Madeworthy: Tell us a little about yourself. (Where you’re from, educational background, art, work prior to Art Tooth, pets, anything you really want to share!)

Shasta Haubrich: I mostly grew up in Cleburne, but we lived in Japan until I was four and I was born in Washington state. Now I have technically lived in Fort Worth longer than I have lived anywhere. I received an Associate’s Degree from TCC and then worked at The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth for ten years so I consider that part of my education. I have two adult (barely) children, Aurora and Apollo, a few porch cats and my son has a bearded dragon.

Amira Balmashkan, Shasta Haubrich, Jessica Beatty

MW: Your Patreon says that you create “pop-culture focused art.” Can you tell us a little more about that?

SH: Growing up in the country as an only child, I spent a lot of time watching TV. So I like researching sitcoms and tv shows and movies in various ways. For my most recent project I watched every episode of Golden Girls and tried to catalog every time they say some version of “What are you doing up?” and then I painted those scenes in three large canvases. I am also about to start selling prints of various favorite scenes from tv and movies and hopefully will start selling zines.

MW: Congrats on 10 years of Art Tooth! Can you tell us a little about the idea behind the founding of it?

SH: I started Art Tooth with six other artists from various backgrounds with a mission to create more opportunities for artists in Fort Worth. In many ways it is difficult for artists to show their work if you don’t have a relationship with a gallery. So we decided we would start creating our own art shows. Our first show was at 76102 gallery and then BRIK and we moved on to collaborating in various ways with different businesses and groups including Hotel Dryce, The Pool at Near Southside, FWSSR, Mayfest, and more.

MW: When did it become clear that Art Tooth wasn’t just a collective of artists, that it was evolving into a nonprofit with a real mission?

SH: I think we figured out pretty quickly we could make a difference as a non-profit vs a collective. We had our first gallery show in August of 2016 and we established ourselves as a nonprofit by March of 2017. Our methods have evolved so I try to work with several artists throughout the year. For example, In 2025 we worked with 70 artists and held 19 events. 25 of those artists were people I had never shown before.

MW: For those who are not aware of Art Tooth, what is your mission?

Art Tooth was founded with the intention to create more opportunities for artists in Fort Worth and to build relationships between artists, collectors, and art patrons.

By making contemporary art accessible to an increasingly broad and diverse public, we strive to continue to strengthen Dallas-Fort Worth’s reputation as an arts destination.

MW: A lot of art-based nonprofits are not run by artists. How does being artist-run make a difference in what Art Tooth does?

SH: I think it makes it easier for us because I can anticipate what makes it hard for some artists to get their work out there in the world and try to eliminate those barriers, because I have the same issues trying to show my art. I also think it’s easier for me to talk to artists directly and get their feedback on what they need.

MW: I’m not sure if Art Tooth could exist anywhere else. How does Fort Worth contribute to Art Tooth’s mission?

SH: I think there are several people who have helped us make it to ten years because people see us as a needed entity in Fort Worth. I feel like we are known for having access to several artists and we have the ability to reach out to artists easily.

MW: Conversely, how does Art Tooth contribute to Fort Worth’s role as a leading center for contemporary artists – especially new and mid-level artists?

SH: I don’t think we are reinventing the wheel by partnering with businesses to show art but I think/ hope we are trusted partners to artists and businesses and help eliminate some of the stress for artists trying to show their work for the first time or to a new audience.

MW: Art Tooth is committed to supporting artists from underrepresented communities. Why are inclusivity and equity in art representation so important?

SH: I personally think art should reflect society and we wouldn’t be reflecting society if we just showcased art from white dudes. Statistically, it is more difficult for non-white artists to get their work in galleries, so if we are truly supporting all artists we need to contribute to helping mitigate those barriers.

MW: How does Art Tooth ensure inclusivity and equity in your works?

SH: I think we have generally just tried to see who we have worked with and find a balance, but we are about to start implementing a process of surveying our past artists and getting a clearer picture of where we need to make improvements.

MW: Do you think your efforts have led to more diversity in the contemporary art scene in Fort Worth?

SH: No, I don’t think we can take any credit for that. I think we could probably be doing more.

MW: What do you think are the biggest challenges that artists face in Fort Worth today, both as an artist and as Executive Director of Art Tooth?

SH: I think that Fort Worth wants to be seen as art focused, but when you ask some businesses or leaders to actually support artists by paying them what they are worth they don’t want to contribute or they try to cut corners.

MW: How do you juggle your work as an artist with your job as Executive Director of Art Tooth?

SH: I am actually pretty bad at it. I think sometimes I sign up for stuff with my own art just so I have a deadline I have to make and then I get my art work done at the last minute.

MW: How does your career as an artist influence the way Art Tooth supports artists?

SH: I grew up in a small town and put myself through school while raising two kids so I have had my own hurdles to face trying to get my art out there including imposter syndrome and feeling like I am not educated enough. So I know what fears and hopes artists have and I know that sometimes getting that first chance is everything to keep you going.

MW: Where you see the contemporary art scene in Fort Worth going in the next five years?

SH: I hope we keep going and expanding but these rent prices are a big issue and I think there is a plateau for some artists where they have to leave or show their work in Dallas or move to Austin or Houston because we need more support once artists get to the point where they can sell high dollar pieces. If we can establish more residencies where artists get free studio space and get paid to work that will help significantly.

MW: Where do you see Art Tooth going in the next five years?

SH: We tried to have studio spaces and that didn’t work out but it would be great to have a permanent office and find funding for studios in the next five years and to expand how we work to collaborate with artists in new ways.

MW: Where do you see your art going in the next five years?

SH: I just hope it gets weirder.

Lightning Round: Fort Worth Favorites

• Coffee shop – Black Coffee and Avoca have my favorite match lattes and Cherry has my favorite drip coffee
• Breakfast/brunch place – Montgomery Street Cafe and Cafecito
• Hangout with friends – Chat Room and Boiled Owl
• Place to relax and recharge – My house
• Artist or musician (if this isn’t too political!) – Can’t pick one artist as a favorite but Son of Stan, Spring Palace and Hotel Satellite are my current fave local bands
• Yearly event or festival – Arts Goggle
• Favorite museum – The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth obs
• Thrift or consignment shop – Doc’s Records
• Best bartender, cocktail, or mocktail in town – Oh this one is definitely too political for me
• Best hamburger joint – Gusto’s
• Best barbecue – ok it’s like FW adjacent but Smoke’N Ash
• Mexican restaurant – I have done very little research in this category, but San Luis is probably the one I visit the most.

The post Community Member Spotlight: Shasta Haubrich first appeared on Tanglewood Moms.

Celia Álvarez Muñoz: El Limite

Through October 18

Amon Carter Museum of American Art

In a new iteration of her installation for the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, from 1991, Texas-based artist Celica Álvarez Muñoz has transformed the Carter’s sloping first-floor gallery. In El Limite, Muñoz references the works of Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada in two large-scale photographs and explores the effects of the railroad on the connections and divisions among cultures, languages, and traditions.

The Questioneers: Read. Question. Think. PLAY!

Through May 24

Fort Worth Museum of Science and History

While little ones might balk at spending a couple of hours looking at art, The Questioneers: Read. Question. Think. PLAY! is a hands-on exhibit that encourages questioning, thinking, and problem-solving. Based on the popular children’s book series by Andrea Beaty, which includes favorites such as Rosie Revere, Engineer, and Ada Twist, Scientist, this exhibition will have your kiddos using their little gray cells while having loads of fun. (Just don’t tell them that they’re learning while they’re playing!)

Roy Lichtenstein in the Studio

Through August 16

Nasher Sculpture Center and the Dallas Museum of Art

When someone says “Pop Art,” most people automatically think of Roy Lichtenstein’s large-scale interpretations of comic book panels. However, Lichtenstein’s oeuvre is more wide-ranging, encompassing sculpture, prints, and murals. The Nasher Sculpture Center and the Dallas Museum of Art celebrate the acquisition of over 50 works from the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation in this joint exhibition of drawings, sculptures, and prints by the groundbreaking artist, shown at the neighboring institutions.

Georgia O’Keeffe and the Carter

Through September 2027

Amon Carter Museum of American Art

It’s fitting that a museum dedicated to American art has created an exhibition of works by the artist known as “the Mother of American Modernism.” For the first time, the Carter explores its ties to O’Keeffe, possibly America’s most recognized artist, showing not only her paintings and works on paper from the Museum’s collection, but also photographs, letters, and other materials from O’Keeffe and other artists such as Alfred Stieglitz, Laura Gilpin, and Eliot Porter.

Fire and Earth: Early Chinese Pottery from the MacLean Collection

Through September 27

Crow Museum of Asian Art

Architect Louis Sullivan once declared that “Form follows function.” Fire and Earth: Early Chinese Pottery from the MacLean Collection features 45 vessels spanning the Neolithic period (ca. 10,000–2000 BCE) through the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), exploring how function and technological advances shaped the development of pottery across China, from simple earthenware vessels to early glazed porcelain.

Paper Technologies: Italian Prints and Drawings

Through September 20

Dallas Museum of Art

Through the selection of works from early modern Italy, from Venice to Rome, dated from 1500 to 1750, Paper Technologies: Italian Prints and Drawings explores a complex relationship between drawings, prints, and their afterlife. The increasing availability of paper enabled advancements in drawing and printmaking, and the exhibition features works from the Dallas Museum of Art’s permanent collection as well as never-before-seen pieces from private collectors.

Waste to Wonder

Through May 24

Fort Worth Museum of Science and History

We are increasing a throw-away culture. Mass-produced items have a single use and are meant to be disposed of instead of repaired and kept. In collaboration with the Tarrant County Education Foundation, Waste to Wonder explores how innovation and creativity can transform one man’s trash into another man’s treasure with hands-on exhibits that delve into what it means to be truly sustainable.

Paper Knife: Objects of Beauty in Early Modern Japan

Through September 29

Crow Museum of Asian Art

When I say the word “samurai,” what springs to mind? Sword-wielding warriors fighting for their lord’s honor, correct? That image is only a small part of what samurai were. Exploring developments in decorative and fine arts, Paper Knife: Objects of Beauty in Early Modern Japan explores how pastimes, such as calligraphy, tea ceremonies, and landscape painting, were defining features of the elite samurai class, and how craftsmanship and materials elevated the mundane to the sublime.

Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers

March 8 through September 27

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

In his first major exhibition in more than a decade, multimedia Rashid Johnson uses Black history, art history, and philosophy as a framework to explore masculinity, parenthood, self-care, and identity. Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers includes over 80 works and traces Johnson’s development through early photographic pieces, film, and sculpture to more recent paintings and assemblages.

The Holy Sepulcher: Treasures from the Terra Sancta Museum, Jerusalem

March 15 through June 28

Kimbell Art Museum

For centuries, European monarchs competed to demonstrate their piety and support for Christianity in the Middle East by commissioning art and religious items. Composed of more than 60 dazzling pieces gifted by kings, queens, and other rulers to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, The Holy Sepulcher: Treasures from the Terra Sancta Museum, Jerusalem includes reliquaries, crosses, chalices, vestments, and candlesticks created out of rich materials by the most talented craftsmen and artists of the 17^th and 18^th centuries in Europe.

Black Photojournalism

March 15 through July 5

Amon Carter Museum of American Art

The years between 1945 and the mid-1980s were a time of great change in the United States. From the post-war boom through the Civil Rights movement and beyond, Black Photojournalism explores the essential role of Black photojournalists in documenting historic events and everyday life in Black-owned media outlets during those turbulent times. These photographs create a historical record of Black life that is rich and nuanced, and that serves as a tool for empowerment and education.

Paradise on Earth: Florals in Indian Textiles

April 1 through November 29

Dallas Museum of Art

For thousands of years, Indian textile artists turned to the natural world for inspiration. Exploring the impact of plant and floral imagery in Indian textile and garment design, Paradise on Earth: Florals in Indian Textiles examines the interconnectedness of craftsmanship, art, and nature and showcases the richness of clothing, decorative arts, paintings, and textiles from the Mughal Empire (1526-1827) to the present.

The Cinematic West: The Art That Made the Movies

Through April 25

Sid Richardson Museum

The Hollywood Western wouldn’t be the Hollywood Western without the works of Western artists like Charles Russell, Frederic Remington, and many others. Their art explores the mythology of the American West– a mythology that Hollywood enthusiastically embraced and amplified. The Cinematic West: The Art That Made the Movies juxtaposes paintings, sculptures, and illustrations with movie posters, silent-movie clips, and other ephemera, revealing parallels between “fine art” and “mass media.”

The Statue of Liberty: From Bartholdi to Warhol

August 16, 2026 through January 3, 2027

Amon Carter Museum of American Art

“’I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’” In honor of the 250^th anniversary of the United States, the Carter explores the place of the Statue of Liberty in America’s visual culture and the evolution of depictions of French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s monolithic work, Liberty Enlightening the World, as well as its continuing relevance in America’s visual culture. The exhibition is anchored by a rare bronze cast of Lady Liberty, one of only five small-scale bronze casts made during Bartholdi’s lifetime.

Preservation Is the Art of the City

September 10 through September 12

Location to be determined

In its 23^rd year, Preservation Is the Art of the City showcases the work of North Texas artists while raising money for Historic Fort Worth, Inc. The event, spanning several days around Fall Gallery Night, allows art patrons to connect with local artists and their works and celebrates the talent and creativity of our city.

Photography’s First Century: Masterworks from the Bibliothèque nationale de France

October 4, 2026 through January 17, 2027

Kimbell Art Museum

Photography’s First Century: Masterworks from the Bibliothèque nationale de France is the Kimbell’s first-ever exhibition celebrating the art of photography. The Bibliothèque nationale de France holds one of the most extensive collections of photography in the world, and this exhibition uses its holdings to trace the development of the medium over its first century, from the technological breakthroughs of early photographic processes such as the Daguerreotype and calotype to the impact of war and politics between the World Wars.

Main St. Fort Worth Arts Festival

April 16-19

Downtown Fort Worth

The granddaddy of all Fort Worth’s art festivals, Main St. Fort Worth Arts Festival returns for its 39^th year in 2026. One of the top-rated fine arts festivals in the country and certainly the biggest in Texas, Main St. is an outdoor gallery featuring the art of more than 200 jury-selected artists in media such as sculpture, painting, photography, and more, and is one of the highlights of North Texas’s cultural year.

Grapevine Main Street Fest

May 15-17

Downtown Grapevine

Grapevine’s annual street festival, celebrating all things Grapevine, is a family-friendly festival that features food, shopping, and entertainment. It also includes the Grapevine Art Project Market, which features art from the Grapevine Art Project, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting and promoting artists in the city and to providing scholarships to art students in the area.

Denton Arts & Jazz Festival

September 11-13

Downtown Denton

Not just a bedroom community for the bigger cities in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex or the home of the University of North Texas, Denton has established itself as a center for the arts in North Texas. Founded on the belief that all forms of art should be available to everyone free of charge, the Denton Arts & Jazz Festival offers professional and amateur artists and musicians alike a place to share their art with the public.

North Texas Art Festival

May 16 & 17

Katy Depot, Denison

Situated on the shores of Lake Texoma, Denison is a small town with a big city arts culture. Juried local, regional, and national artists come to Denison every year for the North Texas Arts Festival. Musicians from across Texas and the Southwest perform as families enjoy the kid-friendly activities and shop for art at the historic Katy Depot.

Art Worth: A Festival at Clearfork

October 23-25

The Lawn of the Shops at Clearfork

A relative newcomer among North Texas art festivals, Art Worth is a celebration of visual art and classical music with a juried exhibition of art by Texas and national artists and music from local schools and professional companies. Art Worth also affords the public the opportunity to enjoy glassblowing, pottery, and metalsmithing demonstrations and to converse with the artists.

Cottonwood Art Festival

May 2 & 3 and October 3 & 4

Cottonwood Park, Richardson

Now in its 57^th year, the Cottonwood Arts Festival has become one of the most prestigious fine arts festivals in the United States. Featuring works in all media by nearly 200 artists from across the nation, “The Cottonwood” celebrates the visual and performing arts and has become a Richardson tradition on the first weekends of May and October.

The post 2026 in Art first appeared on Tanglewood Moms.

This, in and of itself, was not earth-shaking news. After all, art exhibitions and shows frequently open in the Near Southside. It is, after all, a major artistic hub for our city.

But A Good Gathering was different than most art shows that we see in Fort Worth. It wasn’t just a collection of art hanging on walls. It was a series of events for artists, entrepreneurs, communicators, and the public to connect and engage, to learn and collaborate, as well as a collection of art (by 20 local artists, both new and established) hanging on walls.

Photo credit: Walt Burns

It’s probably not news to you, Dear Reader, that we Fort Worthians love our art. We’re justifiably proud of our museums. Most cities our size are lucky to have one decent museum. We have three world-class museums. We have theater and ballet companies that perform both traditional and avant-garde works. Look at the sheer number of art-related events and festivals in Fort Worth every year. From the Main Street Arts Festival and Spring and Fall Gallery Nights, from ArtsGoggle to Lost ‘n Sound, Fort Worth is more engaged with its artistic community than most cities of our size.

But back to this unique art experience we were talking about.

A joint exhibition between A Good Man’s Education and Art Tooth (see page 16), A Good Gathering was structured around four “pathways.” Art Tooth explained, “The Art Pathway highlights creative expressions that celebrate the joy of gathering. The Entrepreneur Pathway connects attendees with innovators shaping community engagement. The Cultural Pathway, presented with the Fort Worth Film Club, offers a curated selection of films. And the Community Pathway brings together all the elements through hands-on activities designed for all ages.”

“Art speaks to our souls,” said Dev’n Goodman, the founder and presiding genius of A Good Man’s Education. “It can facilitate conversations that need to be had, and it’s harder to put up barriers to keep people out when you’ve experienced their soul.”

In their series, “52 Faces of Community,” in which they honor “unsung heroes for making extraordinary differences every day: the people who are our neighbors and who quietly make our lives better every day,” the Fort Worth Report describes A Good Man’s Education as an “events business” and Dev’n as an “events planner.” While strictly true, these descriptions fall far short of the mark. Yes, Dev’n plans and hosts events across the city, but she is more than just an events planner. She is an entrepreneur, a cultural communicator, and an educator.

I first met Dev’n at an open house at I.M. Terrell Academy for STEM & VPA. She was my older child’s humanities teacher, and she impressed me from the get-go. My older child is very much a STEM kid, into math and computer science and at the time had little interest in anything else, and yet, Dev’n was able to get them excited about literature and history, something I had been trying to do for years. She created a safe, creative space in her classroom for her Gen Z STEM and arts kids to connect with the material and, more importantly, with each other.

In fact, longtime readers of Madeworthy may recognize Dev’n from our 2020 feature, “Top Teachers of Fort Worth.” These top teachers were voted on by members of the Tanglewood Moms Facebook group. “As a teacher who always taught outside the boundaries, I really appreciated that you all welcomed me like that,” she said.

Education and communication come honestly to Dev’n. Both of her parents are/were educators. Her father, Patrick Goodman, is the offensive coordinator for the football team and the head boys’ basketball coach at New Waverly High School in New Waverly, Texas. Her mother, Crystal Goodman, is a retired education administrator who once served as principal of Dunbar Middle School. (It’s because her parents were educators that young Dev’n did not skip from kindergarten directly to the sixth grade, no matter what the school and various tests said was possible. They recognized that her physical and emotional maturity needed time to catch up with her intellectual maturity.)

It is my firm belief that every child should have That Teacher – a teacher who sparks a fire, who expands that child’s mind in unexpected yet profound ways, who makes connections that create new understanding. Dev’n’s That Teacher was a science teacher who understood the value of the humanities. “Our science projects were also art projects,” Dev’n remembered. “Each project had to use a different medium. I loved it. My model of a cell was a cake. My DNA double helix was made out of sugar cubes.”

Not only did that science teacher combine art into the science curriculum, but she also read to her students. Dev’n said, “When we came into her class, she read to us. She had a massive rain stick for white noise, and when everyone sat down, we were expected to be quiet, and then she read for the first 15 minutes of class.”

Numerous studies have been done on the importance of reading to children. Not only does reading literature to children help with language development and important cognitive skills, but it also helps develop their imagination, emotional skills, and empathy. Dev’n absorbed far more than just scientific facts in that science class. And she took the imagination and empathy from that classroom with her into her career as a teacher.

While she was a teacher in the Fort Worth Independent School District, Dev’n started a relationship with the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, which eventually led to a series of discussions called “Listening for a Change.” For five months in 2021, participants were invited to listen to two specified podcast episodes, chosen to provoke curiosity and introspection, and then take part in a discussion.

Also in 2021, Dev’n created and produced a virtual theater show in collaboration with Fort Worth theater company, Amphibian Stage. A video anthology of music, poetry, and personal histories, This Is My Story aimed to record and amplify the voices of Black men in Fort Worth, including such figures as Fort Worth ISD’s Dr. Carlos Walker and local event coordinator/caterer Henry Wasonga Abuto.

It was during the production of “Listening for a Change” and This Is My Story that Dev’n realized that her interest in the intersection of art, education, and community could be more. She left teaching in 2022, worked for about a year as an engagement manager at TechFW, and then struck out on her own with A Good Man’s Education.

Photo credit: Chelsea Davis

Throughout 2024 and 2025, A Good Man’s Education hosted or co-hosted events centered around art, culture, and community. Whether it was a panel discussion exploring the roles of women and community or a Black art tour done in conjunction with Art Tooth, each event served to connect and educate.

“Everything I do with A Good Man’s Education is centered around art, culture, and community,” Dev’n said. “Art connects us and can provoke powerful changes.”

Dev’n is possessed of a powerful intellect, and she is a mesmerizing speaker. Our conversation in the lobby bar at the Hotel Dryce lasted for over two hours. It ranged over such diverse topics as the relationship between first cousins Richard II and Henry IV of England, the differences in the concept of “family” in white, Black, and Brown communities, and the history of the connection between hip hop and Ralph Lauren. (We might have gone down a couple of rabbit holes.)

When asked about Art Tooth’s collaboration with A Good Man’s Education in A Good Gathering, Shasta Haubrich, Executive Director of Art Tooth (see page 16), said, “Together, [we built] on years of working individually with the creative community. Bringing together more than two dozen artists—including many we’ve each admired and collaborated with—is a powerful way to celebrate Fort Worth and its art scene.”

Traditional art shows and exhibitions usually include an opening reception, where art patrons view the works and mingle while sipping warmish glasses of sparkling wine. They may listen to some remarks by the artist and/or the gallery owner, which (hopefully) will spur patrons to purchase the art.

Selling art was just one of the goals of A Good Gathering. Patrons were encouraged to engage their bodies in movement and mindfulness sessions, make their own works of art in hands-on workshops led by art educator Natalia Margarite, view films in a series of screenings curated by TCU’s Dr. Marcellus Perkins, and participate in a panel discussion led by Kaci Merriwether-Hawkins, founder of Black Girls in Art Spaces, and Dr. Stacie McCormick, professor of English, Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies, and Women and Gender Studies at TCU. There was even a door raffle in which an attendee won one of those pieces of art hanging on the walls.

Photo credit: Walt Burns

Glasstire, an online arts magazine that promotes Texas’s visual arts on a regional and national level, named A Good Gathering one of the top art shows in Texas for 2025.

After the success of A Good Gathering, Dev’n isn’t resting on her laurels. She took some time to rest at the end of last year, but she’s back. Starting in February with a screening of the 1991 film Daughters of the Dust at The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, followed by a panel discussion, A Good Man’s Education’s 2026 calendar is punctuated by events incorporating music, literature, film, and art, with an emphasis on education and community.

During March (which is, of course, Women’s History Month), Dev’n is hosting a Women’s Writers Book Swap at Hotel Dryce, featuring a book talk and signing by Jeanette Settembre, author of the acclaimed debut novel Little Red Flags. (There is also going to be a silent book club for introverts who want to read the book but don’t want to attend a talk.)

In June and July, A Good Man’s Education is collaborating with Bodega South Main to produce the Vibe Music Series (exact dates were still pending at the time of publication). There is another Black art walk planned with Art Tooth, and another art show in the spirit of A Good Gathering is scheduled for October.

“I’m a Libra,” Dev’n grinned. “You know, as a Libra, I love me some art.”

Dev’n hopes to expand A Good Man’s Education. She’s looking for partners who are focused on building community and hosting events centered around art, culture, and “just having a good time.” Her long-term goal is to turn A Good Man’s Education into a brick-and-mortar venue with space for events, shows, and lectures.

“I’ve always been fascinated by salons, you know, like Parisian salons,” Dev’n said. “I love the idea of having cultural talks in interesting places. You know, having a lecture on art or music or something is a big thing in the Northeast. I’d love to get that trend started down here.”

Our conversation came to an end, not because we had run out of things to say, but because the organizers of an event later in the evening at Hotel Dryce needed the space. The event was to introduce what was described as a “local boy band.” In a full-circle kind of coincidence that only happens in books or movies, that local boy band is made up of Dev’n’s former students at I.M. Terrell.

The post Provoking Powerful Change: Dev’n Goodman on the Power of Art and the Community first appeared on Tanglewood Moms.

Of course, the most impressive revitalization project of them all just might be the one that has tied our city together, unifying neighborhoods into a community. In the late 1960s, the Trinity River was not the beautiful watercourse we know and love. Levees built after the historic 1949 flood that turned the Trinity into a one-square-mile lake had reduced the river to a series of stagnant pools filled with trash and muck.

Legend has it that civic leader and whirlwind Phyllis Tilley was driving over the Seventh Street Bridge when she bluntly labeled the Trinity River as “a ditch.” She used her community connections and her considerable powers of persuasion to convince the powers that be that the river was one of our city’s most valuable resources and needed saving.

In 1969, Mrs. Tilley and her cohorts convinced the City to form a Streams and Valleys Committee to, in the words of an article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram from 1970, “cleanse, purify, preserve, conserve, develop, improve, beautify, restore, maintain, utilize and adapt for recreational and other uses” Fort Worth bodies of water. The Streams and Valleys Committee morphed into the non-profit Streams & Valleys, Inc. If you’ve ever enjoyed a run along the Trinity Trails or celebrated Mayfest in Trinity Park, you owe Mrs. Tilley and Streams & Valleys your thanks.

Courtesy of Streams & Valleys, Inc.

Mrs. Tilley’s work along the Trinity has continued into the 21^st century. In November, local leaders joined Streams & Valleys and community members for the groundbreaking of Trinity Park Plaza, a gathering place with a butterfly garden, a wildflower meadow, and space for community gatherings.

“Trinity Park was the first city park in Fort Worth,” Lauren Deen, Executive Director of Streams & Valleys, Inc., said when we talked. While the City of Fort Worth had set aside 31 acres of land on the west side of the Trinity for a city park, “there was no Parks Department in the late 19^th century. The City had no money set aside for parks. People wanted green spaces, so the people of Fort Worth came together to raise the funds to transform the land into a park.”

The new plaza is designed to connect the public with nature. “There will be native wildflowers and native grasses,” Deen said. “We want the plaza to be a cool space where families and kids can come out to see wildflowers without having to risk going to the side of the highway.”

In addition to the pollinator garden and the native plants, there will be a grove of 63 Texas redbuds, possumhaw hollies, and desert willows – one tree for each year of Phyllis Tilley’s life. More cedar elms will be planted to provide summer shade and fall color. Deen said, “It was important to us to have color all year long in the plaza.”

Courtesy of Streams & Valleys, Inc.

The revitalization of the Trinity River is a testament to the power of public-private partnerships. Deen, who is the former director of Friends of the Katy Trail in Dallas, said, “Public-private partnerships are so instrumental in civic projects. It’s easy here in Fort Worth because we have so many civic-minded people and organizations who have a vision of what our city could be and are willing to work with our leaders to make Fort Worth better.”

Construction of the new plaza will be finished before Mayfest, Deen said. And she apologized to everyone who uses the temporarily closed Phyllis Tilley Memorial Bridge. “We know it’s frustrating. We’re disrupting people’s lives but just hang with us. It will be worth it, I promise!”

The new plaza project also includes wider trails through Trinity Park. “It’s great to take a park that’s already thriving and make it even better,” Deen said. “We hope the new plaza and Trinity Park will be a gathering place for family and friends to come together overlooking the Trinity for years to come. After all, we’re following in Phyllis Tilley’s footsteps. What we’re doing is changing the shape of the future of Fort Worth.”

The post Changing the Shape of the Future of Fort Worth first appeared on Tanglewood Moms.

We quickly established a family tradition. My parents would brave I-30 to take in an exhibit at one of our city’s world-class museums, and we would all meet for lunch at The Original Mexican Eats Café, affectionately known to generations of Fort Worthians as The Original. As we sat at one of the round tables by the windows, my father would order the Roosevelt Special, my children would gorge themselves on chips and queso, and my mother and I would catch up.

But, as Heraclitus so succinctly put it, the only constant in life is change. After a protracted legal battle, The Original moved to North Main, and the historic building on Camp Bowie has undergone a complete transformation.

Now, after extensive renovation by property owner Derek Muzquiz, the 7,500-square-foot former restaurant is home to six businesses – Color Game Women’s Clothing & Accessories, Waring Tuxedos Fort Worth, Shannon Bower Home & Interiors, Dos Femmes, Honey Loves Boho, and Bowie & Byers Salon.

Longtime customers of The Original won’t recognize the former restaurant. Renovating a restaurant into retail takes an enormous amount of work, but Muzquiz completely renovated the space. Floor studs were replaced. New plumbing and electrical systems were installed. Walls were rebuilt. You might remember seeing an enormous crane on Camp Bowie. That was to remove the restaurant’s massive vent hood. However, if you squint, you can see a little of the building’s original (no pun intended) elements – a skylight here, ceiling tiles there.

Photo courtesy of Camp Bowie District

The building’s metamorphosis from restaurant to retail won the 2025 Camp Bowie District Transformational Award. “It’s remarkable,” Muzquiz says. “People tell me it’s such a great transformation. They wanted more shops on Camp Bowie — somewhere to grab coffee, shop a little, maybe get lunch.”

“Camp Bowie really is having a renaissance,” said Houstoun Waring, proprietor of Waring Tuxedos Fort Worth. “With landmark developments such as Bowie House and the Crescent Hotel, I can only imagine what Camp Bowie will look like in a decade…  From the Stockyards to Camp Bowie, Fort Worth’s strength has always lain in its unique blend of 19th and early 20th century buildings, paired with the technical innovation and business growth of this century.”

When asked why he chose to open “on the bricks,” Waring said, “Choosing to open Waring Tuxedos ‘on the bricks’ was a no-brainer, and truthfully, I didn’t consider any other locations. Options such as University Park Village might have had some logic due to its higher foot traffic, but Camp Bowie’s historic nature, attractive brick road, and central location in the heart of West Fort Worth made it the obvious choice.”

For Erica Bracken, owner of Color Game Women’s Clothing & Accessories, locating her boutique on historic Camp Bowie was a happy accident, but the history of the building and the area were a plus. “I was still toying with whether or not to open a brick-and-mortar store when I met Lexi Eagle,” Bracken said. “She was getting ready to open her store Dos Femmes and told me about available space next to her in the former Original restaurant location. Being in a building that’s considered a Fort Worth institution brings a certain presence to our shops. Clients appreciate that sense of place and continuity, even as the space takes on a new life.”

Fort Worth has a particular aptitude for honoring its past while embracing the future. The renaissance of Camp Bowie is proof of that. And while locals miss The Original, the continued renewal of historic areas is good for Fort Worth. (Don’t worry, you can still get the Roosevelt Special and Elbert’s Tacos at The Original Mexican Eats Café Del Norte on North Main.)

“Being part of Camp Bowie’s renaissance feels incredibly special,” said Erica Bracken, owner of Color Game Women’s Clothing & Accessories. “There’s a renewed buzz on the bricks, and I love that Color Game contributes to that momentum.”

And while our family no longer enjoys a leisurely lunch at The Original when my parents come to town, never fear. We just moved across the bricks to Lucile’s. After all, Camp Bowie is a tradition not only for our family but for the whole city.

The post A Renaissance on Camp Bowie first appeared on Tanglewood Moms.

The part of my career in which I helped innovators, entrepreneurs, and startups maximize their chances for success had come to an end. The podcast I hosted, which shared the stories of local innovators in Fort Worth, rode off into the sunset. And the programs, events, data, and research that I created to build the entrepreneurial community in Fort Worth now faced an uncertain future.

I wanted to see if I could keep this work going because I know that my city needs more entrepreneurs and innovators doing what they do best – inventing the new, creating jobs, and building wealth for our community.

So, I did what I saw so many of the entrepreneurs I had worked with do. I started my own company.

Up until last spring, I hosted 150 episodes of a podcast featuring local innovators, researchers, entrepreneurs, and startups who were trying to use their time, talents, and treasure to make our world a better place. These are our neighbors, our friends, our colleagues, and yet we don’t know the stories of the important work they do.

Some of our guests were trying to improve simple things at home, and some were taking on grand challenges that all of humanity faces. Some were producing higher efficiency electric motors or exploring new ways to diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease. These are tough problems to solve, and if our community doesn’t know who these people are or what they are working on, we won’t know how to help them.

Sharing these stories is why the podcast came into being. Most of these innovators and entrepreneurs were in the early stages of developing their solutions and didn’t receive the attention of traditional media. They were too busy innovating to tell their own stories. For many of them, this was the first opportunity to share their story.

Once these stories became public, we saw amazing things happen. By telling their own stories, these innovators and entrepreneurs found a missing puzzle piece – a co-founder, an investor, a mentor, or someone with a solution unique to the problem they were solving. An appearance on the podcast allowed them to tap into the broad resources that are available in our community.

But, like all good things, that podcast ended in April.

A few weeks later, Texas A&M-Fort Worth called, expressing interest in continuing the podcast through the Fort Worth–Tarrant County Innovation Partnership, an entity formed to build an “innovation district” around the Texas A&M Law School in the southeast quadrant of downtown Fort Worth. They saw the value in telling the stories of local innovators and asked whether I would be interested in restarting the podcast under the maroon-and-white flag. I called my former producer, Kendel Rogers, and asked if she was interested in getting the band back together. She agreed, and the “Fort Worth Innovates” podcast was born.

Mission resumed.

photo credit: Devan Peplow

We started in September with Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker, who is one of the best champions of innovation and entrepreneurship in the country. We have since featured innovators who are creating “Gatorade for dogs” and an app that uses swipe technology to make consumer surveys more fun. We’ve also featured innovative institutions like Cook Children’s Hospital and Texas A&M’s aerospace program.

And we’re just getting started.

We have big plans for 2026. Taylor Sheridan and his work to put Fort Worth on the map for film and movie-making is a great story to tell. Our city is becoming a hub for video game developers, and the animators and visualization students required to design these games are starting to take off here. We hope to tell some behind-the-scenes stories of local companies like HTeaO that are growing and thriving from their home base in Fort Worth.

We invite you to join our community and learn the stories of the innovators solving real-world problems in Fort Worth. Tune in to the “Fort Worth Innovates” podcast and find out how you can help these dreamers, doers, risk-takers, and visionaries make our world a better place.

The post Helping the Dreamers first appeared on Tanglewood Moms.

Not New Year’s resolutions, necessarily. Just a change in attitude. In 2026, instead of trying to lose those pesky pounds, why not get off the fast fashion merry-go-round and start thrifting? Fast fashion relies heavily on exploitive labor practices and is very damaging to the environment. By thrifting, you’re keeping pre-loved clothing out of the landfill while saving loads of money. Win-win!

We asked the members of the Tanglewood Moms Facebook group for their favorite thrift shops and places to donate clothes. Unsurprisingly, they had the best answers!

Berry Good Buys

If you ask the Tanglewood Moms where to donate gently used clothing and home goods, or you ask for great places to thrift, you will be overwhelmed with recommendations for Berry Good Buys. Since 1988, all profits from Berry Good Buys have gone to The Archway (formerly SafeHaven) to support their work offering victims of domestic abuse a safe and stable way forward. Whether you’re donating clothes your family no longer wears or looking for a great new look, Berry Good Buys is ready to help.

Fort Worth Community Collaborative/Cowtown Closet

Fort Worth Community Collaborative (FWCC) operates Cowtown Closet, a free community closet for anyone who needs it. No judgement. FWCC sorts and repairs or upcycles gently used clothing, either stocking their storefront and emergency clothing lockers for partner agencies or recycling what cannot be used. If you want to thrift, FWCC has Donation Mondays, where, for a $5 donation, you can find anything and everything your thrifty heart could desire.

The Resale Shop

For more than 20 years, the Resale Shop has offered gently used clothing and home goods, with all proceeds supporting the Center for Transforming Lives in its mission to help single mothers and their children thrive. Additionally, participants in the Center’s programs receive “Resale Bucks” to help clothe their families and make a home for them at no cost.

Clothes Mentor

Clothes Mentor is committed to reducing fashion waste while providing women with trendy, stylish clothing. With sizes 0 to 26, Clothing Mentor ensures most women can find the perfect outfit at an affordable price. And when you sell your pre-loved clothing at Clothes Mentor, you get cash for a new outfit on the spot. It’s all part of what Clothes Mentor calls “cyclical fashion”  – sustainable, fashion-forward, and affordable.

Union Gospel Mission of Tarrant County

When a person arrives at Union Gospel Mission (UGM), they usually only have the clothes on their back. By donating your family’s gently used clothing, you are providing more than a pair of jeans or shoes. You’re providing a child with a school uniform. You’re providing a person with an outfit for a job interview. You’re giving a person a bit of their humanity back.

Flipstone Vintage & Thrift

Owners and sisters Dancing and Lily are seasoned thrifters, and they wanted to use their expertise to create a thrift boutique that combines the best of thrift shops’ selections and prices with vintage boutiques’ curated offerings. And thus, Flipstone was born. The sisters also travel throughout North Texas, compiling a guide of thrift stores to help people shop sustainably. Flipstone is an indigenous- and woman-owned small business.

Prom Dreams Boutique

How many little children dream of prom? But prom dresses are expensive, and not every family can afford one. Prom Dreams Boutique at University Christian Church allows students to find the prom, Homecoming, or formal dress of their dreams, complete with shoes and accessories. If you have pre-loved formal dresses and accessories, you can help a student’s dreams come true!

Thrift Giant

Are you a hardcore thrifter? You NEED to check out Thrift Giant. A DFW chain, Thrift Giant boasts the most extensive thrift inventory in the Metroplex, daily sales, and a handy app to help you with your thrifting. They accept donations, and they use their profits to support local nonprofits. Big sales, an enormous inventory, and they support local nonprofits? See you there!

Community Crossroads

Community Crossroads is First Presbyterian Church Fort Worth’s outreach ministry located in the Near Southside. As well as offering free food and sack lunches, pet food, diapers, and formula, and a free dental clinic, Community Crossroads is proud to offer its Clothed in Love ministry that distributes clothing and blankets to those in need without judgment and with love.

Uptown Cheapskate

If you’re a thrifter who loves finding a bargain on premium brands, check out Uptown Cheapskate. With a focus on designer brands, you can find amazing pieces at incredible prices, ensuring that you’re always on trend. Bring your clean, gently-loved clothes in and get a new outfit before the store’s buyers make you an offer. Uptown Cheapskate will donate items they didn’t buy, so you don’t have to bring them home.

Love and Light Ministries

Love and Light Ministries works with the unhoused in Fort Worth, helping them “from camp to a home.” As part of their outreach in the homeless community, Love and Light donates approximately 150 items of clothing each month. You can be sure that your donations are needed and will be appreciated by people in need.

Family Thrift Center

Another thrifting supercenter, Family Thrift Center offers gently-used clothes, toys, books, and household essentials at incredibly reduced prices. With a user-friendly app and a loyalty rewards program that allows you to save even more, Family Thrift Center is your one-stop thrifting shop.

Chosen Ones Community Closet

Families who foster and adopt are special, and they sometimes need special help. Chosen Ones is a ministry that supports fostering and adopting families, offering counseling, help navigating bureaucratic mazes or finding a pediatrician, or clothing and diapers when a placement occurs more quickly than anticipated. The Community Closet provides food, clothing, baby equipment, toys, and necessities like diapers and formula so that families can focus on what’s important – giving love and support to a child who needs it.

The Mercantile

You can’t have a list of places for thrifting without mentioning The Mercantile. Founded by Fort Worth businessman Holt Hickman, The Mercantile has over 200 carefully curated dealer booths offering everything from antiques to fashion. The best part? After you’ve found your treasures from multiple dealers, there’s a central checkout process that streamlines your thrifting experience. Great deals, a curated selection of dealers, and an easy checkout? Score!

ReStore by Trinity Habitat for Humanity

While it might not be your traditional thrift store, ReStore needs to be on your list, especially if you’re a do-it-yourselfer. You can find building materials, furniture, and even appliances at the four locations of the Trinity Habitat ReStores. And if you have leftover building supplies, furniture/or appliances that need a new home, ReStore runs on donations. By shopping or donating, you’re helping families come home.

Vintage Martini

If you’re into vintage clothing, you need to make the drive to Dallas. Vintage Martini was founded by a costume designer who loved and collected vintage clothing. Need a dress from the 1920s? No problem. Want a Christian Dior dress from 1961? They’ve got it. And they carry contemporary pieces from design houses like Mandalay, Versace, and Fendi. They offer consignment services, too. Now if only they would move to the cool side of the Metroplex!

Clotheshorse Anonymous

I have a confession. I grew up in Dallas. I know, I know. But I grew up hearing about Clotheshorse Anonymous, and believe it, it lives up to the hype. Since 1974, those in the know have found incredible buys on luxury brands. In fact. Clotheshorse Anonymous is Dallas’s oldest luxury consignment shop. As part of their services, they offer brand authentication; you know you’re getting the real deal.

Clothes Circuit Upsale Resale

Another Dallas classic, Clothes Circuit is a luxury resale shop that offers a drop-in-and-donate service for busy Dallasites, in addition to more traditional luxury consignment services. Their donations are your gains because you can find incredible deals on hundreds (yes, hundreds) of designer brands, and you can shop, knowing that each piece has been authenticated. Trust me, it’s worth the drive!

Second Glance Thrift Shop

If you’re looking for a one-stop shop for middle- to high-end clothing, furniture, kitchen accessories and appliances, plus games, books, and other media, you don’t need to take a second glance. Profits from Second Glance support CEC (Community Enrichment Center) and its ministry among the unhoused people of our community. They also accept clean pre-loved donations, and seniors and veterans always receive 10% off their total purchase each Tuesday.

Angels’ Attic Upscale Resale

What began as a series of garage sales to help the hurting and the hungry, Angels’ Attic Upscale Resale is now a thriving resale shop filled with fabulous finds. Whether you’re looking for gently used clothing, furniture, or accessories, Angels’ Attic is the place to shop. An outreach ministry of White’s Chapel Methodist Church in Southlake, proceeds from Angels’ Attic go to support nonprofits and ministries around the world.

Christ’s Haven Resale Shop

Christ’s Haven for Children offers trauma-informed, family-modeled care for displaced children and teens in a neighborhood of homes in north Fort Worth. The families who love and care for these children need clothing, furniture, baby goods, and more. Any donated items that are not used are sold in the Resale Shop, with proceeds going directly back to the program.

Seven Boutique

Do you love designer goods but not designer prices? Seven Boutique offers pre-loved luxury items from top designers at bargain basement prices. Looking for a pair of Louboutins? They have them. A Louis Vuitton handbag? No problem. What color would you like? From Alexander McQueen to Zimmerman, Seven Boutique has you covered.

Kiss It Good Buy

Furnishing a house is expensive, especially if you want something other than do-it-yourself, laminate-covered items from a big box store. Kiss It Good Buy, located in Grapevine’s historic downtown, offers an eclectic assortment of gently pre-loved and unique home furnishings, décor, and accessories. So rent a trailer and head up to Grapevine – you’ll be glad you did!

Furniture Consignment Gallery

What do you do when you have a beautiful couch or antique armoire that you don’t have room for in your home? Or where do you go to find quality furniture at prices you can actually afford? Furniture Consignment Gallery, of course! Whether you need to furnish a room or you want to get rid of some beautiful pieces that you don’t need anymore, Furniture Design Gallery is ready to help. As their website says, “We all love affordable luxury.”

The post Out with the Old: Best Places to Thrift, Consign, and Donate in DFW first appeared on Tanglewood Moms.

Madeworthy: January often feels like a natural reset. Why is the start of a new year such a powerful time to refresh your wardrobe instead of completely reinventing it?

Paige Walker: That January energy really does hit differently. Last year, in an attempt to become the queen of positive affirmations, I taped a note to my mirror that said, “I am Paige, and only good things happen for me.”

When it comes to your wardrobe, the new year is the perfect time for a simple refresh – no need to reinvent yourself. Just start by removing those jeans that hurt your feelings and take inventory of the pieces you wear on repeat that actually fit your real life.

MW: What key silhouettes, colors, or fabrics feel “new” and fresh for this year without feeling trendy or overdone?

PW: We are seeing a throwback to 1980s office wear, but in a less traumatic way. Strong, padded shoulders with cinched waists are back. You may be winging it, but this powerful silhouette says, “I know what I’m doing.” Elongated lines are everywhere – wide-leg trousers, longer coats, and anything that makes you feel tall and put together.

Lingerie as outerwear is back. Go for satin slip skirts, lace-trimmed camis, and corset-style tops for that feminine, flirty feeling.

The preppy look continues into 2026 with v-neck sweaters, rugby shirts, blazers, and loafers. And I’m talking actual preppy, not the new age, rebranded preppy that the tweens have taken over.

Add some beaded jewelry, polka dots, fringe, wedge sneakers, and brut denim for easy wardrobe updates. Color-wise, anything goes! I’m seeing bold colors, pastels, and neutrals so stick to what makes you feel good.

MW: What are some go-to pieces that work beautifully for church but can also transition to brunch or errands afterward?

PW: Blend modest and trendy with flowy midi dresses, wide leg trousers, tailored blazer-and-shorts sets, and skirts with sweaters. Layer with a camel trench coat, cardigan, or leather jacket.

Spring 2026 Looks courtesy of Paige Walker

MW: What are your favorite chic-but-functional outfit ideas for moms on the sidelines?

PW: Sideline outfits need to survive weather, snacks, folding chairs, and emotional highs and lows. I stick to comfortable pants like baggy jeans, wide-leg sweatpants, or flare leggings, layers, and sneakers. A simple tee with a loose hoodie always works.

MW: What are three date-night essentials every woman should keep in her closet in 2026?

PW: On a date, I want to feel hot, but also like I can eat and not have to hold my breath all night. A great top is a must. Something that flirts a little, you know the type. A great pair of jeans that will never betray you, and a little black dress you can dress up or down is essential for everyone.

MW: What’s your formula for looking polished on long travel days without sacrificing comfort?

PW: If I can’t sit crisscross applesauce, eat snacks, and take a nap in an outfit, it’s an immediate no. Soft activewear, layers, comfy shoes, and your everyday jewelry are best.

MW: As a photographer, what common mistakes do people make when choosing outfits for family photos?

PW: Try to coordinate instead of match. When everyone shows up in the same color, the result can feel like a staff photo. Start with Mom’s outfit and work off that to pick the rest of the family’s clothes. I also do not like toddlers in puffer vests. The corners of the collar will inevitably move to cover the kid’s face at the cutest moment. Try on the clothes first and make sure they fit. I’ve had so many clients get to the shoot saying they just tried on the clothes right before, only to find that Mom’s dress won’t zip and the little boy’s pants are enormous.

MW: If you could give women one simple “style reset” rule to follow in 2026, what would it be?

PW: Nothing looks better than confidence, so wear what makes you feel your best.

Paige’s Favorites

• Favorite local boutique: Esther Penn
• Go-to tote bag for schlepping: I’ve been loyal to my Louis Vuitton Neverfull for a decade
• Charcuterie supplies for a last-minute gathering: Trader Joe’s
• Cosmetic must-have: Saie Glowy Super Gel in Sunglow
• Local jewelry designer nailing 2026 vibes: Glitter & Gold
• Next book I’m reading: Building a Story Brand
• Next trip I’m planning: New York City with my high school senior daughter
• Running around shoes: Birkenstock clogs and Jordan 1 Highs
• On my splurge wish list: Silver Gucci shoulder bag and a neck lift

The post Refreshing Your Wardrobe with Paige Walker first appeared on Tanglewood Moms.

We spoke to two professional organizers to try to learn from the best. Whitney Tevis is co-owner of The Organized Nest, and Kami Ford owns deKlutter with Kami. Both generously shared some tips and tricks to help us all get started on conquering the clutter.

left: Whitney Tevis
right: Kami Ford

Madeworthy: To begin, what made you decide to become a professional organizer?

Kami Ford: I have always been an organized person. When I became an empty nester, I took a job quiz that led me to professional organizing for others.

Whitney Tevis: When Debbie [Horton, co-owner of The Organized Nest] started the company, there were only two or three other organizers in the Fort Worth area. She saw a need… and she started hiring employees within the first two years.

MW: When you begin a project, what is your process?

WT: It gets worse before it can get better. Let’s say we are starting in a kitchen/pantry space — we take everything out of the cabinets and drawers. We group like items together and hopefully find items we can donate or pare down. In the pantry, we look for expired food, old spices, and items that might need containers so that they stay fresh longer… Once we know what’s staying, we come in with product to make the space function better.

KF: My first goal is to connect with the client. I meet with the client and discuss what their goals are. I want the client to understand my process and how we can obtain it. I give the client homework… [There will be] a system in place at the end of the organizing process.

MW: Do you have an “organizing philosophy?”

KF: Everything belongs in its “home.” Return items to where you find them.

WT: Our philosophy is that “everything has a home.” We tailor our approach based on each customer’s lifestyle and life stage. Our goal is always to maintain order, keep things functional while being aesthetically pleasing, and create a successful system that they can use after we are gone.

MW: Do you follow a specific organizing theory/method, or did you develop your own?

WT: We have developed our own method based on the many years we’ve been in business. This is a unique career in that it really takes on-the-job experience to know what works well and what doesn’t.

KF: Our method for any space we are organizing is: 1) pull everything out and sort with like items; 2) purge anything that needs to go away; 3) decide how we will organize the items back in the space; and 4) buy organizing products and label everything for that space.

MW: I need help getting organized, but I’m REALLY embarrassed at how bad I’ve let my home get. How do you handle confidentiality?

WT: We state in our contract that we do not discuss clients with anyone outside of the job. Not with our spouses, friends, or family. We are deeply honored to have gained the trust of our customers over the years.

KF: My team signs an NDA. I take my client’s privacy very seriously. It takes a lot of courage to ask a professional organizer to come into one’s home and see one’s clutter. I affirm to my clients that we do not judge. My mission is to give my clients back the control and confidence to live a decluttered life.

MW: Is there a room or space in your home that’s still a “work in progress?”

KF: My office is a constant “work in progress”. I look for new ways to declutter this area and make it more efficient.

WT: Oh my goodness, YES! We are like the cobbler with no shoes. If you spend all day, every day organizing other people’s homes, the last thing you want to do is organize your own! I do keep most of our shared spaces very tidy and mostly organized. There is a front closet in my own home that’s become the spot where ALL things land. I usually clean it out once a year over the Christmas holiday.

MW: Do you have a favorite before-and-after story? (Without violating client confidentiality, of course!)

WT: We did a garage out in Weatherford several years ago that was a huge overhaul! What started as a dumping ground for holiday storage, extra furniture, and items that never quite had a home became a beautiful space with movable storage racks, easy-to-access holiday items, and [the client] could finally park a car inside! It was a complete transformation.

KF: I have a client who lost her child several years ago. Five years ago, she called and was ready to go through her child’s things and pick the pieces of her life back up. We went through schoolwork, pictures, cards that were written, and boxes of items that had not been seen for many years. We sat on her kitchen floor and wept together, as we went through her boxes of pain. Her home, which was on pause for several years, is now being lived in again.

MW: And finally, what’s your favorite organizing tip?

KF: “One in, one out.” For example, if you buy a new pair of shoes, take one pair out!

WT: Start small! Customers tend to start big projects and then become too overwhelmed to finish them. We always tell them to pick a small space (even just a few drawers!) so that you can start AND finish the project without it snowballing into something unattainable. Oh, and ALWAYS ALWAYS get matching hangers for your closet!

The post Ask the Experts: Professional Organizers first appeared on Tanglewood Moms.

If you ask Micah and Jenna Kinard, they will say a need for renewal.

Micah, the rockstar, described how his marriage to Jenna, the Fort Worth Top Chef, had once been falling apart, much like the long-neglected and decidedly dilapidated Fort Worth Public Market. Today, Jenna and Micah are rebuilding both the Public Market and their marriage. Their love story traverses winding roads from late-night tours and busy restaurant kitchens to a plywood cabin in Alaska to finally return home to Fort Worth, where they are breathing new life into a landmark.

On their very first date, Jenna tried to impress Micah with food. “I cooked him this huge meal, and I tried to win him over with food,” she remembered. “That night we talked about how much we’d love to open up our own restaurant, but he was touring the world as a musician, and I was pursuing my own career as a chef.”

For the next decade, that dream stayed on the back burner as their relationship and their careers grew. Micah played shows around the world as the lead singer of metal band Oh, Sleeper. Jenna climbed the culinary ladder at some of North Texas’ most notable properties, helping open concepts like The Westin in Southlake and 97 West Kitchen & Bar at Hotel Drover.

Seen from the outside, they were thriving.

On the inside, they were slowly drifting apart.

“After building our careers and doing great [things], our marriage hit a real low point,” Micah said. “We hit a rock-bottom place in our relationship. We had been chasing career highs, but we were moving in different directions.” He realized something had to change.

photo credit: Omorfia Imagery

“We decided that if we kept going down this path, there was not going to be any more us,” Micah recalled.

So, he started looking for answers. “I started praying about it. Then the Alaska opportunity came up with all of these confirmations. So many that it was laughable. We were like, I think we’re supposed to move to Alaska, live in a ten-by-ten plywood cabin with bear mace on our hips, and figure this out.”

They both laughed as they retold this part of their story, but at the time, it was a serious leap of faith. “We prayed about it, and it was just so obvious,” Micah said. “So, we said yes, and we quit our jobs.”

They packed up and got on a plane to take seasonal jobs at a remote lodge in the Alaskan wilderness. Jenna ran the entire culinary program at the lodge. Micah worked as the maintenance man and sous chef.

Then came another surprise. “We got pregnant,” Jenna said. “So, you talk about basically doing marriage counseling between the two of us in a plywood cabin in Alaska, doing the hardest jobs we’ve ever done.”

“We were in Alaska, two hundred and fifty miles away from the closest road to take you anywhere. Our neighbors were bears,” Jenna emphasized.

“We were working from five a.m. to ten p.m. every day. Zero days off for four months,” Jenna said. “It was the hardest thing we’ve ever done mentally, physically, emotionally. All the things. And we had breaking point after breaking point after breaking point, and all we had was each other.”

In that tiny cabin, without the distractions of tours or restaurant openings, everything came to the surface, good and bad. “God knew we were going to be going through this right now, and he actually wanted us to,” Micah said. “We thought, ‘That means we can access him right now. So, let’s bring him into this and see where the breakthrough is.’ And it happened.”

After three and a half months in Alaska, they finally felt their relationship start to turn. “That last month, we killed it,” Micah said. “We crushed it. It only took three months for us to figure out the groove, but we figured out our stuff; we let a lot of stuff go. It stretched us a lot. The Lord did a lot of healing.”

As the season wrapped up, one big question remained: what happens when they go home?

“We started thinking about what we would do when this job was up,” Micah said. “We were like, ‘All right, Lord, I don’t think we’re supposed to go back and just get separate jobs. That seems like it’s not the end of this story of us working together.’”

So, they sought answers. “We start praying about it,” Micah said, “and we got an email.”

photo credit: Omorfia Imagery

It was from Wilks Development, a Fort Worth-based group behind several major local projects. Before Alaska, someone from that team had casually asked if the couple would ever be interested in opening a restaurant back home. Now, the question was back on the table.

This time, Jenna and Micah were ready to say yes.

In Alaska, Micah started dreaming and planning. “I was crunching numbers while I was in Alaska,” he said. “I was like, all right, we’re going to go back and open our own restaurant. I think that I’ve crunched all the numbers, and fifteen hundred square feet is exactly what we need to crush it.”

They emailed the Wilks team to let them know they were in.

At first, the project seemed straightforward. “They had one building,” Micah recalled. “We start talking to them about it, but a couple of months down the road they’re like, ‘Oh, turns out we promised that building to another group.’” So the search continued.

“They showed us another building that was twenty-seven hundred square feet,” Micah said. “I was like, ‘Oh, man, that’s a lot more than I was thinking.’”

They prayed again, felt peace about the bigger space, and moved forward. Then that option fell through, too.

Next came a building just a mile from their house. “To us, it was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this makes perfect sense,’” Jenna said. And Micah replied, “We were taking it seriously, so we were praying for this thing every day, and [the] talks stretched on.”

At first, they worried the square footage was too big. Then a sermon at church shifted Micah’s perspective. “I thought, ‘Thirty-three hundred square feet is not a lot for God,’” he said. “If he’s doing it and we’re fully locked into his plan, laying down everything for him, it will work.”

That season became a turning point.

“It took way too long for us to realize that going our own routes and just trying to pursue our own dreams only led us away from each other,” Micah said. “It only led us away from him.”

They laid down every fear and prayed a simple prayer. “Lord, we want where you have us,” Micah remembers praying. “If this is it, great. If not, just shut the door.” Three days later, they got their answer.

“Three days after we prayed that prayer, oh man, we get an email,” he said. “‘So sorry, it’s not going to work out with you guys.’” Another door closed.

Three days after that, an even bigger door opened.

They finally heard about a space that felt different — the historic Fort Worth Public Market.

Photo courtesy of Jenna Kinard

“My earliest memory of Fort Worth is in the backseat of my parents’ Suburban, leaving an event, just looking at the outside of it and wanting to go in,” Micah said.

Years later, in 2011, when Jenna was first moving to Fort Worth, Micah drove her past the same building. “He pointed it out and told me it was his favorite,” Jenna remembered. “I said, ‘What if we did something with it?’” At the time, it was just a passing comment. Now it felt like a promise coming full circle.

Flash forward to today, and the couple has partnered with a team to reopen the historic Fort Worth Public Market.

The Fort Worth Public Market was once a bustling hub with more than 140 vendors. Residents could pick up produce, file their taxes, and get a haircut in one stop. In 1941, the after-effects of the Great Depression and World War II forced its closure to vendors. Manufacturers used the facility until the early 2000s, and since then, this grand old building has mostly sat empty.

Having seen God carry them through the hardest chapter of their marriage and knit them back together stronger than before, the Kinards felt confident He would lead them in restoring this historic space as a place of love for the community.

When they first started dreaming about a restaurant, Jenna and Micah were looking for fifteen hundred square feet. Nine months later, they ended up with fifteen thousand. Micah and Jenna see that scope as proof of how God has been leading them and growing their trust. “His timing is unbelievable,” Micah said. “We went back again, we prayed about it, and talked to our business partner. We just had overwhelming joy about it and not an ounce of fear.”

With fifteen thousand square feet, they realized they could not open just one concept. They were about to bring several experiences to life. “We want to honor this building by staying true to its roots,” Micah said. “The old slogan was ‘Everything for Everyone,’ and we are trying to provide that.”

Inside the renewed Public Market, three concepts will anchor the space.

Madrone will be their Texas-inspired fine dining restaurant. The name carries its own meaning for Jenna.

“I named the restaurant ‘Madrone’ because it’s a Texas evergreen tree, so it’s always in season,” Jenna explained. “That’s the idea behind our menus. I’ll print them probably every six weeks in-house. We’re just looking at what we are working with right now. These relationships with our farmers and our vendors are very important to us. We want to be as close to the farm itself as we can be.”

Willow will be a cocktail lounge with a strong zero-proof program, so guests who do not drink alcohol can still enjoy thoughtful, crafted beverages.

Public Market Cafe & Goods will be a daytime hub featuring baked goods, coffee, and local products, including hydroponic greens grown on-site, handmade items from local artisans, and everyday pantry staples. Jenna is passionate about filling the market with local foods and local makers, creating a space where small businesses and neighbors can thrive together.

Photo courtesy of Jenna Kinard

Through their interview, Micah and Jenna kept circling back to how different seasons in their lives prepared them for this one. The long hours in restaurants. The pressure of touring. The plywood cabin in Alaska. The breaking points and the healing that followed. Jenna said that while she has worked extremely hard in her career and in her marriage, she is excited to merge the two and let both become ways to reflect God’s love.

“We just kept coming back to ‘Everything for Everyone,’” she said. “To Micah and me, it hit one day. We were like, ‘Oh my gosh. Jesus is everything for everyone.’”

From a broken marriage to a restored landmark, the Kinards’ story is one of choosing to stay, choosing to rebuild, and choosing to trust God with each subsequent step. Their hope for every person who walks through the doors of the renewed Fort Worth Public Market is simple.

Jenna said, “I hope everyone leaves feeling just a little more joyful than when they entered.”

The post Saving a Marriage, Saving a Market first appeared on Tanglewood Moms.