by Tracy Davis photographs by Juli Leonard In days of yore, traveling minstrels made their way from one town to the next, sharing their tunes on the village green. Today, many minstrel types have set aside lutes and lyres in…
by Betty Adcock Sacred Harp Singers, Georgia, 1930s If their voices were visible entities flying from the deep south’s fading churches, startled from the throats of an earlier century by hope revived, they would be birds. Ordinary starlings. Or swifts…
by Luther H. Hodges Jr. After a recent period of personal upheaval, retired North Carolina Democratic politician and banker Luther H. Hodges Jr., 76, sought solace and insight in adventure: a walking safari in Africa. Unplugged and surrounded by the…
by Scott Huler The dozen or so healthy oak trees standing in a line in the secret park along the Pigeon House Branch north of Peace Street look to be about 40 years old, which means the oaks, which…
by Allie Higgins photograph by Missy McLamb Raleigh craftsmen Matthew Cronheim and Justin Johnson are putting an unexpected twist on a summer classic: the porch swing. Stacked, slotted, and strung, their handmade Harris Swing makes for a cool glide on a…
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 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 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 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 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…
by Dean King photographs by Missy McLamb Victor and Sarah Lytvinenko, creators of Raleigh Denim, international fashion world upstarts, oh, and husband and wife, are in sync. They work together. They play together. They jet together – New York, L.A.,…