Sweet Tea: Creating connection

Making something with your hands is kind of like magic. Every time I thread a needle or run yarn through my fingers I think of how many generations of my ancestresses did the same exact thing, with the same exact care. I wager every culture on Earth, and certainly cultures here in the South, conjure the same kind of connection with their craft.

A WORLD OF BLOOMS

Scott McMahan, vice president of horticulture and collections at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, poses with a cobra lily. (Arvin Temkar/AJC)

Here’s one to add to the dream job list: plant explorer.

Well, technically Scott McMahan is the vice president of horticulture and collections at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, but being a plant explorer comes with the job.

• The Atlanta Botanical Garden is celebrating 10 years of its International Plant Exploration Program, in which McMahan has played an instrumental role.
• He travels around the world to find cultivars to protect and preserve in the program.
• China, Japan, Vietnam and the mountains of India are frequent destinations, because plants there do well in the climate of the American South.

Did you know? Many of our most beloved Southern plants, like hydrangea, rhododendron, azaleas and magnolias, were once imports from Asia and South America

🌱 READ MORE: The life of a plant explorer

HANDMADE HISTORY

Georgia's Marlene Bennett Jones poses with a traditional Gee's Bend quilt. (Gracie Bonds Staples/AJC 2017)

The Black community of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, is known for its rich tradition of quilting work. The community is built on the site of a former plantation, and through the years Black women made quilts to keep their families warm in houses without heat or other amenities.

In the 1960s, Gee’s Bend was one of a few neighboring communities to found the Freedom Quilting Bee, a Black quilting cooperative.

• The quilts of Gee’s Bend are bold and geometric, made with long strips of fabric cut from old work clothes, flour sacks and other recycled textiles.
• It’s the kind of handcraft that draws a direct, spiritual connection between the present and the past.
• The quilters of Gee’s Bend are now the newest participants of fashion brand Ralph Lauren’s Artist in Residence program.
• The collaboration takes traditional Gee’s Bend quilt and reimagines them on apparel, accessories and housewares.

🧵 READ MORE: The importance of American heritage craftwork

SIPS FROM AROUND THE SOUTH

💙 Jackson, Mississippi: Katrina Byrd, a Mississippi writer visually impaired from birth, fell in love with a woman who was later diagnosed with ALS. After her partner’s death, Byrd tells the couple’s story to advocate for better access to clinical trials and experimental therapies. More from Mississippi Today

🫶🏻 Concord, North Carolina: As a child, Trevor Bumbarger found help and happiness with Amazing Grace Advocacy, a Concord nonprofit that supports families raising children with intellectual disabilities. Bumbarger is autistic and had several health problems when he was younger. Now, he gives back to the organization by volunteering as a program manager. More from WSOC