The
Modular Model A local homebuilder hung up his hard hat. Now, he grows and sells produce out of a shipping container. The Modular Model Raleigh | Durham | Chapel Hill August 31, 2022
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2 August 31, 2022 INDYweek.com Raleigh W Durham W Chapel Hill VOL. 39 NO. 35 COVER Photo by Brett Villena | Design by Jon Fuller PUBLISHER John Hurld EDITORIAL Editor in Chief Jane Porter Arts & Culture Editor Sarah Edwards Managing Editor Geoff West Staff Writers Jasmine Gallup Lena ThomasiGellerMcDonald Copy Editor Iza Wojciechowska INDY Week | indyweek.com P.O. Box 1772 • Durham, N.C. 27702 919-695-4848 EMAIL ADDRESSES first initial[no space]last name@indyweek.com W E M A D E T H I S Interns Hannah Kaufman, Mari Fabian, Caryl Espinoza Jaen Contributors Madeline Crone, Grant Golden, Spencer Griffith, Lucas Hubbard, Brian Howe, Lewis Kendall, Kyesha Jennings, Glenn McDonald, Nick McGregor, Gabi Mendick, Dan Ruccia, Rachel Simon, Harris Wheless CREATIVE Creative Director Nicole Pajor Moore Graphic Designer Jon Fuller Staff Photographer Brett Villena Contents © 2022 ZM INDY, LLC All rights reserved. Material may not be reproduced without permission. ADVERTISING Publisher John Hurld Sales Digital Director & Classifieds Mathias Marchington CIRCULATION Berry Media Group ADVERTISING SALES Durhamadvertising@indyweek.com 919-286-1972 Classifieds 919-286-6642 CONTENTS THE REGULARS 3 Backtalk | Op-ed 16 Culture Calendar 4 Quickbait 6NEWS How Raleigh resident Trevor Spear traded homebuilding for modular farming out of a pair of shipping containers. BY LENA GELLER 8 Before a trial gets under way for a Wake County man charged with murder, a judge will determine whether he could fairly receive the death penalty. BY THOMASI MCDONALD 10 A rezoning for several tall buildings in North Hills would bring needed density, but the Kane proposal is drawing nearby neighbors' ire. BY JASMINE GALLUP ARTS & CULTURE 12 Tap dance star Luke Hickey returns to the Triangle to headline the American Dance Festival's fall weekend season at NCMA. BY BYRON WOODS 13 Six months after ending a strike, former Acme workers celebrate a National Labor Review Board win. BY LENA GELLER 14 An invigorating new Roy Lichtenstein exhibition at the Nasher tells the story of the dawn of Pop Art—and the artist's hectic-sounding life. BY BRIAN HOWE Sir Woman performs at Cat's Cradle Back Room Wednesday, Aug. 31. (see calendar, page 16.) PHOTO COURTESY OF CAT'S CRADLE
“Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is a no win for voters and a sure loss for any hope at helping public schools,” wrote Facebook commenter GLENN MAUGHAN.
As I write this, the Inflation Reduction Act has passed in the Senate and looks set to be enacted. This is a major win for all Americans, regardless of party, but the Sen ate vote tally doesn’t reflect that. Both Democrats and Republicans agree on the need for deficit reduction. This bill does it. Both parties advocate a fairer tax code. This bill does it. Both parties say we need to lower prescription drug prices. This bill does it. However, there is virtually no Republican support in Congress for this bill, all while many Republican voters support the contents.
“I’m intrigued by this. Schools in general—pub lic & private—often fail our students w/disabilities. I used to work at a local center that supported kids w/ learning differences & these kids were being let down by their schools—including ‘good’ schools like East Chapel Hill. What often happened was that families w/resources either ended up homeschooling their stu dents or sending to elite private schools like Durham Academy where they got a lot of personal attention. But even private schools didn’t know what they’re doing—& some would not admit students w/learn ing differences because they couldn’t (wouldn’t) help them. Which of course is why we need well resourced public schools—so everyone can learn & be served. Unfortunately many public schools just aren’t able to meet kids where they are at either. It’s brutal. I hope we can examine how our schools fail our students with disabilities & have conversation on how to remedy this. (And then maybe at some point we should talk about how EC [exceptional children] classrooms too often become the place that teachers push out rowdy kids to, kids who don’t need an IEP [individualized educa tion program] or services necessarily and don’t belong in EC. And you guessed it, these kids are often Black & brown boys. Anyways that’s a whole separate rant …).”
CABKTALK
T he American people are fed up with modern-day politics, and rightly so. It’s constant fighting, screaming, argu ing, and too little focus on the issues families are facing at our kitchen tables. Today, if you read Republican politi cians’ op-eds and social media posts, and watch their cable news appearanc es, you’ll find a common theme: rooting for It’sfailure.time to ask, “What is the Repub lican Party’s platform, where are its pol icy proposals, and what are its solutions to address our shared challenges?” An obsession with waging manufac tured culture wars and little to no attention on the eco nomic, health, and education challenges facing families reveals a bankruptcy of ideas within the modern-day GOP.
“It is critical that we maintain a free marketplace of ideas with space for good disagreement.”faith
The Safer Communities Act, which passed after the horrific mass shooting in Uvalde, was the first meaning ful movement on gun laws in nearly 30 years. The act is packed with broadly popular, commonsense policies meant to keep kids safe.
W
Let’s stop rooting for failure.
Parents, no matter their politics, want to know when they hug their children on their way to school it won’t be the last time. But that didn’t stop most Republicans in Congress from voting no on this school safety law.
O P - E D
Infrastructure investment has been something both parties have pursued for decades. Today, we have a mean ingful down payment on badly needed repairs and new projects thanks to the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act that passed last year. Once again, most congressional Republicans opposed it. This is the clearest and simplest example of obstruction for obstruction’s sake.
BY MICHAEL K. GARRETT backtalk@indyweek.com
A Bankruptcy of Ideas
“He’s such a bad human,” concludes commenter MARTI BRAUER Not unrelatedly, we republished a story from partner newsroom NC Policy Watch about a Cary charter school’s citation for failing to serve disabled students. Twitter commenter @CAROLINA27712 had a lot of thoughts on the report:
Another thought from commenter AMY JAY: “This is the way many Charters are. Nothing surprising here. It is just a way to segregate kids.”
INDYweek.com August 31, 2022 3
Republican politician’s bias toward rooting for failure, but I’m out of space. I don’t raise this issue for political gain or to point a finger at particular elect ed officials. I raise it because I believe it is critical that we maintain a free mar ketplace of ideas with space for goodfaith disagreement. If one side choos es to simply root for failure instead of engaging in healthy debate, then that marketplace, and our democracy, fails. Going forward, let’s ask our elected leaders and candidates for their ideas and solutions. Let’s not simply accept what they are against. No more rooting for failure. Let’s root for our success, even when we disagree.
Last week for the web, Lena Geller wrote about a roundtable hosted by Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and Wake County Rep. Erin Paré, where they and other conservative wonks touted “parental rights” and bemoaned the “decline” of public schools. This from the guy who thinks history and science shouldn’t be taught at the elementary school level. Our readers had thoughts.
Michael K. Garrett is a Democratic state senator from Guilford County.
WANT TO SEE YOUR NAME IN BOLD? indyweek.com backtalk@indyweek.com @INDYWeekNC @indyweek
There are many other examples of the modern-day
PHOTO BY SORA SHIMAZAKI
$25,000$9,000$10,000$5,000$6,000$7,000$8,000$4,000$3,000$2,000$1,000$0
4 August 31, 2022 INDYweek.com In the race for Wake County school board, District 7 candidate Jacob Arthur is making a surprising leap forward in spending. The Republican has spent the most out of the 29 candidates vying for the nine district seats, with a total of $8,684. Arthur also tops the charts for money in the bank with more than $20,000. Several incumbents also have hefty war chests, although they’ve spent less than Arthur so far. District 7 board member Chris Heagarty has $18,579 on hand, followed by chair Lindsay Mahaffey, with $14,336, in DistrictConservative8. activist Robert Luddy is also making his dollars count with large donations to Republican candidates. Luddy, who openly defended Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, gave $2,500 to Wing Ng in District 3 and $3,000 to Steve Bergstrom in District 8. Both districts are currently represented by Democrats. QUICKBAIT CountDollars BY JASMINE GALLUP jgallup@indyweek.com
/$3,217$2,857 TylerSwanson(D) /$6,098$2,510 MicheleMorrow(R) /$12,924$2,394 LynnEdmonds(D) $323/$0 RossBeamon(R) /$1,122$457 JackieBoegel(R)DawnP.Townsend(Un) /$810$70 ChadStall(R)Mary-LewisFreeman(D) PatriceNealon(R)DajmaLivingston(D) /$14,336$2,932 LindsayMahaffey*(D) /$13,088$5,829 SteveBergstrom(R)ChrisHeagarty*(D) /$18,579$3,367 CherylCaulfield(R)BenClapsaddle(D) $20,000$9,000$10,000$5,000$6,000$7,000$8,000$4,000$3,000$2,000$1,000$0 MichaelWilliams(R) /$454$333 MonicaRuiz(R) /$144$156 /$2,041$681 TaraWaters*(D) $60/$0 BrooksLowe(R) /$100$185 1 55 66 77 44 88 99 Source: NC Board of Elections * Incumbent CashSpenton Spendinghandwas $0 or below the reporting threshold DougHammack(D) /$200$0 WingNg(R) /$7,669$7,268 DanielL.Grant-King(D)BeckyLew-Hobbs(R) $1,638/$927 DorianHamilton(D)MonikaJohnson-Hostler*(D) /$10,383$136 $2,436/$226 SamHershey(D) KatieThuyLong(Un) /$11,012$1,776 JacobArthur(R) /$23,071$8,684 TaraAnnCartwright(D) 7 6 9 8 5 2 4 1 3 2 33
INDYweek.com August 31, 2022 5 RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER RECYCLE THIS PAPER kWaeupwithus Local weekdayineventsnews,andmore—yourinboxeverymorning Sign DAILYINDYup:SIGNUPFORTHE
For the first 35 years of his adult life, Spear channeled that love into building houses. But four years ago, itching for a change of pace, he decided to “hang up his hard hat” and follow a lead he’d come across while reading a profile of Kimbal Musk. Musk—a restaurateur, agrotechnology mag nate, and brother to the richest man in the world—had just launched Square Roots, an urban farming company that houses hydroponic farms in shipping containers. Spear, drawn by the start-up’s fusion of architecture and agricul ture, set off to tour the facility in Brooklyn.
He was immediately sold on the concept. With his own modular farm, he realized, he could carry on Nanue’s hor ticultural legacy without having to navigate the climat ic uncertainties of traditional farming, which had always repelled him from the field.
Spear grew up in New Bern, on the banks of the Neuse River. His grandmother lived 40 minutes north, in Beaufort County, and Spear says he savored the holidays and sum mer breaks that he spent with her. “That’s where I got my love for growing things,” Spear says, “hanging out with my grandmother at a young age.”
BY LENA GELLER lgeller@indyweek.com
Sometimes, his grandma—“Nanue,” as she was dubbed by Spear’s cousin Skeet, who couldn’t pronounce the word
Paradigm Shift
Ashley Christensen, for instance, once asked Spear to grow six different types of mustard greens for a salad special at her Raleigh restaurant Poole’s Diner. Spear regularly sells produce to local restaurants including Hummingbird, Carroll’s Kitchen, St. Roch Fine Oysters, Crawford and Son, and Jolie.
I’m in a seedy parking lot on the fringes of downtown Raleigh, eating lettuce off the walls of a shipping container.
“nanny”—gave him small tasks, including plucking pesky leaves from tomato plants and replenishing the bait in her homemade slug traps.
After doing some research, Spear learned that Freight Farms, the company that pioneered the container farm model, was selling its units to novices. He purchased two containers and underwent the company’s intensive training process, and by December 2019, he was, as Nanue would put it, “growing lettuce upright in the air condition.”
“It’s a paradigm shift,” Spear says. “We’re completely changing the way they cook, because we can grow anything at any time. And then they can create anything.”
Spear is one of more than 500 farmers in Freight Farms’ international network. The company was founded in 2013 by Brad McNamara and Jon Friedman, two friends who spent years devising a way to make urban agriculture an economically viable way to produce food. With an acces sible urban farming model, they believed that they could promote sustainable agriculture as well as combat food insecurity in food deserts and remote areas of the world.
Friedman and McNamara initially planned to build roof top greenhouses, Katsiroubas says, but dismissed the con cept after realizing it was too cost prohibitive. Eventually, they landed on the idea of constructing farms inside ship ping containers, which were cheap, widely available, and, when outfitted with climate-control technology, capable of sustaining agriculture in places where it would other wise be impossible.
While Spear is relatively new to modular farming, his interest in agriculture is rooted in his childhood, and in his farm’sWhennamesake.Spearwas a kid, he liked to spend time in his grandma’s garden, where the rows of vegetables seemed to stretch on forever.
“We poured beer into pie pans and all the slugs would come and drown themselves,” Spear says. “Or Nanue would cut them in half with the end of her hoe.”
The container—the kind you’d count on a freight train— houses half of Nanue’s Farm, a hydroponic homestead where owner Trevor Spear has spent the past three years growing leafy greens, herbs, root vegetables, and edible flowers out of irrigated floor-to-ceiling panels.
6 August 31, 2022 INDYweek.com N E W S Raleigh
PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA
Walking down the aisle of the container he calls “Juan ita,” Spear tears off leaves and buds for me to try: there are some familiar ones, like romaine and basil, but many I’ve never heard of, such as a yellow flower called a “buzz button” that offers an electrifying, Pop Rocks–esque zing before causing my entire mouth to go numb. For centuries, people ate buzz buttons to numb toothaches, Spear says; now, bartenders use them to garnish cocktails.
Trevor Spear at Nanue’s Farm in downtown Raleigh
“They were really looking for something that was a turn key solution, so that anyone could get started farming,” says Caroline Katsiroubas, director of events and partner ships at Freight Farms.
Trevor Spear traded homebuilding for modular farming and now sells produce to some of Raleigh’s most acclaimed eateries.
Pristine and climate-controlled, the farm’s two mod ular units operate year-round, using just five gallons of water per day and producing around 1,000 heads of let tuce each week. While the farm’s environmental benefits run aplenty—water and land conservation; no pesticide runoff; a hyperlocal distribution model that, in a cool inversion of the containers’ original usage, eschews the carbon footprint of long-distance shipping—Spear, a sort of health-conscious Willy Wonka, is most enthused by Nanue’s ability to provide local chefs with unique, often off-season produce.
If numbers are any indication, the com pany’s farms have proven to be fairly acces sible thus far: they currently exist in 34 countries and nearly every state in the Unit ed States, and the company’s network of farmers is the largest in the world. Some units are operated by seasoned farmers who grew tired of climate fluctu ations and varying yields, and switched to the container model to “future-proof” their operations, according to Katsiroubas. But most are operated by people like Spear.
The company also offers an extensive financing guide of loans, grants, and incentives for prospective buyers, Katsiroubas says.
“It becomes sort of zen, like yoga, where your mind wanders because you have this muscle memory of just putting the seed in a plug over and over again,” Brayton says. “It’s very relaxing, very peaceful. You sort of travel to the back of your mind and figure out all your issues.”
Katsirou bas, who calls the electrical draw the “pain point of the industry,” says Freight Farms is working to integrate clean energy sys tems into its containers and notes that the current model can run on solar power.
“The majority don’t have tradition al farming experience,” Katsiroubas says. “However, they typically have a tie to farm ing or gardening somewhere in their family history, which is really cool because the technology allows them to carry that on in this new way.”
At Nanue’s, Spear’s 19-year-old son Bray ton is poised to keep the tradition going. Brayton never enjoyed school—he wasn’t a bad student, he says, but a “rebellious man” who “lived in in-school suspension”— and since graduating high school and work ing full-time at Nanue’s, he’s found a voca tion in working with his hands.
INDYweek.com August 31, 2022 7
It’s the best job he could ask for, he says.
When I set out to visit Nanue’s, I assumed that Spear and his son would be driven by the same macro motives that Freight Farms lists on its website: revolu tionizing the farming industry, providing fresh produce for underserved communi ties, saving the planet. In many ways, Nanue’s is contributing to these initiatives. The agriculture industry is facing an aging crisis; the average Ameri can farmer is in their late 50s, and only a tiny fraction of the younger generation is drawn to the field. In bringing his son on board, Spear is working to reverse this trend. During the first year Nanue’s was operating, the pandemic forced most restaurants to close, so Spear donated 80 percent of his produce to food banks. And because the container farms are, by and large, inherent ly eco-friendly, Nanue’s is helping to reduce the envi ronmental burden of food production, whether or not it’s Spear’s main mission.
While the priorities that Spear shared are more per sonal—honoring his heri tage, watching things grow, making his mark on the local restaurant scene— sustainability is still sus tainability, even if it’s a sideFreighteffect.Farms, then, is technology at its best: get into it for your own rea sons, and better the world in the process.
WSpear’s hydroponic farm PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA
While the units are more affordable than other types of urban farming, start-up costs still run high: Freight Farms’ current con tainer model, the Greenery S, is priced at $149,000. The unit also requires around 190 kilowatt-hours of energy per day, which can be costly for both operators and the environment. (For context, the average American household uses about 29 kilo watt-hours of energy each day.)
“So, while on September 12, Brandon Hill will be on trial,” Collins explains, “[on] Wednesday and Thursday, we will be put ting the death penalty on trial.”
The motion points to a new 46-page study by the Michigan State Universi ty (MSU) College of Law that examines a decade of capital jury selection in Wake County cases that “demonstrates the toll of death disqualification.”
The study shows, the attorneys state in the ACLU motion, “that death disqualifica tion in [Wake] county’s last 10 capital trials excluded Black potential jurors at twice the rate of white jurors, and Black women at significantly higher rates.”
The result, the ACLU attorneys argue, are perverse outcomes as a consequence of seating capital juries that are “the least diverse and least impartial.”
When the INDY pointed out that only one of the 10 cases reviewed by the MSU study resulted in a death sentence, Stull credited those outcomes to the vigorous defense of the accused despite the unfair ness of the death disqualification prac tice and to Freeman “seeking death at an aggressive rate that is out of step with her community.”
Swinford says the state’s prosecutors have used “death disqualification” to certify community members who are more likely to impose the death penalty to serve on capital juries. “This means jurors who object to the death penalty are not able to serve on cap ital juries,” Swinford states in the release.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ACLU OF NC able to participate in our democracy in the most serious cases.”
In custody at the Wake County jail for the past six years, Hill is now fighting to avoid being sentenced to death by a jury that’s “whiter, more male, and with less religious diversity than the community,” according to a motion filed last month by a team of lawyers who are members of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Capital Punishment Project in downtown Durham.
As a consequence of the practice, “Black Americans, women, and people of faith— specifically Catholics—are disproportion ately excluded from serving on capital juries,” the attorneys state in the 295pageNotmotion.unlike the gerrymandered elector al process that has resulted in a Repub lican-dominated General Assembly in Raleigh, so-called “death qualified juries” reflect “a gerrymandered slice of the com munity, not a cross section,” according to thePredictably,motion. death-qualified juries “are more likely to convict and more likely to impose death,” even though the practice “skews both the demographics and the atti tudes of juries in capital trials.”
Hill’s trial begins in September.
BY THOMASI MCDONALD tmcdonald@indyweek.com
N orth Carolina’s death penalty goes on trial this week in Raleigh. Prior to 2016, when he was charged with the shooting death of a 28-year-old man in a Northwest Raleigh motel room, Bran don Xavier Hill had a relatively insignificant criminal record. He was convicted of careless and reck less driving in Durham in 2013. In 2014, charges of going armed to the terror of the public and assault with a deadly weap on were dismissed because of lack of evi dence. Charges in March 2016 of assault on a woman and larceny of a firearm were also dismissed, court records show.
“It is false to suggest that there is any systematic effort to exclude jurors based on race, gender, or any other category,” Free man told the INDY this week.
According to the motion, the ACLU attor neys contend that “the removal of commu nity members from capital juries under the rubric of ‘death qualification’ is an antiquat ed, discriminatory, unfair, and unconstitu tional practice that Brandon Hill … moves to bar at his capital trial.”
On Wednesday, ACLU attorney Hender son Hill is going to examine UNC-Chapel Hill historian Seth Kotch, who will lay out the racist history of the state’s use of the death penalty and how it intertwines with lynching, Kristin Collins, a spokeswoman with the Center for Death Penalty Litiga tion told the INDY Collins says that on Thursday, Hender son Hill will present the testimony of Kami Chavis, a nationally known criminal justice expert and law school professor at the Col lege of William & Mary. Collins says Chavis “will testify to all the current-day racial inequities that make support for the death penalty lower in the Black community.”
Brian Stull, one of the ACLU attorneys representing Hill, told the INDY this week that the two-day hearing will begin on Wednesday and the motion will be consid ered by Wake County’s senior resident supe rior court judge Paul Ridgeway, who will also preside over the capital trial. Stull added that if Ridgeway denies the motion, Hill’s defense team will consid er appealing to the state’s supreme court.
Death Penalty on Trial
The ACLU attorneys argue in the court affidavit that the practice “removes jurors who come to this courthouse willing and
However, only one of those 10 cases resulted in the jury recommending the death penalty—for Seaga Edward Gillard, Brandon Hill’s accomplice, who in 2019 was sentenced to death row.
“The ACLU’s motion argues that because death disqualification impermissibly excludes jurors based on race, gender, and religion, it will violate Mr. Hill’s rights under the U.S. and North Carolina Constitutions,” Swinford states in a press release.
Wake County district attorney Lorrin Freeman declined to comment about the Hill case currently pending in court. But, speaking generally, she says there are many legally sound reasons that an attorney may strike a juror.
8 August 31, 2022 INDYweek.com N E W S Wake County
A Wake County judge will hear a motion to disqualify the death penalty in the case of a man charged with murder.
The ACLU capital defense attorneys are hoping the motion filed in the Wake County Superior Court will bolster Hill’s chances of staying alive if he’s convicted, by halting a pernicious jury selection process known as “death disqualification,” according to Laura Swinford, a spokeswoman with the North Carolina chapter of the ACLU.
Brandon Xavier Hill
“What we can say is Dwayne [Garvey] died defending the love of his life,” RavienHollandsaid.and Dwayne Garvey first met in late 2011 when they were both living at the Pines of Ashton apartments near WakeMed hospital. Dwight said his brother and Hol land became friends, but that friendship turned into love. The couple’s families did not readily accept the interracial romance between a white woman and a Black man.
“He was defying everybody for her, and she was defying everyone for him,” Ravien said.
Dwayne Garvey and Holland were await ing the birth of their fourth child. At the time of their deaths, they were the parents of three toddlers: two boys, ages two and one, and a three-year-old daughter.
Federal records show that he was con victed in the Virgin Islands in 2007 of third-degree domestic violence assault. Gillard was also charged with attempt ed murder in 2011, following the shooting of two men at a Durham apartment com plex, but prosecutors dropped the charges because of insufficient evidence, state recordsGillardshow.and Holland were old acquain tances, Garvey’s older brother, Dwight Garvey, and sister in-law, Ravien Garvey, of Raleigh told me in 2016. “Her past came back to haunt her,” Dwight said.
“Our client Brandon Hill is presumed innocent,” Stull explains. “Death disqualifi cation will result in a less diverse jury, and we know that less diverse juries deliberate less thoroughly, question the evidence less vigorously, while crediting police officers more readily and convicting more frequent ly. If the state is allowed to gerrymander Mr. Hill’s jury, and exclude significant voices in his community, then his right to a fair and impartial jury on the question of his guilt will be compromised.”
The Garveys would not discuss the nature of Holland and Gillard’s past relationship.
Meanwhile, Hill “does not ask for the inclusion of any specific jurors,” the ACLU attorneys state in the motion.
On a late Friday morning in 2016, while working as a staff writer with The News & Observer, I arrived at a Northwest Raleigh motel where, hours before, police had found a young pregnant mother and the father of her children shot dead in a room. Police found the slain couple, April Lynn Holland, 22, and Dwayne Garvey, 28, in a second-floor room at the Americas Best Value Inn at 3921 Arrow Drive off Blue Ridge Road near Crabtree Valley Mall, before dawn on December 2. The next day,
Stull added that the death disqualifica tion process, geared supposedly at giving the state “a fair shot at the death sentence, is the ‘tail wags the dog of the determina tion of guilt versus innocence.’”
The MSU study review of capital trials in Wake County between 2008 and 2019 found that among the 485 jurors excused for hardship, the most frequent reason for exclusion was for death disqualification and additional reasons; “the second most fre quent exclusion was for death disqualifica tion alone,” according to the ACLU motion.
Gillard is now on the state’s death row, where he was charged with a “high-risk act” in July and with assault with a weapon in 2020, according to the state department of public safety website.
“He seeks only to avoid the discriminato ry culling of the jury to exclude large seg ments of the population.” W
The study’s findings about race are troubling.According to the motion, “removing Black jurors skews juries in favor of convic tion, while death qualification skews juries in favor of conviction and execution.”
INDYweek.com August 31, 2022 9 BILL ATTORNEYBURTONATLAWUncontestedDivorceMusicBusinessLawIncorporation/LLC/PartnershipWillsCollections 967-6159 MUSICUNCONTESTEDAGREEMENTSSEPARATIONDIVORCEBUSINESSLAWINCORPORATION/LLCWILLS(919)967-6159bill.burton.lawyer@gmail.com
Gillard, whose name also appears as “Gaillard” on federal documents, had ter rorized women before. One week before the fatal shootings of Holland and Garvey, he appeared in court on charges of rob bery with a dangerous weapon, first-de gree kidnapping, first-degree forcible sex ual offense, and assault by strangulation, after police accused him of raping a woman while brandishing a handgun two months earlier and stealing her cell phone, wallet, and an identification card. The woman told police that Gillard wrapped a phone cord around her neck.
police charged Gillard, 28, and Hill, then 29, with first-degree murder. Investigators accused Hill of shooting Garvey. Police say Gillard shot Holland, who was four months pregnant.
The study also revealed that “Wake Coun ty prosecutors further rid the jury of Black Americans and women with a second tool— peremptory strikes—removing Black pro spective jurors more than twice as often as white, and Black women at the highest rate of all.”
“In total, with these two procedures, prosecutors rid the jury of over forty per cent of Black potential jurors, while also disproportionately excluding people of faith and Catholics,” the ACLU attorneys state in the Moreover,motion.women oppose the death pen alty at greater rates than men and as a consequence “are underrepresented on cap ital juries,” while “people of faith, especially Catholics,” even though they are well rep resented throughout the state and Wake County, “are not well represented on North Carolina juries,” according to the motion.
Larry Helfant, chairman of the Midtown Citizens’ Advisory Council (which the city no longer officially recognizes since it for mally abolished CACs in 2020), is one of Helfant is also worried about tall apart ment buildings bringing an influx of traffic to Six Forks Road, which he says is already aging, overcrowded, and unsafe. He and his neighbors want to be able to walk their dogs, stroll to a local park, or send their kids out on bikes, he says. They’re in favor of building connecting greenways and pre serving natural areas.
Another day, another controversial rezoning proposal in Raleigh—this time in North Hills
“To get down [to North Hills], it’s a traf fic nightmare,” says Shane Collins, another concerned resident. “We live in the area, and we just don’t go there because it’s a mess. There’s too much traffic, and we’re going to have more traffic with more towers and more density.” These concerns—building heights, traf fic, and the environment—are common criticisms raised at most hearings on new development. It’s easy to lump them together as part of a broad “anti-develop ment” stance. There’s a lot of emotional rhetoric: people imploring the city council not to “destroy neighborhoods” or talking about how the developers will “come for you next.” But these protesters have some legitimate concerns. Many across the city are frustrated by tall towers developers are building to neces sarily increase density but also to increase profit. They’re discouraged by the heavi er traffic and higher cost of living these new buildings will bring. Residents across Raleigh share Helfant’s opposition to the new“[Thedevelopment.concerns are] pretty widespread and even broader than the immediate neighborhoods,” says city councilman Patrick Buffkin, who represents much of North Raleigh in District A. “Folks in Quail Hollow in North Hills, Lakemont, they have felt the brunt of being in a place that has changed probably more than any other part of the city. And what that means is cut-through traffic.”
Next up was the “North Hills Innovation District,” a roughly 33-acre site between St. Albans Drive and I-440 that would be home to three new apartment complexes, two office towers, and a food hall, again anchored by businesses at street level. Now, with construction under way at both sites, Kane Realty is proposing another series of new developments along Six Forks Road and I-440. About four months ago, the company asked the Raleigh City Council to approve a rezoning request for 30- and 40-story towers on land that was originally zoned for 12-story buildings, a proposal that was met with immediate backlash.
BY JASMINE GALLUP jgallup@indyweek.com Do you want a 30-story tower built across the street from your neighbor hood? That’s the question at the heart of a long, messy debate over Kane Realty’s pro posal to put 12-, 30-, and 40-story towers on the outskirts of North Hills. The well-known real estate develop er embarked on an effort to renovate North Hills about two years ago, when the old JC Penney shut down. Kane Realty announced plans to build two new office towers, an apartment building, and a pub lic plaza on the site of the defunct depart ment store, all anchored by businesses on the ground floor.
Over the past several months, the city council has worked with Kane Realty to add a number of conditions to the new develop ment, many of them transit related. Kane Realty agreed to reserve land along Six Forks Road for a new city bus station with a seating area and covered bus shelters, since the proposed rezoning overlaps with an existing bus station. They also agreed to the construction of new bike lanes and four new bike share stations. Another condition was that the compa ny reserve land along Rowan Street for a future expansion of the Raleigh Fire Sta tion, since the existing station does not have the equipment or employees needed to adequately protect such tall buildings. The reservation of the land, valued by Kane Realty at between $20 million and
If the proposal is approved, a 30-story tower could go up at the intersection of Six Forks Road and I-440, across the street from a traditional neighborhood currently com posed of single-family homes. Twelve-story buildings would also be allowed on land originally zoned for five stories.
“The number one issue is building heights, and I just don’t understand it,” Helfant says. “Kane has been reasonable in all his devel opment in the past. This one has no logic to it at Thereall.”is some order to Kane’s plan.
Although Kane Realty’s proposal is well beyond what the existing zoning allows, the taller towers are planned for the heart of North Hills, in areas that abut Six Forks Road and I-440. On the land closer to neighborhoods, Kane Realty has proposed the shorter 12-story tower.
Helfant, however, says he doesn’t want office or apartment towers overshadowing the neighborhoods or the existing buildings in North Hills. He also opposes Kane Real ty cutting down trees around Big Branch River, where other Kane Realty proper ties are planned. The heavily wooded area, across from another neighborhood, will be deforested significantly to make room for new construction.
North Hills under construction PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA the people leading the charge against Kane Realty’s rezoning proposal.
10 August 31, 2022 INDYweek.com N E W S Raleigh
“It’s a traffic nightmare”
Growing Pains
Map of North Hills current and future projects PHOTO COURTESY OF KANE REALTY
INDYweek.com August 31, 2022 11
$22 million, will have a “significant public benefit,” the company argues. But Helfant says the rezoning conditions were added out of necessity, not in a good-willed effort to improve the area.
One major policy the initial proposal violated outright, however, was the recommendation that residential towers include affordable housing. The policy states that 10 percent of apartments in such towers should be affordable to peo ple who make 80 percent of the area median income (AMI).
Approving rezoning requests is also an end in and of itself. When developers come to the city council with a rezon ing request, mem bers face a choice: work with the com pany to get what benefits they can, or stonewall new con struction, worsen ing Raleigh’s existing housing crisis. Once the city council rejects a rezoning request, it can’t consider any other new projects in the same area until two years have passed, Buffkin says. That means the city council can’t neces sarily wait for roads and other infra structure to expand before approving major new devel opments. It has to take each project as it comes.
With that kind of rezoning condition, it’s hard to see how Kane Realty’s planned apartment buildings would actual ly lead to more reasonably priced housing; even when an apartment costs less than market price, it’s still out of reach of many middle- and lower-class workers, and 600 square feet doesn’t even approach the realm of feasibility for a working-class family of three or four.
In Raleigh, a person making 80 percent of the AMI makes about $59,950, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. That’s a pretty high bar for affordable housing—most teachers, electricians, chefs, and police officers make much less than $60,000 a year.
A fight to improve Midtown Residents’ opposition to the new North Hills development hinges on a few things, primarily the development’s violation of the Midtown–St. Albans Area Plan, which the city council adopted in 2020. The plan, created in response to increas ing development in Midtown, addresses the area’s need for more connecting roads. It also recommends buildings rise no higher than 20 stories and says plans for 20-story buildings should include improvements to public space and contingen cies to mitigate the environmental impact.
The plan is one of dozens of small-area plans across the city, which are mostly driven by long-term Raleigh res idents. Many of these plans limit new development and call for the preservation of green space. Some residents argue the plans contain critical recommendations that should be followed no matter what. Others see them as blunt-force tools to stop any and all new development.
For decades, Raleigh’s city council was dominated by rigid zoning rules and skepticism about new developments that limited housing supply and contributed to the Trian gle’s current housing shortage. Now, council members are playingBuffkincatch-up.sayshe supports Kane Realty’s proposal in part because it offers public transit and options to bike, walk, or ride the bus to North Hills. The proposal also includes the kind of mixed-use development the city council wants to see within the city limits.
In an effort to assuage the city council’s affordable housing concerns, Kane Realty offered last week to make 10 percent of any apartments built along Six Forks Road “affordable hous ing.” In this case, that means 600-square-foot “micro-units” that cost roughly $1,332 per month, hardly an appealing pros pect for a midsized housing market like Raleigh’s.
“Once you get past five or seven years, it’s probably time to revisit and question whether the plan remains appro priate,” Buffkin adds. “A small-area plan is not an absolute requirement. We have a state statute that says it’s policy guidance. It should be considered, but it’s not a hard-andfast regulation or prohibition.”
Whether or not Kane Realty’s proposal offers these things is a matter of opinion. City staff concluded the company’s proposal complies with 22 of the 25 policies, including rec ommendations that the new development be compatible in height and density with the surrounding area. In an effort to get the rezoning approved, the company has offered to insti tute a 12-foot stepback for buildings taller than 13 stories at the intersection of Lassiter Mill Road and I-440.
Buffkin, who isn’t running for reelection, says, right now, his priority is funding the Six Forks Road improvement proj ect, which will build sidewalks, bike lanes, and additional car lanes along the road. Design work for the project, which covers Six Forks from Rowan Street to Lynn Road, is near ing completion, Buffkin says.
Still, at that salary, an affordable apartment would cost no more than $1,499 per month.
“It does not get to the roadway directly in front of North Hills, but that is in the long-term plans. Everybody knows we need to get it done,” Buffkin says. “That will be tremendously expensive, because it will probably require replacing or expanding a bridge over the belt line. The funding is the problem.”
Regardless, most, if not all, apartments in North Hills seem to be marketed as luxury units for the wealthy. Apart ments in the 36-story Kane Realty complex called the Eastern cost well beyond what most Raleigh residents make in a month: a 600-square-foot studio starts at $2,400 per month, according to the complex’s website, and a three-bedroom penthouse costs upward of $14,169 per month. The building comes equipped with a rooftop lounge, resort-style pool, private dining room, expansive gym, and a spa for residents and their pets. Why approve this rezoning?
“The project asks for a lot and it offers a lot,” Buffkin says of the proposal that goes before the council again at its next meeting on September 6. “Urban developments like this project support public transit. They support efficient use of utilities. They offer people the option to walk, bike to their destinations because there’s so many destinations in one place.” W
As a city council member, Buffkin says he gives different small-area plans different weight. The more recently a plan has been adopted, and the more detailed it is, the more weight it should receive, he says.
The Midtown–St. Albans Area Plan is one of 25 city policies staff considered when making their recommendation to coun cil. These policies outline the kinds of things the city council wants when it comes to new development, such as higher density, more housing, opportunities to bike or walk, renova tion of underdeveloped property, and access to public transit.
Ultimately, many on the city council are supporting Kane Realty’s proposal as a part of a larger pro-development strategy. Even with the outrageous rents, Kane Realty has built or is building more than 1,000 apartments in North Hills, a significant boost to the housing supply that could ultimately ease prices in the greater market. The company is also asking to build “up” rather than “out,” which is more efficient and environmentally friendly.
“[People ask], ‘Why do you approve new developments before you have a plan for funding and building the infra structure?’ It’s terribly frustrating to the public and it’s frustrating to me, too. One of the realities of it is [the city council has] no control over when somebody asks for a rezoning,” Buffkin says. “In this environment of fast growth, we can’t really afford to stop growing and chang ing for a couple of years and just get overwhelmed with what’s happening around us.”
Two weeks ago, the city council heard Kane Realty’s rezoning proposal yet again but ultimately sent it back to the city’s transportation and transit committee to refine some of the existing conditions, namely to address con tinuing concerns about greenways and bike lanes, building heights, and affordable housing.
If you don’t break the shoes in, they’ll murder you during a show.
“It’s just real,” Hickey smiles. “It’s how it is.” W standards like “Fly Me to the Moon,” leavened with eclec tic, soulful takes on tunes from Tamia and Kanye West, are what Hickey calls “conversations”—danced dialogues between himself and Lewandowski, Wasiuta and pianist Liya Grigoryan, and Burke and drummer Charles “Chuck” Goold, which progress from initially simple call-and-re sponses to increasingly intricate variations on their mutu ally developed themes.
“We actually need to ‘love’ them for a couple of months before they feel right for performance,” Hickey says. He notes that he’s currently “in the blister stage—the bloody socks and all” of a new pair he’s had for two weeks. “But then you get into that perfect sweet spot where it’s not falling apart. The leather’s in agreement with you, your feet, the way you want to move, and the sound you want to make,” Hickey sighs.
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Over the 10 years he danced with the group while growing up in Chapel Hill, producers and dance pro fessionals took note of the budding young prodigy.
By showtime, the foot-worn percussion instrument con veys “our vulnerability, an intimate moment into our craft. It shows the humanity in what we try to do.”
STAG E A LITTLE OLD, A LITTLE NEW American Dance Festival | Bryan Amphitheater, North Carolina Museum of Art | Sept. 11, 7:30 p.m. | Americandancefestival.org
BY BYRON WOODS arts@indyweek.com
Both take a back seat, though, to the laser-like focus and intensity in the beyond-rapid-fire fusillades of 64th notes that Burke trades with Goold when they square off, and Hickey and Wasiuta egg each other on in what at times seems a risky game of Can You Top This? It’s preci sion work on a choreographic tightrope, with the potential for disaster always, immediately, at hand, a single off-time off-step“Ironically,away.it’s quite meditative,” Hickey says. “It would seem like you’re in the driver’s seat of a Formula 1 car, right? But for me, everything actually slows down and opens up. It’s where I feel most connected to my art form and my Hickeyancestors.”reflectson the sophistication and attentiveness among his musicians, which are put to the test each night when everyone’s trading irregular cadences at full warp speed. “It’s almost like there are just two spotlights, and Luke Hickey PHOTO BY STEVEN PISANO
New aluminum taps have to be finessed as well since they can sound “too crispy or too sterile.” Dancers have to file the edges down “so you’re not slipping, but have the great resonance we’re looking for,” Hickey says.
So, what’s with the scuffed-up shoes? The rest of the ensemble’s dress is top-drawer casual evening wear, but the white finish on their three identical pairs of Capezio K360 Oxfords reveals every ding, hard landing, and scar. They’re more than just a dancer’s bona fides, proof of what Hickey calls “the physicality of prac tice” and the hundreds of studio hours required to make each moment stick.
Hoofer, Home Tap dance star Luke Hickey returns to the Triangle to headline ADF’s fall weekend season at the NC Museum of Art.
L ongtime local dancegoers have likely seen Luke Hickey before. On the Carolina Theatre stage in 2004, he was the bright, blond-haired third grader dwarfed by the middle and high schoolers but still holding his own in tap dance sensei Gene Medler’s North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble (NCYTE).
The dancers find a number of gears among the playlist, contrasting the sinuous, slow, skidding slides of the Ahmad Jamal opener, “Stolen Moments,” with syncopated off-beat polyrhythms in “It’s Your Thing.”
“It really changed my life,” Hickey says. A decade with Medler put him “in the driver’s seat of my own career, my own destiny,” Hickey says. By the time he left Chapel Hill in 2014, his trajectory was clear: fol low the path Michelle Dorrance, another tap titan from Medler’s group, took several years earlier, to New York. By then, Dorrance’s own company was receiving accolades; she’d receive a MacArthur Foundation award the following year. After she invited Hickey to join her company, stage, film work, and showcase showings of his own dances fol lowed at the Joyce, the home church venue for modern dance in Manhattan. Then his breakout evening-length show, A Little Old, A Little New, premiered in 2018 at the famed Gotham jazz venue Birdland. The work for three tap dancers and jazz trio—which local audiences will see next weekend during the American Dance Festival’s fall season at the NC Muse um of Art—was an unabashed love letter to the dance form’s deep roots in jazz clubs. An almost reverent vibe res onates for the music and musicians in moments through out the production. When noted acoustic bassist Mark Lewandowski takes a pensive mid-show solo, for example, dancers Tommy Wasiuta and fellow NCYTE alum Elizabeth Burke simply sit on the bandstand at the musicians’ feet, gazing up with undisguised admiration. Elsewhere, interlaced among tasty funk variants on that’s the whole world. For the audience to see that inti macy and just feel the deep musicality and deep connection in that exchange is quite exciting.”
To celebrate their NLRB win, the former strikers are teaming up with the Chapel Hill–Carrboro Workers Coalition—which Burns founded in April—to host a “People’s Potluck” this Labor Day weekend, where local workers can learn about the process of filing a case with the NLRB, sign up for an organizer training event, and meet with representatives from grassroots labor cam paign Fight for $15.
In late December 2021, the strik ing workers filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB that “asserted, among other things, that Acme violated its employees’ federal labor rights by threat ening employees for speaking out publicly about their working conditions and sexu al harassment at work,” says Chapel Hill attorney Trisha Pande, who represented the striking workers pro bono. After months of investigation, the NLRB’s regional office in Winston-Salem
The strike, which spanned November 2021 to February 2022, was triggered by what employees described as the “will ful ignorance of upper management” in addressing sexual harassment allegations they had raised against Acme’s owner, KevinAfterCallaghan.monthsof largely unsuccessful nego tiations with the restaurant’s legal represen tation—and after an HR audit concluded that Callaghan had made employees uncomfort able but not sexually harassed them—the workers decided to end the strike, with all but one permanently vacating their positions.
BY LENA GELLER lgeller@indyweek.com
Though none of their demands were met in full, the strikers say they felt proud of their attempt to better working conditions for future Acme employees, as the INDY pre viously reported—and now, the NLRB has confirmed that their efforts were not in vain.
ruled that Acme had violated federal labor law by making “coercive statements to employees,” Pande says. With the approval of the strikers who filed the charge, Acme has since signed off on a settlement agreement that requires the restaurant to distribute a notice to all current and former employees. The notice informs employees that they “have the right to discuss wages, hours, and working conditions—including raising con cerns about workplace sexual harassment— with other employees” and states that Acme “will not tell [workers] to stop making accu sations or publicly speculating about [their] concerns regarding workplace sexual harass ment.” Employees also have the right to form, assist, or join a union, the notice reads.
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The potluck is on September 4 at five p.m. in the municipal parking lot behind Acme; admission is free and open to the public. W
ILLUSTRATION BY ANNIE MAYNARD F O O D & D R I N K
S
The strike, which spanned November 2021 to February 2022, was triggered by what employees described as the “willful ignorance of upper management” in addressing sexual harassment allegations they had raised against Acme’s owner.
“While this may not seem like a lot, it was extremely validating for us to receive, and we are glad to have closed this chapter,” strike organizer Madison Burns wrote in an Instagram post on August 25.
ix months after ending their 84-day strike at Carrboro restaurant Acme Food & Beverage Co., a group of former employees is celebrating a belated con cession from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and forging ahead in their fight for workers’ rights.
Six Months After Ending Their Strike, Former Acme Workers Celebrate NLRB Win
where he made the five swirling expression ist drawings of Disney characters that are considered his missing link to Pop. But first, there was one more phase to come. Swelling to a crescendo in the last gallery, it includes some of the most brilliant paintings in the show. In an art world dominated by the intense subjectiv ity of Abstract Expressionism, there had long been something a little iconoclastic about Lichtenstein’s figuration, representa tion, and popular sources. So perhaps it was inevitable that he have his say on the old guard before Pop swept it away.
14 August 31, 2022 INDYweek.com About to Pop
A RT ROY LICHTENSTEIN:
BY BRIAN HOWE arts@indyweek.com S everal stories have been bruited about regarding Roy Lichtenstein’s first for ays into Pop Art, the movement that blew open fine galleries to mass culture in the 1960s—and a movement that he would come to personify more enduringly than anyone except Warhol. In some of these stories, Lichtenstein— an accomplished painter, though not yet a household name—is trying to prove to Dis ney-besotted children that he can paint. But in a tour of Roy Lichtenstein: History in the Making, 1948–1960, the Nasher Muse um of Art’s Marshall N. Price (who curated the exhibit with Elizabeth Finch, of Maine’s Colby College Museum of Art) emphasized the longer, more telling origin story. It’s 1961, and Lichtenstein is at Rut gers with Allan Kaprow. The two painters’ children have some Bazooka bubble gum, and the small comic strip inside it inspires Kaprow to proclaim that this, not Cézanne, should be used to teach kids the form and history of art. “Smiling wryly,” as Price put it, Lichtenstein reached into a storage closet and withdrew “Look Mickey,” the oil paint ing of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck that is regarded as both Lichtenstein’s first Pop Art work and a cornerstone of the style. The difference between these creation myths—the one in which Lichtenstein decides to paint cartoon characters all at once, on a dare, and the one in which the notion emerges mysteriously from the shadows of his atelier—is also the differ ence between the usual run of Lichtenstein exhibits and this one. It’s the first time a museum has taken a full look at the dozen years before he Popped, when he painted, drew, and made prints in a wide variety of styles. Though diverging sharply from the plasticine finish of his mature work, these
Appropriation in art was nothing new, not after all those European modernists and their African masks. But postwar American mass culture was something new to appro priate, with its triumphalist dreams, relent less sales pitches, and rampant self-repro duction. For an American artist, this terrain was somehow at once apolitical and com pletely political. It posed new possibilities in search of their ultimate meaning. “Look Mickey” is definitive because it perfectly captures the situation of someone founding a new art movement. “I’ve hooked a big one!” Don ald Duck exclaims, having snagged his own hem, as Mickey covers his mouth and snick ers—the duality of the artist glorying in and laughing at what he has done. If Lichten stein’s first Pop vision emerged with unusu al savvy, perhaps it’s because, as this exhibit portrays, it had already been steeping in his considerations for so long. W
Other charming storybook figures—knights, cowboys, deep-sea divers—gambol through other modernist paintings, and these, too, have a secret ripped-from-the-headlines quality, satirizing ’50s fixations such as Old West stories and the undersea exploration of Jacques Cousteau.
If the exhibit doubles as a story about the dawn of Pop and a story about a naïve, dreamy decade, then it trebles as a biogra phy of Lichtenstein’s hectic-sounding life. After being denied tenure at Ohio State University, he spent several years doing odd jobs in Cleveland, including painting dials for a machine company. According to Price, he’d had a professor who illustrated a famous engineering manual, and these combined experiences inspired the warm, chunky mechanical paintings we see at the Nasher, prefiguring Pop works like “Wash ing Machine.” By the late ’50s, Lichten stein was teaching in Oswego, New York,
Now at Rutgers, energized by proximity to the likes of Kaprow, George Segal, and Claes Oldenburg, Lichtenstein started using a rag to drag rainbow stripes across color ful abstractions, seeming to repudiate not only the form’s ingrown asperity but also its fetish of the mark, the drip, the artist’s hand—which would soon be subsumed in simulated reproductions of Pop. In these works, you might glimpse portents of the famous “Brushstrokes” works to follow or, simply, the piece in the exhibit you’d most enjoy hanging on your wall. In “Brushstrokes,” Lichtenstein posed an ingenious visual riddle—can you use the marks that compose an image to portray the marks, not the image?—and that was probably his ultimate comment on the leg acy of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko. But the first painting in small bodies of experimentation are sown with his later techniques and themes. Art buffs will relish the subtle foreshadowing, though there are ample displays of bravura for the casual spectator, too. Before he turned to meticulously mimick ing the style and content of mid-20th-cen tury advertising and comics, Lichtenstein was already appropriating popular culture, deflating America’s heroic self-image with pointed, playful humor. In two early paint ings, he shrivels the neoclassical grandeur of Emanuel Leutze’s “Washington Cross ing the Delaware” with a silly, rudimentary style, like something on a patchwork quilt made by a child. He timed these paintings’ debut with the original’s centenary, when he knew it would be the subject of many a patriotic headline, showing how entwined with mass media his early work already was.
“Mickey Mouse I,” c. 1958 by Roy Lichtenstein IMAGE COURTESY OF THE MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM HISTORY IN THE MAKING, 1948–1960 Through January 8, 2023 | The Nasher Museum of Art, Durham | nasher.duke.edu
the series came from a comic-book panel, indicating how composited Lichtenstein’s vision was, though it can also lead to misun derstandings. From a glance at iconic Pop works like “Whaam!” and “Drowning Girl,” now part of the same cultural ambience they sought to pierce, you might assume that he simply copied comics panels. In fact, he carefully recomposed images and painted each Benday dot—the small circles used to create colors and shading in cheap industrial printing—by hand.
Sweeping aside a screen of iconic Benday dots, the Nasher reveals the real Roy Lichtenstein.
INDYweek.com August 31, 2022 15 Available8.29THUR9.8 6PM TUES9.6 7PM Latest on EventsBookin’ Raleigh's Community Bookstore Register for Quail Ridge Books Events Series at www.quailridgebooks.com Corban Wastelands:Addison,The True Story of Farm Country on Trial THUR9.1 7PM IN-STORE Tommy Jenkins, Drawing the Vote: A Graphic Novel History for Future Voters IN-STORE Peter CreepyBrown,Crayon! IN-STORE Jim Sonefeld, Swimming with the Blowfish: Hootie, Healing, and One Hell of a Ride www.quailridgebooks.com • 919.828.1588 • North Hills 4209-100 Lassiter Mill Road, Raleigh, NC 27609 Offering FREE Media Mail shipping and contactless pickup! Get cultureyour x. Follow @INDYWeek on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for breaking news.
Queen Christina $8. Wed, Aug. 31, 7 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham. The Tentmakers of Cairo Thurs, Sept. 1, 6 p.m. Gregg Museum of Art & Design, Raleigh. Armitage:Christopher Unlocking WordhoardtheThurs, Sept. 1, 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill. Jim Sonefeld: withSwimmingtheBlowfish Thurs, Sept. 1, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.
$25. Sat, Sept. 3, 8 p.m. Sharp Nine Gallery, Durham.
Dreaming of the ’90s Dance Party! $7. Fri, Sept. 2, 10 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham. Paisley Fields $10. Fri, Sept. 2, 7:30 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham. Sorry Papi Tour: The All ReggaetonGirlParty $25+. Fri, Sept. 2, 7:30 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh. Stephanie Mills $55+. Fri, Sept. 2, 8 p.m. Raleigh.NCMA, African CulturalAmericanFestival $5+. Sept. 3 and 4, 7 p.m. Duke Energy Center for Raleigh.PerformingtheArts, Mipso $20+. Sept. 3 and 4, 7 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.
$35+. Sat, Sept. 3, 6 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh. The ShoppeSandwichShowcase $10. Sat, Sept. 3, 7 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro. Crowded WaitingDreamersHouse:AreTour$63+. Sun, Sept. 4, 8 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham. Giveon performs at the Ritz on Wednesday, August 31.
Oliver OneCowboyTree:Tears—LastRide
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CULTURE CALENDAR
All Gold Everything $15. Sat, Sept. 3, 9 p.m. The Fruit, Durham. Eric PartyRecordStricklandRelease $15. Sat, Sept. 3, 8:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh. Harm $10. Sat, Sept. 3, 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
ABACAB: The Music of Genesis $14+. Fri, Sept. 2, 8:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh. A House Party $10+. Fri, Sept. 2, 8 p.m. House of Art, Raleigh. Birds and Arrows $10. Fri, Sept. 2, 7:30 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro. Brad Ensemble:Linde The Music of RedmondDewey $25. Fri, Sept. 2, 8 p.m. Sharp Nine Gallery, Durham. Cries of Loss and Hope: Marking a Difficult Season in Music and Word $10. Fri, Sept. 2, 7 p.m. Auditorium,BaldwinDurham.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE RITZ music page Interpol $30. Sun, Sept. 4, 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh. Jazz SundayBrunchwith Al Strong Sun, Sept. 4, 12 p.m. Alley Twenty Six, Durham. Bodysnatcher $15. Mon, Sept. 5, 7 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
Diya Abdo: American Refuge Tues, Sept. 6, 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill. Tommy Jenkins: Drawing the Vote Tues, Sept. 6, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.
Kate KeithMcGarry/GanzQuartet
The Tentmakers of Cairo screens at the Gregg Museum of Art & Design on Thursday, September 1. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE GREGG screen
Live Jazz with Danny Grewen and Griffanzo Mon, Sept. 5, 6 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill. almost monday $18. Tues, Sept. 6, 7 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro. Live Jazz with the Brian Horton Trio Tues, Sept. 6, 9 p.m. Kingfisher, Durham. Rob Gelblum Tues, Sept. 6, 7 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill. The Mummy Movie Party $24. Sat, Sept. 3, 10 p.m. Alamo Cinema,DrafthouseRaleigh. Steel Magnolias Brunch $11. Sun, Sept. 4, 11 a.m. Alamo Cinema,DrafthouseRaleigh.
Giveon: Give or Take Tour $118+. Wed, Aug. 31, 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh. Johnny Folsom 4 $5+. Wed, Aug. 31, 5:45 p.m. Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Cary. Live Jazz with Marc Puricelli and Friends Wed, Aug. 31, 7 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill. Oceans of Slumber $15. Wed, Aug. 31, 7 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill. Read the Room: A Chill Variety Show Wed, Aug. 31, 7:30 p.m. Durty Bull Brewing Co., Durham. Sir Woman $15. Wed, Aug. 31, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro. The Black Keys $25+. Thurs, Sept. 1, 7 p.m. Coastal Credit Union Music Park, Raleigh. Intocable: Modus Operandi Tour $72+. Thurs, Sept. 1, 8 p.m. Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh. Mellow Swells Thurs, Sept. 1, 7:30 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill. Post Sex Nachos / Similar Kind $13. Thurs, Sept. 1, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro. Songstories Live Thurs, Sept. 1, 5:30 p.m. Boxyard RTP, Durham.
FOR OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR: INDYWEEK.COM Please check with local venues for their health and safety protocols.
INDYweek.com August 31, 2022 17INDY CLASSIFIEDS classy@indyweek.com If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “puzzle pages” at the bottom of our webpage. P U Z Z L E S 720 Ninth Street, Durham, NC 27705 Hours: Monday–Friday 10–7 | Saturday & Sunday 10–6 In-Store CurbsideShoppingPickUp DISCOUNT CLUB FREE FOR EDUCATORSALL & HEALTHWORKERSCARE su | do | ku © Puzzles by Pappocom There is really only one rule to Sudoku: Fill in the game board so that the numbers 1 through 9 occur exactly once in each row, column, and 3x3 box. The numbers can appear in any order and diagonals are not considered. Your initial game board will consist of several numbers that are already placed. Those numbers cannot be changed. Your goal is to fill in the empty squares following the simple rule above. If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “puzzle pages.” Best of luck, and have fun! www.sudoku.com this week’s puzzle level: 8.31.22solution to last week’s puzzle MEDIUM#18 419 653 8295 43 162 27 5986548 932 15 91 23874 3785
18 August 31, 2022 INDYweek.com INDY CLASSIFIEDS classy@indyweek.com EMPLOYMENT C L A S S I F I E D S HEALTH & WELL BEING 919-416-0675 www.harmonygate.com Executive Director/Pharmacy Manager Chatham Cares Community Pharmacy (Siler City NC) is hiring a part-time Executive Director/Pharmacy Manager. Must be a licensed pharmacist and located in the Piedmont region of the state. Bilingual English/ Spanish skills a plus. For more information or to apply: ChathamCares.com/executive-director. Outdoor Counselor Job Seeking employees at Piedmont Wildlife Center to run our Homeschool and Afterschool programs. Have fun in nature. Work the days and hours that fit your schedule. To apply: Email a resume and cover letter to camp@piedmontwildlifecenter.org. Programs start in September. Applications accepted on a rolling basis. Hourly rates starting at $12. HOUSING forLooking TRY Email To adver tise or feature a pet for adoption, please contact adver tising@indyweek.com To adver tise or feature a pet for adoption, please contact adve To adver tise or feature a pet for adoption, please contact adver tising@indyweek.com
INDYweek.com August 31, 2022 19 C L A S S I F I E D S LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE City Director/PharmacyNC)locatedEnglish/toCentertoprograms.Havefityourlettertostartinrollingbasis. NOTICES forLookingeasier TRY INDY CLASSIFIEDS! Email classy@indyweek.com or sales@indyweek.com for more information
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