Letting it flow: Kyle Dargan fights futility with poetry
As a child, Kyle Dargan began writing rhymes largely as a matter of convenience. “If you wanted to make music, especially back in the ’90s, you needed somebody with a studio and recording equipment,” he says. “But you could write [hip-hop lyrics] at home, on the bus, in a notebook, and share with people and […]
Ascending dreamer: The Mountaintop at Heritage Theatre Festival is one for the heart
Fifty years after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and several days before the first anniversary of last summer’s white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, UVA’s Heritage Theatre Festival unveiled its production of The Mountaintop, a play that reimagines the final hours of King’s life and celebrates the humanity of its hero. Written by Katori Hall […]
Jeremy and Allyson Taylor’s environmental art approach
When it comes to visual art (paintings in particular), you can’t throw a rock without hitting a pastoral fantasy. Which may be why local artists Jeremy and Allyson Taylor’s reverence for nature comes as such a surprise. “I definitely go to the grotesque,” Allyson says, “because I find it really beautiful and interesting. And sometimes disgusting and […]
The Charlottesville Women’s Choir sings for all
In the wake of the 2016 massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Amanda Korman knew what she needed to do. Sing. At a local vigil, Korman sang songs of solidarity, mourning and protest alongside fellow members of the Charlottesville Women’s Choir “to say we do not want this violence in our country. We want […]
Motherhood is at the center of Studio IX’s May exhibition
When you imagine a mother, what do you picture? A woman up to her elbows in soapy dishwasher with a baby strapped to her chest or a toddler clinging to her ankle? A woman who wheels and deals like a boss until she sprints off to daycare? Or do you think of your own mother? […]
Reading from inspiration at New Dominion Bookshop
As a kid in grade school, Angie Hogan began writing poetry for the same reason her peers wrote in a diary or passed notes in class: She wanted privacy. “I felt the need to express myself, but I didn’t want to express myself straightforwardly,” she says. “I was definitely writing things that were extreme metaphors. […]
Review: Hand to God is a joyful romp through the dark
In case you forgot why people still put on pants and leave the house in order to partake in live theater (as opposed to Netflix-ing their way to human-sized sinkholes on the couch), allow Live Arts’ production of Hand to God to spell it out for you. Full-frontal nudity! Cursing in church! Legit cigarette smoking! […]
‘Feminine Likeness’ explores two sides of the canvas
Standing in The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA, surrounded by paintings from across the 19th and 20th centuries, you notice something about the passage of time in the museum’s current exhibition, “Feminine Likeness: Portraits of Women by American Artists, 1809-1950.” There’s a subtle shift as years slip by, a transformation in the representation of […]
Poet Patricia Asuncion gathers a sea of sisters
When writer and Charlottesville resident Patricia Asuncion took to the streets of Washington, D.C., during the 2017 Women’s March, her protest felt eerily familiar. “When I was first divorced in the 1970s, I had no credit. I had no bank accounts. I had nothing in my name. I didn’t even have the first name Patricia. […]
Designer Annie Temmink coaxes ‘Beasts!’ to life
After years spent living abroad and around the U.S., Annie Temmink thought something was missing from her native Charlottesville. “I miss really great dancing and really wild visual clothing and adornment,” she says. “They’re rich opportunities for people to have moments of unbridled, creative expression, and they’re really critical for connection, and happiness, and all […]
Budding artists learn in the spotlight
When I was a tween writing “X-Files” fan fiction, I never suspected my interest in storytelling would lead to an actual career as a writer. But then I enrolled in the creative writing program at a performing arts high school—and discovered my creative power. Dozens of local arts organizations offer Charlottesville children and teens opportunities […]
Review: Women work their way up in Live Arts’ Top Girls
Enter: a lively dinner party. Lots of crosstalk. Women in a startling array of historical costumes. There’s Isabella Bird, a 19th-century globe-trotter and well-educated author. There’s Joan the Pope, a ninth-century intellectual who lived as a man and briefly became the pope. There’s Dull Gret, a sword-wielding peasant and army leader lifted from the Bruegel […]
Chicho Lorenzo paints through barriers at local exit
When painter and muralist Chicho Lorenzo saw the 7′ tall retaining wall along Barracks Road near the 250 bypass, he knew exactly what he wanted to paint. “Maybe two years ago, I was commissioned to paint a mural for a military school,” Lorenzo says. “I had an idea for an image of two teachers standing […]
Photo project shows people through another lens
As the events of August 11 and 12 unfolded across Charlottesville, photojournalist Sarah Cramer Shields watched it happen on the news. “I was putting two small children down for naps when it happened,” Shields says in an interview with C-VILLE. “I wanted to be on the front lines telling the stories of what was happening, […]
A Christmas Story sings out at Four County Players
Whether you fell in love with the leg lamp, the pink bunny suit or the double-dog-dare to lick a frozen flagpole, you can’t help but wait in excited anticipation for A Christmas Story to hit the holiday airwaves. The story of Ralphie, an eager schoolboy on a desperate quest to get the most magical Christmas […]
VHO’s Sympathy was centuries in the making
I’ll be honest: I’m not really an opera person. Until this weekend, I assumed opera consisted of people in fancy outfits belting overwrought, angst-ridden songs in foreign languages before dying on stage. And while I’m terribly impressed by the skill and talent required to fine-tune the operatic “instrument,” I am not the most qualified person […]
Local women break through in fantasy and horror
‘‘My book came out last year a week before the presidential elections,” says Madeline Iva, author of the fantasy romance Wicked Apprentice. “What I came away with, standing in the blasted devastation of our liberal democratic psyche, was that I’d just written a book about a woman who ends up holding all the power—and people […]
Second Street Gallery flirts with the dark side
Peter Benedetti never planned to make a deck of tarot cards. Instead, you might argue, the cards found him. “It’s not something I would normally do,” says the Brooklyn-based artist, who points to the abstract expressionist influence on the style of his inventive drawings and paintings. But a few years ago, during his daily research […]
Lisa Parker Hyatt’s Miami imagery hits home
Even though she lives in the nation’s capital now, Lisa Parker Hyatt can’t leave Miami behind. “I spent most of my life in Miami,” explains the artist, whose richly colored paintings are included in collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the archives of the National Museum of Women in the Arts […]
Russell Richards carves new place for himself
After 17 years with McGuffey Art Center, artist and filmmaker Russell Richards is moving on. Blame it on the windows. “The city renovated McGuffey and fixed the windows, so we had to be out for a certain period of time,” he says. “I couldn’t access my studio for a while, so I used that as […]
Kluge-Ruhe holds up the mirror
Following last month’s local violence by neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups, many people are speaking and acting out against racism for the first time. But becoming an effective activist and ally to people of color requires humility, curiosity and ongoing education—which is why locals are lucky that a small building, perched on a […]
Matthew McLendon wants more at The Fralin
In January, The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia welcomed a director and chief curator, Matthew McLendon, formerly with Tate Britain in London, the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College and The Ringling Museum of Art, the state art museum of Florida. While McLendon worked at The Ringling, the art blogazine […]
Blake Hurt plays with perspective in two collections
Charlottesville is a cozy little city. Most of the time, we know our neighbors—enough to recognize their kids or their pets, maybe catch snippets about their lives at work or play. But what if the guy down the street turned out to be the commander of an invading fleet of warships? Or the girl next […]
Face time: Painter Caroline Nelson gets personal with her subjects
For fine artist Caroline Nelson, a person’s face speaks volumes. “The smallest details, the wrinkles and the pores, are very telling,” she says. “There are people who I see and I immediately want to paint them. It can be their eyes or their skin tone, but there’s always something that I’m drawn to.” Her large-scale […]
Les Yeux du Monde features six artists in a radiant summer show
Every sunny morning during the summertime, I wake up and stare at the light-soaked leaves outside my window and feel a rush of joy. At a time when most of us could stand a bit of brightness, the sun showers us with one of the happiest forces on earth. Nature’s hot-weather celebration is the subject […]
Stefan Bechtel’s new book inspects the Conan Doyle conundrum
For Charlottesville-based author Stefan Bechtel, mystery is the essence of life. “I grew up in Chicago, in the white-bread suburbs where every lawn was perfect. But way out on the edge of town there was a swamp. Lincoln Swamp,” Bechtel says. “We would ride our bikes all the way out to Lincoln Swamp, and we […]
Chroma’s ‘Nesting Materials’ has an elegant science at its center
Local artist Suzanne Stryk has always been fascinated by nests. “When I was 8, I loved to page through a Little Golden book, The Wonder Book of Birds. And then in fourth grade, my grandmother gave me Wonders in Your Own Backyard for Christmas,” writes Stryk in her artist’s statement. “I never outgrew the ideas […]