Arts Culture

To hell and back

Years before the 2020 pandemic, artist Michelle Gagliano developed a fascination with Dante’s Inferno and set out to interpret each of the poem’s 34 cantos through one painting per week. She completed the project, and exhibited it in 2017. But as the virus and social and political unrest escalated this spring, the work called her […]

Tami Keaveny | November 25, 2020

Arts Culture

Get closer

Mixed-media artist Brielle DuFlon’s work speaks of comfort in bold ways. Imagine putting on your favorite sweater, wrapping up in a fuzzy blanket, or donning a lacy garment. DuFlon takes those emotional aesthetics to a textile reality in her show, “huddle,” at New City Arts. Using repurposed and reclaimed materials, DuFlon’s dramatic pieces are a […]

Tami Keaveny | October 28, 2020

Arts Culture

Cast your eyes on the 2020 Virginia Film Festival

Unprecedented, unexpected, insane…we could go on, but after months of living in a world with coronavirus, a presidential campaign, and a series of transformative social justice movements, well, you get the idea. To combat it all, we’ve been baking, we’ve been Zooming, we’ve been sitting six feet apart at social gatherings.  We’re ordering takeout, enjoying […]

Tami Keaveny | October 21, 2020

Arts Culture

PICK: Lost Home, Win Home

For the win: Playwright Shelby Edwards explores the conflicting emotions attached to her native Charlottesville in Lost Home, Win Home. Through the intricate thinking of a chess master, Edwards reconstructs the trauma of the Unite the Right/Neo-Nazi rally that took place here on August 12, 2017. Her expertly delivered solo performance strikes at the heart […]

Tami Keaveny | October 14, 2020

Arts Culture

PICK: Lola Flash

Action shots: Photographer Lola Flash’s art and activism are inextricably connected. For decades her work in genderqueer visual politics has challenged stereotypes and preconceptions about gender, sex, and race. Her exhibition “salt” is part of the Seeing Black: Disrupting the Visual Narrative Speaker Series, and captures women who are over 70 and still thriving in their […]

Tami Keaveny | October 14, 2020

Arts Culture

PICK: Fleabag

Biting humor: If you’ve been binge-watching TV over the last eight months (and really, who hasn’t?), you probably have a “Fleabag” story. Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s clever, outrageous, sex comedy-drama had everyone talking about their own relatable experiences when it jumped from an award-winning one-woman play in London to an Emmy-sweeping Amazon Prime series in 2019. See the […]

Tami Keaveny | October 14, 2020

Arts Culture

PICK: Food From Our Farms

Rewarding harvest: A salad of autumn lettuces and herbs, Asian pear, toasted pecans, and Surryano ham crisp with nectarine vinaigrette. Empanadas made from Caromont chevre, butternut squash, and heirloom apples. It’s harvest time in the Blue Ridge, and the menu for Food From Our Farms: 2020 Edition features the bounty of the season while honoring […]

Tami Keaveny | September 24, 2020