Southern Comfort

Taking a long weekend to visit my Alma mater, the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah Georgia, to spectate the Comic Arts Forum was a much needed creative recharge. SCAD is nestled in the heart of the one of the creepiest city’s in America and entirely the reason I chose to study fashion and art there.

My appetite for the beautiful and creepy things of the world is ever entertained as I stroll the parks and streets. Here are just a few of my favorite haunts in the dreamy place of study.

Colonial Park Cemetery is heavily trafficed with people and their pets, it’s really just another park. No shame in having a picnic, it’s a beautiful place even on a rainy day.

If you read some of the plaques scattered about the park you’ll find a rich southern history and idealists such as “The Sons of the Revolution”.

One of my all time favorite things is this creepy little door that goes no where on Bull St. The other side of this wall has no door. Who knows what it opens out to, possibly Lynyrd Skynyrd’s last concert?

I love to visit the Ladies at The Savannah Tea Room where I worked “tea mistress” as a student. Chef Andre has the best menu in town, Paula Dean could learn a few things from him for sure.

Dragon Pearl Jasmine tea is the gateway to a spirited painting or illustration. One pot of this rich green tea and the world is a beautiful place.

This beautiful mansion turned 3 level antique store is wonderfully kept on the outside but inside, if you go up stairs, it’s rotting from the roof in. I love crawling around old, falling apart buildings, so this quiet little find is a creepy adventure I get to have all by myself.

Finding something like this all tucked away on the back porch is so surreal. You aren’t quite sure you can go out there because it might fall out from under you. Makes you feel like you discovered something that was kept secret in this sleepy town.

Every port town has a seedy under-belly and Savannah is no exception. This catacomb-like back ally behind River Street is a great place to shoot reference. At night it’s fun to freak yourself out as you listen to “The Edmond Fitzgerald” echoing in from the taverns on the river.

Savannah is known for it’s many squares Chippewa Square has these cool Lion sculptures that I have sketched several times.

(By the way, I am wearing the “Without My Muse” Garrott dress available for purchase here.)

Walking Forsyth Park, I start laughing, remembering my old apartment with a park view on Drayton St. At the time I thought $500 in rent was terribly high.

My old neighborhood, Drayton and Park St. in front of the “Amazing Technicolor Dreamhouse” . That is a ginger peach iced tea in my hand and they just don’t brew it like that in New York, let me tell ya.

But The very best part of being back in town is catching up with a few favorite professors, old friends and making new ones. Savannah is like a safe house for artists and over dinner and drinks a few pieces of paper get passed around each person adds a panel to the story and hilarity ensues.

But we all must leave the land of discovery and invention to light the torch of the world (weather it’s ready to receive us or not) so as one of my professors always says “Forever Forward” . Back to New York I go, to build dresses and paint things quietly in my little studio with an airport view.