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Bird Print Summer Dress on a Winters Day

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Bonding With Herman Wallace Inside a Louisiana Dungeon

Bonding With Herman Wallace Inside a Louisiana Dungeon

By Ashley Wennerstrom

I first wrote to Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox after seeing In the Land of the Free last spring and learning of the horrendous injustices the Angola 3 have suffered.  I felt compelled to offer my support and admiration for their commitment to social justice.  Within just a few days, I received a response from Herman (Albert wrote me a beautiful letter the following week) and we began to exchange letters on a weekly basis.  After several months of sparring about political philosophy, discussing literature, and discovering unexpected similarities, I was delighted when Herman asked me to join him for a special visit.

Two days before our scheduled visit, I received a letter from Herman explaining that he had not yet been notified of whether our visit was approved.  I had to call the prison the morning I hoped to see him to learn that permission had indeed been granted. Upon my arrival at Elayn Hunt Correctional Center, staff informed me I was not on Mr. Wallace’s visiting list and would not be allowed to enter.  I persisted, and staff eventually located my name on their list of approved special visitors.  I was instructed to pass through a metal detector and was given a full body pat down before boarding the bus to the maximum security prison.   



I waited about 15 minutes in a Plexiglass and telephone lined corridor for Herman to appear.  When he finally arrived, clad in a denim shirt and jeans, his quizzical look instantly revealed he was shocked to
find me on the opposite side of the visiting booth.  Lifting the receiver with one shackled hand, he explained that in spite of his inquiries, the prison authorities never revealed whether approval for
my visit had been granted.  He was in his cell writing a letter of complaint about this lack of information when a guard informed him a visitor had arrived.

Our two hours together passed quickly, with much laughter.  Herman appeared well physically and joked that “such a physique for a man of my age” was attributable to regular running on the yard (albeit in an
enclosed cage). Herman spoke slowly and deliberately.  His conversation drifted between topics, but he always returned to his original point. Although he claimed to be “a little bit senile,” his memory and
knowledge of outside world was remarkable. He knew better than I the geography of the New Orleans neighborhood where he grew up and, coincidentally, I now live.  He was well-versed in current politics.  He referenced social media and specific websites.  Only a few remarks—namely his confusion of my large, flower-shaped earrings for  Stars of David—reminded me that I was speaking with a man who had been without exposure to the outside world longer than I had been alive.  Herman was concerned for my safety—had I driven far in the rain?—and asked after my family.   His smile waivered only when he mentioned the difficulty of not being able to attend funerals for the numerous family and friends he’s lost throughout his 44 years of incarceration.  He quickly changed the subject when he saw my eyes well with empathetic tears.  At the end of our visit, I told Herman that I would be honored to see him again.  

One month later, Parnell Herbert and I found Herman distraught when we arrived for a visit.  Prison authorities had just searched his cell to ensure that his property was “in compliance” with regulations.  The thinly-veiled disciplinary action resulted in the seizure of many of his treasured photos, letters, and books.  Herman realized that he had one piece of good news to share with us—his recent efforts to improve conditions had been successful.  He and the other men in closed cell restriction had just been granted permission to spend an hour on the yard each day, rather than just four times each week.   Herman was back to being his usual boisterous self by then end of our 4-hour contact visit, in which the three of us were allowed to hug one another, sit in the same room together, and share a meal (if hotdogs and sodas can be considered to constitute a meal).

I spent time with Herman each of the last two weekends.  He remained shackled throughout both 2-hour non-contact visits.  At one point a guard checked to ensure that he had sufficient slack in the restraints to be able to hold the phone comfortably, but the handcuffs were kept tight enough to leave imprints on his wrists.  Herman was un-phased and jokingly bragged about his extraordinary collection of “jewelry.”  Our discussions drifted between the details of his case, personal stories about our lives and loved ones, politics, our unlikely friendship, the constant harassment he endures on a daily basis, and our mutual desire to improve the lives of others.  Just before our visit came to a close last Saturday, Herman asked, “What inspires you?”  The answer to the question—a human who has remained principled, positive and purpose-driven in spite of living a nightmare—was quite literally staring me in the face.

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Bokeh Kiddies and a Limerick winner

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Boo! A Madea Halloween Movie

Boo! A Madea Halloween Movie

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Madea (Tyler Perry) winds up in the middle of mayhem when she spends a hilarious, haunted Halloween fending off killers, paranormal poltergeists, ghosts, ghouls, and zombies while keeping a watchful eye on a group of misbehaving teens.

Initial release: October 21, 2016 (USA)

Director: Tyler Perry

Film series: Madea

Music by: Elvin Ross

Production company: Tyler Perry Studios

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Bringing 38 In with a Bang

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Boo! A Madea Halloween full movie download

Storyline

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Blue Dress for a Blue Girl

Are you familiar with the song "Feeling Good?" Surely everybody has heard it, no? There are countless renditions but nobody-- even the ultimate cool Canadian dad (Mr. Bublé)-- nailed it like Nina Simone. Even through the triumphant tone of the music, her vocals are jarring. This woman has been through some turmoil and its clear. Shes out of the woods but shes shaken. Its in this that I find solace. Just because youre broken doesnt mean you cant make something hauntingly beautiful. On the contrary: sometimes its just a necessity.

What a difference a week can make. My outlook is a lot better than it was in my last blog post. The difficult life circumstances have not budged one bit but Im adjusting. Using my time wisely as a means of keeping myself busy with the right amount of productive distractions. And to those who have reached out to let me know Im not alone, you mean the world to me.

Black is often regarded as the saddest color on the spectrum. I dont doubt that it is, especially since its attached to the act of mourning. However, I find blue to be the most sorrowful hue of all. Maggie Nelsons Bluets says it better than I can:

157. The part I do remember: that the blue of the sky depends on the darkness of empty space behind it. As one optics journal puts it, "The color of any planetary atmosphere viewed against the black of space and illuminated by a sunlike star will also be blue." In which case blue is something of an ecstatic accident produced by void and fire.

Thats just one small section: you should really read the entire essay. Brilliant. All that to say, this is why Im wearing a blue dress. Im feeling better but Im still sad. And I think thats okay.

Aside from being an okay indication of my inner struggles, this dress also happens to be very pretty. Give me all of the bell sleeves, forever. And the back? YES. 

xo,

e.m.

dress/ Free People (on sale!), shoes/ ASOS, clutch/ ASOS (old, similar), necklace/ vintage (similar), choker/ DIY

***Photos by Brenden Shaver

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Body After Baby How A Fit Mom of 4 Does It All!

Where did your love for health and fitness begin? 

Health has always been a part of me growing up.  I was into track, basketball, volleyball, cross country and even a cheerleader. I was very active and a healthy child.  Then I married to my first husband shortly after high school. Because that relationship was toxic, after my second pregnancy, I had reached up to 190 pounds.  I had high blood pressure and no energy. I let myself go, because of that marriage. I lost ALL self-esteem and self-worth. I used food as my comfort and I lost myself.  It was not until after I had my son (2nd child) that I truly looked into the mirror and said to myself: you are the only person who will love you NOW, so you must do something about it.  That is when I did. I cleaned up my diet, I started in-house workouts and I lost 75 pounds in a year. I was healthy and happy once again!

Surprisingly my introduction to fitness was through running, and at a time in my life where part of me used it as an escape from my current situation, and another part of me used it as therapy and personal growth. I was at a low, going through a separation/divorce, I did not feel good about myself, or where I was in life, and I remembered how much I enjoyed running in school. One day I left the house and started running, I could barely run a mile, but was determined to do more. 1 became 2, then 3, then 5, 10, 20, and eventually I ran my first marathon and ultra-marathon. My relationship with running changed over the years and as I grew as a person. I still love running to this day, and now for all the right reasons, I but wanted to challenge myself even more. I previously dabbled with weights in the past, but it was not until I met my husband that my interest in the gym sparked. I started working out with him, and loved the challenge it offered and his consistency with it over the years. That soon became my consistency as well. While running is therapeutic to me, the gym is anything but that. I fell in love probably just a year ago by finally getting the formula right for me by combining weight training with conditioning. I love changes my body have made with the two together.

What is your biggest accomplishment fitness wise?

Overcoming insecurities has been one of my biggest accomplishments overall. That helped build my confidence, my ability to stand up for myself and what I believe in. With all of that happening, I was able to love myself again to actually realize what I deserved as a person and in a relationship. 

What has been the biggest obstacle you have encountered while keeping fit?

Patience! I had to learn that results do not happen overnight. No matter how perfect your diet is, how perfect your form and routine is, it will always take time, and more than you want to give. It’s a game of mental endurance.  With having four children, I have to be extremely patient and work hard at getting the results I want. I know that anything is possible and I also know that my body has been through so much.  

You are a devoted wife, mother of 4, work full time, and stay fit. How do you do it all and keep consistent?

Consistency has come to me naturally because I was a single mother for so long. Consistency was necessary. I learned that having routines was the best way to actually include this in my life with being a single parent to my children. Now that I have remarried, I have included this in our lifestyle. With the busy life our family now has, how I’m able to do it all is by keeping balance. And that’s all my husband. He keeps me in check. He reminds me what my priorities are.  If my daughter has a track meet one evening, I don’t feel bad for missing a workout or eating out afterwards.  I can easily make the decision to wake up at 5AM before any of the kids wake up to get that workout in.  Family is and always will be first and I love that balance we have in our marriage and family. 

As we know, life can be so busy and hectic, especially when you add your health and fitness as a priority; what do you and your husband do to stay devoted to one another?

We work out together, we talk throughout the day with each other, we have date nights once during the week and once on the weekend, and most importantly we don’t keep our hands off each other. We’re best friends, and passionately in love with each other. If anything, health and fitness has helped add to our relationship and marriage. It adds to our sex life and adds to our family life. The consistency and balance required for fitness are also required in family so it crosses over and helps in all areas.

How often do you allow yourself to eat and/or drink whatever you want? What are your favorite choices to indulge in?

I never eat whatever I want. I will have cheat meals once, maybe twice a week. My favorite choices to indulge in are pancakes, wine, and margaritas.

What would you tell someone who thinks they can never lose weight since they have children, husband, a job, etc.? 

Fitness is a choice that you have to be completely committed too, just like marriage. It’s a lifestyle, and it is possible! I am living proof. It’s not always easy, but what is that you really want? I do believe it’s easier than some people think it is. Everything you do requires effort, making good food or bad food, watching TV or going to the gym - this choice just requires a little more. Until you have made the realization that you will be doing this for the rest of your life, you may get temporary results with diets etc., but it will always come back until you’re committed. Being in a fitness competition is a different story, it’s very demanding. But a fit lifestyle is very balanced and very healthy.

Does your household partake in the same healthy eating habits that you do? If not, how do you manage to cook different meals and keep from eating their food?

They absolutely do.  I cook and prep every Sunday for our clean foods for the week.  My husband and I take our food to work with us and when the children get home, they eat what I have prepped for the week. They actually love it. They will still want and have their occasional pizza nights and junk food, but they’ll take grilled chicken, fish, steak, vegetables and rice now any day over fast food. We are examples to our children. What kind of examples we are is up to us. They want to do what we do. Not only do they want to eat what we do but they look forward to joining us in the gym when they’re old enough too.

What is best advice you have ever learned about keeping fit?

Living a healthy lifestyle has overall changed my outlook in life, love, marriage, motherhood, in my career and overall my focus in life.  Every day I wake up,  I am thankful for the way I can view things in life and knowing I am adding years to my life in hopes to remain here on earth for a very long time to see my children grow, my grandchildren be born, and maybe their children!

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Brown Delivers a Republican Budget without Republicans

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BIO Podcast The Role of Patents in a Pathway for the Approval of Biosimilars

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BOWOOD HOTEL OR A FABRIC

 Floral, patterned fabrics are back in style.  Maybe not yet quite a trend, but there is a renewed interest in prints.   Driven by a rejection of all-beige and all-white interiors - bright, color drenched rooms have been popping up in magazines, looking very fresh and new. 

This library by Miles Redd, recently shown in House Beautiful, says it all.  Prints are back.    And to satisfy the demand, fabric houses are busy introducing new designs, but, the old patterns are as popular as ever.

When you think of the well known fabric names – Bowood is certainly on the list.  The story of legendary designer John Fowler finding a scrap of the fabric while decorating at Bowood House and then having it made up by Colefax & Fowler, has long been repeated.  Of course it doesn’t hurt that the Bowood fabric is so pleasing to the eye.  It certainly is one of the most recognizable fabrics by both sight and name.

Bowood.

While I know the story about Fowler and Bowood, I’ve never really read further about it, even though it is a most romantic tale as far as interior design tales go.

So, it was a very pleasant surprise to open up the June issue of Britain’s House & Garden and see a large spread on Bowood House.  It shows rooms that have never been seen before, some of which were designed by Fowler, probably when he found and made the Bowood fabric one of his lasting legacies.

And most coincidently, I discovered that Bowood House is located in Wiltshire, that bucolic area of Britain that I’ve been profiling these past few weeks. Wiltshire, the land where Wilton House is, where Cecil Beaton’s beloved Ashcombe and Reddish House are located, where many of the Bright Young Things had lived – like Stephen Tennant and Rex Whistler, and where Edith Oliver had spent her entire life.  Wiltshire.

And there is another very famous citizen of Wiltshire.  The Duchess of Cornwall aka Camilla aka Prince Charles’ wife has owned a house there for decades.   She lived in Wiltshire with her first husband and later, moved to Ray Mill House on the River Avon (again! The Avon!!) when divorced.  Apparently she still stays there quite a bit of time with her children and grandchildren and is very active in Wiltshire society.

The proximity of Camilla’s house(s) to Bowood Estate is apparently not an accident.  Very close friends with the Marquis of Lansdowne and his wife, Fiona, the couple provided a safe house for Camilla and Charles to tryst at while he was still married to Diana.  In fact, in the infamous, secretly recorded telephone conversation between Camilla & Charles, they talk about a “Charles” and meeting at his house.  That Charles was always believed to be the Marquis of Bowood House.

The Duchess of Cornwall on official business at Bowood House, along with her daughter.

Bowood Estate was established in 1754 by the 1st Earl of Shelburne, and the family, the Lansdownes, have owned it since.  The estate, with gorgeous gardens and a noted house, covers over 2000 acres.  Most remarkably, in 1955 – the main portion of the house was demolished because repairing it was deemed too expensive.   The decision to tear down the house proved to be a subject of much debate by architectural historians, even still today, since parts of Bowood were designed by the revered Adams Brothers.

This month’s House & Garden story on Bowood House.

Today, the 9th Marquis and Marchioness of Lansdowne, Charles Maurice and his wife Fiona, live on the estate.  He moved to the country house in 1972 and became the first of the family to live in Wiltshire full time.  His wife, known professionally as Fiona Shelburne is an interior designer.   Working for Colefax and Fowler, she came to drop off fabrics and ended up married to the Marquis 8 years later.  

The family works hard at maintaining the estate, as it is a very viable business and tourist attraction - the house and gardens have been open to public since 1975.

The house is considered important and is listed because of the noted architects and designers that have contributed to it through the years such as the Adams Brothers and C.R.Cockerell.

The gardens, originally designed by famed Capability Brown, feature a lake and sloping lawn.  Later in 1780, a water cascade by the lake’s dam was created, along with the “Picturesque” rockwork garden with its grottoes and hermit’s cave.   Brown also designed a “Pleasure Ground,” with a pinetum and arboretum, behind the house, and a Ha-Ha out in front.   The Italian style terraces that run in front of the house were planted in the 19th century designed by Robert Smirke.

While describing Bowood’s gardens, perhaps no one has said it better than the Duchess of Devonshire who presided over Chatsworth, one of the most beautiful grand houses in England:  

“The garden with its eye catching lake and cottage are set in the sort of idyllic 18th century landscape that makes you gasp at the sheer beauty and Englishness of it.”

Other parts, such as the famous sixty acre Rhododendron Walks are also most beautiful.

An original 1780s garden plan by Capability Brown.  The house is drawn in deep red ink – it looks tiny compared to the size of the estate. A huge copy of this map hangs in the Bowood Hotel’s reception area.

Throughout its long history,  family fortunes were made and lost and great art collections were amassed and sold.  These possessions are on display at the house tour.   One of the more interesting family treasures is the large Napoleonic Collection, acquired thanks to the marriage of the 4th Marquis to a daughter of one of Napoleon’s aide de camp.

In 2009, a new, large hotel with over 40 guest rooms was built on the estate.  Lady Lansdowne helped drive its design which blends in with the main house’s decor.  Besides the hotel, there is also a golf course, country club, restaurant, and health spa, along with fishing, hiking, and shooting sports.

While the Bowood Hotel is a big draw, tourists also come to see the gardens and Bowood House, whose public rooms are open to the public.  What was exciting about the House & Garden magazine article is that it shows interiors that have never been seen before, including a drawing room originally designed by John Fowler.   And it is interesting to see how often the family has actually used the famous Bowood fabric in the house!! 

The Estate:

The red circle on the Left is the Bowood HOTEL & SPA.  The red circle on the right is the ESTATE.   So, you can see, the new hotel and spa was designed to afford the family and the guests quite a bit of privacy from each other.

Here is the main house.  #1 shows the house itself.  It is a large rectangle made up of two squares put together – there are two internal courtyards.  Connecting the two squares in the middle is the chapel and the clock tower.   #2 shows where the larger house “The Big House” once stood before it was demolished in 1955.  The smaller square shows the Drawing Room that Adams built to connect the two houses together.    #3 shows the terraced Italian gardens that line the front of Bowood House.  And #4 shows the Walled Gardens, the 4 acres of gardens that are behind the house.  They include the swimming pool, the kitchen gardens, greenhouses, and cutting gardens.

An aerial view of Bowood House with the terraced Italian gardens with its distinctive box topiaries in front.  At the center of the house is the chapel which sits under the clock tower.  The chapel divides the once large internal courtyard into two separate ones.

   Behind the house are the walled gardens.  If you look closely, you can see clothes hanging on a line outside!    The public rooms run along the front facade from left to right.  The family’s private areas start at the front’s most right corner and run down the side to the back wing.  Two-thirds of the house were demolished when the Big House was torn down.  Still, the remaining 1/3 is incredibly large.

The original Big House showing the Adams Brothers portico and two large bay windows.    The Adams Brothers also built the front facade or Orangery on the “Little House” – to hide the service wing that is today the back facade of the house.

An early photograph shows The Big House on the right and the Adams Brothers facade on The Little House, at the left.

Before the Adams Brothers were hired, the Big House and the Little House were not connected.  When the Adams Brothers built the front facade or Orangery on The Little House, they also built a large drawing room which connected the two houses in the center corner.  Circled in red is that drawing room which was added to connect the two houses.

In red – you can see what section of the house was torn down in 1955.It’s interesting to see how thin the box topiary shapes on the Italian Terraces were back then compared to today.  Today, the box shapes are much thicker and more square shaped.

The demolished Big House with the Adams Brother Portico.  The Marquis tried to sell the portico but had no takers.  The drawing room WAS sold to Lloyds of London and it was installed in their ultra contemporary office tower.

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