Cue the trumpets and the fanfare – blogging – here we go! To start things off we thought we’d share bit of our back-story and how Rabble & Twine was born. Luke and I met and fell in love in graduate school at Mills College in Oakland, California. Oh the beautiful Bay Area, an artists’ dreamland. So much to see, so much to do and honestly, something for everyone. Art galleries, performance venues…cool stuff was—and is—happening all over the place. If you’ve never been to San Francisco, Oakland, and the surrounding area we can’t recommend a trip enough. Go breathe in the energy of that place and tell me you aren’t inspired!

We kept making art with our friends and seeing performances as much as we could. While working in tech support during the day, Luke performed in bands, wrote his own music, and dove deep into live video performance. I [Anna] performed in friends’ dances, joined classes and choreographed my own work. After a stint planning events at an alternative school I eventually returned to my roots, teaching dance. But we never really felt like side projects were enough. Maybe we’re greedy but we wanted more. Luke and I missed the vast ocean of art school. We decided we needed a a change of scenery and an adventure, so left the bay area, moving cross country to Providence, Rhode Island.

The ball kept rolling. In RI we felt the loss of the artistic net that had carried us for so long. I reached out to dance connections from my past and started the Larkspur Dance Company, fulfilling a life long dream of mine. Throw in a dash of getting married, growing up and sorting out priorities. Thoughts of how to create the life we want, long term. That constant search for the work/life/art balance. Our dreams of an art collective grew, and grew, and grew into starting a gallery/performance venue/bit of everything art space to house our (and your?) ideas. A place like so many we used to frequent in the Bay Area, but with our own twist. A bit of research into the trend of creative place-making and the positive role of creativity in communities was the last push we had been looking for.

It is our hope that the blog will act as a virtual representation of the eventual physical art space (the big dream)! In the not too distant future we will be packing our bags once again and heading south to Durham, North Carolina, our chosen place to grow Rabble & Twine as a blog and business.

Why Durham?

1. We responded really well to Durham when we visited. In our brief time there it made us feel at home, and piqued our curiosity to explore, dissect and see what makes the place tick.
2. Luke has history and connections to the area: he went to school at UNC, and his folks hail from the piedmont. He has always considered himself a North Carolinian at heart.
3. We got married on Ocracoke so NC is a state that holds special meaning for us.
4. Durham’s got a good mix of old charm with new growth. It’s friendly city. It’s not too saturated. It has a unique arts scene. It feels like an adventure!

Why Rabble & Twine creative collective?

Our name was born from a massive post-it note brainstorm^{Other people have those too, right?}. We love the symbolism of rabble—a rag-tag, disorderly, impassioned crowd, and twine—the timeless, versatile cord made stronger by its interlacing threads. We want to take the best of all the places we’ve lived, people we know, and things we love, spin them all up in a blender, and share them with our new community.

Tell us world, if you were starting this journey what would you want to explore? What’s your creative outlet, and where has it taken you?