Locals we love: Elise Yardley Cobb, Sean Brock, Amore' Rayne, Nick Jenkins, Austin Nelson
Elise Yardley Cobb
First and foremost, Elise Yardley Cobb is a teacher. She's at James Simons Elementary School most mornings around 6 a.m., readying for her day with the inner-city third-graders she adores. Her evenings are spent grading homework and writing lesson plans.
Then, occasionally, Cobb dons a silky gown and casts a sultry glance at a camera lens.
After enrolling at the College of Charleston as a swim team recruit, the 21-year-old Atlanta-native settled into an education major. It wasn't until her junior year that a friend asked her to audition for the Charleston Fashion Week.
The natural beauty was an easy choice to walk the runways for designers and companies, including Banana Republic and LaRoque. And photographers soon started calling.
Despite her in-demand status, Cobb played down her moonlight modeling gig.
"My closet is one huge mess of great black dresses and oversize men's sweaters," she said. "I have no passion for fashion."
Cobb is passionate about Charleston's art scene, and when modeling, she seeks out photographers, artists and designers whose work she believes in.
Despite her success in the fashion world, she's quick to put her career as an educator first.
"I don't want my kids to think of me as Ms. Cobb, the model," she says. "I want them to think of me as Ms. Cobb, the particularly wonderful and cool teacher."
You can find her on Facebook.
Sean Brock
McCrady's chef Sean Brock grew up in rural Virginia, right on the border of Kentucky.
"Lots of moonshine, lots of bluegrass, zero restaurants," he recalled.
His family cooked three meals a day. By the age of 10, Brock was digging in the garden, canning and pickling vegetables, and cooking up chicken and dumplings for grandma.
"I really got to see food go from its starting point to its ending point at a very young age," he said. "That was part of the daily ritual."
Brock continues that tradition today, raising much of McCrady's produce and meat himself.
Beginning this fall, he's even dedicating a 3.5 acre plot at the restaurant's McClellanville farm to heirloom crops that he'll save seeds of without even eating for at least the first two seasons.
And he's not just directing traffic, either. Five days a week, the chef spends mornings in the fields before showing up at McCrady's by 1:30 p.m., where he stays until midnight.
"It's pretty cool to serve an animal that I raised," said Brock, whose arm features a tattooed sleeve of heirloom vegetables.
He's making plans to launch a sustainable poultry operation to accompany the pigs and goats he cultivates.
"My goal in life is awareness. I want to show people that these things are important and they can be done, and what the results are," he said.
Visit seanbrock.wordpress.com.
Amore' Rayne
2,202,049.
That's how many hits Amore' Rayne had on her MySpace page when this story went to print. (She's averaging 3,000 visits a day.)
The North Charleston R&B singer has gotten here without extensive touring or help from the corporate music industry.
Instead, she has focused on writing quality songs, perfecting studio recordings and using her Web site and online social networking to spread her music to fans, all independently.
She began Blue Diamond Music Group, through which she's produced and promoted her two albums, "Journey" and "Girl Like Me."
"I don't want to be put in a box where I can only perform certain types of music," said Rayne. "I write R&B. I write gospel. I write pop. I write country. I want to be in a position where I can be myself and write music that I actually enjoy."
Rayne has been approached by more than a few record executives, but she simply prefers to have complete control of her art.
A rape and domestic abuse survivor, she supported herself as a cosmetologist until taking up music full time in 2007.
Her strength and dedication have paid off, with regional honors, including the R&B Female Artist of the Year at the S.C. Music Awards.
Rayne attributes her success to a commitment to remain accessible to fans and an optimistic mind-set.
"I'm just having fun," says Rayne. "I'm happy and enjoying life."
Visit www.amorerayne.com.
Nick Jenkins
Just before kicking off one of his most memorable shows with alt-jazz trio Morimoto, Nick Jenkins looked at his band mates and said, "Let's play the music that hasn't been played yet."
That approach to music and art engulfs all of Jenkin's endeavors. He's a member of 13 bands, none of which can be easily pigeonholed into genres.
From the acoustic parables of Run Dan Run to the full-swing twang of Lindsay Holler's Western Polaroids, the College of Charleston-trained jazz drummer refuses to be classified.
His solo project, "Mr. Jenkins," runs the gamut from Postal Service-style airy synth-pop to spoken word poetry over cupboard percussion and keyboard riffs.
Framing his music are Jenkins' unmistakable sketches and paintings.
From giant boomboxes to brightly colored birds, Jenkins showcases his work in an annual "Wake Up, It's Today" calendar and art show at 52.5 Records.
"I went to school to learn to play drums, so every other creative endeavor is sort of grabbing in the dark," Jenkins said.
His journal is filled with doodles, poems and lyrical sketches, any of which could evolve into songs and paintings.
A Walterboro native, Jenkins lives in downtown Charleston in a house full of like-minded artist types. He nearly took off for Europe and then New York last year, but fell in love and stayed.
His biggest challenge today? Figuring out who among his host of talented friends to collaborate with when he schedules "Mr. Jenkins" shows.
"I'd like to play with a 10-piece band, but I can't fit them all in a coffee shop," he says. "Sometimes I just want to play everything."
Visit www.paperjenkins.com.
Austin Nelson
What does Othello have in common with O.J. Simpson? For filmmaker Austin Nelson, enough to get an A on an unconventional high school project, (and hook him on videography for life).
Rather than write papers as a student in Florence, Nelson found teachers willing to let him demonstrate his understanding of classics, such as Beowulf and Shakespearean plays, by filming modern adaptations with his friends. Think "Hamlet of Hazard."
The skills he developed led to a gig as the videographer for the Clemson football team during college, traveling with them to games around the country.
Today, Nelson lives in Park Circle, manages a car parts warehouse ("It's like a Bukowski novel"), and owns Tree Climber Productions, his self-run video company.
His biggest recent project was chronicling the City Gallery's annual Spoleto exhibits.
In 2009, he documented the "Revelation of Process" show, designing 10-minute films about each of the five participating artists. This spring's exhibit pairs 20 artists and poets. Nelson's been busy coming up with scenarios to capture the duos in their element, including a spoken word/painting cellmate scene in the county jail.
"The whole thing will flow together like a long music video, with interviews and sound bites in between," Nelson said. "You'll be able to hear the poems and see the art at the same time."
Visit www.vimeo.com/user908622.
