“The Many Variations of the Arkansas Tattoo” in the Arkansas Times

Tesuansey Link. Photo by Brian Chilson of the Arkansas Times. Read the article to see more photos.

An article about the Us Tattooed Kids:  Arkansas Project came out in the Arkansas Times today.  Below you’ll find the first few paragraphs. Follow the “read more” link to read the entire article via the Arkansas Times site.

The next step in this project will be working toward a radio piece and a hardback book….and possibly more projects.

You can help us move the project forward by submitting your Arkansas tattoo photo and story and joining the conversation at the project’s facebook page here.

For at least a decade now, Arkansans — both native-born and transplants — have been choosing to mark their bodies with representations of the Natural State. Razorback tattoos have long been popular, but these Arkansas tattoos are more topographical, a marker of geography and a symbol of home. They range from simple outlines with a star or heart marking a hometown to ornate designs involving a birdhouse, a cotton plant or an area code.

For Cheyenne Matthews, co-host of the “Shoog Radio” show on 88.3 FM KABF, it’s the state Capitol, surrounded by stylized clouds and the word “Arkansas” inside a ribbon at the building’s base. The design, which graces her forearm, is part of a series of images created by Caleb Pritchett of Electric Heart Tattoos in Little Rock to help raise money for the show. “Everything we play and do is Arkansas-based,” Matthews said. “It’s a grassroots movement towards Arkansas stuff in general, events and music.”

Anthony Buckaloo and artist, Scott Diffee, the Parlor in Rose City. Photo by Brian Chilson.

Continue reading the story at the Arkansas Times here:

Click here to continue reading at the Arkansas Times site.   

Arkansas Tattoo Project Update: Visiting the Parlor in Rose City/North Little Rock.

Alinda Bennett at the Parlor gives Anthony Buckaloo his second Arkansas tattoo.

For the past few months we’ve been documenting the prevelance of Arkansas-themed tattoos and the stories behind them. The response has been amazing and generated many conversations about Arkansas as both a place and an idea.

Working in partnership with Shoog Radio on KABF, we’ve set up a Facebook page where people can upload their own photos and stories. To learn more visit the page here: Us Tattooed Kids: Arkansas Project.

And I’ve also been visiting with people, taking along my recorder and camera listening to stories about why people choose to mark their bodies with symbols of the place they call home. In the next few weeks a print piece will be coming out in the Arkansas Times and an audio essay for KUAF Public Radio will air later this spring. But I hope this project will keep going and become more community led. So if you’ve got an Arkansas tattoo or know someone who does, please spread the word and upload your photos and stories to the page above or contact me directly. We want to document a wide range of stories and voices, and we’d love to include yours.

Here’s a short audio clip from one of my favorite interviews so far, an interview with Anthony Buckaloo who, during the interview, is getting his second Arkansas tattoo from Alina Bennett at the Parler in Rose City/North Little Rock.

In this clip he’s speaking with Parlor owner Scott Diffee about his first tattoo, an Arkansas outline. During the interview he’s getting the tattoo shown above. He talks about growing up in a low income neighborhood in North Little Rock and how much he loves his home. Here’s a short clip.

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I’ll be posting more clips this week from other interviews. Help us document the wide diversity of Arkansas tattoos and the stories and people behind them. Visit the facebook page here and tell your Arkansas story.

The Seed and the Story: Shopping Small

A nice graphic showing distribution of local dollars. From Local First Michigan.

The Seed and the Story is published every other week in the Post Dispatch and syndicated in the Courier.  Please remember to support your local paper!

With only a few weeks before Christmas and other winter holidays fast approaching, nearly everywhere I go I am continually reminded of how many shopping days are left.  At the same time, there’s so much talk of how rampant consumerism is ruining what should be days of togetherness and peace.  Gift-giving is an age old tradition that transcends cultures, and nearly all of us recognize the merits of giving and receiving a thoughtful, useful gift. But regardless of which winter holidays you observe, and whether you celebrate them as secular or religious events, I think many of us would agree that frantic shopping and over-spending misses the point of the holiday season. Thankfully we have other options, many of which tap into traditions that go back generations.

Lots of publications these days talk about DIY (Do it Yourself) gifts.  It’s become a trendy buzzword, but the concept is nothing new.  You can’t get much more personal than a homemade gift, and what’s more, such gifts have, and always will be, the staple form of gift-giving for those of us on a budget. I love receiving cookies, doilies, jams, breads, pillows, jerky, framed photos, drawings, scarves, and a host of other wonderful homemade presents loved ones have given me over the years.  Embedded in these gifts are traditions passed down generations and across cultures, carried on by the hands of friends and family who care enough to pass them on to me.  In my own personal opinion, it’s the highest form of gift-giving.

Let’s be real though.  Not all of us have the time to make multiple batches of fudge or embroidered potholders.  The Buy Local movement is gaining in popularity and offers the opportunity to support local business and still keep the holidays small and personal.  Sure, chain retailers offer good deals and we all love to save money.  But look at it from this angle: For every one hundred dollars you spend at a chain store only fifty-seven dollars is filtered back into the local economy.  Compare that with one hundred dollars spent at a locally-owned establishment where approximately seventy-three dollars are channeled back into the community in the form of local taxes, wages, and social investments.  Every time you support a local business you’re making a decision to give back to your community, a long-term investment in the place you call home.  That’s a gift not only for your loved ones, but also for the generations to come.

Finally, you have the option of supporting independent artisans and farmers or giving to a cause that matters to you.  Craft markets, Art Walks, and even online craft networks offer personalized gifts while also supporting  artists, artisans, and craft co-operatives, many of which provide income for those in need.   You can also check out www.Etsy.com to buy directly from artists and artisans around the nation.  And if there are organizations, either locally or globally, that you feel are doing great work, consider a donation in your loved one’s honor.  You and your loved one will find joy in knowing your gift made a difference in someone’s life.

What are some of your favorite gifts to give?  What are some of the most meaningful gifts you have received?

Sustainability Means More Than Just Food: Article on the Root Cafe in Arkansas Times.

From the Arkansas Times. Photo by Brian Chilson.

I recently had the opportunity to visit with Root Cafe owners Jack and Corri Bristow Sundell about the origins of their local food cafe, their inspirations, and plans for the future.

A upcoming discussion with the Root owners will air during  Ozarks at Large‘s  series about local businesses in Arkansas and will  explore their thoughts on the importance of eating local, the inspiration behind the cafe, and their plans for the future.  I’ll be posting more about that soon.

I had the opportunity to write this piece for the  Arkansas Times, published yesterday, examining their sustainable business model and the four years of fundraising that led to opening their doors.   Here’s an expert from the article.  To read the whole thing visit Arkansas Times or follow the link below.  You can also pick up printed copies of the Times throughout central Arkansas.

We’d love to hear more about other sustainable business models in your area.  Leave a comment or send us an email!

From the Arkansas Times:

The Root of All Success:  Sustainability Means More than Just Food. 

After four years of planning, the Root Cafe opened in June of this year. The locavore-friendly South Main area restaurant is a great place to get a juicy all-beef burger made with Arkansas-raised beef or a melt-in-your mouth vegan doughnut. But when it comes to sustainability, owners Jack and Corri Bristow Sundell took the concept beyond what’s on the menu.

In addition to using small-scale, local suppliers — all of their meats are sourced locally, and a large percentage of their vegetables and cheeses are grown and produced in the region — they also took a sustainable approach to financing.

In 2007 they started small, raising awareness and money for the cafe long before they ever secured a location. “When we started looking into business research and writing a business plan,” Jack said, “we could see that, for a lot of small businesses, the money they have to repay in loans ends up being one of the things they can’t sustain.”

It took about $30,000 to get the cafe up and running. They took out a $10,000 bank loan, but most of the money was raised prior to opening their doors. Assistance also came via landowner Anita Davis who finished out the interior of the 900-square-foot former Sweden Creme after the lease was signed “and built it to suit a lot of specifications,” Corri said.  

The pair adopted a micro-funding approach and hosted fundraising dinners at locations throughout town, generating interest in — and money for — the eventual storefront. Some of their most successful fund-raising efforts, Jack said, were the canning and food preservation workshops. “Initially we were thinking, well, this is something we’ll have to really get people interested in because no one does canning or food preservation anymore. But it turned out that, once we put the idea out there, there were more people interested than we could accommodate in the classes,” he said

More at http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/the-root-of-all-success/Content?oid=1944807

Occupy Northwest Arkansas Webpage and Local Business List

From the Occupy Northwest Arkansas Webpage

As the energy of the Occupy movement shifts to other larger cities such as Oakland, the movement continues to grow in smaller towns throughout the southern and midwestern U.S.

This past week Occupy Northwest Arkansas Movement released their webpage with information about the NWA occupation beginning Novemeber 12th. Although it’s still somewhat under construction, the site contains valuable pieces of information and provides a snapshot of one smaller city’s response to the Occupy movement.   As a quick aside, if you’re interested in reading more about the Occupy movement in rural areas be sure and follow the posts from our good friends at the Art of the Rural. 

Much has been written about the Occupy movement in cities, and a handful of writers are tackling concepts of the Occupy movement in more rural areas.  But what does it look like in the small cities and larger towns that walk fine lines between rural and urban? Fayetteville provides one example.

Here’s their answer to the question “Why Do We Occupy?”

Everyone knows that our system is broken. Everyone knows that our politicians are bought and paid for by lobbyists. Everyone knows that Wall Street, the big banks and the major corporations are making money hand over fist while the average folks are getting squeezed harder and harder. Everyone knows that people are losing their jobs, their homes, their medical coverage, their retirement savings, without any sign of the economy getting any better. We all know these things. At its core, the Occupy movement is simple. People know these things and they are fed up. They have had enough. The real question right now is: What do we do about all of this?

The first thing we have to do is start coming together as ordinary people and start talking to each other as people. The second thing we have to do is to learn how to talk to each other and work with each other, even when we disagree with each other. Modern pop culture teaches us that if someone disagrees with us, we should scream at them, call them names, attack them, fight them, and ultimately try to destroy them. We need to find better ways. We need to find the places where we can agree and work together. When we disagree, we need to learn how to disagree without trying to tear each other apart.

Why is all this important? If we can come together and start talking to each other, if we can learn to work together even if we disagree in some places, then we can, as a unified and strong people, begin to make the changes necessary to start healing our poor, broken country. That’s why we Occupy. That’s what we are doing during our Occupation. That’s why we ask you to join us. Let us stand together, work together, to heal our country.

What I found particulary interesting and helpful about this Occupy Northwest Arkansas  site is the link entitled “Support Local.”   The drop down menu has a link for everything from “grocery” to “transportation.”  Once you choose a link on the drop down menu, the site provides a list of local businesses serving those needs.  More local businesses are being added daily.

The northwest Arkansas area is a community known for its thriving local business economy, a place where people work hard to make it possible to shop locally.

This calls to mind one of the more prevalent local-economy images that have been floating around online.  I’m sure you’ve seen it.

And here’s another example of an infographic tha has also been going around from Occupy Long Island:

From Occupy Oakland

The Occupy movement is raising awareness of the role of local economies, whether they be rural, urban, or somewhere inbetween.  And the Occupy Northwest Arkansas webpage provides a great source not only of information, but opportunities for everyday action for all those looking to support a more local economy.

Do you know of other useful websites affiliated with the Occupy movement?  Others that have a local economy focus like Occupy NWA?

“Knit One” on Ozarks at Large

Last week my radio piece about Knit Night at Knit 2 Together Yarn Store in downtown Russellville aired on the Ozarks at Large program on KUAF 91.3 FM Public Radio. This piece serves as a companion piece to the written story published in The Courier and  features the voices of many area knitters discussing how they learned their craft, why they enjoy it, and the importance of knitting together. I am so thankful to these knitters for allowing me to listen to their stories and share them with you.

If you want to listen to the entire Ozarks at Large Program for Friday February 4th click here. The knitting story airs toward the end of the show.

If you want to just hear the knitting piece then click here.  Because this story marks the first time I’ve done a radio piece in quite some time, per the request of my boss, I wrote and recorded an introduction explaining where I’ve been, what I’ve been up to, and how I came to begin writing radio pieces about central Arkansas.

Continue reading »

“A Knit Culture,” article in Courier.

Knitters at the Knit Night in Russellville, Arkansas

I’m a bit late in posting this, but here is a link to the story on Knit Night at Knit 2 Together Yarn Shop in Russellville, Arkansas. A radio piece featuring interviews from the evening is in the works and should be done by (crossing fingers) next week. It will be my first foray into radio production in several years, so I am excited about its completion.

For a little behind the scenes information on the store see my previous post, which also includes a few photos.

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Knit Night at Knit 2 Together

Knitting and Visiting

Last week I had the opportunity to visit with the knitters at the weekly Knit Night, a Tuesday evening knitting circle that meets at Knit 2 Together Yarn Shop in downtown Russellville, Arkansas. I heard wonderful stories about how they all learned to knit, discussions of their love for both the tactile and calming elements of the craft, and the importance of their evenings spent together. Continue reading »

The Milk of Less Wastefulness

Milk in reusable glass jugs from Seven Doves Creamery with Drewry Peaches.

I’ve been posting a lot about local foods and food production these days because I believe supporting local and regional foods is key to a sustainable economy and culture. As a folklorist I am interested in the culture of small-scale growing and how local economies can benefit all members of a community and  how local food systems are an integral part of human rights.

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