Folkling Shop Update | Mountain Mama

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This collection of antique whites was shot in the Blue Ridge Mountains one slow early morning last week.
There was the sweetest bit of cool air blowing through the trees, an inviting promise of fall on its way, and the icy mountain river was a revitalizing wake up for my tired bones as I waded across from my campsite.

Each of these pieces were handpicked in Virginia. Some have mends and imperfections, but as you all know, it is in these very details that I find so much beauty and I think that the storied signs of wear and use make them all the more valuable and special.

This collection is a hard one for me to let go of, as the extra time and care I put into fixing and documenting them brings about more attachment and sentimentality in the process. But I hope that the places they end up will be better than where I found them.

Here’s to giving old things new life.

Suggested listen: Narrow Road by Jeffrey Martin (Actually, just go listen to this whole album…)

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A Kind of Therapy

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It’s been a kind of therapy photographing these old things for Folkling.
Documenting their history and imperfection, creating moods with the photos that capture not only theirs but my seasonal shifts in becoming.
But perhaps that is the marker of any practice or art form that brings us joy.
In that it is a kind of therapy— A healing of the disorder of our lives.
A remedial execution of action that we turn to to make things right when they presently aren’t.

Such is the act of self portraiture hidden within the documentation of these old garments for me.

In a lot of ways it would make my life easier to just hire a model to shoot these pieces. It’s an involved and time intensive process setting up my tripod, connecting my phone to my camera, battling the spotty connection between the two and reshooting the images until I capture the thing I have in my head.
But there is a type of learned patience within this too.
Or perhaps I am aggrandizing the process…

I suppose I digress.
All of this is to say that I am working on releasing this small collection in the shop soon.

Stay tuned.

Two Years Ago Today

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grass clippings are hitchhiking on the bottoms of my feet as i cross the lawn and i have the milky dew of the figs i just picked dripping down my fingers. 

the sun reaches my skin through the cotton shirt i’m wearing. because i’m moving, and because it’s early in the day, its rays aren’t yet powerful enough to make my skin dewy like that of the figs. but you can tell, even this early, that it’s only a matter of time before the heat will be labeled oppressive.

the crate myrtle is in bloom and the river is shushing by as it always does. i have to pause for a moment to remember what day it is. “...Wednesday” i think to myself “it’s Wednesday...”

the half moon brick steps lead me up into the house and i make a half hearted attempt to leave the grass clippings outside, though i am sure some end up trailing behind me on the well worn carpet. 

i select a knife from the chopping block in the kitchen and hesitate for a brief moment at its odd shape, only mildly considering that it’s probably not the right knife for this specific job. 

no matter— it’s sharp. 

and now ribbed moss is imprinted onto the backs of my thighs as a sit with a plate in the center of my crossed legs

and i eat the slices of rose colored fruit off of my lap. 

—A journal entry from August 29, 2018

Blueberries and Blue Jeans

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It seems fruit picking is the order of this summer.
First there were the blackberries and then the figs, now it’s time for blueberries.

Recently spent a rainy morning at Eastfields Farms. A hidden gem in Mathews County. I believe it was their last weekend of picking, which was hard to believe with how full the bushes were. We picked two gallons for a mere $18 (which might both sound expensive and like an insane amount of blueberries, but if you factor an organic pint at the store being about $4…. that’s $64 worth of blueberries… and now the freezer is stocked for smoothies and pies!)

It is such a primal and satisfying thing, picking your own food straight from the bush or tree that it grew on.
I swear the fruit I’ve picked this year with my own hands has tasted like the best I’ve ever had. And perhaps that is some amount of imbued romanticism at the practice of it all, but I think there is something good and natural about that too that connects to our souls on a deeper level.

(Although my Dad said these tasted like the best blueberries he’d ever had, and he had nothing to do with the picking of them so… interpret as you will.)

Grateful to live in a place with such an abundance of natural bounty…
I suppose apples are next?
Virginia, I do love you so.

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Fig Season

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Fig Season

Figs are a hallmark of the Virginia seasons for me.

Their picking has stood out as the last height-of-summer activity, and the beginning of ushering in fall.

(I have written about figs a time or two before, as seen here… And here… They have also made it on the instagram a time or two or three…)

They’ve also been the happy excuse for the visitation ties between beloved family members.
I used to bike from The Fan in Richmond to Northside to pick and revel in my Aunt and Uncle’s juicy fig offerings. In other seasons I’d drive further East to my Grandparents to partake in their riverside tree’s bounty.

Recently a friend, my first in this county I started calling home a number of years ago, offered to share her fig supply and I jumped at the chance. It had been a few years since I’d been able to steep myself in the nostalgia this fruit picking always brings up for me.

It was a happy sun-soaked, mosquito heavy afternoon.
More of nature gifts were shared, and stories swapped.
Friendship of this type is an enduring gift in all times, but especially in the midst of uncertain ones. A beautiful constancy and promise of goodness amidst a world in a heightened state of upheaval.

It is my dream to have a home, a piece of nature similar to this, with budding plants and growing gardens to offer to and share with others in the way of love and familiarity.

One day…

In the meantime, I am grateful for the yards and gardens of others so near and dear in my life who don’t mind impromptu sunkissed-barefooted-visits on hot August afternoons.

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This Is Virginia In The Summer

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You have to close your mouth when biking at night.

This is Virginia in the summer.

The air is thick and hung with winged creatures.

The moon winks at me from the water filled ditch, newly filled after the afternoon’s down pour.

The low-hanging magnolias unfold their skirts towards the grass beds, entangled in a flirtation with the sweet scented leaves.

I cut some Queen Anne’s Lace with my pocket knife and revel in its silhouette against the dusk.

Petal pushing, pedal pushing.

This routine is one of the few I perform without fail.

A small days end respite from the unrelenting speed of time.

My bike basket fills with little pink slips of paper.
They hold a promise of something more if I choose to exchange them at the post office down the road.

(I never do take them with me, somewhat absentmindedly but more so as an act of defiance of the one mean post master in town…)

I hoist my bike up onto my shoulder and ascend the porch stairs 
1-2-3-4-5-6
and into the house.

I run upstairs to my computer, where I can record my thoughts faster than any other medium.

My feet are so hot I start to pull off my boots (because I wear boots year round…) but I’m afraid I’ll lose the words so I stop half way.

Typing feverishly with one boot on and one boot off.

“Are you awake?”
He asks.

“Yes but I can’t talk right now.
I don’t want to lose the words I just found.”