Ancestry Quarterly Preview Issue

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ANCESTRY quarterly

USD: $19.85 CDN: $20.86

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Printed in The U.S.

EUR: â‚Ź14.88

sprout home camp griffin odd folk

signal sf walkabout columbus park

brincka-cross heritage lost weekend

tillandsia pillow talk merz apothecary issue 1

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CONTENTS

editorial

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photography

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Odd Folk Chicago

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Columbus Park New York City

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SIGNAL Brooklyn

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Wish You Were Here Chicago & New York City

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Camp Griffin New Jersey

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Pillow Talk New York City

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Narrow Path Chicago

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China to Russia Trans-Siberian Rail

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Shut the Door Turkey

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San Francisco Walkabout San Francisco

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Weaving a Dream Brooklyn

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Brincka-Cross Indiana

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Sprout Home Chicago

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Tillandsias Chicago

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Merz Apothecary Chicago

handmade in chicago

H A N D K E R C H I E F S aq

www.narrowpath.co

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Odd Folk a folksinger’s apartment in chicago

According to the zodiac, those born within the Cancer sign are ruled by the home. Just like a crab, Cancers go through life with a strong shell around them that is not easily broken.

Madelyn, a folk musician and resident of Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood, embodies the Cancer sign. A fan of astrology, Madelyn recognizes her desire to personalize a space and spends a significant amount of time caring for her home. For Madelyn, the home serves as the roots in her life.

Madelyn has had a life-long connection with spaces. Growing up, her mother was fascinated by architecture and the stories the walls had to tell. Her mother would look for haunted hotels

Photographed by Cody Bralts Written by Monique Montagnese

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to stay in or historic places full of personality to visit. During these travels, Madelyn acquired her mother’s appreciation of Victorian architecture and an awareness of the relaxed southern culture that continues to inspire her today. Now, Madelyn can identify the age of a house by its woodwork; she is attuned to the stories her surroundings have to tell.

Today, her apartment in Wicker Park has the history and soul she grew up with. In the two years she has lived there, she has created a space that has attracted photographers, cinematographers, set designers and musicians. A musician herself, Madelyn says the biggest stress of her career is constantly having to be on the road. She says it is her Cancer sensibilities that inhibit her from wanting to travel.

The front room features a striking stained-glass window. Visible from the street, the window washes

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the apartment in natural light and sprinkles of rainbow shoot throughout the room as the sun moves across the sky. If that space is occupied, Madelyn can be found sitting on the floor of her basement experimenting with the myriad of instruments she has collected over the years including harps, violins and, her specialty, banjos.

Built in 1896, the Victorian-style has been transformed by Madelyn and her roommates. They have built a warm, cozy house full of character. She says the space inspires her to relax, read poetry, drink tea and listen to music from the second she wakes up. The atmosphere is calm, lush and comfortable.

Despite the calming feelings the space gives off today, the building has a strange, sordid history. Seconds after signing the lease, Madelyn and her roommates found out that the original owner of the home hung herself in the living room. A disgruntled resident, it seems that the soul has stayed around.

Shortly after claiming ghosts are her biggest fear, Madelyn calmly describes a night where, while lying in her basement bedroom, she began to hear strange noises. A whistling sound that moves and clicks filled the room. She likened the noise to that of a briskly moving body rubbing against a chain link fence.

During her rendition of the ghost story, Madelyn’s roommate walks by and asks what we are talking about. When Madelyn responds “ghosts” she doesn’t flinch. She simply responds that the house goes through “phases” where the girls sense strange things in their presence.

Because of her zodiac sign, it is unlikely a few ghosts will scare Madelyn away from the safe haven she has worked so hard to build.

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SIGNAL a gallery space in brooklyn

Written and Photographed by Ancestry Staff

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Sunny days are nice like right now, but I feel the space is most activated at night time. When the sun goes down and we fully engage with the entrance, which frames the show. The perspective shifts a lot. By day we can have the door open and all the lights on and most people will just keep going.

Which is funny because we can be hiding here in plain sight. But then once the street goes dark, all of a sudden people go ‘what the fuck?! this is here?’

It’s like a portal.

These dudes rode their bikes by and we heard this “WOAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHATT!?!?!?’” and then they came in and they were like “dude this is fucking…what the fuck?…where do you?… what is?…what the fuck?” They were these hyped graffiti kids who had no idea this was sitting here.

But its really a simple idea. We didn’t come up with this insane design. Some people come in and say, “Oh, you guys put some art up?” noooo, it’s not that we just put some art up. like come on. yeah thanks.

What’s an adjective you guys can give to describe the space?

That’s tough, one word. Good. Great. Fun. Friendship. Freedom. Ferns. Fondle. Fun and Friendship are the key. Limitless friendship has been a driving idea behind the space.

He is one of those dudes who has been around openings in New York City. Like in BedStuy I saw him cruising around. He always has a weird crew of people with him, he parks wherever he wants. But he said that some of the work reminds him of a friend’s drawing machines back in Germany who would work with Andy Warhol. He said he wants to bring him here to see the work. I told him it would be interesting to bridge those gaps between generations, and he goes “ohhhhh no no no, this is a portal to the 70’s.” Which is pretty fucking cool.

Yeah I feel like people get caught up doing these things, especially in Brooklyn, like how do I empress other people? And we don’t want to do that.

We have the opportunity with this space and the people we know to really do something really beautiful.

Right, I feel like we have a rare privilege here, just because we have done it ourselves. We want to give the artist the best experience they can possibly have. At this point, I want to see the artist do well. I want them to have studio visits.

I want them to come out of this better off than when they started.

Yeah we are in a unique situation because we have a lot of ambition, but we have the knowledge and experience to see why no half-assing it is important.

So do you guys find artists? Or do people come to you?

We get locked into F words.

It’s kind of hodge podge. The first two shows were friends in our circle. They were really the ones who stood out and were ready to do it. The show right now was someone who we found at the Hunter MFA Thesis Show. So this is the first example of us seeing the work first and then meeting a human and then taking it from there.

Always F words?

Yea, and he was just awesome.

Oh yea, you can really get people going.

Super rad dude. It was the perfect pairing. When I first saw his work, I was under the impression he has shown a lot before. I thought he was five, maybe ten years older than he was, just because of the maturity of his work. So to start with that and then work your way back to find that he is a 26 year old dude in Brooklyn is cool. We are on the same level because we want to be tricking people as well. Like we want

What is an adjective?

Freedom. Friendship is an adjective in this case.

Freedom. Fingerling. Fingerling potatoes. Forkette.

So I guess what are your aspirations for the space?

Someone said something really great last night. He said it felt like it was the 70’s here.

Oh yeah! He rolled up in this matte grey Cadillac.

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WISH YOU WERE HERE Morning Coffee

heritage general store in chicago lost weekend nyc in new york city

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Photographed by Caroline Gohlke Photographed by Maria Maldonado issue 1

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HERITAGE

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2959 N Lincoln Ave Chicago, IL 60657

a coffee and bike shop in chicago

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Weaving a Dream christian rathbone’s turkish rugs Written by Chelsea Burcz Photographed by Maria Maldonado

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Never a fan of the “it was fate” excuse, I must admit, Christian Rathbone’s life-calling was most definitely a result of fate.

The soft-spoken Virginian can, when the story is boiled down to its bones, thank an eclipse for his current career as an independent specialty rug and pillow designer. Using a traditional Turkish hand-woven approach, as well as all-natural vegetal dyes, Rathbone’s works are as timeless in their craft as they are pleasing to the eye.

But while his creations fall under quite a specific niche within home furnishings, his designs range from the bold and native to the simplistic and contemporary, making them easily added pieces to any room.

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Part I: Finding Turkey “I like that I don’t have a formal background. It allows me more freedom.”

Rathbone knows the worth of imperfections. With a ‘day job’ moving luggage at an airport near the outskirts of Washington DC in his early-adult years, he had no concrete aspirations -- only a myriad of random courses, including calculus and French, that he’d taken at a community college. Accompanied with this was an interest, but no formal training, in design.

“I couldn’t see myself doing anything, I think that was part of my problem. I had all these things that didn’t fit together, and I didn’t know how to make it all fit together,” Rathbone notes as he thinks back.

His aimlessness and free flights (a perk of the job) left him to travel often and alone. Trips were frequent; he would follow a touring band across the ocean, or in this instance in 1999, the moon and its positioning in front of the sun. And just by chance, his initial idea to go to Europe to see this eclipse was thwarted due to poor weather conditions, leaving Turkey as the next best place to see the natural phenomenon occur.

From there, the rest is history: Rathbone fell for the exquisite textiles and natural resources of the country and kept returning. First as a buyer for friends back in the United States, then years later as a custom rug designer.

Part II: The Art of the Rug Rathbone’s artistry is something you feel warm about.

The imperfections of something being constructed by a human, rather than a mass-produced-ness of a factory, is what makes his pillows and rugs feel loved before they’re even purchased.

Furthermore, Rathbone’s natural sincerity of character -- astonishing in a city (New York) and occupation (design) that often prides itself in pretension -- somehow shines through his work.

(Back story: He moved to New York a year ago to follow a girl and ended up finding a market for his product. It’s a much different city than DC, he notes.)

As he breezily and genuinely describes his craft, it almost makes you wonder, does this guy realize his final product will live on a floor, and most definitely be trampled on day in and day out? Maybe he does,

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but maybe he doesn’t mind. Overall, it’s an attitude that’s refreshing to be around.

His practice involves both the old and the new: he designs using his laptop, specifically Photoshop Illustrator, then sends the mock ups to a group of women weavers back in Turkey. They then hang his blueprint beside their looms as they formulate the appropriate maneuvers to translate his ideas into patterns and color: quadrant by quadrant, pixel by pixel, knot by knot, thread by thread, to create both flat weave and pile styled rugs. The more experienced women sew with impeccable precision, comparable to that of a professional knitter or embroiderer. And like anything handmade, each weaver has their own quirks, interpretations, and perceptions, making no two rugs alike.

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