Welcoming two UNA International Students with tour of our best

Aug 25

Linda and I have been wanting to support UNA's International Student Program for years. Finally signed up Monday for their "Friend's of International Student Program", met the two super sweet students we'll be hosting, Gina and Aimee (their English names), and yesterday began their tour with a McFarland Park river side picnic breakfast then straight to the Florence Farmer's Market. It was fun introducing them to some of our fav local farmers.

Later we introduced them to the best Chinese restaurant in the South, the Rice Box, where our friend Chiong Chen (UNA Art Department Chair) joined us for lunch and Maggie Chen (owner of the restaurant) along with her children Wilson and Kelly stopped by for the welcome as well.

Aimee and Gina seemed thrilled to have met our friends, and to have found such a wonderful restaurant just up the street from UNA.

Robin Wade

Robin Wade Furniture is a celebration of nature—a melding of a forward thinking commitment to the environment and a quiet, harmonious design aesthetic. From his "slow studio" in North Alabama, award-winning wood artist Robin Wade designs and crafts one-of-a-kind handmade furniture. Years before a piece is ready to enter a client's home or a gallery, the process begins—naturally—with the tree. Sustainably harvested, each specimen of hardwood is flitch sawn into natural-edge wood slabs, debarked by hand with a draw knife, and stacked to dry, usually for years, before the final cure in the kiln. From here, Wade and his team use both hand and power tools to bring Wade's vision to life, and then finish each piece with a hand-rubbed oil blend. Each organic furniture creation by Robin Wade Furniture balances the raw, natural beauty of environmentally, locally sourced hardwoods with minimally invasive, clean lines—a juxtaposition Wade calls both rustic and modern. “I haven’t yet found a better artist than nature,” he says.

robinwadefurniture.com

Welcoming two UNA International Students with tour of our best

Muscle Shoals - the movie

A few pieces in Santa Barbara