Seeing Southern

I meet artist Robert Tino at his gallery in Sevierville, Tennessee, on a spot of land that sits just off a busy four-lane Highway 66. It is his spot of heaven which includes barns and pastures that have been spared from progress.

I couldn’t have been more than eight when my parents and I starting making trips north into the North Georgia mountains toward our mountain property in Hiawassee. One of the spots that delighted me was the big house with the red roof.

Each Thanksgiving morning in Lenoir, North Carolina, the Bolick family fires up the wood fire kiln and by Saturday morning, magic happens. People come from all over the South eager to discover treasures and they're willing to work for it.

There’s excitement each time I interview strangers. Like Forrest Gump and his box of chocolates, “You never know what you’re gonna get.” With Robert Alewine, it was simple.

"It's an amazingly charming little city, oozing with handicraft shops and tasteful inns and lovely stone houses," explains writer Ernie Pyle in 1940. In this little city - Gatlinburg - lives The Gatlinburg Inn and the Maples family.