A few years ago, Leslie Scott-Jones was wandering around the Aquarian Bookshop on West Main Street in Richmond, looking for lavender incense. Walking by a table of tarot card decks, she received a message from one of her maternal great-grandmothers: “That one.” Scott-Jones stopped—she’d learned to listen to these messages when she received them—looked at the […]
Art in all its forms accomplishes many things. It can entertain. It can teach us something new about ourselves, or others. It can keep us company, keep us busy, keep us calm. It can inspire. It can comfort. At its core, art is about shared humanity. With that in mind, The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative […]
In an effort to help artists facing financial hardship because of venue closures and event cancellations due to COVID-19, The Bridge PAI and New City Arts Initiative launched the Charlottesville Emergency Relief Fund for Artists on March 20. Artists can apply to receive up to $300; all they need to show is “proof of practice,” […]
As we adjust to life amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ll likely turn to the arts—a favorite poem, a beloved album, a treasured painting—over and over in search of comfort and relief. Art, in all its forms, is a vital part not just of our personal lives but of our community. Social [...]
Handy advice: In the theatrical tradition of Italy’s commedia dell’arte, Company Aiello tells old stories in a new light through puppetry and musical accompaniment. Main character Spazzolino is a good-hearted prankster who only wants two things: “a mountain of beans to eat and justice for [...]
Most people avert their eyes when the world gets messy: they scrunch uncooperative hair into the safety of ballcaps, kick dust bunnies conveniently under couches, and dunk ugly memories into their mental trashbins. It’s unusual to meet someone who sits down with disorder, shakes its hand, and [...]
Wild sax: Musical wilderness is the running theme as the Telemetry Music Series highlights free jazz with the “ferocious, sorcerous, and way out there” improv of Charlotte, North Carolina’s Ghost Trees sharing the bill with Space-Saver’s drum and sax-tinged combos of doom metal/acid [...]
The Soggy Po’ Boys are a lot more appetizing than they sound. The six-man band formed in New Hampshire, but its members are firmly rooted in the ways of NOLA jazz, from vintage outfits to the instruments themselves—among them a piano, two saxophones and a stand-up bass that looks straight out [...]
With her new book, Sketchbook Dares: 24 Ways to Draw Out Your Inner Artist, artist, writer and teacher Laura Lee Gulledge challenges anyone of any skill level to draw. The former Louisa County art teacher says, “It’s the sort of book I wish I’d had starting off as a teacher but also as a [...]
Maxx Katz won a SOUP grant in 2016 that became instrumental in launching her project Floom, leading indirectly to Sunday’s release of Multi-Voice of the Immensity, a 38-minute track of flute, doomy guitar and voices. “If a performer rings their heart like a bell, it starts ringing everyone [...]
Unconventional is a word often found in descriptions of Eugene Chadbourne’s work, but it doesn’t begin to capture the far-out 63-year-old musician’s career. Wikipedia notes that his mastery of guitar, banjo, rake and plunger, and his immersion in free jazz, folk and experimental music led to [...]