirty-six people died tragically in a fire that broke out during a concert at Ghost Ship. In the aftermath, authorities discovered numerous safety code violations, such as a lack of smoke detectors, sprinklers, and emergency exits.

Permits for the concert were never filed. Blame was assigned first to the victims themselves (“They should know better than to try and live in those spaces!”), then to the building owner, and even to the local building inspectors.

Above: Carrie Sheppard is a painter and writer with a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in creative writing from the University of San Francisco. She lives in San Francisco where she is currently at work on her first novel.

Carrie is on Twitter @C_Sheppard007.

Left: While many artists struggle to stay afloat and navigate the changing environment in San Francisco, the city remains a tourist destination chock-full of museums, galleries, public art displays, and other cultural centers.

V I E MAGAZ INE . COM | 65

Visual Perspectives

Above: Marlena Gonzales was born in Austin, Texas, and received her BFA in furniture design from California College of the Arts. She currently works as a toy and packaging prototype creator for University Games. Marlena Gonzales.com Opposite top: What You Know, You Know (demand me nothing) by Nikki Vismara, acrylic on canvas Opposite bottom: Jon Macy is a queer cartoonist who has contributed to queer anthologies such as No Straight Lines, QU33R, and The Shirley Jackson Project. He edited Alphabet: The LGBTQAIU Creators from Prism Comics, which benefited the Queer Press Grant. John lives in feisty Oakland, Califor nia. JonMacy.com

T

he root of the problem is much deeper. With water all around us, we cannot sprawl outward like most cities, and rent is so high that decades-old institutions such as Jeffrey’s Toys, Xanadu Gallery, the Gold Dust Lounge, and the Stud have all been pushed into new spaces, new ownership, or out of business entirely. These were successful businesses for many, many years, with money and reputations to protect them. But if retail royalty such as Macy’s can’t even justify paying the rent on its Union Square location (as rumor has it), is it any wonder that we desperate dirtbags find ourselves living in such inhospitable spaces?

My friend Lydia—it isn’t her real name, but for her protection, I’ll call her that—lives in a precarious situation. A burlesque dancer of immense talents, she has struggled for nearly a decade to find permanent housing in the Bay Area. After a nightmare series of sublets and letdowns, she finally found an ideal space that she could afford, another warehouse converted into a live-and-work space for artists. After the Ghost Ship tragedy, building code crackdowns sent Lydia and her fellow denizens scrambling. Though the owner of their building was okay with tenants living in the space, Lydia and her fellow artists were worried about

what the inspector might discover. A single violation could evict them all from their hard-won homes, so they made their living spaces to look like studios or rehearsal spaces and vacated the premises for a while. “We can’t be seen leaving the building in the morning,” Lydia told me when she asked to crash with me for a night. “It’s just a big risk.”

It’s a catch-22 situation; to protect people, we must keep them from living in dangerous situations, but if we prevent them from living in one dangerous situation, they might be forced into one that’s even worse.

Housing isn’t the only problem; the art scene itself is homogenizing. To appeal to the mainstream appetites of San Francisco tech workers and tourists, the avantgarde scene that the city became infamous for in the 1980s and ’90s is slipping away.

“But artists are everywhere in this city and art has been reduced to a side hustle. If it’s not making you money, it’s regarded as a hobby that’s not really to be taken seriously.”

Eric Mueller, an essayist who reads his work aloud in a voice that’s as rough and sweet as whiskey and honey, is attuned to the social dynamics of the shift in the city’s art scene. Eric is the Ilana to my Abbi, the Jack to my Karen; we spend as many of our Sundays as possible on the grass in Dolores Park, drunk on warm five-dollar champagne and whining about our writerly woes as we watch all the pretty boys strip to their underwear in the warm sun.

When he moved here from New England, Eric says, “I was immediately surrounded by other writers, people who were curious to know what I was writing about. Everything about the landscape of this city stimulates my mind in ways I cannot articulate. But artists are everywhere in this city, and art has been reduced to a side hustle. If it’s not making you money, it’s regarded as a hobby that’s not really to be taken seriously. When I tell people I write, it is often returned in some form with, ‘Oh, a creative writer.’ Creative can sometimes feel pejorative.”

Eric doesn’t lie. A burning memory comes to mind of a man I thought I loved, who told me that there were two types of people in the world: makers and consumers. He, an entrepreneur, was a maker, and I, an artist, was a consumer. “You don’t contribute anything to the world,” he said to me. “Nothing of value, anyway.”

66 | J ULY 2017

We artists have all had people we thought we loved tell us that our world-shaking and world-building was stupid or useless or evil. Or something. That’s why we came here. And yet, even here . . .

Jon Macy is a longtime fixture in San Francisco. A writer, editor, and illustrator, he’s the deviant brain behind the award-winning gay erotic graphic novel Teleny and Camille, as well as numerous anthologies. His latest collaborative project, a coloring book showcasing queer heroes such as Grace Jones and Edward Gorey, has garnered much local excitement.

“It was a good run while we had it,” he says cheerfully, belying his deep distaste for the current state of affairs in the city’s art world. “Nothing was too extreme or experimental for San Francisco. We prided ourselves on our excess. Gender, sexuality, and body politics have always been the main focus of art in SF. But politics apparently only affect the poor—” Jon can’t help smirking innocently, “—so our new art scene is careful not to offend.”

Careful not to offend the money, he means—the young techies making bank and spending it on the artisanal rather than the artistic—on craft cocktails with twenty-dollar price tags or niche fitness and diet routines. Millennial attitudes, in general, shift away from their parents’ idea of acquiring things and toward acquiring experiences.

In a way, it makes sense; the physical objects associated with the arts—such as books, sculptures, and paintings—are not in demand, but skydiving selfies and snowboarding lessons are. Even on salaries that make a $3,000 monthly rent check seem trivial, according to Nikki, “Techies don’t buy art.” At least, the young majority of the workforce doesn’t. She says, “Tech workers who are maturing, who’ve been doing it ten years—they’re starting to collect.” She shrugs.

“Even without tech, there’s a lot of money in SF.” Nikki would know. She’s at the point in her career as a painter where I can see the balance tipping; she’s moments away from being the star of the hour in national, if not international, circles. She’s got an off-site exhibition coming up with Oakland’s SLATE Contemporary, and she’s working on a show with Philip Bewley of DZINE Gallery. I’ve seen Nikki’s work undergo a shift in the last year

“You have to make a lot of sacrifices with a business.

What are you willing to do that others won’t do?” from colorful, impressionist-infused realism to dramatic, dreamlike abstract works. Meanwhile, her goals have also changed. She’s curating a sort of luxury brand, working with high-end interior designers and consultants to create custom works that decorate multimillion-dollar homes—“big paintings to match big sofas in big houses,” as she puts it.

Nikki’s a finely tuned machine of ambition, education, charm, and talent. But she’s also got a firmer grip on the professional demands of her work than many dreamers and artists do. “I think of myself more as an entrepreneur owning my own business,” she says.

“You have to make a lot of sacrifices with a business.

What are you willing to do that others won’t do?”

V I E MAGAZ INE . COM | 67

Visual Perspectives This question troubles me only because I’m not sure I know how to answer it. It’s been a while since the miserable days that began my life in San Francisco.

I live in a house in Bayview now, the last stop before the city limits cut us off from the rest of the peninsula. My bedroom is larger than my Tenderloin apartment, and I pay less for it. I’m designing and writing, and slowly I’m finding a voice people are willing to listen to. Like Nikki and I are always saying, it’s hard out here for a pimp. But it gets easier.

A long-haired older man of my acquaintance says that San Francisco has always been a harlot, selling herself to the highest bidder. He says she belonged to the prospectors during the Gold Rush, then to the nobs of Nob Hill, the military during the World Wars, the gay community during the 1980s, and so on. Now she belongs to Big Tech—to Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

San Francisco is a different city now from what it was when I moved here not even four years ago. I suppose that’s part of a good prostitute’s charm,

isn’t it? Her ability to transform to meet her client’s desires. Her duality is her bread and butter—to be both there with her client and perhaps somewhere else, too—to be someone’s fantasy yet still entirely herself.

This city I love so well isn’t just dual; she’s polar opposites drawn tightly into one being. She is a beautiful, coked-out queen of the corner hookers whose gender is more fluid than her body and can be anything you want her to be, but only if she agrees. On Monday, she whispers in my ear that she loves me, will take care of me, will make me a star. On Tuesday, she stabs me in the back and tries to kick me out to Oakland or Daly City or wherever she banishes those who have lost her favor.

And her mood swings, her meanness, and the Sisyphean struggle of staying with her, of surviving her, only make me love her all the more.

I just sit down at my kitchen table and hammer away until she loves me back again, somehow.

Lizzie Locker is a writer, instructor, and costume designer in San Francisco. She received her MFA in writing from the University of San Francisco, where she was also awarded a teaching fellowship. Lizzie is currently at work on her first novel.

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Visual Perspectives

THE TENTH ANNUAL

DIGITAL GRAFFITI ART FESTIVAL CONVERGES AT ALYS BEACH

70 | J ULY 2017

DIGITAL ARTISTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD WILL COMPETE MAY 19–21, 2017

T

he Alys Foundation, Visit South Walton, and Christie are at it again, once more preparing the unblemished white walls of homes and businesses in Alys Beach, Florida, to be virtually splashed with colors, movement, and creativity. The Tenth Annual Digital Graffiti art festival takes place May 19–21, 2017, in this iconic New Urban community along Scenic Highway 30-A in Northwest Florida.

The annual event is a crowd-pleaser for loyal digital art enthusiasts as they are able to see works of some of the best digital artists from around the globe. The Alys Foundation continues to be a presenting sponsor of Digital Graffiti and a huge asset to the area, funding cultural events as well as children’s programs and other initiatives to sustain the value of the Alys Beach and Walton County communities. Partnering with the Alys Foundation as a presenting sponsor, Christie is on the scene with audiovisual solutions to make sure the art beaming from the walls of Alys Beach each night is mesmerizing to all who visit, while platinum sponsor Visit South Walton brings millions of guests to the communities along Scenic Highway 30-A and Miramar Beach each year.

Each year, the white-walled homes, businesses, and pathways of Alys Beach, Florida, are illuminated with color and movement during the Digital Graffiti festival, showcasing digital art from around the world.

Below: Interactive art projections are always crowd favorites among children and adults who attend Digital Graffiti.

Photos courtesy of Alys Beach

V I E MAGAZ INE . COM | 71

Visual Perspectives To honor a decade of awe-inspiring digital art, VIE magazine—also celebrating its upcoming ten-year anniversary—is hosting the Ten-Year Artist Retrospective soiree on Saturday, May 20 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Fonville Press and the surrounding pergola and lawn areas. This digital art gallery and pre-party to Digital Graffiti events is an homage to all the past Best of Show winners. All ticket holders are invited to stop by for a martini, drinks, and small bites from Fonville Press, enjoy strolling through the best of the best from Digital Graffiti festivals past, enter some exciting giveaways, and be there for the 2017 winners announcement for Best of Show, Curator’s Choice, and Honorable Mentions.

Fonville Press, having just completed an extensive renovation, is an Alys Beach staple and an important part of the community’s history as a coffee shop and eatery, as well as a gathering place for all. Its namesake, John Fonville, was a dear friend of the town’s developers, the Stephens family. Fonville exhibited all the values of bringing people together and making life better for his neighbors that the Alys Foundation strives to continue today, and Digital Graffiti and VIE are proud to honor that legacy.

Top: The Digital Graffiti Ten-Year Artist Retrospective gallery and pre-party presented

by VIE will take place May 20 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the newly renovated Fonville Press café. Photo by Jack Gardner.

Bottom: The festival’s finale will include food and drinks available from Caliza Restaurant as attendees mingle by the pool and discuss the inspiring artwork they’ve seen throughout Alys Beach. Photo

by Troy Ruprecht.

“FOR THREE DAYS, ALYS BEACH OPENS ITS DOORS, COURTYARDS, AND PEDESTRIAN PATHS TO INNOVATIVE COMPANIES AND GROUNDBREAKING ARTISTS WHO FUSE THESE THREE COMPONENTS TO TRANSFORM OUR ENTIRE TOWN INTO A LIVING WORK OF ART.” Digital Graffiti 2017 will feature the works of finalists from all over the world competing for the coveted Best in Show award: Luzena Adams, Brooklyn, New York; David Bennett, Nashville, Tennessee; William R. Bullock, Bowral, Australia; Holger Förterer, Karlsruhe, Germany; Emilia Forstreuter, Berlin, Germany; Gary Justis, Bloomington, Illinois; Linda Loh, Brunswick East, Australia; Wayne Madsen, Noblesville, Indiana; Helen Marshall, London, United Kingdom; Jonathan McCabe, Canberra, Australia; Nowhere Mountain, St. Louis, Missouri; Kameron Neal, Brooklyn, New York; James Pricer, Austin, Texas; Axel Cuevas Santamaria, Columbus, Ohio; Cameron Sharp, Columbus, Ohio; Susi Sie, Berlin, Germany; Beau Stanton, Brooklyn, New York; David Sullivan, New Orleans, Louisiana; Joon Sung, Bowling Green, Kentucky; and Mike Winkelmann (a.k.a. Beeple), Appleton, Wisconsin.

“Alys Beach becomes their blank canvas,” said Kelli Siler, Alys Beach director of events. “Digital Graffiti explores how design, technology, and architecture can intertwine to create entirely new art forms. For three days, Alys Beach opens its doors, courtyards, and pedestrian paths to innovative companies and groundbreaking artists who fuse these three components to transform our entire town into a living work of art.”

Learn more and buy tickets for Digital Graffiti 2018 at DigitalGraffiti.com.

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THE 30-A REAL ESTATE MARKET CONTINUES

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The home market along Northwest Florida’s Scenic Highway 30-A has become well over a billion-dollar annual industry.

Dollar home sales volume reached over $1.2 billion for 2016, 7 percent over 2015.

Pricing trends of homes along the 30-A corridor have experienced an impressive six-year uptick.

Taking a closer look at the history of price trends from the peak of our market to today provides greater insight into our current position.

for buyers in assessing what appreciation they can anticipate based on current trending.

Average sales price of all Scenic 30-A closed residences in 2016 was $932,000—up a strong 7 percent over 2015 and a notable 28 percent threeyear increase, yet still below the year 2006–07. In looking back at the history of 30-A’s yearly average sales prices, this is, in fact, the highest average sales price we have seen since 2007.

New flight additions are being planned for the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport (ECP), giving opportunities for more people to visit our coastal area. Coupled with the current trends, this gives us confidence that enthusiasm for our market will continue in 2017.

We expect the 30-A market to remain healthy and in strong demand. While the future of the real estate market is certainly unpredictable, knowing where the market is today and where it has been provides an advantage in assessing our real estate opportunity.

Erin Oden is the principal broker and owner of Coastal

We anticipate that 30-A market pricing will continue to strengthen in the coming seasons.

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BEAUTY SPOTLIGHT: Destin Plastic Surgery

THE BODY IS A MASTERPIECE A Q&A WITH DR. WILLIAM BURDEN At Destin Plastic Surgery in Destin, Florida, the hands and tools of artists create new works nearly every day. Not only is he a surgeon, but Dr. William Burden is also an artist, songwriter, and author in his spare time. He recently published a guide on Amazon.com and Kindle, Breast Augmentation with No Scar on the Breast, which rose in the rankings to become an Amazon best seller. VIE caught up with Dr. Burden to explore how his work and his art intermingle.

VIE: What inspired you to write your book and where can people find it?

Dr. Burden: So many times, women are surprised at the number of options for breast enhancement surgery available to them. They frequently tell me, “I had a consultation with another plastic surgeon and I wasn’t told about all the options you have given me!” They are even more excited about the 3-D imaging that helps them make their decision.

What do you hope to accomplish with your book and do you plan to write any more?

My number one goal is to educate people and to make the information easy to read and understand.

I also wanted to become familiar with publishing on Amazon. I am writing a sci-fi book that I hope to publish and make available on Kindle.

78 | J ULY 2017

“

The human body is a masterpiece, and I feel privileged to be able to repair and refine some of its features. People like to feel comfortable in their bodies.

”

Tell us a little about your artistic background. Have you always been an artist?

I have always enjoyed drawing, sculpting, architectural design, and mechanical work. In particular, I like computer graphic design. Unfortunately, I don’t have as much time to dedicate to these things as I would like. I enjoy things that provoke the mind and soothe the soul.

“

In all endeavors, adding a little something that adds uniqueness or stimulates the senses is my favorite form of expression.

”

How would you compare your art to your work as a plastic surgeon? Do the two fields relate more than people might realize?

I think there is some correlation. The human body is a masterpiece, and I feel privileged to be able to repair and refine some of its features. People like to feel comfortable in their bodies.

How would you describe your artistic style?

I like things to be in harmony. Creating something that may not be interesting to see when it stands alone, but when placed with other elements is quite beautiful and thought provoking, is my favorite.

What’s your favorite way to express yourself artistically?

In all endeavors, adding a little something that adds uniqueness or stimulates the senses is my favorite form of expression. Likewise, when I notice something unique in the design or expression of the art someone practices, I make special note of it.

Learn more at ThePlasticDoc.com. Dr. Burden’s book is available in Kindle format on Amazon and in print at Destin Plastic Surgery, 4485 Furling Lane, Destin, Florida 32541.

William Burden, MD, FACS Founder, Destin Plastic Surgery ABOUT DR. BURDEN Combining a nimble intellect with compassion and empathy, Dr. William Burden embodies the ideal traits of a plastic surgeon.

Since establishing Destin Plastic Surgery east of Pensacola, Florida, Dr. Burden has remained a visionary and innovator, using his experience and training to adapt top-of-theline technology for the benefit of his patients.

At the same time, he’s a down-to-earth, devoted family man who coaches youth basketball and is a hands-on dad. He’s creative, possessing a sense of aesthetics that comes naturally, and, at his core, he’s a people person.

V I E MAGAZ INE . COM | 79

Sartorial Learn more at AshleyLongshore.com and follow Longshore on Instagram at @ashleylongshoreart.

Photo by Brad Growden

Sartorial STRIKE A POSE

Pop artist Ashley Longshore has made a splash in the world of fashion as well as art. She often paints style icons such as Kate Moss, Anna Wintour, Karl Lagerfeld, and Audrey Hepburn (seen here). Her whimsical and often larger-than-life works of art have caught the attention of media, collectors, and celebrities worldwide.

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Sartorial

G E T YO U R

W

hen Sarah Beydoun of Beirut, Lebanon, launched Sarah’s Bag in 2000, her mission was to help the women in a rehabilitation program called Dar Al Amal.

The fashion brand set out to train at-risk women and female prisoners and ex-prisoners in business and fashion while creating designer handbags that reflected Beydoun’s exuberant, playful personality.

Sarah’s Bag has trained over two hundred underprivileged women, many of whom have gone on to use their skills to teach others in their own towns and villages, creating income opportunities for women throughout Lebanon. The Sarah’s Bag 2017 Spring/ Summer collection, aptly named Discotheque, showcases a glittering array of handbags inspired by the late 1970s and stars such as David Bowie.

It’s time to hit the dance floor for a good cause!

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Discotheque showcases a glittering array of handbags inspired by the late 1970s and stars such as David Bowie.

Buy now at Shop.SarahsBag.com.

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Sartorial

A Dream weaver LIVING LIFE IN COLOR

By Suva Ang-Mendoza Photography courtesy of A A K S

lack and nude rank as the top two colors women choose for their handbags, but one scroll through the A A K S website will have shoppers convinced that life is more fun in color. Maybe it’s the combination of bright colors and exuberant designs that visually stimulates the eye or the bags’ proprietary look that differentiates them from traditional leather or cloth. Even specialty bags woven from yarn or wicker don’t compare because A A K S bags are hand woven using age-old methods into authentic styles rarely seen outside the borders of Ghana, where they originate.

B

Unlike many woven bags, which tend to slouch with the weight of what’s inside, A A K S bags keep their form, thanks to excellent craftsmanship and the stability of raffia, a fiber made from the fronds of palm trees native to parts of Africa. These bags are not only a great addition to any handbag collection, but they also provide ethical production and manufacturing jobs in Ghana, which is near and dear to the heart of A A K S founder and designer, Akosua Afriyie-Kumi.

At the age of nineteen, Afriyie-Kumi moved from Ghana to study at Kingston University in London, where she earned her degree in fashion. After

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“African heritage plays a huge role in my work. It’s time for African fashion to really shine and show our culture.”

interning and working with fashion designers such as Peter Pilotto, Matthew Williamson, and William Tempest, it was time for Afriyie-Kumi to spread her wings, embark on her own journey, and create a brand of luxury African handbags that encompasses both her design aesthetic and her love for her country.

A A K S may seem like just a line of bright and spirited handbags, but it is also building up the creative arts industry in Ghana and bringing more global attention to African designs.

Often traveling back and forth between London and Ghana, Afriyie-Kumi eventually decided to return home to Ghana to pursue her accessories label fulltime. Her decision was based on her love for the land, the people, and the culture of her country. It wasn’t long until Afriyie-Kumi started an intense countrywide search to source raffia (ecologically harvested, of course) from farmers and to employ weavers, specifically women in remote villages, to help her build a luxury brand that would proudly showcase the heritage and talents of Ghanaians.

“Africa hasn’t been looked at as inspiration for beauty,” Afriyie-Kumi once said in an interview at Design Indaba in London. She went on to explain the textile and creative opportunities in Ghana. “African heritage plays a huge role in my work.

It’s time for African fashion to really shine and show our culture.”

Her love for her home is evident as her work reflects Ghanaian culture. The bright colors, natural materials, and bold patterns reflect the landscapes, the upbeat spirit, and the resourcefulness of the people who live there. “I use different materials and create something new out of what we have in Ghana, making it modern,” Afriyie-Kumi says. “The brand tells an exciting story of Ghana, offering a different perspective of Africa as a whole. The visual inspiration behind every design is reflected through the images of Ghana and the crafters as they create these handbags.”

Each A A K S bag is made by hand and bears the fingerprints of the person who fashioned it. This process takes approximately one week to complete, which attests to an unwavering dedication to modern style and interpretations using traditional methods.

Since its launch in 2014, the luxury accessories line has come a long way, not only bringing recognition to African fashion but also spreading awareness about ethical and resourceful production methods, an admirable factor winning the respect of many fashion influencers and shoppers worldwide. In just under three years, A A K S has surfaced in stores and online all around the world, and AfriyieKumi has been able to showcase her work internationally in fashion capitals such as Milan, London, Cape Town, and Paris. She was shortlisted as a top emerging designer from Africa by Vogue Italia and has been featured by major media outlets including CNN, ELLE Decoration UK, Forbes Woman Africa, The Guardian UK, the New York Times, WGSN, Refinery29, and Harper’s Bazaar.

“The visual inspiration behind every design is reflected through the images of Ghana and the crafters as they create these handbags.”

In addition to an online shop at AAKSonline.com, these brightly colored bags are available in thirty-nine stores worldwide, including Anthropologie (USA) and Urban Outfitters (USA and UK), and have recently been picked up by District Six in Berlin.

Gaining product distribution is just part of AfriyieKumi’s growth in the industry. She continues to broaden her accessories empire and branch out into home interior products made for the greater good in her latest project, a collaboration with Design for Peace and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This program is mandated

A A K S bags are available in a variety of sizes and colors and are priced from around $50 to $270.

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In just under three years, A A K S has surfaced in stores and online all around the world.

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to protect and support refugees at the request of a government or the UN itself.

While Design for Peace aims to bring awareness and help to the UNHCR, it will also provide education and growth to interns in the design industry.

With her business expanding its limits and seeking to do good, the future is bright for A A K S and Afriyie-Kumi. In an industry that can sometimes be cold, it’s heartwarming to see a young woman build an uplifting brand and prove that bright ideas can grow on trees—literally.

Follow A A K S and get a glimpse of the design process and production through the brand’s Instagram account at @a.a.k.s., or learn more and shop online at AAKSonline.com.

A A K S founder/ designer Akosua Afriyie-Kumi

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Salvador Dalí’s Femmes métamorphosées – Les sept arts on display in The Restaurant at the Dolder Grand hotel

TRAVEL SPOTLIGHT Visit the World’s Favorite City inside this issue’s Voyager.

Charleston, South Carolina, has it all—history, great views, fabulous food, and Southern hospitality!

Voyager

SEE THE WORLD

Art destinations around the globe are too numerous to count, but perhaps one of the best hotels to stay in and discover top-tier artworks at the same time is the Dolder Grand in Zurich, Switzerland. Since reopening in 2008 after extensive renovations, the Dolder Grand has displayed pieces by some of history’s most noted artists. Paintings, sculptures, photographs, and more are highlighted on the hotel’s iPad-guided art tour, which is available to all guests and offers information on each piece.

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Voyager

Photos BY Sarah and Paul Photography ave you ever gazed past a gate and fantasized about what might exist on the other side, beyond a bend in the road or behind a patch of trees? In passing the bayside entrance of Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort in Miramar Beach, Florida, many do just that, perhaps not realizing that one of Northwest Florida’s hidden gems, The Village of Baytowne Wharf, is a public venue. All are welcome—dogs, too—to enter and experience the unexpected: a fabulous little town with about forty locally owned eateries and unique boutiques, plus endless activities, fantastic entertainment, and stellar events.

Considering Baytowne’s setting, it’s no wonder that a happy, hospitable climate prevails! Right

beside Choctawhatchee Bay, the glorious Florida Panhandle property has a timeless quality, as if the pearls of a bygone fishing village were preserved and refashioned to create a distinctly Southern hot spot. And what a jewel! A central lagoon at the heart of Baytowne reflects an array of cheerful, clapboard buildings, an old-fashioned carousel and water tower, and pedestrian bridges. In perfect harmony, lovely courtyards and historically inspired architecture evoke a more genteel Old Florida. Tall pines and other Spanish moss–laden trees, seasonal flowers, marsh grasses, and the bay itself naturally grace the scene.

Arguably, Baytowne’s hometown quality is among its best assets, achieved by the fact that so many inhabitants both work and reside there.

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Locally Owned Eateries

Founded by Ron Green, Another Broken Egg was the first eatery at Baytowne and the restaurant’s fourth location. Still a fledging enterprise back then, the establishment, offering an extra special breakfast, brunch, and lunch, fit perfectly in a resort, where family and friends gather around the table. Formerly an engineer by profession, Green confides, “I always thought of owning a restaurant.”

Compelled to inquire about ingredients when he dined out, he later tapped his memory and followed his “gut” to craft original menus for Another Broken Egg. His hugely popular bananas Foster recipe for pancakes, waffles, and French toast is a twist on the iconic dessert created by Paul Blangé for the renowned Brennan’s restaurant in New Orleans.

Incredible local restaurants at the Village of Baytowne Wharf offer a variety of options for visitors, including ice cream, burgers, breakfast favorites, fresh seafood, and more.

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Insisting that “nothing short of right is right,” Green loves that patrons have their go-to favorites, but he also encourages them to try something new. Not your everyday eggs, the Crab Cake Benedict— poached eggs and crab cakes on an English muffin, topped with an andouille-infused hollandaise—is heavenly. For a spiked beverage, note that Another Broken Egg’s Bloodys (as in Marys) have won several awards!

“Year in and year out, our bestselling seafood, fresh from Destin Ice House, is grouper sautéed with lump crabmeat.”

For a quick breakfast option, an afternoon pick-me-up, or a quiet spot to do some work while visiting Baytowne (though it’s recommended to keep work to a minimum on your vacation), Caffe Siena is sure to please with its coffee and specialty drinks. The shop sits at the front entrance of the Village and also boasts smoothies, doughnuts, biscuits, and other snacks.

Another Baytowne pioneer, Tom Rice, owner of Marlin Grill, says, “They always wanted us to be the upscale dining house. We’ve strived to fill that niche by serving fantastic food in a great style and making people comfortable. Our desire is to have what you like and help you understand what you’re ordering.” The main attractions are succulent steaks and never-frozen seafood. “Year in and year out, our bestselling seafood, fresh from Destin Ice House, is grouper sautéed with lump crabmeat,” Rice reveals. By the way, the sides (yes, order the macaroni and cheese, made with four cheeses and tasso ham) are divine. Beverage connoisseurs also appreciate Marlin Grill’s eight hundred wine labels, but Rice points out, “We tend to win the martini category; people love our table-side preparation.”

Marlin Grill further attends to kids. Along with the expected fish and chicken fingers, the children’s menu offers four-course meals with sophisticated entrées like fried lobster tail and filet mignon. “If you never order something new for them,” Rice poses, “then how are they going to learn?”

In child-friendly Baytowne, an eatery that seemingly caters to adults often becomes the kids’ favorite and vice versa. Jamie Sobik, who co-owns Hartell’s Village Diner with her husband, Michael, has witnessed the tables turn numerous times, as when parents snatch golden fries from their children’s plates! A new mom who is suddenly guilty of doing the same, Sobik also spends much of her time in the kitchen to ensure everything comes out just right.

Aside from the potatoes, she asserts, only the ice cream enters the diner frozen. Speaking of which, the 1950s-style malts, shakes, and splits make you long for the good old days of sock hops and soda

shops. Hartell’s is also known for their fresh, handmade hamburger patties and, as yummy as they sound, Krispy Krunchy™ chicken tenders. Eat in or order out, but take the time to view the hand-painted, beachy mural by local artist Donna Burgess (also the talent behind the Sandestin Wine Festival’s motif ). Burgess presented her labor of love to Hartell’s as a gift.

Marlin Grill is the go-to spot for fine dining at Baytowne Wharf, with an impressive selection of wines and delicious entrées such as the pansautéed grouper topped with Gulf shrimp. Photo courtesy of Marlin Grill.

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Voyager

Unique Boutiques

Baytowne’s on-trend boutiques showcase local designers, one-of-a-kind finds, and preferred labels.

Displaying a visual feast for browsers, Gemma Azan, owner of Uniquely Chic, carries a “smorgasbord of inventory” that includes decorative items, clothing, and wearable accessories. “I’ve always been in retail,” she says, sharing that she learned the ropes in her family’s business in Barbados. She also has a knack for handwork—basketry, ceramics, floral arrangements, and jewelry making. Thus, in addition to representing a dozen local artists, Azan sells her own brand of jewelry, Gemesis Expressions, which she makes by hand in the shop. Working with semiprecious stones and freshwater pearls, Azan uses leather or deerskin as the connecting medium, so her bracelets and necklaces easily layer and wrap. They’re also quite durable. She loves helping customers choose pieces for themselves. Many also return, again and again, with shopping lists from envious friends back home!

Similarly alluring, Blu Calypso offers beachy gifts and breezy accessories, as well as a line of beautifully handcrafted jewelry by the store’s owner and artisan, Mayra Casillas. “Women from all over tell us that we are their best-kept secret for that unique piece that stands out,” says manager Christina Griffin, a savvy stylist who blogs about fashion in her spare time. She and her colleagues entice shoppers to “come by and see us” for assistance in assembling an outfit with just the right statement piece or two! That might be the perfect Kentucky Derby hat and one of Casillas’s creations—perhaps a mixed-media, silk-tassel-and-stone necklace— to complete the look.

Another fan of fashion, Morgan Liveoak, owner of Blush, admits that she can lose track of time when monitoring trends online and sourcing clothing, shoes, and accessories for the store. Only in her midtwenties, she gravitates to up-andcoming designers with fresh looks and great pricing. As Liveoak points out, “At Blush, you can buy a forty-dollar top and afford the jeans, too!” To keep her merchandise new and exciting, Liveoak orders only a half dozen or so pieces of the same item in assorted sizes. “I love getting something in, seeing people like it, selling out, and starting over,” she says. “We always have something new, so locals will come in every other day to see the styles.” Quite a few are keeping their eyes on Blush, which has over fifteen thousand Instagram followers!

By catering to ladies and gents of all ages, the Sandestin Family Retail Shops— Barefoot Princess, Island Clothiers, Sandestin Clothing Company, and Coconut Kidz—are considered Baytowne’s department store. Attuned to specific customers and Baytowne’s general demographic, Sara Becnel, executive director of retail at Sandestin, and Aja Heck, assistant director, attend at least ten markets annually for the best items and collections.

Barefoot Princess offers apparel for women and children, gifts, and home goods.

It’s the destination for all things Lilly Pulitzer as well as local designers like Judith

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March from nearby Santa Rosa Beach and the quintessential Southern sophisticate, Lauren James.

The niceties—hosting trunk shows, noting who purchased which outfit (so occasions aren’t about who wore it best), keeping clients’ wish lists on hand, personal shopping, and assembling and shipping boxes of the latest must-haves to customers—further endear a loyal clientele.

Under the same roof as Barefoot Princess, Island Clothiers outfits men with a “shop within a shop” display of Southern Tide and wide selections of Vineyard Vines and Southern Proper. Since the youngest members of the family also have their favorite labels, Coconut Kidz stocks Disney costumes and toys, in addition to other lines of adorable, fine-quality clothing and accessories for babies and children. Everyone, of course, wants a souvenir, and Sandestin Clothing Company is the source for those signature tees and beach accessories.

Above: Furry friends are always welcome at Baytowne Wharf! Don’t miss the annual Mardi Gras Dog Parade for some seriously cute and festive pups.

Opposite: Fireworks are a staple at the Village and are displayed throughout the summer on Boomin’ Tuesdays, as well as during some holidays.

Photo courtesy of Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort.

By catering to ladies and gents of all ages, the Sandestin Family Retail Shops—Barefoot Princess, Island Clothiers, Sandestin Clothing Company, and Coconut Kidz—are considered Baytowne’s department store.

Voyager

Endless Activities

Delighting kids of all ages, Baytowne Adventure Zone was launched in 2005 by owner Russ Scott. Formerly the director of the beach, marina and water sports program, Scott, who first joined Sandestin in 1984, is an expert in family fun.

Who else would have thought to erect a zip line in Baytowne?

Sandestin’s Zipline rises forty feet and extends across the lagoon for an easygoing trip there and back. “We appeal to kids and adults who have never zip-lined before,” says Scott. “It’s perfect for small children who weigh thirty pounds and safely fit into a harness.” Just as high on to-do lists, the Euro Bungy is a fun way to jump and flip on a trampoline while harnessed. If that doesn’t tire them out, kids can climb the forty-foot-high Tower Climb. On top of that, the Sky Trail Ropes course delivers three skill levels of adventure with utmost safety, as climbers’ harnesses remain attached. The Sky Tykes Ropes is especially for younger ones under four feet tall.

Active boys and girls also love catch-and-release fishing in the lagoon and just being a kid on Baytowne’s nautical-themed playground.

No one is too old to play tugboat captain at Baytowne Tug Company with remote-controlled boats that came all the way from Downtown Disney in Anaheim. Next door, Baytowne Golf Challenge tries the most avid golfer with a target that floats in the lagoon! Beating the odds wins a box of Titleist Pro V1 balls. Scott can’t decide which he enjoys more: testing his own skill, or watching others hit or miss!

Fantastic Entertainment

Baytowne is also a hit for music lovers, and John Wehner, owner of the Village Door, the live music venue, is instrumental in producing what audiences want to hear. “I’ve been in this industry since I was thirteen years old,” says Wehner, who was a drummer on Bourbon Street by age eighteen. Adding music production and sound engineering to his résumé, he purchased New Orleans’s Famous Door in 1992. The once-famed Dixieland nightclub was failing, so Wehner changed the name to John Wehner’s Famous Door and applied what he’d learned as a performer. “Immediately,” Wehner recalls, “we were the first club full and the last club empty. Bourbon Street was my lab.”

He ended up assembling a house band that performed a specified playlist. “I hire all musicians individually,” he says, “and train them for their roles.”

Arrangements are “constantly morphing,” Wehner says, but deviations shouldn’t alter guests’ expectations. “If you bring friends here in April and have an amazing time on a Saturday night, I want to give you the same great experience when you return in August.” Such standards apply to the club’s DJs—expert technicians who are there to make the music sound great, not be the center of attention.

Typically, the DJ and live band take turns playing in thirty-minute intervals, which keeps everyone happy. As Wehner says, “We have all ages on the dance floor together!”

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Much of the entertainment in the Village entails music and lighting, and thanks to Pez Marrier, sound and production manager for Baytowne Wharf and owner of Shofar Productions, they go off without a hitch. “Music has been my life,” says Marrier. (Many say he has perfect pitch, a benefit to musicians during their setup and performance.) Beyond years of professional studio training, he understands how outdoor elements—e.g., temperature, barometric pressure, spectators’ clothing, and where people stand—impact sound and light. Therefore, despite a live venue’s uncontrollable factors, an issue like weather does not have to spoil everything.

“With rain in the forecast last New Years’ Eve, other places canceled their musical performances early,” Marrier relays. “We kept the stage dry and safe so our band could perform.” Fireworks also went off as scheduled. “Some were listening and watching from their balconies, but we had a full crowd out and enjoying the show!”

Right:

Fourth of July and New Year’s Eve offer spectacular fireworks displays, concerts, and more at Baytowne Wharf. These events are open to the public.

Opposite top:

Baytowne Adventure Zone includes a zip line, ropes courses, the Euro Bungy, a climbing wall, and more. Photo courtesy of the Village of Baytowne Wharf.

Opposite bottom:

Other children’s activities such as concerts, games, face painting, and much more happen throughout the year. A full calendar of events can be found at BaytowneWharf.com.

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Stellar Events

During the three weeks of spring break in March and weekly from Memorial Day into October, Baytowne hosts a main-stage event each Sunday through Thursday.

Cinema Night is on Sunday. Mondays entertain with fly-board demonstrations in the lagoon. Fireworks boom and light the skies on Tuesday evenings. Family concerts featuring tribute bands (themes include blues, country, singer-songwriter, and more) wake up Wednesday nights. Thursdays are magic with Captain Davy.

The Baytowne Wharf Beer Fest is a favorite annual event and features over sixty craft breweries.

All through the year, Baytowne Wharf is festive: • • •

“you always have something to do and see, much of it is free, and you can relax knowing that Baytowne is safe and family friendly.”

• • • • •

•

The Gumbo Festival, one of the largest food events in the region, takes place in February, in addition to a Mardi Gras parade and celebrations.

With spring break programming and St. Patrick’s Day’s Irish dancers and Celtic music, March is a month of merrymaking.

Marking its thirty-first year in April 2017, the annual Sandestin Wine Festival features over eighty vintners with celebrity chefs, live concerts, wine dinners, and special seminars. The Vettes at the Village Corvette car show is another April happening and charity fund-raiser.

Memorial Day celebrations kick off the summer season in May. Baytowne celebrates Independence Day—and every other day—in July.

The annual Baytowne Wharf Art Walk festival arrives in September with September Saturdays band concerts.

Highly anticipated in October, the Baytowne Wharf Beer Fest hosts more than sixty breweries. The month ends with Halloween trick-or-treating.

The Sparkling Wine and Holiday Lights event with a choreographed light show and live music and a preview of Christmas shopping highlight November.

A holiday concert series and other Christmas programming celebrate the season in December, culminating on New Year’s Eve.

“We host 175 events over a year,” says Alan Meyers, executive director of the Village of Baytowne Wharf. Having worked his way up the ladder in Sandestin, starting as the parking manager, Meyers often feels like the town’s mayor.

Attending to the needs and wishes of so many, including full-time residents and dozens of shopkeepers and restaurateurs, he remains focused on enriching the guest experience. “When you come here,” Meyers says, “you always have something to do and see, much of it is free, and you can relax knowing that Baytowne is safe and family friendly.”

The Village of Baytowne Wharf presents its current offerings and a full calendar of events at BaytowneWharf.com.

Baytowne Wharf is home to the annual Sandestin WinePhoto Festival, which has Top: descripbeen Photo a tradition for over tion. description. thirty years.

Photo description. Photo description.

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24215 HWY. 331, AT THE FOOT OF THE BRIDGE (850) 622-2291 · BAYSOUTHWALTON.COM

83 Central Square (In Seaside, Fla.), Santa Rosa Beach, FL 32459

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S O P H I S T I C AT E D SOUTH

THE WORLD’S

Favorite CITY

BY TORI PHELPS

W

hen Charlestonians travel, they hear one thing over and over: “You live in Charleston? I love Charleston.” Considering that Travel + Leisure readers voted it the number one city in the world— yep, the world—lots of people apparently love Charleston.

I’m one of them. It’s my home, and I wouldn’t trade living here for anything. Even my husband knows that if it’s a choice between him and Charleston, well, I’ll miss him.

So, what does this Low Country port city have that other destinations don’t? Nothing. But it does have the best of nearly every destination, all in one place.

Charleston is perhaps most famous for its rich history, which still feels very much present, thanks to centuries-old architecture and staunchly preserved cultural traditions. Don’t let the city’s impeccable

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manners fool you, though. Its fun side runs just as deep. Natives joke that Charleston isn’t a historic town with a drinking problem; it’s a drinking town with a historic problem. It’s nicknamed the Holy City because of its foundation in religious freedom—not because the residents are saints.

And when it comes to food, hold onto your waistband. In addition to a long list of awardwinning restaurants, most weekends are filled with festivals celebrating everything from oysters to mac ’n’ cheese.

Historic sites, fabulous food, stunning beaches— there’s no shortage of reasons to fall in love with Charleston. But if you ask me, the city’s greatest asset is its people. (Not that I’m biased.) Holy City residents are famously gracious and genuinely enjoy sharing Charleston with the world.

Consider this your formal invitation. We hope to see you soon!

Top: Historic homes line the Battery along the lower shores of the Charleston Peninsula and the mouth of the harbor.

Bottom: This iconic Pineapple Fountain is a popular photo op for visitors to Riley Waterfront Park.

SPOLETO FESTIVAL:

A LOVE LETTER TO THE ARTS Spoleto Festival USA is a lot like Charleston itself: unique, deeply rooted, and a huge draw for visitors. This two-and-a-half-week performing arts phenomenon has treated audiences to opera, theater, dance, and music for the past forty years, even throwing in some visual arts and special events like garden tours.

It’s a scope that’s possible, in part, because of its hometown. “Spoleto is a celebration not only of the arts, but also Charleston itself,” says Spoleto marketing and PR director Jessie Bagley. “The city is what makes the festival so unique.”

Actually, the festival was born in the Italian city of—yes—Spoleto. Nearly twenty years after its inception, founder and Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti sought to expand it to America. Charleston won his heart, and Spoleto made its US debut in 1977.

One reason Menotti decided on Charleston, according to Bagley, is the city’s walkability. Plenty has changed in the last four-plus decades (there were only four hotel options in the mid-1970s), but the “car optional” nature has not. Though Spoleto performances take place in more than a dozen venues, only one—the V I E MAGAZ INE . COM | 109

Spoleto Festival USA is an annual celebration of the arts during which Charleston’s streets, theatres, churches, and other performance spaces are alive with music, art, and drama.

“SPOLETO IS A CELEBRATION NOT ONLY OF THE ARTS, BUT ALSO CHARLESTON ITSELF. THE CITY IS WHAT MAKES THE FESTIVAL SO UNIQUE.” finale at Middleton Place—isn’t within walking distance of the other sites, dozens of hotels, and countless restaurants.

Spoleto sells roughly 84,000 tickets during its seventeen-day run. That’s a lot of shows and a lot of possibilities. If deciding on an itinerary seems daunting, do what Spoleto staffers do and pick one from every category. “Personally, I like to dabble in each genre,” Bagley shares, adding that the festival’s diversity is uncommon—and special. “There are some really fantastic music festivals or dance festivals out there, but Spoleto presents a comprehensive selection of programs.”

In its forty-first season, which runs May 26 through June 11, attendees can dig into everything—from Monchichi, a fusion of ballet, martial arts, and break dancing, to Mozart’s Great Mass. Then, of course, there’s Eugene Onegin, the latest 110 | J ULY 2017

opera produced by Spoleto. Though generally a presenting organization—meaning it showcases other companies’ performances—opera is the exception. In an annual tradition that sets Spoleto apart from most other arts festivals, Spoleto staff hires everyone from directors to costume designers, and the sets are built right in Charleston.

It’s not that they have trouble attracting performing companies. In fact, artists go out of their way to be there. Bagley points to Ireland’s Gate Theatre, whose repeat appearances at Spoleto make Charleston one of the only destinations outside Europe in which they’ve performed.

It’s a testament to the artists’ experiences that they come back, she says, and the city plays a key role in drawing both repeat and new performers. “We tell them, ‘Yes, you’re going to have to travel, but you’ll be in Charleston. It’s a pretty special place.’”

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SWEETGRASS BASKETS: CARRYING THE STORIES OF A PEOPLE

Sometimes, a seemingly simple object has an incredibly complex story to tell. And the tale behind sweetgrass baskets, those intricate works of art so closely associated with South Carolina’s Gullah culture, is one that involves both the best and the worst of humanity.

The baskets were brought to the Low Country in the seventeenth century, carried in the minds of enslaved Africans for whom they were a part of daily life. Many West African slaves came from rice-growing regions where they used tightly coiled baskets to separate the chaff from the rice. A similar landscape greeted them in South Carolina, so they created familiar baskets to assist with their forced labor.

Despite their name, sweetgrass baskets weren’t made of sweetgrass initially. Bulrush, a sturdy marsh grass, was the material of choice until the turn of the twentieth century. Sweetgrass eventually gained popularity not only for its lovely scent but for a pliability that allows artisans to craft intricate designs. What time hasn’t changed is the foundational technique: coiling, rather than more common braiding or twisting methods.

The Gullah people, descendants of enslaved Africans who developed a distinct culture all their own, have preserved both the technique and the pride in craftsmanship through the generations. Visitors can watch modern masters—usually women—at work all around Charleston. But the “sweetgrass corridor” is actually in nearby Mount Pleasant. As many as a hundred roadside stands along Highway 17 offer sweetgrass baskets directly from the artisans who create them.

WHAT TIME HASN’T CHANGED IS THE FOUNDATIONAL TECHNIQUE: COILING, RATHER THAN MORE COMMON BRAIDING OR TWISTING METHODS.

Above: A carriage tour is a great way to see Charleston, where charming streets hold hundreds of years of Southern history.

Bottom: Beautiful and useful, traditional handmade sweetgrass baskets are the perfect souvenir; they can be found at Charleston City Market and other vendors throughout the city.

Photos courtesy of Charleston Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Finished works can cost hundreds of dollars, with price points varying by size and design. Basket makers devote a dozen hours to even simple designs; elaborate designs and larger pieces often take weeks. They’re worth every penny (and more) based on the time investment alone. But when you factor in the tradition that has wrapped around an entire culture, sustaining its people and offering a way to reclaim a piece of exploited heritage, their real value becomes clear.

That’s why Gullah-made sweetgrass baskets are more than a practical tool or even art. They’re a story you can hold in your hands.

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SIDE TRIP:

BLUFFTON, SOUTH CAROLINA With your bags already packed, why not explore more of South Carolina? Instead of following the crowds to Hilton Head, we recommend stopping ten minutes’ shy of the island and enjoying the historic charm of Bluffton instead.

There’s a lot to see and do in Bluffton, just a short drive from Charleston and a perfect day trip during your visit! Photo courtesy of Montage Palmetto Bluff.

This unspoiled slice of the Low Country is awash in gorgeous May River vistas and moss-draped trees right out of a genteel Southern novel. The scenery is just the start, though, as Bluffton is quietly becoming a prime destination for foodies and lovers of artisan goods. Its picturesque downtown is lined with homegrown bistros, many specializing in local seafood, and boutiques where you can browse everything from antiques to handmade leather bags.

Opposite: Sunsets on the Charleston Harbor are spectacular, but the view downtown and in other parts of the city can be equally stunning.

Above: Fresh seafood, such as this delicious spread of raw oysters at Montage Palmetto Bluff, is abundant in the area.

But the crown jewel of Bluffton may be Montage Palmetto Bluff, a destination unto itself. Sprawling across twenty thousand acres of riverbanks and nature preserves, this model of relaxed luxury is an impressive coalescence of genuine hospitality and world-class amenities.

The property is renowned for a staggering number of on-site activities, most of which are complimentary. Headliners include an ecologically sensitive golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus, a well-done spa, and boat excursions. There’s also tennis, bocce, kayaking, a state-of-the-art equestrian center, a skeet range—and, believe it or not, much more.

If chewing is as active as you want to be, they’ve got you covered there, too. The handful of restaurants and lounges are staffed with a crème de la crème culinary team and one of the best sommeliers in the country. Each evening begins with samplings of “culinary heirlooms,” like oysters or hoppin’ John, and ends with gourmet s’mores by the fire pits. Hunger seems to be a dirty word at Montage Palmetto Bluff.

HUNGER SEEMS TO BE A DIRTY WORD AT MONTAGE PALMETTO BLUFF. Accommodations, too, are designed in a something-for-everyone fashion. You can’t go wrong with a room at the inn, though do spring for a balcony. Larger groups, or couples looking for more privacy, can rent a cottage or guest house.

And because the desire to stay forever isn’t uncommon, you can even buy a residence on property.

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AN INSIDER’S GUIDE TO CHARLESTON

HUSK: A James Beard Award–winning chef, locally sourced ingredients, and a track record of topping every “best of ” list. Husk is one of the most lauded Charleston restaurants and so obvious a choice that you might consider skipping it. Don’t.

But do make reservations well ahead of time.

76 Queen Street, Charleston

CALLIE’S HOT LITTLE BISCUIT: Biscuits are part of the very fabric of Southern society, and nobody does them like Callie’s. These are change-your-life bites of heaven that you can get slightly sweet (try the cinnamon) or savory (black pepper bacon for the win). It’s only open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.—plus late nights on the weekends—so grab ’em while you can!

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HIGH COTTON: Sunday morning starts with Jesus and ends with brunch. So grab your bow tie or pearls and head to the elegant High Cotton, where even low-rent dishes like doughnut holes go upscale with a bacon-apple-bourbon glaze. Try the Carolina shrimp and grits or Charleston crab soup if you want something substantial.

199 East Bay Street, Charleston

CUPCAKE DOWNSOUTH: Need a sugar rush? Let your nose lead you to one of two Cupcake DownSouth locations nearby. You get twelve classic and seasonal choices every day, including “after dark” options infused with alcohol.

433 King Street, Charleston & 644 Long Point Road, Mount Pleasant

EAT

Opposite top: The view from Tavern & Table on Shem Creek is not to be missed.

Opposite bottom: Poe’s Tavern is a relaxing watering hole with a literary flair.

This page top: Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit is your ultimate stop for Southern cookin’.

This page bottom: The crab cakes Benedict at High Cotton are a must for any brunch bucket list.

TAVERN & TABLE: The recipe for a memorable meal starts with a chef who bested Food Network icon Bobby Flay. Sit inside if you must, but we recommend a table or couch along Shem Creek. While boats and dolphins idle by, sink your fork into global offerings or more classic Southern dishes.

100 Church Street, Mount Pleasant

POE’S TAVERN: An homage to Edgar Allan Poe, who lived on Sullivan’s Island while stationed at Fort Moultrie, Poe’s Tavern is known for good beer and great burgers. The Instagram-worthy burgers with names like Annabel Lee and Pit & Pendulum are fun for visitors, but local diners know there’s plenty of substance behind the style.

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DRINK Left: Stars Rooftop boasts a relaxed atmosphere and excellent views of King Street.

Photo by Andrew Cebulka.

Below: Specialty cocktails, such as this refreshing South Pacific concoction, are the name of the game at the Gin Joint.

Photo by Andrew Cebulka.

Right: Quadriga, a bronze sculpture of four horses surrounding a Carolina bird of prey atop a fourteen-foot Greek revival column, sits outside the Belmond Charleston Place hotel.

Quadriga was created

by John Mills, a member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors, who was inspired by the significance of horses and Greek revival architecture in Charleston’s history.

Photo by Joe Vaughn.

THE GIN JOINT:

STARS ROOFTOP:

Staffed with real-deal bartenders who know their mescal from their Metaxa, this hideaway is a cocktail lover’s dream. Ever-changing menus introduce creative concoctions well beyond the usual martini or cosmo. Daring patrons should opt for the Bartender’s Choice. Just pick two words from a list (i.e., sweet, spicy, smoky), and then give the mixologists free rein.

182 East Bay Street, Charleston

The restaurant below is good, but Stars Rooftop is stellar (pun intended). Belly up to a tigerwood bar or settle into a comfy wicker chair to savor King Street panoramas. This drinks-only destination features an extensive cocktail list, many of which are made with local spirits.

495 King Street, Charleston

PAVILION BAR:

Yes, Charlestonians swap out bourbon for coffee in the morning. Usually. Make like a local and hit up an independent java joint like cult fave Black Tap. Hot, cold, plain, tricked-out—everything here is handcrafted. Parking stinks, but the lavender lattes are worth the effort.

70-1/2 Beaufain Street, Charleston

Another top-of-the-world lounge, Pavilion Bar is an überchic locale with fun drinks and an impressive wine and champagne menu. Prices are high, but you’re really paying for the experience and some of the best views in the city. Heaters on chilly days are free.

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BLACK TAP COFFEE:

BELMOND CHARLESTON PLACE: Considered the gold standard in traditional luxury, the Belmond is Charleston’s go-to hotel for sophisticated travelers. Shop for Gucci bags, swim in a heated rooftop pool, or spend a day at a world-class spa—all without leaving the hotel.

205 Meeting Street, Charleston

THE VENDUE: If you’ve ever wanted to spend the night at an art gallery, the Vendue comes pretty close. This French Quarter boutique is housed in two historic buildings where no two rooms are alike. While there, browse hundreds of original works and visit the artist in residence.

19 Vendue Range, Charleston

MARKET PAVILION HOTEL:

STAY

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Lavish guest rooms and a fabulously central location are just a couple of the perks for Market Pavilion visitors. Its Grill 225 is usually listed among Charleston’s best restaurants, while the rooftop

Pavilion Bar (see above) is a popular destination for locals and tourists alike. The vibe is classic but lively.

225 East Bay Street, Charleston

THE WENTWORTH MANSION: An intimate twenty-one-room stunner with refinement to spare, the Wentworth is a private residenceturned-posh inn and spa. You might expect the crystal chandeliers and marble fireplaces, but complimentary amenities like daily wine and port offerings and house-made chocolates are unexpected pleasures.

149 Wentworth Street, Charleston

JOHN RUTLEDGE HOUSE INN: B and B fans should look no further than the Rutledge. It’s pure Charleston, from a National Historic Landmark status to afternoon tea served in the piazza.

Originally built by a signer of the Constitution, it exudes regal charm without forgoing modern amenities. And the breakfasts are darn good, too.

116 Broad Street, Charleston

Wendy Mignot La Vie Est Belle Seaside, Florida

Austin Magee Austin’s Surf School Seaside, Florida

locally-owned and operated boutiques & restaurants

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Right: Oak trees lining a plantation lane near Charleston are a quintessential Southern sight.

Below: The historic Church of the Cross in Bluffton is an excellent site for getting a little education during your day trip.

Opposite: The Cooper River Bridge can be seen from much of the city, though often the best views of it can be found during sunset at Riley Waterfront Park.

LEARN

BOONE HALL PLANTATION:

THE GIBBES MUSEUM OF ART:

This striking combination of history and natural beauty is a distinctly Low Country marvel. Founded in the late 1600s as a cotton and pecan plantation, Boone Hall today offers both an unflinching look at the slave era and a peek inside a modern working farm. Pick from tours like Gullah culture and gardens with hundred-year-old roses.

1235 Long Point Road, Mount Pleasant

Thoroughly Charlestonian in scope, the Gibbes celebrates visual arts in relation to the city and the region. Its permanent collection spans four centuries and mediums from paintings to decorative objects. Plus, excellent temporary exhibits spring up every month or two.

135 Meeting Street, Charleston

NATHANIEL RUSSELL HOUSE MUSEUM:

Do yourself a favor and book a tour as your first activity. It’s the best way to wrap your mind around the city, its geography, and points of interest. Becoming a registered tour guide in Charleston is a rigorous process, so whether you’re looking for an overview or a more niche tour (pirates, anyone?), you’ll be in good hands—as long as those hands are certified by the Tourism Commission.

Get a feel for how an upper-class merchant family lived during the early 1800s with this breathtaking residence. Everything from the interior paint colors to the formal gardens has been meticulously restored by the Historic Charleston Foundation to the opulence of its 1808 debut. Unearthed artifacts also help illustrate the lives of the home’s enslaved residents.

51 Meeting Street, Charleston

OLD SLAVE MART MUSEUM: A huge percentage of slaves entered the country through Charleston’s port, and the Old Slave Mart Museum is dedicated to honoring their stories. It’s a difficult but essential stop, filled with both relics and educational pieces, including an interview with a former slave.

6 Chalmers Street, Charleston

USS YORKTOWN: This nearly nine-hundred-foot-long World War II aircraft carrier, which now rests at Patriots Point, has thirteen decks to explore. Come to Patriots Point for the Yorktown but stay for other museums and memorials, including the country’s only Vietnam Experience Exhibit.

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A TOUR:

RAINBOW ROW:

BEACHES:

Iconic Rainbow Row encompasses a string of thirteen Georgian row houses along East Bay Street. Theories abound as to why the eighteenth-century homes were originally painted in Easter egg hues, but their current shades were assigned in the 1920s when the area finally started recovering from the Civil War (a.k.a. the Late Unpleasantness).

83–107 East Bay Street, Charleston

Surprise! There are a lot of beaches in the Charleston area, and mild weather means they’re nearly year-round destinations. Hint: Get there early during high season to claim your spot. Popular stretches of sand can be found on Isle of Palms, Sullivan’s Island, and Folly Beach.

RILEY WATERFRONT PARK:

EXPERIENCE

There are actually two waterfront parks, one on either side of the Cooper River.

Most visitors head for the Charleston side, though, which is home to the city’s famous Pineapple Fountain. Let the kids splash around, and then relax in a family-sized swing. If you’re lucky, you’ll catch dolphins playing in the harbor.

1 Vendue Range, Charleston

CHARLESTON TEA PLANTATION: The U.S.’s only fully operational tea plantation covers 127 acres of nearby Wadmalaw Island. Take a trolley tour of the historic plantation (now owned by the Bigelow Tea Company), sip the free samples, and even bring a picnic to eat on the massive front porch.

6617 Maybank Highway, Wadmalaw Island

ON THE WATERFRONT GALLERY A U N I QU E A RT GA L L ERY I N A PA L ACHI CO L A , F LO R I DA

117 Market Street Apalachicola, Florida (850) 653-9699

LYNN WILSON (Owner/Artist) lynnwilson2@aol.com Text: (305) 588-5885

This 6,000-square-foot gallery is home to over 45 Forgotten Coast en plein air waterfront and landscape artists. We also feature residential accessories, exotic jewelry, original photography, and gifts.

Voyager CHARLESTON CITY MARKET: One of the oldest public markets in the country, the historic City Market is a four-block extravaganza of mostly local goods. Pick up an iconic sweetgrass basket and snack on regional delicacies like benne wafers during the Day Market.

The weekend Night Market adds live music to the experience.

188 Meeting Street, Charleston

CHARLESTON CRAFTS:

SHOP Charleston City Market is your one-stop shopping destination for locally made goods, souvenirs, and a quick meal.

Photo by foto-select/ Shutterstock.

KING STREET: This avenue is synonymous with shopping in Charleston. Roughly divided into antiques (Lower King), fashion (Middle King), and design and dining (Upper King), there’s truly something for everyone. And while you’ll find chain retailers, there are plenty of local, independent shops, too.

850.267.3028 3295 W Count y Highway 30A, Santa Rosa Beach, FL 32459

Skip the T-shirts and bring home a real piece of Charleston instead. The oldest craft co-op in the city, Charleston Crafts stocks a remarkable mix of products, from pottery to jewelry to textiles to skin care. It’s all handmade, and it’s all courtesy of local artisans.

161 Church Street, Charleston

CHRISTOPHE ARTISAN CHOCOLATIER-PÂTISSIER: Is it art or is it chocolate? At Christophe, it’s tough to tell—until you bite into it. The brainchild of a third-generation French chocolatier, the shop is full of hand-painted goodies in innovative flavor combinations (e.g., Earl Grey tea and lavender caramel), as well as traditional favorites.

90 Society Street, Charleston CharlestonCVB.com

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By Janet Thomas

Folks would be quick to agree that Charleston, South Carolina, is sophisticated, vibrant, and one of the world’s most romantic cities, but healthy? That also would be a resounding yes! Just because it’s Southern and we like to envision its famous Low-Country shrimp and grits, fried delicacies, and soulful comfort food, that doesn’t mean a visit to Charleston can’t encompass so much more than that.

recently took an energetic Southeast road trip from Saint Augustine and Amelia Island, Florida, through Savannah, Georgia, and on to Charleston. I was on a mission—a healthy one—to explore enticing spas, hotels, restaurants, and activities that give participants a mental and physical boost. During my journey to a Yoga Warriors certification workshop in the city, my goal was to trade gluttony for good habits and excess for exercise. Thank you, Charleston, for making it a breeze.

Traveling with a health and wellness agenda is no longer just a trend—it’s a lifestyle. A booming sector of the travel market blends fitness and fun and has quickly become the rule rather than an exception. Here is a veritable how-to guide for putting together an epic escape to charming Charleston.

First, pick a primo hotel, like the Restoration. This place is the epitome of “old-school cool,” with original exposed-brick walls dating to the 1800s and an ideal location on King Street. Five buildings house fifty-four inviting suites, ranging from one to three bedrooms. The apartment-style one-bedroom suite is a spacious 750 square feet with a full-size fridge and kitchenette—hello, healthy snacks!

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Photo courtesy of the Beach Club at Charleston Harbor Resort and Marina

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“

First, pick a primo hotel, like the Restoration. This place is the epitome of “old-school cool,” with original exposed-brick walls dating to the 1800s and an ideal location on King Street.

”

elcome to the new South, indeed. The Culture Library at the Restoration, brimming with arty Assouline coffee-table books, is a great place for a digital detox (imagine, the sublime thought of sitting quietly, unplugged). Meanwhile, the hotel’s Honor Bar offers a curated selection of liquors that guests mix and match themselves and pay for through the honor system by jotting everything down in the bar’s daily logbook. The Port Mercantile is the property’s shopping destination, boasting more than a hundred vendors from across the globe and often featuring specialty pop-up shops. Cool Americana art by renowned local photographer Ben Gately Williams graces the guest rooms and public spaces, and all but the enormous, breathtaking horse image in the lobby were taken in and around Charleston.

Complimentary breakfast baskets are delivered to your pad each morning at the Restoration; they’re stocked with fresh fruit, yogurt, homemade granola, and organic coffee from the Rise Coffee Bar. The hotel has brilliantly teamed up with several lifestyle partners, like Beekman 1802 with its dreamy goat-milk soaps and lotions straight from the farm. Proof that this home base takes its hip-but-healthy mind-set seriously: Lululemon Athletica is another community favorite, and the Restoration hosts yoga classes that locals and visitors adore (with an instructor who’s also a nutritionist). Free fitness passes, the Indigo rooftop pool, and the Amethyst Spa with its signature Meridian Massage will pamper and please the most discerning guests.

For Charleston’s highest rooftop bar and restaurant, look no further than the Watch at the Restoration, which offers sweeping views of the city along with handcrafted cocktails, the freshest seafood, and delicious farm-to-fork cuisine.

Hop on one of the hotel’s complimentary bikes for an energetic pedal around the French Quarter area or along the Battery and scenic waterfront. Care for a bike of another kind? Open Road Project is at your service, where guests can work with a local craftsman to dream up and design a fully customized motorcycle.

If four wheels are more your speed, rent an iconic classic car through the Restoration’s partner, Dream Classic Rentals. What a way to tour Charleston in style! Choose from a baby blue 1966 Ford Mustang convertible, a 1968 Chevy Camaro, or a rare 1970 Mercedes 280SL. Head out on the open road to Shem Creek, stopping at Water’s Edge for a lunch of oysters, fresh seafood, and a cold beer or a glass of fine wine. Other compelling stops include Folly Beach, Sullivan’s Island, Isle of Palms, or Johns Island, where one can witness the jaw-dropping Angel Oak, a four-hundred-year-old behemoth beauty nearly sixty-five feet tall and with an enormous canopy.

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Now lace up those tennis shoes because a walking tour makes for a must-do excursion on your health and fitness agenda. Bulldog Tours’ two-hour Charleston Strolls Walk with History gives a great overview of the city, passing by Rainbow Row’s pastel houses, horse-drawn carriages, and stunning historic architecture.

Stop to witness local Gullah women weaving and marketing intricate traditional sweetgrass baskets.

Other fun and fit jaunts include kayaking, paddleboarding, or fishing with Charleston Outdoor Adventures. For a more laid-back activity, choose Charleston Harbor Tours and cruise by interesting points like Fort Sumter, often with multiple dolphin sightings.

Charleston is a dream destination for foodies craving healthy, fresh, locally sourced sustenance. Start your morning at Whisk Coffee and Juice Bar, then grab an Instagram-worthy salad or wrap for lunch at Verde or a casual bistro bite at Bull Street Gourmet and Market. Mellow Mushroom boasts unique pizzas, calzones, and burgers with vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free options.

Upscale specialty cuisine prevails at Caviar & Bananas and the Park Cafe, while Butcher & Bee is an epicurean experience with some of the freshest small plates in the city. Don’t miss their version of hummus and made-in-house pita, and top it off with the best pistachio croissant this writer has ever tasted. Owner Michael Shemtov also recently launched the Workshop, a hip and forward-thinking food court on upper King Street.

For dinner, enjoy more incredibly fresh seafood at 167 Raw on East Bay Street or head to Cannon Green, a light and airy restaurant with seasonal dinner specialties and a popular Sunday brunch. (It’s also a major go-to private event venue, perfect since Charleston is one of the top wedding destinations in the world.)

Another night, sample Cru Café’s refined comfort food, set in an intimate eighteenth-century house with indoor and outdoor seating.

FIG is a haven for people who simply love food. An acronym for “Food Is Good,” FIG is a neighborhood bistro with a major foodie following. Menus change

Charleston is a dream destination for foodies craving healthy, fresh, locally sourced sustenance.

nightly based on local offerings (think scallops crudo, tartare of snapper and olive, entrées like black bass or suckling pig, and Carolina Gold rice). The ambience is warm and inviting, and the staff is impressively educated on all aspects of food and beverage.

For a lively after-dinner stop, Prohibition brings the swing to upper King Street, with live jazz and swing music in a sexy, dimly lit setting. (Yes, dancing counts as aerobics!) Organic liquors are offered along with killer charcuterie and cheese plates.

There’s no better way to practice wellness than pampering yourself at a spa, and Earthling Day Spa is happy to oblige with body treatments like the Organic Purifying Detox and specialty massages (neuromuscular or Thai are two favorites). Owner

Above left: Cannon Green’s delicious fare, such as the panzanella, is a healthy option for any Charleston traveler.

Photo by Jonathan Boncek.

Above right: The Park Cafe takes pride in its fresh, locally sourced ingredients and charming atmosphere.

Photo by Ruta Elvikyte.

Opposite top: The Restoration hotel’s many offerings are perfect for the healthconscious traveler.

Opposite bottom: Longevity Fitness offers clients stunning views of Charleston along with small group classes in Pilates, TRX, and more.

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Voyager Aby Cass also offers Pilates classes and unique retail in this spacious location.

Zero George Street, a boutique hotel, offers a unique stay-and-learn experience with cooking classes led by executive chef Vinson Petrillo and sous-chef Amanda Black. Photo by Jonathan Boncek.

Opposite: Relax the mind or invigorate the body at the Beach Club at Charleston Harbor Resort and Marina, with two seaside heated pools complete with private cabanas, the Estuary Spa, a fitness center, a private beachfront, a bocce court, beach games, and complimentary bike rentals. Photo courtesy of the Beach Club at Charleston Harbor Resort and Marina.

For an exciting change of scenery, I highly recommend dividing a visit to Charleston between a couple of hotels. Zero George Street is a sophisticated yet casually elegant collection of historic homes surrounding an idyllic courtyard. Guests enjoy complimentary amenities including a European breakfast, a wine and cheese hour, a Miele coffee and espresso bar, luxe Malin + Goetz bath products, bicycles, and gym access.

The biggest draw of Zero George, however, is its high-end culinary reputation. Chef Vinson Petrillo, of Food Network’s Chopped and Chopped Champions fame, works his magic in an intimate professional display kitchen in Zero George’s original carriage house, built in 1804, where he skillfully prepares dinner for Zero Restaurant + Bar groupies. On Mondays and Saturdays, fortunate students can even learn from Chef Petrillo at the

cooking school of their dreams. The demonstration-style classes include three courses paired with wines.

A new kid on the block—or rather on the harbor—the Beach Club at Charleston Harbor Resort and Marina is a sprawling retreat with luxurious guest rooms and expansive balconies overlooking the water. With easy access to the historic district via water taxi or resort trolley, the Beach Club offers golf, yachting, fishing, bike trails, and beach games. Two heated pools, a Jacuzzi, private cabanas, three on-site dining options, a spa, and a movie theater ensure you will never be inactive—unless you just want to be. After all, relaxation is the key to a sound mind!

So you see, Charleston depicts healthy Southern hospitality at its finest. If you’ve never been, what are you waiting for? Even a seasoned visitor will find something fresh, new, active, and on trend every time.

Learn more or plan your trip at CharlestonCVB.com.

Janet Thomas is a long-time writer and editor, and former EditorIn-Chief of American Airlines’ luxury magazine, Celebrated Living. She’s now joyfully beach-based along scenic 30A in South Walton, Florida – when she’s not traveling the world for a good story.

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WE’RE ALL IN STYLE HERE! Alice in Wonderland and high fashion collided on April 1 during the Victoria Beckham for Target garden party and collection launch in Los Angeles. The exclusive collaboration is the latest of many designer lines for Target, which in the past has teamed with Lilly Pulitzer, Altuzarra, Peter Pilotto, and more.

Celebrities including Zoe Saldana, Jessica Alba, Kate Mara, and Naomie Harris joined Beckham and Target for the launch party, and the collection quickly sold out in stores and online. Photography by Billy Farrell and Owen Kolasinski/BFA. Zoe Saldana and Kate Mara 130 | J ULY 2017

Zoe Saldana and Naomie Harris

Jordana Brewster and son Julian Form-Brewster.

Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images.

Jessica Alba and Victoria Beckham

Camilla Belle

Ashley Madekwe.

Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images.

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Stacy and Dave Trepanier

Amanda Crowley, Lisa Burwell, and Jordan Staggs

Firefly restaurant brought Vegas to Panama City Beach, Florida, with its 2017 Academy of Country Music Awards Viewing Party. The invitation-only event celebrated the numerous ACM-nominated artists that would perform at Pepsi SpringJam in Panama City Beach April 28 and 29 and Pepsi Gulf Coast Jam Labor Day weekend. Photography by Gerald Burwell

NFB Ballet Mistress Dorothy Daniels Lister with NFB Demi Soloist Jeffrey Senior

On April 1 and 2, the Northwest Florida Ballet closed its 2016–17 season performing From Russia with Love: A Celebration of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo with live music by the Northwest Florida Ballet Symphony Orchestra led by David Ott. Performances were held at the Mattie Kelly Arts Center in Niceville, Florida, and followed by a reception celebrating the performers and crew, special guests, sponsors, and patrons.

Photography courtesy of Northwest Florida Ballet.

Kimberly and Marvin Colley

The cast of NFB’s 2017 production of From Russia with Love: A Celebration of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo

NFB Company members Alex Trum, Payton Beason, and Victoria Garofolo with artistic director/CEO Todd Eric Allen

La scène Shanina Shaik and Jasmine Tookes

DJ Alexandra Richards

Wanderlust, camaraderie, and good tunes come together each year at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, a veritable modernday Woodstock held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. This year’s festival took place the weekends of April 14–16 and April 21–23 and featured headliners Radiohead, Lady Gaga, Kendrick Lamar, and many more.

With its impressive lineups and West Coast locale, Coachella has long been known as the best fest for celeb spotting and chic parties.

The Victoria’s Secret Angels touched down by helicopter on April 14 for a particularly stylish day at the Coachella Angel Oasis. Photography courtesy of Victoria’s Secret.

Becca Tilley

Peyton List

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