LAUREN HELMER CREATIVE

It’s an everyday tabletop vignette in the South. A glass of sweet tea glistens with condensation, and groupings of hot pepper vinegar, Tabasco sauce, ketchup, salt, pepper and butter stand ready to enhance the flavors spread across a plastic tray. Those traditional offerings often include a miniature bowl of chopped collards in piping hot pot liquor, a side of savory black-eyed peas, ultra-creamy baked mac and cheese, crispy, buttermilk fried chicken and the complimentary, buttery dinner roll or crusty cornbread. No pretenses, just the classic meat-and-three fare like grandma used to make.

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Images: Lauren Helmer via StyleBlueprint

FASHION DESIGNER BILLY REID fondly recalls helping his mother in her small-town Louisiana clothing boutique. “[The shop] was in my grandmother’s old home that she had converted into her store,” he says. “I have a lot of memories of that, because it was a really cool hangout for people in a lot of ways.” The boutique was less retail store and more community gathering place. The shop often was filled with laughter and conversation, impromptu parties, and other creative shindigs—all things Reid is known for recreating in his creative and fashion-focused endeavors today.

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Images: Cary Norton Photography

The Accused, the character based on Lizzie Borden, dons a frilly jacket hiding evidence on her dress of the bloody deed she’s just committed, and, in a chilling, silent moment, she makes her way past the crime scene, careful not to wake the dead. The Accused emerges from her home with a slam of the door and faces the audience. The music blares as she emits a silent, yet blood-curdling, scream. Through dance, she wrestles her inner demons in a manic frenzy, standing firm in denial, then trembling in horror, fleeing in frantic fear, then shaking with sobs of remorse. Every nuanced motion, from lightning-quick pirouettes to graceful moments of beauty, is executed with perfect technique as tears stream down the dancer’s face.

“As a storyteller, I had to explore and share such deep emotions, which made me feel vulnerable, but also was exhilarating and meaningful,” says Birmingham native and Alabama Ballet company member Catherine Garrat of playing the Accused in Agnes de Mille’s ballet, “Fall River Legend.” “Any moment you can enjoy performing, whether in the studio or onstage, is rewarding. Whether it’s properly conveying a story or successfully accomplishing a step or a certain style of movement, the process is as important to me as the stage time, because that is where we evolve.”

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Images: Lauren Helmer via StyleBlueprint

Sparks fly and smoke billows skyward from massive furnaces downtown in 1920s Birmingham, a booming steel town filled with the noisy chatter of Model T Fords on dusty main streets, the screaming whistle and chug of railroad cars and the bustling daily business of Greek, Italian and Lebanese immigrant families, who came to the boom town seeking opportunity. Farther north, a mercantile district boasts glamorous, high-end hotels, the glittering marquees of theaters and an array of shops.

This was the Magic City, so named for its seemingly “magical” overnight growth around its bustling factories and businesses. The poor workers and immigrants set up camp in shotgun houses in the shadow of the furnaces and warehouses, while the mercantile business owners and managers lived just north and the captains of industry lived and oversaw the city from high on the hill above the smoke, noise and heat. It was this spike in big business and the influx of boisterous diversity that cemented downtown’s socioeconomic compartmentalization.

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In one corner, a pendant light hangs above a round mid-century modern table and colorful retro chairs, casting a pool of light onto an intimate gathering spot where one can easily imagine the kids from Stranger Things playing a raucous game of Dungeons & Dragons. That vintage vibe is enhanced with wood paneling, old-school TVs, a trophy-laden fireplace, homey greenery and cozy lighting. In a long hallway-like room, a mini rust-colored booth with low lights, surrounded by jungle wallpaper and hanging ferns, feels like the meeting place for tracksuit-sporting mobsters in a ’70s film. And yet another nook, a table for two with an ice-breaking electronic Let’s Go Fishin’ game seems the perfect spot to fall in love, gazing into your partner’s eyes with a miniature plastic fishing pole in your hand as hungry plastic fish circle below. This eclectic mashup of nostalgia, humor and romance, along with some tasty cocktails, is The Atomic Bar & Lounge in downtown Birmingham, the feel-good brainchild of husband-and-wife bartending duo Feizal Valli and Rachael Roberts.

“I’m a big fan of mid-century modern and dive bars. Basically, I was looking for that and a place that felt like somebody’s house, so we included touches like photos of actual people we knew and actual trophies we’d won on the mantel,” says Feizal. (There are even extra hair ties and other feminine necessities thoughtfully displayed in the ladies’ room — well played, Rachael.) “We approach this bar like our home, and you are our guest. It feels warm and familiar, and it’s definitely quirky with lots of one-of-a-kind things to look at.”

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In their first month of college at the University of Colorado Boulder, Mandy Lyne and Matthew Whalen met at a potluck among friends — and a spark was lit. “We dated for a bit freshman year but I was too footloose and fancy-free to settle down yet,” says Mandy. The two remained touchstones for each other throughout college, remaining friends then getting back together in their senior year and moving to Austin, Texas, together after graduation.

The couple, who have a soft spot for West Texas, headed to Hill Country last November to recharge. “One day during that trip, we drove out for a hike in Fort Davis,” says Mandy. “He shocked me when he proposed with a Georgian ring I had lost out on from one of my favorite antique jewelry dealers in England. Turns out he was the one who outbid me!”

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Dane Jorgensen, lead keeper of the Birmingham Zoo’s Primate Department, never expected one inquisitive and playful giant otter to come along and change the trajectory of his career. But that is exactly what Karina the giant otter did, changing the game not only for Dane, but for other animal species in the Birmingham Zoo — and beyond.

“I love the way that our relationship came to be,” says Dane, primary caretaker and trainer of the giant otter Karina and her sister Lara. The giant otters came to the zoo from Miami three years ago at the ages of 2 and 3. Dane recalls the two arriving on a truck around midnight and his early days of getting to know them. “I was there when she arrived, and I’ve been with her almost every day since,” says Dane. “Karina and I just kind of clicked.” Dane says it is important to establish a relationship with the animals outside of food, so he’d go into the exhibit to simply hang out and get to know the otters. “Karina would lay in the corner, and I’d sit beside her and toss a pebble toward her, and she’d nuzzle it back to me. It wasn’t training in a conventional way; we just had this little game between us that had nothing to do with food. Then, I put it under stimulus control with cues to tell her to do it and then reward her for doing it.”

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Images: Everett Hatcher via StyleBlueprint

Walk into Pizzeria GM, and you’re greeted by the lively jangle of conversation and clatter of dishware. The crisp, modern space is filled with families with young kids, ladies on a girl’s’ night out, couples, older men at the bar, teenagers at the chef’s counter in front of the central open-air kitchen, where pizzas slide in and out of the fiery glow of the large pizza oven.

“That’s my favorite thing—my oven. We call it ‘The Beast.’ It’s the biggest one that Wood Stone makes. It came in here before the walls went up. As soon as the roof was on, they rolled it in here, and then they built the restaurant around it,” says Giani Respinto, who co-owns Pizzeria GM and Gianmarco’s Restaurant with his brother, Marco, and his father, Giovanni.

Read the full story at Homewood Life.

Image: by Jamison & Lindsay Kate Skinner

If you’ve never heard of “dump recipes” before, you’re probably confused and possibly a little grossed out. But don’t get all judgey just yet! “Dump recipes” are recipes that require little more effort than the action of dumping ingredients into another vessel. What’s not to love?

I learned about dump recipes from my Aunt Sarah, who had an arsenal of these super-tasty, surprisingly low-maintenance dishes up her sleeve. She would bring her addictive salsa and black bean & corn dip — both dump recipes, I would later learn — to the family lake house, where she’d pop off the Tupperware tops and crack open a bag of tortilla chips for everyone to enjoy. And enjoy we did, usually while I slaved over some super-complicated recipe like crab-stuffed zucchini blossoms or authentic Vietnamese pho. She regularly told me I was “over-functioning.” I even remember her once saying to me, “You know, it is OK to just make sandwiches for dinner sometimes.”

I’ve come to realize that she’s right. Over-functioning is over-rated! There’s a time to dazzle and a time to dump.

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Images: Lauren Helmer via StyleBlueprint

“I retired three years ago now, and I’ve gone through a lot of my things, thrown things away, reorganized things, and I have found old sketch books with imaginary houses I’ve drawn — you know, those ‘one of these days’-type things,” says longtime downtown Birmingham city dweller and architecture academic Cheryl Morgan of her historic downtown loft space. “And there are a lot of elements in those drawings and diagrams that I can see have found a place here. So, I think this place has been in my brain for years.”

This urban design and architectural guru was integral to the longtime reimagining and planning of Railroad Park and the Rotary Trail, projects which have origins in a 93-year-old green-space design by the renowned Olmsted brothers — whose father, Frederick Law Olmsted, designed such projects as Central Park and the Biltmore Estate.

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“You’ll hear me talk about the house. This is the house, all of us, this place,” says Sous Chef Mike Brady, gesturing to his surroundings. He sits in the private dining room of GianMarco’s Restaurant in the quaint Edgewood neighborhood, where he’s worked since he helped open it with the Respinto family 14 years ago. Brothers Giani and Marco Respinto grew up around their father Gio’s restaurant, the famous Rocco’s Ristorante in New York City. The brothers co-own GianMarco’s, which echoes the cozy, unpretentious, food-centric vibe of their father’s iconic Greenwich Village eatery. And in keeping with traditional, Italian family-owned restaurants, they have earned a small army of loyal regulars and staff members who are all like family now.

“‘House always wins,’” Mike continues, explaining, “Let’s say you were about to be off for the night and a table shows up, well, ‘House wins’—you come back to work. And that’s just a given. No one wants anything bad to happen to where we work, because we’ve all been here for so long, it’s like this is our family. This is who we are. We are GianMarco’s. We bleed it. We love it.”

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Images: Lauren Helmer via StyleBlueprint

You may not know her face, but you probably know her voice. Dru Cunningham Backensto is Birmingham Mountain Radio’s DJ host of the “Flipback Lunch,” which airs weekdays during her 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift, and the soon-to-launch “She Show,” featuring all female artists and dynamic local women as guests.

Dru opened the doors to her and her husband, Eric’s, gorgeous condo overlooking the Magic City. It’s an eclectic mix of modern-meets-classical with layers of fascinating objets d’art, intriguing collections and antiques galore. It seems almost every item has a story.

Read the full story at the Over the Mountain Journal.

Images: Lee Walls via the Over the Mountain Journal

When Sarah and Justin Arrington bought a gorgeous parcel of land—complete with rolling hills, winding trails, and a babbling creek—their plans for a future forever home were intentional and hard-won. It was a shared vision that they dreamed up together, and meticulously and indefatigably worked toward for years. They called it Fervent Farm.

“I just love that word and its meaning: Being passionate in all things—passionate about building, passionate about design, passionate about living life to the fullest,” Justin says.

“And that’s one thing about us—and it’s almost to a fault,” Sarah says. “If we are going to do something, we are going to do it very passionately. It’s like him moving those 1,000- to 3,000-pound rocks with a machine to build a retaining wall this weekend, or how I worked my tail off to plant my first spring garden out back.”

“We just enjoy the challenge,” Justin says. “And I would say for both of us: In life, we just really like drawing out the potential in things.”

Read the full story at Birmingham Magazine.

Images: Sarah Arrington

“I just love the concept of photography itself—you capture a moment, and make it live forever,” says Jamie Gay of the husband-and-wife wedding-photography team, Eric & Jamie Photography. “Like that moment when the 3-year-old ring bearer is break-dancing, and there’s a big circle around him on the dance floor,” Eric adds. “Moments like that are great, because you can’t ‘redo’ that moment. And I think it’s super cool that we’re the ones who get to click the shutter, and there it is—forever.”

Read the full article at Birmingham Magazine.

Image: Eric & Jamie Photography