TCB Oct. 19, 2023 — Ghost Town

THE PEOPLE’S PAPER OCT. 19 - NOV. 1, 2023

GHOST

TOWN

Behind Spookywoods Hostile architecture PG. 15

PG. 5

From decked-out houses to scary actors, the Triad goes all out for Halloween Sayaka Matsuoka - PG. 12

Scary new laws PG. 10

UP FRONT | OCT. 19 - NOV. 1, 2023

19

CITY LIFE THURSDAY

OCT. 19 - 26

Community Art Show Reception @ Camel City Craft Fair @ Foothills Creative Aging Network (GSO) 5 p.m.

Brewing Tasting Room (W-S) 12 p.m.

Creative Aging Network is hosting a reception for a group exhibition featuring 2D and 3D work by artists age 50 and up. Light refreshments and hors d’oeuvres will be available. Register at can-nc.org/events

The Camel City Craft Fair is a market showcasing local artists selling handmade items, food trucks, live music and sweet treats. Visit the event page on Facebook for more information.

21

Cellavator Tasting @ The Brewer’s Kettle (HP) 4 p.m.

SATURDAY

The Brewer’s Kettle invites you to taste a special selection of high-end vino wine. Visit the event page on Facebook to purchase tickets.

The Tree I Carry @ UNCSA Creative Community Lab (W-S) 4 p.m.

The School of Filmmaking and the Media + Emerging Technology Lab at UNCSA in partnership with MUSE Winston-Salem is hosting The Tree I Carry, an immersive installation by filmmaking faculty member Shahin Gorgani. The free, three-day exhibit features images, sounds and scents reminiscent of Iran, Gorgani’s home country. Find more information and register at uncsa. edu.

ArtStock Studio Tour 2023 @ Revolution Mill Gallery 1250 (GSO) 6 p.m.

Artstock Studio Tour 2023 in Greensboro features 45+ local artists showcasing their work all over town. Each artist will have pieces of their work on display. The evening also features a blacklight art demonstration, cash bar, and maps of the tour that will be held Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 21-22. For full details on the artists and places visit artstocktour.com.

20

FRIDAY

Scan the QR code to find more events at triad-citybeat.com/local-events

23 CampOUT: Camping 101 Greensboro (GSO) 10 a.m.

@

MONDAY

REI

Join Guilford Green Foundation and for CampOUT: Camping 101 facilitated by Jim Fuller, Experiences Lead REI Greensboro. Enjoy games and activities, a campfire program, a guided hike and more. Register on Eventbrite.

Navigating Jim Crow: The Green Book WSSU vs. St. Augustine’s @ Bowman and Oasis Spaces in North Carolina @ Gray Stadium (W-S) 1:30 p.m.

Enterprise Center (W-S) 9 a.m.

Join the WSSU Rams for homecoming as they take on the Falcon’s from St. Augustine’s University. Purchase tickets in person at the WSSU Ticket Office or online.

Halloween Spooky Hoopla @ High Point Athletic Complex (HP) 5 p.m.

Get a headstart on your Halloween celebrations with the Halloween Spooky Hoopla. Enjoy family-friendly activities including trunk-or-treating, hayrides and a haunted trail.

Call 336.883.3508 for more information.

Triad Cultural Arts presents traveling exhibit Navigating Jim Crow: The Green Book and Oasis Spaces in North Carolina, which “highlights significant sites and personal memories related to American travel during the “Jim Crow” era of legal segregation.” The exhibit will be on view until Nov. 18. Free and open to the public. Check out triadculturalarts.org for more information.

26

THURSDAY

Evil Dead: The Musical @ Camel City Playhouse (W-S) 7 p.m.

Fall Leaf Tours @ High Point City Lake Park (Jamestown) 1 p.m.

Join Piedmont Environmental Center Parks Supervisor Dick Thomas for a 45-minute guided tour where participants will learn about seasonal changes and the lake’s wildlife. Purchase tickets in person or by calling High Point City Lake Park Marina at 336.883.4648.

Health & Leadership Forum @ Salem Academy & College (W-S) 9 a.m.

2

Salem Academy & College is hosting its third health and leadership forum featuring keynote addresses and discussion panels with women in health leadership roles who will discuss health trends. Find more information at salem.edu.

Join Camel City Playhouse for a production of Evil Dead: The Musical, based on the horror film franchise and perfect for spooky season. Watch as Ash, the lone survivor of an attack on five college students, uses his chainsaw for a hand to fight the same demonic forces wreaking havoc on cabin inhabitants. Purchase tickets at camelcityplayhouse.com.

22

SUNDAY

Music Bingo Night @ STEM Beverage & Supply (W-S) 6 p.m.

Join Pride Winston-Salem and Encore Realty Partners for music bingo by DJ Fish. There will be prizes up for grabs! More information on the Facebook event page.

Sunday Bazaar @ Hidden Gate Brewing (GSO) 12 p.m.

Baltimore @ Paul Robeson Theatre Hidden Gate Brewing is Greensboro’s newest hidden gem (GSO) 7:30 p.m. brewery. Stop by for a Sunday bazaar with fire spinning, drag shows, crafts and items from local vendors and glassblowing with Molten Makerspace. Visit the event page on Facebook for more information.

The Theatre Arts program at NC A&T presents Baltimore, a contemporary drama that “examines racial tensions on a college campus.” When a racially-charged joke goes too far and divides first-year students, the students question and challenge the university’s commitment to

diversity. Resident advisor Shelby must decide if she will join the fight or watch it happen. Call 336.334.7749 or visit itzy.io/ baltimore for tickets.

27

FRIDAY

Here for the Boos & Cocktails @ the Blooming Board (HP) 6:30 p.m.

No ticket is necessary for all spooky souls and cocktail enthusiasts to party with the Blooming Board. Dress in your best costume for a chance to win the costume contest and prizes! There will also be a cauldron full of beverages like cocktails, shots and mocktails. Check the event page on Facebook for updates.

Vibrational Sound Healing @ The Breathing Room (WS) 7 p.m.

The Breathing Room invites you to a rejuvenating experience for you to relax, rejuvenate and harmonize your mind, body and spirit using instruments like tuning forks and crystal singing bowls.

Purchase tickets on Eventbrite.

Fright Light @ Greensboro Science Center (GSO) 7 p.m.

Fright Light is Greensboro Science Center’s October laser show. Stop by at 7, 8 or 9 p.m. for high-energy light shows choreographed to hits including Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” Purchase tickets online at shop.greensborosciencecenter.org.

28

SATURDAY

Catalyzing Pathways: Youth Mentorship Evolution Beyond the Pandemic @ Transform GSO (GSO) 9 a.m.

The SHIELD Mentor Program, in collaboration with the National Partnership for Student Success, is hosting this event for community stakeholders, parents, youth service providers and more to create a plan for mentoring today’s youth through breakout sessions, panel discussions and an action planning segment. Find more information and register at shieldmentor. org.

NOVEMBER 18-19

UP FRONT | OCT. 19 - NOV. 1, 2023

OCT. 27 - 28

BENTON CONVENTION CENTER Winston-Salem NC

. handmade pottery . fiber art wearables . . wood furniture . sculpture . fine prints . . jewelry . glass . craft demos . & more !

piedmontcraftsmen.org/fair @piedmontcraftsmen

3

“

[W]hat does it look like to love your neighbor as yourself if you don’t know them, and have not made efforts to know them until now?

And what do you do from there?

“

UP FRONT | OCT. 19 - NOV. 1, 2023

OPINION

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

— Jordan T. Robinson, pg. ?

1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 Office: 336.681.0704 BUSINESS PUBLISHER/EXECUTIVE EDITOR

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Sayaka Matsuoka

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EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

My horror-loving origin story

W

hen I was a kid, my family lived in a house at the end of a culde-sac. Just past the neighborhood’s

by Sayaka Matsuoka pond, the house is situated at the bottom of a steep, sloping driveway that at times felt like it sat at a 45-degree angle. In the winters, it made for the perfect sledding opportunity. And on Oct. 31, it became a long, winding path for terrified kids to traverse to get to the pot of candy at the bottom.

This was my mom’s favorite holiday.

Even though my parents don’t really celebrate anymore — these days they leave a bucket of candy at the top of the driveway and go to a Chinese buffet for dinner to avoid the kids — for years, my mom got really into the whole thing. It wasn’t really about the costumes, though.

For her, it was the thrill of the haunt.

First, she’d set up the classic scary accoutrement, like a bloody severed hand with exposed bone or a realistic owl perched atop our railing. There was the oversized spider and the fog machine.

But the creme-de-la-creme was the stereo we would set up at the window facing out into the front yard that played the $5 “Halloween sounds” disc from Wal-Mart, an hours-long soundscape complete with screaming women, howling wolves and crying babies. No joyful “Monster Mash” here.

The whole setup was enough that many kids, after having collected their candy from all of the other houses in the neighborhood, stopped dead in their tracks at the top of our driveway. They’d cling to their parents’ legs with tears running down their chubby little faces.

“I don’t want to go!” they’d scream.

And if their parents forced them down

that everlasting slope, they’d be met by my mom, who’d answer the door in a terrifying werewolf mask. They’d cry; her heart would grow three sizes; and they’d leave with tear-soaked candy.

It was the best.

That’s probably where I got my love of horror and Halloween.

To this day, the horror genre is my favorite when it comes to movies. I’ve seen most of the classics and have a list of ones from more recent years that I think of as the gold standard of the form. (My hands-down favorite from the last few years is Barbarian.) My first foray into horror movies was when my mom took my sister and I to the Blockbuster in Brassfield shopping center (RIP) and let us roam the aisles. We eventually ended up in the horror section where we laid our eyes on that classic 1973 William Peter Blatty story, The Exorcist. I was 8 years old, my sister, only 4.

But we begged my mom.

“Please!”

“Oh, that’s too scary for you guys,” she would say with a side smirk.

“Please!”

Hours later, we all sat on the striped green couch in the living room of our apartment, watching Linda Blair puke pea soup and convolt violently in her bed. I remember being so scared that I was literally petrified; I could not move.

I remember when my dad came home from work, how desperately I wanted to run into his arms but couldn’t bring myself to leave the couch. I don’t think we ever finished the movie that day. My mom put on Mulan afterwards, but the trauma was everlasting.

And I’ve been chasing that high ever since.

To suggest story ideas or send tips to TCB, email sayaka@triad-city-beat.com

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER Receive weekly updates on breaking News stories with Monday Mix, stay in the loop with our curated events calendar The Weekender, and view our headlining stories with TCB This Week.

Center City Park is where a number of unhoused people hang out during the day.

PHOTO BY GALE MELCHER

NEWS | OCT. 19 - NOV. 1, 2023

NEWS

City Beat stories are free to republish, courtesy of Triad City Beat and the NC Local News Lab Fund. See our website for details.

A CityBeat story

Parks and Regulation

Who’s making the rules in Greensboro’s downtown parks, which activists say target the unhoused community?

P

by Gale Melcher | gale@triad-city-beat.com

eople strolling through Greensboro’s Center City Park and LeBauer Park may notice some new and prominent signs. Upon entering, park rules warn visitors in fine print that disruptive behaviors like entering garden beds, putting bubbles in the fountains and climbing on sculptures are not tolerated. Additionally, rules banning the use of hammocks, storage of personal belongings, charitable distribution by local groups and setting up tents appear specifically targeted at the city’s unhoused who often take refuge within the parks, according to some local activists.

The move, they say, is part of an ongoing effort by city leaders to push unhoused people out of the city center. In August, the city was sent a letter from members of the NC ACLU, who demanded that they “stop removing, destroying belongings of unhoused people.”

While the parks are owned by the city, they are run by Greensboro’s Downtown Parks, Inc., or GDPI, a nonprofit organization that has a public-private partnership with the city.

A memorandum of understanding, or MOU, was put in place between GDPI and the city in 2016. Cheryl White started her role as GDPI’s new director in January. In an interview with TCB, White said that the city wanted an entity that would maintain the parks and activate them as well — with stages, kiosks, vendors and other entertainment facilitators that are spread throughout the facilities today.

What’s the relationship between the city and GDPI?

A

ccording to a 2001 University of North Carolina School of Government article, local governments across the country have increased their involvement with nonprofit organizations. Donations to 501(c)3 organizations are tax-deductible, which encourages “private giving.” “[M]any have involved nonprofits in service delivery, drawing on these organizations’ volunteers and private financial resources, as well as their greater flexibility of action,” the article noted.

According to White, GDPI’s board has 25 membership slots. Six of those are city appointed, while the rest are community appointed. City officials currently seated on the board include Mayor Nancy Vaughan, councilmembers Zack Matheny and Tammi Thurm, Assistant City Manager Nasha McCray and Parks and Recreation Director Phil Fleischmann.

GDPI staff takes care of all the park management, but ultimately the city makes the rules.

“It is city property…We are governed by city rules, we are governed by city ordinances,” White said, adding that GDPI is “just trying to follow along with the ordinances of the literal property owners of the place.”

City Attorney Chuck Watts confirmed that GDPI has to work with the city’s legal staff 5

NEWS | OCT. 19 - NOV. 1, 2023

to finalize any park rules.

White said that GDPI is in the business of making sure the parks are “maintained” and “accessible for everyone.”

“The parks are an inclusive space and they are open to everyone,” she told TCB. “Part of the reason people come to the park is because they need to feel safe,” White added.

White said that the parks are part of a “big safety net” that ensures there are places for people to rest, for people who “might not have a spot to feel safe or a place to use the restroom” to use their facilities. White said that people form a line at the bathrooms around 6-7 a.m.

“We are there making sure that they’re open so that people have a place to do that.

I wish that we could do more, but we’re definitely not a social services agency,” White said.

Despite White’s assertions that the park is for “everyone,” some activists who interface regularly with unhoused individuals see the increased rules around the parks as a way to keep them and unhoused people out of the areas.

allow them to use the park and inhabit the space overnight. They take a “much kinder approach,” Mullenbach said, which is “not looked upon favorably by people” on the Citizens Park Advisory Board or general members of the community.

“You see people sort of wanting to take a more antagonistic approach,” Mullenbach added.

When trying to justify their reasoning for creating rules that make it harder on the unhoused community, Mullenbach said that some cities will say, “Well, we have a city ordinance,” or “These are what the park rules are.”

Mullenbach said that there’s a lot of “leaning on the rules.” For example, people might say that they’re “just enforcing the rules, and the rules are that you can’t occupy the space at night,” Mullenbach said.

Mullenbach added that there’s concern about open drug and alcohol use, violence or just “nuisance behaviors like panhandling or something like that.”

“And so they hide behind the cover of law and policy,” she said.

As TCB reported in 2018, the ACLU and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty brought a legal challenge against the city’s past panhandling ordinance that made it illegal for people to ask others for money. Shortly afterwards, the city repealed the ordinance and the lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed in 2020.

‘A more antagonistic approach’ People like to “wave the flag of safety and drug use and crime and violence as sort itting on a bench in Center City Park, Scott Lynch told TCB that he had of a cover for other more sinister sentiments that they might have,” Mullenbach noted. been sleeping on the sidewalk outside the park for around 90 days.

Mullenbach sees “ideological differences” in “how open public spaces should be and “I’ve got nowhere to go. I mean, I’ve tried to get into the shelter,” he said, how we should treat people that have fewer means.” adding, “They’re at capacity too, I guess.”

GDPI’s Cheryl White said that for the most recent changes to the rules, the Lynch also said that he’s noticed an increase in the city’s unhoused population. organization worked with the city manager and the city attorney to make “two or three He said that while he knows some of the park rules are being broken, he and others very minor” changes. “really ain’t got nowhere to go.”

According to a document sent by White, the organization changed the language of In recent months, elements of what some advocates call “hostile architecture” have the rules to include the prohibition of camping gear such as tents and lanterns, and appeared in the parks along with the new signs. removed language banning sleeping in the parks. The new rules also include a line In February, the city spent a total of $9,589 on metal dividers for some of the stone seating areas in Center City Park. Seating dividers, spikes or balls on areas where about skateboarding, which is now banned inside the parks.

“No Smoking” signs have been erected as well. Those are new, White said, however people could sit or lay, have been dubbed “hostile” due to the fact that their presence there is a designated smoking area in LeBauer Park. makes it impossible for people to rest.

Local organizations that advocate for the unhoused take particular issue with Parks and Recreation Director Phil Fleischmann told TCB that the armrests were installed as a “part of overall improvements to the park,” adding that the city is “taking sections in the new rules regarding charitable distribution, solicitation and commercial steps to address seating, landscaping and other needs” with GDPI. Fleischmann added activity.

Dr. Del Stone has a PhD in History from Emory University and is an organizer with that 10 new benches were installed recently to replace the original wooden benches, the Working-Class and Houseless Alliance in Greensboro. WHOA distributes food to which had deteriorated.

Dr. Lauren Mullenbach is a professor at the University of Oklahoma whose research the unhoused every Saturday, hosts a community meal once a month and distributes focuses on environmental justice issues related to urban land use, as well as public water mid-week during the summertime.

Charitable distribution is not allowed in either park or along Davie Street, because of perceptions of homelessness. In an interview, Mullenbah told TCB that it’s fairly the new rules. Still, White told TCB that they’ve never stopped WHOA from distributing. standard for a city to partner with a nonprofit group to operate its parks.

Stone said that White’s statement is “fairly accurate,” but that WHOA has been told “Pretty often, the city will own the land but not have the capacity to run the park in the past not to distribute in the park and move their operations to Friendly Avenue. system themselves,” she said.

A public records request showed that Guilford Metro 911 received more than 150 This brings a foundation or other type of nonprofit group into play, and they’ll do calls for service at LeBauer Park between Aug. 1, 2021 and Aug. 21 of this year. anything from offering programming and events to landscaping.

“I’ve seen certain cities become more open and welcoming and inclusive of people Police responded to calls that ranged from disorderly conduct, assault, trespassing, that experience homelessness,” Mullenbach said. “And then I’ve seen the cities that “suspicious activity” and more. During the same time frame, Center City Park received have a backlash to that cultural sentiment that people experiencing homelessness are more than 400 calls for service.

LeBauer Park is part of the city’s new Social District, but Center City Park is not. humans that we should treat well.”

The district allows members of the public “You can kind of guess the characteristics to purchase and walk with alcoholic drinks politically of the two different cities that take The benches in Center City Park now while within the boundaries. It includes areas these two different approaches,” she added. have dividing bars on them which prevent of downtown between Gate City Boulevard people from laying down.

Mullenbach said that while a handful of and Smith Street, and appears to cut pretty cities on the West Coast take an inclusive PHOTO BY GALE MELCHER strategically around Center City Park. This approach, some cities in the county’s central January, city councilmembers declined to and southern states “don’t love the cultural turn extend the social district to Center City Park. toward inclusion and belonging of all groups of If you purchase an alcoholic beverage from people in parks.” one of the bars along North Greene Street Mullenbach is currently conducting a and want to enjoy it in LeBauer Park, you can’t study in a smaller Midwestern city where cut through Center City Park to get there. the “park district is trying to be very caring “I think there’s a lot of concern over who in their approach to people who experience is doing the activity, rather than the activity homelessness.” There, the staff make an effort itself being problematic,” Mullenbach stated. to connect the unhoused to resources and As for what Greensboro could be doing to

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6

What led to the rule changes?

J

uly is usually “peak season,” White said. This is when she noticed an “increase in general of people in the park,” and more people means more events, more trash, more maintenance — more park activity in general.

Some people have a negative perception about the parks, White said.

White said that people often assume that trash left in the park is due to the unhoused population and charitable distributions. But it’s often because of an event or something else happening in the park. On a recent occasion, there was an event in the park that had to be abruptly canceled due to inclement weather, White said. Trash cans blew over, their contents spilling. While the team was in the midst of cleaning it up, they received complaints, White said.

Contributors to GDPI seem to have an influence on what goes on within the parks.

In a July 26 email, the Cemala Foundation’s Executive Director Susan Schwartz informed Vaughan and Matheny that the sidewalk near Center City Park looked “terrible.” The Cemala Foundation is a charitable organization that has contributed millions of dollars toward Center City Park.

“There are clothes strewn about, food, food container[s], and more. Very unsightly. I hope you can find someone to clean up the mess,” Schwartz wrote.

Vaughan wrote back to Schwartz saying that she had “noticed an increase in people in the park.”

“One provider did tell me that there might be additional feeding in the park,” Vaughan wrote, adding, “We do need to find an alternate location.”

TCB reached out to Schwartz multiple times for an interview, but did not receive a response.

Regarding the email chain, White told TCB that she gets emails like Schwartz’s “weekly” from “various people.”

This isn’t the first time that emails from powerful people appear to have had an influence on city rules.

On Aug. 21, 2022, Vaughan wrote to former GDPI director Rob Overman with concerns about amplified noise in the parks, which was “very loud and disruptive to anyone in either park...” “[I] know it has a negative impact on the food kiosks at LeBauer,” she added. Vaughan also asked about permits for tents that various groups were setting up for their activities.

In an Aug. 29, 2022 email to Vaughan, Overman wrote, “You are correct, a permit is required to erect a tent within the park boundaries, which this group is occupying.

Ordinarily, groups work with our staff to obtain a permit and go through our process.”

Overman mentioned that the Black Hebrew Israelites, one of the groups in question, tended to “target” LeBauer from the Tanger Center sidewalk. The Black Hebrew Israelites have been labeled as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for their anti-Semitic views.

Overman said that they were “highly combative,” had “threatened” staff, and made “disparaging remarks on multiple occasions.”

“It has reached a point where even park security is afraid to engage them,” Overman wrote.

Overman added that there was another group that had been setting up tents and loud speakers as well, and was “providing haircuts and homeless advocacy.”

“I believe the leader of the group and some others have spoken at city council meetings recently,” Overman wrote, adding that “both groups have been very aggressive and only become more agitated when confronted.”

This email was sent around a month before the council voted in October 2022 to update city ordinances with language that many critics said targeted the unhoused community, including an ordinance that was changed to state that those who use amplified sound using a radio, stereo, CD player or cassette player within 30 feet from

a building would be in violation. One ordinance was changed to state that anyone who leaves objects on the street or in a public space would be charged with a Class 3 misdemeanor and fined a maximum of $50, while another was changed to specify that anyone or object that prevents 36 inches of clear access “to freely pass through a sidewalk, public passageway or entrance or exit to a building” would be charged with a misdemeanor and fined up to $50.

How much funding is GDPI working with?

C

ity records show that GDPI receives an annual contribution of $350,000 from the city, an amount that has remained unchanged since 2016, according to White.

“Nothing else about pricing has stayed the same,” White chuckled.

However, the city has “come in when there were big issues that needed attention,” she said.

The city also contributes funding for utilities, maintenance and repair, and takes care of the security by staffing one guard who monitors both parks 24/7.

In FY 2018-19, this additional funding was $72,504. In FY 2019-20, it was $58,068.

In FY 2020-21, it went down to $47,414. In addition to this, the city provided around $14,000 in labor hours or “in-kind contributions” from the parks and recreation department each year.

Funding from the city doesn’t cover all the expenses to maintain the parks, White said.

According to tax records, GDPI received $692,449 in contributions and grants last year. In 2021, they received $786,837.

“In a good year, there used to be about a $1 million budget,” White said, adding that this year their operating budget is around $880,000.

GDPI’s 2022 annual report shows that 42 percent of their income came from the city and 28 percent came from sponsorship and events. Fundraising supplied 14 percent of their income while another 6 percent came from endowment, grants, etc. GDPI also receives small, individual donations.

GDPI spends a little bit more money on Center City Park due to the fountain upkeep as well as its age. An increase in attendance after the pandemic and a need to replace the turf in the children’s garden added to additional costs. Because of ongoing upkeep, White said that GDPI is “in no way” profiting off of the parks.

“We are really breaking even,” White said, adding, “We’ve had to make some very big cuts, we are low on staff.”

GDPI receives an endowment of around $40,000-$50,000 from the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro, as well as two named sponsorships — LeBauer Park’s Lincoln Financial Children’s Garden and the UNCG Great Lawn. People sponsor programs such as the group dog-training program held in LeBauer Park.

“We’re really trying to do everything we can to make sure that we can manage it as efficiently as possible with the limited resources that we have,” White concluded.

Back at the park, Lynch pointed at all the empty buildings around.

“As far as the Greensboro leaders who are wanting to figure out how they could help out or do something about the homeless — I mean, if they would look around at some of these empty buildings, it would be pretty simple,” he said.

“Open it up, put beds in it,” Lynch said, concluding: “You could probably solve half of this stuff right here.”

NEWS | OCT. 19 - NOV. 1, 2023

make their parks more inclusive, Mullenbach said, “In a perfect world where they just overnight change their minds about homelessness, allowing parks to be open 24/7 is basically the biggest thing you can do. Allowing overnight sleeping, allowing food to be distributed.”

Greensboro’s parks are currently open from 7 a.m.-10 p.m.

Mullenbach also suggested that GDPI could put together fundraising events to raise money so they can have “special programming for unhoused people” or build more overhead shelter such as a gazebo to help protect them from the elements.

Park Rules & Regulations for Center City Park and LeBauer Park Park Hours, Care and Spaces

Park hours are from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. except for approved special events Visitors are not permitted to enter garden beds, prune plants or remove flowers.

Littering is prohibited.

Bubbles, soaps, food and other substances that may negatively impact the park, public health or public safety are not permitted in the fountains or spray grounds.

Park visitors and pets are not permitted in the fountain in Center City Park.

The use of hammocks or camping gear (tents, lanterns, etc.) in the park is prohibited.

7 Erecting structures of any kind is prohibited.

NEWS | OCT. 19 - NOV. 1, 2023

Storing or leaving personal belongings after the park has closed is prohibited.

Large personal belongings including suitcases, storage containers, shopping carts or other art items that obstruct the right of way are not permitted.

Climbing on sculptures, trees and fences is prohibited.

The removal of items from trash receptacles is prohibited.

Defacement or damage of park property or material is prohibited.

Disorderly conduct as identified in NCGS 14-288.4 is prohibited.

Firearms are prohibited except as permitted under NCGS 14-415.11

Children

Adults must accompany and supervise children under the age of 12 at all times.

Adults are not allowed in the Lincoln Financial Children’s Garden unless when accompanied by a child.

The Spin-A-Round is for children ages 12 and under only.

Children must be accompanied by an adult when using the Spin-A-Round.

Animals

Animals must be on a leash at all times, except in the Dog Park.

No more than three dogs per person allowed in the dog park at any time.

Animals are not permitted in the Seasonal Plaza fountain or Children’s Garden with the exception of service animals.

Dog owners must pick up after their dogs.

The riding of animals and/or the molestation of or causing injury to an animal is prohibited.

Substances

Alcoholic beverages are prohibited, except those purchased at LeBauer Park kiosks LeBauer Park kiosk beer and wine may not be taken to Center City Park.

No person shall possess, distribute, sell, solicit or consume marijuana or any controlled substance in the parks.

Smoking is only permitted in the designated smoking area in LeBauer Park.

Distribution, Solicitation and Commercial Activity

Charitable organizations distributing food and supplies are permitted to set up temporarily along Friendly [Avenue] and Elm Street.

In accordance with City ordinances, sidewalks cannot be fully blocked, no tents may be erected and all trash must be promptly removed.

Charitable distribution activities are not permitted in LeBauer Park, Center City Park or along Davie Street.

Commercial activity is allowed by permit only.

Panhandling is prohibited in LeBauer Park and Center City Park.

GPDI must pre-approve flyers. Flyers without approval or posts in undesignated areas are subject to cleanup fees.

Recreation & Vehicles

Events must be pre approved by GDPI staff.

Any activity including equipment setup, marketing/sales or elevated sound/ performance is considered an event.

Outside of pre-approved activity, sound amplifying devices that can be heard at a distance of more than 10 feet are not permitted.

Motorized recreational vehicles, including scooters, skateboards and bikes are prohibited.

Non-motorized bicycling, skateboarding or rollerblading, scooters or any other offroad transportation are permitted on paved surfaces only. Users must practice safe riding at all times and dismount in crowded areas.

Remote control cars, boats, helicopters, planes, etc. are prohibited.

Aerial drones are prohibited unless approved by GDPI staff and maneuvered by licensed pilots.

Fires, barbecuing, outdoor cooking or any other open flame are prohibited Skateboarding is prohibited inside the parks.

Failure to comply with these rules and regulations may result in a warning, citation, 8 expulsion or arrest. Park rules and regulations are subject to change without notice.

Crystal Towers elevator-installation saga continues

PLACEHOLDER

NEWS | OCT. 19 - NOV. 1, 2023

NEWS

by Gale Melcher | gale@triad-city-beat.com

T

he installation of Crystal Tower’s first of two new elevators is still on track.

Both of the elevators were old, finicky and desperately needed to be replaced.

Crews have cleared out the first old elevator and cast the remnants aside in front of the building.

The sole elevator car in service is what stands between elderly and disabled residents being lifted to and from their floors and having to take the stairs.

Pieces of the new elevator are in a box outside the building, awaiting assembly.

So to what extent has the elevator been assembled?

“It’s more about infrastructure – think ropes, engines, electrical components, wiring,” HAWS Executive Director Kevin Cheshire stated in an email to Triad City Beat, noting that the car itself is pretty basic.

“So there’s not much ‘assembly’ per se,” added Cheshire, “But, as far as the process, core drilling has been completed and roping is underway.”

The fifth week of work started on Monday and the last day of work is set for Nov. 22, according to a preliminary schedule from Cheshire.

Then another 12 weeks of work on the next car will begin.

9

OPINION | OCT. 19 - NOV. 1, 2023

OPINION

EDITORIAL This Halloween, truth is scarier than fiction

W

itches, ghosts and goblins, yeah, and undead creatures that slowly stalk you in the night.

by Brian Clarey But nothing is more terrifying this Halloween that the slate of measures passed by the North Carolina Legislature this session. They’ve expanded their powers, minimized competition, enabled secrecy and looting of public coffers for private gain, basically setting the table for a vise grip of unchecked authority that will only tighten while the majority party remains in control of bad actors.

Let’s first look at elections. This month, the NC Legislature overturned a veto on two elections bills that allows them to appoint the State Board of Elections, as opposed to the governor, which has always been the case. One of them changes the way we count votes — now, absentee ballots not received by Election Day will not be counted, removing a 3-day grace period for ballots with the proper postdate.

We move towards a dictatorship in small increments like these.

A bigger deal is the law written into the budget bill that exempts members of the General Assembly from NC public records law — the statute that we use to report on elected officials’ behind-the-scenes behavior and how they do business. So not only does the NC Legislature have more power than ever, they have the benefit of secrecy when using it.

To go along with power and secrecy, they have govern themselves some muscle.

Also in the budget bill is the creation of the Joint Legislative Commission on Govermental Operations — GovOps for short — a new investigative arm of the legislature helmed by the political leaders in each chamber, which right now are Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) and House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Cleveland). According to the new law, they can call an investigation on any governmental agency, at any time, for any reason and then bring it to a hearing.

There is no oversight on this “secret police” force, save for the two men who are now the most powerful people in the history of the state.

They can overturn an election, investigate their enemies, hide their motivations and act without fear of retaliation. I’d take the witches, ghosts and goblins over this mess any day of the week.

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CULTURE | OCT. 19 - NOV. 1, 2023

CULTURE

Spooky, Scary Skeletons

Liz fitzpatrick’s 12-foot skeleton has its own instagram account.

PHOTO BY CAROLYN DE BERRY

The story behind some of the Triad’s most elaborate Halloween houses Liz Fitzpatrick

by Sayaka Matsuoka sayaka@triad-city-beat.com

P

ossessed babies. A crashed UFO. A demonic scarecrow. And of course, the iconic 12-foot skeletons from Home Depot.

These are just a few of the decorations that grace the yards of some of the most elaborate Halloween houses in the Triad.

And this year, we caught up with the owners of five houses to ask what goes into planning such involved horrorscapes and what they love most about the scariest (and I daresay, most fun) holiday of the year.

12

GREENSBORO

The 400 block of N. Cedar St. Favorite candy: Reese’s Cup or Snickers Liz Fitzpatrick’s 12-foot skeleton, Skellan Skarsyärd, has his own Instagram account.

“Just a normal, #12footskeleton in Greensboro looking for new friends,” his bio reads. “Likes: cosplay and selfies with strangers. Dislikes: HOAs and Halloween-haters.”

It’s an account that Fitzpatrick, who has lived in College Hill for 20 years, started earlier this year after finally getting

Heather Hogan & Catherine Geary

The corner of Courtland St. and Crestland Ave. Favorite candy: “I like it all.” - Heather; “I just like sugar.” Catherine For years, the tradition for Heather Hogan and Catherine Geary was to take their kids trick-or-treating and then go to Westerwood Tavern afterwards.

“We would all take Fireball shots,” Hogan says. “But we stopped bringing the kids when they were like 10 or 12 years old.”

Prior to the pandemic, the two friends and neighbors would also have a party at Geary’s house the week before Halloween. But when the pandemic hit, they decided to funnel all of their energy into one event: decorating the hell out of Hogan’s house.

“We take the entire week off Heather Hogan and Catherine Geary work,” Geary says. take a week off of work to get their It’s a lot because the two have home ready for Halloween. individually collected so many PHOTO BY CAROLYN DE BERRY decorations over the years, and

her hands on one of her one “12-footers” as the Halloween community calls them.

While she has almost always decorated her house for Halloween, she says 2020 was the first year she went out and bought an expensive decoration — an inflatable sandworm and a large Beetlejuice. She tried to buy a 12-foot skeleton that year, too but Home Depot had quickly sold out. The next two years, Fitzpatrick made sure to stalk the website until she finally got to bring Skellan home last summer.

“It’s been up in my yard the whole time for a year,” she says.

He’ll go through outfit changes, like in the spring he had a flower crown and held a single red flower, while in the summer he had a red and blue pinwheel, a Jaws tank top and a pool tube around his waist.

This year for Halloween, she’s thinking of dressing him up as a medical examiner, inspired by Reanimator. It’ll match the overall theme of her decorations, which will draw from Fitzpatrick’s job as a nurse.

“I don’t scare easily but I get lots of inspiration from the crazy, funny, strange things that happen without violating HIPAA,” she says.

In addition to the sandworm, Beetlejuice and Skellan, Fitzpatrick says she’s got half a dozen human-sized skeletons, string lights and a digital projection that her husband, Sam, helps install. Her favorite? The skeletons.

“They’re so fun,” she says. “They’re poseable, you can put clothes on them; you can do all sort of things with them. It’s like having giant Barbie dolls to play with.”

That joyful spirit extends past Fitpatrick’s yard and into her neighborhood too. On Halloween night, people come by to tell her that they “had to stop at the skeleton house.” They’ll laugh and take pictures with Skellan.

“That’s what’s fun to me,” she says. “That’s still my favorite part. Being home, seeing people out, and seeing and hearing trick-or-treaters, knowing that that’s still a thing that they do; I hope that doesn’t go away.” now they have to find a way to fit it all in one yard. Eventually, the decorations spill out of Hogan’s yard and onto the neighborhood sidewalk. But her neighbors don’t seem to mind, she says.

“If I’m introducing myself to anyone in the neighborhood, I’ll say I live at the Halloween house and they immediately know what I’m talking about,” Hogan says.

They have a collection of clowns, skeletons, bloody stuff, zombies, ghosts. This year, they’re working on curating their creepy doll collection.

“We try to get a little bit of everything,” Geary says.

But the most impressive part of their joint venture is probably the tunnels that they set up through Hogan’s yard for people to walk through.

“They’re like little haunted houses,” Hogan explains.

They’ll also have not one, but two 12-footers this year, something that Hogan splurged on after trying to get her hands on one for three years.

And even with so many decorations, the two say they try to hold back some until the night of Halloween.

“It’s so people who have come out before are surprised,” Hogan explains.

“We’re putting stuff up until the day of,” Geary adds.

While some houses want everyone to just have a good time and bring joy to kids and adults alike, the goal for Geary

CULTURE | OCT. 19 - NOV. 1, 2023

is a little… different.

“My goal every year is to make at least one kid really terrified,” she says. “Maybe cry, peeing their pants, running away. Any of these is acceptable.”

One year, they even had one of their husbands out in the yard chasing people around with a chainless chainsaw.

“Maybe that was a little much,” Hogan

laughs.

This year they’re hoping to add more sensory experiences to the landscape like spiderwebs that people have to walk through or noises that scare people.

“We claimed it as our holiday at some point,” Hogan says. “Some people love KChristmas; we love Halloween.”

KERNERSVILLE Ursula (Kelly) Bone

Off of Old Winston Rd. Favorite candy: Butterfingers As a child, Ursula Bone spent a lot of time living on a military base. Her dad was in the Navy and her mom was in the Army, so she spent a lot of Halloweens celebrating with people from around the country.

“Halloween was a massive staple for the Navy,” she says. “Everyone wanted to scare the kids, they wanted to decorate.”

The neighborhoods where the families lived lit up as house after house transformed from living quarters to haunted houses. There would be firebreathers, trick-or-treaters, the works.

“It was like what you saw in the movies,” she says.

When Bone bought her own house in Kernersville a few years ago, she set her sights on recreating that same magic in her own yard. The first big investment she made was in 2021 when she bought a large skeleton boatman who shuttles the dead down a river. At just 8 feet, he’s not quite as large as the 12-footers, but she was excited nonetheless. That is, until he arrived and didn’t work. His face didn’t light up; he didn’t talk. But that didn’t deter Bone. Instead, she doubled down. The next year, she hit the jackpot when she found a military family selling a bunch of their decorations on Facebook marketplace. From them, she got two 12-footers, one inferno man, two plant

Ashley Cobbler Pearson

Off of Quail Hollow Rd. in the Pine Knolls neighborhood Favorite candy: Fun-size Butterfingers Ashley Cobber Pearson has always loved to dress up. She did tap dancing, ballet and jazz as a child and had crazy costumes for Halloween. In college, she delved more into the makeup side of costumes and eventually ended up working on the makeup team at Woods of Terror for years. One year, she played a sea witch whose face was half ripped off in the midway section of the attraction.

monsters, two 8-foot skeletons and one more animatronic.

“It just got bigger,” she says, “and this year it is out of control..

She got two more 12-footers — for a grand total of four! — a 20-foot inflatable pumpkin guy, a Mars Attacks alien, a ghoul that breathes fog and an 8-foot witch.

Then, her husband found another 14foot flying witch and two more skeletons at Goodwill.

“The Halloween gods didn’t think we had enough decorations,” she jokes.

With that many decorations, it’s hard to come up with a theme but Bone says she has a pretty tight narrative in her head.

“This year, the 8-foot witch put a spell on everything and she made an evil pumpkin patch and made the skeletons rise from the dead,” she says. “Basically the whole front yard is a party. The witches put a hex on everything and now they’re having a grand party because they won the battle of Halloween. Oh, and Mars Attacks, he’s protecting the pumpkin patch.”

Even though they don’t get a lot of trick-or-treaters because of where they’re located, Bone says she hopes her decorations bring that sense of wonder and joy she felt when she was younger.

“Growing up, Halloween really brought everyone together,” she says. “That’s what we wanted to bring back. Turning adults into little kids. It’s like when it snows, you turn into a little kid again.”

She has a pinup pumpkin tattoo on her forearm and when she had her first baby a few weeks ago, she dressed him up as a pumpkin.

“I’m thinking about it year-round,” Pearson says about the holiday.

It’s funny, she says, because she was raised conservatively, but when she moved into a house with a yard for the first time last year, she felt like she could finally let her freak flag fly.

She got her hands on a 12-foot skeleton, which she dresses up yearround. They also have an inferno skeleton,

Ursula Bone has four 12-fooot skeletons in her Kernersville yard.

PHOTO BY JERRY COOPER

13

CULTURE | OCT. 19 - NOV. 1, 2023

a werewolf, a mummy and a scarecrow — all 12-footers.

For the baby shower, they put a big tank top on the skeleton that read “Becoming a Big Bro” and brought him into the clubhouse where women asked to take pictures with him.

“Everything is surrounding Halloween,” she says.

This year, her husband Andrew, who Pearson says is almost more obsessed with the holiday than she is, worked to create a UFO crash scene in their front yard. They took an old umbrella that someone had thrown away and added green lights around it.

“You can see it from half a mile away,” she says.

Even though they live in a neighborhood

with lots of kids, Pearson says that their house is one of the only ones that goes all out with decorations. Because of that they’ve become known around the neighborhood as the “skeleton house.” A few weeks ago, a woman dropped off a box of decorations on their front porch that had two wall sconces — one with a vampire being stabbed in the heart — because she thought Pearson would like them.

Now with her son, River, Pearson hopes to pass on the love of the holiday to the next generation.

“I hope that he doesn’t mind that mommy puts makeup on him,” she laughs.

“He’ll be a zombie one year. I hope that he gets into it as much as I do.”

Ashley Cobbler Pearson has an array of costumes for her 12-foot skeleton.

PHOTO BY JERRY COOPER

PFAFFTOWN Stacy and Frank Chase spend October weekends reasearching other haunted houses to stay up with their game.

PHOTO BY JERRY COOPER

14

Stacy & Frank Chance

In the Grandview Place neighborhood in Pfafftown Favorite candy: Peanut butter taffies (Stacy), Kit-Kats (Frank) Stacy and Frank Chance take DIYing to a whole other level.

The first year it was just some tombstones and a few pumpkins. But by 2016, Frank was taking measurements of their front door and making a clown head to go around it. He built a 7-foot mannequin and a ticket booth while Stacy went out and bought a giant cotton-candy machine.

That year’s theme? Haunted Carnival.

Since then, the Halloween-obsessed couple have made UFOs out of sheet metal and plywood, aliens, a full-blown pirate ship and walls made of pumpkins.

After they finish the holiday, they don’t have anywhere to store it so the decorations often get sold on Facebook Marketplace, Stacy says.

The giant UFO Frank built was bought by a guy who owned a paintball field, while the light-up “Freak Show” sign was installed in a tattoo parlor.

“We use it for Halloween and other people use it for something else,” Frank says.

The love affair with the holiday started with Frank, he admits.

“I was the one that was super into Halloween at first, but over the years she’s gotten into it,” he says. “Now inside our house, every table, every window is set for Halloween. It’s become a thing that we enjoy celebrating together.”

She’s even planning and plotting by perusing Pinterest throughout the years.

Then she’ll pose the idea to Frank who’ll

think of plans to build the creations.

This year, the two have installed a haunted pumpkin patch with a bunch of skeletons and a spooky tree. And, of course, one 12-footer.

“One thing we learned is that you really need a giant storage shed,” Frank says.

“For some reason, I think our yard is just gigantic; it is not.”

The two also spend almost every weekend in October visiting different haunted houses and trails across the state for fun, but also for information gathering.

Eventually, the two hope to have a mini haunted house in their backyard. But for now, something else occupies that space.

A few years ago, Stacy had the idea for Frank to cut out a giant Bigfoot out of plywood. They placed him in the backyard and then Stacy went out and printed flyers.

“We created a phone number and posted them at the Dollar General, the Food Lion, the gas station,” she says. “They said, ‘Pfafftown, if you see something, say something.’ And they had a picture of the Bigfoot.”

Soon, they started getting calls.

“People would call and say, ‘I saw it!,’” Stacy says.

Well that’s probably because Frank would get up every morning at around 5 a.m. and move Bigfoot to another location in his backyard. Eventually, he had roped in neighbors and asked them if he could put the behemoth in their yards, too. And that’s kind of how the couple approaches Halloween as well.

“It’s become a whole neighborhood celebration,” Frank says.

And about next year?

“We’re already talking about next Halloween,” he says.

Like Disney, but Make it Bloody

Spookywoods is open on select days through Nov. 4, including on Halloween night.

Learn more at spookywoods.com.

After 30 years, Spookywoods pivots with a fresh vision and iconic new scares

by Autumn Karen | autumn@triad-city-beat.com

F

CULTURE | OCT. 19 - NOV. 1, 2023

CULTURE

eet shuffle at a steady pace on the lightless path, scattering rocks into the brush on either side of the trail as we leave the glow of the massive ICONS sign and the safety of our ride far behind. Every step takes us further from the familiar, into the tangled and seemingly remote forest. Ahead, a glint of water and the sounds of screams both draw us further while imploring our souls to flee the coming nightmare.

There’s no turning back now.

“I like to say we are virtual reality,” Spookywoods owner Tony Wohlgemuth tells me as we come closer to a ramshackle wooden building.

Inside, visitors to the Kersey Valley Spookywoods are swarmed by actors, special effects and realistic props that put brave thrill-seekers right in the center of iconic horror stories. This new section, the first to call up classic horror in the more than 30 years that Spookywoods has been scaring visitors, is a feat of design, production and immersive theater that showcases the experience and expertise of the staff and creatives here.

The whole operation involves around 180 actors and performers, with 75 people keeping the magic going behind the scenes. The world here is massive: 15 uniquely themed buildings, a cornfield laser maze, tram rides — all on 92 acres in Archdale that feel wholly cut off from the rest of the world. Walking through the behind-the-scenes areas offers a sense of the scale of the place that you don’t see during the often claustrophobic maze of frightening scenes.

To call this place a “haunted house” doesn’t quite capture it. It’s more Disney-esque, except with buckets of blood.

Starting with “Fear Camp” prior to the season, the team at Spookywoods trains their performers in safety, acting, guest interaction and stamina. Since its inception in 1985, the team has constantly evolved its methods to improve how they work with their talent.

Post-pandemic, the dynamic of working has shifted everywhere, including in the asylums and crumbling facades of the haunted-attractions business. Last year, Wohlgemuth found himself in a rough place as Spookywoods hemorrhaged performers through October. By the end of the season, down to just 64 actors, he had to put on a costume and start scaring guests himself. Things had to change; he needed to imbue this place with a deeper sense of purpose. Why would you come work hard in a heavy costume for hours when you could work at McDonald’s for less stress?

To do that, Tony implemented a system of training and monthly gatherings for performers and staff that went well beyond the spooky season. Giveaways and team-building has built a stronger community than ever before, which Tony hopes will extend the culture that he’s created with his longtime workers to temporary employees. A three-strikes rule makes expectations clear for seasonal hires, who must be at least 16 years old.

Clare Williams has been with Spookywoods for 14 seasons, starting off in high school as a guide on the zipline before transitioning to behind-the-scenes operations in various seasonal and year-round attractions. After graduating from college and moving to Wilmington to work

Yo call Spookywoods a ‘haunted house’ dpoesn;t quite capture it.

PHOTO BY CAROLYN DE BERRY

with the Army Corp of Engineers, she’s continued to come back every weekend to work at Spookywoods. She’ll make the three-hour drive every Friday this year as well, getting home around midnight on Sunday before heading to work on Monday.

“They work hard to create something awesome,” she says of Tony and his wife Donna.

Employees like Williams are an essential part of that hard work, Tony says.

While Williams does everything from training staff to cleaning toilets, her bucket list job is to take a turn as a midway performer on stilts. The midway performers have a difficult task, as they are in the center of crowds, who have a 360 degree view of them at all times.

This first section of the park also includes food offerings like Bubbling Eudora’s Brew, applecider donuts, craft beer and fair-style main courses. Club Spooky plays DJ-fueled, live performance beats.

All of that is only a primer for the horror that comes later.

Artistic Director Olivia Tippett helps create the sea of original characters as well as the classic additions that were introduced this year. Her shop is packed to bursting with costumes, masks and props that look gruesome even in the afternoon light. Fangs, caustic lacerations, wrinkles and hanging eyeballs in masks line a high shelf along the entire perimeter of the shop, watching her work. Smiling, she talks while hand-sewing a bloodstained pair of ripped pants.

“I like to listen to the performers and collaborate with them on their characters,” she says.

Actors at Spookywoods have ownership of who they become. They work with artistic staff under Tippett ‘s direction to infuse their own idiosyncrasies into who they’ll become for hours every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. How much physical work they can handle is part of the equation, as the work to entertain 800-1000 guests per hour is a heavy lift.

It’s not just young people behind the scenes. The range of people who come here to do something unexpected and creative is itself unexpected. Casting began in February with open auditions, and new performers are brought in as the need arises.

Families come here to scare together. Often, multiple generations come to work at Spookywoods. In one recent case, there’s a young woman scaring folks, her mother working with guests and her grandfather loading the tram.

This year, Spookywoods hired a local professor with a PhD who came to audition. Matt Patterson was a professional chef for 20 years before he decided to try his hand at making his own Halloween mask. Three years later, he left the kitchen for the world of blood and gore.

He’s now a full-time freelance effects artist and performer who’s been with Spookywoods for many years.

This year, Patterson practiced his craft blindfolded in the woods at the ICONS exhibit in the middle of the night. Wandering amongst the trees, he wears a wetsuit and a mask in the dark every night. And even though it’ll be cold and Patterson might be uncomfortable after hours of roaming in the dark, it’s the thrill of the scare that keeps him and the other actors going.

“You have to embody the character,” he says. “You have to own it. You have to live it.”

15

CULTURE | OCT. 19 - NOV. 1, 2023

CULTURE A childhood dream come true:

Dan Dos Santos spent more than 10,000 hours creating his Marvel deck.

PHOTO BY CAROLYN DE BERRY

Greensboro artist Dan Dos Santos created 137 paintings for the official 2022 Marvel Masterpieces trading card set

by Sayaka Matsuoka | sayaka@triad-city-beat.com

F

Learn more about Dan Dos Santos, including how to take his painting classes, at dandossantos. com. To support his art and have a chance to bid on the works, visit his Patreon at patreon.com/ DandosSantos.

When artist Dan Dos Santos was about 14 years old, he would go to his local comic book store and buy a pack of Marvel Masterpieces trading cards. It was the first time he was introduced to comic book art that had been painted, and it changed his life trajectory.

“They were the reason I wanted to start painting in the first place,” Dos Santos recalls. “They were so real and impressive. I knew it was something I wanted to do.”

One of the cards that Dos Santos remembers collecting was that of Psylocke, a superhero who touts telepathic and telekinetic powers and is commonly associated with the X-Men. In the original 1992 card, Psylocke was pictured with long, swirling black hair that circled her torso and her arms up, holding two swords — one in front of her body and one behind her. These days, the card sells for about $20 on eBay because it was given away as a freebie in Wizard magazine. Still, Dos Santos’ early exposure to artist Joe Jusko’s cards — of which there were originally 100 — made it possible for him to envision a career in illustration. Now, 20 years later, Dos Santos’ love of those Marvel trading cards has come full circle.

While the rest of the world binged episodes of “Ted Lasso” and learned to bake sourdough during the pandemic, Dos Santos spent hours — about 10,192 hours if calculated (14 hours a day, seven days a week for two years) — holed away in his home studio painting 137 original works for the official 2022 Marvel Masterpieces set. The pack was released on Aug. 10.

Dos Santos, who lives in Greensboro with his wife and kids, is a known quantity in the illustration world. He’s spent years painting book covers for fantasy and sci-fi series like the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Biggs and covers for Brandon Sanderson’s novels. Dozens of his covers have reached the No. 1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list.

Even so, Dos Santos says that this batch of paintings was the most difficult ones to produce, mainly because of the time crunch.

“I made 137 paintings in a two-year period,” Dos Santos says. “I normally do about 20 paintings a year, so this was about six years of work I crammed into under two years.”

He says he’s still going through physical therapy to undo the damage. It wasn’t his hands or arms that suffered, he says. It was the sitting.

“My body was not used to sitting and not getting outdoors,” he says.

Still, the opportunity was impossible to pass up.

“It was quite literally my childhood dream job,” Dos Santos says.

He explains that due to his name recognition in the industry, Marvel execs reached 16 out to him a few years ago to paint a new set of cards for 2022. And that was because

in 2016, the original artist of the Marvel Masterpieces, Joe Jusko, rekindled the brand by doing an anniversary set.

The cards are standard trading card size: 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches. But the paintings themselves ranged in size. For some, Dos Santos would paint on a canvas that was about 10 inches by 14 inches while for others, he’d scale up.

Those tended to be his favorites because he was able to add more detail. For example, Dos Santos’ piece of Spider-Man shows Peter Parker dead center, pulling on his iconic mask. His face is mostly covered by the mask, with only his chin and neck exposed. In the sepia-toned background, faces and scenes from Parker’s life fill the rest of the canvas. Mary Jane’s face sits in the upper right corner while Gwen Stacy is captured in action in the bottom left as she runs out towards the viewer, her right hand reaching out past the canvas. In the upper left corner, Aunt May and Uncle Ben embrace with their eyes closed. Villains Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus also make an appearance.

“I wanted to encompass more than what a traditional card does,” Dos Santos explains about the composition. “Usually they’re just pin-ups, but for these I wanted to embody who the whole character is. For Spider-Man, I wanted to show him doing more than just swinging around town…. I wanted to show that these are all the reasons why SpiderMan puts on his mask everyday.”

That painting and the one of Captain America, which shows three kids standing in front of a poster of Cap taped on a brick wall and saluting him a la Norman Rockwell, are ones that Dos Santos says he’s most proud of. Each one took about five days to complete. Not only are they the most complex, but they speak to the larger reason why superheroes continue to resonate with people today, he says.

“They’re kind of like our modern Greek mythology,” Dos Santos says. “They represent some sort of ideal of a human emotion.”

For the most part, Dos Santos says he was given creative liberty to paint the iconic heroes the way he wanted to. But because of licensing rules, he couldn’t show guns pointed at the viewers, any blood or rips in the costumes. That made painting Wolverine particularly difficult.

The other tough part was finding ways to put his own spin on the highly recognizable characters that are so beloved by fans throughout the world.

“It was a weird conundrum,” Dos Santos says. “I spent a lot of time thinking about how to do something new and innovative, but then I just came to the conclusion that I just want to do me…. And after I started to embrace my own version of the characters,

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I ended up making them more original anyways.”

His other favorites include the card of Jubilee, a mutant from X-Men, who his niece posed for. The card shows a straightforward portrait of the character with her hair cropped short and her signature pink glasses.

By now, most of the original paintings that Dos Santos painted for the set have been sold to various collectors from around the world, many of whom he invited to his house for a private showing.

The top seller? The Spider-Man painting which sold for $50,000 at public sale. Dos Santos says the amount broke a record for the largest amount for a Marvel card painting sold on the open market, and it’s the most he’s ever been paid for a single work.

The cards themselves are sold three to a pack with 12 packs in a box. One box costs about $900 on the market, he says.

And while that’s cool to see, Dos Santos also wishes that they were more accessible to kids who want to collect just like he did.

“I was hoping to inspire the next generation like that 1992 set did for me,” he says.

Eventually, Dos Santos hopes that Marvel or Upper Deck, the company that printed the cards, creates a book of the paintings.

For now, he’s keeping a few of the works including the one of Jubilee, a painting of Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy, and the one of Captain America.

“It’s meant to be a family heirloom,” he says.

He’s hoping that his kids, who are about the age that he was when he started collecting cards, hold onto his work as they get older. And looking back, Dos Santos says he’s proud of every single piece he created for the set.

“If you asked 13-year-old Dan what his dream job was, it was to paint this set,” Dos Santos says. “And I’m proud of it…. I didn’t release a single card that I’m not 100 percent proud of.”

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SUDOKU

by Matt Jones

Across

1. Tourney winner 6. Reaction to a sock 9. One and the other 13. Shot blocker 14. “Cool” amount of cash 15. 100 cents, in France 16. Like someone who spent a day at the beach without sunblock, maybe 19. Challenging kids 20. Character with multiple actors in a 2023 movie 21. “Reboot” actor ___-Michael Key 22. Piece of neckwear 23. Spectra maker 24. Cafe customers 25. On-camera audition 28. See, that’s the thing 30. Bach’s “Minuet ___ Major” 31. Animal abode 33. Twisted, like a smile 34. Like distracting objec--hey, what’s that?

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61. Stage item 62. College, in Canberra

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63. Spasms of pain 64. Tax form IDs 65. Reason for some rental deposits 66. Cher’s late spouse

Down

1. Of epic proportions 2. Lee who created Boo Radley 3. Pub orders 4. Average, these days 5. Getting high?

6. Its flag features a curved dagger 7. Just Stop ___ (U.K. protest group) 8. Fluffy ‘70s area rug 9. Get noticed 10. Gotten too big for 11. What an “X” may mark 12. Rhino’s feature 13. Walking styles 17. Senator’s spot 18. Make a wager 23. Uganda neighbor 24. Old Testament twin 26. German article 27. Ditch to get hitched 29. Greek goddess of night 32. Blows a fuse 34. Academic inst.

35. Indianans 36. Take advantage of 37. Football measurement 39. Say yes, but quieter 42. Accelerate 43. Characteristics 45. Drinks broth loudly 47. Word before contained or reflection 48. Best Actress winner for “Monster” 49. Cardinal under Henry VIII 50. Looks at creepily 52. Ending of sugar names 55. Baseball honorees, briefly 56. “By the looks ___...”

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