The Homestead's Legacy

Time moves so strangely these days. Whole months are gone in a flash while some days drag on for weeks. When I look back on the last seven years of running The Homestead Atlanta, the same wormhole weirdness happens. It feels like our first weekend of workshops was just a few weeks ago – watching how the sun moved across the patio of H. Harper Station (RIP) to help us plan for the sunlight for our own gardens, or stuffing bags with sterilized straw and pink oyster mushroom spawn. At the same time, I also feel like I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t asking myself would this be a good place for a workshop? I need a new wallet…I should make the wallet…do people want to know how to make a wallet? How do I ask that amazing craftsperson to teach a wallet making workshop without sounding like a creepy stalker?

Good times.

In 2013, we were emerging from a recession that made people re-evaluate how they wanted to spend their time and share their skills. I have to believe some kind of alchemy was at play that The Homestead Atlanta, Herbalista Free Clinic, and Goat n Hammer all started around the same time, completely independently of one another. We felt the collective pull to remember what we’re capable of when we work with our hands, to shake off the fog of an encroaching skills amnesia, to rediscover the latent generosity at the core of a handmade community. 

It was a small, fierce movement built by some of the most dedicated and talented people I’ve had the fortune to meet, people tirelessly committed to building an economy of skill. And, frankly, I’m humbled by the evolution I’ve seen since. I’ve watched empowerment in action through hammer blows, the contented hum of a cared-for beehive, knit stitches adding slowly upon themselves into something warm and lovely. In the last seven years, some people have gone from taking notes on a plant walk to becoming certified clinical herbalists, dabbling gardeners to full-time farmers. Others always have a jar of sauerkraut in the fridge or gift homemade soap every holiday. No matter how big or small, each of these gestures plays an integral part in the preservation of skills and the stitching together of real, meaningful community.

Just as importantly, opportunities to learn in and around Atlanta have positively blossomed. When I started The Homestead Atlanta, I always said my dream was for it to be irrelevant – that the skills would become so widely known and shared from neighbor to neighbor that having an organization dedicated to that knowledge would be redundant. And while that might not entirely be the case just yet — my goodness, how much closer we are to that reality than we were.

The pandemic has led us to another strange crossroads. In the face of grief, we’re reminded again of the ways we still can tend to our needs and the needs of our friends, family, and neighbors. People have taken up gardening and bread baking in droves. It’s a beautiful side effect of a tragic time. Life in the time of pandemic has also given me the time to step back, take stock.

I think The Homestead Atlanta served its purpose well. It was a scaffolding on which we could build a community of makers, artisans, herbalists, farmers, fermenters, and learners. It prepared the soil for a crop of learning opportunities more rich and varied than I could have imagined. They’ve taken root, and a beautiful community has flourished.

That’s why we’ve transformed The Homestead’s website into an evolving resource to help you find your way to exciting workshops, creators, thought leaders and more. We hope you like what you see and that you’ll let us know if there are any truly wonderful resources we’ve missed. Obviously we can’t include it all – and the fact that there’s simply too much for one website lets me know we have been a part of something truly great.

I cannot thank each and every one of you enough for the role you have played – and continue to play – in building a more regenerative, sustainable, beautiful, and downright joyful place to live. We have shared some pretty amazing moments together, and this isn’t goodbye – who knows what the future will bring? Chances are, we’ll pop up from time to time with a neat event or a little something to say.

Until then,
Kimberly