Probably my most unique & special inspiration, & to be quite frank I wouldn't be who I am without this one; My mother, my style icon.  I could show you photos through the decades of incredible ensembles. Gladiator sandals in the 60's with hi waisted over alls, or fur coats with white paten leather boots in the 70's worn on christmas day with her pink sheer frilly night gown underneath. Most of these photos are from a time when I hadn't even been thought of, but they are me.  When I was a kid she would wear monochromatic sweat suits with gold LA gears accompanied with a gold purse, gold wallet, gold cigarette case, & gold lighter.  You can't make this stuff up!  Everything in our house was gold, candles, picture frames, lamps, the trim on the couch.  We even had spray painted gold bricks to hold the doors open when she was doing laundry. MY mother was an outsider artist (she never graduated from high school, let alone went on to college).  We would spend hours looking & sorting for different sized pine cones so she could make these elaborately detailed wreathes. Every pine cone was coated with gold spray paint, then gold glitter, then assembled as a wall hanging & given to my teachers and our neighbors. Her gift decorating & wrapping skills were beyond, just beyond.  My Mother also made most of my baton twirling costumes or embellished them with feather bowes & rhinestones.

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Even though Manda Louise loved her gold, she still kept a piece of her Hill Billy origin with her. Austere conditions taught my mother how to forage for food, how to survive. When I was young we would go out & harvest Poke on the side of highways and cemeteries. She came from a place in Appalachia Kentucky in a time where dirt floors, no money, bartering for everything, & growing food was life. My Papaw if alive today, would be 122 yrs old. My mom grew up in what we refer to in the south as a "Holler".  We are hill billies & I still identify as such. I host a Hill Billy Woman's supper because it keeps the spirit of my ancestors alive and holds them close. Someone once told me that we are our hopes & dreams of our grandparents. And if you look at Verda, Mamaw, her eyes are bright and filled with life. She's a woman of integrity & tradition. I am proud to be one of these people. The women in my family taught me how to cook, how to host, how to be true, & how to be kind. 

Its no wonder my work this lifetime is with the dirt; in the studio, in the field, in the kitchen. 

-Zena Verda Pesta