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Big Picture

An Artistic Adventure
On location with the Custom Home Furnishings Trade School and its new, ongoing educational project.

by Cheryl Strickland

Some people consider an adventure as a safari to Africa or a ride on white-water rapids. To others, going to the local mall is an adventure. The latest adventure for the Custom Home Furnishings Trade School lies somewhere between. The hands-on school is not going on safari, but it is going on location!

Over the past several years, more than 1,000 students at the school have made small examples of window treatments, cornice boards, slipcovers, bed treatments and accessories while learning step-by-step fabrication methods. The students take the samples home with them to serve as a reminder of the fabrication steps. This method has worked well for the past seven years and will continue to be the method in the future.

However, the trade school is now able to offer—to a select few students—a unique, once-a-year, real-life, hands-on adventure never offered by anyone before. Students will not be making samples; they will be making real treatments for real customers with real windows, real fabrics and real challenges in a multimillion-dollar home.

But how can a school offer real customers? Let’s go back to the beginning.

FROM DREAM TO REALITY
It all started with a dream in the heart of faux-painting expert and author Susan Goans. Susan’s work is sought after by top interior designers and is displayed in historic locations throughout the nation including Atlanta’s beautiful Peacock House (near the governor’s mansion), homes in South Carolina’s famous South Battery area, and the renowned Mills Mansion Estate in New York’s Hudson River Valley. Susan’s work reaches as far as Cumbria, England, where some of her labors rest upon the walls of a privately owned 13th-century structure, Naworth Castle.

Susan has been sharing her expertise by teaching students how to create a wide variety of professional faux finishes for several years. Her students would make a small sample wall or piece of furniture to work on as they learned each technique. They could take the samples home with them after the class. This worked well, but Susan wanted to give them even more.

She dreamed of students being able to apply their newly acquired skills to real walls in a real home as a part of an apprentice-style learning experience. The hands-on program would be designed to develop artists, not just craftsmen, as each individual tapped into his or her artistic ability and talent. Susan decided to find a client that would be willing to provide the floors, walls and ceilings of their home as a canvas for her students’ work.

The client would participate in the color and design choices and would provide a party for all students, supporters and media when the project was finished. The clients would vacate the home for three months and come back to find it completely redecorated. The entire project would be covered in popular magazines and television shows. And, thus, Artistic Adventures was born.

FAIR HAVENS ADVENTURE
In 2001, Susan found the perfect home to turn her dream into a reality. The historic home of Fair Havens was built in 1800 and is currently owned by Ken and Linda Lauderdale. Its history includes a visit from the distinguished General Lafayette. When the general was traveling through Georgia in 1825, the surrounding community arranged a ball in his honor.

Susan’s Artistic Adventures’ weekly classes helped completely restore Fair Havens to its earlier splendor as the students gained professional skills and confidence. A tremendous success, the project was covered by several television shows and magazines.

The 2003 Artistic Adventure will be the new 11,000-square-foot Stonebrook mansion in the historic and prestigious Buckhead/Brookhaven section of Atlanta, GA, affectionately known as the “Hollywood of the East.” Although not a restoration, this $3.5 million-dollar-plus estate is owned by Dr. Gordon and Donna Brady.

The estate has an inviting fresh look, with a faux vintage theme successfully accomplished by a touch of Old World craftsmanship. The exterior of the structure is adorned with hand-molded brick and authentic-looking slate roof. Each room of the interior will capture a patina of age. A luscious courtyard, waterfall and pool lie between the main house and the guest/carriage house.

Artistic Adventures is expanding this year’s real-life training experience to include additional instructors offering fresco mural painting, fine-art mural painting, floor cloth painting, woodcarving, gardening, upholstery, and window coverings, which gets us back to our trade school.

THE COMPLETE WINDOW COVERINGS EXPERIENCE
We were honored when Susan walked into my office, explained her project and asked the Custom Home Furnishings Trade School to provide the window coverings instruction. Setting up another workroom/classroom will be a monumental task, but we feel that it is a fabulous idea and are looking forward to the opportunity. School instructor Margie Nance and I are coordinating the program and Nance will be teaching the classes.

Following Susan’s philosophy of creating artisans, the window coverings classes will be not just about fabrication techniques, it will be a complete window coverings experience. Students will analyze and measure the actual windows, discuss design options and fabric choices, design the patterns and fabricate the treatments.

The workroom/classroom will be set up in the garage of Stonebrooke until completion of the job. The workroom will be completely functional, with industrial sewing machines and all of the same equipment and tools that are used by the trade school at its home location in Swannanoa, NC. Students will work hard during all of the eight-week-long classes, but will be pampered by a catered lunch served on the veranda overlooking the courtyard of the estate. All supplies and materials are provided as part of the tuition. Special student rates have been arranged at a hotel within a 10-minute walk from Stonebrooke. To assure one-on-one training, the classes are limited to between six to eight students only.

COME ALONG!
Not only will students experience the process of creating window treatments from beginning to end, they also will have the opportunity to be featured in the media. The entire Artistic Adventure will be documented weekly by a professional film crew. More than 50 decorating magazines and television shows also have been invited to feature and film both the progress and the finished product. The media also have been invited to attend the gala Hollywood-theme party at the completion of the project.

All students of all curriculums will be able to enjoy Stonebrooke, completely finished and furnished. They will have the opportunity to enjoy the company of Stonebrooke’s owners and network with other artisan students in a design-house setting.

And now for the really good news! This adventure is not just for the students. We are going to take you along with us on this exciting journey as we transform Stonebrooke step by step in upcoming issues of D&WC. We will share the designs and how they were made, the challenges we faced and their solutions. It will be informative and fun! Grab your safari hats and come along!