Beadwork bonanza

When I came across Chris Maj's work on etsy, I at first, said "oooh." And then I said, "whoa." Why? I saw this:

And this:

And this:

And they are made out of beads, by hand, each bead threaded and woven together. Suddenly, I felt a kinship with all those people who look at my quilts and say, "You did all this? Wow, you've been busy. How long did it take you?" When underneath those questions is the unspoken elephant in the room:

How do you have the patience to do this?

The short answer is, we find it fun. Read Chris' long answer in my profile of her in Go Triad. And don't worry about how she does it, just appreciate the artistry, feel the connection to this art form that has been around since antiquity, and get your "oohs" and "aahs" ready.

A MAD opportunity

I was much more into The Little Princess than MAD Magazine when I was little, but I understand what a creative effect it's had on American culture for 50 years.

So, when I received a phone call from former editor Nick Meglin last week, I jumped at the chance to speak with him, despite the fact that he repeatedly asked for the last 4 digits of my social security number in order to verify my freelance writer status.

He's relocated to North Carolina, found great satisfaction in creating musical theater, and thinks that the Open Space Cafe Theatre in Greensboro is doing great things. He wanted to talk about it all, and I wanted to listen, and he taught me more about the nature of musical theater in our one conversation than all you that have tried to convince me how awesome Rent and Mama Mia! are over the years. Not that I don't love you for trying ... I just didn't get it til now.

His musical, "Tim and Scrooge," opens tonight in Greensboro. As of the moment, tickets are still available. And you don't have to provide your social security number, no matter what anybody says.

Post-Halloween ghosts

Yes, Halloween is the coming out party for many a ghost story, but the people who like to research ghost stories like to do so all year. Like, for instance, Michael Renegar and Amy Spease, authors of Ghost Stories of the Triad.

It might be a sunny Saturday, their only day off, but they're tucked up in a dusty corner of a library floor, researching the death toll of a long-forgotten structure fire. Or it might be a cool evening, better suited to homemade chili and a Monday night football game on TV, and instead, they're beaming flashlights onto uneven graveyard turf.

So just because Halloween is past, don't forget the hardworking ghost hunters who work all year to make your Halloween extra special ... and bring you special ghost stories about places you know, stories that are special any time of year.

The rare follow-up article

It's really nice when someone feels that they have talent and I feel they have talent, and then I see them getting accolades for being talented. It kind of makes me feel, although I have done nothing, that I have camaraderie with them, or a small connection. It's that feeling of validation.

Often, when I see people doing creative things that I think are worth telling people about, I pitch a story to an editor about that person. Such was the case for Stephanie Teague, when I read an etsy profile interview with her and realized she was from Greensboro.

So I was off and running -- I have a writing outlet in Greensboro, and I pitched the story to the editor, she fired back questions, and in March of last year, my first article about Stephanie was published in Go Triad. 

For 99 out of 100 profiles, that's the end of the story. But not for this one. The editor (Carla, great personality, sense of humor, and an editor who makes me a better writer --the best kind) called me again recently when a press release about Stephanie crossed her desk. The designer had won a national award, and it was time for a follow up.

So I got to chat with her again, this time about winning the Fffashion Competition, a fur-free fashion design competition promoting the ethical and environmental benefits of foregoing fur fashions. For a profile writer, this is a sweet gig. You've done the research, so you have the background, it's a quick interview, and if you are fortunate and liked the interview the first time, you have the rare opportunity to have a reason to call again. 

Stephanie's winning design

Congrats, Steph! This coming month, look for her at Charlotte Fashion Week and opening up a downtown Greensboro studio ... and as for me, I'll be here at this little desk. Smiling.

Notes in a Darkened Theater

One of my small joys is being in a space before something big is about happen. In a restaurant as servers polish glasses before the evening shift. The press room before the press conference, when people are just finding their seats. A church before a wedding. And the theater before the play.

Paul Tazewell makes his living in that last space, sitting alone in a dark theater, sometimes with a few people around him, taking notes on seemingly random afternoons as he sees his costume creations come to life on the stage. The actors, start, stop, the lights are being calibrated, and he watches how his contribution begins to create a life on stage.

He makes notes about a hat that really doesn't work, the fact that a dresser wrapped a cummerbund wrong, or a hem that drags the floor. It's the end of the process for him, a process that started in his imagination, then was communicated through art. But his process ends even the instant before the curtain rises on opening night.

He's one of the best large-scale costume designers in the business, and an exhibit of his sketches and costumes just closed in Randolph County, N.C. You can read about his process and the exhibit in this recent article in Go Triad. 

Tazwell designs from an Opera Omaha production

Speak Up!

When I was an undergrad English major, I was introduced to spoken word art -- poetry "slams" and such, where we sat around and drank coffee and I discovered the clove cigarette. If only I'd had a black beret ...

However, two distinct open mike experiences come to mind when I think about spoken word from my past, and neither one are really positive. The first was freshman year, where some angry person stood in the corner of a crowded room, faced away from the crowd and preceeded to curse God at the top of his lungs. My virgin ears bled ...

The second, years later, when I was writing poetry and performing it occasionally myself -- a female poet came to the mike after me and said, "Leave your confessions to God." And so ended my performance career.

But despite the religious references of my past, I've come to a new understanding about this art form. It's doesn't have to be painful.

My great friend Marcus Amaker is a spoken-word poet, and his rhythyms match perfectly with a base line from Kevin Hamilton. He speaks about love and lust and the spaces between those two ...



Another recent discovery, Shanthony Exum, adds a pop-colored vibe and hip lyrics to the genre, and she references her hips and pop culture much more than any (if at all) railing against the spiritual. On top of that, her visual art is the pop-culture reference laden style I always gravitate towards, and a full-time job as an art director seems to keep her work fresh. She has a new show I covered recently for Go Triad, and in speaking with her, I loved her intelligence, confidence, and especially her sense of humor.

So give spoken word another chance like I did (of course minus the clove cigarettes).

Getting rid of the dead-ends

A few weeks ago, I got to chat with Jody Cedzidlo of Flytrap Studios, an apparel design studio in North Carolina. We had a really good talk, especially about supposed dead-end jobs that are actually amazing tools and not "dead-end" at all.

Most of the creative people I know, and I'd lump myself in this category as well, have had what we thought as "dead-end" jobs. But Jody doesn't really call them that, she calls them cul-de-sacs. Perfect! That means you don't have to start over, turn around and trace the same path you just came to get to this big stop. No, it just means that you need to explore the curve then gently redirect on down the street.

Usually when you're in one of these jobs, you have a gut reaction at some point that just says "no." Then the fight or flight mechanism kicks in.

Fight: "This is not what I was trained for."
Flight: "I don't want to be here."
Fight: *Maybe non-verbally* "All you people here need to see that I am better than this job."
Flight: "What's the point -- I can just blend in."
Fight: "Ok -- I learned x lesson or y lesson, universe, so I deserve to be released from this dead-end cage!"

These reactions hit close to home for me, and spiritually, emotionally and mentally, I've been there. But think about the image comparison of a cul-de-sac vs. a dead end. It's really open versus closed, and I don't know about you, but I've been in many neighborhood where I accidentally turned down a street that ended up being a cul-de-sac (open). However, there are usually warning signs for a dead end street (closed) and sometimes I even have to put the car in reverse to get out of there!

Thanks Jody, for this imagery, and oh yeah, for the great clothing designs!

How she maneuvered out of her cul-de-sac is in the article I wrote for Go Triad, so read for inspiration and ask yourself, what is my cul-de-sac?

Playing with Fire

 It's spring here in Charleston, the azaleas are through blooming, Tomato Watch 2011 in full swing, and event after event is happening, with so much to do that I more often than not find myself doing nothing at the end of the day. I've been banking up some writing that is spilling out now into publication, and it's been an amazing month, talking to a variety of interesting people about the interesting things they do.

Sometimes I seek them out, and sometimes I am assigned. An assignment is what introduced me to Walker Babington, who defines the always-overused term "free spirit." What has he done? Studied photography (check), lived in a tent on the beach of Costa Rica (!), carved faces into coconuts with the heat from a magnifying glass (!!), and habitually dumpster dove for his art materials, only at least once to return an art piece to the suburban curb from whence he "found" it after completing it (!!!).

Oh, and I didn't even mention the rusted mural in India, using a blowtorch as his painbrush, and currently saving up for stuntman school. He is funny, inspiring and really an underappreciated artist, although I did my best to explain all that in the recent Go Triad article.

He doesn't have a gallery, a plan, or even a palette, but he is making it happen nonetheless. I hope to keep my conversation going with him and bring more of his work to this little forum in the future.

Blantant plug for new music

OK -- it's the weepy, cold-for-days time of winter when we're all tired of the gray and the coats and the wind. I know, I know. I live in Charleston, so therefore I should be thankful I'm not having a snow-for-days kind of winter. But, hey, it's still winter. And I'm still tired of it.

Here is the music you need to listen to now. Now, Now (the band). They're from Minnesota, so they understand this whole "winter" concept. And you will want to listen to them even when the weather gets warmer.

I have been fortunate as of late to interview a lot of musicians, and I have heard some wonderful music. But Now, Now is a band I consider a discovery. I didn't know about them, and now I do. And now I listen to them. And they have an album in vinyl (just in case you're interested, Sean).

I know I'm being didactic, but so it is. Read the article, and then, perhaps, give Now, Now a listen.

You wanna be a big shot, do ya?

I remember my first reaction at seeing Warhol's work, in this case the iconic Campbell's soup can. It went something like this:

*dialogue in my head as I listened to a lecture in college* OK ............. he just copied the can, right .... and he made more than one ???

Of course, after years of schooling and many art openings and such, I started to respect the fact that while, it wasn't "that hard" (common dismissive artspeak), he was the first to think of it. That really still seemed to be a cop out.

But after writing this week's cover feature in Go Triad about the Weatherspoon's exhibit of Warhol's Polaroids, well, I am getting it. And I am liking it.

I'd always imagined Warhol flippant, a man who knew how to use the media and who was more style than substance. That's the image he often portrayed, the type of people with whom he surrounded himself. But as for art, this man was serious. He did really breathe art, weaving together all parts of his life into an artistic web. His film fed his art that fed his celebrity that fed his image that fed his photography and around the horn again.

It was weird to a lot of America, still is, really, and it was very much a Studio 54 New York Thing. But I think I'm starting to get it. I might not be on that 54 dance floor, but at least I'm in line behind the velvet ropes.

A Writers Block

As you might have noticed, I am working hard at this writing thing. So it was fortuitous that in the past month I've had the wonderful opportunity to interview two other hard-working writers who seem to miss the meaning of downtime.

The first was Lowcountry royalty Dottie Frank, whose 11th novel debuted this week. She decided to kick off her book tour with a benefit for the Charleston County Public Library, and that gave me an excuse to track her down and talk about writing the Lowcountry. Some of that conversation was captured here for a Charleston Scene article, but I gained much more from my conversation with her than could fit into 500 words.

She was charming, down to earth and so generous explaining process and how she feels about her own writing. I was enamored.

The second interview was children's book author and illustrator Jim Young, who has managed to write / illustrate 24 books despite a full-time position at the Greensboro Public Library (yes, how cool is it that both of these writers are very connected to their local libraries?). And you know what was even more amazing? Jim is very calm about the whole thing, so much so that you could mistake him for a yoga instructor instead of a guy who loves being around children and loves painting wacky animals.



His process centers around working at the kitchen table until the last part of the process, so it seems he loves being the eye of the family hurricane. At least, that's what I imagine, although he might have a family as serene as he.

Two different perspectives. Two very different writers, but both fulfilled writing lives. It can be done, and these two are doing it.

Honoring

I've been asked on a couple of occasions to write an article about an artist who has recently died. Although I didn't know these artists, I always interview those who did and try to find a kernel of their artistic life to pass along to the readers. The latest is in Go Triad today, a watercolor artist whose "day" job was that of a commercial artist in New York City.

Although I never met Carl, for my angle in the article, I conjured an image of a quiet studio on Saturday afternoons where he would paint, away from everything except for the memory of a beautiful locale. He did it just for him.

Documenting Mills

I've always had a special place in my heart for textile mills. Long before I had a love affair with fabric, I was drawn to the buildings themselves, their massive brick facades often full of comparatively-small windows. In North Carolina during my lifetime, mills have always been laying off, shutting down, becoming vacant ghosts of themselves surrounded by neighborhoods no longer anchored to a workplace identity.

Mills also have just generally been part of Southern culture and its expression since they first came on the scene after the Civil War. Some of my favorite mentions:

-- Lee Smith's Fair and Tender Ladies, where it's a coal mine but still a spot-on description of a mill village
-- The Hallmark Hall of Fame The Dollmaker with Jane Fonda in one of the most heart-wrenching movies, even for chick flick fans
-- Any of countless mill houses in any N.C. small town, whose hardwood floors, sturdy construction and streets that go somewhere are better than any house in a cul-de-sac dead end
-- Textile Mills songs, especially Pete Seeger's Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues. Check out this list for more inspiration: Textile Mill Songs

Mary Dalton, documentary filmmaker at Wake Forest University, adds to the conversation with her new documentary Oakdale Cotton Mills: Close-Knit Neighbors. My article on it today in Go Triad delves into the process that helped save the stories of this now-shuttered mill.

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.