WALTER Magazine - July/August 2017 by waltermagazine

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SUMMER

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FEATURES

VOL 5, ISSUE 10 JULY/AUGUST 2017

84 76 WALTER PROFILE Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral rises by Mimi Montgomery 62 STORY OF A HOUSE At home with Thomas Sayre by Jesma Reynolds photographs by Keith Isaacs 68 AT THE TABLE Summer cooking with Fanny by Fanny Slater photographs by Andrew Sherman 76 RALEIGHITES Brewery Bhavana’s abundance by Liza Roberts photographs by Keith Isaacs 84

104 ARTIST’S SPOTLIGHT Murphy Trogdon Alaya by Liza Roberts photographs by Catherine Nguyen 92

GIGS Bison at Vista Wood Ranch by Jessie Ammons photographs by Lissa Gotwals 104

On the cover: Noel Weston at Lakeview Daylily Farm; Photograph by Geoﬀ Wood

10 | WALTER

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DEPARTMENTS

108 54 50

Our Town The Usual: American Outlaws Raleigh Oﬀ Duty: ﬁrebreather Meli Markham Game Plan: Jake and Johnny Wolf Shop Local: Taylor’s Fine Wine and Live Bait by Jessie Ammons photographs by Travis Long and Christer Berg

Our Town Spotlight Lakeview Daylily Farm by Jessie Ammons photographs by Geoﬀ Wood

115

Givers Send a Kid to Camp by Hampton Williams Hofer photographs by Missy McLamb

Drink Cookout’s watermelon milkshake by Jessie Ammons

130

End note Solar eclipse 2017

WALTER event WINnovation preview by Liza Roberts

In Every Issue

108

Field Guide Portsmouth Island adventures by CC Parker

112

Reﬂections Graduation wisdom by Katherine Gan by Rev. Greg Jones

12 | WALTER

Letter from the Editor

Contributors

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No matter what season ranks as your favorite, it’s hard to argue that summer never comes soon enough. Not necessarily for the weather, though that’s nice enough (for a while). It’s that bit of ease that seeps into our humid days. Clothes become simpler. Cooking becomes grilling. “I don’t have any homework” becomes true. The holidays (Memorial Day, the Fourth, Labor Day) become fun and easy, without presents or expectations. There’s a kind of freewheeling spirit that can seep in, if you let it: music festivals, picnics, taking Friday off, swimming in lakes, road trips, ice cream cones: all sound like reasonable summertime options, regardless of your age. Putting together this double issue, that sensibility overtook us. Why not throw a pot, get muddy, and drink local craft brews in the woods at the Festival for the Eno (pg. 40)? Why not hop in a motorcycle sidecar for a long ride on a country road (pg.5 4)? Why not make hummus out of beets (pg. 76); become a “pirate camper” on a remote North Carolina island (pg. 108); or stand in line for a limited-run watermelon milkshake (pg. 86)? Why not? A similar spirit of possibility – coupled with a whole lot of hard work, resources, and time – inspired a Chapel Hill couple to buy 82 acres outside Hillborough in order to raise buffalo (pg. 104). It nudged Raleigh artist Thomas Sayre and his wife Jed to move into an empty downtown warehouse 26 years ago (about 20 years before it became “the warehouse district”) and live there ever since. It convinced the brother-sister duo behind the Laotian restaurant Bida Mana to gut an Irish pub to create a dim sum restaurant-slash-brewery-slashﬂower shop-slash-bookstore. Really. (pg. 84). Next to them, the horticulturalist who started a massive daylily farm in his “retirement” looks practically ho-hum (pg. 58). But there’s no joking about the belief in possibility that galvanized the visionary and determined Catholic Diocese of Raleigh, which just completed construction on the ﬁfth-largest cathedral in the United States right here in town (pg. 62). It’s designed to last several hundred summers. Here’s to that season – of bold thinking, freewheeling fun, and hope. Liza Roberts Editor & General Manager

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VOLUME V, ISSUE IX

LIZA ROBERTS Editor & General Manager Creative Director JESMA REYNOLDS Assistant Editor JESSIE AMMONS Community Manager KATHERINE POOLE Contributing Writers MIMI MONTGOMERY, CC PARKER, FANNY SLATER, HAMPTON WILLIAMS-HOFER Contributing Photographers CHRISTER BERG, LISSA GOTWALS, KEITH ISAACS, TRAVIS LONG, MISSY MCLAMB, CATHERINE NGUYEN, ANDREW SHERMAN, GEOFF WOOD

Managing Director, Magazines and Events DENISE WALKER Denise.Walker@Waltermagazine.com

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Event and Account Coordinator KAIT GORMAN KGorman@Waltermagazine.com

Advertising Design and Production DAVID BAUCOM, DENISE FERGUSON, CAROLYN VAUGHAN Circulation BILL MCBERKOWITZ Administration CINDY HINKLE Published 10 times a year by The News & Observer Publishing Co. A McClatchy Company, 215 S. McDowell St., Raleigh NC 27601

JULY/AUGUST 2017 Walter is available by paid subscriptions for $10 a year in the United States, as well as at select rack and retail locations throughout the Triangle. For customer service inquiries, please email us at customerservice@waltermagazine.com or call 919-836-5661. Address all correspondence to Walter Magazine, 215 S. McDowell St., Raleigh NC 27601. Walter does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. Please contact editor and general manager Liza Roberts at Liza.Roberts@Waltermagazine.com for freelance guidelines. © The News & Observer. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the express written consent of the copyright owner.

16 | WALTER

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CONTRIBUTORS

JULY/AUGUST 2017

FANNY SLATER / C H E F, W R I T E R

Celebrate Summer with a Stylish Outdoor Living Space

The home-taught food enthusiast with a passion for storytelling – and licking the plate – won Rachael Ray’s Great American Cookbook Competition in 2014. Her cookbook, Orange, Lavender & Figs: Deliciously Different Recipes from a Passionate Eater is available online and anywhere books are sold. Her Wilmington-based company Fanfare specializes in food television, food writing, clever product-promoting videos for recipe development partners, public speaking, blogging, and sassy social media eats. Most recently, she’s landed a job as host on Food Network’s new series Kitchen Sink, airing fall 2017.

KEITH ISAACS / PHOTOGRAPHER The architectural and food photographer is a Raleigh native. In this issue, he captured artist Thomas Sayre at home for Story of a House and the team at Brewery Bhavana for Raleighites. “Having the chance to photograph a visionary like Thomas Sayre and his home was great. His creativity and artistic style resonates throughout the space – inasmuch the artwork as the materials of the house. The fact that he had the vision 30 years ago to call it home is impressive. Brewery Bhavana is also the result of great vision. The concept is so unique and dynamic, and the food is a perfect complement. And how ﬁtting that the renovation of the restaurant was carried out by Sayre’s Clearscapes Architects.”

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GEOFF WOOD / P H O T O G R A P H E R The intrepid photographer’s plan is to dive headﬁrst into life behind the lens. He’s hanging off the side of the boat, pouring metal ﬁlings into old cameras to see what happens, and whenever possible taking the whole thing underwater. He’s getting to know each person, giving his all for each job, and using ten years of design experience to compose the shot. In this issue, he spent an afternoon at Lakeview Daylily Farm. “It doesn’t get much more authentic than Noel Weston. From the way he wears his hat to the way he carries his shovel, you know immediately that he loves what he does and is incredibly knowledgeable about his daylilies, along with everything else he grows on his farm.”

CC PARKER / W R I T E R The local writer says “parenting is not for sissies, nor is travelling with your family, but both are totally worth the effort.” In this issue, she recounts a Memorial Day trip to Portsmouth Island on the Outer Banks. “Portsmouth has been tops on my bucket list for years. I’m so glad we experienced a different vibe at a different beach. Portsmouth camper pirates unite!”

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“The month of August had turned into a griddle where the days just lay there and sizzled.” – Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

This year’s poolside trend is outrageous water floats: shaped like pizza slices, flamingos, swans, even margaritas, ye olde donut-shape has fallen to the wayside. You can find a selection of the fun water accessories locally at Overton’s on Wake Forest Road.

Are deer gobbling your petunias? JC Raulston Arboretum Director Mark Weathington will lead an hour-and-a-half long tour through the gardens Aug. 1, where he’ll oﬀer insight on which plants deer eat last and other helpful tricks. Free for members, $5 for non-members; jcra.ncsu.edu/events

Why not... Download the new NCMA app for self-guided museum tours...get your dog a summertime ’do at Woof Gang...splurge on a pied-a-terre or getaway car emblazoned Moon & Lola keychain inspired by old-school hotel keys...add Cary-made Neomega infused avocado oils to your antipasto platter...freeze fresh herbs in ice cube trays for pretty drink complements...then up your cocktail game further with Durham Distillery’s new cucumber vodka...drive to the beach for a sandwich at Wilmington’s Chops Deli...Put on your birding hat and head to Jordan Lake’s Vista Point to spot one of the resident Bald Eagles...Grab a scoop of Howling Cow’s homemade Cherry Brick Road ice cream at N.C. State’s Talley Student Center....

NO SLOUCH Chapel Hill-based cookbook author and cooking teacher Nancie McDermott’s latest title, FRUIT, celebrates quintessential Southern fruit recipes. Along with scuppernong pie, Ocracoke Island fig cake, and pawpaw ice cream, she’s got a sweetly uplifting blackberry slump. BLACKBERRY SLUMP For the blackberries 1/2 cup sugar 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 3 1/2 cups blackberries 1/2 cup water For the dumplings 1 cup all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon sugar 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons cold butter, cut into small pieces 1/4 cup whole milk

22 | WALTER

To make the berry compote, combine the sugar, ﬂour, and salt in a medium saucepan or a small Dutch oven. Stir with a fork to mix them well. Add the berries and water and stir gently. Place over medium-high heat and bring the berries to a gentle boil. Adjust the heat to maintain a lively simmer and stir well. Cook, stirring often, until the berries are surrounded by a thickened, shiny sauce, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cover to keep warm.

To make the dumplings, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl, and stir with a fork to mix them well. Toss the butter into the flour mixture. Using your hands, press and squeeze the butter to incorporate it into the flour mixture, working it until you have a dry mixture with pea-sized lumps. Add the milk and stir well to make a very soft dough, like biscuit dough only more moist. Return the berry compote to the stove and bring to a gentle boil over medium-high heat. Adjust the heat to maintain the boil. Using two teaspoons or a tablespoon, scoop up the dough and drop it onto the bubbling surface of the berry compote, making walnut-sized dumplings. When all the dumplings are in, reduce the heat to maintain a very gentle simmer and cover. Cook undisturbed for 15 minutes, or until the dumplings

are dry and ﬁrm and cooked through. If you aren’t sure they are done, remove and pull apart a large dumpling. Remove from the heat and serve hot or warm. Consider adding a scoop of vanilla ice cream, a dollop of whipped cream, or a generous pour of cream, half-and-half, or evaporated milk. Note: While a slump is best served as soon as it is ready, you can cool it and keep refrigerated for one day. To serve, reheat gently, adding a few tablespoons of water to the sauce, which will have thickened. Serves 4 - 6 From FRUIT: A Savor the South® cookbook; Copyright © 2017 by the University of North Carolina Press.Used by permission of the publisher; www.uncpress.unc.edu

courtesy Overtons (SWAN); Moon and Lola (KEYCHAIN); Thinkstock (FLOWER,EAGLE,); Simply Recipes (BALCKBERRY SLUMP)

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Gregg Museum opens Aug. 26

hen Roger Manley cuts the ribbon on the new Gregg Museum of Art and Design at N.C. State Aug. 26, the museum’s director will mark the opening not only of a beautiful new $10 million home for the university’s encyclopedic collection of visual art including textiles, ceramics, folk art, paintings, photography, and outsider art, he’ll also usher in a new era for the visual arts for the university and in the local community.

24 | WALTER

courtesy Gregg Museum

RALEIGH

LIght

The Gregg, which hasn’t had a home for several years, will now anchor a prominent corner of Hillsborough Street at Pullen Park, bringing new attention to the visual arts at the university and providing a gateway to an emerging “arts plaza” including Theatre in the Park and the Pullen Arts Center, which is readying its own renovation and expansion. “There’s a lot of really wonderful potential here,” says Manley while touring the site on a recent morning. He points out the highlights of the museum’s new building, a LEEDcertiﬁed, 15,000 square-foot gallery, event, and storage venue designed by leading architects Perkins +Will. With a modest proﬁle from the street, the

“There’s a lot of really wonderful potential here.” –Roger Manley venue surprises visitors with a spacious, airy interior. This state-of-theart structure is attached to the newly renovated former university chancellor’s residence, a stately 1927 Georgian home designed by prominent architect Hobart Upjohn, which offers nearly 8,000 square feet of exhibition, event, and office space. The Gregg’s first big show will comprise an overview of its permanent collection. “The museum has been closed for several years, and a lot of people have forgotten what we have,” Manley says. An exhibit of the works of Raleigh artist Herb Jackson will be mounted simultaneously in a smaller gallery in the new building, while a show of Native American art from the permanent collection will fill the main floor of the residence. –L.R. For hours and more details about the opening: gregg.arts.ncsu.edu

MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL, RALEIGH

RALEIGH now

all month

Mozart Requiem

FRI/SAT, NOV 17-18 | 8PM

North Carolina Master Chorale

Pictures at an Exhibition FRI/SAT, JAN 12-13 | 8PM

NORTH [STATE] STARGAZING My Fair Lady in Concert FRI, FEB 16 | 8PM SAT, FEB 17 | 3PM & 8PM

Bring your Valentine for a jaunt through the beloved musical My Fair Lady—performed in a concert setting, with Broadway singers in period costume and a lush symphonic score.

For Michael: The Music of

Michael Jackson

THUR, MAR 8 | 7:30PM

A full rock band and vocalist join the Symphony to jam on “ABC,” “Beat It,” “Thriller,” “The Way You Make Me Feel,” and many more!

Fountains & Pines

FRI/SAT, MAR 23-24 | 8PM

March 24 Concert Sponsor: Smith Anderson

Nico Muhly: Mixed Messages Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1 Respighi: Fountains of Rome Respighi: Pines of Rome

Subscriptions on sale now! ncsymphony.org 919.733.2750

MOVIES WITH STARS OUTDOOR MOVIE ROUNDUP All the stars have aligned for Raleigh’s favorite outdoor movie venues. And with a variety of ﬁlms, from beloved classics to recent blockbusters, there is something to bring a twinkle to the eye of every ﬁlmgoer.

Last month, we told you about the constellation of stars performing this summer at the Joseph M. Bryan Jr. Theatre in the Museum Park; in July and August, the lineup is particularly exciting as it features so many homegrown favorites. Chapel Hill’s Americana-folk duo Mandolin Orange plays July 22. Rhiannon Giddens, a Greensboro native and founding member of the Grammy Award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, lights up the stage Aug. 9. For those of a certain age, the Chapel Hill indierock legends Superchunk will deliver a signature high-velocity show Aug. 12. And last but not least, hometown darling Tift Merritt joins with friends Aug. 19 for an evening of melodic “thank yous” to her own musical roots. Most concerts begin at 8 p.m.; $18 - $45, depending on show; 2110 Blue Ridge Road; ncartmuseum.org/ summerconcerts

Raleigh Little Theatre hosts the free, family-friendly series, Movies in the Garden, every Thursday night July 20 - Aug. 10. Food truck fare and concessions are available, so just bring a blanket, your kiddies, and settle in under the stars for La La Land July 20; Cinderella July 27; The Sound of Music August 3; Hidden Figures August 10. raleighlittletheatre.org

GET ON BOARD

The Summer Film Series at the NCMA returns with an eclectic mix of fan favorites. Reunite with your brat pack for Sixteen Candles July 7 or Say Anything July 8. Go Rogue One: A Star Wars Story July 15. Take a trip to Brazil July 21 or be An American in Paris July 28. See Moonlight by moonlight Aug. 18. Picnics are welcome and concessions can be purchased on site. ncartmuseum.org

Polka Dot Mama Melanoma Foundation is a nonprofit started by a local mother, blogger, and skin cancer survivor. The foundation’s Shade Shuttle is a roving bus that rolls up to various locations every month to provide free skin screenings. July offers several opportunities to get checked out. Clinics are firstcome, first-serve and intended solely for the purpose of screening for skin cancer. No treatments or procedures will be provided. N.C. Courage Soccer Game, July 8, 2:30 - 4:30 p.m, WakeMed Soccer Field; Wake Employee Health Center July 20, noon - 1 p.m., 336 Fayetteville St.; see website for more times and locations; polkadotmama.org/pdmmf-events

John Peets (STARGAZING); Stacey Sprenz (BOARD)

2017/18

SEASON HIGHLIGHTS

JULY

— at —

13 NIGHT CRUISE When the heat of the day runs you ashore, set adrift at night for a sunset paddle on Lake Johnson. A guided canoe tour led by a naturalist with Raleigh Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Services will teach you about the nightlife of the wild things that grow and make their home on the lake. Meantime, you’ll be improving your paddling technique. Tours conclude just as the sun is setting for a picture-perfect ending. July 13, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.; Aug. 10, 6:15 8:15 p.m.; minimum age of 10, ages 10 - 16 must be registered with an adult; $15, registration required; raleighnc.gov/parks/content/ parksrec/articles/parksrecreationpublications

Relaxin the Park thissummerasthe sun setsto the soundsoflocalartists— with a Farewell-to-SummerConcertinAugust!

Wednesdays in July l 6:00 - 9:00PM July 5 - Swivel Hip

July 12 - Too Much Sylvia

Kansas City Star (CRUISE); Ron Yorgasson (HOOPLA)

July 19 - Spare Change

July 26 - The Band Punch August 30 - The Embers

WHAT’S ALL THE HOOPLA ABOUT? Aloha! Hoopla Party in the Park returns to the N.C. Museum of Art July 14. Be the big kahuna at a Carolina-style luau held on the park’s Ellipse lawn. A local DJ will spin tunes, the Durham Ukulele Orchestra will provide atmosphere, and members of the Imagine Circus will perform their Femme de Fire show. (Yes, we said fire.) Food truck fare, beer, wine, and nonalcoholic drinks will be available for purchase. Wrap up the day with a screening of the Disney film Moana at the Bryan Theatre in the Park. Party begins at 5 p.m., film screens at 9 p.m.; admission to party is free, ticket required for film; $6 non-members; 2110 Blue Ridge Road; ncartmuseum.org/calendar

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RALEIGH now

SPOTLIGHT

courtesy Raleigh Flyers

THROW

DOWN

Professional ultimate disc teams prepare for playoﬀs

dd professional ultimate disc competition to the area’s long list of excellent spectator sports: The Raleigh Flyers are No. 1 in the region and gearing up for playoffs July 29 and Aug. 5. More commonly known as ultimate frisbee (“We use ‘disc’ because ‘Frisbee’ is trademarked,” explains team owner and general manager Casey Degnan), or simply “ultimate,” the sport’s popularity has steadily grown over the past five years. Degnan says it tends to draw almost fanatically dedicated players and fans, an attitude he exemplifies. “‘When a ball dreams, it dreams it’s a Frisbee,’” he says, quoting a saying popular with players. There’s also: “‘Frisbee joins man’s greatest tool, his hand, with his greatest dream, to fly.’” It’s definitely a crowd of true believers: “The culture and the people who make up the sport seem to distinguish it,” Degnan says. “Many fans of the Flyers are also players,” adds coach Mike Denardis. “Our players will often play pickup with many of the people that cheer for them on Saturdays.”

After his own career as a professional player in Chicago, Degnan saw the opportunity to return to his hometown two years ago by partnering with his brother, Sean Degnan, and with former UNC ultimate coach Denardis to launch the Raleigh Flyers. The team, which debuted in 2015 simultaneously with teams in Nashville, Jacksonville, and Atlanta, is part of the American Ultimate Disc League South Division. The Flyers have maintained a winning record. The team won division finals in 2015 and lost in national semifinals; last year, the Flyers finished No. 2 in the regional division. This season kicked off in April, and as of press time, the team is No. 1. If the Flyers continue to win through the final away game July 8, the team will host an initial playoff match Aug. 12. If they lose a game and finish second in the division, they’ll play July 29. “Playoffs have that electric feel,” Degnan says. “Win or go home.” No matter the outcome, ultimate is a lot of fun to watch. Gameday atmosphere at WakeMed Soccer Park is low-tech and high-energy. Degnan says the athleticism of these professional athletes is not to be underestimated, but that one of his favorite parts of ultimate is its accessibility to every level. “It’s the sport I think is best positioned to bring the joy of play to the most amount of people in the world.” –J.A.

Individual game tickets are $14, $5 for ages 5 - 13, and group rates are available; raleighﬂyers.com

28 | WALTER

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SPOTLIGHT

TIP ME OVER

AND POUR ME OUT The National Teapot Show returns to Creedmoor

“T

eapots have really resonated throughout the artist community,” says Jennifer Dolan, manager of Cedar Creek Gallery in Creedmoor. The gallery’s national show devoted to teapots began as a creative gamble in 1968, when its late founder, potter Sid Oakley, conceived an exhibition focused on ﬁne craft teapots as a way to introduce new artists and styles, Dolan says. The show was such a hit that it’s returned every three years since, becoming one of the gallery’s longest-running and most anticipated art shows. Teapots are both familiar but complex: Within a recognizable everyday vessel, an artist can showcase “really impressive composition and technicality,” Dolan says. More than 200 artists are invited to participate in each show, and Dolan and her team purposefully invite many who have never before

thought to make a teapot: woodworkers, potters, and mixedmedia makers. The end results run the gamut from traditional to whimsical, ﬁne to folksy to zany, and they’re all functional. They’re also all for sale, as a reﬂection of the gallery’s mission “to help as many American craftspeople earn a living as possible,” Dolan says. Pots in the show come from almost every state, and range in price from $70 to $5,300. This 10th National Teapot Show also marks the gallery’s 50th anniversary – making one more reason to check out the compound 25 miles north of Raleigh. In addition to the main gallery, it has four working pottery studios and two glassblowing shops, and quite a few meandering outdoor pathways lined with quirky North Carolina-made art. “We’ve become a destination for people. It’s a place to stop for a breath of fresh air.” –J.A.

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Jason Dowdle

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14-16

Jared Lazarus/Miami Herald (NERD); George Grantham Bain Collection/Library of Congress (FLORENCE)

NERD ALERT It’s a trap for pop culture enthusiasts. Raleigh Supercon welcomes fangirls/boys of science ﬁction, fantasy, superheroes, anime, cartoons, and video games to a three-day, family-friendly festival at the Raleigh Convention Center July 14 - 16. The weekend is jam-packed with special events, meet-and-greets with celebrities and industry insiders, workshops, screenings, and all the cosplay your cape, pointy ears, and lightsaber can handle. See website for convention and exhibition room hours; tickets start at $17, kids 9 and under are free with paying adult; 500 S. Salisbury St.; raleighsupercon.com

7/218/6 OFF-KEY TO HAPPINESS There are people who say I cannot sing! Well, there is no one here who can say I didn’t sing! So said Florence Foster Jenkins, the real-life inspiration for the hilarious and utterly charming production Glorious debuting at Theatre in the Park July 21. The play follows the delightfully delusional singer’s “career,” from charity recitals to recording sessions to an unprecedented triumph at Carnegie Hall. What the eccentric matron lacked in technique, she made up for in joie de vivre. Running July 21 - Aug. 6; $24 for adults, $18 for students, seniors, and military; 107 Pullen Road; theatreinthepark.com/calendar/event/83

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SPOTLIGHT

VERY CATTY

Photography exhibit showcases “the fabric of Raleigh”

hen Raleigh photographer Christer Berg’s work fills the Betty Ray McCain art gallery at the Duke Energy Center for Performing Arts Aug. 10, portraits of of city leaders will hang alongside those of everyday Raleighites. “I’ve really realized the value of diversity and different perspectives,” Berg says. Since 2012, Berg has been capturing “ordinary citizens who together do extraordinary things, for our community and for each other,” he says. He’s done that with a series of powerful studio portraits called Portraits with Purpose, and also with unscripted, candid snapshots of people like firefighters, pastors, cobblers, and baristas in his series called The Fabric of Raleigh and The Fabric of Durham. Selections from all three collections will be on display Aug. 10 - Oct. 1. “I’ve seen how we all contribute our various talents, passions, and professional work to society in so many ways that add up to a vibrant, diverse, interesting community,” Berg says. Berg also collaborated with Durham-based Horse and Buggy press to create a limited-edition hardcover book of The Fabric of Raleigh and The Fabric of Durham. Each series comprises half of the double-sided book. They meet in the middle, where a reader can flip the book upside down to begin the next series. The quirky binding felt like the best format for these photos, Berg says. “I have met so many interesting people and heard their stories.” –J.A.

Opening reception and book release: Aug. 10; 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.; 2 E. South St. Book signing: Aug. 24; 5 - 8 p.m.; Isaac Hunter’s Tavern, 414 Fayetteville St. The Fabric of Durham then moves to Through This Lens gallery Oct. 20; 303 E. Chapel Hill St., Durham portraitswithpurpose.us/the-fabric-of-book

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CAT TALES The SPCA of Wake County sponsors the purr-fect summer learning series for children aged K - 5. The Cat Tales Reading Program invites kids to bring favorite books to the Adoption Center and read to the shelter cats. It’s a fun, furry, and pressure-free environment for chidren to build reading skills, learn about responsible pet ownship, and play with cats. Sessions are held every other Tuesday and the cost is $5 for one parent and up to 2 children. spcawake.org

Christer Berg

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DRAW FOR PAWS Friends of felines are invited to roll the dice July 14 at the fifth annual Catsino Royale, a fundraising event to benefit SAFE Haven for Cats. Go for broke at a variety of casino games, including blackjack, poker, craps, and roulette. Ante up for the raffle, silent auction, and cat bingo while enjoying appetizers and drinks. The evening goes from 6:30 - 10 p.m. at A Step to Gold Ballroom. catsino.org

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all month GO TO THE DOGS The dog days of summer are especially hard on our at-risk population of four-legged friends. Consider becoming a helper through The Wake County Animal Care, Control, and Adoption Center Volunteer Program. The minimum age to volunteer is 16 (perfect for couch-bound teenagers) and they ask that you be willing to commit at least six hours each month for a minimum of six months. Simply fill out the online application, then attend a Volunteer Open House. Volunteer roles include: cat or dog cuddlers, photographers for the pet adoption site, matchmakers to greet potential adopters, Fido fitness “instructors,” and many more. Make a difference that counts in dog years. Free; 820 Beacon Lake Drive; wakegov.com/pets/volunteer

N&O ﬁle photo (DOGS); courtesy Gallery C (POP)

all month

POP ART For all the Raleighites summering in Atlantic Beach and missing the Oak City art scene, Gallery C is popping up just for you. Gallery C East will be showcasing several artists in residence including painter and intrepid traveler Drew Deane, whose show will run Aug. 3 - 6. Drew will also give a private acrylic painting workshop Aug. 6. The cost is $60 per person and space is limited. Pop in! Open now - Labor Day; Tuesdays - Sundays 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.; 101 W. Fort Macon Rd., Atlantic Beach; galleryc.net/gallery-c-eastatlantic-beach

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SMASH IT The 2017 Triangle summer two-person teams round-robin tournament kicks oﬀ Aug. 19 at the Triangle Table Tennis Center in Morrisville. This USATT-sanctioned, 4-star tournament promises lightening-fast doubles competition with over $3,500 in cash and prizes. Qualiﬁed hopefuls must enter no later than July 20. See website for registration information and full schedule; tickets start at $31.50; 2900 Perimeter Park Drive, Suite 200, Morrisville; triangletabletennis. com/programs-and-events/tournaments

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20-22 SEW COOL

This is not your grandmother’s sewing circle. The Original Sewing and Quilt Expo July 20 - 22 is a gathering place for all the latest in the creative world of needle arts. The Raleigh Convention Center hosts three days of workshops, classes, stage and fashion shows, how-to demonstrations, displays, and shopping galore. Find your needle in this haystack. Thursday and Friday 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.; $8 in advance, $15 at the door, children 12 and under free with adult; $19 per class, register in advance for classes; sewingexpo.com/events/ raleigh,nc

Miami Herald (BLONDIE); N&O ﬁle photo (MARY J. BLIGE); Chris McGrath (SMASH); Linda Pumphrey (SEW)

Red Hat Amphitheater will host two royal dignitaries in August. Blondie, the queen of New Wave, arrives with cars, guitars, and alt-rockers Garbage on the 5th. The red carpet rolls out on Aug. 10 for the queen of hip-hop soul, the indomitable Mary J. Blige. The Strength of a Woman Tour, featuring vocalist Lalah Hathaway, will certainly be holding court. All hail the queens! See website for showtimes; $23 - $350, depending on show; 500 S. McDowell St.; redhatamphitheater.com/event-calendar

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HAPPY 4TH! Celebration inspiration

hether it’s sparklers at the end of the dock at the family getaway or taking in The Works in downtown Raleigh, it’s not America’s birthday without a bit of fun and ﬁreworks. In case you need a few ideas, here’s how local leaders will celebrate, both locally and on vacation.

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BILLY DRAKEFORD Park ranger, William B. Umstead State Park “Traditionally, I’d spend a day canoeing a river with my family. We always pick a river with sandbars so that we can have a campﬁre and grill some hamburgers, kielbasa, baked potatoes, and corn on the cob. Now that I’m a park ranger, the fourth of July has become a work day: We rangers look upon the other families having a good time and have fun vicariously through them.”

SKY LIGHT, SKY BRIGHT Here are a few of the free Independence Day celebrations happening around the Triangle.

HOLLY TAYLOR Co-founder, Pullen Place Cafe and Catering “One of our family traditions is the Festival for the Eno. We enjoy hanging out in hammocks, listening to music, and cooling off in the Eno River. Then, we usually pack a picnic and watch fireworks with friends.” At Pullen Place, “we help people stay cool with a wider variety of drinks and cold treats, iced Larry’s Coffee, and fresh fruit lemonades featuring strawberries, blueberries, and muscadine grapes.”(You can read about the Festival for the Eno on pg. 40.)

JULY 2 Independence Day block party at Neuse River Brewing; 4 - 7 p.m.; 518 Pershing Rd.

KIM CURRY-EVANS Public art director, City of Raleigh “My expectations for the Fourth are for a fabulous barbecue courtesy of grill-master hubby Stan, and wonderful ﬁreworks in downtown Raleigh.”

JULY 3 N.C. Symphony concert and fireworks in Garner; 5 - 10 p.m.; Lake Benson Park, 921 Buffaloe Road, Garner Fireworks in Wake Forest (and look for the kids’ parade July 4); gates open at 5:30 p.m. and fireworks at dark; 420 W. Stadium Dr., Wake Forest Music, food trucks, and fireworks at Morrisville Community Park; festivities begin at 6 p.m. and fireworks at dark; 1520 Morrisville Parkway Inflatable rides, food, and fireworks in downtown Fuquay-Varina; gates open at 6 p.m.; Academy and Main Streets, FuquayVarina

DAVE ROSE

LANIE HUBBARD Acting director, Joel Lane Museum House “I’ll celebrate the Fourth in eighteenth-century style at the Joel Lane Museum Independence Day Open House. Our festival revolves around the Joel Lane House, Raleigh’s oldest dwelling and home to the city’s ‘founding father.’ Guests meet costumed docents oﬀering hands-on activities and historical background. Musicians play live patriotic and period music. Outside, guests mingle with a variety of reenactors who play with old-time toys and games, lead a children’s parade, and create rag dolls to take home. Other reenactors demonstrate period arts and tasks ranging from weaving to whittling. Free lemonade takes the edge oﬀ of the July heat.”

Owner, Deep South Entertainment “I plan on celebrating in downtown Raleigh with The Works on Fayetteville Street. My son, Elvis Rose, will be 18 months old. The ﬁreworks happen at 9:30 and are a little past his bedtime, so we’ll see if he’s able to stay up that late. But there’s plenty to do all day, so we’ll enjoy it no matter what time he decides to get sleepy. Deep South is largely an artist management ﬁrm, and we represent an exciting new artist from North Carolina, Kasey Tyndall. She will be playing at The Works. It’s an amazing event. No need to travel out of town when we have something so incredible right here in Raleigh.” –J.A.

JULY 4 “Olde Time” celebration including fishing tournament, parade, and family activities at Cary’s Bond Park; 7 a.m. - 6 p.m.; 190 Bond Park Drive, Cary Four-mile run presented by Runologie, Trophy Brewing, and Shop Local Raleigh; 8 a.m.; 1251 Goode St. “Olde Fashioned” Fourth in downtown Apex with a bike/trike/wagon parade; 9 a.m. - 1 p.m.; Salem and Chatham Streets, Apex Lawn party and friendly parade in Carrboro; 9:30 a.m. and 10:50 a.m. parade; Weaver Street Market, 101 E. Weaver St., Carrboro Children’s parade in downtown Wake Forest; lineup begins at 10 a.m. and parade starts at 10:30 a.m.; North Main Street and West Juniper Avenue, Wake Forest Family fun, watermelon eating contest, and fireworks in Clayton; activities begin at 4 p.m. and fireworks at dark; Municipal Park, 325 McCullers Drive, Clayton Fireworks in UNC’s Kenan Memorial Stadium; gates open at 7 p.m. and fireworks at 9:30 p.m.; Stadium Drive, Chapel Hill

JULY/AUGUST 2017 | 37

SPOTLIGHT

courtesy Matt Lail

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RALEIGH AT THE BEACH

Much has changed in Atlantic Beach (and the rest of the world) in the years since the ﬁrst Fourth of July parade took place on Club Colony Drive. The old bridge spanning from Morehead City to the island where Atlantic Beach sits was replaced years ago. The Circle – a circuitous roadway at the heart of the town – evolved from a quintessential beach neighborhood to a popular (if sometimes seedy) cruising spot, and is now the home of hip restaurants. Homegrown favorites Bert’s Surf Shop and Atlantic Beach Surf Shop are still there, but so are the ubiquitous Wings franchises. Many of Atlantic Beach’s old cottages are long gone, replaced with condominiums or luxury homes. But Atlantic Beach is still ﬁlled with folks from Raleigh, and the Club Colony Drive Fourth of July parade remains the same – only bigger. The late Robert “Doc” Procter, a Raleigh resident, was one

Atlantic Beach Fourth of July Parade

very Fourth of July, as it has for some 40 years, a half-mile stretch of a residential street in Atlantic Beach becomes the site of a patriotic parade founded by – and ﬁlled with – Raleighites. A couple hundred folks enjoy a late-afternoon stroll from one end of the street to the other. Parents pull little tykes behind in Radio Flyers. Older kids pedal their bikes. And folks young and old – decked out in red, white, and blue – wave to onlookers and offer up a “God bless America!”

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JULY of the parade’s many founding fathers. “It was small – just our little community,” recalls his daughter, Becky Procter. “In the first parade, there might have been 20 or 30 people there.” “Doc” Procter proudly served as an Atlantic Beach reserve police officer for 20 years and as chair of the Atlantic Beach Town Planning Board, even while he lived the rest of the year in Raleigh. His commitment to the town had many convinced he was, in fact, mayor of Atlantic Beach. He helped get the Atlantic Beach police and fire departments to participate in the parade, and today, a siren-wailing Atlantic Beach fire engine remains the parade’s highlight. Another Raleighite, Clyde Bailey, has served as the unofficial Grand Marshal of the parade in recent years. Decked out in an Uncle Sam suit, Bailey climbs into the back of a white Jeep Wrangler (festooned in red, white, and blue decor), and brings up the rear of the procession, typically accompanied by family and friends. And though the parade has grown, it’s also the same as it ever was: still an opportunity for folks in a community they hold dear to take a stroll down the street and celebrate our

Paradegoers toss out candy to spectators. (Though, truth be told, just about everyone is in the parade…) nation’s independence all at the same time. Parents still pull their little ones in wagons. Children still ride their bikes. Entrepreneurial young folks sell homemade brownies, Rice Krispies Treats, and lemonade from homemade driveway stands. Some adults beat the intense summertime heat with a beverage – in a red cup, of course. Paradegoers toss out candy to spectators. (Though, truth be told, just about everyone is in the parade; forgotten or overlooked Jolly Ranchers and Tootsie Rolls can often be found in the street hours later.) When the parade is over, Bailey hops down from the Jeep, takes off the hat, and heads inside, where the celebrations continue into the evening. As the sun sets behind Beaufort, the ﬁreworks begin up from Fort Macon to Emerald Isle. Bottle rockets scream along the sand. The strong ocean breezes send puffs of smoke whirling about. And as they celebrate their nation and community together the same way they’ve been doing for decades, folks know there’s something unusually reassuring in the notion that this simple, homespun ritual will continue in years to come. “I can still picture some of the older folks cheering from their balconies,” says Becky Procter. “It’s beautiful to see the Club Colony Fourth of July parade still going year after year. And I truly believe this year Dad will be looking down and enjoying the parade once again.” –Matt Lail

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SHALL WE GATHER AT THE RIVER? Festival for the Eno

very summer since 1980, thousands of folks have come together on the banks of the Eno River in Durham to enjoy music, crafts, food, and camaraderie – and to raise awareness and funds for the conservation of the river basin. Born out of the N.C. Folklife Festival, the two-day Eno event is “like a giant backyard barbecue for the creative class: it’s homey and raucous, full of music, dancing, crafts, and sweaty kids slurping giant glasses of lemonade,” as The New York Times once described it. With a mission of “saving the river one song at a time,” the festival is also a music-lover’s dream: 70 bands are scheduled to

perform 60-plus hours of music from four stages. Appalachian funk-rock, soul-stirring gospel, pulsating afrobeat – it’s all there. You can break from the musical frenzy to refuel at an alfresco food court with more than 20 vendors selling heaping plates of soul food, ﬂavorful vegetarian street fare, and homemade ice cream, to name a few. The beer garden with local brews is a popular spot. The festival is also a mecca for regional artisans to showcase their wares in a juried fair. And your inner artist may even be inspired to weave a blanket, throw a pot, or jam on a ukelele at one of the festival’s hands-on events. –K.P.

July 1 and 4; 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.; tickets sold at the gate, $23 for single-day pass, $35 for two-day pass, teen tickets (age 13-17) $11, children under 12 free; West Point on the Eno City Park, 5101 N. Roxboro Road, Durham; enofest.org

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Harry Lynch/News & Observer

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courtesy Mystic Farm and Distillery (MAGICAL); Chris Seward (FRIDAY)

JULY

all month MAGICAL MYSTICAL TOUR North Carolina boasts some of the best small-batch spirits and liquors in the country, and one of the brightest stars is right here in the Triangle. Durham’s Mystic Farm and Distillery welcomes visitors every Saturday for tours. Learn firsthand the production process for its small-batch bourbon and bourbon liqueur as you move from the grain fields to the bottling line and end in the all-important tasting room. Taste the grains, sample the aging bourbon, and savor the finished product in a relaxing, welcoming setting guaranteed to lift the spirit. Every Saturday; 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.; free, reservation required; whatismystic.com/book-tours-classes

all month

FRIDAY WHITE NIGHTS Light up Friday Night on White in downtown Wake Forest. Presented by White Street Brewing Company, this summertime music series will literally have you dancing in the street. Get your groove on with cover bands Big Love July 14 and Love Tribe Aug. 11. Bring your boogie shoes and a lawn chair or blanket, and enjoy food from a variety of downtown eateries and food trucks. Beer and wine are available to purchase through a token system. Friday night is alright. 6 9 p.m.; free; South White Street, Wake Forest; wakeforestnc.gov/ friday-night-on-white.aspx

SHERI HAGERTY GROUP Allen Tate Realtors sherihagerty.com 3201 Glenwood Avenue Raleigh, North Carolina 919.862.6258

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HEY NOW,

YOU’RE AN ALL-STAR Collegiate summer baseball league stars play in Holly Springs

ummer break for a college athlete means keeping up your game. For baseball players, it often involves playing for a local summer league like the Coastal Plain League. The league’s 2017 All-Star Game in Holly Springs July 9 - 10 gives local fans a chance to watch the best. The annual face-off features two teams made up of players from each of the league’s 15 teams: The Coastal Plain League includes collegiate summer teams throughout the Carolinas and Virginia, including the Holly Springs Salamanders, Fayetteville Swampdogs, and Gastonia Grizzlies. These players, who compete for their respective universities during the school year and join their CPL teams from May to August, are chosen for the annual All-Star game by coaches and fans.

This year is the Salamanders’ ﬁrst time hosting the All-Star weekend, and the town will welcome the opportunity to show off its North Main Athletic Complex. You can check it out and meet the all-star players during a fan fest July 9 before they take to the ﬁeld for a fun home run derby. Monday July 10 is the big day, where a local luncheon leads up to the East-vs.-West baseball game. The topnotch showdown is entertaining for local fans, but for the players, it’s high-stakes ball: The weekend is a key scouting opportunity for players with Major League aspirations. –J.A.

coastalplain.com

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ROW YOUR BOAT The Triangle Rowing Club is a competitve rowing team for Triangle area middle and high school aged girls and boys. Their Summer Learn to Row program offers weeklong sessions to teach the basics of rowing to kids aged 12 - 18. They learn to carry, launch, row, and dock Olympic regulation boats. Sessions run at Lake Wheeler July 10 - 14; July 17 21; July 31 - Aug. 4. trianglerowing.org GET YOUR KICKS The N.C. Courage is deep into its inaugural season with the National Women’s Soccer League. You can show your support for these amazing athletes who have kicked off their first year at the top of the league. The Courage face off against the Seattle Reign July 8 and again Aug. 5. They take on the Washington Spirit Aug. 19. Home games are played at the WakeMed Soccer Park. Have Courage! northcarolinafc.com

courtesy Coastal Plain League

THE SPORTING LIFE

courtesy Hux Family Farm (GOATS); Thinkstock (TANGO); Associated Press (WILLIE); N&O (CHOW)

JULY

TOTES MY GOATS Om McDonald! The Hux Family Farm in Durham opens its gates every weekend for sessions of guided meditation – or yoga with goats! Take this special opportunity to enjoy your practice while interacting with animals in a relaxed, therapeutic environment. Various yoga styles are oﬀered depending on the instructor and include Bikram, kundalini, restorative, vinyasa, and yin. At least one beginner and one intermediateto-advanced class is oﬀered each week. Check the website for the full schedule; $10 - 20, registration required; huxfamilyfarm. eventbrite.com

14 ON THE ROAD AGAIN Koka Booth Amphitheatre welcomes country music’s original outlaw July 14. Willie Nelson and Family will be joined onstage by singer-songwriter and Raleigh native Brooke Hatala for an evening of music, mirth, and moonlight. What you can bring: lawn chairs, rain coats or ponchos, and one factory-sealed bottle of water. Concessions and beverages may be purchased from a variety of vendors on-site. Gates open at 5:30 p.m., show starts at 7 p.m.; lawn seats $49.50, reserved seating $59.50 - $75; 8003 Regency Parkway, Cary; boothamphitheatre.com/event/willienelson-family

2 LAST TANGO IN DURHAM Dancing With the Stars LIVE! Hot Summer Nights’ tour cha-chas into the Durham Performing Arts Center July 2 for two sizzling, star-spangled performances. Dip into the steamy duets and group numbers choreographed by Emmy nominee Mandy Moore. Pro dancer favorites Lindsay Arnold, Sharna Burgess, Artem Chigvintsev, Keo Motsepe, and Gleb Savchenko showcase the ballroom and modern dance moves that keep us reaching for the stars. Show us your jazz hands. Showtimes 5 p.m. and 8 pm.; $70 - $180; 123 Vivian St.; dpacnc.com/events

30 CHOW, BABY Come for lunch, then eat your way through dinner July 30 at Cary’s Downtown Chowdown. The area’s best food trucks plus local beer and wine purveyors park along Chatham Street to form a chow line like no other. Enjoy the fare as local musicians serenade. There will be seating areas and accessible parking for those that need it. 12:30 - 5 p.m., rain or shine; free; Chatham Street between Harrison Avenue and Walker Street; townofcary.org/recreation-enjoyment/events/special-events/ chatham-street-chowdown

JULY/AUGUST 2017 | 43

BEAUTY

IN INTENTION

Georgia O’Keeﬀe comes to North Carolina

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Bruce Weber (American, born 1946). Georgia O’Keeﬀe, Abiquiu, N.M., 1984. Gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 in. (35.6 x 27.9 cm). Bruce Weber and Nan Bush Collection, New York. © Bruce Weber

TRIANGLE now SPOTLIGHT

AUGUST

“There’s an amazing continuity in Georgia O’Keeffe’s aesthetic. She was never happenstance: how she dressed for the camera and for interviews, and being so selective in what she put into her homes and what she wore. She followed the Arts and Crafts ethos, and also the Asian idea that there’s no reason why all aspects of your life can’t be beautiful, if you’re really careful and selective and simple. She grew a lot of her own food, and made many of her clothes. She was unbelievably intentional and careful.” – Phil Archer, Betsy Main Babcock Director of Program and Interpretation, Reynolda House Museum of American Art

he Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Winston-Salem will mount a remarkable Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition Aug. 18 – Nov. 19. Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern features more than 190 paintings, photographs, sculptures, and personal objects that explore how the artist created an image of herself through her iconic paintings, her wardrobe, and her homes. The exhibit debuted at the Brooklyn Museum earlier this year, where it earned praise by The New York Times and Vogue. When it arrives at the historic-home-turnedmuseum in Winston-Salem this summer, it will be the exhibit’s only stop in the Southeast. “Reynolda House is a twentieth century house created by women who embraced modernism – to a different degree than O’Keeffe, but modernism all the same,” Archer says. “O’Keeffe relates to the basic idea behind Reynolda, which is to live the ideal healthy life with family and friends and nature; to simplify life and ﬁll it with as much beauty as possible.” The exhibit explores this “more tangible sense of her physicality,” Archer says, but also includes “recognizable large ﬂoral paintings and Southwestern mountain scenes.” Living Modern kicks off Reynolda House’s centennial year, Archer says. “I really can’t think of a more perfect artist to do so.” Tickets are available in advance online at reynoldahouse.org/livingmodern. –J.A.

JULY/AUGUST 2017 | 45

10 -13 4 DOWNRIGHT UPRIGHT Name a city, a troop, and a hilarious way to spend an evening ... The legendary improv group Upright Citizens Brigade (which boasts Amy Poehler as a founding member) brings its ﬂagship touring show to the the Carolina Theatre Aug. 4. Unbelievably unscripted and totally improvised, four UCB players perform a whip-smart, rapid-ﬁre show that has never – and will never – be seen again. 8 p.m., $23 - $33; 309 W. Morgan St.; carolinatheatre.org/ events

SHARP FOCUS Named a signature event for the area by the the Durham Convention Center and Visitors Bureau, the North Carolina Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (NCGLFF) takes place Aug. 10 - 13 at the Carolina Theatre. It is the second largest LGBTQ festival in the Southeast and features a richly diverse array of feature-length films as well as shorts and documentaries. This is a celebration of stories not often told on the big screen, and an opportunity to bring the entire community together. See website for tickets and full schedule; 309 W. Morgan St.; carolinatheatre.org/films/festivals/ncglff

courtesy Upright Citizens Brigade Tour Co. (DOWNRIGHT); courtesy NCGLFF (SHARP)

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Ian Hubbell (PLANT); courtesy TriaingleVegFest

AUGUST

26-27

17 PLANT THE SEED Cultivate your young one’s awareness of the natural world with this special volunteering opportunity. Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve in Cary sponsors a Wildflower Watering Club for children July 20 and Aug. 17. Geared toward families with children aged 2 - 5, the event allows families to spend quality time together watering plants in the preserve’s native wildflower gardens. Each session offers a fun Watering Club giveaway, too. Watering cans are provided. 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.; free, pre-registration is required; 2616 Kildaire Farm Road, Cary; activategood.org/opportunity/824

VEG OUT The party’s about the plants at Triangle Vegfest Aug. 26 and 27. The annual celebration of plant-based lifestyles oﬀers a day of presenters followed by a day of vendors and samples. Whether you’re vegetarian, vegan, or a plant-loving carnivore, you can learn about topics from how to fuel exercise with plant-based proteins to the psychological beneﬁts of a diet heavy on produce. Fuel up for the learning with kombucha, homemade almond milk, and local healthy treats. Saturday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.; free; PSI Theatre, 120 Morris St., and Durham Armory, 220 Foster St., Durham; trianglevegfest.com

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SPOTLIGHT

SCENE AND

HEARD

rguably the most inﬂuential bluegrass band of all time, Seldom Scene, plays Aug. 31 at the Back Porch Music on the Lawn series at the American Tobacco Campus Amphitheater in Durham. Joined onstage by Cicadia Rhythm, this is one scene not to be missed. Children, dogs, and picnics (no glass) are welcome. American Tobacco’s restaurants will be open, and beer and wine will be available for purchase. –K.P. 6 - 9 p.m.; free; $6 per car for nearby parking; 318 Blackwell St., Durham; americantobaccocampus.com/calendar

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LeonardsPhotography.net

TRIANGLE now

OPENS AUGUST 18 Tickets at reynoldahouse.org/livingmodern

Reynolda House Museum of American Art Winston-Salem North Carolina

GEORGIA O’KEEFFE LIVING MODERN

Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern is organized by the Brooklyn Museum, with guest curator Wanda M. Corn, Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor Emerita in Art History, Stanford University, and made possible by theNational Endowment for the Arts. Reynolda House is grateful for support of this exhibition by Presenting Sponsors PNC and Hawthorn, PNC Family Wealth, and Hanesbrands; and Major Sponsors The Cathleen & Ray McKinney Exhibition Fund, Nancy and Ed Pleasants, and Mona and Wallace Wu. Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864–1946). Georgia O’Keeffe, circa 1920–22. Gelatin silver print, 4½ x 3½ in. (11.4 x 9 cm). Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, N.M.; Gift of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation, 2003.01.006. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

THE USUAL

OUR

“Everybody’s there for the love of the game and the passion behind it.” –Paul Cox, treasurer of American Outlaws Raleigh U.S. National soccer teams fan group

o matter the time of day or day of the week, if a U.S. National soccer team is playing, a group of fans gathers at The London Bridge Pub downtown to watch. Affiliated with the American Outlaws, an unofficial national support group for American soccer, these fans watch men’s, women’s, and even youth national team games, from minor face-offs to important tournament matches. “It’s about being with other people who love supporting soccer and love supporting the United States,” says Jonathan Duren, Raleigh chapter vice president. “It’s phenomenal just to be able to get together. For most of us there, it’s not about the outcome, it’s about the community.” The AO Raleigh chapter organized in 2008, putting it ahead of the game nationwide as the third chapter of what are now almost 200 local groups. Of AO Raleigh’s 150 members, many are players themselves who end up playing on local recreational soccer leagues and in pickup games together. They also gather for AO Raleigh cookouts and FIFA video game tournaments throughout the year. This month, the group will be focused on gametime: “Sum-

mer gets crazy in a good way,” says AO Raleigh treasurer Paul Cox. There are a lot of games to follow: The Confederation of North and Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) Gold Cup kicks off to determine the regional champion for North and Central America. “Group stages for the United States kick off on July 8 in Nashville against Panama,” Cox says. “July 12, July 15, those are really important games.” Anybody is welcome to join at London Bridge for a pint; AO Raleigh members stand out in their red, white, and blue paraphernalia, including scarves, jerseys, and American ﬂag bandanas. The group takes its love of soccer seriously on a local level, too. “There’s a great culture for soccer around North Carolina,” Cox says. “We love the North Carolina Football Club (N.C.F.C.) and the N.C. Courage. We’re there supporting those games, as well.” Enthusiasm is not their weak suit. “We want to spread the passion,” Cox says. “You see the excitement, the love of the game. It’s contagious to everybody in the bar, or wherever we are.” –J.A. photograph by TRAVIS LONG

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OUR Town

OFF DUTY

“It’s a very profound feeling: knowing that what I’m doing can kill me, but learning how to build a relationship with the ﬁre, understand it and how it works. You have to respect it.” –Meli Markham, ﬁrebreather and welding student

“A

man named Phoenix taught me to breathe fire,” Meli Markham, 20, says, laughing at the irony. When the Cary native began her studies in welding at Wake Tech Community College two years ago, she “discovered this entire community of fire artists and flow artists and prop spinners.” After watching many friends practice fire manipulation, fire eating, and fire breathing, Markham felt ready to give it a go. The man named Phoenix gave her a few hours of safety training “and then handed me a torch.” Since then, Markham has honed her favorite of the “fire arts”: fire eating and fire breathing, what she calls “the contact stuff.” She performs locally with Imagine Circus in Raleigh and Addled Muse Fire Theater in Durham, and hopes to perform as much as she’s able once she graduates. “Performance and art is where my heart is. The welding came from wanting to be able to make metal art, or to weld sculptures together, or enhance spaces for my performance groups.” Her plan is to take to the road for welding contract work, combining that travel with

performance opportunities. “I’ll teach workshops, make art. But I’ll definitely always have a home base here (in Cary).” While Markham won’t divulge the specifics of how fire breathing is done – “then people think they can just go try it, and you really need to be trained” – she says it’s actually quite safe when approached like any other highly trained athletic pursuit. “I have never been seriously injured,” she says, because safety precautions are so paramount. “I do lose a lot of hair though: eyelashes, arm hair. Nothing big.” She’s found good company in the Triangle. “Fire arts is a huge thing all across the world that most people don’t know about. Raleigh is lucky enough to have a really great community.” Ultimately, it’s the perspective on life that the pursuit brings her that keeps Markham, well, fired up. “People always ask if fire arts scare me, and my answer is no. Not anymore. But it’s a healthy fear. It’s not scary for me anymore, but I take it seriously. The second it doesn’t slightly intimidate you is the second you should probably stop.” –J.A. photograph by CHRISTER BERG

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OUR Town

GAME PLAN

“Riding around rolling hills and country roads on an old bike, there’s no other feeling like it.” –Jake Wolf, co-owner-founder, Capital Club 16 restaurant

“F

amily heirlooms come in all different shapes and sizes, and this is a special one,” says Jake Wolf. He’s not referring to the family photos or quirky trinkets decorating his German-American Capital Club 16 restaurant downtown; he’s talking about the 1957 BMW motorcycle with matching 1958 sidecar he inherited from his grandfather, Elvin Wolf. “His love for the bike has gone on through my dad and myself and now Johnny,” Wolf’s 7-year-old son, shown above, with wife and business partner Shannon Wolf. While Johnny doesn’t ride (yet), he knows how to start the bike and recognizes the purr of its motor. “He’s into it,” Wolf says. “I’m the current caretaker of it, and eventually it’s going to be Johnny’s.” Johnny is the ﬁfth generation of Wolfs to tool around town in the “complete” motorcycle-sidecar package with original paint and leather seats. The bike is at its best traveling 55 mph or less, meant for cruising the neighborhood, Wolf says. His grandfather

Elvin bought the bike in 1965 when Elvin’s own parents were still living: Jake Wolf’s great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents rode the bike before him and his son, not to mention many aunts, uncles, and cousins. “The bike has really been an extended member of our family. Everybody grew up with it. It’s been a constant.” The bike-sidecar was treated like a family member, too. Wolf recalls visits to his grandparents’ Pinehurst home when it would be out on the front lawn, “just getting some sun” after being “cooped up in the garage.” Now a classic motorcycle enthusiast, Wolf cherishes summer months when the days are long and he has ample time before and after restaurant work to ride. “I get it on the road as much as possible. It wants to be ridden. If I let it sit, then it gets ﬁnicky.” Johnny is usually by (in) his side(car), but sometimes Wolf rides solo. “When I go out to run an errand and I take the BMW, Shannon knows I’m not just running an errand. I might take the long way there and the long way home. I don’t go very fast. But it’s in the riding, not just the getting there.” –J.A. photograph by TRAVIS LONG

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OUR Town

SHOP LOCAL

“People crack up when they come in expecting bait and tackle and see a bottle of Silver Oak.” –Taylor Cash, owner, Taylor’s Fine Wine and Live Bait From left, Johnny Hartsﬁeld, David White, and Taylor Cash chat.

wenty-seven years ago, Taylor Cash didn’t set out to sell live bait. And he certainly didn’t expect to sell fine wine. When he and his late wife Gail bought a little spot north of 540 on Six Forks Road, they planned to operate a gas station and simple convenience store stocked with “all the items you’d normally find there,” he says: Nabs, trail mix, Goody’s Powders. A little of this, some of that. Turns out, the store’s location gave Cash a front-row seat to Raleigh’s growth and development, and he’s transformed his business to embrace it. It wasn’t long after he bought the store in 1980, for instance, that Falls Lake State Recreation Area opened to the public. In came boating supplies, fishing supplies, and live bait and tackle. Then, around 2000, as Cash was closing the full-service lunch and breakfast grill he’d been operating at the store, he realized he needed another profit center. An idea sparked when a nearby big-name grocery store completed a renovation including a facelift to its wine aisle. “I thought, ‘daggone, they must sell a lot of wine,’” to warrant such a swanky setting, he says. So he talked to one of his convenience store vendors about bringing

a few bottles in to “see how it would go … It grew from there. In a matter of years, it went from selling 15 wines to over 1,000.” By now, the secret’s out, and Taylor’s Fine Wine and Live Bait is a North Raleigh destination. Along the way, local supporters like Larry Larson of Larry’s Beans coffee and various small-scale honey-makers have stocked Cash’s shelves (today there’s a Taylor’s Blend of Larry’s Beans). “It’s become something of its own,” Cash says. Also along the way, Cash, never much of a drinker, became a wine lover, and then a collector. Merging the old-school and modern luxury elements of his demographic remains one of the best parts of his job, he says. “People come in to get some hooks to go ﬁshing, and then they see all this wine and coffee and all these things. I understand where they’re coming from, and it’s fun to introduce them.” Meantime, he has no intent of doing away with the nightcrawlers. Sure, the wine operation is glamorous, but the ﬁshing supply business is steady, and most everybody needs gas. “People know us for that, too. There’s something here for everybody.” –J.A. 10005 Six Forks Road; taylorswineshop.com

photograph by TRAVIS LONG

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“AT BIDA MANDA, THE SMILES ARE CONTAGIOUS.” - GREG COX 222 S BLOUNT STREET, DOWNTOWN RALEIGH

TAPROOM

DIM SUM RESTAURANT

BOOKSTORE

218 S BLOUNT STREET, DOWNTOWN RALEIGH

FLOWER SHOP

OUR Town

SPOTLIGHT

photographs by GEOFF WOOD

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IN FULL

BLOOM Lakeview Daylily Farm

oel Weston knows plants. As the ﬁrst-ever horticulturalist for the City of Raleigh, he spent three decades managing park blooms, roadside annuals, and the trees and grasses of other public spaces. After all of those years, one ﬂower stood out for him: daylilies. Weston says the plant’s low maintenance and reliably bright annual blooms make for a crowd-pleaser. “They’re easy and people love them,” he says. “That’s good enough for me.”

At Weston’s Lakeview Daylily Farm in Garner, a sea of 1,100 daylily varieties blooms across five acres, and most of them are for sale. There are traditional smoothedged flowers in golden hues, and then there are varieties with names like little fat cat, bursting loose, white predator, and exotic flag. Weston’s favorite is called Connie can’t have it. Some have ruffled petals, others have colors as vibrant and varied as a palette of paint. Weston has been collecting cultivars for decades, he says, gathered from various gardening group meetings, visits to publc and private gardens, and the Raleigh Hemerocallis (daylily) Club. The daylily club’s

president, Wanda Quinn, and her husband, Ray, operated a commercial garden for many years that helped jump-start Weston’s collection. But now, Lakeview Daylily Farm’s wide variety hails “from all over.” Although Weston sells between 5,000 and 7,000 plants a year, he’s not too concerned with the numbers. “I loved my job” as horticulturalist, he says, and this is his way to love retirement. “People who don’t work when they retire don’t last long.” A love of gardening also inspires the other 15 acres at Lakeview (which adjoins Weston Farms, where daughter Erin Weston grows magnolias for her luxury wreath and tablescape business). In addition to daylilies, Noel Weston also has a few koi ponds; some banana, apple, and pear trees; a recently planted okra plot; and some blueberry bushes – for the moment. He’s also dabbling in raising guppies, but he’s not ready to sell them. Yet. For the most part, Weston maintains Lakeview himself. During the peak blooming season of June to August, he’ll hire a few people to help out. Then it’s back to the patient rhythm of strolling the grounds, keeping a close eye on each plant, season to season. With the weathered visage of one who has spent more of his years outside than in, and a cache of naturalist witticisms – “Daylilies: also known as deer candy” – it’s clear that Weston’s retirement has legs. –Jessie Ammons

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There are traditional smooth-edged ﬂowers in golden hues, and then there are varieties with names like little fat cat, bursting loose, white predator, and exotic ﬂag. Weston’s favorite is called Connie can’t have it. Open during bloom season Fridays - Sundays 9 a.m. - 4 p.m., or by appointment; 1000 Benson Road, Garner; weston-farms.com/daylilies

JULY/AUGUST 2017 | 61

WALTER profile

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BUILT TO

LAST

Raleigh’s new Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral by MIMI MONTGOMERY

IF YOU’VE DRIVEN ON WESTERN BOULEVARD toward downtown recently, you’ve likely noticed a colossal new copper dome emerging through the trees, its façade already adopting the patina of verdigris. That dome is the calling card of Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, a $41 million project funded by 28,000 donors that has been under construction for two years and will officially open this month as the seat of the Catholic Diocese of Raleigh, which oversees the eastern part of the state.

all renderings by O’Brien & Keane Architecture

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TIMELESS, SOARING The cathedral is the largest in North Carolina, and the ﬁfth-largest in the United States. It boasts 80-foot ceilings, space for 2,000 worshippers, and a $41 million budget funded by 28,000 donors.

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It is massive, ranking as the largest cathedral in North Carolina, and the ﬁfth-largest in the United States. With 80-foot ceilings and room for 2,000 worshippers, the space, the Catholic church says, is much needed. When the Diocese of Raleigh was founded in 1924, it represented all North Carolina Catholics, which then numbered about 6,200. Today, the Diocese only represents the eastern part of the State (the Diocese of Charlotte represents the west), and the number of worshippers it represents is about 225,000. That number is anticipated to keep growing. As many as 25 percent of the folks moving to the booming Triangle are Catholic, says the Rev. Monsignor David Brockman, pastor of Wake Forest’s St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church and a cathedral committee head. This expanding group will need a spiritual home, a place to worship, gather, and contribute to their rapidly growing community. The best way to do that? Build something with room to grow, the church says; something meant to last several centuries.

Building on a legacy Taken from the Latin cathedra, which means “chair,” a cathedral is any church that serves as the seat of a diocese’s bishop. Of course, these are not structures built every day – they’re significant architectural undertakings. So it’s appropriate that the cathedral sits on a prominent rise of historic church land situated between Centennial Parkway and Western Boulevard, on the edge of N.C. State’s campus. The land was originally purchased in 1899 by Father Thomas Frederick Price, the first native North Carolinian to be ordained a Catholic priest, and currently being considered for canonization as a saint. He established Nazareth Orphanage on the site, and it eventually became the location of Cardinal Gibbons High School. Now it’s a magnificent new home for Holy Name. The cathedral replaces downtown’s Sacred Heart Cathedral as the diocesan seat. Built in 1924, Sacred Heart’s 300-person capacity has long been far too small for the Diocese, or even for its 7,273 regular parishioners. It’s listed as the smallest cathedral in the continental United States, and currently scrambles to host up to 11 masses every weekend to accommodate its worshippers. A gathering place that would house the region’s growing Catholic faith and remain usable for generations to come has long been considered a necessity. Given the rarity of cathedral construction, it can be difficult to find the right architect for such a project. But Jim O’Brien of O’Brien & Keane Architecture in Arlington, Virginia, who has worked on several churches, fit the bill. Holy Name is by far his biggest undertaking to date. “It’s a project of a lifetime, really,” says O’Brien, a practicing Catholic who looked to the religion’s traditions as inspiration. “We have a tremendous advantage of having quite a legacy of 2,000 years of building churches and cathedrals … so it’s easy to find precedence and it’s easy to build on

that.” As O’Brien knows, when creating a building meant to embody a legacy, every aesthetic choice is imbued with significance. Thoughtfulness is paramount throughout Holy Name. The sanctuary is made with creamy white Carrera marble, sourced from the same quarry Michelangelo used for his sculptures. Off-white and grey marble cover the floors, with a flowing pattern that Monsignor Brockman likens to the flow of wine served during the Eucharist. Pews are carved from North Carolina red oak. Statues of saints carved from linden wood found in northern Italy keep guard over the interior (with a space left open for a saint not yet canonized). The cathedral is not situated adjacent to bordering streets, instead it sits at an angle, allowing its front doors to face west and its altar to face east, catching the sun as it rises and sets. They’re all details meant to stand the test of time. “What we were looking for would be a style of architecture that would never look old; that it would be timeless,” says Monsignor Brockman. “In other words, it would speak to the ages and engage people throughout time.”

Sacred space If a building is to last centuries, the materials have to be just right. Another step in Holy Name’s long journey was finding the skilled artisans capable of honoring the sacred nature of the space. Ninety stained glass windows adorn the cathedral’s walls, the largest of which stands at 18 feet tall. Joseph Beyer and his team at Beyer Studio in Philadelphia oversaw the hefty challenge of creating, refurbishing, and installing each window (a process he likens to a root canal in its excruciating difficulty). Forty of these windows are 1920s antiques taken from Ascension Catholic Church in Philadelphia. Each almost-100-year-old window was taken apart so every facet of glass could be cleaned and reassembled with new lead linings. Beyer estimates his team cleaned over a half-million pieces of glass by hand. Each of the new windows was also made by hand, honoring the same techniques found in the antique ones. “We have a medium that has not changed essentially since the Middle Ages,” says Beyer. “The beauty of it is that a century from now, when I’m long gone, someone can come to my windows and do to them what I’m doing” to the antiques. He hopes that means his windows will allow “a whole other generation of life here in Raleigh.” This passion for legacy is evidenced in the cathedral’s commitment to music, as well. C.B. Fisk Inc. of Gloucester, Massachusetts, built the cathedral’s handmade organ. Such a large space requires an instrument of significant power: The organ has a 50-foot-tall case and 3,396 hand-rolled lead and tin pipes ranging from 32 feet to ¾ of an inch. It took an estimated 37,000 hours to complete, and is one of the largest organs the firm has ever constructed. The home for the organ’s music will also do it justice. Stewart

JULY/AUGUST 2017 | 65

DOMUS, OR HOME

Acoustical Consultants of Cary helped to fashion the cathedral’s acoustics, putting together a computer program that modeled the auditory environment of the structure based on its shape, materials, and length. This allowed the air and heating systems to be modiﬁed for the uninterrupted ﬂow of music. The long procedure of the organ’s installation will begin in September, after all post-construction dust has settled. Absolute quiet is required to make sure each note is perfect; it will take 6 to 9 months to “voice” the instrument. The cathedral will also make music outside its walls. The bell tower’s carillon houses 50 bronze bells constructed by the Verdin Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. Installing each bell was a massive undertaking – the smallest is 18 pounds, but the largest clocks in at 1,980 pounds and 46 inches in diameter. Together, all the bells weigh 13,000 pounds, and can be played manually or via a custom computer. Included is a bell that sat in the Holy Name of Jesus Chapel, which was part of the orphanage Father Price ran on the same plot of land. “It tolled its great tone over that land before, and it’ll be back,” says Monsignor Brockman. “So it’s pretty cool.” And, of course, there’s the dome. Made of copper and steel, the 65-foot-tall, 160-ton cap was assembled on the ground then lift-

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The root of the word dome is domus, which means home, says Jim O’Brien of O’Brien & Keane Architecture. When creating a building meant to embody a legacy, each aesthetic choice is imbued with signiﬁcance; thoughtfulness is paramount throughout Holy Name.

ed, whole, onto the cathedral’s roof via crane. It’s visible from multiple reaches of the city, which is exactly its intended purpose. “The root of (the word dome) is domus, which means home,” says O’Brien. “It signiﬁes that this is the home of the church in Raleigh, and it’s meant to stand for the entire diocese of eastern North Carolina. It really stands as a witness to the community.” On July 26, it will officially be deemed the crown of the new cathedral when Holy Name hosts its dedication mass. It’s an event a long time in the making, and one that signiﬁes more than just the opening of a new worship space. “It draws the eye upwards,” says O’Brien of the dome, and of the cathedral itself. “These days, we’re all looking down so often at our phones or distracted about all the things of this world; to draw the eye upward is very important. It’s been a real blessing.”

2004 Y ONKERS R D ., R ALEIGH , NC 27604 | (919) 754-9754 | G REENFRONT . COM

STORY

of a house

AT HOME WITH

THOMAS SAYRE

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by JESMA REYNOLDS

photographs by KEITH ISAACS

ON ANY GIVEN FIRST FRIDAY IN RALEIGH’S DOWNTOWN WAREHOUSE DISTRICT, HUNDREDS of art lovers stroll the corridor of West Martin Street that connects CAM to a string of galleries, stopping by to meet artists and see their work. As they cross Commerce Place towards 311 Gallery and the Visual Arts Exchange, most don’t know that the red brick warehouse on the corner is home to someone they’d probably be thrilled to meet: the sculptor, painter, and designer Thomas Sayre, whose monumental public art anchors countless public spaces around the world, including the park at the North Carolina Museum of Art.

Since 1991, Sayre and his family have lived there, hidden in plain sight. For that long, a separate space in the former Tom’s Snacks distribution warehouse has served as the residence of Sayre’s business partner Steve Schuster, and a third segment of the building has been the site of Clearscapes, the leading architecture, art, and design ﬁrm Sayre and Schuster co-founded in 1983. In this unlikely spot, Sayre and his wife Jed raised their two daughters, Wilson, 26, and Kalyan, 20, hosting play dates, sleepovers, birthdays, and all the rituals associated with a growing family. Their decision to move downtown in the early ’90s, they say, was practical, affording them both a studio and a place to live. “My memory is walking across the alley and saying that’s where the studio will be, and thinking, now where are we going to live?” Thomas recalls. Jed’s response: “how about here?” She had grown up in New Jersey and he in Washington, D.C., so the concept of urban living wasn’t entirely new. They didn’t know then that they’d have to work hard to get it, unraveling a complicated web of 23 heirs to the building with different opinions and multiple leases, deeds, and red tape.

Sayre credits Schuster with navigating it all and make the massive building their own. At the time, the neighborhood around it was industrial and rough. The only people on the street at night were drug dealers and male prostitutes, Thomas says. Occasionally, the couple would go out on their roof and pellet loiterers with water balloons just to let them know they were living there. Raising children in such an environment, needless to say, posed its own kind of challenges. “It was our ﬁrst kid,” Jed says. “You didn’t even know what to think about. I had to go down and negotiate about school. This area wasn’t zoned for a school district.” But with ingenuity and resilience, it became a fantastic place to grow up. The Clearscapes parking lot, dirt at the time, became a giant playground for bike ramps and jumps; the arrival of a construction crane downtown meant a new play structure to discover. When Thomas’s band Spot played at Kings or The Berkeley Cafe, the whole family would make it a night out, complete with Shirley Temples for the girls. Not all parents of their girls’ friends were as enthusiastic about the location as the Sayres. “There were a few tense moJULY/AUGUST 2017 | 69

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AN ARTIST’S LIFE Clockwise from top left: Exposed brick walls and 21-foot ceilings anchor the living room. Both of the Sayre daughters play the Steinway piano. Some of Sayre’s earthcast wall sculptures hang on the living room wall. Sayre combined structural truss beams from the 1910 warehouse with stainless wire to create a railing. Sayre made the hand-ground metal door in the upstairs hall. It’s surrounded by his artwork and a photograph by Frank Craig. Sayre also created the red chalk-line “wallpaper” to its right. The kitchen oﬀers a view into the living room. In the study, a sculpture of a boy throwing a spear that Sayre made in high school sits on a cabinet. A row of concrete cast gloves by daughter Wilson rest on an upstairs ledge. Previous pages: Thomas and Jed Sayre outside the entrance to their home, a 1910 warehouse on West Martin Street. It’s also the location of Clearscapes, the ﬁrm Sayre co-founded with Steve Schuster. Schuster and his wife live in part of the building as well. A construction crane hovers above the building; an arched bridge connects to Sayre’s studio.

JULY/AUGUST 2017 | 71

HOME IS WHERE THE ART IS Massive structural truss beams support and frame the downstairs bedroom and upstairs music room. A pair of massive fire doors from Sayre’s adjacent studio hover over the bed. An early fiberglass sculpture by Sayre rests on the round table. Through the door, a industrial fiberglass wall made by Sayre glows warmly. Opposite, clockwise from top left: Valentine’s Day offerings made by Sayre through the years hang as a collection. Thicket, part of his White Gold paintings, hangs to the right of the open doorway; inside and to the left is a piece from his Birch Tree series. On the brick wall hangs a piece made of Kalyan’s shoes through the years.

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ments on the cell phone with sleepover deliveries,” Thomas recalls, “parents parked outside saying ‘we can’t be in the right place.’ But once they came inside, they realized it was okay.”

Art, light, quiet Inside the Sayre home, it was – and is – more than okay. Soaring twenty-one-foot ceilings of exposed brick showcase Sayre’s prolific work. The earthcast sculptures that have made his name and are the subject of the recent Emmy-nominated documentary, Earthcaster. hang from the walls; so do paintings from his recent White Gold series, Valentine’s Days offerings, and collections of his daughters’ shoes through the years mounted on boards to document their growth. Gleaming metal doors hand-ground by Sayre and giant 1910 wooden trusses anchor the rooms. The space is intimate, reverential and remarkably quiet. As light pours in through high-set windows in a way that feels like a medieval cathedral, one can easily forget the massive construction and redevelopment projects underway less than a block to the west. The growth those projects represent is reflected in the different experiences the Sayre daughters had growing up. Wilson, the oldest, found little to do in what was then a mostly industrial area within a sleepy downtown core. Her teenage years revolved around school and extra-curriculars. But by the time youngest daughter Kalyan was in high school, the transformation of downtown was well underway. Shops, restaurants, festivals, and events made her house an ideal place to be. She and her friends could walk (no cars needed) to just about every cool spot: Morning Times, Father and Son Antiques, Kings, the Berkeley Cafe. Events like First Fridays, Hopscotch, the Fourth of July, and First Night filled her calendar. “I think what was unique about my

upbringing,” Kalyan says, was “knowing how to independently navigate and walk around from an early age. It’s something that has allowed me to learn how to live in a city on my own.” As the couple have become empty nesters and contemplate living in the now-booming city on their own, they are contemplating their next move. “My vision for retirement is that we travel and stay, so when we come back here it’s new and different,” says Jed. Thomas yearns for a quieter place, somewhere more connected to the land where he can “encounter God, witness the rhythm of the sun coming up and down, walking and camping.” As Raleigh continues to grow and change, their decision may, too. In the meantime, the Sayres are still getting used to the fact that it’s been 26 years since they made the leap of faith to move into an old warehouse in an industrial neighborhood, to raise their children, make their art, grow their business. But to hear them tell it, it was worth it, all of it.

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AT THE table

SUMMER

cooking

Fresh recipes from Fanny Slater

by FANNY SLATER

AS I PONDERED WRITING A SUMMER FOOD STORY FOR THIS MAGAZINE, I couldn’t ignore the pink elephant in the room. Not an actual elephant (he only stops by on Tuesdays), but another upcoming deadline that was staring me in the face: I had to develop recipes for a Napa Valley-based winery that specializes in rosé. Now, I’m less a fancy pink-wine drinker than I am a ripped jean shorts, T-shirt, and beer-in-the-back-pocket kind of gal. But it was time to step up to the plate. Or glass, in this case. Because it occurred to me that these two missions could intertwine. One job required me to produce dazzling, vibrant recipes, and the other, well, asked that I do the same thing.

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photographs by ANDREW SHERMAN

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SUMMER PERFECT Cookbook author Fanny Slater, above, puts the ﬁnishing touches on a dish. Slater hosted a small gathering of friends in Wilmington to celebrate the kickoﬀ of summer and test out her recipes, shared on the next pages.

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So, as a pregame for my rosé-xtravaganza, I decided to jump in headﬁrst with my shades on and my fork ready. Sure, I’ll drink wine and eat food all at once and then write about it. I love my job. The result: three fresh and easy summer recipes that pair just as deliciously with a crisp glass of rosé as they do with that beer in your back pocket. Summer cooking There are a bazillion reasons why summer is the king of all seasons. For those of us who work, cook, and live by the farm-to-table mentality, these steamy months are ideal for yielding some of the most vivid produce that the earth has to offer. Take herbs for example. Sure, you can count on supermarket chains to carry leafy beauties like basil year-round, but it’s so easy to grow your own, and far more satisfying to see ingredients sprout in front of your very eyes. I assume it’s similar to giving birth, but what do I know? I have two cats. Speaking of things with tails, I have shrimp on the brain. Not only are these protein-packed nuggets quick to cook, but they are tremendously versatile. And thanks to their built-in thermometer (did you

know that when shrimp curl into a C they’re cooked, and that when they go full-circle into an O they’re overcooked?), you can broil, boil, bake, or sauté them like a pro within minutes. For my first crave-worthy appetizer, head to the grill. Who needs to crank up the inside burners when there’s perfectly good charcoal (and fruity cocktails) outside? I bathe my shrimp in a dreamy garlic oil, toss them on the fire, and call it a day. Well, not really. The star of the show is actually the earthy oregano and lemon pesto butter that makes this seafood totally dunk-worthy. That’s right: I said pesto and butter in the same sentence. Combine them and you’ve got yourself a sauce to be reckoned with. I suggest freshly picked oregano pesto, as its warm, pungent aroma pairs epically with juicy shrimp. Next stop: hummus. Don’t worry, chickpeahaters, this one’s for you. I turn up the beet in this tahini-rich snack so it’s as pretty as it is delicious. Beets are harvested from summer to fall, can stick around in your fridge for months, and are chock-full of vitamin C, fiber, and potassium. For a boost of protein, throw some canned chickpeas into the food processor along with the rest of the ingredients. Just make sure to re-

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move their skins first, as that aids in the method of creating a luscious, velvety consistency. A dip that relies on beets is great to have on hand any time of year, but in these warmer months, when fresh vegetables for crudités are so easy to find – consider rainbow carrots, cucumbers, and crunchy peppers – it’s particularly delicious. Still, for the full comfort food experience of hummus, don’t pass up adding fluffy, slightly warmed pita bread to the platter. Carpaccio is a funny word. It’s also a dish that doesn’t have to be constructed of meat or fish, as your standard Google search might suggest. Essentially, it’s this or that delicious ingredient sliced thin, layered up, and served as a starter. Let’s talk watermelon radishes. With their gloriously pinky hue and crisp, peppery bite, they are a supreme candidate to be the star of a stunning dish with a seasonal (and vegetarian) twist. As with any carpaccio, some of the magic is in the slicing. While working as a helping hand in a kitchen several summers ago, I once heard the chef

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say that an ingredient can taste different based on the way it’s sliced. He was right. If your knife skills are on point, you don’t necessarily need a mandoline to achieve the expertly thin slivers that do this dish justice. However, it must be said that a mandoline can transform a multitude of modest dishes into majestic masterpieces. Try thin-sliced Idaho potatoes for Dauphinoise potatoes (a fancy name for slow-cooked starches swimming in garlic and cream), or paper-thin onions soaked in vinegar to top your tacos. There’s something remarkable about how this (slightly dangerous – watch your ﬁngers!) simple tool can up your kitchen game a few notches. In my luminous watermelon carpaccio, I pair sharp notes with sassy ones, and then drop a ﬂavor bomb of oniony chives and tangy goat cheese. Silky, fanned out avocado slices not only mirror the green shades of the radishes’ exterior, but they add a zing of creaminess and color. With food that looks this good and this perfect for the season, you’ll wonder why summer isn’t declared a national holiday – every day.

until the garlic is golden brown on both sides, and then remove each clove with a slotted spoon. Cool the oil to room temperature and divide into two portions. Preheat a grill or grill pan over high heat. Butterﬂy the shrimp by making a slit in them lengthwise. Thread the shrimp onto skewers and then brush them using the ﬁrst bowl of garlic oil and season generously with salt and pepper on both sides.

WATERMELON RADISH CARPACCIO WITH TANGERINE-HONEY VINAIGRETTE

Grill the shrimp until opaque, about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes per side. Using the second bowl of garlic oil, brush the cooked shrimp again and then arrange the skewers onto a platter. Garnish with lemon wedges and serve ramekins of the Oregano and Lemon Pesto Butter alongside for dipping. Serves 4

bined. Season to taste with additional salt and pepper if necessary. Makes about 2 cups ROSEMARY AND ROASTED GARLIC BEET HUMMUS 1 pound red beets, scrubbed Small bunch fresh rosemary 3 large cloves roasted garlic (recipe below) 1 teaspoon ground coriander 2 teaspoons ground cumin 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 1/4 cup good quality extra-virgin olive oil 6 tablespoons tahini 2 teaspoons honey Kosher salt

4 large watermelon radishes, outer layer peeled and thinly sliced into rounds with a mandoline

Fresh vegetables and warmed pita bread, for serving

Kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Juice of 1 tangerine

Place the beets into a heavy-bottomed, ovenproof pan (like a cast iron) with the rosemary sprigs and cover with water. Bring to a boil, cover, and then place the entire pan into the oven. Cook until the beets are very tender, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Remove the beets from the pan and allow them to cool. Slide the skins oﬀ and rough chop.

1 tablespoon chives, finely chopped 2 teaspoons honey 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard Freshly cracked black pepper 1/4 cup good quality extra-virgin olive oil 2 ounces microgreens (or substitute another delicate green like sunflower sprouts or pea shoots) 1 avocado, quartered and then fanned out into thin slices 4 ounces goat cheese, crumbled Place the radish rounds into a colander in the sink and season with salt. Allow radishes to sit for 20 minutes, rinse, and then pat dry. In a small bowl, add the tangerine juice, chives, honey, mustard, and a pinch each of salt and pepper. About a tablespoon at a time, whisk in the olive oil until the dressing is thick and emulsified. In a large bowl, toss the radishes with half of the vinaigrette and then arrange them on the plates. Garnish each salad with the microgreens, sliced avocado, and crumbled goat cheese. Spoon the remaining vinaigrette over each of the plates and then garnish with cracked pepper. Serves 4 GARLICKY GRILLED SHRIMP WITH OREGANO AND LEMON PESTO BUTTER 1/2 cup olive oil 4 large cloves garlic, smashed with the flat side of your knife but still intact 24 raw jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined with tails on Wooden skewers soaked in water Coarse salt and black pepper Lemon wedges, for garnish Oregano and lemon pesto butter (recipe below) In a small saucepot, heat the oil over mediumlow heat and add the smashed garlic. Cook

OREGANO AND LEMON PESTO BUTTER 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds 2 small cloves garlic Coarse salt and cracked black pepper 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese 1/4 cup fresh oregano leaves, coarsely chopped 1/2 cup packed fresh basil leaves 2 teaspoons honey Zest and juice of 1 lemon 1/2 cup olive oil 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted over low heat In a dry small skillet, toast the pumpkin seeds over medium-low heat, tossing frequently, until lightly golden and very fragrant, about 5 minutes. Immediately remove from the pan and transfer to a bowl to stop the cooking process.

In a food processor, combine the beets, roasted garlic, coriander, cumin, lemon juice, and honey and pulse until blended. With the machine running, drizzle in the olive oil a little bit at a time until the mixture is silky and smooth. Transfer to a bowl, whisk in the tahini, and season to taste with salt. Refrigerate until lightly chilled and serve with the sliced vegetables and pita bread. Makes about 2 cups ROASTED GARLIC 1 head garlic 1/2 teaspoon olive oil Pinch of kosher salt Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Slice oﬀ the very top of the garlic head so that the cloves are exposed. Drizzle the cloves with the oil and sprinkle with the salt. Wrap the entire head in foil and bake until golden and tender, 50 to 55 minutes. To pop out the cloves, gently squeeze them out of their shells.

In a food processor, pulse the pumpkin seeds, garlic, and a generous pinch each of salt and pepper until the seeds are broken down. Add the parmesan, oregano, basil, honey, and lemon zest and juice and pulse until thoroughly combined. With the motor running, stream in the olive oil a little bit at a time until the pesto is velvety. Place the pesto in deep bowl and slowly whisk in the melted butter until thoroughly com-

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cookoutmilkshakereviews.com (sign); courtesy Halle Sinnott (woman)

DRINK

SHAKE

ITgourmet UP

The drive-through frozen treat

IN SEASON Halle Sinnott works at Raleigh ad agency Crisp, which has a company-wide watermelon milkshake day each summer.

by JESSIE AMMONS

A FEW FAVORITE SUMMER SIPPERS: ICED TEA; ARNOLD PALMERS; MINT Juleps. Cook Out watermelon milkshakes. “At ﬁrst, it seems like an odd combination, but it’s nice and sweet and kind of soothing. It’s just very refreshing,” says Nick Jusino, manager of the North Raleigh location of the Greensboro-owned chain on Falls of Neuse Road. Come July, Raleigh customers hanker for the unlikely fruity-creamy mix. “They’ll be out to the street,” Jusino says of the folks at his spot. “Somebody will wait in line for 20 or 30 minutes, just for a milkshake.”

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Harry Lynch/News & Observer (watermelon); Pinterest (shake)

Cook Out isn’t the sort of place known for serving up fine dining. Burgers, barbecue, corn dogs, hush puppies, and onion rings are the fuel loved by growing teenagers and roadtrippers, so it might be easy to dismiss the milkshake menu as standard drive-through fare. Au contraire: Cook Out’s 40-plus options will give any ice cream shop a run for its money. A neutral – not vanilla, Jusino clarifies – soft serve made from reduced fat milk and High Point’s Hunter Farms ice cream mix serves as the base for a plethora of mix-ins. Banana pudding features hunks of Nilla wafers and real bananas; peanut butter is blended with scoops of JIF; chocolate nut includes whole walnuts; and the eternal crowd favorite (Jusino says this is a widely known Cook Out company truth), Oreo, is prepared meticulously with “nickel- and dimesized pieces of Oreo. We only prep ingredients for six milkshakes at a time so the cookies don’t get stale.” Meticulous preparation pays off for ice cream lovers. The milkshake flavors have cult followings, as evidenced by the hilarious (and PG-13 rated) website cookoutmilkshakereviews.com, which uses a detailed rubric to consider and score each shake, and then offers food pairing suggestions. Beneath the humor is proof that Cook Out fans are serious about their milkshakes. Watermelon shakes are available during July and August only, because they’re made with the actual fruit in its peak season. Raleigh restaurants get their melons from a distributor in Winston-Salem and cut them up one at a time to ensure freshness. “We dice it up into cubes, and then it’s approximately three heaping tablespoons of watermelon chunks blended together with ice cream,” Jusino says. The result is subtle, creamy and, well, summer-y. A hallmark Cook Out milkshake trait is the consistency: These are the sorts of blended treats that require spoons, not straws. Jusino says you can request to your liking, though: “If you want it thicker, or blended more, just tell the employee and they’ll do it.” That goes for the flavor combinations, too. Ask a longtime Raleighite what their favorite Cook Out combination is, and they’re likely to have an answer (banana fudge-peanut butter; strawberry-Butterfinger; cherry cobbler-walnut; oreo-M&M). Watermelon, though, needs no mixing or matching. Much like summer, the shake is best enjoyed by embracing its fleeting simplicity.

SLICE AND DICE If you’re looking for an extra excuse to indulge in a milkshake, national watermelon day is Aug. 3. To enjoy the melon in another frosty way, you can stick popsicle sticks into triangle-shaped slices of the fruit. Spread them on layers of wax paper, pop them in the freezer, and within a few hours you’ll have watermelon popsicles. Here’s an easy recipe from epicurious. com for making a watermelon milkshake at home: 4 cups coarsely chopped seeded watermelon (rind discarded) 1 cup (1/2 pint) vanilla ice cream Blend watermelon and ice cream in a blender until smooth. Pour into 2 (20-ounce) glasses.

There are ﬁve Raleigh locations: 3244 Capital Blvd.; 6505 Falls of Neuse Road; 1201 New Bern Ave.; 3930 Western Blvd.; and 3222 S. Wilmington St.

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Raleighites

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BREWERY

BHAVANA’S homegrown abundance

by LIZA ROBERTS photographs by KEITH ISAACS

A FIRST-TIME VISITOR TO THE NEW BREWERY BHAVANA ON MOORE Square might think they’ve entered an unusually atmospheric independent bookstore. Skylit shelves offer titles by local and world-renowned authors and poets like Dorianne Laux and Dave Eggers; cookbooks by Raleigh stars like Kaitlyn Goalen and national ones like Jeremy Fox make pretty pyramids beneath soaring potted ﬁg trees. A library wall offers up another 3,000 titles. If that same visitor takes a few steps to the right, though, she might decide she’s actually found herself in a contemporary ﬂower shop, simultaneously spare and bountiful, with unusual blooms displayed like art.

But if this visitor picks up her head, and takes in everything around her, she’ll see that she is in the middle of a busy, buzzy, 9,000 square-foot restaurant with a massive bar, and that a fluent exchange is underway – between books, beer, blooms, and food. She’ll notice that folks busy reading are also drinking pints of Bhavana-brewed beer; that bamboo baskets of dim sum fill tables; that dinner patrons are getting up between courses to choose flowers to bring home. All in gorgeously appointed surroundings created by Raleigh architecture firm Clearscapes. It’s a lot. “I was gobsmacked by Brewery Bhavana,” says noted Southern food writer John T. Edge, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance. He was in town recently to promote his new book, The Potlikker Papers, A Food History of the Modern South, and dined with a large group of Raleigh friends at Bhavana’s giant Lotus table, which is spotlit with a handmade wooden chandelier from Barcelona. “Van’s singularity of vision shines through in that profoundly democratic and beautiful space.” “Van” is Vansana Nolintha, the restaurant’s co-founder, who created Bhavana with his sister, Vanvisa Nolintha, and brewer Patrick Woodson. Sanskrit for “cultivating,” Bhavana aims to embrace many diverse things equally, to celebrate beauty, and to nurture creation and contentment, says Van Nolintha. “All of these different elements come with their own culture and community,” he says. “It’s fluid.” Central to its ethos, he says, is the cuisine of dim sum, Cantonese for “touch the heart.” He and Vanvisa grew up eating these bite-sized dishes for breakfast in Laos, a country whose French, Thai, and Chinese-influenced cuisine forms the backbone of Bida Manda, the critically acclaimed restaurant they founded next-door together five years ago. For its part, dim sum “was created to welcome travelers,” Van Nolintha says, “it’s a meal that encapsulates a culture.” They chose to celebrate it at Bhavana because it’s delicious, but also because “it’s about people from different perspectives traveling and hosting and giving.” Beer brewed in the Belgian tradition, rooted in the work of self-supporting monks, shares a similar origin and purpose: to sustain and welcome. The idea to combine a Raleigh-brewed Belgian style beer with a dim sum restaurant came about when the Nolinthas began talking to Woodson, a close friend and bioengineer-turned-brewer, about a joint project. When they decided to add flowers and books – because they loved them, and because they believed in people who could bring them to the mix – it required some salesmanship. “It seemed so crazy when we announced we were going to do all of these things in a former Irish pub,” says Woodson. “It’s wonderful now when people come in and you could see it suddenly make sense: Oh. It’s a living room. This is Raleigh.”

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‘THIS IS RALEIGH’ Clockwise from top: Bhavana co-founder Van Nolintha runs the daily staﬀ meeting; a server delivers a bowl of soup; shop manager Monica Jon peruses a favorite title; dumplings make an eye-pleasing starter.

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Patrick Woodson, co-founder, head brewer The immense slab of granite that covers the wall behind the Bhavana bar is seamless, spotless, wordless. No signs or logos or information of any kind distracts from 40 silver taps that dispense 20 kinds of beer brewed a mile south in Bhavana’s pristine, brand-new brewery on Bloodworth Street. On a recent morning at the brewery, the stereo is pumping out jazz as Patrick Woodson turns a medieval-looking crank to open a porthole in a massive oak barrel that recently held 1,360 gallons of Napa Valley cabernet. He encourages a visitor to put her head inside. The smell is overpowering. When 1,360 gallons of freshly brewed Bhavana beer is poured in, that beer, too, will breathe the barrel’s winey aroma and absorb its culture; six months or a year later, it will be ready to drink. Wine-aged beer is one of Brewery Bhavana’s specialties, and there are many variations, including a sauvignon blanc barrelaged saison combined with apricots, mango, and passionfruit. “Each barrel has a culture,” Woodson says, “you get this lovely hybrid.” The Belgian-style beer he brews relies on carefully, even obsessively, cultivated yeast drawn from the local natural environment. Woodson and his fellow head brewer, Brent Steffen, a biochemist (“we love to play around in the science realm”), harvest it around Raleigh – in pomegranate trees, honeysuckle vines, and ﬁg trees, aiming to bring to their beer the kind of “terroir” common to wine. “Yeast is everywhere, ﬂowing through the air,” Woodson says. “All it wants is a source of sugar.” The proprietary strains that result become the basis for Bhavana’s distinct brews. When they’re not cultivating yeast, fermenting beer, or preparing wine barrels 12 hours a day, Woodson and Steffen spend a lot of time keeping things shipshape at their brewery. “Ninety percent of it all is janitorial work,” Woodson jokes. Actually, to hear him tell it, most of the work at the brewery is done not by Woodson or Steffen, but by the yeast itself, which is referred to in the feminine: “Yeast is beautiful. We feed her, and she makes beer for us,” Woodson says. It’s an ongoing experiment that never gets old to these two scientist-brewers. “It’s no different than biofuel,” Woodson says. “I just decided that beer tastes a lot better than biofuel.”

Chun Shi, chef Chef Chun Shi, who prepares the hundreds of dim sum dishes that roll out of the Bhavana kitchen every day, grew up in Shanghai and worked for years as a computer programmer and electrical engineer before ﬁnding her life’s purpose as a chef. She was studying for her masters in computer engineering at George Washington University when she began cooking the food she missed from home. Word got out among her Chinese classmates. “Can you make me scallion pancakes?” they asked. “I ﬁnished exams, and I made scallion pancakes,” she recalls. “Now, when I look back, I realize the food carries the memory, carries the culture.” She loved to cook it, eat it, and share it, but she continued

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SANSKRIT FOR ‘CULTIVATING’ Clockwise from this page, top: Co-founder and head brewer Patrick Woodson is at home behind Bhavana’s monumental bar, with a glass of the beer that fills its 40 taps; Deana Nguyen, creative director of the Bhavana flower shop, puts together an arrangement of flowers grown locally and flown in from Holland; dim sum is prepared daily according to a meticulous process; the Bhavana bookstore features a cookbook display with titles by local and national names alike; dim sum executive chef Chun Shi runs a tight ship in a notably peaceful kitchen.

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on her engineering career path, cooking only on the weekends. She says she wants her arrangements to be “thought-proHer husband’s job then brought them to North Carolina, and he voking, expressive, reverential, and inviting, to honor my gratiencouraged her to “do something you love.” tude for the natural world.” It was an American mindset she happily embraced, sendWith fresh local flowers she buys every Thursday at Pieding herself to culinary school in Charlotte to learn foundationmont Wholesale Flowers (a new flower farmers’ market in al skills before getting a job at An, the award-winning former Durham), plus a weekly shipment from Holland, Nguyen creAsian restaurant in Cary. She worked there for nine years, risates centerpieces for Bhavana’s tables and arrangements for the ing in the ranks until it closed in January. shop, which generally range in price from $15 to $45. She met Van Nolintha two years ago, when her mentor, An Nguyen says that she – and her assistant, Audrey Holland head chef Steven Greene, told Nolintha that Shi was the restau– are excited for what’s next. They expect the flower shop’s busirant’s “secret ingredient.” ness to grow now that Bhavana is open for lunch, and plan to go Today, Nolintha says, she fills that role at Bhavana, and not outside the shop to participate in summer markets. They’re also only for her skill in the kitchen. “It’s so rare to find people who working on a monthly subscription business that would include you feel like are family all an arrangement and a book or along,” he says. Shi “has a magazine every month. greater understanding of “When people buy flowers culture and food, with a for a celebration or a death, cuisine that feels so honit’s always a positive impulse,” est. There’s no ornamenshe says. “It’s nice to live vicartation. You bite into a bao iously through flowers.” (steamed bun), and you taste not just the flavors, Monica Jon, shop manager but you taste your memWhen the Nolinthas told ory.” Monica Jon they wanted John T. Edge has to create a bookstore and high compliments for library at their new restauShi’s “great” dim sum. rant, she and colleague Laura Plus, he says, “I’m a fool White got to work. for (the) nasi goring.” They sat down with friends Shi gives a humble and acquaintances of all smile and touts the purkinds: N.C. State professors, pose of the place: “This Bhavana co-founders and siblings Van Nolintha and architects, artists, community restaurant is not just Vanvisa Nolintha at their new Brewery Bhavana. leaders. They asked each what his or her favorite books selling food and making were, and why. They looked for books that “carried a money, it’s introducing the culture. That’s why I like to work message, and can be given to someone, to show them what you here.” care about, what you’re thinking about.” And they searched out magazines and periodicals that couldn’t be found anywhere else in the area. Then they asked everyone they knew to donate a faDeana Nguyen, creative director, flower shop vorite book for a Bhavana library, and to jot a short inscription Deana Nguyen brings an artist’s perspective to her floral inside explaining why they’d chosen it. designs at Bhavana flower shop. After years of ceramics, paintSoon, they had a diverse bookshop inventory of roughly 350 ing, metalworking, and jewelry-making, Nguyen says she finally titles – carrying only one or two copies of each, to keep offerfound her medium when she discovered flowers. ings fresh – plus a nearly 3,000-book library. Raleigh’s Rodney “Flowers have such a strong hold on me because they’re so Oakley, for one, donated Patti Smith’s memoir, Just Kids. Susan fleeting, and changing all the time,” Nguyen says. When a favorWoodson (whose son, Patrick, is co-founder and head brewer) ite like a zinnia comes back into season, for instance, “it’s like donated Keith Richard’s memoir, Life. seeing an old friend again.” Magazines not available elsewhere in the Triangle like Eager to learn more about floral design, Nguyen took a Brutal, a food and fashion publication; The Plant, a monthly leave from her job as a server at Bida Manda (where she was one journal that focuses on one plant at a time; and Brownbook, a of the restaurant’s first hires) to apprentice to Jaclyn Nesbitt, a florist in Sonoma, California who had attended the design Middle Eastern travel and culture magazine published in Dubai, school at N.C. State with Van Nolintha. quickly filled the shelves. There, Nguyen soaked up a free-form, field-to-vase, season“A lot of times people are lingering in the bookstore while ally driven style of design that she first turned into a multimedia they’re waiting for a table,” Jon says, “but we do have a fair art show at Raleigh’s former The Pink Building community of amount of people just coming in for the books.” artists, and now employs at Bhavana. 90 | WALTER

We recognize our most precious resource — the people in our community Thanks to you, things are getting done. Thanks to you, our community is a better place and the lives of real people are being changed for the better. Bank of America congratulates our community’s female leaders for helping to make a lasting difference where we live and work. Thank you for being an inspiration to us all. Visit us at bankofamerica.com/local Life’s better when we’re connected® ©2017 Bank of America Corporation | SPN-128-AD | ARMWTPSR

ARTIST’S spotlight

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MURPHY TROGDON AYALA’S Rural

landscapes

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by LIZA ROBERTS photographs by CATHERINE NGUYEN

RALEIGH LANDSCAPE ARTIST MURPHY TROGDON AYALA, KNOWN FOR her serene paintings of rural Southern landscapes and architecture, is busier than ever with the work that has made her name, and excited about the move she’s about to make to a new studio. Not because it will make her work easier, but because it will make it harder. From a comfortable spot near her house in Five Points where she now paints alongside friend and artist Denise Hughes, Ayala will decamp to Southeast Raleigh to join a cutting-edge community of carefully selected artists at an “interdisciplinary creative space” known as Anchorlight. “It’s an uncomfortable situation for me,” Ayala says, because “your work’s out there, unfinished. But growth comes from that, and I’m looking forward to learning from it, and learning from the other artists. Pushing myself into that uncomfortable zone.” For about seven years, since she left a flourishing career as an architect in Charlotte, Ayala has been nudging herself out of her comfort zone to make the kind of art that can only come from a patient and reverential eye. First she forced herself to stop painting (gorgeous) lemons and apples in her kitchen. “Gosh I painted so much fruit,” she laughs. Once she moved outside, birds and nests and cows and boats began to fill her canvases.

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ly interesting but awkward parts of beautiful buildings that Those works led a few years ago to her first one-womshe calls “appendages to a piece of architecture”: An electric an show in Raleigh and a loyal following. Along the way, meter attached to a clapboard building in Youngsville, for animals have made way for landscapes and architecture, her instance, is the unlikely subject of a large painting underway work has found its way into galleries and private collections, (above). Ayala is as interested in the many-colored shadows and she has learned to “stop apologizing” for her traditional between the Youngsville clapboards as she is with the inelstyle – which is more nuanced than that, anyway. egance of the machinery on top of them. More experienced “She’s able to take the Southern country landscape as a plein air painters have taught her a lot, she says. “It’s amazing subject matter and make it feel modern, contemporary, and how much you learn by painting new,” says Sandi Scott, gallery next to people.” director at the prestigious “She’s able to take the Southern country Anne Neilson Fine Art gallery in Charlotte, which represents landscape as a subject matter and make it Painting next to people Ayala. “Yes, we’re looking at a She’ll have plenty of that feel modern, contemporary, and new.” barn in rural North Carolina, at Anchorlight, where she’ll be but her lines and color palette –Sandi Scott, gallery director, working alongside artists like are very refined and contempoAnne Neilson Fine Art gallery, Charlotte Jason Craighead, Luke Miller rary. She’s able to take someBuchanan, and Alia El-Bermani. thing that’s old and traditional They and Ayala were chosen by and make it feel modern by honing in on its structural a panel that included current Anchorlight artists as well as elements, the contrast of her colors. She’s able to change the members of the broader arts community. approach without straying too far from the integrity of the Ayala plans to use her residency there to complete a building or the place.” series of full-scale paintings of rural Southern schoolhouses Lately, Ayala is challenging herself to put the spontaneity she’s been working on for some time. Her subjects of choice she likes in her plein air oil sketches into her finished works, are Rosenwald Schools – revolutionary, architecturally noted too. She’s broadened her subject matter to include graphicalschools built by Booker T. Washington and philanthropist JULY/AUGUST 2017 | 95

Julius Rosenwald to educate African-American children and became fascinated by their purpose and their beauty. across the rural South in the early 20th century. Time and “When you see them in the landscape, they just glow,” she care was put into not just the purpose of the schools, but says. (One of her Rosenwald paintings is in the middle of the into the dignity of their design and construction. By 1928, top row, above) “Architecturally … their placement on the as many as one-third of the South’s rural African-American site, designed to take full advantage of sunlight … their high school children and teachers were served by these Rosenceilings and windows … they really are luminous. It’s so nice wald Schools, which numbered about 5,000, according to to think that this much went into educating a part of our the National Trust for Historic Preservation. But that story population who didn’t have equal opportunities.” has been little told, and today only a few-hundred of them The timelessness of Ayala’s work would seem a natural remain. While some are being actively preserved, many are fit for such a series. She “depicts spaces seemingly forgotten abandoned and in disrepair. by time and inhabited only Ayala “stumbled onto” by light and memory,” says “Murphy depicts spaces seemingly one of the schools by acciShelley Smith, director of forgotten by time and inhabited only dent, on one of the drives she Anchorlight. “Her use of conby light and memory.” takes on country roads looktrolled gesture highlights siming for things to paint, parple but rich textures found in –Shelley Smith, director, Anchorlight artists’ community ticularly “structural arrangeher architectural subjects. She ments in rural landscapes.” uses light and shadow as characBuildings are always on her radar; her first paintings took ters in a narrative left up to the viewer to complete.” the form of watercolor renderings for architectural clients. The viewer will have more to consider when Ayala “It just came to me,” she says, recalling that early work. “It returns from Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, where was a very natural voice for me.” she plans to paint three Rosenwald Schools from each state. On this particular day in Nash County, Ayala took a She’s excited about the opportunity to tell the schools’ story photo of a small, poignant clapboard building. “I’m drawn visually, and she’s also intrigued by their aesthetics. “This to clapboard, the way the light reflects on it, its patterns combines a lot of pieces of my interests,” she says. “The rural and shadows, the way a shadow is cast across the boards, landscape, the farmhouse, clapboard structure, the color the color of the light, and the contrast with the green palette, the greens. I love painting greens because they have around it.” She showed the photo to a friend who works for so much variation, and they can be so hard. They can be Teach for America. “That’s a Rosenwald School,” her friend challenging.” told her. Intrigued, Ayala began to research the schools 96 | WALTER

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WALTER EVENTS

CELEBRATING

WOMEN AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Stellar lineup for third annual evening 98 | WALTER

Five remarkable local women will headline WINnovation 2017, WALTER’s third annual celebration of women and innovation, sponsored by Bank of America and The Umstead Hotel & Spa. An evening of inspiration, education, celebration, and fellowship will bring together innovators from the worlds of jazz, fashion, real estate, the environment, and consumer products. They will share TED-style “WIN” (women in innovation) talks on the challenges and triumphs of their individual creative journeys, and the wisdom they’ve earned along the way. WINnovation 2017 will take place at the Umstead Hotel Sept. 8 with a cocktail hour, three-course gourmet dinner with wine pairings, WIN talks, and panel discussions. A pre-cocktail startup session sponsored by Diamonds Direct will also provide an opportunity for interested attendees to network and learn from other local entrepreneurial leaders. This event sold out in 2015 and 2016. WALTER hopes to see you there this year!

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Each speaker will give a 5-minute TED-talk-style “WIN” talk about her own individual entrepreneurial journey. WINnovation 2017 An evening of inspiration, education, and community Presented by Bank of America, The Umstead Hotel & Spa, and WALTER at The Umstead, 100 Woodland Pond Drive, Cary 4 p.m.: Startup workshop sponsored by Diamonds Direct 5 p.m.: Cocktails 6 p.m.: Dinner and program Tickets: $115, available at waltermagazine.com SPEAKERS Nnenna Freelon, Emmy-awardwinning jazz singer; non-proﬁt founder Sarah Yarborough, Co-founder and CEO, Raleigh Denim Donna Preiss, Founder and CEO, The Preiss Company Alice Hinman, Founder, Apiopolis Tatiana Birgisson, Founder, Mati Energy

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NNENNA FREELON MUSICIAN, EDUCATOR, ACTOR, PHILANTHROPIST, NON-PROFIT FOUNDER Nnenna Freelon is a world-renowned, six-time Emmy award winning jazz musician. She is also an educator, actor, philanthropist, nonproﬁt founder, wife, and mother. In each of those roles, the Durham resident is an innovator, bringing creativity and originality to her art, her philanthropy, and her relationships. “There are two themes running through my life,” Freelon said one recent morning. “One is dynamic creative partnerships and how they play out, whether that’s in your band, or marriage, or as a mother.” Another theme, she says, is “our challenge right now to live in this moment, to stay in this moment, to thrive in this moment.” Freelon’s moment includes her husband’s recent diagnosis with ALS. He is Phil Freelon, the celebrated architect whose Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture opened to international acclaim last year. (He was also the subject of Walter’s cover proﬁle in June). Together, the Freelons have founded the Freelon ALS Fund to raise

money for ALS research. “We are engaging in ways to thrive,” Nnenna Freelon says. “We are living this moment. How do you do that when things are going well, and you’ve got your health, and what you think is an unlimited amount of time? You live in accordance with that. And then when things shift, you still have to live.” The work of the foundation is central to their lives, she says. It’s interesting to note “how your values, your estimation of what’s most important now keeps changing. Things that were so important to me 20 years ago are not important now. I was career-minded, I wanted to make my mark as a woman, as a human being. I wanted to win a Grammy. They were goals that had to do with stature in the world, and there’s nothing wrong with that.” Today, though, Freelon says, “The idea of legacy is coming. What do I want to leave? Now I’m sort of seeing the other side of the mountain: What do I want my life to stand for?”

SARAH YARBOROUGH CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, RALEIGH DENIM Sarah Yarborough is the co-founder and CEO of Raleigh Denim. She and her husband, Victor Lytvinenko, started making jeans together when she was an undergraduate in 2007, working on her collection for N.C. State College of Design’s Art2Wear show. Today, Raleigh Denim sells jeans and other designs at prestigious stores like Barneys New York in 14 states; and Sarah and Victor are members of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. “Some of the winningest ideas come from not winning,” Yarborough said recently, when asked to reﬂect on her company’s success. “The struggle or challenge behind the curtain – that is so very different,” she says, from the public’s perception of of what success looks like. It’s in those hidden struggles that breakthroughs emerge. Yarborough grew up in Raleigh and attended Saint Mary’s School before heading to New York City and NYU, where she studied art, English, and philosophy. She returned to Raleigh to continue her studies at N.C. State, where her love of design blossomed.

Yarborough remembers well the moment when Barneys New York called to order the jeans she and Lytvinenko had been tinkering with. “I’d been making jeans for Victor to wear around, and for some friends,” she recalls, “and the morning news got wind of it. They did a 60-second segment at 6 a.m.” A Durham shoemaker saw the piece, told a buyer for Barneys about the couple and their work, and the phone rang. The New York store ordered 114 pairs of their jeans, and Raleigh Denim was launched. These days, demand regularly outstrips supply. “We’re beyond capacity,” Yarborough says. “We are about to turn away business. And we’re also looking at supplemental production.” About a year ago, the company’s growth had the couple reconsidering its organization and their individual roles. Now, Yarborough serves officially as CEO, while Lytvinenko focuses more on sales, growth, and brand ambassadorship. “That’s been really wonderful,” Yarborough says. “It makes me feel more invested and really proud of the company that we’re building.”

TATIANA BIRGISSON FOUNDER, MATI ENERGY Tatiana Birgisson is the founder of Mati Energy, the healthy energy drink she created in her Duke dorm room ﬁve years ago. Today, a new 30,000 square-foot manufacturing facility in Clayton has her brewing as many as one million cans a month for sale at Whole Foods Market and other retailers in 12 states across the Southeast and beyond. She made Forbes magazine’s list of “30 Under 30” in the Food and Drink category this year – unsurprising, perhaps, for a business growing more than 100 percent a year. So what she says she wants to talk about at WINnovation might come as a surprise: “My story really starts with depression,” she says, “and my story is

about the mental skill set that I gained to overcome depression.” She did it with perseverance, grit, and focus – not unlike the way she’s built her company, which focuses on health and well-being. “Even though life deals you a tough card, you can become a much stronger person,” she says. As Mati also goes from strength to strength, producing more than 100,000 cans a month of her proprietary combinations of tea and juice for an ever-expanding customer base, Birgisson’s hard-earned success has also resulted in wisdom worth sharing.

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DONNA PREISS FOUNDER AND CEO, THE PREISS COMPANY

ALICE HINMAN FOUNDER, APIOPOLIS Alice Hinman is founder of the nonprofit urban bee sanctuary Apiopolis, taking care of as many as 6 million bees in 60 colonies all over Raleigh. The pollinators play a vital role in sustaining our local ecosystem, and Hinman’s working to make sure they have the environment they need to thrive. She’s doing that through Apiopolis’s day-to-day work, and by acting as an advocate, pushing to have Raleigh certified by the official “Bee City USA” program. Cities and towns who are certified commit to creating and sustaining pollinator habitats, raise awareness of the need for pollinators, and carefully manage pesticides. When the Capital Boulevard entrance to downtown is rebuilt, for instance, Hinman will lobby for the planting of “a functioning, beneficial landscape” surrounding it. Most people do not think of urban settings when they think of bees or ecosystems. Hinman says the city offers its challenges, but it also has benefits. Bees in cities actually can fare better than those in rural areas, she says, because cities have diverse

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nectar sources like potted plants and colorful ﬂowers, while agricultural areas that are cultivated with only a few crops may leave bees struggling for nectar. Working with bees in the city is “quite different from their idyllic rural environment,” she says, “but I think we can affect positive change wherever we are.” With eight hives in her own yard in northeast Raleigh, Hinman also has a community of neighbors who appreciate her work and have embraced her use of an empty lot to keep even more colonies nearby. And she works as a beekeeper for hire, tending to bees beyond her own, and beyond Apiopolis’ downtown ﬂeet. Hinman’s passion and her work are one, something she feels immensely grateful for. At WINnovation, Hinman says she’ll talk about “what led up to this, how my childhood, my background, has informed this, how different points in my life have become integral. Everything, if you let it, is a learning experience.”

Donna Preiss is the founder and chief executive officer of Raleigh-based The Preiss Company, one of the nation’s top 10 providers of student housing, and the largest woman-owned owner and operator of student housing. She and the company are credited with leading the transformation of American college dorm life. Not long ago, if you were a college student, you most likely shared a cramped dorm room with a roommate or two, walked down the hall to the bathroom, drank stale coffee in the campus cafeteria, and hauled your laundry down to the basement to wash, quarter by quarter. Things have changed. If you are a college student today – thanks in no small part to Preiss – you may have your own fully furnished bedroom in an off-campus student housing mecca designed just for people like you. Your bathroom is your own. You drink coffee in your suite’s sleek stainless-steel-appliance-appointed kitchen, and watch TV on the 50-inch ﬂat-screen that came with the place. You don’t need to stockpile quarters, because you have your own washing machine and dryer. “We play a very important part in people’s lives,” says Preiss. “They’re planning their life’s work. If they enjoy where they’re living, they

do a better job at that. We believe we make a difference.” More than 21,000 students in 14 states from California to North Carolina agree. Preiss credits her success in part to her positive mindset. There’s a myth, she says, that “if you work hard, you’ll achieve success, and then you’ll be happy.” That’s ﬂawed for two reasons, Preiss believes. First, success (health, wealth, status) does not predict happiness. Second, “you need to start with happy. Happy people work hard and achieve success. Happy people make a difference in the workplace and in relationships.” An important part of happiness, Preiss believes, is a sense of purpose. “The Japanese call it ikigai. It’s a reason to get up.” People who have it tend to live longer, work harder, and have better relationships, she says. Another important piece of happiness is gratitude. Being grateful for the small everyday things that go right is important, she says. “Most of us see our lives through our own particular lens,” she says. “You can change that lens. You can isolate those moments, appreciate them, look for them.”

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GIGS

WHERE THE

BUFFALO

ROAM

Hillsborough’s Vista Wood bison ranch

photographs by LISSA GOTWALS

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by JESSIE AMMONS

A STONE BUFFALO STATUE GREETS visitors at the entrance to Vista Wood Ranch, which sits at a bucolic turn a few miles off of Highway 86 in Hillsborough. Then come the real thing: 15 1,000-pound furry creatures that would look right at home in an old Western movie, but they’re contentedly munching hay and meandering through green, dandelion-studded North Carolina pastures. Then comes their doting caretaker. “We just had a baby!” shouts Jeff Peloquin. A baby buffalo was born an hour earlier, and another four are expected before summer’s over. “They take care of their own young. Don’t touch them, don’t mess with them, don’t go near them. They’ve got it covered.”

JULY/AUGUST 2017 | 105

GIGS

Self-sufficient describes this entire buffalo operation, a hobby for construction company owner Peloquin and his wife, Linda. The farm produces a few thousand pounds of organic buffalo (also referred to as bison) meat each year – burgers, steaks, and brats. The Peloquins make just enough to break even, Jeff Peloquin says, but they’re not in it for the proﬁt. “This is solace.”

‘Total harmony’ Vista Wood has been a long time coming for the Peloquins. The couple lived on the outskirts of Chapel Hill for decades, running a sustainable homebuilding company and dreaming of owning more land. By 2004, they were ready to move to a setting that suited their “agrarian tastes” and bought 82 acres north of Hillsborough. The property included an old rundown farmhouse and wide open spaces, and that was about it. “I knew I wanted a farm of some sort,” Peloquin says, “but I wanted to make it practical.” He wasn’t yet ready to retire, and planting and harvesting ﬁelds of produce didn’t seem realistic at his stage of life. Animals made better sense. “I wanted an animal that is very well-adapted and indigenous to North Carolina. People don’t realize it, but buffaloes are indigenous. They lived here for millions of years, from here to California, before America was settled.”

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Technically, these are American bison, not buffalo. True buffaloes are Asian and African members of the same animal family, but hundreds of years ago, Native Americans called these native bison “buffalo,” and the common reference has lasted. Peloquin’s interest in Native American culture led him to consider raising bison. “It was (Native Americans’) food source, their shelter source, their fuel source, their tool source. They used every component of the animal: They used the hides for clothes and shelter, the bones for tools, the fur for diapers.” It’s why, today, the animals are still “instinctively well-suited to living here. They already know what they can and can’t eat intuitively.” Most livestock require a farmer to domesticate and train them, but buffalo don’t. Self-sufficiency, Peloquin says, makes for a natural, sustainable ﬁnal product. “We don’t give the herd any feed, they only eat grass and hay. We don’t give them hormone shots, we don’t give them antibiotics.” He gestures around at the 25 pastured acres, representing more than an acre per animal. “They’re clearly pasture-raised.” Thanks in part to their roaming, Vista Wood buffalo meat, depending on the cut, tastes lighter, leaner, and usually more tender than beef. Early on, the Peloquins sold their meat at a few local farmers markets, but couldn’t ﬁnd a comfortable balance

between supply and demand. “We had more customer requests than we could produce … until this becomes my full-time profession,” he says. Until then, Vista Wood buffalo cuts are available at the Hillsborough Farm and Garden center. It rarely runs out, but if you don’t ﬁnd the exact type or quantity you’re looking for there, you’ll have to wait it out. As one of only a handful of buffalo producers within a fewhours’ drive, many folks believe the meat is worth the wait. Peloquin says that’s because buffalo is a source of protein people feel good about. After becoming nearly extinct in the late 1800s, bison still represent a small portion of Americans’ meat consumption. “More cattle are slaughtered in a day than bison in a year,” Peloquin says. “But most of the people that raise bison are like myself: very conscientious of the animal and their sur-

roundings and their life. It’s not necessarily as profitable, but what’s a profit?” At Vista Wood, profit is achieved with “total harmony between animal and human and nature.” To that end, the Peloquins use other parts of the property as a wedding venue and have recently begun renting a private room out on Airbnb. Guests will likely meet one of the Peloquins’ three children: son Clint Peloquin, who ranches alongside Jeff and Linda. It’s a simple, friendly, family affair and visitors are always welcome. “We love sharing: our meat, the process,” Native American culture, and their scenic countryside spot. “The quality of life out here is high.”

vistawoodbisonranch.com

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FIELD guide

TRAVELS WITH CC

Taking the fam to Portsmouth Island by CC PARKER

MONDAY, JAN. 2, 2017, 9:59 A.M.: I SIT AT MY DESK, EYES FIXED ON THE Recreation.gov website, waiting for the moment the National Park Service will open its portal for 2017 registrations. My goal: To book cabins at Portsmouth Island on the Outer Banks for Memorial Day weekend, five months away. I’m ready this year. I’ve got an account on Recreation.gov and a friend’s recommendations for the “best” cabins. I won’t make the same mistake I did in 2016, when I’d moved too slowly. The cabins had sold out within minutes. The clock strikes 10 a.m., and I’m ready: A quick login, and I nab No. 20, my first choice. I reboot to book the neighboring cabin. No. 19 is already booked? Try for Cabin 18: Score. The National Park Service cabins on Portsmouth Island have been a favorite destination of families, fishing groups, and campers for years. Reachable only by boat from a spot about an hour’s drive from Morehead City, I know this place will offer a perfect retreat for my family. I can just see it: swimming by day, board games by night, great feasts of fish caught that day in the surf. With a family about to scatter for the summer including teenagers nearing college age, I need Memorial Day to provide us with a fun time together. So, cabins secured, I’ve got another urgent task to complete: reserving car spots on the

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ferry. I immediately dial the Morris Marina ferry service (number provided on the Recreation.gov site). After quite a few rings, a woman answers. I’d like to book two SUV spots for Saturday, May 26, I tell her, cheerily. Big pause. Why are people calling so early this year, she wants to know? She has to go the grocery store. Why don’t I call back later? “We have plenty of space,” she says, and hangs up. So I do. I call back the next day, waiting until noon this time. Kari, the owner, and the same lady from the day before, takes my reservation and gives me deposit instructions (no credit cards, please). She has clearly forgiven me for the early call the previous day. In fact, she’s quite chatty this time, suggesting I bring my own cleaning supplies. “The

folks from Raleigh usually comment that the cabins need to be cleaned,” she says, “and bring a new shower curtain, too.”

Island time

We arrive 45 minutes before the ferry, both cars packed to the gills. In addition to what’s crammed inside, we’ve got rooftop Sales pitch cargo carriers that barely shut and tailgate racks stacked high with Now, Portsmouth Island is a bucket-list item for me, but I still firewood, beach chairs, and Yetis. Ready to stake our place in line, have to convince my family. we zoom in to the lot to find … not a single other car. Not a soul in When the subject of the Memorial Day holiday arises, I the marina office. No ferry at the dock. blithely tell the children we’ve rented a place at the beach with our We are now, we realize, living on island time. friends Susan and Graham Johnson and all are welcome to bring Eventually, the 12:30 ferry leaves the dock at 1:30, leaving lots friends. My eldest, wisely noticing my I’m-not-budging tone, nods of time for our youngest son to panhandle and score various and in acceptance. My daughter gives a whoop of excitement, asking if sundry items at the marina. We lunch at “Don’s Grill” while we we’ve rented a place at Figure 8, as we have in the past. Not quite. wait, which has a spectacular view of the sound. Our youngest asks if he can fish. My husband, God bless him, asks Then Captain Rick Martin (Kari’s husband) singlehandedly why I never “run these things by him beforehand.” An excursion loads an impossible number of cars and people onto his tiny ferry. like this one sounds like “a lot of work for a short amount of time.” Standing at the front with a finger held up in the air, he directs In need of encouragement – and because my husband is often each car one by one. Right, then quick left, then slight right again right – I call my friends Muzzy and Katherine, who had been … it’s so tight that you must close your side mirrors to fit. You can’t there before. Both send pictures from their Portsmouth trips – see where you are going as you back up toward the boat and water. stunning sunsets, smiling faces. It will be OK. Once loaded, you can’t open your door. My husband is cool as a And because the best offense is a good defense (or is it the othcucumber, but I feel claustrophobic and try not to think about it. I er way around?), and because I know the secret to an ideal family wish I’d found space for the pool noodles in case the ferry sinks. vacation is to anticipate evTo distract myself, I eryone’s hearts’ desires, I get study the array of camper Eventually, the 12:30 ferry left the dock at 1:30, to work. Good food: homeonboard. Some are which left lots of time for our youngest son to trucks made brownies, Doritos, custom, some are converthappy hour apps, Pop-Tarts, panhandle and eventually score various ed, but they’re all very masteaks and fixings. Cards. cho fishing-sleeping-parsundry items at the marina. Eno hammocks. Adult bevtying machines complete erages (lots). Bonfire supwith multi-rod holders, plies, fishing supplies (worms). The works. built-in coolers, and flags of various designs. It turns out driving Then I poll my friends, many of whom go to Portsmouth anon the beach is permitted at Portsmouth, and these surf fishermen nually. A large group from Raleigh has just returned from a vistake full use of this option, moving to where the fish are. It sounds it, and these women are incredibly helpful, providing guidance like great fun as long are you aren’t sunbathing – my daughter is from what’s needed to clean the cabin (no small matter there), to scared that she’ll be run over. bonfires on the beach (the park rangers leave at 4 p.m.), to avoidAlso onboard our ferry are lots of walk-on passengers, mosting marauding raccoons and other critters. One friend offers her leftover charcoal and electric skillet. Electric skillet? That’s when I learn that these cabins have no pots, no pans – no plates, for that matter. My two-page packing list just got longer. Oh, and another thing. You definitely need to keep all of your food in plastic Tupperware containers. This is a unanimous comment. No one elaborates, and I am too apprehensive to ask. Of course I consult with my new bestie Kari at the Marina again, and she adds to my growing list: not only a new shower curtain, but I should also bring floor rugs, a tablecloth, oh … and LOTS of insect spray and bug zappers. Bug zappers? Having fully realized the scope of this expedition, I wonder how I am going to transport all of it down in one SUV with eight people. Another call to Kari to obtain a third ferry spot. No luck. All boats, all weekend, are totally sold out. In fact, she says, be sure to arrive at least an hour ahead to get your place in line. You don’t want to miss the boat!

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FIELD guide ly families who are camping on Portsmouth. These folks park at the marina and transport their camping gear via beach wagons. The park employees on the island then help transport these folks to their various campsites. This crowd is quite different from the camper crew. They wear Tevas. One family (no joke) has on matching “Kale” T-shirts. They are outﬁtted with binoculars, nets, and buckets, fully prepared to enjoy and immerse themselves in the local ecosystem and wildlife. At one point, I see the Kale family standing next to a camper owner with a T-shirt that says “Plovers taste like chicken.” Plovers are one of the protected birds on the island. No one seems to notice. Which brings up the dichotomy and the wonderful gift of these state parks. Everyone recreates differently. For some, it’s camping, leaving no trace behind, with glorious billowing tents and compact grills, living off the land. For others, the camperpirates, it’s gas-guzzling and beer drinking. The park staff somehow accommodates it all.

Spectacular stay The ferry ride is 45 minutes, the unloading seamless. The island is absolutely beautiful. The sound and the ocean and the marshland are all spectacular. We check in with the Ranger, a friendly woman about my age in a NPS uniform including a Kevlar vest, gun, and Taser. She gives us a quick tutorial, tells us to let the air out of our tires a bit, gives us keys to one of the cabins (our No. 20 cabin keys are lost, so she tells us just to go on in) and we are off. The stay is great fun and funny. The male teens create their own Eno hammock village – inadvertently in a “No Camping Zone.” Both mornings, the boys are awakened at dawn by a kind and patient ranger asking them to relocate. I think she understands that those boys can’t comfortably fit in a cabin with the rest of the group. It’s good that the ranger doesn’t punish them, because they get punishment enough being eaten alive by voracious mosquitos. (One boy had to be dosed with Benadryl on the ride back to counteract the reaction.) The little boys announce they are “going to catch dinner” and fish all day long, finding better luck at the ferry launch. Unfortunately their fish aren’t big enough to eat, but lots of fun to catch and toss. The girls sunbathe and frolic – keeping a watchful eye on the pirate campers speeding down the beach. This surf-fishing crowd makes the most of their time there, whether the fish are biting or not. When the fishing day ends, you see a virtual parade of campers make their way toward a predetermined gathering somewhere north on the island. Flags flying. The teen boys spend their days driving on the gorgeous beaches around the island. And we parents … we fall more into the “pirate” category than the “kale,” so we drive on the beach as well, racing with a few other cars, and looking at people in their bikinis and being entertained by the vigilant folks who monitor the plover nests. We are very friendly, waving to the other pirate campers, secretly hoping one of them will invite us to their mysterious post-fishing party, but no one does. So we make our own party! First night, we use the communal

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grill to prepare burgers with Memorial Day-themed paper plates, etc. After dinner, we sit on the beach for the most incredible star display. The second night we enjoy a prolonged happy hour with various chips and dips … even the teen boys appear for this repast. Dinner is a shrimp boil with avocado and heart-of-palm salad, and key lime pie. After dark, my husband makes a bonfire on the beach, and everyone gathers around and sings along with the tunes from a portable speaker. Susan breaks out her retractable s’mores sticks with Hershey bars, marshmallows, and graham crackers. And there it is – the magic moment: the group sitting around the campfire, all ages singing American Pie. I thank God for this moment. THIS is worth all the effort. Memorial Day, we are up with the sun to load the car, leave no bonfire trace behind, and hop the 9:30 ferry home. I know my husband is ready when I find he filled his tires the night before. We somehow pack all our belongings and ourselves back into the cars. My last view of the Johnsons, before we are loaded onto the ferry, is Susan wedged between her son and husband on the center console, her head protruding from the sunroof. It’s the only way to fit in the car! The only thing left to do is visit Kari to pay the balance of the ferry bill – we’ve discovered our youngest charged a few more Laffy Taffys to the bill than we knew. One last head count, a dose of Benadryl to the suffering, and we are headed home. Memorial Day bucket list family bonding mission accomplished!

IF YOU GO The cabins are in the Long Point Cabin Camp located on the North Core Bank within Cape Lookout National Seashore. Morris Marina is in Atlantic, N.C. More info here: portsmouthislandfishing.com Don’t call Kari on Jan. 2. But I would call her Jan. 3 after noon, and if you’re taking a big group, go on and reserve one additional SUV spot. You’ll be glad to have it for overflow. You have to bring your own firewood. Bring a piece or two of kindling as well. Advice from a camper pirate: “If they aren’t wearing a gun, they have no authority.” Advice from a Kale camper: “Bonfires can only be below the low tide line, but the ranger leaves at 4 p.m.” Advice from me: There is not enough 409 in North Carolina to clean those cottages, and once the lights go out for the evening, do NOT shine your camera flashlight to the kitchen area. You will not like what you see. …Make your bug spray available to everyone and stay doused!

Choose

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REFLECTIONS

GRADUATION

WISDOM

Two talks urge curiosity, kindness, and understanding

RADUATION SEASON CAN BE CONTAGIOUS: THE KICKOFF TO summer break! Schedules loosen, days lengthen, spontaneity rules. Even the workaday grind is brightened by early dawns, late dusks, sunlight galore. Graduation can also be an emotional time full of change. “This mean old world is a tough place,” says Rev. Gregory Jones, rector of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Raleigh. Jones spoke to Ravenscroft students at their baccalaureate June 2, encouraging them to stay ever-curious and always kind. “The world needs for you to be curious: to be intellectually, emotionally, philosophically, and spiritually curious people.” Jones’ advice rings true beyond graduates. Similarly, Enloe High School’s Class of 2017 salutatorian Katherine Gan addressed her peers June 14 with a message of unity applicable to every age. “It is easy to give into fear and cynicism,” she says, urging her peers to instead be appreciative and understanding, always in search of “compassion and genuine human interaction.” Here are both speeches in their entirety, offering insight and encouragement for all of us this season.

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Rev. Gregory Jones “I’ve been thinking about what to say to you all for a while. And until a few days ago, I had narrowed it down to a single word. I had decided I wanted to talk to you all about one thing and I was pretty sure of myself. I thought, ‘This is it. Gonna be great.’ So I told a friend about it, and she said I should talk to you about something else. I was annoyed. I was annoyed at what she said I should say because I already knew what I wanted to say. I already knew what I thought, and what I wanted to say, and when she said I should say something else – I dismissed what she said I should say. Because that’s how people do it now right? People already know what they think. They already have their opinion. They already know what they are going to say, and they don’t listen to others, especially when they don’t agree. Right? Wrong. I thought about what my friend had

said, and the next day I realized that what she said I should say added so much to what I wanted to say, that the two things together formed a much bigger truth than I had come up with alone. And then I knew that I have to say to you two things. So, I hope you are curious. I hope you are curious to hear what it is I have to say. I hope you are curious to inwardly digest what I have to say. And I hope you are curious to let what I have to say change what you may already think. So what’s the ﬁrst thing I have to say? I already said it: I hope you are curious. The world needs for you to be curious: to be intellectually, emotionally, philosophically, and spiritually curious people. To be people who want to learn more about everything. The world needs people to be curious about the world. How does it really work? What is really happening? What is the truth … about everything? A hunger to learn should be part of who you are – now when you are young and then when you are old. Curiosity of the mind will lead you to read. And to study. And to ask questions. To think. To wonder about things you don’t already know about. To look again at what you do already know and ask yourself – is this really true? Am I thinking the truth? I believe the human being was designed by God to want to know the truth of things. So for this reason, to be curious about the wonders of the world around you, and the people you meet, is to fulﬁll your very design. You have a brain. Use it. God put it there for that. So I hope you are curious. But as my friend said, there is another thing, something even more important. Now, you don’t have to be that curious to have noticed by now that this mean old world is a tough place. It’s a tough place, and sometimes it seems like it is getting worse. The more you allow curiosity to open your mind to the reality of the whole world – and not just your little world – the more you will see the heights and depths and riches and poverties of what’s good and what’s bad about it. You will see in particular that the bad things that are

happening in this world are not caused by natural randomness or by a puppet-master God who makes everything happen that happens. No, you will see when you have allowed your mind to function that the injustice, war, suffering, and violence of this world do not happen because God is crazy or cruel: But because human beings are. People cause, or permit, nearly all that’s wrong to be what’s wrong. So this is the most important thing I can tell you. I believe God is real and true, and I believe what God wants is for human beings to be kind. God wants us to pursue kindness. God wants us to love kindness. God wants us to show kindness. God wants us to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. For kindness is like a garden of blessings. And from that garden grow justice, peace, and plenty. When left to its own desires, the world will always get worse. But I believe that we were designed to be better than that. And the only way anything will ever get better, is by our acts of kindness. Everyday. All day. For kindness is God working through us. So, curiosity and kindness, those are my two words for you. I could go on forever. But what more can I say? You will help other people become better people, and you will become compassionate and wise. Peace be with you.”

Katherine Gan “Before I begin my speech tonight, I want to encourage every person in this room to think about how our graduation is even possible. We certainly did not achieve this feat all on our own. Whether it was the ﬁnancial support of a parent, the advice and assistance of a caring counselor, or the encouraging words of a teacher, we have all been shaped by the people who laid down the bricks for us to walk on. So, I want to take time tonight to applaud those who have shared in our victories, sympathized with our struggles, and encouraged us to be the best version of ourselves. Without them, we wouldn’t be here today.

Now I want you to hold on to those feelings of appreciation and joy because they are not only reserved for those we love but also apply to those we dislike. If this election season and past year have taught me anything, it’s that it is easy to give into fear and cynicism. We cast off people we see as different simply because we believe preconceived notions of who they are and even what they can become. We rely on labels to make snap judgements: poor or rich, Democrat or Republican, smart or dumb. However, in doing so, we forget the common thread that unites us: our humanity. Regardless of our differences, the blood that runs through every person’s veins is still dark red. In a world where issues are waged as a battle between wrong and right, it becomes more important than ever to seek common ground and unite as human beings. We should recognize that even though we are all unique individuals, we have one shared experience: graduating from Enloe High School. Our four years together should be enough – to drive conversations, inspire respect, and promote civil interactions. I urge every person in this room to look beyond what distinguishes us and instead search for what connects us. I’ll admit – we certainly don’t have the same daily struggles. But, we should try to understand those who have distinct life experiences from us, viewing them not as combatants, but potential friends. While some in our class were stressing over which college to choose from, others were worried about how they would foot the bill for the next four years. This divide, whether by race, gender, or class, has prevented compassion and genuine human interaction. This is the message I want to leave you with. Whether your next step is going to college, entering the job market, or serving our nation, know that you will encounter people who may have different stories than your own. However, that does not make those stories any less important. So Enloe Class of 2017 let’s work towards cooperation, not division, understanding, not indifference, and love, not hate. Thank you and congratulations.”

JULY/AUGUST 2017 | 113

The Sweet Sound of Good Times By preserving and promoting traditional music, PineCone executive director William Lewis is helping create a city soundtrack unlike any other. From the modern masters of Wide Open Bluegrass to the emerging artists of Hopscotch, Raleigh music festivals reveal a lot about a city with roots and branches. With the most live music in the state, Raleigh’s sound is diverse and vibrant, reasons it is now heralded as one of the best music scenes in the country. Take a listen and sing along in Raleigh, N.C. Learn more at visitRaleigh.com/listen

GIVERS

I’M SO GLAD YOU’RE HERE Send a Kid to Camp

White Oak Foundation campers, left to right: Caya Tyner, Charlice Tyner, Jaliyah Ray, Alexis Kuye, Charles Tyner III, Kendall Thompson, Avery Thompson, Joyah Horton, Eve Carter

by HAMPTON WILLIAMS HOFER

NOT LONG AGO, MO JOHNSON USED TO DRIVE THROUGH THE HEART of Southeast Raleigh in the summertime and see children outside throwing cups of water at each other in the throbbing heat. They were sweltering, and there was nothing else to do. She would pull up to deliver meals and ﬁnd them waiting on her, hungry. Johnson directs the Garner Road Community Center, which serves a stretch of low-income families. She was desperate to ﬁnd a way to provide structure for her outreach kids – 90 percent of whom receive free and reduced school lunch – when school was not in session.

photograph by MISSY MCLAMB

JULY/AUGUST 2017 | 115

GIVERS strict elementary school grammar teachThen at a conference three years ago, all of the deep-end dives and drippy poper holding a chalkboard pointer inches she ran into Libby Richards, a director sicles that a summer should rightfully enfrom her nose. “She taught me how to at the Triangle Community Foundation. tail. It’s about keeping them active, stimwrite. She changed my life,” says HunterRichards told Johnson about a Commuulated, and engaged. There are zoo trips Young, who wants to do the same for nity Foundation grant that could help and movie nights and arcade visits. White Oak’s campers. to solve her summer problem. It’s called At the same time, all of the camp diShe’s able to try thanks to those very Send a Kid to Camp, and since 1984, it rectors also have another major objective: same writing skills, which made her grant has funded camp tuition for more than preventing what they call the “summer application stand out, and ultimately won 11,600 children across Wake, Durham, slide.” When kids spend 11 weeks out of funding for their summer camp three Orange, and Chatham counties. the classroom without being encouraged years ago. “Send a Kid to Camp couldn’t have to read a book or run through their mul“Learning is everything,” she says, come at a better time,” says Johnson, tiplication tables, their skills get rusty. “We recognize our community as “since vouchers for children were cut That’s why the camps in the Send a Kid low-to-moderate-income. The only way across the state, sending kids aged 8 and to Camp program also mix in serious acato break the cycle of poverty is through above home to empty houses to care for demic programs along with all that entereducation.” She gestures to 11-year-old themselves. Now, they get a real summer tainment, sending children back to their Joyah Horton sitting next to her. Kids like – roller skating, bowling, fishing, many of classrooms in August with momentum. Horton, she says, “is why we do this.” them for the first time. They get to sit at Horton has attended White Oak the head of the table on their birthdays. Books first camp for the past six summers, and is They get a hug in the morning and someCandace Tyner, who directs the an honor roll student at Northside Eleone who looks at them and says, ‘I’m so White Oak Foundation summer camp, mentary in Chapel Hill. “If I didn’t come glad you’re here.’” has made academics the basis of her prohere, I’d have to go to work with my dad This summer, Send a Kid to Camp gram. Like any good teacher, she disguises in the burning hot sun all day landscapwill make tuition-assistance grants to 16 it as fun, having the children create their ing yards,” Horton says, “Here, I can be nonprofit camps selected by a commitwith my friends. We do projects tee of community members. These The Send a Kid to Camp and presentations, and last sumcamps vary in type, exposing kids mer we went to the movies – that to everything from photography program helps ensure that the was my favorite thing.” Tyner and to archery, and every single one of basic needs of our community’s the other teachers at White Oak them offers children a summer excamp work closely with the school perience that would be otherwise most vulnerable children are met. system, asking for report cards unattainable. and targeting specific areas where the There’s Camp Royall, the nation’s oldown monopoly games based on math kids need academic improvement. Some est camp for people with autism, which facts, or write rap songs about overcomteachers have even called to refer their sits on 133 acres near Pittsboro and offers ing bullying. students to the camp. Last year, 75 percent typical camp experiences like boating and Still, she’s got her work cut out for of the children who attended White Oak hiking. There’s the YMCA’s Camp High her, delivering math and writing incamp earned A/B Honor Roll status. EvHopes, where kids learn everything from struction to 50 children ages 4-14 in tiny, ery single graduating high school student basketball to leadership skills, at little or scattered classrooms in the 150-year-old this spring who attended White Oak will no cost. There’s the Wade Edwards FounWhite Oak Baptist Church. “We make it enter college this fall. dation and Learning Lab (WELL) sumwork,” she says. Because of the Send a Kid Needless to say, parents are thrilled. mer camp, which received its first grant to Camp grant, many of the campers at“I feel at ease because my child is safe, last summer: “We focused on attracting tend the five-week all-day camp for free. cared for, and most importantly, she’s not girls and students of color to our STEM They take field trips to local museums losing what she learned during the school programs,” says director Betsey McFarand, last summer, went on official college year,” says White Oak parent Valerie land, “giving them the opportunity to extours at UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State: Horton. But the kids themselves might plore things like computer programming, “We want to show the kids what’s posbe the camp’s biggest fans. “Prior to the robotics, and engineering.” sible, what we know they can achieve,” grant, summer had no meaning for these The Send a Kid to Camp program Tyner says. kids,” says Garner Road’s Mo Johnson, helps ensure that the basic needs of our White Oak earned its Send a Kid to “and now? Now, it’s the wait worth a community’s most vulnerable children Camp grant thanks to volunteer Juanita hundred smiles.” are met. But it’s also about allowing them Hunter-Young, who remembers her own

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MIDTOWN EVENTS | SUMMER 2017 WEDNESDAYS

August 2 – October 4 6:30-7:30pm Midtown Park at North Hills

SATURDAYS

April 15 – November 4 8am-Noon North Hills Commons

THURSDAYS

April 20 – August 17 6-9pm North Hills Commons

Midtown Beach Music Series Celebrating its 10th season, the Thursday evening Midtown Beach Music Series at North Hills is popular with event goers from around North Carolina. The series offers the best of Beach Music on warm summer nights and features Shag dancing, a time-honored tradition

TUESDAYS | MIDTOWN PARK

June 13 – August 15

in the South. | Thursdays, 6 - 9pm through August 17th July 6

Spare Change

July 13

Fantastic Shakers

July 20

Too Much Sylvia

July 27

North Tower

TUESDAY

August 3

Band of Oz

August 1

August 10

Liquid Pleasure

6-8pm Midtown Park at North Hills

August 17

Embers ft. Craig Woolard

10-11am Midtown Park at North Hills

Midtown Farmers’ Market Ten years ago, our Mission began to create a vibrant, thriving farmers market in the heart of Midtown Raleigh, where the community can buy local, family-farmed foods, grown in a manner that sustains the land and our health. The Midtown Farmers’ Market is dedicated to providing the community access to healthful food options, and educational opportunities to learn about sustainable farming methods and food systems. | Saturdays, 8am - Noon through November 4th

Midtown Events is responsible for building community and creating memorable experiences through the planning and producing of events in Midtown Raleigh. In addition to special events, Midtown Events is also responsible for the ambiance. artful initiatives and branding throughout North Hills.

NORTHHILLSEVENTS.COM

THE

PAGE/PARTIES

he Whirl is WALTER’s roundup of local happenings. From store openings to fundraisers, big galas, intimate gatherings, and everything in between, The Whirl has got it covered.

Submissions for upcoming issues are accepted on WALTER’s website at waltermagazine.com/submit-photos.

120 Saint Mary’s School’s 175th gala 121 Dix Park Conservancy social 122 Camden Street Learning Garden 123 Chair-ity fundraiser 124 Rex Hospital Open 125 UNC Journalism Hall of Fame 126 Raleigh Hall of Fame social 127 Ravenscroft School kick-oﬀ 128 A Series of Fortunate Events

JULY/AUGUST 2017 | 119

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SAINT MARY’S 175TH EXTRAVAGANZA More than 1,000 guests gathered May 12 to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the founding of Saint Mary’s School in Raleigh on May 12, 1842. Under a tent on campus, alumnae of all ages, faculty and staﬀ, parents, and community supporters danced, dined, and toasted the school’s long history and bright future.

Laura Raynor, Laura Martinez, Hurley Raynor, Lolly Norris, Ann O’Neal

Joan Johnston, Ran Johnston

Elizabeth Trowhy, Elizabeth Gardner

Smedes York

Walters & Walters and Mary Virginia Swain/Saint Mary’s School

A champagne toast to St. Mary’s 175th birthday.

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DIX PARK CONSERVANCY Board members and other supporters of the Dix Park Conservancy gathered for a summer social May 23. The conservancy recently announced the appointment of its ﬁrst president and CEO, Sean Malone.

The Dix Park Conservancy Board

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Davie Koch, Sally Duﬀ

Dale Roane, Robin Kennedy, Catherine George

GARDEN PARTY The St. Michael’s Episcopal Church Women raised $53,000 for the Camden Street Learning Garden during their Spring Garden Party May 12. More than 150 people gathered in the Parish Hall to enjoy an evening of fun and fellowship and lots of bidding. All of the proceeds raised will support the building of an outdoor kitchen and classroom at Camden Street.

Susan Rountree

PRISTINE | PROTECTED | PRIVACY

Dean McKinney, Lynn McKinney, Anne Suber

The Green Chair Project

Tula Summerford, Jackie Craig, Warte Moore

Dan Nelson

CHAIR-ITY EVENT The Green Chair Project held its annual Chair-ity event April 20 at the organization’s Capital Boulevard showroom. The sold-out celebration was hosted by WRAL anchor Debra Morgan and included a raﬄe and an auction to support the nonproﬁt, which provides donated furnishings to people who are starting over after homelessness, crisis, or disasters. Quincy King, Emily King, Debbie Robbins, Larry Robbins

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Conrad Shindler, Steve Burriss

REX HOSPITAL OPEN The Web.com Tour returned to Wakeﬁeld Plantation for the 30th anniversary of UNC REX Healthcare’s charity golf tournament. More than 150 professional golfers from around the world competed for their PGA Tour cards. Proceeds from the event will support cardiovascular disease prevention and education at the new, state-ofthe-art North Carolina Heart & Vascular Hospital, which opened in March on UNC REX’s main Raleigh campus. This year’s winner was Conrad Shindler. Kerry Grace Heckle, Andrew Putnam, Diana Massa, Peter Leonard, Alan Wolf, Ann Dodge

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Sandy Fain, Linda Quarles, Gabrielle Greene Sulzberger

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Judge Lucy Inman, Julia Daniels

2017 Hall of Fame inductee Orage Quarles III

NC JOURNALISM HALL OF FAME Former News & Observer publisher Orage Quarles III was among ﬁve media and journalism leaders inducted into the North Carolina Media and Journalism Hall of Fame at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill April 7.

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youth performers

126 | WALTER

Chris Hendricks

Laura Isley, Joan Baker

Brandon Cordrey, First Lady Kristin Cooper

Tommy Onorato with members of the Triangle Alliance Chorus

FORTUNATE EVENTS For its 33rd Anniversary, Arts Access hosted a month-long series of events featuring over 50 artists, writers, and performers with disabilities. N.C. First Lady Kristen Cooper chaired the series, and the events included a house concert with Chris Hendricks, a theatrical showcase at Raleigh Little Theatre, and a screening of the ﬁlm Tommy! The Dreams I Keep Inside Me at The Cary Theater.

Barton Cutter

courtesy Raleigh Hall of Fame (HALL OF FAME); Armistead Sapp and Arts Access (FORTUNATE EVENTS)

Tom Bradshaw, Bruce Stanley, Lawrence Wheeler, Ann Evans Kolb, Dudley Flood, John Kane, Tiﬀ Mann, Lou Mitchell, Gary Buete, Judy Dodson-Allen, John Dalpe

RALEIGH HALL OF FAME CELEBRATION Julia and Frank Daniels Jr. hosted a celebration at their home May 18 to honor the Raleigh Hall of Fame’s 2017 inductees. The Raleigh Hall of Fame honors leaders past and present whose lives, careers, and contributions have helped build this city and improve the lives of its residents.

Deborah Thompson

Head of school Doreen Kelly, board chair Caryn McNeil

Laura Kalorin, Kelly Gould

Lynn Vitello, Chuck Vitello

RAVENSCROFT CELEBRATION Ravenscroft School kicked oﬀ the public phase of its Embrace Possibility capital campaign with a party for parent volunteers at the home of Liza and Lee Roberts May 10.

Pickel Tannenbaum, Pete Tannenbaum

Donna Preiss, Kirk Preiss

Beth Atkeson, Ben Atkeson

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The WALTER Scribo The answers to the following clues are in this issue. Happy reading! ACROSS 3. This downtown brewery’s name comes from the sanskrit word for “cultivating” 5. This artist is the subject of a remarkable exhibition in Winston-Salem opening in August 6. Noel Weston grows thousands of this type of ﬂower 7. CC Parker packed up her famiy to spend Memorial Day at this island 8. The key ingredient to a yummy milkshake in this issue’s Drink 9. Meli Markham breathes this (and it’s not air) 10. The Durham river that will host its beloved annual festival in July DOWN 1. Atlantic Beach has celebrated the Fourth with a ____ for some forty years 2. The domed structure oﬀ of Western Boulevard that opens in July 4. WALTER’s women in entrepreneurship event Sept. 8

Learning IsA Blast! From the earliest years, children learn that Ravenscroft is a place of warmth, of belonging, and of exciting new discoveries. We meet every child where they are and as they explore a new world of people and ideas, we take them by the hand and make sure their journey is one of wonder and joy. Discover why children love it here!

Join us! Call to schedule a visit: 919.848.6470 7409 Falls of Neuse Road Raleigh, NC 27615 919.847.0900 why.ravenscroft.org

ORIGINAL STYLES EXQUISITE DESIGNS SUPERIOR CUSTOMER SERVICE All in one convenient location. Hickory Furniture Mart.

RALEIGH’S Furniture Festival & Clearance Sale July 28-30

C OM I N G I N

SEPTEMBER 2017 Fifth anniversary issue

www.hickoryfurniture.com | 1-866-471-4366 INSPIRING HOMES AROUND THE WORLD FOR OVER HALF A CENTURY

An Investment in Family Memories

Grand opening N.C. State Gregg Museum of Art and Design’s new digs

Raleigh icons Van Collier’s latest project

Pathways Local labyrinths FAMILY FARMS, RANCHES,

AND

RECREATIONAL PROPERTY SALES

Daily drawings Dwane Powell retrospective FRANK GOMBATZ, BROKER 919-696-4249

GARDNER REYNOLDS, BROKER 919-749-3177

WWW .L EGACY F ARMSAND R ANCHES NC. COM

End NOTE

BLACKOUT If you missed your chance to barbecue on Memorial Day or shoot fireworks on the Fourth, Solar Eclipse 2017 is your chance for a serious summer party. As you may have heard, on Aug. 21, for the first time in 99 years, a total eclipse of the sun will traverse the continental United States. Starting in the Pacific Northwest and traveling southeast, the eclipse will dramatically darken the skies for a handful of minutes along a narrow, swooping path across 11 states including North Carolina. Though we’re closer to the action than most, Raleigh does not fall within the 70-mile-wide “path of totality” that will experience a total blackout. Still, our skies will dim dramatically for about three minutes at 2:45 p.m., when the moon’s shadow covers about 93 percent of the sun, something that hasn’t happened here since 1970. A nifty online simulator created by Google and U.C. Berkeley (eclipsemega. movie/simulator) can give you a sense of what our sky – or that of any zip code – will look like at different times that day. If you plan to check it out, you have to wear safety glasses to protect your eyes. They can be found at eclipse2017. nasa.gov/safety. –L.R.

For a list of solar eclipse parties being held in the Carolinas: moreheadplanetarium.org/Carolina-solar-eclipse-parties

130 | WALTER

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Your heart. Your choice.

WALTER Magazine - July/August 2017

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