i have some rituals when i'm there.
1. hug my grandparents and tell them i love them
2. eat a hot brown. (if you've never had one boy are you missing out) http://www.brownhotel.com/dining/hot-brown.html
3. drink ale8 out of a glass bottle. (ditto to #2) http://ale8one.com
4. eat a cheeseburger and chocolate pie at Bill Smith's
5. see greg http://www.potbaker.com/
these are traditions i was excited to share with deacon.
my hope was to get away for a while and not think about the minutia part of my business and to connect with something bigger. unfortunately the first part didn't happen, but that's part of being self employed. but i did have a lot of great conversations, got tons of hugs, read half a book, took some photographs of the people i love, listened to WAY too much talk radio, and got some perspective.
first kentucky itself. you could drive down just about any street and find a home worthy of southern living. brick houses, iron gates, the blue grass. people take a lot of pride in their land.
hills and valleys. the land is perfect for nestling in a thoroughbred or two. of course the barns there could rival a lot of people's homes.
small towns where they still carry your groceries. brandon laughs at me but i get nervous when there is no green space, and when a grocery store stops carrying groceries.
my mother's mom lives in Lexington now at a retirement community. she moved away from her dream home and her friends to live here. she's close to my aunt and has a caring community around her, but i know it's hard to lose the freedom (my grandmother taught me TONS about being an independent strong woman) my grandfather passed away last February and i'm sure it's not been easy. she tells me how the old people in the community do this and do that, like she is still 25. i hope i'm like that.
around the table i met a physician, a nurse that studied at the university of iowa with dr. ponseti (deacon's 94 year old dr), a musician that played in symphonies, and even colonel sanders daughter. fascinating. the man holding that card is in his mid 90's.
my grandparents on my dad side are true kentuckians. tobacco farmers with pride of country and family. my grandmother is the type that totally spoiled me rotten with coke, ice cream, and toys when i came to visit as a child- not much has changed. my grandfather and i share a birthday- i didn't expect to get so emotional when i left but he's set apart to me, i just couldn't help feeling a little empty.
greg seigel is one of my favorite people, period. i met him when i was a senior in high school. i was visiting my grandmother and she had this big pottery bowl in her garage. she told me that it was a piece from a local potter named greg seigel- she bought it at a show at the library in town 20 years before. he recommended using it as a salad bowl, but she thought a planter would be more appropriate. that was my first piece. now i have well over 30 seigel originals. i use that "planter" often on my dining room table for exactly what he recommended.
it's one of my highlights to go to his purple house in the middle of bamboo, walk past pieces of art, the kiln, and such into the home he and rebekka open up to me so freely. he's a beautiful man and i treasure his friendship beyond words. he had to make an emergency trip, so our visit got cut short. i only have one photo of him, holding deacon-crying. go figure
these are some sinks greg made for elk creek winery. i can't wait to have one some day.
i'll have photos from my shoots when i was in kentucky in the next couple of days.
