My relationship with Raleigh: It’s complicated
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…
Category: Arts & Culture
A grand tour: Larry Wheeler’s European inspiration
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…
Diane Chen: A passion for freedom
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…
Think of a Broom
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…
Lakes Alive: A Raleigh native discovers there’s no place like home
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…
Slow, sweet and spicy: Summer books to savor
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…
Slow jeans, fast business: Sarah and Victor Lytvinenko are putting Raleigh – and denim – on the fashion map
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.,…
AN HONEST OFFERING: An intrepid brother-sister duo launches Raleigh’s first Laotian restaurant, with a lot of help from their friends
by Liza Roberts photographs by Lissa Gotwals At their hot new restaurant in downtown Raleigh, brother-sister duo Vansana and Vanvisa Nolintha are doing something revolutionary. With one of the few true Laotian restaurants in the United States, these two twenty-somethings are introducing Raleighites…
No airs, only fish: Milburnie Fishing Club turns 100
by Charles Upchurch photographs by Nick Pironio If you conjured up an image of Raleigh’s oldest social club – where for 100 years the seasons have carried with them a ritual flow of barbecues, oyster roasts, family celebrations, debutante…
Art as Heritage
by Liza Roberts photographs by Mark Petko For Monica and Dalip Awasthi, art is the glue. It helped cement their relationship early on, and it links the two of them – and their three young children – to the Indian…
Redesigning Raleigh: Limitless possibilities
by J. Michael Welton photographs by Travis Dove In the 1950s, Raleigh’s visionary design community redefined the way we saw our city architecturally. Today, local designers are at it again, turning their attention not just to buildings, but to consumer…
Hummingbird heaven: Spigelia Marilandica (Indian Pink)
by Tony Avent illustration by Ippy Patterson Spigelia marilandica is another of those great plants native to the Southeast that few people have grown or even heard about. In the wild, I usually see Spigelia growing on deeply wooded slopes,…
Coming full circle With Clay Aiken
When Raleigh-born American Idol star Clay Aiken, 34, takes the stage this month to star in North Carolina Theatre’s The Drowsy Chaperone, he will be coming home in more ways than one. “My first audition ever was at North Carolina…
Sole Brothers: Santana Creative
by Mary E. Miller photographs by Geoff Wood It takes a considerable stride to go from a career implem- enting World Bank-funded health and education projects in Peru to launching an artisanal leather repair business in Raleigh. But in Robert…