Our February practitioners present a focus of moment, art and connect. See and feel the magic of connection over the month and take a moment to pause, exhale and nourish the mind, body and soul.
KNESKO founder, Lejla Cas, is a true original who resists easy categorization. She’s a Reiki Master, internationally-renowned celebrity skincare specialist, esthetician, makeup artist, businesswoman, entrepreneur, mother, wife, friend, teacher, and healer—all these things and more. From her childhood in Australia to her life as a globe-trotting entrepreneur, her story is truly inspirational and very much a part of KNESKO’s global success.
Phillip Ashley Rix is one of the world’s preeminent chefs and designers of luxury chocolate. He is an award-winning chocolatier, founding Memphis, TN based, Phillip Ashley Chocolates in 2012 . The luxury brand has an international following and is retained by high-profile clients, top corporations and major events to offer premium gifts. Phillip Ashley has hosted live and virtual chocolate tastings, private dinners and gala chocolate activations for some of the largest brands, organizations and audiences, serving chocolate and speaking to over 100,000 participants across 9 countries; making him an experienced event curator and communicator. In 2014, FORBES Magazine named Phillip Ashley the “Real Life Willy Wonka”. In February 2020, he competed as a finalist on Food Network’s Chopped Sweets and later that year, his brand was named to Oprah’s Favorite Things List.
Amiri Geuka Farris is a contemporary, multidisciplinary artist who uses a wide range of media, including painting, drawing, video, performance, and installation. As a contemporary African-American male artist, he blurs the boundaries between abstraction and representation, sculpture and printmaking, and contemporary and traditional. Farris writes of his own artistic practice, “I like to see artwork that will take one medium and use it to do something else. Artwork that is bold, expressive, and completely different.” In addition to being inspired by the materials around him to create dynamic and colorful pieces, Farris also looks to his own life as he creates works that are full of intimate personal experiences and examinations of subjects that are compelling to him, including issues surrounding diaspora, Gullah Geechee culture, memory, and perception.
Napoleon Wilkerson is an artist and art teacher who moved from New York to Savannah, Georgia in 1972. Napoleon began his artistic life in Savannah at the young age of seven, when his mother enrolled him in summer classes at the Savannah Art Association. The promise he showed as a young child has developed remarkably, as he honed his skills at the Savannah College of Art and Design, where he earned a B.F.A, in Illustration and an M.A. degree in Painting.
He has been honored many times at the Gullah Festival in Beaufort, SC where he has four times won the Best in Show Award. Napoleon also won the Georgia Resident Award from the Georgia Watercolor Society. He has exhibited his work at the S.P.A.C.E. Gallery in Savannah, GA, the Harriet Tubman African American museum in Macon, GA, the African American Atelier in Greensboro, NC, the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta, GA, the Telfair Art Fair, FAAA exhibit at the Jepson Center and the Beach Institute Museum in Savannah, GA. Napoleon Wilkerson has taught art in the Savannah Public Schools since 1994, and currently teaches visual arts at the Savannah Arts Academy.
Napoleon illustrated two children’s books and three book covers for African American Images Publishing Co., Chicago, Illinois. He was featured in the summer issue of Watercolor, 1997, and the spring issue of American Visions Magazine, 1993. Napoleon’s future goal is to open up a studio / gallery and conduct art lessons to the community. He is the proud husband of Bereatha L. Wilkerson and the father of two children, his son Ezra and daughter Nia.
Sallie Ann Robinson is an American cookbook author, celebrity chef, and cultural historian. A native of Daufuskie Island, South Carolina, she is noted for her knowledge of Gullah traditions and history.
In her own words:
I am a sixth generation native of Daufuskie Island. I love my life on Daufuskie Island. It has always been my home, and it is where I grew up learning the tough love way of life.
The Gullah people were and still are proud people that lives life off the land from their gardens, the woods and the ocean which were skills they learned at a young age and did things they would never forget. Their way of life was simple and sometimes hard, working to meet their day-to-day needs, not their wants. They were taught manners and respect for all, something I am proud to still use to this day.
My childhood gave me treasures of a lifetime, thanks To my ancestors and folks that are gone, but not forgotten. My experience about Daufuskie is a lifetime of knowledge as a native. I have given tours on Daufuskie for many years sharing the history of my family and what life was like then and now.
Chef Paul Magu-Lecugy was born in Nigeria during the time of the Biafra war. He was sent by his parents to a refugee camp in Gabon in the hope of saving his life. At age 4, Paul was adopted by French diplomats, Jacques & Jacqueline Lecugy, who were stationed in Gabon. When they adopted him, Paul was suffering from starvation, wearing just 18-month size clothes. Paul and his new family lived in Gabon and Madagascar until at age 8 when they moved to Paris, France where he lived until coming to the USA. Paul’s love of food and cooking started at a young age helping in the kitchen, watching his parents entertain and throw parties. He attended culinary school at FERRANDI Paris, graduating #2 in his class. Working for many years in 2- and 3-star Michelin restaurants in Paris, Paul mastered his craft. In 2000, Paul was recruited by the Ritz Carlton Hotel in San Francisco to work as Sous Chef under Sylvain Portay in the famed Dining Room. After 15 years at the Ritz Carlton and St Regis Hotel, Paul decided corporate life wasn’t for him. He wanted a place of his own, to cook the food he loved. He also wanted to spend more time with his family (which is why in French fashion, RÊVE closes two weeks each summer) In 2015, Paul and his wife Laura took out a personal loan and opened RÊVE (dream in French), a small classic French neighborhood bistro in Lafayette, California. RÊVE has become a Bay Area favorite. Recognized by Michelin in 2021, Top 50 restaurants in the East Bay, by the Mercury News year after year, and featured in San Francisco Magazine as one of “7 Black Owned Restaurants to Savor” in 2020. He finds joy in teaching his cooks the classic techniques he has mastered, a respect for food (including the people who grow it) and to always do your best.
Chef Paul speaks four languages, and has a love of opera (having seen La Traviata more times than he can count), classical music, and art. He and Laura have three teen-aged daughters & two cats.
The Plantation Singers of Charleston, SC are a professional a cappella singing group renowned locally, nationally and internationally for their singing of the music of the Lowcountry. This group of very talented singers is special in that each has a lifetime of musical experience that began with the music of the southern church. The Plantation Singers were first created in June 1996 under the direction of Ms. Lynnette White.
