Making the Mark

Profiles by Meredith McKinnie
Photography by Kelly Moore Clark

BayouLife Magazine asked the community of talented makers to submit their hand-crafted goods for our Making the Mark competition. In the following pages, you will meet this year’s winners in each category: Craft, Art, Jewelry, Fashion, Instrument, Food and Drink. Thank you for all the wonderful submissions.

Meet the Maker: Rhonda Neal
CRAFT CATEGORY

For Rhonda Neal, it’s all in the details. As a young mother, Rhonda delved into custom stationery when her friends began having children. What started as a creative itch, designing birth announcements, birthday party and wedding shower invitations, Rhonda found herself with a full time creative business. Having worked from her home and offering her designs in a local retail shop, Rhonda then launched an Etsy shop that focused solely on social stationery. The shop exploded during Covid, and Rhonda knew she had yet another viable business model. She also enjoys creating custom wedding suites and day-of details; cocktail napkins, cups, signage and menus. She enjoys working with brides and creating a brand for the special day using details that make it unique to that couple. 

For the featured ULM design, Rhonda drew inspiration from her work for the ULM Reclaimed Campaign, solicited by former ULM President James Cofer. The initial watercolor rendering of campus featured the main buildings along the bayou. To play off of the original rendering, Rhonda added other notable ULM campus landmarks – the hawk statue, library tower, Fant Ewing Coliseum, Malone Stadium, bayou trees, the Clark Williams Innovation Campus, and the P-40 Warhawk fighter jet. Rhonda describes her aesthetic as loose and whimsical with brightly-colored accents. 

Rhonda’s initial interest in campus designs originated from sketching generic animals, which morphed into renderings of school mascots. ULM worked with Rhonda on a licensing contract suited for small businesses and crafters through the Collegiate Licensing Company. Over the past 20 years, the market for college fan merchandise has exploded and become its own industry, with fans snatching up everything from scarves and bandanas to purses and earrings of beloved schools. Rhonda found her niche in paper goods, and she is now licensed for 6 other schools, including: University of Arkansas, Oklahoma State University, Ole Miss, Texas Christian University, University of Tennessee, and the University of Texas. People want to support their local schools, and Rhonda’s designs are a way of elevating local school spirit. 

Website: rhondanealshoppe.com
Social Media: @rhondanealshoppe
Email: [email protected]

Meet the Maker: Gaiten Howard
JEWELRY CATEGORY

For Gaiten Howard, accessories are a means of self-expression, and designing unique pieces alongside her customers fulfills her artistic heart. While obtaining a bachelor of arts degree in photography in New Orleans, Gaiten expanded her creative endeavors by making her own jewelry. Gaiten knows the essence of a look is how you style your outfits. She proudly displayed her pieces to the envy of her friends, eventually making pieces for them. After college, Gaiten maintained a photography business in New Orleans shooting fashion and runway events, as well as contributions featured in ART + DESIGN magazine. Gaiten would also sell her pieces at the Frenchmen Art Market on the weekends. She loved mingling with her fellow creatives and speaking with repeat customers.

Now working from home for the Federal Aviation Administration as an Aviation Safety Inspector, (Did I mention she’s a former airline pilot?), Gaiten gets to indulge her passion for design once again. Gaiten’s design aesthetic is “southern chic – think bows, pearls, pastels, and flirty, feminine accents.” Gaiten designs what she finds fun and on trend. Her biggest hit is the Build Your Charm Bar, where customers can create their own charm necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. Customers choose the chain, then charms, and Gaiten strings the unique piece together. Gaiten describes the Charm Bar as a fun and interactive way to make accessories!” She also offers Charm Party’s and will come to you – perfect for a Girls’ Night in or a party favor for kids parties. The Charm Bar/Party opens up a world of possibilities for Gaiten’s customers; she loves to see their choices. 

For the first featured design, Gaiten created a coquette-inspired charm necklace, the cherry on top for any outfit. Fitted with pastel pink bows, dazzling gems, and pearls, this fun necklace is sure to be a statement piece. The second piece, a freshwater pearl lariat necklace, features a gold paperclip chain to add dimension and is finished with a hammered gold loop; the pearl necklace pairs with the pictured pearl drop earrings. These custom pieces showcase Gaiten’s style, feminine elegance. 

Gaiten participates in the Downtown Gallery Crawl so visit her there on the first Thursday of the month. She also has a vendor space at Pop Frizz on North 4th street. 

Instagram: @gaitenhowardjewelry 
Email: [email protected]

Meet the Maker: Weekend Press
FASHION CATEGORY

Weekend Press is the brainchild of Tucker Howard and Melissa Brown, “partners in crime for a long time.” A Lake Providence native, Tucker earned an art degree in printmaking from University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and completed graduate school at Indiana University in Bloomington. Meanwhile, Melissa, originally from Farmerville, earned a degree in computer science. The twosome began screen printing while living in Monroe. They would go to Tucker’s Mom’s studio in Lake Providence on the weekends and create custom designs for people. As their client base grew, Tucker and Melissa decided to renovate an old restaurant building off 165 in Lake Providence, just outside of town, and now Weekend Press has its own brick and mortar store. 

Throughout school, Tucker honed his design skills with T-shirt fundraisers and fine arts endeavors. Tucker is drawn to printing shirts as they are a “more down to earth art, accessible to everyone.” Weekend Press’s designs play into the name of the company and reflect the laid back vibe of Lake Providence’s small, rural farming community. The shirts typically feature outdoor scenes and wording inspired by Tucker’s move back down south. Melissa, also integral in the design process, handles all the marketing, networking, and event planning. Weekend Press designs can be found at local vendor markets and art crawls. Tucker and Melissa have been wowed by how receptive the public has been to their products.

The three featured shirts include a depiction of the topography of Lake Providence, a western shirt with a bucking bronco, and a “Born on the Bayou” print. The topography shirt has been a huge hit for Weekend Press, as it excites people in their community and is hard to keep in stock. The physical art showcases community spirit and can be shared outside of our homes. While some art is meant to be hung, some art is meant to be worn. Melissa and Tucker love seeing their designs out in public, a way of giving back to their hometown. 

Website: weekendpress.weebly.com
Facebook: @weekendpress.la
Instagram: @weekend.press
Location: 9598 US-165, Lake Providence, LA 71245

Meet the Maker: Matt Morgan
INSTRUMENT CATEGORY

Matt Morgan has been tinkering with instruments for nearly as long as he has been playing them, almost 30 years. Raised around Rayville, Matt grew up in a musical environment with most of his maternal family playing music. Along with guitar, dobro, and bass, Matt primarily plays mandolin-family instruments, including the mandolin, mandola, and mandocello. Matt says, “If you play one stringed instrument, it usually translates to others.”

With a history degree from ULM and a juris doctorate from William and Mary Law School, Matt serves as in-house counsel for an energy company by day. However, most people know him from playing with bluegrass group No Mojo in the corner of Enoch’s for over a decade. More recently, he performs with the musical collective Mandolin State, often at Flying Tiger. Fulfilling his passion in and around the music world extends to instrument design and construction. As a hobby, Matt has built many instruments over the years. In 2020, he began prototyping and building instruments commercially under the label Talker Guitar Co., although at this stage he treats building as more of an artistic exercise. Each is made by hand, taking three to six months from start to finish.

The pictured design is an electric octave mandolin, completed earlier this year. Matt’s goal was to squeeze the sound of an electric guitar into a mandolin-sized body. The instrument—tuned one octave below a standard mandolin—has roughly the same range as a guitar. This model is made from walnut, curly maple, and ebony; every piece of the mandolin is handmade, even down to the pickup which Matt hand-winds in his shop. Curly maple, prized for its holographic appearance, is Matt’s favorite wood to work with. This mandolin features a hand-rubbed sunburst stain and is finished with shellac using a traditional French polish technique. 

Website: mandolinstate.com
Instagram: @talkerguitar

Meet the Maker: Sarah Beth Howard
ART CATEGORY

Sara Beth Howard’s “gateway to imagination” emerged while watching old shows and cartoons on early black and white TV screens. Her vivid memories include her sitting in the dark in a child-sized chair mesmerized by the black and white values dancing on screen. That initial passion for art was lit and eventually crystallized when her father, a bricklayer and amateur photographer, put an old film camera in Sara Beth’s hands. She captured the beauty and oddities in her life, tickled by the sound of the box camera, a full-on sensory experience. 

Her solo journey expanded when she enrolled in a visual and performing arts high school in Arlington, Virginia. Her art teacher encouraged figure drawing and would pose in ballet tights for her students to sketch. With a robust theater department, Sara Beth busied herself with backstage designs, never one for the stage but integral to the production. Sara Beth attended college in NYC amid the university divestment and feminist movements. She developed a conscience for social issues and identified a thread of activism early on. After many years in the film industry, Sara Beth met her husband and moved south, taking a job teaching web design and digital art in Lake Providence. 

Later, as a nontraditional student at ULM, Sara Beth discovered a passion for printmaking. She worked under phenomenal ULM art professors, including notable lithographer Doyle Jeter. The “serendipity” of printmaking continues to intrigue Sara Beth. The layering process of printmaking begins with an idea – maybe color, maybe texture – and evolves, destination unknown. For the featured pieces, Sara Beth was inspired by a battle with breast cancer, a safe and constructive medium to release her emotion and pain from the harrowing experience. 

Instagram: @sb-how 
Facebook: Sara E. Howard
Instagram: @buy_art_now

Meet the Maker: Kay Walker
FOOD & DRINK CATEGORY

Sometimes life forces us in new directions, and no one knows that better than Kay Walker. At 60, Kay found herself divorced and in need of a business venture. Ever the party host, Kay knew how to make a mean Bloody Mary and decided to try her hand at a Bloody Mary mix to sell locally. Her concoction was a hit. And six years later, Kaybaby’s Smokin’ Fine Foods is featured in restaurants, markets, and boutiques all over the Southeast, from North Carolina to Florida, and back in her home state of Louisiana. 

Kaybaby’s soon expanded beyond Bloody Mary mix to offer smoked crackers and smoked rice. The featured crackers were Kay’s Mom’s suggestion, as Kay was in search of an addition for her infamous Bloody Mary gift baskets. Kay started testing recipes with larger Saltine crackers but eventually settled on oyster crackers that really soaked up the smoked flavor. The interest in Kaybaby’s smoked crackers exploded thanks to a chance meeting with Stacy Brown, founder of Chicken Salad Chick. Brown wanted to support women entrepreneurs and encouraged Kay to send some of her crackers to Botanic, Brown’s newest collection of restaurants, markets, and shops in Opelika, Alabama. Brown uses Kay’s smoked crackers in the restaurants and sells the crackers in the market. 

Kay Walker is supremely proud of her Louisiana roots and counts herself lucky to divide her time between her two favorite cities – Monroe and Ruston, where her husband Ronny Walker serves as mayor. In the Louisiana small business world, Kay insists, “Everyone supports everyone.” Kay speaks to local women who dream of starting businesses but are afraid of failure. Kay’s circumstances 6 years ago meant failure was not an option. She dove right into Kaybaby’s Smokin’ Fine Foods and never looked back. Kay is still amazed at what is on the other side of fear, that entrepreneurship can change one’s whole perspective on life. Despite her blessings, Kay keeps it humble. “I’ve grown; the product’s grown. It’s been fun.”

Website: kaybabys.com
Facebook & Instagram: @Kaybaby58