A Mother’s Place
by Sharon Kurtzman It is not a mother’s place to turn her children into firemen, make them dance like Pavlova, play sports like Kobe Bryant perform in the way of Meryl Streep or Beyonce. It is not a mother’s…
Category: Arts & Culture
Spotlight: Gourd-geous
by Mimi Montgomery Hard to believe, but fall is approaching, and with it comes a celebration of all things autumnal. Get in the seasonal spirit with the 74th Annual North Carolina Gourd Arts & Crafts Festival, a celebration hosted…
Caring for creatures great and small
by Todd Cohen photographs by Travis Long Page Wages’ pet peeve is literally that – a pet peeve: “Long nails and dirty ears in dogs,” says Wages, a veterinarian at CareFirst Animal Hospital in Raleigh. “I’m always cleaning ears and cutting…
Spotlight: Imagining dragons
by Mimi Montgomery photographs by Jill Knight When a friend approached Lily Chan a couple of years ago about starting a dragon boat festival in Raleigh, she was hesitant. “Are you kidding me?” Chan said. The founder and president of the…
Bluegrass: Living in Raleigh now
by Tracy Davis This month, as more than 150,000 bluegrass lovers converge on Raleigh for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s annual conference and the accompanying Wide Open Bluegrass festival, the city will be humming along to the music with a…
Spotlight: Hyper local Hopscotch
by Jessie Ammons Made and played in Raleigh If you’ve been downtown during the first week of September in the last five years, you’ve likely stumbled upon Hopscotch Music Fest. “We’re one of the few festivals in America our size…
Searching for small treasures
by Dennis P. Weller, curator of Northern European Art, North Carolina Museum of Art As I watched more than 150,000 visitors file through the North Carolina Museum of Art’s Rembrandt in America exhibit I curated in 2011, a small voice in…
Up close and personal
Photographer Shawn Rocco took a trip to the N.C. Arboretum in late June. Using a 100mm macro lens, he captured some of the botanical beauties in the early evening light before a summer storm rolled in. The magnified perspective makes…
The patron fairy of Raleigh
by Liza Roberts illustration by Vanessa Mercante Boyd When Vanessa Mercante Boyd, a native of Marostica, Italy, moved to North Carolina in 1997, the trained artist was working in technology, writing code, and enjoying a flourishing, computer-tethered career. “I thought technology…
Playing for the mug
by Scott Huler Through the fog of a dimly lit bar, a two-beer buzz, and the blood rushing through my brain, my eyes focus on Fritz, as his grinning visage seems to float towards me. Fritz is short, with the…
Hear: String work
by Mary E. Miller photographs by Nick Pironio Hearing the raucous laughter that accompanies any Sunday afternoon convening of Rode Hard the Band, it’s hard to imagine that the first notes played, the ones that formed this group, were blue….
A President’s legacy: Andrew Johnson’s relatives return
by Thad Woodard, president and CEO, N.C. Bankers Association School children gather before the statue on the Capitol grounds in Raleigh every day to admire the three presidents noted as North Carolinians by birth: James Polk, Andrew Jackson, and Andrew Johnson….
Book Excerpt: Drawing from practice
by J. Michael Welton Chapter 13: Frank Harmon Expressing the Idea On a late spring morning in 2011, a motor coach jam-packed with North Carolina architects nosed into the parking lot at Poplar Forest, Thomas Jefferson’s Palladian retreat in…
Faith, thy name is…
text and photograph by Juli Leonard Wired curls, a confident jaunt, and a watchful eye are the trademarks of Faith, a small terrier/schnauzer mix. She is often seen accompanying her owner, attorney Walter Rand, to work in downtown Raleigh. Despite…