Somehow Summer Got Away From Me: Magnolia & Moonshine

I can’t believe I haven’t shared this here sooner, but somehow summer completely got away from me.

Earlier this summer, Magnolia & Moonshine featured our family, Windwood, and my art in a beautiful story called “Where Ever After Begins.” The feature appeared both in print and online, and seeing our life captured in those pages was incredibly special.

What I love most about this story is that it isn’t really about just one thing.

It is about William and me. It is about how we met at Windwood years ago when I was there photographing a magazine cover. It is about horses and weddings, photography and painting, motherhood, our home, and this farm that has slowly become the place where all of those pieces of our lives come together.

There are seasons when life and work can feel like completely separate things. But at Windwood, they have somehow become wonderfully intertwined.

I can be painting on the porch in the morning, walking through the garden or checking on fruit trees, watching William ride horses, spending time with Wills, and then later in the day welcoming a couple who may choose this same place to begin their own marriage.

That is our everyday life, but seeing it through someone else’s eyes made me appreciate it in an entirely new way.

Cara Clark wrote the story so beautifully. She captured not only what Windwood looks like, but what it feels like to us and why this place has become such an important part of our family’s story.

One of my favorite things about the article is seeing my sweet family together in the pages of such a thoughtful and beautifully curated Southern magazine.

And, of course, I loved that my painting story became part of it too.

Painting has allowed me to stay connected to the visual storytelling that has always been such a huge part of my life, while giving me a different rhythm than my years spent traveling constantly as a photographer. It has given me more time at home, more time with my family, and a chance to notice the small things around me that so often become the inspiration for what I paint.

The flowers. The fruit trees. The horses. The changing light. The colors in the garden. The places we travel and the memories we bring home with us.

It all seems to find its way onto a canvas eventually.

Thank you so much to Cara Clark for spending the time to understand our story and for writing it with so much care, and to Magnolia & Moonshine for including our family in your beautiful publication.

I will treasure the print issue for a very long time.

If you missed it this summer, you can read the full story below.

READ “WHERE EVER AFTER BEGINS” IN MAGNOLIA & MOONSHINE

Love,
Arden