Christiana Herndon

Christiana was born and raised in a small town in the Swiss Alps, surrounded by goats. Her father was a homeopath and she grew up helping him pick the herbs that she uses in her products today. She is creating her own little Switzerland right here in rural North Carolina.
Mission Statement: Christiana's will strive to attain the finest quality in personal care products, designed for your health and peace of mind. Christiana's Swiss Goat Milk Soap is made from pure olive oil, goat's milk, and essential oils. That's it!! No harmful chemicals.

Jonathan Daniel
African Wire Artist

My name is Jonathan Daniel. I was born in 1965 in Zimbabwe, then Rhodesia. I was born and raised on a farm. Both of my parents were illiterate and are still unable to read or write. My dad has been a cook for a white farmer for over thirty years. He has two wives, and I am the oldest of his nine children. Because my parents were so poor, I literally spent my childhood with no clothes, no money and no toys.
Although we were materially poor, my family was rich in values and tradition. Poverty forces you to be adventurous, creative and a dreamer. Sometimes people make poor choices in their poor condition that result in bad consequences, but others make positive choices that form positive talents to last a lifetime. Allow me to explain:
I remember as a young boy, when I asked my dad for a toy. He handed me an ax and said, ?With this tool, you can create any toy you can imagine.? As strange as it sounds, he was right. I remember carrying that ax over my shoulder, looking at branches and envisioning interesting pictures of toys to be carved. I began expanding my imagination of what a toy should look like, and I enriched my perceptions in creating ideas. I became adventurous so that I started to utilize the environment around me for all my basic needs.
On the farm, I had often seen machinery such as a truck or a tractor, but I hadn?t seen the other ?animals of the road? when I was young. There was a grocery store, merely three miles away from the farm, which we visited each day to buy bread and milk. When I was old enough to make this trip for the family?s only two food items, I began to see cars and trucks that I had never imagined. I was fascinated by the beauty and strangeness of them all. With each new vehicle I saw, I would run all three miles home and share what I had seen. Because I was unable to describe the kind of vehicle, I began carrying a piece of scrap wire around my neck. That way, when I saw a car of interest, I could use the wire to make the outlined shape of it and take it home to share. Next, I began to add to the wire vehicle, to the point where I had created a completed vehicle out of trash and was able to ?push-drive? them everywhere I went. I would even drive my trucks to the store and load them up with the daily bread and milk items. I quickly acquired the nickname ?Wire Boy? from those on the farm.
The humble artistic beginnings of my wire art blossomed when I came to the United States to study aircraft mechanics. The story of the development of my craft and how it helped me to fund my schooling is an interesting one as well. Although I had my own plans to return immediately to Zimbabwe after schooling, I had to unselfishly decide to use my gifts and talents of working with youth to be a Youth Minister in North Carolina. Although I love working with youth in America, I have never lost my passion for the work still to be done in my own country of Zimbabwe.

Sally Resnik Rockriver

Sally Resnik Rockriver uses science as a medium to create self-forming geochemical phenomena. Rockriver grows calcite cave-drip, zinc silicate crystals, and geode rock formations on clay. She also applies her ceramic glazes to hot blown glass. These pieces of her research, "geochemical artifacts", are assembled into larger sculptures. Her work has been published in several international ceramics books and is exhibited nationally and locally.
Her vision for her work and the school, Resnik Thermal Lab, has been to focus on the fusion of art and science, enhancing the historical development of both disciplines. In a review of her 2002 Solo Show, Roberta Smith of the New York Times says Rockriver "is an artist fearlessly and forcefully pushing a medium or two in new directions."

Grace Thomas

Grace Thomas has created lovely sachets filled with lavender.

Puppets by Folkman Puppets

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