Becca Stevens - Thistle Farming

Thistle Farming

We are looking to collect thistles from all over the world - thistle down (for our handmade thistle paper) as well as photos and written reflections to share. To help collect thistle down (keep gloves, scissors and bags handy) or to share images and stories, email ali@thistlefarms.org for further instructions.

Thistle Reflection

Hometown Thistles

East Nashville is a variety of beautifully grand old houses, smaller tidy bungalows with 30's style working-class architecture, dilapidated leaning duplexes, the projects, and the alleyways and vacant lots that many homeless call home.

I am a proud East Nashvillian. My husband and I bought our house here 15 years ago as newlyweds, eager to care for this old house in the "bad" part of town. We have always loved the diversity of the houses and people here and we are proud to raise a son in a place where he gets a daily picture of just how good some people have it and how badly others do.

Dickerson Road Thistles (Stacye Wilson)Fifteen years ago, when we were new to this neighborhood many of the women who were walking the nearby streets to support themselves and their addictions are now among my dearest friends. While stories of East Nashville crime sometimes ruled the evening news, many of our neighbors were planting grass and refinishing hardwood floors. When it seemed like moving might be a good idea, even more people were coming here to live.

And the thistles have grown proudly the entire time...

The thistles were the ones who had the idea in the first place. They new what it was like to be called a weed. They new what it was like to be disapproved of and neglected. They knew that turning their faces to the sun and reclaiming their dignity was the only hope.

Today East Nashville is considered a triumph, a blighted urban area that gave itself an artful new life.

Today the women of Magdalene have overcome the greatest set of circumstances that anyone ever faces, putting broken lives and bodies back together, and they have become well known and respected in the process.

And the thistle is my favorite flower...

-Stacye Wilson, TN

***

"I traveled out of town today (about 2 hours north) to visit some relatives and on the way back, I stopped in three different areas and picked a bag full of thistles. Let me tell you, the South Carolina thistles are quite a bit more prickly than the Nashville ones I've encountered! ;) I was completely NOT prepared and had to make do by harvesting them with a pocket knife and a piece of bubble wrap. I'm sure the passers-by were laughing, watching me hopping around and waving my hands every time a thistle bit me!!"

-Carolyn Bush, SC

Thistle Photos

near Tuscaloosa, AL (Carl Ferguson)