June First Fridays Guide

Self-taught quilt artist Jane Fellows has always been drawn to fabric and the natural world. After exploring several techniques, Fellows left her nursing practice last year to dedicate herself fully to quilt-making. “With an eye toward my surroundings and nature, I focused on botanicals and landscapes,” Fellows says of her initial process. “I wanted to […]

Fire in the Belly masters the art of dance

Belly dancer Joy Rayman loves to improvise during a performance. During a recent gig at McGuffey Art Center, she was completely absorbed in the music, snaking her arms and undulating her hips, when she felt her coin belt loosen. Not wanting to pause and interrupt the flow of the dance, she kept moving. The belt […]

McGuffey’s life drawing sessions turn perspective on its head

On a recent Saturday morning, C arrived at McGuffey Art Center to pose for a life drawing session held in an artist’s basement studio. She knew to expect a challenge. Robert Bricker, the artist running the session, posed C (not her real name) and another model together in a box with uneven walls jutting out […]

Live Arts closes its anniversary season with Dreamgirls

Right now, there’s a debate raging about the American dream. What does it look like? Who is it for? And what will we sacrifice in order to achieve it? The debate itself isn’t new. Art has always asked these questions. And Live Arts offers a poignant example with Dreamgirls, which caps off the theater’s 25th […]

Traditions continue at Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Showcase

“I see apprenticeships as a crucial part of keeping folk traditions alive,” says Jack Dunlap, a mandolin player who is part of the Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Showcase. In the program’s most recent class, Dunlap worked with master musician Danny Knicely. Together, they composed and recorded a bluegrass album titled Chop Shred and Split: A Mandolin Player’s […]

A new boost for the Charlottesville Mural Project

If you walk or drive past the Corner in the next few weeks, you may be surprised to see people suspended from the top floor of the Graduate hotel. These aren’t aerialists or stunt doubles for a local action movie; they’re muralists painting the latest installation of the Charlottesville Mural Project. Using a swing stage, […]

Barbara Kingsolver celebrates community and social change

Over the course of her writing career, which began at a weekly alternative newspaper like C-VILLE Weekly, Barbara Kingsolver has authored 14 books and won numerous awards, including the National Humanities Medal in 2000 and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in 2011. Her novel The Lacuna won the Orange Prize in 2010, and her memoir, […]

Illiterate Light searches for moral middle ground

On a freezing-cold night in February, Harrisonburg band Illiterate Light played a set under a red light bulb in the kitchen of a house on First Street South, close to the graveyard. It was 1am and a dozen or so 20somethings leaned against walls and countertops, holding cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon and passing around […]

Jason Flom on making hit records and freeing the innocent

Jason Flom was born into wealth and privilege. His father, Joseph Flom, made a name in legal circles as a mergers and acquisitions savant, a man who built one of the largest law firms in the country and is sometimes known as “Mr. Takeover.” As a youth growing up in New York City, the younger […]

April First Fridays Guide

Ever since local artist Allan Young can remember, he has been taking things apart to figure out what makes them tick. One day he was tinkering, and created a clock from an old computer hard drive, thus his eclectic approach to constructing time pieces was born. Young has made clocks from a wide range of […]