by Greyson Brown

This spring, Susan Stein coordinated lighting and draping for her garden club’s flower show with Molly Robinson from Luma Designs. Impressed by Susan’s knack for layout and knowledge of the set-up process, Molly asked Susan about her expertise.

“I used to work as an interior designer, then I worked in development for The Chambliss Center, and I also sold clothing. Now, I’m hoping that, somehow, all of the things that I have enjoyed mesh together into my next venture,” Susan said.
Boom. Molly mentioned that Homes and Havens, a new nonprofit started by her friend, needed Susan’s expertise, and the seed was planted.

True to form, Susan listened. “I checked out Kaysie Strickland’s Homes and Havens Instagram, Facebook and web pages, contacted her and met with her the following week,” Susan said. “I was so moved by her efforts that I immediately offered support and my expertise if she thought I could assist the growth of her idea.”

While Kaysie was working with the Renew Program at Calvary Chapel on Broad Street, she found a gap in the services provided to bolster a successful outcome for women in recovery. Kaysie realized that many women endure hardships, suffer and, finally, hope to begin anew, but they often return to the toxic living environment where much of their pain began. Researching the benefits of living in a tranquil environment to promote healing, Kaysie utilizes the concept of therapeutic design.

Both she and Susan shared difficult times in their lives when their homes were their sanctuaries, offering them calm spaces to heal.

“Extensive research has proven that environment impacts emotional and mental wellbeing, especially for individuals recovering from trauma. Homes and Havens developed and implemented Trauma Informed Design, which uses specific color palettes, textures, space considerations and layouts to promote visual comfort, order and peace within a home. This is the design lens that we use when we create a restorative healing environment for every client,” Susan explained.

Currently, Homes and Havens partners with 14 different agencies, including Partnership for Families and Adults, The Renew Ministry of Calvary Chapel, Love’s Arm, The Next Door, Family Promise and Chattanooga Room at The Inn. “Our clients come from various backgrounds, nationalities and age groups. These women are on the healing side of severe life crises such as sex trafficking, addiction, abuse, incarceration and homelessness,” Susan said.

Many of Homes and Havens clients have fled a home or have no home, and no furnishings. Returning to an environment of blight is sending these women right back to chaos and trauma from which they are recovering. 

“Research proves that these unhealthy environments can trigger a nervous system that is trying to heal from trauma, neglect and abuse, often leading to relapse,” Susan says.

Homes and Havens volunteers step in to work with caseworkers and meet with each client in her new home, coming up with a design plan for her needs and those of any children in her care. “We start with a wish list of needs that usually includes beds, blankets, sofas, chairs, dressers, lamps, artwork, and curtains. We then go gather what we can,” Susan says. “Most of the furniture we receive is donated from the community. We ask for slightly used sofas, dressers and tables. We use what we call the ‘sister standard.’ If you would not put it in your sister’s house, then we can’t use it. We are very cautious as to what we put in these women’s homes. They are used to getting the worst of the worst, and our mission is to let them receive and experience a clean, organized, healing environment. That can’t happen on a soiled ripped sofa. We believe the furnishings communicate value, and we want each client to know how much we value them as women, mothers, members of our community and, most off all, survivors,” Susan says with a smile.

The team selects items with each client in mind, often painting furniture pieces to offer a fresh look. Once ready to completely renew their clients’ homes, they schedule a day to install and arrive with a team of volunteers and movers.

“We come with a team of volunteers/movers and set up the entire space while the client and children are away. In about three hours we are ready for the reveal, as we welcome the family back home into a completely designed, furnished and healing space,” Susan explains.

A generous local artist heard of this amazing concept and donated his talents to provide custom painted pieces for these beautiful new spaces. “In collaboration, we can all add something to encourage these women and their families to stay healthy,” Susan says. “When we hang the pieces of art painted specifically for these women, they are visibly moved by the compassion of others.”

Homes and Havens was selected by Causeway’s Social Innovation Studio, which is a pilot program to assist projects in their growth to the next level. Susan says they are looking for a larger studio space in which to house and refurbish donations. They have a goal of becoming self-sustaining by training clients to sew and paint as they learn a trade and become part of the mission that assisted them. Homes and Havens envisions that this new space could also be leased to host small events in the future.

Once Homes and Havens completes a home, the caseworker resumes contact with the client, and Homes and Havens keeps in touch to continue to encourage her recovery. In the past year and a half, Homes and Havens transformed homes for dozens of women, and, at this writing, 100 percent remain in recovery. This remarkable team of women includes: Kaysie Strickland, founder and president; Meg Littell, project manager; Susan Stein, director of development; Brooke Ritterbush, director of events; Lexi Bozarth, community relations; and Suzanne Zimmerman, Nashville community relations.

Go to homesandhavens.com to hear Kaysie Strickland explain the mission of this venture. She calls each home a “tangible piece of redemption” as she explains that she is “a fighter for their stories” as these women try to “step out of the darkness into the light.” In the video, a quotation by Mary Oliver hangs on the wall, which reads, “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” Kaysie Strickland and her team are doing just that.

By Natalie Mault Mead

​From its neoclassical architecture to the large gold-leaf frames within its galleries, the Hunter Museum’s mansion represents a traditional, iconic – and often favorite – part of the museum for many visitors. The mansion galleries encompass the oldest portion of the Hunter Museum and today house our early American collection of itinerant portraiture, Victorian furniture, and Hudson River School landscape paintings. For many visitors, the mansion galleries display benign artworks that are easy to recognize and require little to no interpretation beyond exploring the subject or painterly technique. Viewers often see early American portraiture, for example, as a precursor to modern day selfies – an unassuming depiction of the sitter – but these early portraits capture a subject that Americans struggle with today: defining an American identity. Art from the past was often radical, even if we don’t recognize it as such today.

In keeping with our mission to engage diverse audiences in active dialogues about American art, the Hunter has recently started an exciting reexamination of these early American galleries. Our new plan seeks to present art from the past in such a way that viewers will better understand their historical context. We will continue to highlight visitor favorites, but also include less familiar works. These historic paintings and drawings will be presented alongside more contemporary works of art as a way to highlight issues and themes facing early Americans that are still relevant today. The juxtaposition of old and new is intended to illustrate how the American identity has changed over time.

The mansion’s Southern Gallery – located on the top floor – represents the first of these gallery changes. Originally, the gallery housed Southern portraiture and landscape painting from 1810-1880 and explored how art played an important role in establishing a regional identity. Recently, the gallery was reexamined to explore the U.S. Civil War era and to delve further into the issue of race in America – a theme that is still relevant today. The gallery has reopened with the addition of “Southern Souvenir No. II,” c. 1948 by Eldzier Cortor (1916-2015), a loan from Art Bridges, a new non-profit foundation focused on sharing outstanding works of American art.

Cortor is an African American artist known for his serene paintings of strong, elongated black women, but in ‘Southern Souvenir No. II” he positions disembodied figures amongst historic representations and classical imagery to signify the legacy of race in the American South. Although Cortor’s painting is a more contemporary work than others in the mansion, it serves as a powerful comparison to the historic paintings. With the inclusion of “Southern Souvenir No. II,” visitors now have the opportunity to reexamine the historic context of the paintings dating around the time of the U.S. Civil War, while questioning the idea of race in America then and now.

Committed to collecting, studying and presenting significant American art to connect people of every background to creativity, knowledge and ideas, we hope these galleries will prompt a dialogue about the complexity of the American experience and reflect how the American identity may or may not have changed over the centuries.

Keep an eye out for additional gallery changes in the coming year.

High school sophomores and juniors, their parents, and college counselors in the Chattanooga area are invited to attend the Coast-to-Coast College Fair on Tuesday, March 5, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Chattanooga Convention and Trade Center.
Admissions representatives from colleges and universities -public and private, large and small, rural and big city – will be present, eager to introduce their schools and answer students’ questions.
For 25 years, the Coast-to-Coast College Fair has hosted a diverse array of schools in higher education from the full spectrum of college options. While students are introducing themselves to college representatives and gathering information about their favorite schools, parents may attend one of two financial aid workshops by the Tennessee Student Assistance Corporation.
Join friends, bring parents, and broaden horizons at the Coast-to-Coast College Fair on Tuesday, March 5.
Students should pre-register for a personal barcode at www.gotocollegefairs.com. Baylor School, Girls Preparatory School, McCallie School, and St. Andrew’s Sewanee School are sponsoring the event.

We all need water. We are water beings. Up to 60 percent of the human adult body is water. Our internal organs are about 75 percent water. So do you care about water? Do you really love your water?

Many of us Chattanoogans appreciate our water, hanging out on the river, playing in creeks, kayaking, fishing, and paddle boarding. We should all also help take care of our water.

One way you can help is to come drink wine with us! The TenneSEA seventh annual Save Water, Drink Wine event is coming up on February 9 inside the lovely greenhouses of the Barn Nursery! This festive event will showcase six wine tables paired with yummy tapas, as well as a silent auction featuring local artisans. New this year is a BEER table, thanks to Hutton and Smith Brewery, as well as a blind wine tasting contest featuring a grand wine prize!

Guests will enjoy wine and food pairings while discussing local watershed issues and restoration efforts with partner organizations that include the Tennessee Aquarium, the Tennessee River Gorge Trust, Reflection Riding and the South Chickamauga Creek Greenway Alliance. You may purchase tickets in advance for $45 at www.caribbean-sea.org/ event/save-water-drink-wine-2019/ or for $50 the day of the event. All proceeds support clean water projects by Tennessee Student Environmental Alliance (TenneSEA).

TenneSEA (Student Environmental Alliance) is the local branch of Caribbean SEA, a non-profit, educational and environmental organization with a mission to empower students to lead their communities to protect and restore their local environment and take care of the water. This organization, founded and directed by Mary Beth Sutton, works both in the Caribbean and in Tennessee through collaborative watershed projects.

TenneSEA has worked for a long time to teach area kids to care for water through its Kids for Clean Water Camps and Stream Teams and has empowered students to do some great things! Some are participating in efforts to reduce litter, both through cleaning it up and encouraging folks to stop using single-use plastic. Students at Thrasher Elementary designed and helped construct a rain garden several years ago and are always ready to help recycle and pick up trash. Wauhatchie School and Ivy Academy students are tracking their water quality and macroinvertebrate diversity. They also received a major stormwater education during the massive flooding early this fall.

At Red Bank Elementary, students not only built a rain garden but also helped the engineers design the stream bank stabilization behind their school. At Red Bank High School, students installed live stakes and fascines to shore up stream banks. These students at Red Bank schools are learning how the diversity of life in the creek means a healthy creek … so much so that otters have moved back in to Mountain Creek! We LOVE that they have been seen in the creek, but we want them to stay!

So what can you do to help, besides drinking wine on February 9? Every person can take care of the water where they live. If each one of us were to infiltrate the rainwater that reached our homes and yards, it would make an incredible difference in the quality of water reaching our creeks.
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Utilizing native plants will not only help our pollinators, it will reduce the chemicals reaching our water. Native plants also have deeper roots and will help reduce runoff better than a grassy lawn, so buffer your lawn with native plants. Add a bioswale or a rain garden. Make sure your driveways and downspouts don’t send water to the sewer or storm drains; rainwater should be infiltrated in your yard. Use rain barrels. For our creeks to be clean again, it will take us all working together.

For more information, email info@caribbean-sea.org.

by Mary Beth Sutton ​

By Ann Henley Perry

A fresh arrangement of flowers is a delight to the senses. It beckons a smile from its admirers and is sure to brighten even the dreariest of days. Lookout Mountain resident Jessi Cook is an accomplished floral artist and, as such, has brightened many days. Her talents grace tables and parties throughout Chattanooga, as well as the arms of little girls attending daddy/ daughter dances.

Jessi hails from Huntington, W.Va. In the late 1990s, she attended Covenant College, where she met her wonderful husband, Andrew Cook. They have been married for 18 years and have spent the majority of their married life on Lookout Mountain. Jessi and Andrew have three precious children. Bennett, 12, is a sixth grader at Chattanooga Christian School. His younger siblings, Hudson, 10, and Finley, 5, attend Lookout Mountain School where they are in fourth grade and kindergarten, respectively.

When asked how her love for arranging flowers began, Jessi elaborated, “I have always loved flowers but began to develop a greater interest in actually working with them and learning the art of arranging soon after I was married. In 2003, I had the opportunity to begin working with a local florist on weddings. I began as her assistant, and, several years later, I became her business partner. Eventually, she decided to phase out of the business, so I continued on my own until my husband’s job took us away from Chattanooga in 2008. Thankfully, we had the opportunity to move back to Lookout in 2012, with two young children and another on the way! During the early years of having young children at home, I put the business aside and merely worked on flowers for enjoyment and fun. Nonetheless, as my youngest approached kindergarten last year, I decided it was time to start experimenting with stepping back into the business again, and I am so glad that I have!”

Boxwood Designs is in full swing now, and is quite popular. While Jessi enjoys creating arrangements for weddings, she most loves creating designs for parties, birthdays, anniversaries and special events. For several years, Jessi has created special wrist corsages for young ladies attending the Oneida Club’s Father- Daughter Dance. “I also love being able to work with a client on an individual basis in order to create something that reflects their personal style and taste,” Jessi said.
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With such tremendous talent literally at her fingertips, Jessi is available for events of all sizes, big or small. Her pricing is specific to the event and the particular flowers that are used. Jessi enjoys putting forth her best work while working within the guidelines of her client’s individual budget.
Contact Jessi at (423) 503-8103 or email her at jessicook1208@gmail.com