For some, childhood memories can feel like stardust, distantly elusive but brilliant when only we decide to look for them. For Natchitoches furniture maker Chalon Ahbol, those memories are more like sawdust — and a lot of sweat. And they…
Last summer, over the serenading crush of emerald Gulf waves, Alys Beach homeowners dining at The Beach Club devoured something new — a sweetheat cornbread concoction called Perique Creole Handshake Corn Beignets. The name is whimsical, but the spice kicking…
On a sweltering late June morning in the middle of a particularly wet growing season in the hilly outlands west of Cheniere Lake, the team at Landry Vineyards is prepping to absolutely crush it. A huge haul of blueberries from…
A short stroll from the oak- and magnolia-studded canopy of Baton Rouge’s Highland Road Park curves a quiet street with a curious structure standing out both literally and figuratively. It’s…
Cajuns and Francophiles in Acadiana might see “BCBG” and take it as short-hand for the French catchphrase “bon chic bon genre” (“Good style, good class”). Anyone with a Ramones shirt or Blondie bob might read it quick and see an…
Along the quiet of the white brick wall that elbows off of New Orleans’ Magazine Street and leads to the LAKAN studio and showroom, hangs a small brass plaque declaring “open by appointment or by chance.” It’s an ironic serving…
Bordered by Crescent Park’s half-moon slice of greenspace and the Mississippi River levee is an old power station building in downtown Donaldsonville. Now painted church white, the vast structure is home to a small-batch distillery operated by Chip Noel who…
Big city trends, like water draining down the Mighty Mississippi, can take their time reaching Louisiana, but like a shard of driftwood turned over countless times by the river currents, those trends are uniquely changed during their journey down South.…
Nothing inspires optimism like making a genuine connection through community, feeling the therapy of creative expression or seeing the impact of purposeful work in action. In each of these, runs a common thread: Hope needs hands. Over homemade sweet cornbread…
At a Glance Age 34 Hometown Lafayette, Louisiana Online magnoliafloralpreservation.com, @magnoliastudiosla on Instagram There was plenty of seafood, too, but for Lynn Jenkins, the real harvest of her family’s trek to go crabbing at the Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge in remote…
She calls it soap bombing. The batches of fresh, chemical-free soaps Marissa McBride cooks herself and stuffs into friend Rosalie Moyer’s mailbox are less of an exchange, and more of a joy offering for her genuine friendship with the Lafayette-based…
Josh Guillory is a man of few words. Actions? Absolutely. One look at his masterful spiral stairwells, classic driveway gates, or sinewy, modern art-inspired floor lamps proves that. But the veteran iron craftsman’s dialogue is often choice and contemplative these…
At a Glance Age: 31 Hometown: New Iberia, LA Web: joijohnston.com Tracing her fingertips down the side of the leather, a polished slice of deep, summer evening blue, it is obvious that Joi Johnston has a not-so-secret crush. “See, this…
From sprinting after his friends through the woods of his native River Ridge, a big plastic Rambo knife in hand, to multiple deployments as an Army Ranger to Iraq and Afghanistan, to cooking in fast-paced New Orleans’ kitchens and sampling…
Alexis Korman is Zooming from Miami, but unless she’s immersed in some soda-splashed Art Basel installation—entirely possible as the international celebration of boundary-pushing creativity has colored every corner of the sunny south Florida destination—it’s impossible to tell. Floating above the…
The only thing in the back was a car seat and boxes of dreams. This is how Meredith Waguespack took to the road at age 31 to drive from Lafayette to New Orleans, trying to kickstart her clothing line by…
At a Glance Hometown Ponchatoula Age 28 Occupation Founder/lead designer, Therapy Skateboards Web therapyskateboards.com Clocking out after eight hours of sanding and painting cabinetry, most evenings Brent Coker can be…
Select Photos by Randy Krause Schmidt At A Glance Age 32 Location New Orleans, LA Occupation Co-owner/Co-founder, GoodWood Nola Web goodwoodnola.com Fast currents, rocky obstacles and significant drops are likely. Sudden maneuvers required. Such hazards of entrepreneurship…
Hometown Lakeland, Louisiana Age 32 Occupation President/CEO, Oxbow Rum Distillery Web oxbowrumdistillery.com Wheeling through the fields, the pickup bumps and bounds past walls of tall golden stalks. Windows rolled down, a small hand hanging out of the truck…
At a Glance HOMETOWN Mt. Vernon, Illinois AGE 38 OCCUPATION Skincare creator, founder, Oxalis Apothecary WEB Oxalisapothecary.com Through the wild woods around her home in rural southern Illinois, Erin Wexstten used to run as a child, and that adventurous…
At A Glance Hometown Dallas, Texas (Collin), and Broussard, Louisiana (Roz) Age Collin is 46, Roz is 44 Occupation Jewelry designers Web secondlinejewels.com @secondlinejewels When Phil Collins and his band Genesis need another batch of designer dominoes for…
At A Glance Hometown | Charenton, Louisiana Age | 49 Occupation | Candlemaker, shop owner, Fifolet Candle Makers Web | fifoletcandles.com Blink and you’ll miss the small, knee-high roadside “Candle Shop” sign out front. But off the main…
With one bare foot steering the large silver press wheel, and two hands secure around the climbing boy’s bottom, his rainboots dangling over her ash-colored shop apron, this tangle of limbs and kinetic energy somehow stands in perfect poise,…
At A Glace Hometown London Age 27 Occupation Illustrator, product designer Website Wemightbeonfire.net Instagram @wemightbeonfire It’s not all that common to find a New Orleanian slowly roaming the French Quarter, camera in hand and enthralled with every curve…
At A Glance Hometown Greenwood, South Carolina Age 36 Instagram @basqo_ It’s an epic, bejeweled beast of folkloric proportions. Or else it’s a mischievous, spinning sun prop escaped from the set of a children’s TV show and…
At a Glance Name Frank Hamrick Location Ruston Business Printmaker and book craftsman Website frankhamrick.com He’s no fortune teller. He makes paper. That’s how Frank Hamrick knows the exact future of the T-shirt he’s wearing, and it’s not…
Unfortunately, swinging the fridge door wide revealed only a cavernous abundance of empty space surrounding one edible item: a lonely bag of shredded cheese. Tired, stressed and real meal-deprived from days of last-minute arts market prep, Daneisha Davis…
Even when it’s 17 below, one can only drink whiskey neat for so…
Connecting her bedroom to her sister’s and to the den, the triangular fireplace in the middle of the old 1910s home designer Hope Johnson grew up in provided not only ample opportunity for post-bedtime whispers — “mostly, I…
From castaway to runway, that’s the dynamic…
From castaway to runway, that’s the dynamic…
Saturdays always meant chores in the Kincel house. Early mornings brought work in dad’s small backyard shed or hours sweating under the car hood in the driveway — all while Frank Kincel’s friends were playing ball and biking the roads…
Belief in the resurrection runs deep in Dreux Barra’s life, and as it turns out, in his gumbo pot, too. The Youngsville-based food entrepreneur’s holy trinity mix — that’s bell pepper, celery and onion, for those unbaptized in the wild…
Illumination is a delicate thing. Like collaboration, it can take intentionality, an understanding of the environment and a sharp eye to make it most effective. Lafayette’s Boonies Design + Fabrication knows a lot about light and creativity — their…
It takes a lot of courage to launch a new culinary brand, but for Kaitlynn Fenley and Jon Scott Chachere, the creative couple has guts down to a science. As an informative wellness blog-turned-fermented foods brand, Cultured Guru is backed…
You see a lot of things out in the wild, but if nothing else, Sandra Walkin believes in resurrection. Reaching out beyond her sun-drenched, glassed-in porch, thousands of pines, pecans, winged elms, river birches and more stand as towering reminders…
Rounding the corner past a path of palms, ferns and lilies in the expanse of the greenhouse, Harper runs beaming, her arms waving wide like falcon wings. The young girl refuses to take off her new jacket; she pleads with…
Stacked three and four high and all around Blake Haney are brown boxes of just about everything: stickers, T-shirts, hats, socks — everything. Leaning back in his chair and turning his attention from his computer for what looks like the…
When bathing (thankfully) began trending again in the 19th century, the search was on for ways to produce affordable soap on a large enough scale to keep the working class disease-free, healthy and able to fill the factories and fields…
If you’re speeding or texting you’ll probably miss it, but tucked away in a beige block of industrial-looking storehouses off a small side road in Hammond, stands what the Brewers Association has twice named one of the 50 fastest-growing craft…
The opulent palaces and forested expanses of foothills stretching up to the highs of the Himalayas were enthralling, but Trishala Bhansali found her creativity molded more by muslins and silk brocade and block prints. The entrepreneur witnessed these among the…
Their fingers were crimson — almost stained — and with bellies full like the certainty of a cicada song at sunset, baskets of strawberries remained, and a decision had to be made. “There were just too many, and we didn’t…
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