Culture through the restless lens of UVA’s Kevin Everson
Kevin Everson is known to be prolific, but it’s still startling when he says “I made 17 films this year.” Asked which shorts he’ll be showing at the Virginia Film Festival, the UVA professor and internationally respected filmmaker has to consult a list before answering. That’s an occupational hazard, perhaps, of creativity that never sleeps. […]
10 things I’ve learned about homesteading: Lessons from adventures, successes, and failures on the land
I don’t claim to be an expert on anything in the homesteading realm. But my husband and I have been gardening for 18 years and raising chickens for nine, preserving foods and getting to know our local ecosystem, and we have picked up a few nuggets of knowledge along the way. Here are some of […]
Riding it out: Freestyle survives 36 years of change
Remember all those specialty shops that went belly-up when the internet came along? Freestyle wasn’t one of them. Founded in 1983, the local sporting goods store is way older than online shopping—and it’s managed to stay relevant through lots of industry changes. “We want customers for life,” says store manager Don Cochrane. That’s meant operating […]
A leg up: The CIC helps entrepreneurs get the right start
Since 2012, locals wanting to start their own businesses have been turning to the Community Investment Collaborative for support. The CIC runs a training program to help folks develop their business ideas—its 16-week Entrepreneur Workshop has graduated more than 300 people so far. It also offers financing, mentorship, and co-working space. We chatted with Stephen […]
Deer crossing
There are more than 50,000 deer-vehicle collisions in Virginia each year. One local scientist has a low-cost solution. May 3, 2013. It’s 7:50 in the morning. A 51-year-old man driving an SUV west on I-64 collides with a deer. The man is unhurt; police notify VDOT that they’ll need to remove the carcass. October […]
Pulling in talent: What to know if you’re using non-local vendors
Thinking of hiring vendors from beyond Charlottesville to help put together your big day? Maybe you want to source some Victorian furniture from Richmond-based Paisley & Jade, for example. Or maybe, like one of Adam Donovan-Groves’ former clients, you just happen to know a great photographer from Ireland. This artist, remembers Donovan-Groves, “had worked at […]
Behind the magic: Three unique backdrops for your “I dos”
It’s not hard to see why a ceremony backdrop is a key visual element for your wedding. If you’re on the hunt for a truly unique photo op at the moment of that crucial kiss, perhaps a custom-made backdrop is in order. Local artists and makers will create one just for your day—whether it’s a […]
Crowded house: How to book a wedding date without conflict
Choosing the big date? Don’t forget to consider Charlottesville’s busy calendar of events, which can mean local lodgings are in short supply at certain times of the year. You might want to work around… Virginia Festival of the Book: March 18-22, 2020 Charlottesville Ten Miler: Date TBA, but usually held in late March Tom Tom […]
Video Q&A: Essential questions for your videographer
You know your maid of honor will slay them during her toast. If you hope to be laughing at her jokes decades from now, you’re going to want a wedding video. So what important questions should you ask potential videographers when you’re deciding who to hire? We talked with Ian Atkins of Ian’s Creations and […]
Life with death: Live long enough in a wild place, and you collect some killing stories
I am going to tell you a bunch of stories about killing and death, but the first one is a story about a story. It was short, and my neighbor was the storyteller. He told it to my husband John and me 12 years ago, the first time we met him. After hello, his very […]
Land here now: Les Yeux du Monde challenges traditions of landscape art
In the Anthropocene, what does it mean to paint the landscape? Pristine, unspoiled wilderness no longer exists (even places that look “untouched” are affected by climate change), and we’ve learned to cast a suspicious eye at bucolic pastoral zones, now that we know how often they involve Roundup runoff and soil erosion. This isn’t meant […]
Steering the bus: JAUNT’s Brad Sheffield looks to the future
From its origins in 1975 as a public service corporation transporting elderly and disabled customers, JAUNT (that’s Jefferson Area United Transportation) has grown to cover a six-county, 2,600-square-mile service area while welcoming the general public onto its 85 vehicles. Recently, the organization has been expanding into commuter routes for areas underserved by public transit. JAUNT’s […]
Squeaky clean: Car wash business expands, but keeps it local
Last April, Jeff Kamrath opened Aqua Cville Hand Car Wash on Emmet Street, and the weather promptly turned against him. In his first year in business, he says, “It rained 41 percent of the days we could have been open.” That was far from ideal, but Aqua Cville made it to its first anniversary anyway. […]
Our daily bread: A new crop of farmers, millers, and bakers is working to restore Virginia’s local grain economy
When Will Brockenbrough walks across the sloping, wide-planked floors of his grain mill in Nelson County, he’s stepping through 225 years of history. Built in 1794, the mill was then a crucial link in the local farm economy, using water power derived from the Piney River to stone-grind grain from nearby fields. On this late-spring […]
Modern makeover: A hidden midcentury masterpiece gets a major update
On a quiet street in Charlottesville sits a not-too-eyecatching house, its plain brick façade all but obscured by a screen of trees. Yet this is far from an ordinary rancher. In fact, it serves as a connection to a wider, more cosmopolitan world, and to an optimistic time in architectural history, when the International Style […]
Local turf: An Orange County farm for ready-made lawns
Ever wonder where those Yodels-like rolls of grass come from that you’ve seen stacked on pallets or laid out in front of a newly built home? From a sod farm, of course. Growing and harvesting sod is a practice that thrives mainly out of sight (and out of mind). But in Orange County, Andy and […]
Break it down: Panorama Paydirt makes “black gold” from city leaves
Compost isn’t a glamorous business, but then again—if it helps you hang onto a big, beautiful piece of land in Albemarle County—maybe it is. The 20-or-so acres that Steve Murray uses to produce compost and mulch at Panorama Paydirt, near Earlysville, have been one way to keep the 850-acre farm in the family. “I raised […]
Outsider art: Our favorite plein-air murals and sculptures
In a self-styled art town like Charlottesville, you don’t have to step into a gallery to have an art encounter. There are lots of places to see murals, sculptures, and even interactive works from your car or the sidewalk, or while strolling through the IX Art Park. Increasing the accessibility, the Charlottesville Mural Project—which has […]
Urban wilderness: Creating a native habitat in town
When Devin Floyd and his team at the Center for Urban Habitats design gardens, they don’t just think about which plants will bloom in which season. Their approach is far more complex, encompassing the request that client David Wimberley made when he first hired them in 2014. “He came to us because he wanted to […]
Kids on the loose: Confronting the risks of a free-range childhood
“Go play outside!” is one of those phrases that pops out of parents’ mouths as though it comes from a deep well of universal wisdom. Along with eating your vegetables and not waking the baby, playing outside seems so obviously the right thing for kids to do. Once they cross the threshold into the great […]
Modern living: Five local houses that break with tradition
Architects in Charlottesville have big shoes to fill—founding-father-sized shoes. Our town is often represented by one of two iconic buildings designed by Jefferson: one private (Monticello) and one public (the Rotunda). Each has an outsized influence on what folks generally expect local architecture to look like. In the middle of the last decade, a debate […]
Jefferson’s other home: Poplar Forest gave the president what Monticello couldn’t—peace
Monticello was a busy place in Thomas Jefferson’s time, just as it is now. And just as Jefferson’s second home, Poplar Forest, provided him with a much-needed retreat, the meticulously restored property today offers visitors a peaceful haven to gain a different view of the third president’s life and times. Located near Lynchburg and first […]
It’s the little things: Locals team up to tackle carbon reduction at home
The first Earth Day occurred in 1970, long before anyone started to worry about what was, at first, called “global warming.” So those trying to get Americans to change their behavior for the planet’s sake are fighting a battle against eco-fatigue, born of repeated exposure to environmentalist messages, and their inevitable fadeout. In Charlottesville, one […]
Kids on the loose: Confronting the risks of a free-range childhood
“Go play outside!” is one of those phrases that pops out of parents’ mouths as though it comes from a deep well of universal wisdom. Along with eating your vegetables and not waking the baby, playing outside seems so obviously the right thing for kids to do. Once they cross the threshold into the great […]
Patio perch: A new hardscape creates space for entertaining outside
After living for decades in a grand house in Suffolk, Virginia, overlooking a 27-acre lake, Diane Grieder and Marion Grigg retired to Charlottesville and a whole new landscape. They were glad to downsize to a smaller home, Grieder says, but “it was hard to give up that lake view.” Two years ago, when they found […]
A kitchen full of light: A big, bright cooking space blends beauty and functionality
For the interior redesign of a large house in a leafy Charlottesville neighborhood, architect Bethany Puopolo reassigned many of its spaces—a family room became the master suite, and the living and dining rooms switched places—in order to make them work better for her clients, a couple with three young children. But the father, the family’s […]
Rail fun: Through the countryside and under the mountain on the passenger train
Three days a week, an Amtrak train called the Cardinal rolls through Charlottesville on its way from New York to Chicago. Unless you’re planning a long trip to a city along the route (Indianapolis, anyone? Cincinnati?), you may not look twice at the train. But it’s more than a means of transport. For a family, […]