Creative Awakenings: Vol. 7: From the Doll House to the Kitchen

Written by Edith Manfred. Graphic by Laura Garcia.

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve gotten at SCAD was at one of the graphic design talks last spring. The visiting designer said that, as creatives, while we’re young, we should be jack-of-all-trades, willing and able to experiment with different storytelling mediums, and later in our careers, we can become hyper-focused on niches as more established artists. While I believe in doing the work you’re passionate about as soon as possible, I do think there’s a point to be made about how experimenting in a myriad of mediums can only enhance our artistic endeavors.

The further I get into my art school journey, the more I’ve been fascinated by the idea that we are stronger as multi-disciplinary artists than by hyperfocusing on one medium. I started at SCAD unwavering in the idea that I would be a photojournalist, but the more artist talks I attended, sets I worked on and projects I helped develop, the more I’ve come to realize that I want to be a visual storyteller in a variety of mediums. The photography I’m studying is just the starting point for complex and beautiful narratives that can be told through film, fashion, writing, graphic design and much more. That’s part of the beauty of a creative environment like SCAD: you can learn, experiment and change directions, all in pursuit of what stories feel the most authentic and fulfilling.

One student for whom directions often change in pursuit of creative experimentation is Sarah Johnson. Before becoming a fashion major with a minor in fashion journalism, she started her creative career when her dad taught her to sew pillow cases for Girl Scouts. As a DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America) competitor in high school, she would’ve told you that her real passion was marketing. The storytelling of design and marketing bridged the gap between art and business in a way that felt fascinating.

As with so many of us, the 2020 pandemic threw off Sarah’s passion for school and forced her into creative side projects. One night in 2020, Sarah was staying up late and found a pair of Hollister skinny jeans that were both too nice to throw away and too old to keep. She started cutting and sewing and suddenly had a magically new creation. This led to more upcycling projects, culminating in her making vintage Gloria Vanderbilt jeans into a coat, all by hand without the aid of a sewing machine. Later, Sarah and her best friend, also Sarah, started a business called ‘Second Hand Sarahs’ where they would go thrifting for pieces with potential and then upcycle them in order to sell them, refurbished as a new creation. She realized that she loved sewing and upcycling for the environmental impact, as it takes a high-end market like fashion and makes it tangible and realistic for the average person.

Now that she’s at SCAD, Sarah has found that there’s far more to the fashion industry than sewing, but that doesn’t mean her passion for it has diminished. Currently, that passion is being poured wholeheartedly into her senior fashion collection “My Doll House”, which is a love letter to childhood and the nostalgia of growing up. Inspired by Shel Silverstein’s poem “The Dollhouse,” her collection is “designed for precocious adults to encourage them to crawl back into the doll house that they once played with as a child.” This womenswear collection has a focus on knitwear, which is a medium that creates less waste than usual fabric creations.

Beyond finishing her collection and graduation, Sarah’s goal is to be at peace with whatever comes next. Working as a technical designer, opening a bakery and somersaulting in the backyard are all within her joyful view. From marketing to knitting to sewing, artistic experimentation has helped Sarah to find her joy.

For writing student and line cook George Vedder, experimentation with food is not just necessary fuel; it’s a performance art. Having grown up with frequent international moves, George found community and belonging in the kitchen. This belonging then found creative expression in writing, where he uses his knowledge and passion for food to fuel work in a variety of publications.

George’s creative awakening began at a small restaurant in Minnesota where he had his first job, chopping vegetables and helping out at age fifteen. With parents who were passionate about food, the kitchen felt natural. He didn’t yet have the knowledge base of an expert, but within two years, he became the lead line cook, a role that is known as the “adrenaline junkies” of the kitchen. Often working long hours, they are responsible for getting the food on the plate in whatever form it should be, be that basted, seared, emulsified, etc. After achieving this status in his first restaurant, George transitioned to SCAD to study writing and later worked as a line cook at one of Savannah’s most upscale restaurants, The Grey.

As his kitchen knowledge base grew, George found writing to be an outlet for the multitude of things he was learning in the kitchen. Not every food writer or critic finds themselves actively “behind the line”, being hands-on with the food they’re consuming. It gives him both a broader and more intimate outlook from which to write. If you have had to cook 150 pieces of salmon within a five-degree temperature range, perhaps you might understand and appreciate the consumption of that salmon a little more deeply. This passion is expressed as George views himself as a “cook who writes,” not a writer who cooks.

There is an element of creativity within the kitchen, he explains, as he considers food “an artform, a medium for artistic expression”. Any food can become art, but the scope for creativity increases as the creator moves into higher-end kitchens. George voices that “it becomes creative for me because you’re really thinking about how can I do this correctly, in the most efficient way possible and give this person the best thing possible by my artistic knowledge of the medium.”

The strong sense of community also drew him in, as the kitchen was the first place to fully welcome him. Exposed to all walks of life, he gained an appreciation for a multitude of perspectives that were united around a common goal: make sure that customers have the best experience possible. The way he found himself early on motivates George to give back to the community that did so much for him.

George’s worlds of writing and food collide in the form of “Blunt Food Magazine,” an online blog and print publication that he created last winter in search of an outlet for his loves. It began as a standalone essay about cooking for a nonfiction writing class and evolved into a blog of weekly articles. As more SCAD creatives wanted to be involved, the “Blunt” team expanded to include a graphic designer, photographer and more positions.

In short, George can’t pick a lane. Between his line cook duties at The Grey, work for “Blunt Food Magazine” and writing for the “Savannah Morning News,” his menu is chock-full of a variety of creative flavors. He has high hopes for the future with big goals for “Blunt,” and wants to continue to use writing as a way of grounding himself within the cooking and restaurant industry. In the future, George could see himself expressing his love for cooking in a variety of creative spaces. Owning a restaurant, writing a cookbook or being a traveling food writer are all on his horizon. Until then, you can find him “behind the line”.