Day 7 + 8 on the road! NOLA~

Bright and Sunny Mississippi River

8/16/2014

Had a late start to our saturday. Woke up around noon, had some coffee and made our way to the French Quarter district in New Orleans. It's touristy and loud and crazy and awesome! The houses are to die for, all colorful, balconies filled with plants, palms, ferns, and flowers. Live music on every street corner, and artists selling their work all over the place. It was crowded, hot, and sorta smelly, but hey!…. when in NOLA….

Some local vendors suggested we go to this restaurant called Felix's so we did, and we got some fried seafood platter with hushpuppies. Everything here is fried…. everything. We found ourselves in voodoo stores, funky gift shops, and the open market. It's really something you have to experience for yourself to understand, but this city is so vibrant in every which way you can imagine the word. After a long afternoon of walking around and exploring we made our way back to Tessa's where we lounged for a while.

Interviewing Brian and Maggie

Then we met up with her friends and very talented musicians, Maggie and Brian. They're in a band that is sort of un-named, but they go by "Maggie Belle" (for now). They were kind enough to participate in an interview and play some live music for us at Brian's house. THEY ROCK! [check out this video we pulled from youtube] Contemporary rhythm and blues mixed with Janis Joplin type of vibe- Brian on the piano/bongos and Maggie's got the vocals. Can't wait to include them in this documentary and super content that they are apart of this project! We ended the night early due to leaving early in the AM.

It's been one week on the road and we're already on our way out of New Orleans, it's crazy how fast this trip is moving! But we're are enjoying every minute of it and can't wait to continue… Goodnight, friends!




8/17/14

Hey y'all! Today was 90% uneventful since we were driving the whole time but we did get in a last minuet interview with Jeremy Phipps! He's a NOLA native with a lot to say about New Orleans music and culture. Jeremy also writes songs, plays the trumpet, trombone, and makes beats. He pretty much does it all when it comes to music. Talking to him was the best way to leave NOLA. Check out some of his work here… www.saintbell.com

Other than that amazing bit… We want to take this time to thank our home town friend, Tessa Bitterman for opening her doors once again and letting us stay with her all weekend. Tessa and her partner, Marya showed us around and hooked us up with some great folks to interview. We are extremely grateful for that! Also Tessa's lil man, Booker, was SO happy to see Rosie again and Rosie was SO happy to see her Bookie. Miss ya homies! MUCH LOVE!




The road has been treating us kindly, but we may have been loosing out minds a little bit- as well as gaining heavy southern accent we just can't seem to kick! When we come back, ya'll better be ready :D S.O.S. // S.O.K (save out KIA)!!!



We are now in Huston Texas at the Morty Rich Hostel where we plan to swim and just enjoy our first night in Texas and do NOTHING for a night.

GOODNIGHTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!

Andrea + Rosie
SoapSkeptics

Pitstop in Mobile, AL then to New Orleans!

8/14/14

Today was yet another great day. We woke up in Atlanta and now we are about to fall asleep in New Orleans but let us tell you all about what went down today! First we had awesome breakfast burritos made by the one and only Hannah Holst (thanks, girl!) and then we were back on the road heading towards Mobile Alabama. The south continues to amaze the both of us with their beautiful landscapes and outrageously friendly communities!  We met up with Ally Clements who has been living in Mobile for most of her life and makes beautiful jewelry out of animal bones. Ally is always on the lookout for roadkill because thats where she gets her bones from! This girl is pretty badass… she finds these dead animals and tries to use every part she can to incorporate it into her work. If the skins are salvageable shell keep them for other projects, like practicing her taxidermy, or just as a nice conversational decoration piece but her main focus is on the bones! She has been really pushing the art community in Mobile to become more lively and explosive. She will be at the RAW ARTS festival down in New Orleans next week- so if any of you viewers are in the area, look out for her boutique jewelry made of bones.



You can also buy her beautifully crafted gems online at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/BarelyBonesBoutique





















Now we are staying in New Orleans with a friend from our hometown in NJ, Tessa! It's gonna be a fun weekend down in NOLA. Can't wait to share it with ya!

Keep up with what we're doing on Facebook and Instagram as well!
@soapskeptics
Facebook.com/soapskeptics.1

Peace ya'll!!

Andrea + Rosie
SS

Hotlanta: Days 4 & 5

8/12/14

Indigo leaves from the Garden at Appalachia Center for Craft

So we'll start off saying that the trip to the river failed. We were packed and ready to go walk the trails and enjoy the morning but the spiders and their webs forced us to turn around… Spiders: 1 SoapSkeptics: 0. Instead of doing that we visited Kelsey and Jeanne in the Fiber arts studios. Kelsey showed us some of her amazing work! All of it was so beautiful and delicate you couldn't help but feel relaxed around it. Very inspiring. Our time at the Appalachian Center for Craft was amazing. We got to experience some great nature and explore wonderful studios, met with Jeanne Brady who has been supporting us since the beginning, and also Kelsey who inspired us in so many ways. Thank you ACC for accepting and welcoming us into your community. Hopefully we'll be back sometime soon!

Our TN weaving

Next stop, HOTlanta! Avondale Estates to be exact, where we met with Lynn Sisler. Lynn creates some great paintings/collages involving animals. Her reasons for incorporating animals into her work are pretty eye opening and definitely force the mind to think a bit. You can check out her interview in the next couple of days to find out what exactly she has to say.

One of Andrea's friends from school, Hannah, is from Atlanta so we just met up with her and her friend  Mel. Although it's only been a few hours, we must say that it is so lively, fun, warm, and eclectic! Definitely feeling some good vibes over here. Got to relax for a bit then hopped over to MOTHER, a cool little bar and taco joint near the heart of Atlanta. Mel offered us a place to stay and we couldn't be more thankful! The road has been good to us.

Although Andrea did all of the driving today, I think its safe to say that with all the running around and altitude/climate change we both are beat. Tomorrow we plan to explore the city and see more of this glorious place.




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8/13/14


So last night, Andrea has an accident and spilt half a bottle of sumi ink on her laptop, right on the key board, after a night of draining it out and cleaning it, and putting it in rice, it still doesn't work. It's unfortunate, but we are going to be unable to edit and post videos, Rosie's computer is too old to update the iMovie software. It's an obstacle we'll manage to overcome for sure. Aside from that…


WE ARE IN LOVE WITH ATLANTA!
Today was a good day! We started off at Highland Bakery for brunch with Hannah and then went back to her place in Buckhead. You guys… the SoapSkeptics gals were stunned! Hannah's mom welcomed us into her gorgeous home with open arms and was genuinely interested in our mission on this road trip. It doesn't cease to amazes us how supportive so many people are of our mission.










We spent the afternoon adventuring through the Glass Objects Studio, Gallery, and Smoke Shop space. Mel works there and gave us the grand tour, she then demonstrated blowing glass into marbles. It was awesome. Then Hannah and Mel showed us around Atlanta's street art murals. There is an event happening on Saturday called Living Walls so a bunch of muralists are hanging around Atlanta painting on the walls. We decided for dinner we needed fried chicken from the south. So

Mel took us to a spot she'd been wanting to go to called Harrold's Chicken and Ice- but it also has the name Harold's Chicken Shack. Luck for us, it was comedy night at Harold's so we also got a live comedy show to accompany our friend chicken, mac and cheese bites, and fried okra. After dinner we went to a local with signs that say: "CHURCH it's a bar". We met some really amazing folks here in ATL. Hannah and all of her friends were so sweet to us, so open, friendly, caring and helpful! The south sure knows about hospitality.

Something about the liveliness and influx of art and culture in this city really made us feel comfortable and inspired. Would love to come back and explore this city to even greater depths. Thank you to everyone who has helped us thus far, this experience has already been life changing and it's only been 5 days.

Now we are going to head to Mobile, Alabama for an interview then end the day in New Orleans where we plan to stay for the weekend. Until then, goodnight and be well.

Andrea + Rosie
SoapSkeptics
@soapskeptics