Monday, August 31, 2009

Rocky Top and More

Just in time for football season, check out this month's Worth the Drive -- Knoxville in AAA Go Magazine. I cover what there is to do in Knoxville besides football, and (despite the spattering of orange everywhere) that actually is a lot! I look forward to getting a chance to return to check out the great downtown area, especially Market Square, where I had only an hour to race about and shop. I needed more, but still came away with a great paper star lamp from India, which proves focus is more important than time when it comes to shopping. :)

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Artists & Tacos, Oh My!


Charlotte is, and has always been a city of neighborhoods. There are completely different experiences of life depending if you are in Shuffletown, Dilworth, or Myers Park. One of my favorite neighborhoods there is NODA because it figures in my personal history as well.

Up until a few years ago, I refused to call the North Charlotte neighborhood by the moniker NODA. I'd been going there for years, attending gallery crawls in renovated hardware stores, making jewelry in a tiny bead shop, and chowing down on some great sandwiches at Fat City. Before that, years before that, I'd even taken swimming lessons at the Johnson YMCA. And before that, years before that, my father had lived out his childhood playing baseball in this same neighborhood. It was part of Charlotte, it was part of me, and really to call it NODA was just too much ...

Well, repeat it enough and the name sticks, and well, it's now legitimate -- NODA it is. Although I no longer live in Charlotte, I get back often and try to visit 36th and N. Davidson Streets whenever I get a chance. Gone is Fat City, so I grab a taco at Cabo Fish Taco then stroll through the galleries. Honestly, it is a great destination for a day trip for those of you within driving distance.

Check out my article on NODA in the current issue of AAA Go Magazine, then find a day to visit if you like art and good food. And linger a while. You'll be back, just like me.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Fawning Over Folly Beach Pier

Found a link today to one of the last stories I did for Lowcountry Living, and one of the sappiest. But it does not matter -- I still miss the pier today, the way I could tuck myself into a little shelter bench on it. From in the shade there, I could watch the sun glistening off the water, looking north to a Charleston Harbor I couldn't quite see but definitely feel. For a little late summer nostalgia, click here ...

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Outsider Art Inside My Heart



Look at that title!! They don't call me a writer for nothin'! OK, bad rhyming aside ...

I love country roads, not in the John Denver sense so much, as for the people and their houses that dot them. B. and I are always taking the backroads, and when I ride with him, I get to look out the window and imagine who is it that lives in the house with the "Fresh Eggs for Sale" sign or what it would be like to live in the North Carolina town of Tyro. And sometimes, there are houses decorated with paint and signs and all types of homemade sculptures. I never stop. My new friend in Greensboro, Mike Smith, ALWAYS stops.

I met Mike while working on an article about his At Home Gallery in Greensboro. I have been interested in outsider art since coming across a book about it in the UNC Charlotte Library while avoiding my real research for a long forgotten undergraduate paper. That book, Signs and Wonders, is out of print now, but it really got me interested in the whole phenomenon, and so I've always been interested in learning/writing more about it.

Mike got interested in outsider art by driving the back roads of the South, and wondering just like I do. He went a step further and instead of just driving by, began to visit these folk artists with sincere interest in their work and motivation. That interest has led to a 20-plus-year career in the folk art/outsider art world, which made him a worthwhile subject for my cover article of Go Triad! last week. We were both thrilled.

Meanwhile, here's a little show and tell for you -- my piece of outsider art I purchased years ago with my first paycheck from The Highlander. I love the iredescent nature of this piece, and of course, its self frame. The first picture is a personalized piece on the back the artist doodled for me when he found out I purchased the piece, a generous added bonus.