Nutmeg Vintage's Stephanie Forbes finds spiritual growth and healing through art

In 2021, local artist, former Rule of 3 gallery director and owner of the new Nutmeg Vintage, Stephanie “Sunshine” Forbes debuted “ROOT: Family Suppression and the Lowcountry” at Cedar House Gallery. The powerful and emotionally heavy exhibition, which focused on the family dynamics between the artist and her mother, father, aunt, and beloved “Mema” (pronounced MEE-maw), included the piece “Aunt Beth Made Door Beads to Keep The Bad Uncles Away,” a large hanging curtain of sorts constructed of oyster shells and chains.

“My Aunt Beth: Huge Hippie,” Forbes relayed to me from across the mid-century modern table that occupies the center of her dining room. “I was just so enamored with how cool she was.”

Her father’s sister had a propensity to collect and craft door beads, the kinds that were popular in the '60s and '70s. Frequently, those creations would make their way to Forbes’ dad, but because Aunt Beth was a chain-smoker, the beaded curtains typically smelled too bad to be hung in the house and were instead relegated to boxes and stored away.

During her work on ROOT, however, Forbes reconnected with the vintage artifacts, uncovering the potentially dark origins behind the seemingly innocuous creations.

“I did some studying, and I found out some things about my family that no one had ever talked about,” Forbes told me, her voice catching. “Aunt Beth had been sexually abused by her uncles. And the same thing had happened to me.

“It was like, conceptually, I started understanding what she was so obsessed with making door beads,” she continued. “It was this spiritual shield to evil.”

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'It created a wall'

Growing up, Forbes earned the nickname “Sunshine” from her parents and friends, a moniker that many still use for her today. But for reasons unknown to the artist, her Mema always referred to her as “Nutmeg.”

“Literally I think it was from conception, ‘I’m gonna name her Nutmeg.’” Forbes laughed. “It was always my name.”

During ROOT, in an adjacent room in Cedar House Gallery’s exhibition area, Forbes displayed a temporary piece that acted as a response to both the aforementioned beaded curtain piece and her own personal trauma. “Where I Flock” was a 7-foot-by-6-foot-by-4-foot rectangular construction, a walk-in space covered with Spanish moss within which the artist played audio recordings of the beloved matriarch telling stories.

“After everything came out, we didn’t know how to calibrate; we didn’t know how to exist together. We were all just so upset,” Forbes recalled. “With my grandma, I didn’t have to worry about that. It was just peace.”

“I felt like I could be received the way I wanted, as undamaged,” she later added.

The stories told through the recordings were from the time that Forbes lived with Mema while she attended the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), a time that the artist recalls fondly. Back then, Forbes’ classes began early, so she often left the house without seeing her grandmother. Everyday, however, Mema would leave an encouraging note and a banana for the young creative, notes which the creative saved and also displayed in the show.

“Anytime there was any chaos in my heart, I would just go [to Mema’s house],” she said. “She would literally say nothing, and it felt like she was pouring into me.”

The inception of Nutmeg Vintage

According to Forbes, ROOT was her “desperate” attempt to “sew [her family] back together,” and to ultimately start the healing process herself. A more complete personal reconciliation wouldn’t manifest itself for another year, with her exquisite “Divine Armor From the Lowcountry” exhibition at the Emeline hotel in Charleston, South Carolina, a show focused more on her personal spiritual journey and psychic recovery.

But what ROOT did do was reconnect the artist back to the oftentimes powerful stories inherent in vintage items, as was the case with Aunt Beth and her beaded curtains. And when she decided to close Rule of 3 Gallery earlier this year, she finally had the time to further investigate the ideas that emerged during her work on the show.

“My mom always collected vintage, so I kind of got that from her,” Forbes explained. “When I was growing up [my parents] used to take me to estate sales and to auctions that were really fun.”

Over the years, Forbes has collected what she estimates to be about two storage units full of fashion, furniture, jewelry and more. For the creative, however, owning vintage comes with a level of responsibility that fast fashion and mass market disposable goods lack, what she calls a “need to be preserved.” They’re a connection to an important time in our history, she said, one that astute observers can see in the objects created during that period.

“[The '60s and '70s were] an incredibly influential, vital time for the world, and it really shaped our landscape now,” noted Forbes. “All of these things influenced how our clothes looked. It’s not just a beautiful piece of clothing, it’s literally what was going on in the world.”

That’s where her latest project Nutmeg Vintage comes in.

“Nutmeg Vintage, I want it to be a learning experience,” she said. “You could come into Nutmeg Vintage, whether it be Instagram or a store or something, and you see these beautiful incredible things that are reminders of our past. But you’re also learning about what it stood for.

“I want it to be a connective learning experience,” she added, “whether it be you buy something, or you just learn something. I think the intention is to witness it, to have it preserved, to have it respected.”

Sometimes the meaning behind an object becomes clear, as was the case for the artist and the artifacts she found associated with Aunt Beth. Other times it’s up to Forbes to use her deep understanding of the human experience and evidence presented by the objects juxtaposed alongside a specific find to tell the tale of whatever she’s highlighting.

In one case, for example, Forbes was at an estate sale after the passing of an elderly man. Walking through the space, she discovered hidden amongst the collection evidence of his partner, who had died years earlier. Ultimately she picked up a 1970s Avon Taurus pendant that she projects belonged to the man, as well as a delicate butterfly necklace Forbes believes belonged to his longtime wife, using the objects as a jumping off point to tell anecdotes about what their lives might have been like.

“Estate sales are typically [dealing with items from folks] who are older,” Forbes related. “Sometimes they’ll tell us about that person, sometimes they’re not allowed to, that’s when I make up my own story.”

“I really just curated this whole story in my head and fell in love with these people that I had no idea who they were,” she went on to add.

Looking back to move forward

The last several years have been an emotional and artistic journey for Stephanie Forbes, one that has seen her contending with personal trauma, opening and closing a gallery, spiritual growth and career instability. She’s also had to process the passing of Mema, who died in early 2021, around the same time that ROOT was on display at Cedar house Gallery.

But for the 32-year-old artist and entrepreneur everything happens for a reason, and right now she’s letting the spirits of those who influenced and inspired her, people like Mema and Aunt Beth, show her the way.

“I’m definitely very sensitive to signs, and I’m very open to divine guidance,” Forbes said.

“I do feel like I always try to force myself into this kind of artist that makes this certain type of art, of ‘Maybe a gallery will see me!’” she continued. “But I just want to have fun for a little bit. And I think that will be my first offering to myself of being liberated in that, and I’m really excited for what work comes from that, because I know it’s gonna get dark.”

“Fun” for Forbes means painting loads of mushrooms and butterflies in a decidedly throwback style, and creating outrageously chunky jewelry that would fit right alongside pieces actually created mid-century. It feels like a welcome change of direction for the artist, a direction firmly rooted in her past.

“My grandmother didn’t have anything,” Forbes said near the end of our conversation. “But she left me so much wisdom and all of everything that I needed.”

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Nutmeg Vintage's Stephanie Forbes finds spiritual healing through art