Stay 731: Telling the Story of Our City
It was late, and the ferry felt cool in the summer’s evening breeze. We were only a week into my summer in Istanbul, but in our short time learning basic Turkish, navigating public transit, and hopping between Asia and Europe the way I do now between Highland and the Bypass, we felt like naturals.
The warm glow of the nearest café’s neon sign welcomed us to the European shore where the five of us girls were staying for the week, and we didn’t need much convincing to stop in for a late-night dinner of pasta and whatever scrumptious-looking mystery pastry the shelf held. We were a little loopy after a long day of continued culture shock and jet lag, but as I looked around the table, I knew it wasn’t just that; we were happy, and the cheerfulness of the staff and effortless beauty of the cooks’ swift motions only made my smile grow wider.
“This is the perfect place,” I told the girls between bad Turkish puns. “The kind of place I’d want to have in my magazine.”
“Like in many situations in my life, I had quickly been labeled ‘art girl,’ and I didn’t mind it.”
In our group of eight students from Union University, we all knew each other from campus, but it was clear that this summer would bring us closer than many families. In the handful of days we had been in Istanbul, we had already pushed far beyond each other’s comfort zones between international flight breath, failing at haggling on the street, and trying new foods that intrigued some and disgusted others. Like in many situations in my life, I had quickly been labeled “art girl,” and I didn’t mind it. Just the night before, I had stayed up till 3:00 A.M. laying out the weekly update to send each of our parents, transforming it from a wordy email with low-quality attachments to a full-fledged publication, complete with standard print sizing, bleed marks, and column guides—you know, in case anyone wanted to print them out . . . and had an industrial printer on hand?
Once our small talk material ran out about two hours into our first flight, our group had attempted to dig a little deeper into our conversations with each other, and as the resident art major I brought along my Canon DSLR, sketchbook, and a slew of art talk that perfectly rode the line between endearing and obnoxious. Thankfully, my teammates showed me grace as they listened to me whine about my upcoming senior show that would be the end-all-be-all of my graphic design career—for now, at least.
Like the many art department saints that had gone before me, I was searching for a way to combine the things I loved in life with my creativity, and my senior show was the perfect beta test. Sure, it was a fun blank canvas for me to play around on, but this was about the future. My senior show was my one chance at really giving my all for something to see if I could make a career of it.
“My senior show was my one chance at really giving my all for something to see if I could make a career of it.”
So here we were, tasked with the week’s Turkish vocabulary (I was never good at foreign language) and any errands that would lighten the load of our resident missionaries, and I was daydreaming about a magazine—one that didn’t exist but that I thought needed to.
As the daughter of a pilot, a love of travel was instilled in me at a young age, and when those dumb icebreaker questions were passed around at events to introduce yourself, I never really knew what to say. Sure, I was “artsy”—I guess that’s what you call anyone who can use a computer, color in the lines, and spends far too much time on dioramas. But . . . what else? I had little to no athletic skills, couldn’t drone on about any one fetish, and (worst of all) didn’t really have a cause I cared about.
That summer in Istanbul brought a lot of things out in me, as travel often does, and I made three discoveries of things I truly loved: travel, community, and Jordan. (That last one’s a longer story, but feel free to pick my husband’s brain sometime if you care for a roundabout romance.) And that night in the café by the Bosphorus was just the beginning. It was at that table that my vision for Our Jackson Home began.
Fast forward eleven months, and I’ve got an engagement ring, a gallery wall, and 100 perfect-bound publications spilling out of cardboard boxes.
“I had come to love Jackson’s unique Jackson-ness over the years and wanted the people around me to see that potential, too.”
After concluding that I wanted to design a travel magazine during my Turkey trip, I found the realities of it difficult: I had no money to travel the world, didn’t particularly enjoy writing, and was wrestling with the calling God had put on my life to stay in Jackson after graduation. Like many Union students, I had come to love Jackson’s unique Jackson-ness over the years and wanted the people around me to see that potential, too.
Enter: Luke Pruett.
I’ve told my Our Jackson Home story so many times that it’s almost become old hat, but there’s nothing normal about a few friends starting a little podcast just because they care about their city. There’s nothing normal about them allowing a random twenty-one-year-old to borrow their brand for a school project. There’s nothing normal about theCO seeing my little show’s success and deciding to pool their limited funds to give me a job to just do what I loved, trusting it would come back to bless them.
There’s nothing normal about the story God has written for me the past five years of my life. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any more normal anytime soon.
“There’s nothing normal about the story God has written for me the past five years of my life.”
These past five years running Our Jackson Home have been incredible, but they haven’t been perfect. I’ve had to be my own boss a lot of days when I just preferred to be on the assembly line. I’ve overheard hurtful conversations about our city that have made me wonder if anything I’m doing makes a difference. I’ve put myself in more awkward social situations than I can count, wondering when the day might come that I could go to the farmers’ market without noticing the event flyers and “for lease” signs or having to answer people’s questions about my job.
It’s been such a sweet and hard and rewarding and refining season, but I think I see a new dawn coming, and while it breaks my heart to hand over what feels like my baby, it turns out she can walk on her own, and that ain’t such a bad thing.
“I am deeply honored that my coworkers, friends, and thousands of people I’ve never met have trusted me to help tell the story of Jackson in such a powerful way, and I’m confident that has more to do with the support of this community than it has to do with me.”
At theCO, we’ve always said that whenever I left someday, Our Jackson Home would have to change, although we could never say how, and I still don’t think we can see that far. I am deeply honored that my coworkers, friends, and thousands of people I’ve never met have trusted me to help tell the story of Jackson in such a powerful way, and I’m confident that has more to do with the support of this community than it has to do with me.
Our Jackson Home is in good hands, and so am I.
Originally from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, photographer Katie Howerton moved to Jackson in 2011 to study Graphic Design and Drawing at Union University. She discovered Our Jackson Home in January 2015 and used it as a guinea pig for her senior design project, creating the first issue of Our Jackson Home: The Magazine. After graduating she was given leadership over Our Jackson Home at theCO from 2015-2020. Katie lives with her husband Jordan and daughter November in midtown where she now runs her Disney World planning business, Souvenear.
