It’s a Saturday morning in Richmond, and L.E. Zarling has ordered a chocolate croissant to go with her latte at Lamplighter Coffee. She looks at the pastry, covered in a heavy-handed sprinkle of powdered sugar. Then she looks at her black turtleneck sweater. “Fuck it,” she says before taking a bite. “I’m going to enjoy […]
It’s a rainy Friday in late October, the first cold night of fall, and the people who’ve dared to venture outside tiptoe quickly around autumn leaves sticking slick on the Downtown Mall bricks. A few stories above, it’s warm and cozy inside the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar, where a small crowd has gathered to hear […]
With an open palm, Teri Greeves gestures to a handful of small, intricately beaded Kiowa Indian cradleboards lined up inside a glass display case. Kiowa Indians are known for their abstract beadwork motifs, she tells the small crowd that’s gathered to hear her speak at The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia. […]
In the early hours of February 1, John Borden Evans was out for his regular run through Walnut Creek Park when he paused to memorize the landscape before him. He noticed how the setting moon hung low and bright in the sky, how the moonlight radiated through striated clouds to bathe the mid-winter trees, grass, […]
Samhita Sunya will go to great lengths to see a film on a big screen. The cinema scholar has attended 7am screenings in theaters. When the weather’s nice and the sky is dark, she’ll set up a screen and a projector in her yard and watch from a lawn chair. Two years ago, she traveled […]
The story of “Hansel and Gretel” is a familiar one: the hungry children of a poor woodcutter are lost in the woods when they stumble upon a house made of gingerbread and sweets, enticing to their eyes and empty bellies. The house belongs to a witch who lures the children inside and captures them, intending […]
On a sultry First Fridays evening in early October, The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative gallery glows gold beneath the dark, overcast sky. People flock to the warmly lit building to see the “Gallery of Curiosities.” Outside, near the door, there’s a small table draped with a white cloth and adorned with candles, where Leslie M. […]
“I’m a pretty sentimental guy,” says Andrew Neil Maternick as he settles in to a rust-colored tweed recliner that belonged to his grandmother. With a gentle hand and a look of delight on his broad face, he lifts up the woolly fabric of the armrest to show off the retro design of the chair’s buttons […]
Michael “Doc” Doyle believes that the hardest thing you experience in life is your best chance to find out who you are. For Doyle, a carpenter who studied metal sculpture in art school, that chance came in the form of jail time. After battling addiction and depression, Doyle attempted suicide in such a way that […]
Nathaniel Star gets most of his ideas in the shower. It’s where he ruminates on a beat, hums melodies, and devises lyrics. When he knows he has something good, he’ll hop out of the shower, wrap himself in a towel and dash, water dripping all over the floor, into his studio to record it. “I’ll […]