Arts & Literature

Local Makers Find Success in Peachtree Corners, Part 2: For the Love of Wood — XOC Designs

Published

3 years ago

December 11, 2021

Isadora Pennington

Russell Mechan-Neathawk sharing a recent holiday serving tray. Photography by Isadora Pennington.

Sometimes it takes the unexpected to shake things up and inspire us to pursue our dreams. Whether it’s our children growing up and needing less attention, a sudden job change or a desire to transform grief into growth, there are many reasons why individuals might seek out a career that sparks their passion and gives their life new meaning.

Catalog book of products Neathawk has created.

Certainly, the past two years of living through a global pandemic have presented unprecedented challenges and ample opportunities to reconsider the ‘why’ behind our daily lives. So what does it take for an individual to embrace their dreams and not only survive a pandemic, but also to thrive?

Working through a 3-D program for a new project.

I’d like to introduce you to three such makers who have devoted themselves to their crafts, finding joy and meaning through transforming their ideas into products, and hobbies into livelihoods.

For the Love of Wood — XOC Designs

In early 2020, mere weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the world, a stroke of bad luck shook things up for Russell Machan-Neathawk and his family when he was abruptly let go from his job working with an HVAC company. Faced with the uncertainty of this deviation from his career and coupled with the onset of lockdowns, Machan-Neathawk found himself in a unique position. At the time, COVID restrictions had essentially shuttered businesses and prevented him from finding new business opportunities. It was at this moment that he took a step back and reevaluated what he was doing with his life.

“It was stressful; it took a lot of prayer and really trusting God that he would take care of us and lead us through all of this. For me it was hard because I went from being the breadwinner to… not,” Machan-Neathawk explained with a laugh. “Especially when I first started the company, I wasn’t getting consistent sales. Now I’m constantly doing 10 or so orders a week, at least.”

Machan-Neathawk has always been creative and good at working with his hands. He took animation design classes in high school, got a degree in Culinary Arts where he met his wife Amanda, and later used skills he learned from his father to complete woodworking projects around the house. Those early projects included designing and building a new mantle above their fireplace, installing a fence and crafting a mug shelf as a gift for his sister-in-law. Once he set up an Etsy shop and began getting orders, it all really started to come together.

The name of the company, XOC Designs, consists of the first letter of their sons’ names — Xavier and Oliver — and the family dog Casper. This connection is fitting as Machan-Neathawk is a devoted family man. His wife has been by his side to support him every step of the way, even though starting something new in the middle of a pandemic carries inherent risk.

“It was scary for sure just because it was such a big shift, but he’s got talent and I’ve known that since we met 17 years ago,” said Amanda. “We had a lot of faith in God and prayed that it would all work out, and it has.”

On top of the challenges facing the family in this crucial moment for Machan-Neathawk’s career, the sudden cancellation of their sons’ preschools meant that their entire home dynamic shifted on a dime. They went from two parents both working full time outside of the house with two kids in school to everyone being at home all the time.

In addition to starting this new business, maintaining Amanda’s increased workload from her now fully remote job, they now had to find ways to keep the kids engaged and happy at home. Luckily, they were able to get some childcare help from their parents who live just down the road.

“So that was interesting as well. I was trying to start a business, trying to work, and entertain and take care of two little ones at the same time,” said Machan-Neathawk. “I had a lot more flexibility with my job because I can do things when they go to sleep.” Those late-night hours have paid off, and today he is consistently busy making pieces for clients from around the country and as far away as Europe.

Machan-Neathawk’s most popular products include mug shelves, cutting boards, serving trays and holiday signs. All of his pieces are custom made, often incorporating beautiful and unique hardwoods such as Purple Heart, African Padauk and curly maple. Self-taught with the help of YouTube research, Machan-Neathawk especially loves learning about the materials, techniques and sourcing unique woods from salvage projects.

Able to craft designs both by hand on paper and in digital renderings, he says he especially loves the problem-solving he faces on a given project. “You’ll either have a knot that’s not really in a great place or you’ll have a split down the middle of it that you need to work around, so there’s more problem-solving than people realize. To me, it is therapeutic and soothing. Even being in the business world, I found out after I started this business just how stressed out I had been. Tapping into my creative side is very relaxing.”

Over the next few years, Machan-Neathawk hopes to expand beyond the confines of his garage studio and into a dedicated workshop. He also hopes to showcase his works in more local shops and festivals and to expand his custom furniture offerings for larger home projects. Not limited to a certain style or aesthetic, he embraces each new challenge with optimism and a can-do attitude.

After all, for Machan-Neathawk, working with wood is living his dream. “It was a dream that I didn’t know I had.”

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Isadora Pennington

Isadora is a writer, photographer, and designer living in Avondale Estates, GA. She has worked in print for the past decade and has been published in the Atlanta INtown, Oz Magazine, Atlanta Senior Life, and the Reporter Newspapers.

Around Atlanta

The High Museum to Showcase “Thinking Eye, Seeing Mind”

Published

1 week ago

December 12, 2024

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

Oil on paper artwork by Terry Winters. A large red circle with smaller blue circles on top of it and gold/yellow accents. All of it on a dark brown background.

The special exhibition of the Medford and Loraine Johnston Collection will run January 17 through May 25, 2025

In the mid-1970s, artist and Georgia State University professor Medford Johnston, along with his wife and collaborator Loraine, began collecting works by artists who were in the vanguard of contemporary art. Today, they hold one of the finest collections of postwar American drawings and related objects of its kind, now numbering more than 85 works.

In 2025, the High Museum of Art will present Thinking Eye, Seeing Mind: The Medford and Loraine Johnston Collection, featuring their collected works, which is a promised gift to the museum. Featuring artists such as Sol LeWitt, Brice Marden, Elizabeth Murray, Martin Puryear, Ed Ruscha, Al Taylor, Anne Truitt, Stanley Whitney and Terry Winters, among others, the exhibition will demonstrate how establishing the parameters of an art collection requires infinite patience, focus, discipline and a keen eye.

“The Johnstons have been friends of the High for a very long time. They’ve also built an impressive collection featuring works by many of the 20th century’s most significant abstract artists,” said the High’s Director Rand Suffolk. “We are honored that they have promised to leave their collection to the Museum where it will be preserved for future generations — and we are delighted that they are sharing it with our audiences now, hopefully inspiring the next generation of art collectors and supporters.”

A curated collection

The Johnstons’ story is a testament to, in the words of the High’s Wieland Family Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Michael Rooks, “knowing the difference between what is right and what is almost right” when building a collection.

Although the Johnstons acquired several paintings and objects when they first began collecting in 1972, they quickly narrowed their focus to drawing, primarily by artists working on the frontlines of abstraction in the mid-1960s during a time of great innovation and experimentation.

Ink drawing by Anne Truitt, rectangular lines and shapes made with black ink on off-white background — Anne Truitt (American, born 1921), *Ink Drawing ’59 [11]*, 1959, ink on paper, The Johnston Collection. © Estate of Anne Truitt / The Bridgeman Art Library / Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.

Rooks added, “Med and Loraine’s collection struck me at once by its single-minded focus on a specific moment in time, which was essentially the time of their contemporaries. The artists in their collection are like close friends to the Johnstons — in fact many are or were. What is equally astonishing about the collection is the Johnstons’ dogged pursuit of quality. Their in-depth knowledge of each artist’s practice combined with their understanding of specific qualities to look for — or more appropriately, to hold out for — will be a revelation to emerging collectors.”

The Johnstons have built their collection with the High in mind as the benefactor of their passion and discernment. For them, their collection “is a labor of love, pursued over more than 50 years, and we are delighted to be able to help the High Museum document and celebrate these important artists working during the same decades as our lives.”

About the exhibit

Thinking Eye, Seeing Mind: The Medford and Loraine Johnston Collection will be presented in the Special Exhibition Galleries on the second level of the High’s Stent Family Wing.

The exhibit is organized by the High Museum of Art and made possible through the generosity of sponsors:

Premier Exhibition Series Sponsor Delta Air Lines, Inc.
Premier Exhibition Series Supporters Mr. Joseph H. Boland, Jr., The Fay S. and W. Barrett Howell Family Foundation, Harry Norman Realtors and wish Foundation
Benefactor Exhibition Series Supporters Robin and Hilton Howell
Ambassador Exhibition Series Supporters Loomis Charitable Foundation and Mrs. Harriet H. Warren
Contributing Exhibition Series Supporters Farideh and Al Azadi, Mary and Neil Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. Baxter Jones, Megan and Garrett Langley, Margot and Danny McCaul, Wade A. Rakes II and Nicholas Miller and Belinda Stanley-Majors and Dwayne Majors.

Support has also been provided by the Alfred and Adele Davis Exhibition Endowment Fund, Anne Cox Chambers Exhibition Fund, Barbara Stewart Exhibition Fund, Dorothy Smith Hopkins Exhibition Endowment Fund, Eleanor McDonald Storza Exhibition Endowment Fund, The Fay and Barrett Howell Exhibition Fund, Forward Arts Foundation Exhibition Endowment Fund, Helen S. Lanier Endowment Fund, John H. and Wilhelmina D. Harland Exhibition Endowment Fund, Katherine Murphy Riley Special Exhibition Endowment Fund, Margaretta Taylor Exhibition Fund, RJR Nabisco Exhibition Endowment Fund and USI Insurance Services.

About the High Museum of Art

Located in the heart of Atlanta, the High Museum of Art connects with audiences from across the Southeast and around the world through its distinguished collection, dynamic schedule of special exhibitions and engaging community-focused programs.

Housed within facilities designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architects Richard Meier and Renzo Piano, the High features a collection of more than 19,000 works of art, including an extensive anthology of 19th- and 20th-century American fine and decorative arts; major holdings of photography and folk and self-taught work, especially that of artists from the American South; burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, including paintings, sculpture, new media and design; a growing collection of African art, with work dating from prehistory through the present; and significant holdings of European paintings and works on paper.

The High is dedicated to reflecting the diversity of its communities and offering a variety of exhibitions and educational programs that engage visitors with the world of art, the lives of artists and the creative process.

For more information about the High or to purchase tickets, visit high.org.

Top image: (from the collection) Terry Winters (American, born 1949), Orb, 2020, oil on paper, The Johnston Collection. © Terry Winters, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.

Around Atlanta

City Springs Theatre Company Presents the Hit Musical Jersey Boys

Published

6 months ago

July 3, 2024

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

The megahit musical Jersey Boys is making its regional premiere with the City Springs Theatre Company in a five-week run.

The megahit musical Jersey Boys makes its regional premiere in City Springs Theatre Company’s (CSTC) first-ever, five-week run at the Byers Theatre in Sandy Springs.

Directed by Atlanta’s-own Shane DeLancey, and choreographed by Meg Gillentine, Jersey Boys tells the rags-to-riches story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. The show details their remarkable journey from the streets to the top of the charts, to their 1990 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Leading the cast of Jersey Boys is Haden Rider as Frankie Valli. Rider is a City Springs Theatre Company veteran, with recent roles in both Legally Blonde (Emmett) and Fiddler on the Roof (Perchik).

Presented by Resurgens Spine Center, Jersey Boys runs from July 12 through August 11, and shines a special spotlight on home-grown talent, as the show’s four leading men are all Atlanta-area residents.

With phenomenal music, memorable characters and great storytelling, Jersey Boys follows the fascinating evolution of four blue-collar kids who became one of the greatest successes in pop-music history.

“City Springs Theatre Company is very proud to be the first in the southeast region to present Jersey Boys,” said CSTC Artistic Director and Tony Award-winner Shuler Hensley. “Our audiences have been asking for this particular show since we opened. The production is truly stacked with talent onstage and off, and we’re pulling out all the stops to bring audiences an experience that will rival any previous version of the show.”

Jersey Boys premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2005, prior to its 13-year Broadway run, from 2005 to 2017. There have been productions of the show in Las Vegas, UK/Ireland, Toronto, Melbourne, Singapore, South Africa, the Netherlands, Japan, Dubai and China.

Jersey Boys features a book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, with music by Bob Gaudio, and lyrics by Bob Crewe.

Individual tickets to see Jersey Boys are on sale now ($42 – $108), with discounts for seniors, students, groups and active and retired military personnel.

CSTC’s Box Office is open Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Call 404-477-4365 or visit CitySpringsTheatre.com for more information.

This production contains adult language and is recommended for mature audiences.

Performance schedule:

Arts & Literature

Local Students Show Off Their Artistic Creations

Published

7 months ago

June 2, 2024

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

Courtney Escorza, Colleen Nikopour, Laura Hwang, Jennifer Jackson, Norcross. Laura ELizabeth Martin, Payton Hirschmann, Paul Duke HS

From May 11 through May 18, the Norcross Gallery & Studios kicked off a fantastic exhibition, Reflections at Rectory, which showcased the works of 36 rising stars: AP and IB art students from our local high schools.

The opening reception celebrated their creativity and dedication. Gallery director Anne Hall presented a dozen awards generously sponsored by the community, a testament to the local support for these young artists.

One prestigious award, the Terri Enfield Memorial Award, holds special significance.

Established by Terri’s daughters, it recognizes not just artistic excellence, but also leadership, work ethic and the spirit of collaboration. Last year’s winner, Aidan Ventimiglia, even played a part in selecting this year’s recipient Jasmine Rodriguez.