An all-black town. An all-black town? It was a stray mention in a book on the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, but Jamelle Bouie was intrigued. An all-black town. “It got stuck in my craw,” says Bouie. He found a few local news articles, a mini documentary film, and a couple books on the subject—the dozens […]
Our ability to look at art—to see color, shape, texture—comes from light. We’ll spare you an in-depth science lesson, but most basically, light reflects off objects and into the eye. Cells in the retina (at the back of the eye) convert light into electrical impulses, which the optic nerve sends to the brain. The brain […]
The sound of spurred boots scuff-clicking across a creaky wooden floor is what did it for third-year UVA student Jess Miller. Sitting alone in front of his laptop, headphones on, ears alert, he’d sifted through a digital library of sound effects to find the right one, the noise that would let the listener of his […]
They appeared overnight the first Monday in December of 2018, long-necked robots on wheels, lurking in neat rows of three or four on street corners all over town. Within a few days, the motorized scooters, which don’t have designated docking stations, were everywhere, and wherever. Now, about five months in to the City of Charlottesville’s […]
The fandango in Veracruz felt familiar to Estela Diaz Knott. Under a tent, musicians strummed guitar-shaped instruments of different pitches—requintos, jaranas, and leonas. With their feet, they stomped and scuffed rhythms on tarimas, rectangular wooden platforms that serve as both stage and percussive instrument. They mixed centuries-old verses with ones they made up in the […]
Around 11 last Monday night, Holly Renee Allen could hear her son playing guitar in his room, picking out the notes to “House of the Rising Sun” and “Dueling Banjos.” As she listened to her 14-year-old work through the classic songs, she thought about the callouses on her own fingertips, the ones she started building […]
Kent Morris stands in the lobby of the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection with a big grin on his face. He’s just in from a birding excursion through Charlottesville-area marshes, and swiping through photos on his phone: here’s a few of a bald eagle, and a few of its nest. Here’s one of a native bird […]
Hosting an all-LGBTQ+ hip-hop showcase has been on Remy St. Clair’s mind for a while now. Over the past few years, while performing at various regional Pride events as rap duo Sons of Ichibei, St. Clair and Cullen “Fellowman” Wade kept hearing similar refrains from artists on these Pride bills: “We’d love to…but we don’t […]
Federico Cuatlacuatl began making art when he was 7 years old. It was a “survival instinct” that kicked in when his family moved from Cholula, Mexico, to Indiana. “I knew like, two words of English, and I needed a way to communicate that I felt sad and depressed, and that I missed home, and that […]
After being wooed by four mop-haired musicians in matching black turtlenecks harmonizing “Help!” on a television screen, 5-year-old Rob Sheffield became a Beatles mega fan. “Don’t you know that band broke up?” his parents would ask. “They don’t exist anymore,” his teacher would say. It was the early 1970s, and while they weren’t wrong—The Beatles […]