Month: February 2014

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News

Toscano’s wife releases statement on attack, describes friendship that turned “unsettling”

Claire Kennedy Ogilvie. Photo: Charlottesville Police Department

Nancy Tramontin has released a statement with details about her family’s relationship with the woman arrested earlier this week after allegedly attacking her.

Tramontin, the wife of Charlottesville Delegate David Toscano, says she and her husband and son met Greene County teacher Claire Ogilvie in 2010, when Ogilvie and the Toscano family participated in a Semester at Sea voyage. David Toscano taught a sociology course on the months-long global study cruise, and Ogilvie was also aboard as a tutor—Tramontin describes her not as a paid SAS employee, but as a “lifelong learner” with the program, which is affiliated with UVA.

“The Toscanos and Ms. Ogilvie became friends over the course of the voyage, and after they returned Claire moved to Charlottesville early in 2011,” reads the statement, which was released Thursday by local PR firm Payne, Ross & Associates. Tramontin helped Ogilvie “settle in,” she says, and included her in family holidays and community events as a way to welcome her to the community. But at some point, the relationship changed.

“In 2012, Nancy became concerned that Ms. Ogilvie had developed an unsettling interest in the Toscano family,” the statement says. “The family reduced their contact, beginning in the early summer, and saw her for the last time in fall 2012.”

According to police, Ogilvie broke into the family’s home on Evergreen Avenue on Monday night and assaulted Tramontin, who was alone in the house. In a statement released Tuesday, Toscano said his wife received blows to the head but never lost consciousness. He arrived home from Richmond the same night and took Tramontin to Martha Jefferson Hospital, where she was treated for “non-life-threatening injuries” and later released, Toscano said.

Police later arrested Ogilvie at her Park Street apartment less than a mile away, charging her with breaking and entering, abduction, and malicious wounding. She is being held at the Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Jail after being denied bond. She has been suspended from her job as a teacher at Greene County’s William Monroe High School, according to school officials. Other information about Ogilvie—that she attended Yale, The George Washington School of Law, and the University of Virginia; that she worked as a patent attorney before teaching at The Peabody School; that she was a contestant on Jeopardy! and Who Wants to be a Millionaire? in college—have been gleaned from her online LinkedIn profile and classroom website.

Ogilvie’s next court appearance is scheduled for March 27.

The full text of the release is below.

Charlottesville, VA–February 27, 2014–Nancy Tramontin met Claire Ogilvie in the fall of 2010, when the Toscano family participated in a Semester at Sea voyage. Semester at Sea is a shipboard program for global study, operated by a nonprofit sponsored by the University of Virginia. Ms. Ogilvie was not an employee, but was a “lifelong learner” on the program. She befriended Nancy and David’s son, tutoring him during the voyage.

The Toscanos and Ms. Ogilvie became friends over the course of the voyage, and after they returned Claire moved to Charlottesville early in 2011. Nancy helped Ms. Ogilvie settle in, including her in family holidays, and community events and generally trying to welcome her to the community.

In 2012, Nancy became concerned that Ms. Ogilvie had developed an unsettling interest in the Toscano family. The family reduced their contact, beginning in the early summer, and saw her for the last time in fall 2012. Before the attack, Nancy and the Toscanos had not seen Ms. Ogilvie in over a year.

Nancy and the Toscano family are still reeling from this incident, and appreciate all the love and support that has been sent their way. Throughout this their number one priority has been their son. They ask for continued privacy during the ongoing investigation as they try to recover from the attack. This incident highlights the complexity and challenge of mental health issues, which affect our whole community and require a community response.

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Albemarle’s Flexible New Zoning Code More Business Friendly

Albemarle’s Flexible New Zoning Code More Business Friendly

Like most municipalities, Albemarle County has zoning regulations in place to protect property values, promote public health and safety, and support both residential quality of life and business success. A big part of this is keeping industrial uses separate from residential so that the latter are spared the noise, odor and other unsightly or incompatible aspects of manufacturing or the traffic, congestion and lack of privacy associated with retail areas or office parks. Similarly, commercial zoning traditionally separates uses such as commercial, office space, and manufacturing.
Over time, supply and demand can put pressure on existing zoning regulations. For example, in Albemarle County, almost 200 acres originally zoned for light industrial have, over time, been lost to retail and office space reflecting demand and therefore higher returns on investment in these types of development. This loss of acreage and continuing competition from non-industrial uses (which made it much more difficult for businesses that fall into the light industrial category to find an appropriate location or to expand an existing business) was a big part of the impetus behind the recent zoning law changes.
At the same time that the county had begun to address these problems and inconsistencies in the zoning code, the Central Virginia Partnership for Economic Development identified a list of target industries for Albemarle County, many of which would have been forced to locate in areas zoned light industrial according to the old regulations. These included businesses such as fitness and sports centers, bio-medical device manufacturing, R & D companies and communications and other IT equipment manufacturing firms. This incongruence between the desire to attract certain types of businesses and the lack of places for them to locate, also contributed to the design and implementation of the new code.
In addition to the shrinking space, there was another difficulty with the old code in that definitions did not distinguish between businesses according to their size or environmental impact. This meant that a large manufacturing plant would be categorized and treated the same as a small family operated business with just a handful of employees working with hand tools.
The zoning code did permit exceptions in some limited cases. However, to take advantage of this, businesses had to apply for a special use permit, an expensive process that also takes county staff time and is costly to tax payers.
In recognition of all of these issues, Albemarle County initiated a three year process that ended with making significant changes in the code as it pertains to companies, which formerly were strictly relegated to a light industrial status. The result is a more flexible code that allows for the growth and expansion of new businesses that don’t fit neatly into the retail or office categories, but which, nevertheless, could easily blend in to one of these settings. This is accomplished in part by recognizing the differences between traditional manufacturing firms and those that are smaller with minimal environmental impact creating more opportunities for the latter to find suitable locations.
New Zoning For Smaller Low Impact Businesses When we think of infrastructure that supports business, concepts such as roads, railroads, fiber optic cable or water and sewer may come to mind. However, the zoning for a particular location is also a big part of the infrastructure, since not only does it determine the kind of businesses that will be welcome there, but consequently impacts the whole character of that area.
Carolyn Shears is a commercial
REALTOR® and Senior Vice President with CBRE Charlottesville, and her clients include some of our area’s large employers. Prior to the Albemarle County zoning changes, she was having difficulty finding suitable new locations for several businesses that needed to expand. This experience caused her to recognize the very limited supply of properties that were a good fit for companies like these due to the county’s zoning restrictions. In each instance, the businesses were engaged in work defined as light industrial by the zoning code. This meant any new location had to be zoned for this, even though the manufacturing process of Shears’ clients did not have the type of environmental impact for which the code was originally written.
She cited the example of a manufacturer she worked with during this time which did light assembly of printed circuit boards. Unlike traditional manufacturing concerns which use noisy, heavy equipment and require hard hats and special protective gear, this one had workers sitting at tables using small screwdrivers to do their assembly work. While they may have fit in with a different setting such as some office complexes, because the business description used the word assembly, the company automatically fell into the light industrial category greatly restricting where it could locate.
As a result of these kinds of zoning restrictions, one of the businesses Shears worked with during this time was unable to find a suitable location in Albemarle and, though they didn’t want to leave the area, were forced to relocate to another county. “We lost a good employer when that happened,” Shears said. Of course the county also lost some of its tax base.
Another of her clients stayed in Albemarle and is “getting by,” but the location they found is not the best for their needs, Shears explained.
Impact and Scale In contrast to those situations, today’s new zoning code takes into consideration both the scale of a business and its environmental impact. Susan Stimart, Economic Development Facilitator for the county said, “the old code did not address impacts or scale. A 400 square foot operation was treated exactly the same as one with 50,000 square feet.” A good example of such a business is the small brewery that has become very popular in recent years. These operate without much in the way of “notice or complaint,” Stimart said. Under the old code they would have been forced to locate in an industrial area even though they have little in common with large scale beer manufacturing plants.
Today they have more options, but under the old system the only relief was to seek a special use permit. To obtain one, the business owner had to pay $2,000 up front, a prohibitively large fee for many, and go through a six-month public notification process. Since time is money, this was also expensive, Stimart explained. What’s more, there was no guarantee of approval.
“Over time our staff collected many anecdotes about businesses having difficulty finding an appropriate location,” Stimart said. It became obvious that the code was out of date and no longer fit the needs of our current economy. Shears agreed, saying that the business model of today’s firms is much more likely to be software based than heavy equipment based. This contemporary business model, however, is out of synch with a zoning code based on the industry of a different era.
Albemarle’s Target Firms In April of 2012 the Central Virginia Partnership for Economic Development released a Comprehensive Target Markets Report, which identified target industries for each of the counties it serves. While the impetus to update the zoning code started before the release of this report, the research represented there “helped inform the later phases of the zoning changes,” Stimart said.
In recommending particular target industries, the report considered those that offered relatively higher wages and were a good match to county assets such as skill-sets and education levels. They also targeted firms that would provide a lot of jobs.
Amongst the recommendations were many industries that fit the light industrial category as defined in the old zoning code. For example, the bioscience and medical device industries were high on the list of desirable targets, including R & D firms and medical equipment and pharmaceutical manufacturing companies. Also on the desirable list were IT and defense security firms, including communications and electronic equipment manufacturing. Other suggestions included perishable prepared food manufacturing, wineries and breweries.
Unfortunately, while much of the desired infrastructure was in place to welcome companies such as these, the zoning code made it difficult for them to find space. The new zoning code, however, is having an impact on firms such as these. Stimart described several R & D firms, which prior to the changes would have been forced to look only in areas designated as light industrial. Thanks to the new zoning “they have successfully secured locations without having to only look at light industrial zoned properties.” She explained that this is particularly helpful for R & D enterprises and start-ups that need only a relatively small space like 1,000 square feet or less.
One place labs and R & D firms can now locate, Stimart added, is the downtown Crozet district. However, not all small businesses are welcome there without a review process. Even a small 400 square foot food processing company can’t locate there if it falls into the category of manufacturing, processing and assembly unless it has a storefront such as a grocery store, bakery or other specialty food shop. On the other hand, a company making a product like tomato sauce, which doesn’t lend itself to retail, would have to seek a special use permit.
Flexibility Built into the New Code Most discussions of the new zoning law emphasize its flexibility compared to the old system, which was based on a very rigid separation of different land uses. This had begun to change some in more recent times, Stimart said, when walkability became popular. The concept of the walkable neighborhood led to the development of communities like Old Trail or Belvedere, which feature shops and offices in the center of the subdivision. They also include other types of uses such as The Lodge, a retirement community at Old Trail, and the new Senior Center that will be located in Belvedere.
The new code also makes it easier to mix different types of commercial uses in one business. For instance, food manufacturers are now permitted to increase the percentage of space that they can devote to retail sales of their products, helping them build local brand awareness, Stimart explained.
Check Zoning Regulations Carefully Before Leasing Given the importance of being in compliance with the zoning code, and especially given the recent changes, Stimart recommends that prospective tenants check the regulations carefully and don’t necessarily rely on the building owner to provide accurate information. She cited the example of a building north of town, which at one time was zoned residential and became a nonconforming restaurant and then lost all commercial nonconforming use. In spite of that, the owner leased the building to a retail carpet business. Not only was this inconsistent with zoning laws, it bypassed the architectural review board, which should have weighed in on the exterior appearance of the building. After some complaints the county was forced to close the business down due to lack of compliance with the code.
Celeste Smucker is a writer, blogger and author. She lives near Charlottesville.

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Magazines Real Estate

Charlottesville City Schools: Marked by Excellence, Innovation, and Community

Charlottesville City Schools: Marked by Excellence, Innovation, and Community

The City of Charlottesville highly values education, shown in its strong Charlottesville City Schools. With an enrollment of 4022, the division offers six neighborhood elementary schools (preschool-4); one upper elementary school (grades 5-6); one middle school (grades 7-8) and one high school. The schools are marked by their commitment to excellence, innovation, and community.

Excellence
Every school is fully accredited within Charlottesville City Schools, one of only 36 divisions in Virginia to accomplish this feat in 2013-14. Similarly, on the SAT test, CCS students outperform their peers statewide and nationally by wide margins. Charlottesville High School offers more than 30 college-level courses, and CHS students earn scores of 3 or higher on 74 percent of their Advanced Placement exams. Outside the classroom, students demonstrate academic excellence in many ways. Already this year, the Scholastic Bowl/Pop Quiz team has placed first in the nation in two different competitions! The science club BACON (Best All-Around Club of Nerds) placed fourth nationally in the Zero Robotics competition (where their coding operated robotic satellites on the International Space Station). The Debate Club has logged a string of tournament victories, with 10 students qualifying for the state competition.

Charlottesville City Schools are also committed to excellence in the arts. The high school orchestra is internationally acclaimed with a planned summer tour of France; at a 2013 competition in New York, the group won “Best Overall.” Similarly, the high school band was one of ten selected to perform in Governor McAuliffe’s inaugural parade. At Buford Middle School, a full 56 students qualified for all-district band or regional orchestra. Walker Upper Elementary students recently offered an inspiring presentation of Peter Pan, and from March 21-23, the high school’s spring musical will be Sweeney Todd, with sets designed by sophomore Daniel Neale, winner for Scenic Design at the 2013 Virginia Theatre Conference. Artists at Buford and CHS have earned state and national acclaim.

CCS student-athletes achieve excellence, as well. The football team, coached by the area’s Public School Coach of the Year, has made back-to-back play-off appearances, while the boys’ basketball team is a perennial stand-out. The golf team enjoyed what the Daily Progress called “a magical season,” and the field hockey team dominated the regular season (13-2-1).

Innovation
Excellence is sustained by innovation. Committed to research-based best practices, Charlottesville City Schools is an early adapter of trends and technology. The brand-new science labs at Buford Middle School and CHS are in partnership with the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Curry School of Education. The partnership teaches science through the lens of engineering, supported by technology such as 3-D printers. Faculty and students from U.Va. have also introduced engineering to the City’s younger students at special in-school activities and events. Aside from 3-D printers, technology is important in all classes. All City students work with laptops, i-pads, smartboards and other technology, and beginning in sixth grade, students receive their own tablets. CCS has also been a leader in virtual education, with 26 credit classes available to students in Charlottesville and other communities.

Aside from technology, City schools innovate in other ways. Beginning in kindergarten, children study Spanish so that all sixth-graders take Spanish 1 for high-school credit. The City Schools’ emphasis on world languages also includes AP-level Mandarin. CCS partners with other groups for inventive programming, such as the City Schoolyard Gardens’ outdoor garden-classrooms or the Richmond Ballet’s “Minds in Motion” activities for fourth-graders. For two years, the Paramount Theatre has invited artist Kevin Reese to help CHS and Buford students create stunning Calder-style mobiles for their schools and the community (at the Downtown Transit Station and the Smith Aquatic Center). CCS also offers progressive preschool programs, with classes for qualifying children as young as three and a highly successful record of preparing at-risk students for kindergarten.

Community
Excellence and innovation occur in a diverse and strong community. Charlottesville City Schools prepares many students to follow in their parents’ steps by attending elite universities, but CCS also assists first-time college attenders to blaze a trail for their own families. While the City schools offer classes in French, German, Latin, Mandarin, and Spanish, in addition, they teach English to students who speak Arabic, Burmese, Krahn, and Nepali, just to name a few of languages spoken at home by students. Each year, CHS hosts “Celebrate Diversity,” which invites students – both native Virginians and immigrants from around the globe – to sing, dance, read poetry, and offer other tributes to world cultures.

The City’s neighborhood elementary schools nurture lifelong friendships, yet also equip children to welcome new people into an ever-changing community. Since August, CCS has welcomed325 new students who have moved to the community, and an additional 300 students from other divisions choose to attend our schools. Neighborhood schools with a global orientation expose City students to a wide variety of experiences, viewpoints, and opportunities—preparing them not only for post-secondary education but also for life.

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Magazines Real Estate

Real Estate News – Week of Feb. 27

News & Views

Real Estate Related News
Real Estate III Commercial Properties Inc Announces New Residential Division, CarderHoward, LLC.
Bill Howard, President and Owner of Real Estate III Commercial Properties Inc, announces the new Residential Division of CarderHoward, LLC. Glenda Howard and Carol Carder, both lifelong residents of Charlottesville, bring a wealth of information and expertise to the real estate market. With 30 years of combined residential experience, this team brings a fresh approach of innovating marketing and advertising to express their continued dedication to helping home buyers and sellers make one of the biggest decisions of their lives.

As devoted community leaders, they are passionate about their volunteer efforts and non-profit fundraising to help raise awareness and support in the community. One of the main fundraising events that these two ladies add their personal touch to is the Alzheimer’s Association 16th Annual Bill Howard Golf Tournament and Derby Party coming this May.

CarderHoward, LLC consists of Glenda Howard and Carol Carder, two top producing Charlottesville Residential Realtors, and a valued support team with 20 years combined real estate experience. Cynthia Peepas, Clients Services Assistant, and MJ Arquette of Impressions Creative, give behind the scenes support with advertising, marketing, web design and maintenance, social media, professional photography, client communications, paperwork, and vendor communication.

Community Happenings

Tutors Needed
Literacy Volunteers is seeking compassionate and enthusiastic volunteers to tutor adults in reading, writing, or speaking English. Students come from a variety of backgrounds, and they are hoping to acquire the skills they need to independently pursue life goals, support their families, and contribute to their communities. Help students achieve their goals by calling 434-977-3838 to register for the New Tutor Training on Saturday, March 22, 2014, 9:30am-4:00pm. No teaching experience is necessary—only a desire to make a difference in someone else’s life. Learn more at www.literacyforall.org.

PCA Hosts Art Exhibit in partnership with New City Arts Initiative
Piedmont Council for the Arts (PCA) is proud to announce “Feast,” an exhibit of food-related artwork at WVTF Radio IQ Studio & Gallery for the month of March, in partnership with the New City Arts Forum.

“Feast” features artwork by local artists and organizations, including the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Josef Beery, Katie Pennock, Beyond the Flavor, City Schoolyard Gardens, Holly Maillet, Patrick Costello, Rich Bednar, and Nancy Bass.

“Feast” will be the featured exhibit of the New City Arts Forum, a biennial Forum on the intersection of “Art, Food, and Community” at The Haven in downtown Charlottesville on March 6-8, 2014. The New City Arts Forum will focus on topics like: Art, Food, and Public Practice; The CSA Model for Art and Agriculture; Art and Food Ethics; The Ephemeral Nature of Performance and Meals; Art, Food, and Hospitality; and more.
The Forum is a three-day affair — complete with a featured musical performance by Matthew E. White and John D’Earth and a special edition of Charlottesville SOUP catered by A Pimento at The Jefferson Theater. The Forum will include a First Fridays Art Walk in conjunction with community exhibit openings on Friday, March 7, 2014.

A First Fridays opening reception for “Feast” will take place during 5:00-7:00 p.m. on March 7, 2014 with refreshments provided by Feast! and Early Mountain Vineyards. The WVTF Radio IQ Studio & Gallery is located at 216 Water Street across from the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville. To learn more, please visit www.charlottesvillearts.org or forum.newcityarts.org.

PCA Presents “Youth Art Month” With Albemarle County Public Schools
What: “Youth Art Month” Exhibit & First Fridays Opening Reception
When: First Fridays, 
March 7, 5:30-7:00pm
Where: CitySpace (100 5th Street NE, Charlottesville, VA 22902 on the Downtown Mall

PCA is excited to celebrate “Youth Art Month” in partnership with the Albemarle County Public Schools. “Youth Art Month” is an annual observance every March to emphasize the value of art education for all youth and to encourage support for quality school art programs. It provides a forum for acknowledging skills that are fostered through experience in the arts.

During “Youth Art Month,” the CitySpace Gallery will be filled with visual artwork created by Albemarle County Public Schools students in elementary, middle, and high school. All twenty-six Albemarle County Public School are represented in this exhibit.

A First Fridays opening reception will be held on Friday, March 7 from 5:30-7:00 p.m. There will be light refreshments served. Music will be provided by students of the Monticello High School Chamber Music class. This event is FREE and open to the public. There will also be an exhibit by local artist Warren Craighead on display inside the PCA office within CitySpace.

The exhibit will remain on display through Wednesday, March 26. The public is invited to stop by and vote for their favorite pieces from the art show for inclusion in the 14-15 Albemarle County Public Schools Division calendar! CitySpace is open to the public Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CitySpace is located at 100 5th Street NE on the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville. To learn more, visit www.charlottesville
arts.org.

The Bridge Public Arts Initiative
The Bridge PAI is hosting artist Simon Draper and Habitat for Artists as a part of its new Public Artists residency program. Habitat for Artists is an artist-run group that explores the nature of creativity, the role of the artist in our communities and how to create dialog with a new audience. The catalysts for these explorations and dialogs are small 6’ x 6’, temporary, reusable studios made from recycled materials that HFA installs in a variety of locations within a community, from Main Street to farms to parks.

As a part of the residency, Habitats for Artists and The Bridge PAI are developing Habitat City. For this project, local artists, designers, architects, and students are partnering with local non-profits to develop their own habitat. Whether a performance space, an artist studio, a greenhouse for autistic adults, or a shed for a school garden, The Bridge is pairing creativity with community need to create new public spaces.
The Habitats will be built and displayed at The Bridge throughout March and then placed along West Main in April as a part of the Tom Tom Founders Festival and the West Main Streetscaping plans.

Correction
The February 6 story “Retirees in Central Virginia Experience the Good Life,” misstated that JABA provides “food, health care, cooling and heating assistance, insurance counseling, and transportation;” that “JABA nurses make home visits;” and thrift shop name. In reality, JABA offers health insurance counseling; does not offer transportation; JABA nurses only make home visits in certain instances; and the thift shop name is Twice is Nice Upscale Resale.

Categories
Arts

Jasper Johns’ print works bring order to chaos

Jasper Johns’ “Pinion,” edition 13/36, 1966, is part of an exhibition of print work from the artist better known for his bronze Ballantine Ale cans.

Now in his eighties, America’s greatest living artist, Jasper Johns, is still recognized as the vanguard who ignored convention to create a new, galvanizing style that brilliantly reflected the spirit and mores of its time. Johns’ far-reaching influence can be discerned in Pop Art, minimalism, and conceptual art movements and it continues to resound in contemporary art today.

Though he is best known for his paintings and his bronze Ballantine Ale cans, Johns is also considered a master printmaker with a body of work that shows his total command of the various media within the field of printmaking. “Jasper Johns: Early Prints from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation” at UVA’s Fralin museum (through May 19) offers a rare opportunity to view a selection of these graphic works.

A generation behind the Abstract Expressionists, Johns’ work was both a reaction against their tenets and an assimilation of their aesthetic. While rejecting the Abstract Expressionists’ non-
objective ethos, he retained a similar all-over surface and painterly approach. He chose an iconography composed of the familiar—“things the mind already knows,” like flags, maps, letters, and numbers, keeping the subject matter intentionally minimal, so as not to distract from the media and technique. Indeed, the hallmark of Johns’ work is this gravitas of approach, blended with rather mundane subject matter.

From the moment his work first appeared, viewers have been both attracted and puzzled by the enigmatic nature of these serious pieces that take trivialities as their subject matter. “When people saw these works, they knew what they were seeing, but the big question was ‘Why?’” said curator Jennifer Farrell. “Why am I looking at this? And Johns never answers that question.” Farrell suggested his long-term partner [the late, great artist] Robert Rauschenberg provided a clue when he said about his own work, “Painting relates to both art and life, I try to act in that gap between the two.”

Part of the answer also lies in the fact that the post-World War II era, when Johns was coming of age, saw a veritable sea change in both expression and perception. With the rise of advertising, stimulated by the advent of TV, came an enormous increase in visual bombardment. For the first time, images began to subvert ideas. Tapping into this, Johns created a new artistic language.

Throughout his career, Johns was constantly reworking, testing boundaries, and experimenting, and his work resonates with this. According to Farrell, “Johns wanted to play with familiar things and the idea of taking something, doing something to it, doing something else to it—again and again —is central to his art. We can see this specifically in the numbers and letters where he uses a stencil form—a reproducible form.”

“0–9,” 1960-1963, is a significant piece because it’s printed from one stone, so with each new number Johns brings along traces of the previous number(s). Being a series, it dovetails well with his whole inclination towards repetition. He chooses a jaunty, voluptuous font that seems so at odds with the haute art manner in which it’s rendered. To our eyes it looks distinctly of its era, lifted as it was straight from popular culture.

“There’s also a literalness to his work, said Farrell. “Johns doesn’t alter the arrangements of the numbers, the letters, the flag, or the map. The configuration is the same, but they’re different in each print because of the nature of the medium.”

Technically, the series is so complicated with a frieze-like list of numbers on top, all of which had to be executed in reverse, that it’s been theorized that when Johns embarked on it, as a novice printmaker, he didn’t realize what he was getting into. Farrell points out this is a key work that had “repercussions throughout his career. Fifty years later you can see Johns making reference to the same themes. Again, he’s taking something and engaging with it in different media, in different context, and in a different method.”

Farrell notes that the earliest work in the exhibit, an abstract monoprint from 1954, is historically significant because it places Johns’ initial foray into printmaking six years earlier than what is indicated by conventional lore.

I think my favorite work is the ghostly “Two Maps I,” 1966, though I wish it were framed in a less distracting manner. It’s a diptych of the United States, gray ink on a black field. Like his flags, this piece speaks to the spirit of nationalism prevalent in 1950s America. I really like that it’s a monochromatic version of the colorful children’s puzzle and especially how the lyrical image seems to hover above the paper.

“Numbers,” 1967, and “Gray Alphabets,” 1968, present grids of numbers and letters, respectively, which seem to pulse with a sensuousness that one doesn’t generally associate with such dry fodder as integers and letters.

“Decoy II,” 1973, is a complex work both in terms of technique and meaning. Here, Johns has produced a whole array of visual effects: squiggly lines, painterly strokes, block letters, a sculptural leg fragment, a perfect circle and, that old faithful, a Ballantine Ale can. It could be a busy mess, but the composition hangs together elegantly.

Most of the works on display are lithographs, as is fitting, since the medium held an important place in Johns’ oeuvre. But there are others that reveal Johns’ wide-
ranging interest and proficiency in different printmaking techniques and materials. Johns collaborated on the early lithographs and later silk screens with master printmakers Tatyana Grosman and Ken Tyler. And the works bear witness to the cooperative relationship between printmaker and artist who, working together, produced this exceptional body of work.

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Living

Ranked amateur: Homebrew for Hunger winner brings wares to market

Amateur brewmaster Loren Moulds recently brewed his award-winning imperial red at Three Notch’d brewery. The Mosaic IRA will soon be available at several local bars and restaurants. Photo: Elli Williams

Amateurs are making some darn good beer in this town. Amateurs, dude.

Anyone who had the opportunity to attend the Homebrew for Hunger event at Fifth Season Gardening last fall knows about the quality of ale-shine C’ville has to offer. The only problem, assuming you’re able to get past your hang-ups about drinking unregulated beer from someone’s funky kitchen, is you rarely get to taste the stuff.

Until now.

UVA Ph.D. candidate and librarian Loren Moulds has been brewing out of his own hopefully-E.coli-free kitchen for more than 10 years, ever since he was 22 and his dad bought him a brewing kit. Finally, all of Moulds’ smelly boils, dirty pots, and abrasive sterilizing materials—not to mention years of inconveniencing his wife—have paid off in the form of a chance to make one of his concoctions for distribution.

Moulds’ mosaic-hopped imperial red ale was awarded the title of best beer at Homebrew for Hunger, beating out the creations of more than 80 other amateur brewers who put their skills on display at the festival. The prize, awarded based on total votes from both fellow brewers and event attendees, was the chance to brew the winning beer to scale in the Three Notch’d brewhouse, keg it, and release it at some of the coolest beer bars in Charlottesville.

“This beer was kind of a throw-off for me. I just wanted to brew a single hop beer,” Moulds said. “I got the mosaic and put it in there to taste what the hop was like, and it was pretty yummy. I would use it again.”

On February 27, Three Notch’d will tap the first keg of Moulds’ imperial red, which he is now calling the Mosaic IRA. Shortly after the tapping event, kegs of the high alcohol throw-off will go out to the likes of Beer Run, Sedona Taphouse, Brixx, and a few other spots nearby.

According to Moulds and Three Notch’d brewmaster Dave Warwick, the Homebrew for Hunger title winner is an excellent example of what the relatively rare mosaic hops variety can bring to a beer. Expect the Mosaic IRA to be similar in hop intensity to an India pale ale (IPA) but with more malt character and a darker color.

“Mosaic is like citra [hops] on steroids,” Warwick said, comparing the varietal to the highly citrusy, recognizable hop that’s also one of Moulds’ favorites. “It has an array of flavors. You would think that it would be over the top and sharp, but it’s not at all. It’s so soft, round, and complex.”

The main sticking point in scaling up Moulds’ recipe for production turned out to be procuring enough mosaic, according to Warwick. He said the recipe required very little in the way of pro-tip tweaks other than to account for the higher sugar yields he gets in his commercial brewery, but finding the requisite 44 pounds of mosaic was another story. It was by luck that he found himself talking to his supplier at a brewers’ conference when he heard the homebrew he’d be helping make would require mosaic, and that his supplier happened to have just enough of the hops laying around to give him what he needed.

Actually producing the beer was a breeze, at least for Warwick.

“I made him do most of the work,” he said. “That’s my day off.”

While Moulds’ experience with mosaic over the years has been limited, he thinks working extensively with citra prepared him for the task. He’s been brewing variations on citra IPAs a few times a year for the past half decade.

“Basically every other beer I brew is an IPA, and I have completely fallen in love with citra,” Moulds said. “It’s hard to deviate from it.”

Straying from the comfort zone is what makes homebrewers great, though, according to Anna Haupt, Fifth Season’s general manager. Moulds, a member of homebrew club Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale, is just one of many local brewers who think outside the six-pack, according to Haupt.

“There are hundreds of different types of grain and hops, and homebrewers are often the most inventive because they get to make everything in small batches,” she said. “There is a symbiotic relationship between homebrewers and craft brewers.”

Haupt said homebrewers are often ahead of the curve when it comes to using new varieties of hops. And while there are no doubt craft brewers out there who think they’re pretty inventive in their own right, the stovetop beer barons will have another chance to show off their skills this November, when FIfth Season expects to host another Homebrew for Hunger event. Get your immunizations in order now.

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News

Snow tow: With no local regulation in the county, wrecker charges vary widely

How much does it cost to have a car towed during a snowstorm? In Albemarle County, it can vary by hundreds of dollars because, unlike the City of Charlottesville, which caps wrecker fees, the county has no ordinance regulating towing. After the recent storm, that meant at least one county car owner paid $465 for a five-mile tow—nearly triple the amount another towing business said it charged for towing cars from the same location the following day.

Trina Nelson, was driving on Sunset Avenue Extended soon after the snowstorm hit on Wednesday, February 12. Nelson had been visiting her boyfriend at UVA hospital where he was recovering from surgery and was headed to his apartment when her Ford Taurus slid off the road and got stuck in a ditch.

With snow falling heavily and the road unplowed, Nelson left her vehicle overnight and walked the rest of the way. She returned the next morning, she said, and a man with a four-wheel drive truck pulled her car out. A plow still hadn’t come through, so she left the vehicle on a flat area on the side of the road where at least half a dozen other cars had also been abandoned.

“There was nothing I could do,” she said, noting that she thought she’d left enough room for plows to pass by.

When she returned that afternoon, a plow had gotten through—but her car had been towed. When she tracked it down to FBR Towing and Recovery on Harris Street, she said, she was shocked at the $465 charge. In addition to a $150 fee for towing, the itemized receipt shows $125 for recovery, $100 for inclement weather, and $90 for two days storage, although she got it the day after it had been towed.

“They can charge whatever they want,” said an outraged Nelson, who was further frustrated to learn that another wrecker service who removed cars from Sunset Avenue on Friday, February 14, charged far less.

“We charged $165,” said Marcie Llera, manager of Taylor’s Wrecker Service, which is owned by her parents. Taylor’s did not charge for storage, said Llera. Numerous other towing companies C-VILLE contacted declined to comment on charges.

The amount Taylor’s charged is still higher than what the City of Charlottesville allows its contracted tow trucks to charge within city limits: $50 plus $25 a day in storage fees, no matter what the weather. Of course, the county, with its remote roads, is more labor intensive for tow truck operators. FBR owner Wayne Hayslett defended the more than $450 charge as a reflection of the amount of effort and expense involved in retrieving Nelson’s vehicle at official police request. He points out that the tow trucks from Taylor’s came the day after his trucks had done the heavy work of clearing the road. In addition to using his own snow plow, he purchased four sets of tire chains at $200 per set, and there was the additional expense of shoveling. “We spent hours,” he said, adding that if drivers used common sense, many towing situations would be avoided in a winter storm.

“Stay put. You don’t have to go to the grocery store. Everyone wants to wait for the last minute, and then they get towed and they want to complain about it,” he said.

Hayslett suggested that roadside assistance plans or auto insurance might reimburse the cost of weather-related towing.

Albemarle County police spokesperson Carter Johnson said the police department is working on creating a towing advisory board and an ordinance that will limit and regulate towing charges in the county. Hayslett and Llera agree such an ordinance would be beneficial to prevent confusion and frustration.

Nelson hopes it happens soon so others don’t face unexpectedly high fees for towing.

“You feel betrayed,” she said. “You feel like you have no power.”

Categories
Arts

ARTS Pick: Blooddrunk Troll

Hippie drums get hardcore with Blooddrunk Troll's performance during an evening of Virginia-based Thrash.

Mention hand drums to most metal heads and you’re likely to get virulent responses, or worse. But the members of local band Blooddrunk Troll prove that hippie drums can be hardcore. John Jones, the dark master of the hand drum, bangs out serious beats on his djembe, laying the foundation for Luke “Beer Troll” Smith’s guitar shredding and classic grindcore dueling vocals that brings Cattle Decapitation to mind—the band, not, you know, the other thing. Salvaticus, Vicious Tides, and Helgamite round out the evening of Virginia-based thrash.

Friday 2/28. $8, 9pm. Main Street Annex, 219 W. Water St.  817-2400.

Categories
Arts

Interview: The American Shakespeare Center doubles down

Rene Thornton Jr. plays the lead role in Timon of Athens. The play serves as ASC’s completion of Shakespeare’s canon.

The American Shakespeare Center in Staunton reached two milestones this season: the quarter-century mark and the completion of Shakespeare’s canon. All but two of the 38 plays we attribute to Shakespeare were published in the First Folio in 1623, and with its current production of Timon of Athens, ASC can claim performances of all of them.

Possibly Shakespeare’s most obscure and difficult play, Timon of Athens is rarely staged and even more rarely produced with love and skill. Scholars question whether the play was actually staged in Shakespeare’s lifetime, and many argue that a good chunk was written by Thomas Middleton. Speculation comes from Timon’s direct contrast to its canonical bookends, the psychologically intense and diversely plotted Measure for Measure (1603) and King Lear (1605). Focused on the singular peripeteia of Timon, who apparently lacks family and history, the story plays out like a medieval morality tale, full of dead ends and archetypes. The script is rich in language, however, and imbued with universal relevance, and it also offers the best collection of Elizabethan insults. “Were I like thee, I would throw away myself,” and “Would thou were clean enough to spit on,” are two favorites.

As part of the Actor’s Renaissance season, ASC’s production was staged in a classic Elizabethan practice: four days of rehearsal, no director, no stage lighting or set, and multiple, gender-blind casting.

René Thornton Jr. expertly carries the titular role, with genuine effusion and a deft shift into grounded misanthropy when he finds himself betrayed. Tim Sailer’s Flavius is high-strung, antsy, and endearing in his concern for Timon’s welfare, and Jonathan Holtzman treats Alcibiades, grateful friend and grim warrior, with austere, soldierly deference. The real standout is Josh Innerst’s Apemantus, played with wry wit, nuanced delivery, and impeccable stage presence. The few times I’ve seen Timons, Apemantus acts like a stodgy and disagreeable buzzkill, but Mr. Innerst invests contagious value in his character and seems to take real pleasure from his lot. ASC’s strong ensemble supports Timon’s chorus continuously.

As always, ASC treats this play with intelligence, skill, and passion. Artistic Director Jim Warren spoke with C-VILLE Weekly about the milestones and the future of the American Shakespeare Center.

C-VILLE Weekly: Was completion of the canon ever a conscious goal? Or was it more of an inevitability after 25 years of Shakespeare?

Jim Warren: We always said “eventually we’ll do them all,” but I didn’t have us on any kind of set schedule to make it happen. A few years ago, as I was putting together ideas for an upcoming year, I noticed how few we had left to do. I saw that if I put this title here and that title there, then we would be able to complete the canon during our 25th anniversary year.

Timon of Athens is a famously difficult play. What unique challenges does it present?

Timon gets a bad rap, in my opinion. I think it’s a magnificent play. It’s not very well known—most audience members probably won’t know the story when they come to see the show—and it takes the title character (and the audience) on a wild ride from the mountaintop of success to the deepest pit of despair.

Compared to a play like As You Like It, it’s a different kind of ensemble piece. Timon has four chunky roles and a ton of tiny roles; As You Like It is filled with more meaty roles and a lot less doubling among the troupe. Timon [also] has two different banquet scenes to stage, a cave, and a hole to dig, each with their own thorny staging issues. Most of all, you have to cast the right person as Timon, someone who audiences can understand, like, admire, and care about, so the play stays interesting when he gets crushed. Productions of this play fail when you don’t give a damn about Timon.

Is there a need to approach one of Shakespeare’s more obscure plays differently than one of his more popular ones?

Clarity of story is always priority one at the ASC, no matter how popular or obscure the play is. With a more popular title, we’re still going to have a lot of folks seeing it for the first time. Perhaps they read it in school and didn’t have a good experience, or they’ve been to other theaters and seen crummy productions where they couldn’t follow what was going on with the smoke machines, set changes, and modern special effects. But when it’s a more obscure title, we have a bit more pressure on us because even more folks will be seeing it for the first time.

Each of Shakespeare’s plays is a unique animal with its own particular challenges. We want all of our choices to be ones that help tell the story, help draw you in, help you become part of the world of the play so we can go on the journey together.

Twenty-five years and still going strong. What’s on the docket for the next 25?

We’ll keep doing what we’ve been doing: recovering the joy and accessibility of Shakespeare’s theatre, language, and humanity by exploring the English Renaissance stage and its practices. There’s a never-ending combination of plays, actors, costumes, props, use of our Blackfriars stage at home, and turning spaces on the road into the flavor of an Elizabethan/Jacobean playhouse. We will always bring fresh food to this never-ending banquet.

We’ll go through the canon again, eventually. We’re going to keep on top of the ever-evolving scholarship and continue to milk Shakespeare’s staging conditions for his plays and plays from other periods that thrive in this staging environment. Eventually we’ll try Chekhov, Ibsen, and Beckett, in addition to having new plays written for our space and staging style. Eventually we’re going to build a re-creation of Shakespeare’s 1614 Globe Theatre.

“I feel now the future in the instant” [Macbeth].

Rene Thornton Jr. plays the lead role in Timon of Athens. The play serves as ASC’s completion of Shakespeare’s canon.

PAT JARRET

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The Editor's Desk

Editor’s Note: History or his story?

“We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. . .” read Justice Earl Warren’s majority opinion in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, handed down lo these 60 years. It was the beginning of the end for legal segregation in America and the opening salvo of the Civil Rights Movement.

It’s common knowledge that bears repeating here in the South: African-Americans in this country had already been fighting for equal status before the law for nearly 100 years at that point. An open question: What is the greatest failure of post-Vietnam liberal America? In all of our major cities black and white people still live, for the most part, separately and unequally.

I remember as a freshman in college listening to Cornel West deliver his first lecture in the “African-American Autobiography,” his signature course. I found the fluid logical-poetic reinterpretation of history mind boggling. His story? I also remember that the first three rows of McCosh Hall were full of black students, the talented tenth so to speak, and that the rest of the auditorium stretching back to the rear corners I liked to inhabit was white, the 1 percent, if you like.

For me and my group of friends, the reality and subtlety of a segregated society hit us when we went away to school, because we were becoming adults and feeling the weight of the truth. Our opportunities would be, to one degree or another, separate but unequal; cue black anger and white guilt.

The allegory, call it history, of William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass is a profound one. The white voice of the Abolitionist movement, who opened the coffers of industrial New England to the anti-slavery cause on the back of his moral authority, befriended a black man capable of defying every definition of the day. But when Douglass’ The North Star began to shine brighter than Garrison’s The Liberator (these were newspaper men!), a rift emerged in the relationship that reflects the insidiousness of the race divide. It would be hard to deny that both Douglass and Garrison desired the same end and shared an affection for one another, but their experiences were so separate that they could not navigate their mistrust.

This week’s cover story is about a local attempt to move past the junction of black anger and white guilt to the confluence of black and white priorities. It reflects, I think, a generational acceptance that equality is an idea, reality is the firmest foundation for solutions, and history is a broken record.