Atlantan Kathleen Jones
Location: Kindezi School auditorium
Date taken: September 28, 2012
As a kid, Kathleen Jones was a teacher’s pet, a nerd, a top student. Like most kids, she enjoyed learning but she also loved school, the grades, the structure, the school year calendar. So, it’s probably not surprising that Kathleen not only became a teacher but one of the founders of a charter school.
The Kindezi School started as the dream of Dean Leeper, who Kathleen met in 2005. She shared his vision of creating a school with small class sizes, differentiated teaching and a focus on learning through creativity and leadership. Kathleen lent her organizational and logistical skills to the vision, and for five years, Dean and Kathleen worked to make the school a reality. In 2010, the Kindezi School opened in Southwest Atlanta as a charter school of the Atlanta Public School System. Now, Kathleen is one of the school’s fifth grade teachers.
“I really value creativity and imagination in my own life,” said Kathleen, who moved to Atlanta from her hometown of Panama City, Fla., to attend Emory University. “It thrills me to no end to see my fifth graders who still have that ability to imagine, who can make soup out of acorns, who can make a boat sail around a playground.”
With a class of six to eight kids, Kathleen is able to tailor teaching lessons to each child – from individual lists of vocabulary words to finding out what subject sparks a kid’s creativity to providing specific opportunities for leadership. And, with such a small classroom, all the kids can be the teacher’s pet.
Learn more about the Kindezi School online.
Atlantan Brooke Schultz
Location: Re-Inspiration Store
Date taken: September 25, 2012
Brooke Schultz tells the story of Re-Inspiration at least three times a week. The people who enter her shop on Highland Avenue often ask her about the store’s recycled gift items – where they came from, who made them, how they came up with the idea. It was in telling these stories over and over again that Brooke first realized the store’s true purpose and niche.
Brooke opened Re-Inspiration in 2009 on Atlanta’s westside as a sort of alternative to “paint your own pottery” shops. She jokingly called it “paint your own old stuff.” But as she found herself repeatedly telling the stories of the items that filled her store and told her own story, she realized her customers were drawn to these repurposed objects. Now, the store is full of unique gifts, all which have been recycled in some way. There is the jewelry made from soda can tabs, pitchers crafted from glass bottles, wallets sewn from airline seat covers, frames cut from vinyl records, various items accented with bullet casings (these Brooke does herself) and lots more.
A native of Bay St. Louis, Miss., repurposing items was something Brooke learned at an early age. Her mother, who ran a wild bird store, recycled household items long before it became the cool thing to do. Brooke remembers the compost pot in the kitchen and the line of homemade recycling bins in the garage. Anything that could be recycled was recycled.
As an adult, the habits of childhood continued. Brooke remodeled the spaces she lived in, repainted furniture for friends and figured out how to breathe new life into old, sentimental items. When she was laid off as a drug rep, Brooke just did what she had always done – she repurposed. This time the object was her career and the end result – doing what she loves as a small business owner.
Re-Inspiration is located in the Poncey Highlands. Stop by the store Oct. 7 during Atlanta Streets Alive as Re-Inspiration spills into the parking lot and street with an artists’ market.
Atlantan Erica Jamison
Location: MINT Gallery (wall by Nicholas Benson and PLF)
Date taken: September 24, 2012
Growing up in the small Georgia town of Barnesville, Erica Jamison viewed Atlanta from a distance. A self-proclaimed “weird kid” who was home schooled until seventh grade, Erica saw the big city as a place full of exciting opportunities, events and people. “I remember thinking ‘my people are there,’” she said.
After high school, Erica followed her intuition and moved to Atlanta, enrolling at Georgia State to study film. Slowly, she found her people – artists. Although she often felt out of place at formal art events, she loved being surrounded by this community of creative people. Many of her friends were artists who were trying to make a living at their craft and struggling to find venues to display their art. When a class assignment required Erica to work with a non-profit, she had a vision inspired by these artists and decided to start her own.
MINT Gallery, Erica’s non-profit, opened in 2006 with a postcard pin-up show, where any artist could come display his or her postcard-sized art on the gallery’s wall. The event drew 60 artists and 300 people. Erica’s vision was to create a space and community where artists could share resources with each other and share their art with an Atlanta audience. That first pin-up show provided proof that MINT was meeting an important need.
“We aren’t striving to be the next big thing,” said Erica, who works full-time as a video producer and runs MINT in her free time. “We want to be the springboard. I keep doing this because of those wonderful moments I get to witness – when an artist is so proud to have his or her first piece displayed in a gallery or so excited to sell a piece for the first time.”
MINT Gallery, which is located in the Old Fourth Ward, hosts events every month. In addition to shows open to all artists, such as the annual pin-up show, the gallery supports emerging artists through its Leap Year program, which provides a host of resources and mentoring opportunities to three artists each year.
Atlantan Leslie Caceda
Location: Wall Crawler Rock Club
Date taken: September 17, 2012
If you are interested in discovering new parts of Atlanta, Leslie Caceda highly recommends biking to work. As she tries out quicker routes, navigates around road construction and works to avoid automobile traffic congestion, Leslie often stumbles upon new places in city.
“I’m a different person when I bike,” said Leslie. “When I drive to work, I feel myself becoming impatient and angry. But, on the bike, I take more time. I see things I didn’t see before. I actually enjoy getting to work.”
A native of Peru, Leslie spent her teenage years in Newnan, Ga., and then graduated from Wesleyan College in Macon, Ga. Although she fondly recalls the yellow bike of her childhood, Leslie didn’t start seriously cycling until she attended Georgia Tech for graduate school. With the high price of a parking permit and shortage of spaces, Leslie decided it would be more cost efficient and effective to bike to class. She’s been biking around town ever since.
Now, Leslie works as program manager for the Atlanta Bike Coalition. You might find her managing bike valets at Atlanta events, helping teach bicycle safety, demonstrating how to install a bike rack or working with the city’s transportation officials to improve and increase the number of bike lanes. According to a report by the Alliance for Biking and Walking, the number of cyclists in Atlanta increased by 386 percent between 2000 and 2009. Leslie is not only one of those new cyclists, she’s an advocate for all of them.
Interested in biking around Atlanta? Check out the upcoming Atlanta Streets Alive on Oct. 7. There’s also Mobile Social, Heels on Wheels, Java Lords rides, Atlanta BeltLine Bike Tour and lots of events and workshops offered through the Atlanta Bike Coalition.
Atlantan Charles Parrott
Location: Kennesaw State University
Date taken: August 9, 2012
Charles Parrott was never very skilled at or interested in farm chores, such as feeding livestock, driving a tractor or tending to crops. He grew up on a farm located outside of Lincoln, Nebraska, but the world he really enjoyed living in was an imaginary one. From the day dreams of his childhood to high school speech contests to an eventual Ph.D. in performance studies, his career path was obvious.
“I didn’t have any other choice. This is the only thing I was ever good at,” Charles says. “I love living in that heady, ethereal world. I can’t do my taxes, but I love talking about the relationship between you and your coffee mug.”
Today, Charles teaches performance studies at Kennesaw State University and directs the school’s storytelling troupe. He’s training future culture makers in not only performance techniques but in social inquiry, understanding human behavior as performance and its impact on culture. And, Charles will tell you that he lives and breathes his work. “I have no hobbies. No golf. No fantasy football,” he says. “The only thing I’m really interested in is going to see weird things happen on stage and occasionally doing it myself.”
Looking for performance art around Atlanta? Charles recommends the following: Write Club, Naked City, Moth Radio Hour, Java Monkey, Apache Café, Carapace, Flux, GloATL and the Goat Farm.
Atlantan Kim Steen
Location: Intown Tumbling
Date taken: July 31, 2012
Chalk. Sweat. Gym mats. Those are the scents that send Kim Steen down memory lane. The Stone Mountain native spent most of her childhood and teenage years in competitive gymnasts. She would leave school early several days a week and head to the gym for five hours of practice. On the weekends, she traveled with her Atlanta School of Gymnastics teammates to competitions. For Kim, the gym was her second home. Her teammates and coaches, who she called by their first names, became part of her family.
When I asked Kim why she first fell in love with gymnastics, she replied, “Who doesn’t love to flip?” When I asked Kim why she loves teaching gymnastics, she said, “I love helping kids get stronger, more flexible, improve their coordination and just have fun.”
As soon as her competitive gymnastics career ended at age 18, Kim started teaching gymnastics. And, two years ago, after recognizing that there were no gymnastics classes being offered in town, she started Intown Tumbling. Now, Kim teaches gymnastics (and yoga) in a non-competitive environment and creates a community for her students that is similar to the one of her childhood gym — but in a more intimate setting. She said, “I want this to be a place where kids feel good about themselves and welcome.”
Intown Tumbling, located in the Poncey-Highlands neighborhood, offers classes for kids ages 2-14, summer camps, yoga and birthday parties.
Atlantan David Stephens
Location: David Stephens’ home puppetry studio
Date taken: July 29, 2012
It was a standard fifth grade assignment on the Gold Rush of 1949, but David Stephens felt nervous about standing up in front of the class. So, for his presentation, he decided to try and recreate a little bit of his favorite show, The Muppet Show. David made hand puppets out of paper, turned a table on its side and improvised a show about the Gold Rush. His classmates cheered and laughed. His teacher, Mrs. Harris, was so impressed she had him perform again for another class.
“That was a magic moment,” David recalls. “I thought ‘This is a powerful thing … to be the person who is presenting the magic, entertaining people, getting people to laugh.’ It was an extension of me but not really me.” David grew up mesmerized by Jim Henson’s Muppets from a young age. He would wake up early every Saturday to watch The Muppet Show in syndication at 5:30 a.m., subscribed to Muppet Magazine and frequently drew the show’s characters.
By high school, David was performing puppet shows at libraries, preschools and birthday parties in his south Alabama hometown. Since then, his career has been all puppets (and a little banjo ‒ check out David Stephens and Banjolicious). From performing original works at Atlanta’s Center for Puppetry Arts to receiving national awards and grants to working on Sesame Street to crafting handmade puppets, David has come a long way since his first performance in Mrs. Harris’ class.
David’s All Hands Productions features several shows and handmade puppets. In October, David Stephens and Banjolicious will be playing every Thursday evening at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.
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