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NOTED: Road Trip
NOTED
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Road Trip
A couple, their dog, a 33-year-old Suburban, and an Airstream trailer travel across the country
words and photographs by SUSAN GARRITY
On Dec. 1, my husband Jeff Basham and I, along with our Boxer, Izzy, set off on a cross-country journey, departing our home in Historic Oakwood for a planned 16-day trip to Vancouver, Canada, with no return date.
We made the trip west in our beige 1989 GMC Suburban, towing a 2011 23-foot Airstream trailer.
I mention the specifics of the vehicles because these are both, apparently, seen as “classics” by road travelers. My husband is definitely a car guy — he’s nursed our Suburban back to health on many occasions, as well as numerous MGs, Jeeps, and Miatas over the years. (In fact, the Airstream brings the total to 40 vehicles we have enjoyed together, one for each year of marriage, with only three of these bought new.) So when someone invariably rewards him at a gas stop with a comment like, How many miles do you have on that? What year is it? or I once had one just like yours, there’s instant recognition of another car guy and immediate bonding. Jeff responds to the implicit compliment with all the requested details and a head nod to their shared appreciation.
We were headed to visit one of our daughters and her husband, whom we had only seen once in over two years because of Canada’s Covid border restrictions. The motivation for purchasing the Airstream was to ultimately visit all three daughters and their families in their distant homes — Vancouver, Brooklyn, and central Kansas — for extended stays. We considered alternate means (a hotel or rental, even a towable boat), but this offered the most flexible approach to visit for a while, while maintaining our (and their) sovereignty. Seeing the country along the way would be an added bonus.
Our route from Raleigh took us due west along I-40 to Barstow, in southern California, then up 58 to Bakersfield, where we picked up Interstate 5 straight north to Canada. We had made reservations each night in advance based on five to six hours of drive time each day. We had a few longer stays worked into the schedule, where we planned to spend two or three nights.
Some friends saw this undertaking as adventurous and maybe a little bit risky. Others were envious of our spirit, curiosity, and time for an open-ended journey. We were mostly worried about the things outside our control, such as weather, traffic, other drivers, and engine failure. Having a mechanically talented spouse on board, along with great roadside insurance, assuaged that last concern.
To us, the main uncertainty had to do with space. Two people and a dog navigating a 172-square-foot interior would require dexterity, patience, and creativity — but we did share a tent one night in California, and we’d camped a couple of nights in a Volkswagen bus. Then, of course, were the years of zero personal space when the children were young.
But space, we soon learned, would not be our biggest challenge. The real hurdle
Left to right: Leaving Raleigh; sunset in Alma, Arkansas; British Columbia; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Arkansas; Montague, California; Antelope Canyon, Arizona.
was backing the trailer into an 8-footwide slot, bordered by other trailers, when a “pull through” space could not be procured. It’s an unintuitive, acquired skill best attempted in daylight — and our first try was not under these conditions.
We arrived late in Bentonville, Arkansas, in total darkness. After finally finding our slot, we began the process of parking. Armed with a walkie-talkie so I could guide Jeff — Driver side left a couple of inches. No, a little to the passenger side. Pull up a little. No, let’s try that again. — we were probably 20 minutes into the process when the neighbors on either side emerged to help us, perhaps fearful their trailers might become casualties. One was a first-timer, too, so he could only offer moral support, but the other was an experienced traveler and had some helpful tips: Hand on the bottom of the steering wheel, small forward and reverse moves. Success!
Bentonville was the first place we explored. There, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is nestled into 120 acres of Ozark Forest, with unique architecture, a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home, and the North Forest Light Show, an immersive walk through the evening woods amid a sound and light mosaic.
We planned a three-day stay in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with excursions to Taos and Santa Fe. Native American, Hispanic, and Latinx cultural influences are visible in every part of the city. Simply trying the different cuisines was a memorable experience. We also enjoyed the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, particularly its exhibit Heritage: Pueblo Women Paving Cultural Pathways, representing influential women of the 19 pueblos in New Mexico and their role in the tribe’s matriarchal society. Taos abounds in Native American art and jewelry, surrounded by a landscape of high desert. Here, one heartstopping excursion was the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, the 10th-highest bridge in the United States: as you approach it, the road suddenly gives way to a drop of 600 feet with rushing water below it. Traversing this gorge is a test of whether you are afraid of heights or not. I did not cross the bridge, nor get close enough to take a picture. Caught up in the wonders of Albuquerque and Taos, we never made it to Santa Fe.
Our next stop was Williams, Arizona, where we found ourselves snowed in and unable to tour the south rim of the Grand Canyon as planned. We did, however, take a three-hour detour to see Lower Antelope Canyon in Arizona on the reservation of the Navajo people. Words and photographs are inadequate to describe the beauty of this canyon sculpted by thousands of years of water and wind. We were fortunate to have a Navajo guide who spoke not only of the canyon’s impressive features but the ways in which the patterns in the canyon are represented in their art. On the way back, we visited the Cameron Trading Post and Gallery, where hundreds of years of Navajo antiquities are displayed.
While each of our stops held its attractions, the countryside itself is what most fascinated Jeff and me. Most of my pictures were taken through the windshield as we passed through majestic scenes of plains, prairie, mountains, forests, and valleys — the images never coming close to capturing their majesty. The vastness of our country is hard to absorb. I’ve flown over some of these areas and felt a similar sense of wonder, but the ground view is different: you see yourself in relation to the magnitude of what is before you in a very powerful and sensory way. You feel awe, and you also feel very small.
Traveling this way also exposed us to a diversity of mobile lifestyles. We engaged with others at campsites, gas stations, and rest areas, learning what pulled them to live on the road. For some, it is a permanent retirement plan of continuously traveling North America’s byways; for others it was a part-time avocation with a permanent base somewhere. Still others were following a migratory pattern — south in winter and north in summer — and for a few it solved a long-distance commute by camping near their workplace during the week and returning to a traditional home on weekends. Families, singles, young and old, retired and employed, blue-collar workers and executives, and pets were all part of this travel experience. But everyone seemed to have a well-developed sense of adventure, goodwill, and a detachment from permanence. At a gas pump in the southwest a man dressed in ranch attire took a look at the Suburban-Airstream duo and said to Jeff, “Man, I saw you coming off the exit and thought to myself, you are living the dream.” It seemed to us that the dream he referenced was also his.
As we waited in line at the Canadian border, we were impatient to finish our journey — just an hour to go! But as we pulled away from customs, we heard an ominous engine cough, followed by a bucking movement, then silence. The roadside assistance insurance was put in play and in a couple of hours we were at our daughter’s home, with the hitherto-infallible Suburban in a repair shop, much to Jeff’s dismay. (Fortunately, it was fixed.)
We are looking forward to the return trip. We will probably take a more meandering approach this time; we still want to see the Grand Canyon and maybe retrace our steps to Taos, and we would like to spend more time touring and less time “making time.” Of course, we will be glad to be home again, sitting on the front porch greeting neighbors. Jeff is eager to get back to building the 1955 MG ZA Magnette sedan in the garage. We aren’t sure about Izzy’s attitude toward the trip, but we think she’d prefer to just get home. She loves to ride in a car, but every day for her was Groundhog Day: we drove for hours, only to return to the same place.
This trip opened up new awareness for us. We are not bound to a single home life. Our neighbors are not just the folks next door, but anyone we find ourselves next to for the night. How can we help? is always welcomed. And seeing is one thing; experiencing it is another. We’re grateful that we said yes to this experience.
Dots
by IMONYLOWD
Breathing dots spread across a vast expanse Respiring to the beat of hearts with like cadence It’s a lot easier to breathe around throbs that bleed to the same thump It’s a lot easier to connect with other dots that share the same point.
Will we always be like this? Drawn together by everything contrary to difference By every thing that keeps a box cozy cause our minds too small, too compact to step outside of it Since when has change ever came out of same? When has unity changed how it felt about whole?
We are limiting our effective if our lines are only attached to tracks that motion at the same pace Stepping off at the same place. We are indirectly meaning everybody ain’t worth all of the God we posed to be showing All of the world in His hands. We like Hmm… which ones look the best? Which ones look like me?
God’s palms don’t show favoritism So our embrace should be warm enough to make every person’s different feel a full welcome. Do we care enough for that? Is our concern for walking as one enough for us to run from normal? From I’ve always been like this, from we just don’t get along From my circle isn’t meant for your shape. I’m sure somebody else’s mold has room for you. Ain’t we all family? And family’s ’posed to take care of theirs right?
Even if their best is right now less than your standard of good Even if their minds are out of order Even if their acts are more theatrical than yours Even if the streets are their only bed Even if low seems like it’s the only place their spirits are happy in Even if they all hood with no home training Even if they God don’t look like yours Even if they ain’t the same color.
That red that runs away from our flesh is still the same right? That unconditional love God got for us all the same right? We still all come from Him, right?
So we all family that needs to love like it, connect like it Stand and walk as one so we can all get to the same place one day To change, to healing To the place where crying has no seat and joy is the only living we know how to be alive in.
Together as one living With all our dots drawn to a connecting line A one nation.
illustration by NATASHA “EDITH GREY” POWELL WALKER
courtesy of Robert Hartwell
Robert Hartwell’s path from Raleigh to Broadway — and back again PASSION & PURPOSE
by AYN-MONIQUE KLAHRE
Robert Hartwell remembers seeing his first musical, The Ice Wolf, at Raleigh Little Theatre in the early ‘90s, when he was 7 years old: “I thought, OMG, my entire life is changing — I want to do exactly what these people are doing.” These days, Hartwell is at the peak of a successful Broadway career, having taken the stage in Hello, Dolly!, Memphis, Cinderella, and more, and is also running his own theater education business and working on a reality television show. But, he says, all this success is rooted in the cultural opportunities he found in Raleigh. “It was amazing what I could do in my own backyard of 919 — few people that I meet have this same affinity for their hometown, and for what their state provides artistically,” says Hartwell. “Local theater became my background, my foundation. I learned to read a play, to memorize my lines, to recite a monologue. I got cast, and I learned rejection.” Hartwell’s mother, Elizabeth McNeil, knew early on that her son was destined for the stage — and that he would do whatever it took to get there. “There was no maybe or if, it was always when. There was never a backup plan to being a performer,” she says. “He’s just got it in his fiber, he was focused.” She recalls Friday night trips to Blockbuster, where Hartwell would pick out movies starring Fred Astaire and Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals. He’d organize cousins or neighborhood kids into plays, creating his own costumes and scripts, passing out tickets door-to-door with his little red wagon, and demanding perfec-
Left to right: Hartwell and other mice in RLT’s Cinderella; Hartwell and his mom; Hartwell with Bette Midler in Hello, Dolly!
tion from his cast. “He was very strict, he’d have them crying if they didn’t know their parts,” McNeil laughs, “but the parents would say, Hey, you said you wanted to do this! And people would come to the performances, knowing they would be amazing.”
Hartwell started training in theater and dance from an early age, taking advantage of the electives at Raleigh Christian Academy, but he says that Raleigh Little Theatre and the North Carolina Dance Institute “raised me artistically.” His first dance teacher, Kirstie (Tice) Spadie, was a particularly strong influence — “She’s my everything!” he says — who started preparing him for a Broadway career in elementary school. “She picked him up and nurtured him,” says McNeil.
Hartwell went to the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston Salem for high school. There, he says, he learned both arts skills and maturity. “I wasn’t stoked to be away from home, but to me high school felt like college, and college felt like grad school,” he says. He went to University of Michigan for college, graduating summa cum laude, and getting more dancing, acting, and singing chops through their theater program. “I was blessed to have a mentor, professor George Shirley, the first Black tenor to sing a leading role with the Met Opera, the oldest, wisest man ever. He laid into me the idea of being around like-minded people,” Hartwell recalls.
He got himself an agent and moved to New York City after college in 2009, with the support of his grandmother and aunt in Brooklyn. (His mother remembers him helping out his Nana, a nursery school teacher, by performing as a clown for the little ones.) Soon, he was cast in his first show, part of an international tour of Dream Girls. “That tour felt like finishing school; I got to meet other Black performers and understand that experience,” Hartwell says. “I was one of the youngest people in the cast, but got to learn from people whose shows I’d admired forever — Aida, The Lion King — and learn from their stories of the industry.” It was something, he says, that he couldn’t have learned at school. At Michigan, he says, there were 80 people in his program, but only nine who identified as BIPOC and few teachers of color: “It’s one thing to get an education, but it’s another to know that there are holes you can’t fill without getting experience.”
After Dream Girls, he moved back to New York, where he booked his Broadway debut, part of the ensemble of the original cast of Memphis. He performed in that for two years, then did four more Broadway shows back-to-back — Nice Work if You Can Get It, Cinderella, Motown the Musical, and a revival of Hello,
Hartwell in costume for the Hello, Dolly! musical.
Dolly! starring Bette Midler. It was a decade of performing eight times a week, every week. All along this successful but grueling run, Hartwell understood his love and passion for education. He’d spent his off hours teaching for arts organizations and soon created his own curriculum to monetize his artistic strengths. “It was really one of my directors who said, you have a gift and you need to share it,” Hartwell says. “He said, I’ll be here to support you, just don’t lose focus on touching families and making a difference in their lives.” He started The Broadway Collective in 2016, an online education platform to teach young people the skills they need to get into big-time theater; it also offers immersive summer programs in New York for aspiring performers. In 2019, Hartwell was hired to direct Memphis at North Carolina Theatre here in Raleigh. “It was such a gift, such a full-circle moment, to come back here 20 years after my first role with them, to direct what was my Broadway debut,” he says. Melvin Gray Jr., a local actor in the Memphis ensemble, remembers the energy with Hartwell on board. “I went in to audition, and Robert just had this huge grin — he’s so sincere, so welcoming,” Gray says. For him, working with Hartwell was an inspiration: “Coming from the same area, seeing a Black male, like me, having success, it’s so invigorating for me. Like, if Robert can do it, maybe I can do it, too.” That March, director and crew came together for a production that felt special in many ways. “Everyone’s heart was so invested — it’s a story of love and following one’s dream and race relations,” Hartwell says. “It’s such a rich and important story to tell.”
“He’s not just a For Elizabeth Doran, performer with many NC Theatre’s
Broadway credits; president and CEO, Hartwell’s his positive energy is involvement was infectious, it rubs off the key. “There’s an intensity and on everybody involved.” beauty in how he — Eric Woodall directs. He’s from Raleigh, so there’s a sweetness, but he is a powerful performer and he makes others want to work as hard as he does,” she says. “The cast wasn’t doing just any production of Memphis, they were doing Robert’s production, with all the energy and glowing positivity that comes from
working with this man.”
Nights away from its debut, with Memphis fully staged and rehearsed, the pandemic shut everything down. It was crushing. “We were in this bubble of love and art and creation — these shows are ethereal, that’s the powerful thing about musical theater — and it came down like a hammer,” says Doran. They ran through the play one last time before sending everyone home. “It was incredibly emotional, coming together in this moment of uncertainty,” says Gray. “You could feel the love in that moment, each of us thinking, we’re all here, we’re going to be together, we’re gonna get through this.”
The silver lining to the dark time: Hartwell had gotten to know Eric Woodall, NC Theatre’s artistic director, a Benson native and Broadway casting director who’d been recruited down to North Carolina after 27 years in New York City. Last January, despite the ongoing pandemic, NC Theatre brought Hartwell on as an associate artist, a role designed to bring a Broadway perspective to season planning, casting, choosing a theme and works for the season, and supporting the theater’s youth program. “NC Theatre has a dual mission as both a professional theater and teaching theater,” says Doran. “It makes sense for us to have a master artist on board who doesn’t just perform for the audience, but works to develop local talent further. Plus, we loved working with Robert.” Woodall agrees: “He’s not just a performer with many Broadway credits; his positive energy is infectious, it rubs off on everybody involved.”
So for the last year, Hartwell’s been part of the NC Theatre family, joining monthly meetings with the local crew, lending his expertise to production and planning, and serving as a critical but supportive audience member on every opening night (with his mother as his date). “My job is to support Eric’s vision; we complement and push each other,” says Hartwell. “We’ve been Raleigh boys at different times, so it’s great to move home and make art in the place that raised us.”
This month, Hartwell was set to direct Sister Act. For those who remember the 1992 Whoopi Goldberg movie, this production will be a departure, one that relies less on jokes based on race and class and more on a multicultural cast to recenter the plot about celebrating the human spirit and coming into one’s own. “We have a responsibility to do a better job at telling stories, full stop, and it’ll be fun for the audience to see, for example, a congregation of nuns that look different from what we’ve seen before,” says Hartwell. “It’ll sound different, too — the delicious and powerful sound of a cool, multicultural vocal palette.” The production fits with NC Theatre’s season
Left: Hartwell teaches class for The Broadway Collective. Right: It’s a balancing act!
theme, “finding your voice,” and also reflects its commitment to diversity in its performances, from the subject matter to the cast to the backstage team.
Gray, one of the first actors cast in the production, was excited to work with Hartwell again. “Robert is so understanding that it makes you willing to try anything,” he says. “He knows you’re doing your best, but he’s open to ideas. He’s this killer dancer, actor, and performer, and when he’s up there, it’s like, how can I move my body like that?”
Alas, the production was postponed to September, another victim of spiking Covid rates. “We have adapted over the course of this pandemic and are grateful to our artists and audiences for adapting with us as we make changes to keep everyone safe and healthy,” says Woodall. Doran agrees: “We are grateful to have a solution which allows us to postpone instead of canceling, so we’ll still be able to enjoy Sister Act this year.”
In the meantime, Hartwell will be busy: he’s already working on a totally different project, renovating an 1820s home in western Massachusetts, for a totally different media: television. It’s a joint production between HGTV’s Property Brothers, The Oprah Winfrey Network, and Discovery+. After an Instagram post about buying the home went viral — the sellers expressed doubt that he, a young, gay Black man, could afford the all-cash sale — producers approached him to follow his renovation. The show will film through 2022 and debut in 2023, focusing on the renovation of a grand, columned mansion that hasn’t been a proper residence for 60 years. “There’s a portion of the show that will follow my life, and I hope they’ll catch me directing,” says Hartwell. an ay ash m w t in at r e d ”
And come fall, Hartwell will be happy to share the fruits of his successful career with Raleigh audiences. “I can’t wait to sit in the theater where I saw my first Broadway play for a show that I directed and choreographed,” says Hartwell. “It’s going to be perfect.”
Hartwell with the historic home he purchased.
when WALLS SPEAK
Raleigh boasts dozens of murals that invite introspection on a morning commute or coffee run. These images inspired Leah Finch to write a collection of ekphrastic poetry — words in response to what she’d seen — on walks around town.
by LEAH FINCH photographs by BRYAN REGAN
THE OFFERING
Let us go down to the fields together. The breeze brushes our faces in a soft kiss.
Our time-worn legs part the sea of wildflowers, like an act of God. Skirts bundled in hands.
Let us behold and gather. Behold and gather. You clip yours and I’ll clip mine. It’s freeing, this being and beholding.
We’ll gather glory and wonder. The yield of sun and soil, water and seed plus time.
An offering for our empty vessel.
FOR POSTERITY’S SAKE
On the wings of my furrowed brow, Justice will fly. For when you call us to account, we are not found wanting.
But Wanting, we have met her acquaintance. Only the brave give Wanting a voice.
And we are brave. We daren’t falter at what is, But call forth what should be. For our bones, they testify.
And these dry bones, they will live.
For the sun must shine, the bird must fly, the deer must leap, and I must demand my birthright for our sake.
I can’t look to the seen things with any weight. The landscape of “what is” has no bearing on me.
For isn’t there empty before full, seed before tree, rain before rainbow, dark before light?
I must see the unseen, for posterity’s sake.
) 133 E. Hargett Street BUTTERFLIES Right: Marlon Ferguson ( ) 720 Blount Street; Scott Nurkin ( SHAW’S 150TH ANNIVERSARY Left:
ON THE WINGS OF A BUTTERFLY
Fly me on the wings of a butterfly. Miles and miles to make my home here with you.
For like the Israelites, I’ve heard a rumor of a promised land.
And I yearn for milk and honey.
So I shed my cocoon, unfurl my wings, and fly.
Soaring on the breath of my ancestors My body points me towards that eternal haven.
The journey, almost impassable. The necessity, unavoidable.
I look back to the generation behind, forward to the generation ahead.
Impossible To break a link In this great eternal chain.
So I fly on history and hope. For what other option is one given?
If it’s not given unto me, To be counted among the generation that sees their hope realized, I was given two wings.
These wings. I call them to action, I will soar. For like the Israelites, I’ve heard a rumor of a promised land.
Towards milk and honey, I must fly.
THIS MOMENT, HOLY
Cover me under a blanket of cornrows And I’ll hide under the shadow of your wing.
Crown me with glory And I’ll submit to bestowed dignity.
Sit in this familiar, sacred space, And I’ll receive your tenderness.
Move your nimble, assertive fingers And I’ll canvas your artisanship.
Purse your lips, set your gaze And I’ll reflect your determination.
Manifest from memory, what you’ve been taught And I’ll link arms with generations.
This moment, holy.
A BULWARK FOR YOUR SOUL
Would you lean into me when your yoke is heavy? I know we’re both shouldering burdens we can hardly bear, but I can lighten your load.
See, love, it believes all things, it hopes all things.
My love, don’t hide your face from me.
Blanket me with your concerns, baptize me with your tears, bury me under your pain. Take steps of trust towards me, and find me willing.
I am willing, I am waiting, to see you.
Disarm yourself, and find me here, a bulwark for your soul.
FALL THE COLORS OF THE RAINBOW
How did you see me? Was I colorful, dynamic, more than one thing? Or was I hemmed in on all sides? Made flat and one-dimensional. To slide into the faulty narrative, you boxed me into?
Tell me. Why did you insist on making me a caricature? Did it make you feel safe?
Do you not feel terror in your forged role of author, deciding what story you’ll write over me? Do you not feel marred by deception, when you’ve robbed me of the rest of my “I ams,” when you insist on seeing just one?
I am and I am Black.
Black: The absorption of all colors, all light. I absorb all colors, all light, in order to reflect back what you see.
I am a prism-keeper. Cut me open. You’ll only disclose the full-color spectrum hidden inside.
I am a lighthouse. My skin absorbs all light. In my body, I house and carry light everywhere I go. Cut me open. The light will shine on you.
But must it be so costly, for us both to be seen?
If you forgo your role of author, I’ll lower my finger as accuser.
Free from our burdens, we’ll dance. All this light, passing back and forth between us.
And won’t we, together, be marvelous? We, the reflector and keeper of all the colors of the rainbow.
Mayanthi Jayawardena/Serendib Creative ( JUST FOR KICKS ) Fayetteville Street Right: Soniya Hardy ( UNTITLED ) 237 S. Wilmington Street; Left:
WE’RE GOING PLACES
You and me, we’re going places. You have your laughter; I have my compassion. You have your resilience; I have my curiosity. You have your candor; I have my bravery.
You’re going places.
Will I be going too? Will I bear witness to the miracle of you? You now. You then.
Will you behold what I become? When elements of past, present, and mystery, collide to birth my future. Will you be there to hear my new name?
You and me, we’re going places. And now, we run ahead, in tandem, into the mystery.
WITH KISSES OF EMPATHY
Shower me with kisses of empathy. Become weary under my burden before you weary me with your words.
Let a thousand fields of flowers bear witness to your bearing witness to me.
Countless footprints of the miles, you’ve walked in my shoes.
These shoes. Different, yet, the same.
Daily, you sit down to the table of majority culture, celebrated union, and plenty. Daily, I’m confronted with sexual identity.
Constantly affirmed, are your nature and preference and I’m glad!
I join in the festive throng. I too, want you to be celebrated.
I also want you to acknowledge me.
Acknowledge that upon me was bestowed an invitation to a wrestling match you never had to fight.
So don’t try to fix me, don’t try to welcome me, don’t try to incorporate me, don’t try to represent me. I don’t need all those efforts, though, appreciate them, I may.
Just come near. Shoulder to shoulder near. Close enough to bear my burden.
Then you might know that love is love. As you find yourself truly loving me, for the first time.
YOU AND ME, IN THE GOOD OLE DAYS
Remember when watermelon, as far as the eye could see, bridged your feet and the horizon?
We’d roll them over, belly up, and look for black widow, finding respite in the cool of the shade.
Farmer arms carrying each 160 pounder to meet its friends. Truck beds brimming, boasting their green bounty.
Red truck with unboxed Lucky Strike, in cup holder, Making its home roadside, truck-bed down.
Passerby, spontaneously halt you share in the plunder. You burst one open on your knee. it ruptures to reveal the brilliant red goodness inside.
Remember when our days were filled with watermelon, as far as the eye could see. You and me, in the good ole days.
YOU STOKED THE FIRE
I am the clay and you are the potter. So gather only good sentiment and sense and mold me under your hands.
Though formless now, your hand on me will leave a mark.
Let your imprints, serve as evidence of my being fashioned for a specific purpose, one assured long ago.
You are one of the first, given a glimpse of what I might become.
So like the watchman, marvel at my first hint of light. Proclaim to me the sun will rise. Seek out majesty. Look for goodness.
Hope for kindness, curiosity, and strength.
Whatever natural spark you see in me, Fan the flame.
I will remember, you stoked the fire.
Conjuring Mardis Gras at St. Roch
SUNNY SIDE
by ADDIE LADNER photography by EAMON QUEENEY
This time of year in New Orleans, parades fill the streets with larger-than-life floats, while hordes of people vie for showers of tiny plastic beads, doubloons, and Moon Pies. It’s another world. It’s Mardi Gras. For Raleigh chef Sunny Gerhart of St. Roch Fine Oysters + Bar, it’s also part of his tradition — but not exactly as the tourists encounter it. “My memories for that are more family-oriented,” says Sunny. He loved watching Rex — a grand parade known for its elaborate floats — with his mom on St. Charles Street, where they’d get “the good seats” thanks to an aunt who worked nearby. One of his mom’s most treasured pictures is of a young Sunny proudly wearing a pair of underwear he caught at a parade… on his head. “Everyone knows the folks on floats are throwing beads, but they throw other stuff, too, including underwear,” laughs Shawn Gerhart, Sunny’s mother.
Friends and industry colleagues sit down with Sunny Gerhart (far left) for a meal inspired by Mardi Gras.
Sunny at work in the St. Roch kitchen.
Though Mardi Gras translates to “Fat Tuesday,” it’s actually a nearly two-month celebration that kicks off on Feast of the Epiphany, Jan. 6, and runs until the night before Ash Wednesday. With roots in Catholicism and particularly practiced along the Gulf Coast, it’s a time to celebrate and indulge before fasting for Lent. In some ways, Sunny brings the experience of Mardis Gras in New Orleans to his S. Wilmington Street bistro all year long. Here, the walls are papered in a muted blue toile, designed by local artist Luke Buchanan. It features the wroughtiron gates of the historic St. Roch Cemetery, which is across the street from where Sunny’s late father grew up, along with voices of New Orleans like jazz legend Louis Armstrong, soul singer Irma Thomas, and rapper Big Freedia, plus oysters, river boats, a boom box, and a cocker spaniel. “These things are home for me,” Sunny says. “Some things make sense to others, some things don’t.” He opened St. Roch in May 2017 after working under Ashley Christensen for years; before that he finished L’Academie de Cuisine culinary school in Maryland. “You know, as a kid he was interested in reading and playing sports — he never cooked for me!” laughs Shawn. “But that type of food — the beans, the crawfish, the gumbo — it was always around, he absorbed and does it well. I’m so proud.” The restaurant’s menu conjures Louisiana cooking, but that fare has roots in France, Spain, Vietnam, and South Africa. Sunny tries to keep those influences in mind as he plans his recipes. “I look at it from a broader scope. I’m not interested in just cooking étouffée and jambalaya,” he says. “There’s a lot of history in this food, and maybe it can inspire a conversation.” As Fat Tuesday approaches each year, Sunny adds two of Louisiana’s delicacies to the menu: crawfish and King Cake. Crawfish, the edible jewels of late winter and early spring, coincide conveniently with carnival season. “You can only have
PIMENTO CHEESE
Serve this classic southern cheese spread alongside roasted oysters or on some good French bread. At St. Roch, it’s a popular starter with fried soda crackers.
INGREDIENTS
8 ounces cream cheese 1 ½ pounds smoked cheddar cheese or regular white cheddar, grated 2 ½ tablespoons charred scallion, minced 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar 2 tablespoons gochujang (Korean chili paste) 3 tablespoons sriracha hot sauce 10 tablespoons grams Duke’s Mayonnaise 1 tablespoon roasted poblano peppers or raw; small diced or pureéd in food processor 1 ½ tablespoons kosher salt ½ tablespoon ground black pepper
DIRECTIONS
Whip cream cheese in a stand mixer until very soft. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.
Crawfish is a delicacy available only for a short time in late winter and early spring. Sunny boils his with button mushrooms, artichokes, new potatoes, and lots of spice.
those things for a short time, so they taste extra precious,” he says. These dark-red, hard-shelled crustaceans are smaller than shrimp, but pack a punch of flavor, each crevice absorbing the spices from the cooking liquid. Neither silverware nor plates are needed when eating these — but the smell of Zatarain’s seasoning will linger on your fingers for days after enjoying them. (You may be prompted to suck the head to get the tasty liquor out, before pinching the tail directly into your mouth.) Similarly, King Cake — an elaborate, pillowy-soft yeast roll traditionally braided and shaped into a crown — is meant to be consumed only during Mardi Gras. It’s filled with brown sugar, cinnamon, butter, sometimes cream cheese or jam, and a tiny plastic baby. By tradition, the lucky eater who gets the baby is the unofficial king or queen for the day; they’re also responsible for bringing next year’s King Cake. Alongside his Mardi Gras specialties, Sunny plates Louisiana staples like gumbo with buttery popcorn rice and trout roe.
“I’m not interested in just cooking étouffée and jambalaya. There’s a lot of history in this food, and maybe it can inspire a conversation.” — Sunny Gerhart
SUNNY’S OYSTER PO’ BOY
“Proper French bread is a must for po’ boys. We like to use Ledenhiemer or Gambino from New Orleans,” says Sunny. “It’s the perfect vessel because it has a crunchy texture on the outside that gives way to a delicate inside that truly wraps the filling of the sandwich.”
INGREDIENTS
1 loaf of French bread 2 cups vegetable oil 4 to 6 cups all-purpose flour About 2 tablespoons of Old Bay seasoning 1 dozen raw oysters, rinsed and patted dry Hot Sauce Aioli (recipe on next page) 1 head iceberg lettuce, sliced Sliced tomatoes Salt and freshly cracked black pepper Bread and butter pickles
DIRECTIONS
Slice the bread in half lengthwise, toast it, and set aside. Heat oil to medium-high in a stockpot or frying pan. Put flour in a bowl and season generously with Old Bay. Toss oysters in seasoned flour, then drop into the oil, around five at a time, taking care not to crowd the pot. Fry for 3 to 5 minutes until golden brown; remove and set on a paper towel. To build the sandwich: slather each piece of bread with Hot Sauce Aioli. Season sliced tomatoes generously with salt and pepper, then build the sandwich: lettuce, tomato, pickles, fried oysters, and the top piece of French bread. Slice in half. Enjoy.
HOT SAUCE AIOLI
INGREDIENTS
2 cups Duke’s Mayonnaise A few dashes of hot sauce, like Crystal or Tabasco 1 to 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard Salt and pepper to taste
DIRECTIONS
Combine ingredients in a small bowl, taste and adjust accordingly based on spice preference.
GUMBO
One of the most well-known and celebrated New Orleans dishes, gumbo is a comfort food for many Gulf Coast natives with its rich broth, spicy sausage, okra, and sometimes shellfish — and it gets better the longer it cooks. It’s similar to Jambalaya, but more of a stew.
INGREDIENTS
6 ounces canola oil 2 pounds andouille sausage, sliced into rings 4 pounds bone-in chicken, whole or leg quarters (pre-cooked rotisserie chicken works well, too) 4 cups yellow onion, diced 2 cups green bell peppers, diced 2 cups celery, diced 4 ounces sherry or other cooking wine 4 ounces flour 4 quarts chicken stock 1 cup tomato paste 1 tablespoon gumbo filé (sometimes labeled filé powder, gumbo filé is ground sassafras found in the spice section of many grocery stores)
TO TASTE AND GARNISH
Fresh salt and cracked pepper Cayenne pepper Sliced scallions Minced fresh parsley
DIRECTIONS
Heat 2 ounces of canola oil in a large dutch oven or heavy bottom stock pot until oil is hot and lightly smoking. Add the andouille sausage rings and caramelize them slightly. Once the sausage is golden brown, remove with a slotted spoon, leaving the rendered fat and canola oil in the pot; set aside. If using raw chicken, sear the chicken skin side down until the skin is a dark golden brown. Flip the chicken and continue to sear until fully cooked. Remove the chicken from the pot and place it aside to cool. Once the chicken is cool enough to touch, pull all of the meat off and Gumbo
reserve the bones to make chicken stock for your next batch of gumbo. Turn down the heat. Add the diced onions to the pot and slowly cook, stirring constantly until the onions caramelize and are very dark brown, being careful not to burn. Take your time and be patient. Once the onions are a dark golden color, add your green peppers and celery. Cook the peppers and onions until soft and translucent, another 10 to 12 minutes. Add the tomato paste and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes until nice and caramelized. Deglaze the pan with the sherry, being sure to scrape the bottom of the pot to loosen the tasty bits and keep them from burning. Reduce the wine until it is almost dry. Add the remaining 4 ounces of canola oil and the 4 ounces of flour to the pot. Stir the canola oil and flour continuously (a wooden spoon works best) to make the roux. It is very important to keep a watchful eye and stir the entire time; it will burn very quickly. Keep cooking until the roux starts to caramelize and turns a dark brown color. Add the pulled chicken and andouille sausage back to the pot, stir well, then add the chicken stock. Bring the stock to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Let the gumbo simmer for an hour or two, depending on how much time you have — the longer it cooks, the better it will be. Season liberally with salt, lots of black pepper, and enough cayenne pepper to make you happy. Add the gumbo filé and stir well. Garnish with lots of chopped scallions and flat-leaf parsley and serve with sides of rice or potato salad. Sunny likes to have extra filé on the side so folks can add more if they like. Yields enough to feed about eight people, with leftovers.
POTATO SALAD
A rare tradition where it’s OK to mix hot with cold, in the Deep South potato salad is often served scooped into a hot bowl of gumbo.
INGREDIENTS
2 pounds red potatoes 1 cup Duke’s Mayonnaise 1 ½ cup sour cream ¼ cup Dijon or Creole mustard Sea salt or kosher salt 1 cup celery, diced 2 teaspoons celery seed ¼ cup sweet pickle juice ¼ cup Old Bay seasoning
DIRECTIONS
Fill a large pot with water. Add the Old Bay, potatoes, and enough salt for the water to taste slightly salty. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook the potatoes until very tender, almost falling apart. Once the potatoes are cooked, strain and let dry for 10 minutes in a colander. Once the potatoes are cool enough to handle, cut them into quarters and add to a mixing bowl. Add the celery, celery seed, and some mayo, sour cream, mustard, and pickle juice — just enough for the salad to come together (you can always add more). Taste and adjust the seasoning, then garnish with minced scallion and parsley. Enjoy.
BRIOCHE KING CAKE WITH CREAM CHEESE ICING
Only to be consumed during Mardi Gras season, Sunny makes a soft, fluffy brioche dough for his King Cakes (which, for the novice, is essentially an elaborate cinnamon roll flecked with gold, purple, and green). Louisiana natives know King Cake is fine for dessert — but even better warmed with a cup of coffee in the morning.
INGREDIENTS
1 pound all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon kosher salt 2 ounces sugar, plus 1 cup 1 teaspoon instant yeast 5 eggs, room temperature cup warm water ½ pound butter, cubed and at room temperature ¼ cup ground cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing (see recipe) Purple, gold, and green sprinkles
DIRECTIONS
In a stand mixer, combine the flour, salt, sugar, and yeast. Add the eggs and warm water. Mix for 2 minutes until well combined. Add the butter and mix until emulsified, stopping to scrape the bottom of the bowl. When mixed well, pour the dough into a clean container or bowl that is at least twice the size of the dough. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until doubled in size. When the dough has doubled in size, scrape the sides of the dough to deflate and allow the trapped gas to escape. Cover again and refrigerate until cold, 4 hours or overnight. Mix the remaining sugar with the cinnamon in a small bowl. Portion the cold dough into 2-ounce balls and roll in the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place the sugared balls into a bundt pan, with enough space between them for the dough to double in size. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and allow to proof at room temperature for about 30 minutes or until the dough has almost doubled in size and is slightly jiggly. Bake in a 350-degree oven for 10 minutes, then rotate the pan and bake for another 2 to 5 minutes until golden brown, with an internal temperature of 185 degrees. Remove from the oven, then remove from the pan to cool on a wire rack. Once the cake has cooled to room temperature, sprinkle it with any remaining sugar/cinnamon mixture, then spread the icing over the top (I like the icing to be dripping over the sides). Cover with gold, purple, and green sprinkles.
CREAM CHEESE ICING
Be sure to let your King Cake cool before adding this icing, a tangy, creamy topping to the soft cinnamon- infused sweet bread. Sunny incorporates the popular filling, cream cheese, into icing instead. Letting it cool will also help the colored sprinkles pop.
INGREDIENTS
16 ounces cream cheese, room temperature 1 cup sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Pinch of salt 1 cup heavy whipping cream
DIRECTIONS
Add the cream cheese to a stand mixer with the whisk attachment and whip on high until very soft, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed, until the volume of the cheese has almost doubled and has stiff peaks. Add the sugar and mix until well combined, then add the vanilla extract and salt and mix well. Turn the speed to low and slowly add the heavy cream. Slowly bring up the speed back to high, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Whip on high until the icing has stiff peaks.
This iconic dish was challenging to replicate for a restaurant setting, particularly because the dish’s foundation, the roux, requires time and precision. “We get a lot of people from New Orleans who’ll say, This isn’t my mama’s gumbo — but it’s damn good,” says Sarah Edens, a St. Roch employee (and also Sunny’s girlfriend). “It’s not what they were expecting, but the familiar is there.” Sunny serves the gumbo with a scoop of potato salad, a classic New Orleans food pairing. “The temperature combination of the hot gumbo with the cold potato salad is pretty amazing,” Sunny says. Though Mardi Gras may be about abundance, that’s not been Sunny’s experience the last few years. At the height of the pandemic, he found himself making and packing takeout orders alone. “I didn’t know what to do. I had to lay off my entire staff, I had no money,” says Sunny. “But I wanted to do something.” He got connected with the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle and started cooking large family-style meals for those who needed them: chicken and vegetables, pasta, red beans and rice. “Sunny was my go-to, I could call him on a Sunday and say, I need 500 meals on Tuesday, and he’d do it,” says Kara Guido, food sourcing manager at the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle. “At one point, he was feeding 9,000 people a week. And the kids loved his meals.” For Sunny, it was both eye-opening and fulfilling. “For example, I made these frozen casseroles, but then I learned that some of the people getting them didn’t even have electricity,” he says. “It gave me a new perspective on food insecurity.” So it’s with gratitude that Sunny will dish up this year’s Mardi Gras celebrations for St. Roch guests, including his petite King Cakes, crawfish, and more. And in the spirit of sharing, you can recreate some classic Louisiana dishes at home with the recipes Sunny’s shared here.
Stephen Hayes and the African American experience
BOUNDLESS BEAUTY
by JIM MORIARITY photography by SAMANTHA EVERETTE
COMMANDING PRESENCE
Durham sculptor Stephen Hayes in front of a piece at The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University
W
e’re sitting in a mostly empty museum gallery, face to face, almost kneecap to kneecap. He has his mask on. I have my mask on. His words echo off the walls and high ceiling, but not with the plain thunder of his work surrounding us. To my right, his left, is Cash Crop! Stephen Hayes made it 12 years ago on his way to his Master of Fine Arts from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta. It’s wood and cement and steel. Fifteen naked figures, pockmarked, burnt in places, arranged in a triangle, standing against 15 wooden pallets. On the back of each pallet is a drawing of the infamous Brookes slave ship plan, its cruelty accentuated by its simplicity, a barbaric commoditization of kidnapped humans laid end to end, elbow to elbow, head to toe, row by row, to endure the inhumanity of the Middle Passage. The figures — casts of friends, family, even one of himself — are linked together by rusted steel chain, all gathering at a square wooden block. “It took me five months to create everything, start to finish. I did all the castings, the blacksmithing, the forging. Did all the carvings,” Hayes says. “Five months, day and night, not thinking about anything but making.” He calls it his “machine mode.” The figures are upright so you can look them in the eye, then walk around and imagine them as a mark on a diagram, an entry in a ledger, given barely enough room to survive, sometimes not even that. Walking between the figures “you might hit a chain,” says Hayes. “Always stumbling over the past.” Two weeks after he first showed Cash Crop! in Atlanta, Hayes was interviewed by CNN. “I didn’t know the weight of what I had created. I had an apartment but I didn’t have heat. I had electricity but I didn’t have cable. I couldn’t watch it,” says Hayes. He went to an AT&T store to see himself on the news. Making sculpture is a pricey endeavor for a student, even a gifted one. “I knew how to penny-pinch,” he says. “My mom helped me out with money here and there.” Hayes grew up in Durham, where his mother, Lender, worked at the Durham County Department of Social Services on Duke Street. At night she cleaned the building as a second job. You might think that the line from CNN to a commercially successful career as an artist would be a more or less straight one, but you would be wrong. Hayes knew how to create, but he didn’t know how to market. When he was an undergrad student at North Carolina Central University, one of his teachers, Isabel Chicquor, went to his house, took photos of all his ceramic work, built him a portfolio and got him his first residency at Alfred University in upstate New York. He knew art — though he didn’t call it that — he just didn’t know how to navigate the system. When someone suggested he apply to SCAD, he “stayed on the porch of my house and built a bunch of stuff and took photos of it.” To his own surprise, he was accepted, left New York and went to Atlanta. That’s what got him on TV — but it didn’t get him a living. While Cash Crop! spent the next decade-plus touring museums from Montgomery, Alabama, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Hayes got teaching gigs here and there. He returned to Durham and, at one point, worked in a shipping container yard. He was on the precipice of giving up on the business of art altogether the night he got a residency at the Halcyon Arts Lab in Washington, D.C., leading indirectly to another highly acclaimed work, Voices of Future’s Past, exhibited at the National Cathedral and currently on view at the North Carolina Museum of Art along with another of his works, 5 lbs. In Voices, Hayes recorded young Black men talking about their lives and experiences, and placed their words inside the busts of older African American men. “You have to get up close and kind of lean in to hear what the kid inside him is saying,” says Hayes. After D.C., Hayes, who now teaches at Duke University, was named the 2020 recipient of the 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art. The exhibition hall where we’re sitting is in the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, where Hayes has a one-man show closing March 20. The exhibition of his work coincided with the unveiling of Boundless, his sculpture honoring the United States Colored Troops who fought in the Battle of Forks Road. The remnants of the old road and the vestiges of eroding Confederate revetments are a few yards from the museum’s parking lot. On that day, a section of the sculpture was being reinstalled after it was removed to add a plaque engraved with the names of 1,820 Black soldiers who fought there. Since 2006, the Cameron has hosted a re-enactment of the battle that took place on its property on Feb. 20-21, 1865, when a brigade of over 2,000 USCT soldiers assaulted well-entrenched Confederate infantry and artillery through a narrow gap between swampy Carolina bays. Reenactors representing the Ohio 5th, a USCT regiment that included two recipients of the Medal of Honor, are annual participants. In his book Glory at Wilmington, The Battle of Forks Road, historian Chris E. Fonvielle Jr. writes, “The headlong assault by the bravest of the brave African
CASH CROP!
Hayes’ installation Cash Crop!, which offers a powerful perspective on the cruelties of the slave trade.
5 LBS
Elements of Hayes’ work currently on display as as part of the NC Artist Connections exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of Art, including his 5 lbs installation.
IN STUDIO
Hayes at work on a sculpture in his Durham space.
American soldiers and their comrades at Forks Road was a ‘brilliant little charge,’ reported one journalist. But the concentrated Confederate rifle-musket and light artillery fire along the narrow front doomed the attack… The 5th U.S. Colored Troops at the head of the attacking column suffered far more casualties than any other unit. The regiment’s 39 dead and wounded soldiers accounted for 74 percent of the total Union losses in the battle.” In 2019, after the museum’s deputy director, Heather Wilson, successfully wrote a grant securing funding for the sculpture, the Cameron commissioned Hayes to create Boundless. The museum’s executive director, Anne Brennan, invited him to attend the reenactment of the battle that February. “He was captivated by imagining the sound of their marching boots,” says Brennan of Hayes. “He’s hearing their boots coming up the road. They’re chanting. He’s a brilliant sculptor but it was the dimensionality of sound that first struck Stephen: those boots.” The DNA of Boundless stretches in two directions, toward Cash Crop! inside the museum and toward Augustus SaintGaudens’ 19th-century sculpture of Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th on the Boston Common, 800 miles away. The story of the 54th was most recently retold in the 1989 movie Glory. “We took away the commanding general. Took away that beautiful horse and focused on the infantry,” says Brennan. “There had to be ranks marching. The drummer and the color bearer advancing in full three dimensions activates the work. It’s an homage. It’s an inspiration. Stephen brings that contemporaneity to it.” For Boundless, Hayes did castings of the faces of seven USCT descendants and four USCT reenactors for the 11 figures — a color bearer, a drummer, and nine soldiers joined together in rows of three. “They’re moving forward. They’re in motion,” says Hayes. “Boundless is on the ground these soldiers actually marched on. I wanted it to be on the ground, not
BOUNDLESS
Boundless, a sculpture at the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, which commemorates the United States Colored Troops at the Battle at Forks Road.
on a pedestal, so people could walk through it and experience it. They weren’t on horseback. How did their footsteps sound? What did they sing? What’s going on in this man’s head?” Hayes’ sculpture has contemporary artistic roots, too, linking to the tradition of Black sculpture of the 1960s and ’70s and, in particular, to the work of William Ellisworth Artis, who was born in Washington, North Carolina. “Hayes is following that tradition of humanizing the Black experience and really bringing it out in this figurative way,” says Maya Brooks, the Mellon Foundation assistant curator at the North Carolina Museum of Art. “He’s using symbols from across African American history to present themes of how an identity is formed within a community.” Hayes says, “Everything I’ve done is thematically joined. Cash Crop! is talking about the transporting of people, but if you take the roof off, you can look at it like a sweatshop in a third world country, with just enough room to produce as many goods as possible to ship to America. Boundless talks about freeing people of being slaves and how we’re still fighting for that kind of freedom.” Fighting for the freedom proffered by the slave owner who wrote, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal… The day after the Battle of Forks Road, the Confederate Army abandoned Wilmington, its last link to supplies from the outside world, and the Union troops marched into the city. “Come daybreak, these men bury their dead and advance 3 miles to city hall,” says Brennan. “The USCT was on the front lines for Forks Road and then, come the victory march, they are in the back of the parade.” Hayes’ next big commission is in Charleston, South Carolina, where he’ll help create a memorial for 36 bodies of the poor and enslaved found in a mass grave nine years ago. “Every project holds a place in my heart,” he says. “I’m still pushing along, trying to make a name for myself. I’ve got to move on to the next thing.” Stumbling over the past, in machine mode.
