From playing violin to teaching children to composing with whales, Juan R. Ramírez Hernández hits all the right notes
STORY: Ann Hardie
Juan R. Ramírez Hernández performs, conducts and composes. What does he love most? Teaching kids. “The children are like vessels, and you put into those vessels what they need,” says Ramírez. “It’s always interesting to see what they can do with the information.”
On top of more […]
A Sandy Springs author dishes on dating and the senior set
STORY: H.M. Cauley
It might be raising a few eyebrows, but author Lynn Garson is happy with the title of her new book, Sex and the Single Grandma.
“Some people said they didn’t consider themselves a ‘grandma,’ and some didn’t like the idea of grandmas having sex,” says Garson. “I worked through a lot of titles before I […]
A Buckhead artist delves into her past for creative inspiration
Blayne Macauley’s artworks capturing memories in symbols have found a following thanks to HGTV.
STORY: H.M. Cauley
Blayne Macauley’s days as an artist date back to her high school years at The Westminster Schools, where she took up photography. Then a trip to Italy between her junior and senior years introduced her to the power of […]
A local makeup artist sings a different song on stage
STORY: Kevin C. Madigan
Lahcen Boufedji Photography / Wardrobe courtesy of Tootsies
Latin jazz singer and songwriter Sarai Mateo can be found most Friday evenings and various other dates throughout the month performing at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Buckhead, but she took a long, circuitous route to get there.
Mateo is Puerto Rican but started life in Nicaragua in […]
A Buckhead artist moves from walls to floors with hand-painted rug designs
Artist Alan Vaughn creates durable works for floors as well as walls.
STORY: H.M. Cauley
Put a painting on the floor? The idea does raise eyebrows, says Buckhead artist Alan Vaughn. But in fact, it’s been happening for eons.
“It goes back many hundreds of years, when big expanses of ship sails were painted by […]
After years of nurturing successful restaurants, chef Ford Fry whips up his first cookbook
Be it fajitas or flan, Ford Fry’s new Tex-Mex tome has it all.
STORY: H.M. Cauley
Atlantans have long enjoyed dining at Ford Fry restaurants. In Buckhead alone, the Texasborn chef is behind the flavors of St. Cecilia, King + Duke and Superica, while also overseeing operations at nine other eateries around […]
Film critic Stephen Michael Brown shares his search for the creative and different on the big screen
STORY: Michael Jacobs
Stephen Michael Brown started writing movie reviews as a third grader in Greenville, South Carolina. His parents regularly took him to the theater and movies, and the storytelling of stage and screen hooked him. He brought monthly HBO guides to kindergarten for show-and-tell, joined the Boy Scouts for […]
Clothing boutique founder Dana Spinola adds author to her resume
STORY: H.M. Cauley
Call it a life crisis; call it a crossroads. Whatever it was, it hit Dana Spinola hard last year. After 16 years, the founder of the Fab’rik clothing stores and the mom of four was wiped out.
“I was living at 1 percent battery life,” says the 44-year-old. “When my team told me to take a […]
A local art lover fulfills her dream of owning a gallery
STORY: H.M. Cauley
Katie Jones isn’t waiting for a midlife crisis or fate to take hold to do what she’s always dreamed about. Instead, the recent Birmingham-Southern College graduate has leapt body and soul into one of the toughest jobs in town: art gallery curator.
Atlanta has a wealth of destination galleries—and a list almost as long of […]
BRIAN BRASHER’S MUSIC STARS IN BIG-TIME MOVIE TRAILERS AND MARKETING CAMPAIGNS
STORY: Muriel Vega
PHOTO: Loli Lucaciu
Musician and composer Brian Brasher first dove into the music industry during his college years in Tallahassee, Florida, when he was a founding member of the rock band Creed. Collaborating on two of their number-one hits (“What’s This Life For” and “One”) made him realize he was passionate about the other side […]
