Judith Miller
My Passion for Collecting
Friday, October 23, 1 p.m.
Saturday, October 24, 10 a.m.

Judith Miller began collecting in the 1960s while a student at Edinburgh University in Scotland. Fascinated by the inexpensive plates she bought in the city’s junk stores, she began to research their history in books and auction catalogs and at local antiques fairs. She has since extended and reinforced her knowledge of antiques through international research, becoming one of the world’s leading experts in the field. In 1979, Judith co-founded the international bestseller Miller’s Antiques Price Guide and has since written more than 100 books, which are held in high regard by collectors and dealers.

Judith is a regular lecturer and contributor to numerous newspapers and magazines, including Financial Times, BBC Homes & Antiques, House & Garden, USA Today, and Country Living magazine. Appearing regularly on radio and television, she serves as an expert on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow and co-hosts the popular BBC series The House Detectives, ITV’s Antiques Trail, and Discovery’s It’s Your Bid and has appeared on The Martha Stewart Show and CNN. She has lectured at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and The Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC.

Miller’s presentation will focus on her decorative arts journey collecting 17th-century Chinese porcelain through 1950s Murano glass, with a short detour through treen and costume jewelry.

Susan Sully
Past, Present, Future: The Timeless Nature of Southern Style
Saturday, October 24, 1 p.m.

As a chronicler of Southern style, Susan Sully has encountered elegant houses in Charleston and Savannah, exotic Creole dwellings in New Orleans, country cottages, and chic urban rooms created by the region’s most talented interior designers and architects. In the process, she has discovered a wonderfully fluid relationship between the past and the present in Southern style.

“The classical styles that were the hottest thing going during the Georgian and Federal periods are big all over again, thanks to the Colonial Re-revival going on today,” Sully offers. “The old is the new new, so to speak. On the other hand, when Southerners think they are breaking out from the past by embracing up-to-the minute European styles, they are actually emulating their ancestors, who have always been fashion-forward. The past, present, and future have such a dynamic relationship here.”

Sully’s books include Charleston Style, Savannah Style, The Southern Cottage: From the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Florida Keys, and her newest title, The Southern Cosmopolitan: Sophisticated Southern Style. Her writing is also frequently featured in magazines including Southern Accents, Coastal Living, Town & Country Travel, Art and Antiques, and many others. Sully has lectured at Sotheby’s in New York, The Smithsonian Institute, and historical preservation societies and art museums across the country. Sully has a degree in art history, with a focus on architecture, from Yale University and lives in Asheville, North Carolina, and New Orleans, Louisiana, with her husband, artist Thomas Sully.

During her lecture, Sully will cover contemporary Southern style makers and share interiors from Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans, Georgetown, and Atlanta that reveal the timeless beauty of the region’s residences.

John Paul Huguley
The Art of Building
Friday, October 23, 11 a.m.

In the early 1990s, John Paul Huguley studied historic preservation and structural engineering at the University of Virginia. While working on great American “building art” like Monticello, Gunston Hall, and Fallingwater, John Paul’s passion for understanding building technology and the importance of craftsmanship came to drive his career. After a year of professional training in London, he returned to the United States to establish a national center for training the next generation of building artisans.

Over the next decade of fundraising, strategic partnerships, and gaining the political support at local, state, and national levels, the School of the Building Arts (SoBA) was born. In 2004, the Department of Education accepted the proposal for the first American College of the Building Arts (ACBA), formerly SoBA. John Paul remained president until he began what he describes as the next great challenge in addressing the “century of dying artisans.”

Now serving as president of Building Arts, LLC, John Paul’s mission is getting the restoration and building industry ready to put future skilled ACBA students to work in an environment that will foster growth and leadership.

“America’s built environment was for centuries a beautiful, diverse, and extensive collection of art and craftsmanship,” John Paul says. “But during the last century, a lack of skilled artisans and the introduction of inferior materials have caused severe damage, not only to the restoration of antiques and historic structures but to the way we build our homes and furniture.” John Paul will link building practices of centuries past with techniques used today and offer insight into how best to take the lessons learned from yesterday’s craftsmen and make efficient, modern use of them.

James Meadors
Sustainability in Charleston’s Design/Build Community
Friday, October 23, 3 p.m.

James Meadors is president of Meadors Construction and chairman of the Charleston Green Committee, a diverse group of business owners, non-profit members, and scientists who are committed to sustainability and making Charleston a better place to live, work, and play. Under Meadors’ leadership, the committee is developing a comprehensive climate protection and sustainability plan.
Meadors currently has four Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) structures underway, two of which are the first LEED-certified historic buildings in the state of South Carolina. Meadors employs two LEED-accredited professionals and a Residential Energy Services Network-certified rater. Meadors Construction is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), USGBC South Carolina, and serves on the Steering Committee of the USGBC Lowcountry Chapter.

“Buildings contribute almost half of all greenhouse gas emissions and the urgency of the threat from those emissions requires that we take measures to change the way buildings are designed and constructed,” Meadors says. “We can no longer afford (both literally and figuratively) to live in a throw-away society.”

Meadors will discuss sustainable design and materials in Charleston’s historic and contemporary structures.