Garden and Gun magazine - a favorite!

Garden and Gun has moved into the top spot for my favorite magazines.  I have posted about my affinity for the photography, subject matter and writing.  I am just a little deeper in love.

Last night, I read the most recent issue (April/May 2012) and found myself reading some passages out loud to my husband and even laughing out loud at a couple of articles.  The photography still blows me away.

In every issue, I always learn so much.  For example, I didn't know that the actress Sissy Spacek was so beautiful and cool.  She was featured in an interview by Allison Glock and here are a couple of quotes.

"You become who you are and you realize, I'll never be a ballerina or a great chef.  We are, as my mother said, a product of our choices.  The world would be better if we taught our children those types of things.  Not how to wipe your mouth with a napkin so much as how to become someone worthwhile."

"My roots allow me to let go of the fear of failure."

Reading her interview makes me want to be her friend and go hang out at her Virginia farm.  The article presents her as wise and cool and inspiring.

I am also a huge fan of the music Garden and Gun profiles.  One of my new favorite groups, Alabama Shakes is featured in this awesome article by Matt Hendrickson.  I am really bad at describing music, so you can go to the Garden and Gun website and listen.

Band member Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes said this in the article about their recent success, "We're just normal folks doing something as fun as s___."  I love, love, love the spunk and passion and seeing people do something really well and having fun at the same time.

Matt Jones, ceramist from the Appalachian foothills, was the subject of an article by Charlie Geer.  Love the photography of Matt at work and also seeing the finished art - very cool stuff!  He had some great quotes, too.

"The onslaught of industry has put cheap, largely impersonal objects into our hands.  I want something ragged and soulful."

"I look at the objects people once surrounded themselves with.  All of it was handmade and useful, sometimes humble, but deeply beautiful and real.  I want my pots to honor that - the spirit of those who preceded us."

And, you can't help but feel a little emotional tug when you read about Bob Timberlake's collection of canoes.  He is a North Carolina artist and furniture designer with this amazing collection and he's profiled by T. Edward Nickens.  While I am not that into water or boats, I was really moved by his passion for collecting and the story.  Enjoy this quote about the "realness" of his boats.

"Let me tell you what I love about these old boats.  I look for character, and a sense of worn-ness and used-ness in an old canoe.  I don't like the one's that look perfect.  The flaking paint and yellowed varnish - all of that is just part of a canoe's story, and I guess I like the stories as much as I love the boats themselves."

Some of my reading on creativity has promoted the practice of buying magazines that are different that your usual tastes.  When I first subscribed to Garden and Gun  I really thought that it could go either way - hit or miss.  It would very likely be something that was just outside of my usually reading and might have an idea or two or a little piece of inspiration.  I am so pleasantly surprised to find that there is more that just a little that inspires me in every issue.

Obsessive learning

Most of my friends know that I am an obsessive learner. My resume includes yoga, knitting, raising alpacas, trying new recipes, installing new plants in the garden, learning about The Depression, and much more. Some of my learning experiments work out well and others just turn out to be great experiences.

I figured out this learning thing was something that defined me when I told my boss what I was making for a big family Thanksgiving dinner and he asked if the recipes were all of my tried and true favorites. In fact, many were new, never tested recipes gathered in my hours and hours of reading magazines devoted to Thanksgiving holiday meals and recipe books. He looked at me like I was insane. I was in heaven - a challenge to feed a whole crowd and the chance to learn some new recipes in the process. My final exam was actually pulling it off with everyone fed and happy.

Some of these learning obsessions come to me slowly - building one thing on top of another. A magazine article mentions a person that leads to a book. I read about Dorthea Lange, a famous Depression-era photographer and have been reading about her and devouring her work ever since. Her biography inspired me to read The Grapes of Wrath. I have another book on the Depression in my pile to read.

A recent favorite subject has been the prairie. We visited the Tall Grass Prairie Preserve and I bought Flint Hills Cowboys: Tales from the Tallgrass Prairie by Jim Hoy. It was a delightful read full of great storytelling and rich Kansas prairie tradition. Some of the cowboys were real characters and the stories were laugh out loud funny. Other stories told about the heartbreaking, dangerous work of making your life from the land told by a scholar and native of the Tall Grass Prairie. Lots of learning and pleasant reading.

My second read was recommended by a professor at K-State. Buffalo for the Broken Heart: Restoring Life to a Black Hills Ranch was very well written. The author's experience in transitioning from a cattle ranch to raising buffalo was full of learning, joy, heartbreak, and history. I loved reading about the prairie from someone who obviously loves the land and has a passion for preservation. It played out the real-life struggle to make a living in production agriculture and impressed the need to think about conservation and to relearn what our lands can support.

If your current learning adventures have you anywhere near the prairie or agriculture or the Great Plains, I highly recommend these two books. Happy reading!