Month: October 2015

Categories
Opinion

Opinion: Deadly numbers and weak laws

File photo.

A year ago in April, a UVA student nearly shot his neighbor, a UVA law student, when he accidentally fired his AK-47 through his wall and into the next apartment. Because the judge didn’t find enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that it wasn’t simply an accident and not a criminal act, charges were dismissed, but this frightening incident could easily have added to the growing number of victims of firearms.

Since the Newtown shootings in 2012, every day eight children in the U.S. die from guns, according to the Brady Campaign. In domestic homicides, a gun is the most commonly used weapon. From 2001 through 2012, the Center for American Progress says 6,410 women in the U.S. were murdered by an intimate partner using a gun, more than the total number of U.S. troops killed in action during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined. And using Department of Veterans Affairs statistics, Mother Jones says more Americans have been shot to death in the past 25 years than have died in every war, from the Revolutionary War to Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Law-abiding, responsible gun owners are not the problem,” says former Congresswoman Gabby Gifford, herself a victim of gun violence. “The problem is that we have weak laws that let dangerous people get their hands on guns.” Gifford and her husband, Captain Mark Kelly, support bipartisan legislation sponsored by Representative Peter King (R-NY) that would both protect Americans’ Second Amendment rights as well as make communities safer by expanding background checks on the Internet and at gun shows.

The National Rifle Association has lobbied to prevent gun safety laws even though a Johns Hopkins University survey reveals that 74 percent of NRA members favor a waiting period for the purchase of a handgun and more than 81 percent of Americans support limiting sales of military-style assault weapons. Further, the NRA has been successful in keeping a congressional 19-year prohibition on Centers for Disease Control studies of gun violence.

According to the medical journal Pediatrics, nearly 10,000 American children are killed or injured every year due to gun violence, most recently a 6-year-old shooting his 3-year-old brother October 17 in Chicago. The mortality rate from firearms in the U.S. is 10 times higher than rates in other wealthy nations, says Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research.

“The lives of American children are precious, they matter,” says Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action. “Legislators need to stand up and say, regardless of the efforts of the gun lobby to protect their profits, we are going to protect our children.”

Now which candidates in November have the courage, the will and the moral outrage to act in the name of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston and Umpqua Community College in Oregon?

Marjorie Siegel is a member of the Charlottesville Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, which is dedicated to reducing gun deaths and protecting human life.

Categories
News

Former BOVer, businessman Frank Birckhead dies

Frank Birckhead was devoted to the University of Virginia and his family. Photo courtesy the Birckhead family

Frank Birckhead, 61, a former member of the University of Virginia Board of Visitors, founder of MoneyWise Payroll Solutions and Birckhead Consulting, ardent UVA basketball fan and community volunteer, died unexpectedly at home October 18.

Birckhead was a lifelong resident of Charlottesville, graduating from Albemarle High in 1972 and UVA in 1976. Except for a brief stint in Richmond, his wife, Jackie, says, “For the last 40 years, he’s never lived more than a mile and a half from the university.”

He sat on the Board of Visitors from 1995 to 1998. While a student working on a degree in commerce with a concentration in accounting, Birckhead managed the UVA men’s basketball team and was head manager during its first ACC championship in 1976.

He was the founder and president of the Thomas Jefferson Society of Certified Public Accountants, and served on the boards of the Miller School, the Piedmont Family YMCA and the Senior Center.

United Land Corporation President Wendell Wood says Birckhead and his brother worked for him in the 1960s at Shakey’s Pizza Parlor. “Frank was exceptional,” says Wood. “He was always positive, always get it done. Whenever you’d see him, you felt like you’d just met your best friend.”

Birckhead was a lifelong Republican who loved his dog, Reagan, hot yoga and “being around people and helping others,” says Jackie Birckhead. He was most proud of his family, she says.

“His goal was always to help others achieve their dream,” says his son, Kipps Birckhead.

A memorial service will be held at 3pm Thursday, October 22, at the family cemetery located at University Research Park at North Fork.

Categories
Living

Our Local Commons announces statewide food-and-drink book and more local restaurant news

The Virginia Table is the third publication from the photography team that founded Our Local Commons, a Virginia food-and-wine blog. Photo: Courtesy of Our Local Commons

Our Local Commons announces statewide food-and-drink book

C-VILLE Weekly isn’t the only media outlet in town that loves talking to chefs, discussing food trends, trying new restaurants and putting words on paper. The team behind Our Local Commons has been on top of the Charlottesville food scene for years, compiling interviews and photos for articles on ourlocalcommons.com, and publishing books (Charlottesville Commons and Our Local Commons) showcasing the tastemakers of the area. Last week, co-founders and photographers Sarah Cramer Shields and Andrea Hubbell, along with writer and editor Jenny Paurys, announced the publication of the group’s third book, The Virginia Table.

“This is not a new volume of something that’s happened before,” Paurys says. “We had been wanting to find a way to capture the artisan food movement that’s going on in Virginia, and the thing that differentiates this from the Charlottesville-focused book is that it is state-focused.”

The inspiration behind The Virginia Table came from the crew at Early Mountain Vineyards, who make a conscious effort to offer wines from all over the state in their own tasting room. Winemakers quickly learned that creating and maintaining Virginia wine has to be a team effort, and Paurys says the goal of the new book is to capture that enthusiastic, collaborative spirit that seems to be driving the food-and-drink scene across the commonwealth.

Paurys, Hubbell and Cramer Shields spent months trekking around Virginia, from Dugspur to Marshall and everywhere in between, picking the brains of locals who make a living growing, fermenting, cooking or baking something they love. The book features profiles of artisans and tastemakers, interviews with industry experts and specialists, plus recipes and pairings.

Aside from the compelling stories (such as a man who loves cheese teaming up with a woman who loves raising goats) and photography, Paurys hopes that readers take away a sense of the blood, sweat and tears that go into the local food industry. Whether they were building a new restaurant from the ground up, planting an orchard or butchering locally sourced beef, Paurys says the people featured in the book eat, sleep and breathe their work. It’s a labor of love, and it’s a “disservice to these people” to rave over a beautiful piece of cheese without acknowledging the effort and passion that go into it.

“All the energy that’s happening here, all the work these people are doing, it’s happening simultaneously,” she says. “This is just a little peek into their lives and all the hours that they’re investing in this.”

The book is available for pre-order at earlymountain.com, and Early Mountain Vineyards will hold a release party on Monday, November 16.

Fall fare

Thought you’d seen it all when it comes to pumpkin-flavored fall treats? How about some habanero pumpkin spice wings? National chain World of Beer, which opened in Charlottesville on West Main Street last year, just announced its first Plate and Pints seasonal fall menu.

The limited-time menu items include the aforementioned wings, Dogfish Head meatloaf sliders with sautéed mushrooms and onions, Southwest skillet cornbread with queso fresco, Colorado chili and a pimento cheese board with charred garlic toast.

To wash it all down, if you’re not in the mood for one of the hundreds of beers available, there’s an Irish apple pie cocktail with apple juice, Jameson Irish Whiskey, bitters and ginger beer, and a spiced red sangria with red wine, Fireball Cinnamon Whisky, orange juice and club soda.

Categories
News

Mensch: Former mayor Francis Fife dies at 95

Francis Fife in 2009 at Oak Lawn, the Cherry Avenue house his family has owned since 1847. Photo Jen Fariello

If it seems like Francis Fife has always been an integral part of Charlottesville, for most of the 20th century he was.

“It’s hard to imagine a program here he didn’t have a finger in,” says his wife of 33 years, Nancy O’Brien, who was Charlottesville’s first female mayor. She remembers meeting him when he was working to put together the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority.

Fife, who turned 95 October 1, died October 16 from complications after a fall three weeks ago.

He served on City Council for eight years and as mayor from 1972 to 1974. During his mayoral tenure, council voted to create the Downtown Mall, seen as a risky proposition at the time, a vote from which Fife abstained because he was vice president at People’s Bank, now the Bank of America downtown. He founded the Charlottesville Housing Foundation, which became Piedmont Housing Alliance, and the Rivanna Trails Foundation. He also served on numerous boards, commissions and committees.

“He was passionate about justice,” says O’Brien. “He was passionate about housing, and he cared about people.”

Fife was born in 1920, and for most of his life—except for a stint in the military during World War II and grad school at Rutgers—lived at Oak Lawn, the 350-acre farm his family bought in 1847, according to his wife. He milked cows on the property during the Depression, and he told his pal John Conover, a former city councilor, about riding around Charlottesville on a horse, hitting a tree and falling off.

Buford Middle School sits on land that was once part of the Fife farm, says Conover, and the neighborhood called Fifeville is indicative of his deep roots in the community. “He never thought it necessary to live anywhere else,” says O’Brien.

He first ran for City Council in 1950 on the World Peace ticket and got clobbered, recalls Conover. Fife was elected to City Council as a Democrat in 1970.

He had a wry sense of humor and thought the funniest thing going was human beings, says O’Brien. “He could laugh at himself, and laughter was a very important part of our lives.”

She describes Fife talking with someone who did not agree with him on an issue, but that person would walk away smiling. “He was a good listener and fascinated with people, and that came through,” she says.

“He never viewed himself as an insider,” says Conover. “He challenged the status quo”—with the good manners with which he was raised. “He was an embodiment of old Virginia who learned to adapt to the new day,” adds Conover. “He had a sense things could be done differently,” even during the dark days of segregation.

Conover says his friendship with Fife was cemented during the creation of the Rivanna Trails, a private effort to create a trail system that circles the city. “We were not going through government,” says Conover. “We were just going out in the woods with sharp things making trails.” The city and the Rivanna Trails Foundation were sued in 2005 by a citizen who didn’t want the trail on her land. Fife later said if he had to do it again, he would have gotten easements.

“I think he needs to be remembered for his remarkable integrity and his environmental stewardship,” says City Councilor Dede Smith, who notes that he was a founder of the Ivy Creek Foundation.

“My favorite memory is just seeing him coming and thinking, ‘Boy, this is going to be nice to talk to Francis,’” says Conover. “Some people just light up your world.”

“He had an incredible way of looking at life,” says O’Brien, “a way of finding the humor, a way that was gentle and kind.”

Categories
Arts

Fresh airwaves: Local radio station provides a new home for hip-hop

Damani Harrison (left) and Elijah Campos in the studio of Charlottesville’s new hip-hop radio station, 101.3 Jamz. Photo: Staff photo

It’s time to update your car radio presets, Charlottesville. The long-anticipated launch of a new hip-hop radio station happened on October 5 at midnight when WVAI 101.3 Jamz took to the airwaves. The launch came as the result of more than a year of work by Damani Harrison, Elijah Campos, Jaquan Middleton, Cle Logan and Travis Dyer. The five collaborators are deeply invested in the local music community and joined forces to create the new station.

Barely two weeks into 101.3 Jamz’s existence, approximately 15 DJs are involved—they hail from Charlottesville and Richmond, but also further afield. Some will record mixes and send them in to be played on-air; others will host live shows in the station’s Seminole Square studio. Through this network, the 101.3 Jamz team hopes to cover the entire spectrum of hip-hop, with reggae, go-go and R&B mixed in.

“We’re representing a whole lot of regions and styles,” says Harrison. “Hip-hop has so many sub-genres and we’re really trying to represent the art form in its totality.” Plans for original programming also include hosted shows during the morning and afternoon commute.

Local musicians are encouraged to get involved by submitting recordings to be considered for airplay. Harrison, who is also the artistic director at the Music Resource Center, sees potential in the area. “I’ve seen a lot of amazing artists come through there and then continue their careers locally,” he says. “I’ve always felt as if all these people that I’ve worked with get to this point where they have no outlet for what they’re doing. Now, they’re going to have an outlet. If we see an artist really making a push for themselves, then we want to help them.”

In addition to the genre format, 101.3 Jamz’s coordinators hope to set the station apart by embracing an around-the-clock policy for clean lyrics. “We made a decision to not play explicit songs at any time,” says Campos. Though Federal Communications Commission regulations prohibit obscene broadcasts anytime, indecent and profane content is actually allowed from 10pm to 6am, but 101.3 Jamz’s programming will remain clean at all hours as a way to support what Harrison calls “the positive energy that’s around the scene.”

For now, the team is working on the larger issue of getting new music into rotation and keeping the nascent station running smoothly. “It’s a 24/7 job,” says Campos. “We all have our own careers aside from this, but this is something that we’re going to put the time in to make it work.”

As C-VILLE reported earlier this month, 101.3 Jamz is an addition to a radio landscape that was recently altered by WUVA’s format change to country. “By being a centralized hub for hip-hop in Charlottesville, we’re providing a service for a lot of people,” says Harrison.

Though the new station wasn’t conceived as a competitor to WUVA, it wasn’t originally meant to replace it, either. The timing just worked out that way, as minor delays pushed back the launch date. “We all wanted this to happen so much, so we were willing to put as much time into it as we need to,” says Campos. “It’s mainly been an issue of getting enough money to actually make it happen.”

With significant support from individual investors, start-up funding finally came together in time for a test run in September, after which equipment needed to be tweaked and other work accomplished before the station could go on-air.

The 101.3 Jamz team wasn’t alone in these efforts, though. The station is a member of the Virginia Radio Coop along with three others, including Rock Hits 92.3 and WPVC 94.7, a progressive talk radio station. The cooperative model allows the four stations to split monthly facilities costs. Each operates as a Low Power FM station, a broadcasting option created by the FCC in 2000. Stations within this designation are required to function as nonprofits and produce non-commercial radio at a lower wattage than commercial radio stations. At present, the FCC reports there are five LPFM stations in Charlottesville, with the inclusion of WXTJ 100.1, an outgrowth of the University of Virginia’s WTJU 91.1.

Over the past few months, the co-op station coordinators have been busy building fan bases on social media while constructing shared studio space. What was once a large, open retail store has now been divided into four on-air studios with recording and common areas. It’s still a little rough around the edges, but three of the four stations are broadcasting, and online streaming will launch soon.

Harrison is hopeful that underwriters will be attracted by the opportunity to reach the co-op’s diverse audience through group packages rather than underwriting an individual station. This can help ease the fundraising burden on any one station. The 101.3 Jamz team plans to support the station’s ongoing operations with DJ appearances and branded merchandise.

“We got [the station] started, but it’s going to take the community to keep it going,” Harrison says.

Which local radio stations do you listen to the most?

Tell us in the comments below.

Categories
Living

The Kardinal has landed: Beer Run team debuts new beer garden

Kardinal Hall takes the traditional German beer garden to its modern equivalent with almost 40 beers to choose from, a gourmet bar menu and bocce courts. Photo: Rammelkamp Foto

Oktoberfest celebrations may be winding down soon, but at the new Kardinal Hall beer garden on Preston Avenue, the festivities have just begun. After months of construction and Facebook teasers, Beer Run owners Josh Hunt and John Woodriff finally opened the doors of their German-inspired restaurant and bar next to Timbercreek Market in the old Coca-Cola building. Following a soft opening for friends and family on October 15, the team quietly launched on Thursday afternoon. By dinnertime, the enthusiastic hopheads behind the bar were busy pouring beers and mixing cocktails, and groups began filling the communal style tables with plates of Kielbasa sausages and Belgian fries.

“It’s exciting to be in this hub, a sort of beacon for the Midtown neighborhoods,” says General Manager Malcolm Dyson, a longtime friend of Hunt who helped conceptualize the idea behind Kardinal.

Inspired by beer gardens he’d frequented and worked for when he lived in Seattle, Dyson says he envisioned a place that embraced not only good grub and beer that even the snobbiest brew snobs may not be able to find elsewhere, but a sense of community. The long picnic tables in the dining room and on the patio were a deliberate choice—the idea is to foster a casual, shared environment.

“I saw a lot of group-oriented places in Seattle, and I wanted to bring some of that back here,” says Dyson.

The setup is a little different—no table service. So, as you walk in, the staff milling around in black Kardinal T-shirts encourage you to grab a beer at the bar, sit wherever you want and check out the food kiosk when you’re ready. And because it’s seat yourself, your group can switch tables as it expands without sending servers into a blind fury.

“We want people in here to be interacting with their surroundings instead of just holding out by themselves in the corner,” Dyson says.

Soccer is on the large TVs above the bar and around the dining room, ping pong tables are set up and ready to go in the back room, and Dyson says they plan to provide games like Jenga and a life-sized Connect Four board. But what he anticipates as Kardinal’s biggest draw is the bocce courts. A round will cost a couple bucks per person, but during these opening weeks access to the courts is free of charge.

So let’s talk about what you’ll be holding in your other hand while tossing the bocce balls.

With about two dozen drafts and another 15 bottles and cans, Kardinal’s bar features beers that Dyson says are a little outside the American norm. Sure, the list includes IPAs and a pumpkin ale for the fall, but you’ll also see more lagers and pilsners than you may be used to finding, such as the Schlenkerla Helles, a smoky “twist” on Bavarian Helles lager and the Alvinne Cuvee Freddy, a wine barrel-aged dark sour ale from Belgium. The drink menu also includes red and white wines, a couple of ciders, cocktails and boilermakers.

As for the food, longtime Charlottesville chef Thomas Leroy is behind the extensive menu. Appetizers include staples such as house-made pickles and pretzels with dark mustard, plus items such as the mac-n-cheese pressed in a waffle iron and the cauliflower steak with lemon-herb sauce.

There’s a hefty list of sausages served on a grilled Albemarle Baking Company pretzel roll and you get a choice of two toppings, which include peppers, onions (caramelized or pickled), kraut, relish or garlic mushrooms (consider bringing a pack of mints if you’re on a date). Sandwiches include a Timbercreek burger, a portobello mushroom burger and Das Boot, a crispy pork loin “schnitzelwich” with lettuce, red onion and creamy horseradish sauce on a soft brioche bun.

Whichever meal you order, go for a side of the hand-cut Belgian fries with garlic and sea salt. And don’t skimp on the selection of 11 mustards, ketchups and specialty sauces for dipping. Curry ketchup is a classic German condiment, the Shenandoah Valley ranch is everything you want it to be, and who turns down a roasted garlic aioli?

Come for the beer, stay for the fries and the bocce. And probably more beer.

There’s no ‘I’ in beer

The folks behind the Kardinal Hall beer garden are practically bouncing with excitement to tell you about what’s available, especially the local collaboration drafts. Kardinal is not a brewery, but the beer-obsessed team has already joined forces with four local breweries to create one-of-a-kind, small-batch beers that will be available until they run out, including:

Preston Ave Wheat: An American wheat ale created with Three Notch’d, featuring fresh basil from Fifth Season Gardening.

Devils Backbone Kardinal Lime IPA: Brewed in Nelson County, features West Coast hops and limes.

Champion Peach Berliner: A peach version of Champion’s tart Berliner Weiss.

Blue Mountain L’oiseru Magique: A French saison with a dry finish.

Categories
Arts

ARTS Pick: Shakespeare

There's a whole lotta Shakespeare goin' on through November. Photo: Publicity photo

Almost 400 years later, the world is still enraptured by the lovers, heroes, fairies and deviant minds that dominate tales penned by William Shakespeare. In tribute to the approaching anniversary of his death (April 23, 2016), a statewide collaboration of arts organizations formed the Virginia Shakespeare Initiative to promote a series of Bard-honoring events and ensure that all of Virginia’s a stage.

Wednesday 10/14 through 11/28

The Winter’s Tale: Romance, comedy and tragedy lead to transcendent beauty. Blackfriars Playhouse, 10 S. Market St., Staunton. (540) 851-1733.

Thursday 10/15 through 10/18

Twelfth Night:  A crazy Christmas renaissance in Italy. Sweet Briar College, 145 Chapel Rd., Sweet Briar. 381-6120.

Thursday 10/15 through 11/28

Joan of Arc (Henry VI, Part I): Shakespeare’s spellbinding take on the War of the Roses. Blackfriars Playhouse, 10 S. Market St., Staunton. (540) 851-1733.

Friday 10/1-16 through 11/29

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A mischievous comedy of lovers, heroes and fairies. Blackfriars Playhouse, 10 S. Market St., Staunton. (540) 851-1733.

Friday 10/16 through 11/1

Macbeth: A power struggle for the throne entwines magic, murder and insanity. Four County Players, 5256 Governor Barbour St., Barboursville. (540) 960-0649.

Saturday 10/17 through 11/27

Antony and Cleopatra: The chaotic collision of opposites in a classic love story. Blackfriars Playhouse, 10 S. Market St., Staunton. (540) 851-1733.

Sunday 10/18

National Theatre Live in HD presents Hamlet: Classic Shakespeare with Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. 979-1333.

Categories
News

People’s Climate Movement brings Dominion pipeline into question

A slew of people gathered at the Freedom of Speech Wall to rally against climate change Wednesday. Photo by Cara Salpini

On Wednesday, October 14, the People’s Climate Movement called environmental activists to Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall to rally on climate change.

Dominion Power’s potential installation of a pipeline that would run throughout Virginia wildlife areas was the big issue, and the free speech chalkboard was filled with “No Pipeline” signs, buttons and stickers opposing Dominion.

Olivia Lewis, a student at the University of Virginia and a member of the Climate Action Society, explains, “This is a really important issue for us because this is where we live and it’s going to negatively affect Virginia.”

Many others at the rally felt the same way. Elizabeth “Lil” Williams, a member of a local grassroots organization called Wild Virginia, explains that the pipeline might endanger rare species like the Cow Knob salamander, which is unique to the Shenandoah region.

Williams says Virginia faces a very real threat from climate change, of which the flooding in Norfolk is a direct example. She says the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which would put a price on carbon and provide funds for climate change mitigation efforts like solar power, is the next step forward and she remains optimistic that climate change can be halted.

“I think that it’s really going to take a grassroots effort,” Williams says, “of people all over the country and all over the world to stand up and say, ‘We have to face this huge problem,’ and I am hopeful that… if we can face the reality of what’s going on, we can make a change.”

Several of the speakers expressed similar sentiments, both about Virginia and about climate change as a whole. Adrian Jones, who grew up in Union Grove, reminisced on his childhood and the slow depletion of our resources.

“When I was growing up,” Jones says, “you could live off the lay of the land—the fruits, the wild berries, your neighbor’s garden… We would even drink from the streams and the freshwater there. Those things are now threatened.”

Many older members in attendance nodded their heads in agreement, sharing in the memory of an environmental age they hope to gain back.

For those in attendance, though, Dominion Power’s pipeline is not a part of this plan for the future. Kirk Bowers, another speaker at the event, mentions that the Atlantic Coast Pipeline would set tackling climate change back by 20 or 30 years.

“But,” Bowers says, “we don’t have 20 or 30 years to wait.”

Updated October 19.

Categories
Arts

Utmost caliber: Jack Graves III reflects on the art world with ‘Icons’

Jack Graves III’s exhibition “Icons” is on view along with an extensive collection of contemporary art at Graves International Art through October 18. Photo: Courtesy of artist

For Jack Graves III, art is a family affair.

“My dad started an art gallery in 1978 in Jacksonville, Florida, with a $600 loan from his dad. By the time we moved up [to Gordonsville] in 1992, he had the largest art gallery in northern Florida,” Graves says.

“Before I was old enough to go to school, I would go into the gallery and draw. I grew up around this whole slew of art from established artists, around all those types and different styles, work that covers 400-some-odd years of art.”

That range of art includes engravings by 1500s-era masters such as Albrecht Dürer through contemporary prints and paintings by Roy Lichtenstein and Jim Dine.

In Florida in the ’80s, during Graves’ childhood, he and his family sold more Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg than traditional work. Though they packed away much of the modern art when they moved the gallery to Gordonsville, Graves’ father (along with his brother Alex) recently brought the whole collection back out again.

This unveiling—now joined by a collection of Graves’ own recent work, an exhibition titled “Icons”—is part of Graves International Art’s latest move from Orange County to Charlottesville proper. “My family is very excited,” he says. “We hope to present something new to the community and something of the utmost caliber.”

Art history makes an inescapable context for Graves’ own artistic evolution. He tells the story of returning from a trip overseas at age 16, witnessing scenes from Jacques- Louis David’s 1807 painting “The Coronation of Napoleon” and how, suddenly, his whole perspective shifted.

“Instead of just being around what I was used to, what I was staring at really sunk in,” he says. “I had the background, but now I could grasp what I believe true artists were trying to bring forth from our history. It’s like knowing a different language.”

Just like that, the teenager realized how every aspect of a painting was chosen specifically to conjure emotion. In this way, a painting of a cow standing in front of a barn instantly became so much more, a form of visual language with infinite potential for self-expression.

Graves knew he wanted in. “I figured I would just cover a whole page in design work. As long as it was disciplined and changed and flowed then I was on the right track,” he says.

He began using pen on paper, eschewing pencils and erasers after a very successful artist, a friend of his father’s, told him how his parents broke the eraser of their son’s pencils with the instruction to “just do it right the first time.”

“That stuck with me,” Graves says. “So I thought, okay, I’ll just do pen to paper the first time.”

He began making black and white ink drawings, developing his understanding of depth, perspective and composition through simple lines and abstract shapes. “It’s like subtle architecture. You learn to build it right so it lasts longer.”

Line studies gave way to illustrations with animals such as elephants and cats, flowers and other plants, and finally human faces. “Subconsciously I was following the history of art,” he says. “If you look at any culture anywhere in the world, at their pottery or other art for everyday use, it all started with design.”

After 10 years he allowed himself to use color, marveling at the way just a few dabs of blue could transform a piece. Careful application of color is a hallmark of Graves’ current style, which has morphed into a combination of intricate graphics, bold colors and photorealistic drawings layered in collage-like compositions.

“I began pairing different works together to see what feeling or idea they can give you,” he says. “I want to make something original and timeless, and each and every time it ought to be powerful and beautiful.”

Graves describes this vein of stylistic exploration as eclecticism. “I can connect to other art styles, so it doesn’t sound chaotic or arbitrary, but it’s complete madness at a certain point. You go down the rabbit hole. You’re on your own study, your own path.”

Now, he says, the real effort is maintaining his focus on any one style for long enough to do it justice. The intensity of this effort makes each piece incredibly time-intensive, and, like many artists, he dedicates the majority of his life to it.

“When I went off to college it felt natural to take art classes, so I just did it and didn’t worry about it. I knew I wouldn’t be happy doing anything else. You’re only going to live one time.” Now the trade-off for his commitment is living at home, with full knowledge that he can’t afford to pay for both rent and food.

But Graves, who’s been exposed to the business of art since he was a child, has no illusions about the difficulty of “making it.” And really, that’s not the point.

“If I was more business, I’d go straight for pop surrealism and make glorified cartoons. But I can’t do that,” he says. “So I’m going to wait it out, bring what I think needs to be brought and expand and bring process and show something different and unique.”

Categories
News

Police video not available in Singletary trial

Sean Singletary was arrested at the 1200 block of Harris Street around 4am March 1 for a DUI after performing field sobriety tests and was found not guilty June 23. He was convicted of refusing a breathalyzer or blood test that same day, and appealed.

Former UVA basketball star Sean Singletary’s trial appealing his conviction for refusing to take a breathalyzer has once again been continued. At an October 15 hearing, defense attorney Scott Goodman said he would not be able to submit the 25-minute police dashboard video from Singletary’s March arrest to the judge.

“I found out late last week that that video no longer exists,” Goodman said before Judge Richard Moore in Charlottesville Circuit Court.

According to Moore, the video did not legally need to be preserved because it was evidence in a civil case, rather than a criminal one. This case is classified civil because Singletary was acquitted of his DUI charge and, traditionally, the first convicted refusal is civil.

Legal expert Dave Heilberg says the issue of deleted police videos is not new to the area and courts have ruled that the defense must request the videos be preserved before a specific deadline. In this case, though, Heilberg questions why the dashcam video would be relevant because Singletary refused the breath test at the jail and not when he was arrested.

Though Moore said prosecutor Nina-Alice Antony is probably confident she can prove the case without the video, he granted the defense’s motion to continue the hearing. Antony was prepared to call Charlottesville Police Officer Alexander Blank, who arrested Singletary, up to the witness stand.

Singletary was arrested at the 1200 block of Harris Street around 4am March 1 for a DUI after performing field sobriety tests and was found not guilty June 23. He was convicted of refusing a breathalyzer or blood test that same day, and appealed.

His basketball jersey is retired in the UVA Hall of Fame and he is honored as one of the top five scorers in the history of UVA men’s basketball. He will appear in Charlottesville Circuit Court on December 22 for his trial.