illustrations by Laura Frankstone One of the largest and most diverse collections of plants that thrive in the Southeast can be found at Raleigh’s J.C. Raulston Arboretum. This meandering, 10-acre research garden, planted with more than 5,000 different kinds of…
by Amber Nimocks photographs by Tim Lytvinenko Edge Barnes has always been “in beta,” long before always being “in beta” was cool. “If there’s not something new going on, there’s something wrong,” he says. It might seem incongruous for a gray-bearded potter…
by Charles Upchurch photograph by Juli Leonard Yes, I am drinking a Pimm’s Cup as I write this. OK, I’m finishing a Pimm’s Cup. I recommend that you enjoy one while reading this summer issue of Walter. Out in the…
by Tony Avent illustration by Ippy Patterson I’ll never forget the day in June 1997 when I met Canna ‘Phasion’ in person. For normal people, it would be like meeting Elvis or Barbra Streisand. I had long been a fan…
by Liza Roberts photographs by Mark Petko As Bett Padgett welcomes yet another stranger into her Raleigh home on this bright-green evening, she’s doing something she considers vital: Sharing music. Tonight, she’s sharing it with about 90 people who have…
by Amber Nimocks photographs by Robert Willett Kazem Yahyapour,58, started running to keep his heart beating. He kept running because it feeds his soul. Yahyapour was 48 when he had a heart attack, five years younger than his father had…
by Peggy Payne photograph by Robert Willett We met in 1954 when I was 5 years old and went to visit – all by myself! – my twenty-something aunt, a single girl with a job in the big city. What I…
by Charman Driver photograph by Mark Petko “Move as if your body is seaweed, and water is washing over you,” says Chelsea Jones. I close my eyes and imagine what it looks (and feels) like to move like washed-over-seaweed. Here…
by Larry Wheeler Director, North Carolina Museum of Art Europe. That mass of civilizing geography, which lures us to its oldness and its coolness, seems to work a special magic during the rites of spring, summer, and fall. Spring, and…
by Todd Cohen photograph by Robert Willett Diane Chen knows only too well that a family’s financial well-being can change in a heartbeat. A native of China who was plunged from a privileged early upbringing into the impoverishing nightmare of the…
by Ruth Moose This simplest of tools perhaps began as twigs twined to a stick by someone in a far away cave in a long lost time who said, “Look, This saves my back, farthers my reach.” I’ve…
by Lewis Beale photographs by Geoff Wood Colin Clarke is used to thinking big. This is no huge surprise, since the coach of the Carolina RailHawks has played in England’s first division, and for Northern Ireland in the World Cup….
by CC Parker illustration by Lane Singletary Summer again. As a mother of young children, for me, summer means three months of vacation spreading out before us: time to kill, and time to fill. A few years ago, I would…
by P. Gaye Tapp How I do love a good book, especially at this time of year. With the change in the weather comes a change in my reading habits. Summer reading should be lighter, brighter: not necessarily a “beach…