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Women IN The City
 The Women IN the City features and contributors partied it up INtown executive editor Susan Soper's home to mark the release of the issue on March 1. (Photo by Natalie Thavenot)
All it takes is a simple question – How do you dress for work? – to elicit telling bits of a woman’s personality. Where Camille Love will give a general answer – she wears suits to her City of Atlanta job – another, Nantha Niyomkul, at right, precisely responds with a detailed description of what she wears to her restaurant, Nan. But it was Melanie Sovine’s shoot-from-the-hip response that made us laugh out loud with its playfulness and self-effacing honesty. See page 22, and we bet you’ll chuckle, too.
So even though many of these questions over three versions of Women IN the City issues have remained the same, the answers always vary, always inform and often delight: Where one woman is reading Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, another is perusing a city tree ordinance. And though some of our queries might seem mundane, they are still revealing and relevant about what we value – from Converse All Stars to a baby grand piano. We can relate!
We hope these brief but colorful peeks into the lives of 10 women this month will interest and inspire you – from takeout to giving back, from grandmothers’ heirlooms to a treasured baseball glove, you might catch glimpses of yourself, too.
-- Susan Soper, Executive Editor
 (Photo by Natalie Thavenot)
Nantha Niyomkul would tell you that she is creative, spiritual and friendly – each of which enhance her role as chef and owner of Nan, the Thai restaurant at 17th and Spring streets (another restaurant, Tamarind, closed last year and will re-open this spring). She was born in Bangkok but now lives in Buckhead with her husband, Charlie, and two Shih Tzus, Pepper and Benz. Their two children – Dee Dee and Eddie – are grown. Niyomkul maintains ties to Thailand – watching Thai soap operas via satellite to unwind and visiting their beach house in the southern part of her country.
Favorite accessory: A Patek Phillippe watch from the 1950s that belonged to my grandmother.
Breakfast: Organic coffee brewed at home.
Daily ritual: Running 5 miles on the treadmill and meditating for an hour.
Who inspires you: My mother, who was a self-taught chef.
Road not taken: Interior designer, artist or floral designer.
Three jobs you’ve had: Gemologist, designer and chef.
Advice you give: Eat healthy.
How you dress for work: Black slacks and a chef coat, which is embroidered with my name.
Pet peeve: Leaving the oven on is one.
Currently reading: Anything food related, like Food and Wine, for example.
Something you collect: I have a multitude of elephant statues, because I believe I may have been an elephant in a past life. And I collect many Buddhist relics as well.
Favorite restaurant: Joel.
The last CD you bought: Barbra Streisand, Live in New York.
Where you take friends from out of town: The Ritz-Carlton for brunch or the Buckhead Diner for breakfast. And to Nan for dinner.
Something that changed your life: Getting married or moving to the United States.
Favorite takeout: Korean food from Buford Highway.
All-time favorite movie: Memoirs of a Geisha, The King and I, Dr. Zhivago.
What defines your spirituality? Faith, my religion, and my love for my family and the people in my life.
To protect the environment: We recycle the oil we use in the restaurant so that it can be used for bio-diesel fuel.
How you give back to the community: Charities I work with are the March of Dimes and the Breast Cancer Society here in the United States, and a Thai Homeless and Abused Children’s Shelter. Also, we’re involved with Tsunami-relief fundraising.
Favorite ice cream flavor: Pistachio.
Something people wouldn’t guess about you: That I play golf.
 (Photo by Collin Kelley)
Sally Silver is all about the outdoors. First thing in the morning, she checks on two bluebirds that regularly eat suet off her deck. She collects anything to do with birds (houses, feeders, etc.) and is currently reading a City of Atlanta proposed tree ordinance. She recycles, uses organic products on her lawn and plants trees. Silver, 51, is a neighorhood activist who has served on Neighborhood Planning Unit-B since 1998 as well as other local associations. She lives in north Buckhead with her husband, Herb, a physical therapist, and Jazz, a dog, and Jefferson, a cat – both from the Atlanta Humane Society. She’s pictured here in a park at Lakeside and Kingsboro roads, which she hopes will become a park.
Three adjectives that describe you: Honest, fair, dedicated.
Favorite accessory: Sapphire ring that my husband bought me for our 25th anniversary in Thailand.
Best advice from your mother: My mother’s motto, which I am adopting, is ”Live ’til you die.”
Breakfast: Yogurt and fruit.
Three jobs you’ve had: I’ve had a ton: insurance claim examiner, owner of an organic lawn company, campaign manager (Howard Shook and Lee Morris), private investigator, part-time nanny.
What you love most about your current job: That I have a chance to hopefully make a difference.
Pet peeve: People who complain but don’t take action.
Favorite local restaurant: Recently, Com, a Vietnamese restaurant on Buford Highway.
The last CD you bought: John Mayer, Continuum.
Something that changed your life: My husband – who has eaten organic since he was 15, didn’t smoke and did yoga – was diagnosed with a carcinoid tumor and he almost lost a whole lungÉ. It just made me realize what a gift every day is. You have to make the most of every single day and not hesitate to tell people that you care for them.
Favorite takeout: Thai.
All-time favorite movie: The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Labor of love: My labor of love right now is my mother-in-law, who is a Polish Jew Holocaust survivor who always hated me. She has Alzheimer’s now, is in assisted living and now she likes meÉ.She forgot how she treated me all these years, and I talk to her sometimes 15 times a day and visit her and take her things.
What defines your spirituality: I believe we are all spiritual beings with something to give, and that there are many doors to the same house.
Something people wouldn’t guess about you: I’m an ordained minister.
 (Photo by Brent Sturgis)
Joan King is such an English teacher – doesn’t like slang words, has lots of pet peeves, wouldn’t trade her day job at the Atlanta Girls’ School for anything – that it’s hard to imagine that she spent 20 years with Accenture, a technology services company, where she was the first female partner in the Southeast. Prodded by the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, native, who graduated from Northwestern University, left Accenture to get a teaching degree at Agnes Scott College and get back on her “road not taken.” King, 46, lives in Ansley Park with her husband, Kevin Salwen, two dogs and two children. On school days, she runs with her son, Joseph, 12, and her daughter, Hannah, 14. She volunteers at the Central Presbyterian Church night shelter, CafÈ 458 and the Atlanta Community Food Bank.
Three adjectives that describe you: Driven, focused, persistent.
The oldest thing in your closet: A stack of Seventeen magazines from 1972.
Favorite piece of clothing: My pajamas.
Three jobs you’ve had: I held lots of positions to earn money for college – a pharmacy clerk, a groundskeeper and a high school janitor.
How you unwind: I enjoy being read aloud to by my husband.
Currently reading: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
Something you collect: Closet dust bunnies.
Favorite local restaurant: The concession stand at Buckhead Baseball, my spring/summer hangout.
Favorite takeout: Cold sesame noodles from Empire Szechuan Gourmet at 97th and Broadway – a rare but wonderful treat.
All-time favorite books: Hamlet’s Dresser: A Memoir by Bob Smith; The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King; Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.
Labor of love: I feel lucky to say that my day job is a labor of love. I would not trade the joy of helping girls succeed for my seven-figure-a-year former career (which I also loved) for anything.
To protect the environment: I recycle and drive a hybrid car and try not to waste, but I don’t think I do nearly enough.
Something people wouldn’t guess about you: I suck at most things I’d like to be good at, including cooking, gardening and interior design.
 (Photo by Peggy Donato)
Sophia Lambros Bauerle began dancing at age 2 – “Kids should dance,” her father said – and was a principal dancer during the early years of the Atlanta Ballet. After a prolonged illness that prevented her from going back, she began drawing – “dancing in my mind.” The Chicago-born Bauerle has lived in Atlanta for 65 of her 92 years and looks out over the city from her 28th-story Buckhead condo. She’s currently working on a collage of that view but her “labor of love” is making baskets like the one above. One of her baskets is in the Smithsonian collection, woven from cord with a particular knot she “pioneered.” Bauerle drives a Volkswagen Beetle, loves art history books and Robert Browning poetry.
Three adjectives that describe you: Vivacious, witty, and blessed with talent in art and dance.
Favorite accessory: Wedding band
Breakfast: Smart Start cereal, blueberries, honey and half-and-half.
Daily ritual: 20 minutes of Pilates and a version of yoga…
Road not taken: I never look back. I choose to project rather than looking back, and you can’t do anything about the past.
Three jobs you’ve had: Swim teacher at the Fritz Orr Camp, ballerina, salesperson.
Best career advice: Life goes by too quickly to not enjoy what you’re doing. The problem is that you don’t learn this until you’re 60.
How you unwind: A gin and tonic or champagne
Favorite local restaurant: Nan
Would you bungee jump? Yes
Favorite takeout: Grand China
Something people wouldn’t guess about you: My age and that I love to tell jokes
Favorite ice cream: Dove bars
Treasured heirloom: My mother’s cut glass bowl.
 (Photo By Brent Sturgis)
Camille Love has been the City of Atlanta’s director of cultural affairs for nine years, so it’s no surprise that she collects art and first-edition books (shown left) by black women authors, and that she unwinds by going to the movies and playing her treasured baby grand in her Colony Square condo. Love, 57, a native of Winston-Salem, N.C., studied psychology at Wake Forest University and, among other things, has worked as an A&P grocery store cashier, a minority student recruiter at her alma mater and an IBM marketing representative. Sunrises inspire her, babies and children in inappropriate movies annoy her, and her favorite junk food is potato chips.
Three adjectives that describe you: Young at heart, responsible, eclectic.
The oldest/oddest thing in your closet: 25-year-old black wool “diaper” dress. It’s a dress I have to step into, and it has no buttons or zippers, only the openings for my head and arms.
Favorite accessory: Zebra-print silk scarf.
What inspires you: A sunrise.
Best advice from your mother or father: “Never get in the way of how a man makes his living.”
Breakfast: Oatmeal and coffee.
Daily ritual: Watch local, national and world news.
Favorite slang word: Doggone!
What you love most about your current job: Connecting children with culture.
How you dress for work: Suit.
The best career advice you got: Start each day fresh, leave yesterday behind.
Currently reading: Baby Brother’s Blues by Pearl Cleage.
Favorite local restaurant: Flying Biscuit.
Ideal vacation: Snorkeling in the Caribbean.
The last CD you bought: British blues-soul vocalist Corrine Bailey Rae.
Where you take friends from out of town: Woodruff Arts Center.
Something that changed your life: Three weeks in East Africa while in college. It was a rite of passage, as I celebrated my 21st birthday there... [it was] my first trip outside of the United States where I became a citizen of the world. I was exposed to other points of view... and to several different countries – Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda and the food, customs, religions, sites, sounds, etc.
Would you bungee jump? Hell, no!
Favorite takeout: Tangerine chicken from Chin Chin.
All-time favorite book: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.
Labor of love: Nurturing my children and grandchildren.
What defines your spirituality? I believe in a higher power and don’t want my beliefs to be labeled, i.e. Catholic, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, etc.
To protect the environment: I don’t litter.
How you give back to the community: Through my work.
Something people wouldn’t guess about you: I have a hard time getting the punch line of a joke.
 (Photo by Collin Kelley)
Maya Atassi was born in Damascus, Syria, where, had she followed expectations, she’d probably be married to a doctor and already tending to their children. Instead, she came to Atlanta to get her master’s degree in piano performance at Georgia State University, lives in Midtown, married Brad Ritchie – a cellist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Atlanta Chamber Players – and is pursuing a master’s in business while working at Wachovia. In addition to her job and studies, Atassi, 28, manages to run four days a week.
Favorite accessory: I can’t think of anything that I love more than my engagement ring!
Who inspires you: My husband, 24/7.
Daily ritual: 7 a.m. coffee, e-mails, listen to NPR news; 8 a.m. at work; 5:30 p.m. dinner at home; 6:30 p.m. run.
Road not taken: Going to architecture school.
Currently reading: A History of God by Karen Armstrong and The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas Friedman.
Favorite local restaurant: I love 5 Seasons Brewery. I even had my wedding party there.
Ideal vacation: Going with Brad to my old house in Damascus and eating my mom’s delicious food.
The last CD you bought: Ainadamar by Osvaldo Golijov.
Something that changed your life: Moving to the United States changed my life 180 degrees….Believe me, living in a city that is just few hundred years old is very different from living in a city that is 5,000 years old. Speaking a foreign language 24/7 to a point that it is becoming my first language is also a huge change.
All-time favorite movie: Cinema Paradiso directed by Giuseppe Tornatore.
Labor of love: Organizing…anything.
To protect the environment: I don’t smoke and we own one car between the two of us.
Most treasured piece of art: A painting that was made especially for me by my 12-year-old piano student with Down syndrome.
 (Photo by Wendy Binns)
Carol Redmond Naughton, 46, is all about sports. She played softball as a kid and in college, skied competitively in high school and college and now plays tennis a couple of times a week to unwind. But her day job and her labor of love – as executive director of East Lake Foundation since 2001 – makes good use of her Colgate University and Emory Law School training. The Albany, N.Y., native lives in Oak Grove with her husband, Tim, and their two children, Conor, 15, and Maggie, 12.
The oldest/oddest thing in your closet: Softball glove from 1979. As a kid, I loved baseball and was hugely frustrated with the lack of opportunities for girls to play organized sports. I desperately wanted a baseball glove for my birthday when I turned 11, but my parents weren’t quite comfortable with their daughter having her own mitt so I had to keep borrowing my little brother’s glove.... When I went to college, I tried out and made Colgate’s first women’s varsity softball team.... My parents spent $100 to give me that new glove for my 19th birthday.... They really came around during those years. My kids think every mom has a softball glove and cleats in her closet.
Daily ritual: Taking a few minutes each evening to take care of my skin.
Road not taken: Being a lobbyist in Washington.
What you love most about your current job: Helping other cities develop strategies to build communities that will allow families to work their way out of poverty.
Currently reading: The Children in Room E4 by Susan Eaton.
Favorite local restaurant: Mary Beth Walker’s kitchen – she’s my best friend and an amazing cook. By day she is an economics professor at the Andrew Young School at Georgia State.
The last CD you bought: All the Road Running by Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler.
Where you take friends from out of town: East Lake.
A book that changed your life: Reading To Kill a Mockingbird when I was 11.
Favorite takeout: Chipotle.
What defines your spirituality? Faith in a higher power.
To protect the environment: Litter drives me crazy so I am constantly on my soapbox to children, neighbors, anyone who will listen about the need to give a hoot.
How you give back to the community: Volunteer tutoring, managing soccer teams.
Your most treasured heirloom: An emerald ring that belonged to my grandmother.
Favorite junk food: Tostitos are like heroin to me.
 (Photo by Collin Kelley)
Melanie Sovine is full of surprises. Coming from an "urban-minded family," she moved to Atlanta to attend the Candler School of Theology at Emory University (her father was in the ministry) and, since August, has been executive director of the AIDS Survival Project. Sovine, 53, who studied anthropology, is inspired by Southern gospel music and lives in Decatur with two West Highland terriers – Alexandra Snow Queen, 15, and Vidalia Rose, 5.
Three adjectives that describe you: Intense, enthusiastic and intellectual.
The oddest thing in your closet: Probably a can of paint and roller that have been in there for three years.
Favorite accessory: Thomas Mann, out of New Orleans, started making jewelry at the early point of the AIDS epidemic, and I bought a necklace that I would not take $1 million for….It’s very emblematic of what the epidemic has done to our community.
Daily ritual: I am not a routine person. I live in freedom.
Three jobs you’ve had: Professional musician and performer in traditional folk music, national consultant in HIV/AIDS and a university faculty professor.
How you dress for work: In front of the dryer…anything that is wash and wear.
How you unwind: Go bass fishing with my father in eastern Tennessee, sit and listen deeply to music, and I drive around and look out the window…at how life is taking shape.
Pet peeve: Stinginess.
Something you collect: Naive and primitive art, ceramics, paintings, woodworking.
Favorite local restaurant: I love Dish. They have great fish.
Ideal vacation: I go about every other year to New Mexico…I like to go to a place where there is historical depth, many cultures represented and also newness and redevelopment.
The last CD you bought: Madeleine Peyroux.
Favorite takeout: Chinese beef and broccoli.
Your labor of love: My family. I have an older sister who is disabled, and my mother and father, and they are in many ways the deep love of my life. I have a complete sense of generosity about them and their well-being.
What defines your spirituality? Three words: freedom, life and health.
To protect the environment: Because I’m a fisher person I do not use things with heavy dyes that go into the water. I am scrupulous about trash, anything that would destroy the water, or the land base around the water.
Most treasured piece of art: Rosa Brooks Beason painted a primitive Baptist church in eastern Kentucky for me…
Something people wouldn’t guess about you: That I’ve been in professional music.
 (Photo by Susan Soper)
Susan Gibbs studied biology and fine art at Georgia State University and the University of Georgia and says her road not taken was medical school. Instead, she combined her love of all things growing with her eye for art (she also did her graduate work in art history at Harvard and Emory universities) and opened Twinhouse Gallery in Buckhead and is currently president of the Atlanta Gallery Association. She lives in Ansley Park with her husband, Dick Layton, 16-year-old son, Grayson, and a golden Labrador, Sugar. Gibbs, 47, a native of St. Louis, clearly follows the best career advice she got – walk with purpose – and tries to do 10,000 steps each day.
Three adjectives that describe you: Sentimental, thinking, humorous.
The oldest thing in your closet: My mother’s high school beaded sweater.
Favorite accessories: Blazers and belts.
Best advice from your mother: "Put a little lipstick on, you’ll feel better!"
Breakfast: Getting my teenager out of bed!
Daily ritual: Up at 7 a.m., get myself ready, get my son up umpteen times, drop him at school, get my McMuffin, get into the gallery by 8:30 a.m., work a full day.
Favorite slang word: Golly Ned, holy smokes, shucks and gobsmacked!
Three jobs you’ve had: Dairy Queen, Concierge for The Ritz-Carlton, and V.P. Strathmore Papers.
What you love most about your current job: Calling the artists to tell them their work just sold.
Who inspires you: My 82-year-old mother who looks 60. She exudes grace, compassion, generosity and patience.
How you unwind: Trolling Scott Antique Market, Salvation Armies, Good Wills and tag sales, and an occasional massage.
Pet peeve: The "glass is half empty" crowd.
Currently reading: Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: An Updated Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases and Coping by Robert M. Sapolsky.
Something you collect: Too much. Antique glass and sterling vanity bottles and boxes, children’s chairs, baskets and, of course, art!
Favorite local restaurant: Bacchanalia.
The last CD you bought: Josh Grobin.
All-time favorite movie: Lost in America.
Labor of love: My son, my gallery and gift wrapping.
What defines your spirituality? I am in constant awe of the universe and the fact that in some sense there exists a far greater and kinder power than man.
Favorite ice cream flavor: Chocolate.
Something people wouldn’t guess about you: I am a loner.
 (Photo by Collin Kelley)
With a Ph.D in poetry from Florida State University and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Georgia State University, it might surprise you to know Jennifer Wheelock’s road not taken was organic farming. Though, she says, still, that could be "the road I may yet take." Wheelock, 43, a native of Kingsport, Tenn., lives in Midtown with her partner, six dogs and two birds. No surprise that she’s the co-owner of PANT Pet Care and SPOT daycare and boarding facility, which recently opened in Virginia-Highland, or that her morning ritual includes dog walking after a breakfast of a whole-wheat bagel with peanut butter and The New York Times.
The oldest thing in your closet: A pair of argyle socks from seventh grade.
Favorite accessory: My cowboy boots.
Three jobs you’ve had: Waiter (10 years on and off), English professor (10 years), telemarketer (two hours).
What you love most about your job: Dog faces and the... people I meet.
How you dress for work: Jeans, T-shirt, Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars.
How you unwind: With a glass of red wine, good food and friends, or with a glass of red wine and paint and a canvas. There seems to be a theme here.
Pet peeve: My biggest one is leaf blowers…. Use a rake.
Currently reading: John Ashberry’s new collection of poems, A Worldly Country, and Salt: A World History, by Mark Kurlansky.
Favorite local restaurants: The Supper Club and La Tavola.
The last CD you bought: Bob Dylan’s Modern Times.
Fitness routine: I switch it up a lot. I run and bike. I lift weights. I do core work. I work out six or seven days a week.
Someone who changed your life: My sister, Yvonne Rakes, who lives here in Atlanta...she helped make it possible for me to live the life I chose. She’s my rock.
Labor of love: My writing.
What defines your spirituality? Its lack of definition.
To protect the environment: Not enough. But I walk and bike instead of driving when I can. I recycle. And I buy local and organic when possible.
What’s your most treasured heirloom or piece of art? My grandmother’s quilts and my paintings by my friend Ian Nicholas, an Atlanta-based painter.
Favorite junk food: Carrot cake.
Something people wouldn’t guess about you: I’m terribly insecure.
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