About this project

Hi! We are James Martin, Melonie Tharpe, and Cubby West and we are making a documentary. Two of us are home grown in the South and one of us is a recent transplant, but we all have one thing in common: the South inspires our creative endeavors.  

A few months back, the three of us decided we wanted to collaborate on something. We really wanted to make a space. A space for creatives to gather, hang out, and create great stuff. The more we talked and researched what others were doing in this realm, the more inspired we became by all the great spaces, organizations and people in our own backyard: the South.  

We think you can be inspired too. That is why we are traveling in our Big Red van (thanks to a wonderful donation from Melonie's Dad) to 13 locations in the South over 30 days. We want to document the people, organizations and places that make the South a creative place.  We will be gathering footage for a documentary about our experience and chronicling on our website the great spaces, organizations and people we find.  We hope to create an online resource directory to showcase the South as a creative place, complete with footage from our filming, links to the great places we visit and stories about how the South influences creative minds.  We believe our site and documentary can be influential tools to bring deserved attention to the South as a creative place.

We have some brilliant interviews lined up, but they cannot happen without your help. With the money we raise on Kickstarter we will be able to embark on our trip MARCH FIRST. That's right, just around the corner. The $9,500 you help raise will get us started on our journey. It includes gas, our equipment and even a few hotel stays if we are lucky. 

So give! If you don't, the burglar in the Big Red van will come and find you. And you don't want that to happen... Trust us. 

Thanks y'all.