THOM 1 | Fall / Winter 2013

creators
team of volunteers, so by the time the weekend comes
around in November, he can be a relaxed host, putting
out fires where necessary, but mostly making sure
everyone feels welcome.
Brandy and Gates are Thomasville. Their passion for
its history and its future are evident in everything
they do for it, and in how excited they are talking
about it. The community is one they want to help
Art is a reflection of
our memories back to
us, a reminder that
humanity feels these
deeper connections.
preserve and to stimulate. They embody the living
history, the past as useful, harvested, built upon.
Thomasville has always had a creative edge from the
early days of the northern settlers who came down
for the winter. Today that edge is keeping the town
moving forward. The Kirkhams encourage this, while
preserving the past.
Their roles as leaders for PWAF let them do that. They
work to combine the history of the festival, which
was started 18 years ago by Gates’ second cousin
Margo Bindhardt, with modern Thomasville. Margo
was like a mother to Gates. She passed away in 2009,
and much of Gates’ passion for the festival is about
continuing her legacy and honoring this woman who
Brandy describes as a “real mover and shaker.” Brandy
and Gates bring in as many people and companies as
they can to help, both locally and from Tallahassee.
They know that the more people are involved—who
feel a part of the festival — the better it will be, and
the better Thomasville will be for it. Brandy says,
“What we bring to PWAF is our passion for the land,
the lifestyle. We want to preserve that, continue it,
expose more people to it.” They expose this passion
in themselves with their descriptions of the work of
Tallahassee paper artist Lucrezia Bieler. On an end
table in the sunroom, they have a small framed cutout
of a bird, entirely made from one sheet of paper and a
tiny pair of scissors. Gates says he discovered her work
toward the end of last year’s festival and proceeded to
show it off to everybody: “If you see the stuff she does
up close, it’s unreal.”
Their mix of old and new expands to the art they
feature at the festival. They are, again, focused
on preserving the tradition of wildlife art, which
is what they grew up with, and inviting in newer
interpretations of it. Brandy offers Curt Butler’s
The Family Tree as an example of the different
interpretation of wildlife art. It hangs in their
children’s playroom/office, art amidst the life it was
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