Month: June 2016

Categories
Arts

Film review: Free State of Jones suffers from ambition

Matthew McConaughey leads a small group of Civil War rebels to challenge the Confederacy in Free State of Jones. Photo: STX Productions

Free State of Jones has heart, it certainly has brains, yet any semblance of a body for either to do its job properly is nowhere to be found. Supposedly the story of Newton Knight, the controversial leader of a rebellion against the Confederacy in Jones County, Mississippi, Jones is little more than a sequence of dry-yet-prescient historical observations by people who have clearly done their homework, punctuated by Knight (Matthew McConaughey) being right about everything a century before the world would come to agree with him.

This is a shame, because Free State of Jones is not without its qualities. Unlike most wide-release films that only pretend to deal with hot topics and then consciously avoid conclusions that may alienate potential ticket buyers, director Gary Ross is unafraid of strident moral and political declarations. Knight is depicted as linking slavery with class after witnessing conscripted Confederate soldiers receiving a waiver from the front lines if they own 20 or more slaves. He is against the practice in its own right as a sin against God, but the element of class warfare in the struggle against slavery is one that has gone largely unexplored in American discourse.

After Knight deserts his post, his troubles with the Confederacy only intensify. After defending civilians from unjust seizure of property and forming close personal relationships with runaway slaves, Knight and his followers lead a full-scale revolt based on the belief that a man owns the product of his own labor, and they eventually occupy Ellisville, Jones County. The rebellion is able to maintain its stronghold until the end of the war, just in time for an entirely new battle over efforts by the rich to maintain their power by disenfranchising freed slaves and engaging in rampant voter intimidation by organizations such as the newly formed KKK.

This, unfortunately, is also when the film’s flaws overtake its assets. At first, Ross’ commitment to historical fidelity over character development appears to be out of a desire to educate the audience rather than pander, but eventually this lofty goal devolves into rote recitation of facts—often presented on-screen—with Knight and company reacting to this new development. Then it’s back to more facts, then back to reacting, and so on. This strangulation of drama for excessive detail is the same flaw that doomed Oliver Stone’s ambitious epic, Alexander, and though Ross is far less bombastic than Stone, he is similarly focused on the wrong aspects of the story to make his film engaging.

Perhaps the most puzzling decision was to give the film a framing device, yet choosing to reveal this fact not by starting there and flashing back, but by flashing forward to the 1940s every so often when the main narrative begins to lag. It seems that a descendant of Newton Knight’s named Davis Knight was tried and convicted of miscegenation due to being one-eighth black and marrying a white woman. The confusion around Davis’ lineage stems from Newton living with two women following the war, one a former partner who had his child (Keri Russell) and a former slave who worked and fought alongside Newton in the rebellion (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). Davis even has the same conversation with his wife that Newton had with his, about moving North to escape laws like these. It’s interesting, no doubt, yet far too complicated to be presented as hastily as it is.

The intention of these directorial choices is clear: The end of a war does not mean the end of its root causes. History is not static. We live with the consequences of past decisions every day. The choices we make now will affect future generations in ways we cannot predict, but we ought to try anyway. These are worthy arguments that deserve to be made, and perhaps the story of Knight and the rebellion in Jones County is the right moment in history to dramatize them. Unfortunately, due to massively confusing structural problems and a complete lack of focus, Free State of Jones is neither the film that it wants to be nor the film it should have been: a documentary.

Free State of Jones R, 139 minutes
Violet Crown Cinema, Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Playing this week

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213

Central Intelligence

The Conjuring 2

Finding Dory

Independence Day: Resurgence

Me Before You

The Neon Demon

Now You See Me 2

The Shallows

Warcraft

X-Men: Apocalypse

Violet Crown Cinema

200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000

Central Intelligence

The Conjuring 2

Finding Dory

Independence Day: Resurgence

The Lobster

Love & Friendship

Maggie’s Plan

The Man Who Knew Infinity

The Shallows

X-Men: Apocalypse

Categories
Arts

‘Listening Spirit’ binds sustainability to art at Second Street Gallery

Kate Daughdrill and Patrick Costello’s “Listening Spirit” exhibition opens on Friday, with a medicinal food/tea pairing experience and a brief artist talk at Second Street Gallery. Photo: Courtesy of artist

Like many young urbanites, New York- based artist Patrick Costello finds satisfaction in a can.

“I started to get interested in canning when I was 19 and started growing food,” he says. “The knowledge was taught to me by my mom and my grandma, and it became a way of rooting myself to patterns that have sustained other generations of my family.”

At the time, Costello lived in Charlottesville, where he graduated from UVA with a studio art degree and co-founded C’ville Foodscapes, a worker-owned edible landscaping cooperative. He began making pieces related to canning food and preserving and arranging them in a color spectrum.

“My grandma wrote me this note that I still carry around with me,” says Costello. “It said, ‘I’m so glad you’re doing this, and I think it’s great that you’re using it in your art. Your great-grandmother would be so proud of you.’”

Canning may be trendy, but the practice marks a profound lifestyle shift for artists like Costello and Kate Daughdrill, collaborators on Second Street Gallery’s latest exhibition, “Listening Spirit: 5 Years of Burnside Farm.”

The pair met in Charlottesville where, Costello says, “we started to learn about growing food and building community.”

They met again at Burnside Farm, Daughdrill’s six-lot urban farm/art gallery on the east side of Detroit, where Costello spent three weeks as the farm’s first visiting artist. Elbows-deep in preserves, they decided to collaborate on a color spectrum specifically for Burnside.

“Suddenly we were like, ‘What other things could make colors?’” Costello says. “Kate was getting into herbal medicine, so we made tinctures out of plants that were growing wild around the garden.”

The expanding spectrum of plant-based material led to a full-blown exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.

“We translated a lot of the visual and emotional aesthetic of my home into the museum space,” Daughdrill says. “We built these beautiful canning shelves and made a holy water station with beautiful, fresh, pure water we collected directly from the earth and blessed. All these visuals and experiential components connect to the magic of Burnside Farm and the story of growth and healing that that place seems to inspire.”

“Listening Spirit: 5 Years of Burnside Farm” expands the concept further, bringing to Charlottesville an installation that features shelves of jarred foods arranged in a color spectrum, a circular gathering table for sharing artist-made food and teas, a holy water station, plants, herbal medicines, ceremonial objects, an attuning station and the sounds and scents of Burnside. In addition to work by Costello and Daughdrill, the show includes contributions by artists Ali Lapetina, Phreddy Wischusen, the Right Brothers and The Printmakers Left.

The exhibition captures an intrinsic duality present at Burnside Farm: high-energy community activity and meditative calm.

“In the big room [at Second Street Gallery], we’ve got jars and food and stories and photos of Burnside,” Daughdrill says. “Then you move into the smaller room, which will be filled with wild grasses, and sit on a huge meditation cushion under a 7-foot dome made of woven yarrow and suspended from the sky.”

This attuning station highlights a deeper theme at play in “Listening Spirit.”

“The spaces we live in can help us adopt a posture of openness or invocation and make us more receptive to the healing energy of connection that’s all around us,” Daughdrill says.

That theme explains the exhibition’s relevance no matter where it goes.

“These processes—gardening, canning, knowing your neighbors, working with diverse groups of people, finding ways of creating nurturing spaces—those are the basic skills for building what cities might look like in the future,” Daughdrill says.

Communities like Burnside Farm nourish participants on a spiritual level, too.

“I thought I was working on Burnside, but it was transforming me,” says Daughdrill. “By learning these more essential skills, I found I connected even more deeply to myself.”

Costello is quick to jump in. “I’ve never had a religious practice, personally, and I’ve never been affiliated with a church in my adult life, but going to Burnside taught me that I didn’t have to be afraid of the word spirituality or of a spiritual practice,” he says. “Those things manifest in our relationships, in the energy of communing with plants and working with your hands in the soil.

“You took the time to start the tomato seedlings and transplant those outside of your front door. Then each day you go out and maybe you water them with water from a rain barrel. When you think about sustaining this other life, you start to think about your health in relation to that plant. A weird dialogue happens between you and this growing plant.

“Then it starts to fruit and you have a zillion tomatoes…in that bounty there’s real health, because you don’t need 20 dollars to go get a fancy meal. You just have a fancy meal.

“Then every August or September, you take the large amount of energy stored in these tomatoes that you helped create, and…on the coldest day of February when you’re just like, ‘All I want is summer air and warmth and comfort,’ you get a taste of that. To me, that’s spirituality.”

Categories
Arts

ARTS Pick: Cville’s Purple All Stars

Local band pays tribute to the late Prince in a show that benefits the Music Resource Center. Photo: Courtesy of artists

When the world lost music phenom Prince on April 21, the tributes were instantaneous thanks to social media and the emotional connection he inspired in his fans. Cville’s Purple All Stars took time to contemplate the loss, brushed up on the superstar’s greatest hits and will put their reverence into a concert to benefit the Music Resource Center. Guitarist Jamal Millner says the show is a celebration of Prince’s many talents (and his fashion sense). “He combined the innovations of James Brown with the pop sensibilities of Chuck Berry, the ferocity of Jimi Hendrix and a once-in-a-lifetime singing voice,” says Millner.

Friday 7/1. $10-12, 7:30pm. The Jefferson Theater, 110 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. 245-4980.

Categories
Arts

July First Fridays Guide

Photo: Eze Amos

Textile artist Tobiah Mundt captures and encases her fears and anxieties in sculpted form by exploring different methods of textiles, primarily needle felting. Her creatures, made from raw wool combined with natural and man-made objects, convey and illicit emotion. Mundt’s wool sculptures are poked thousands of times with a barbed needle, compacting the wool into its final form. “It’s therapy,” says Mundt of the process. The meticulous and repetitious technique informs her work, allowing her to enter an almost hypnotic state in which she deals with and passes on her emotions to the wool.

Tobiah Mundt’s needle-felted sculpture exhibit, “Otherness,” opens on July 1 at the Welcome Gallery at New City Arts.

First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many Downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions. To list an exhibit, please send information two weeks before opening to arts@c-ville.com. 

First Fridays: July 1

C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St. “Spirit Animals,” featuring water-color, acrylics, colored pencil and pastel works by Flame Bilyue. 6-8pm.

The Garage 250 First St. N. “Some times” featuring new prints, drawings and paintings by Nina Thomas. 5-7:30pm.

Graves International Art 306 E. Jefferson St. “Masters of Contemporary Art,” featuring limited edition original prints, exhibition posters, stone lithography, drypoint etching and more by Ellsworth Kelly, Salvador Dali, Georges Braque, Damien Hirst, David Hockney, Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, Sam Francis, Philip Pearlstein, John Chamberlain, Andy Warhol, Gerald Laing, Joan Miro, Josef Albers and more. 5-8pm.

IX Art Park 963 Second St., SE. An exhibit featuring sci-fi themed oil paintings by Jesse Timmons. 7pm.

McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. “ə-ˈtōn-mənt,” featuring works by Peter Allen in the Sarah B. Smith Gallery and “McGuffey Members Summer Group Show,” featuring various works in the Lower Halls and Upper Halls. 5:30pm-7:30pm.

Mudhouse Coffee 213 W. Main St. “Liberty, Freedom and the Human Condition,” featuring acrylic works by Daniel Curnutte. 6pm.

Second Street Gallery 115 Second St., SE. “Listening Spirit: 5 Years of Burnside Farm,” featuring collaborative works by Kate Daughdrill and Patrick Costello. 5:30-7:30pm.

Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St. “Southwest Canyon Matrix,” featuring acrylics and mineral ink by Caroline Nillson. 6-8pm.

Welcome Gallery at New City Arts 114 Third St. NE. “Otherness,” featuring needle-felted sculpture by Tobiah Mundt. 5-7:30pm.

Other Exhibits

Art on the Trax 5784 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Floating in the Summertime,” featuring works by Alexandria Searls, with a reception on Saturday, July 9 at 4pm.

The Fralin Museum at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Fish and Fowl,” featuring sculptures, paintings, and prints; “Casting Shadows: Selections from the Permanent Collection,” featuring the FUNd, “Art Lovers,” featuring a collection of prints curated by Rebecca Schoenthal and Alicia Dissinger, “Icons,” by Andy Warhol, “On the Fly,” featuring sculpture by Patrick Dougherty and “Oriforme,” featuring sculpture by Jean Arp.

Hotcakes 1137 Emmet St., N. “Virginia Spring,” featuring oil paintings by Randy Baskerville.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Syria Before the Storm,” featuring photographs by Ed Kashi.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church 717 Rugby Rd. “Blaze of Color,” featuring paintings by the BozART Fine Art Collective.

The Women’s Initiative 1101 East High St. “Summer Landscapes,” featuring a collection of 24 spring and summer views by the BozART Fine Art Collective, with a reception on Sunday, July 10 at 1pm.

 

Categories
News

Elevated space: Inside Oliver’s Treehouse

Ceilings soar and light floods in Ten Flavors’ new digs in the Treehouse, a space designed for designers. STEPHEN BARLING

Oliver Kuttner doesn’t do bland. And he doesn’t like building the same thing over and over. His  latest project, the Treehouse on the corner of Garrett and Second SE streets, is testament to that.

“I wanted to do a small building,” he says. “I wanted to make that corner interesting.”

The result, beside his Glass Building, is a 17,000-square-foot, three-story, light-filled structure that soars into the trees.

“I like playing with elevation,” says Kuttner. “You get more for less.” That was a lesson he learned with the Terraces on the Downtown Mall, which has four stories—and nine levels. The Treehouse is a three-story building with a mezzanine and basement, but inside, with its tall ceilings, it feels larger.

Ten Flavors’ Jim Gibson is a longtime tenant of Kuttner’s, who sold the building the design co-op had occupied for 30 years in 2013. But the designers had gotten used to tall ceilings and being on the mall. “We looked within a one-mile radius and couldn’t find anything,” says Gibson. “Finding open space is hard. Finding open space with tall ceilings is really hard. We were used to soaring ceilings.”

When Kuttner said he was going to build what would become the Treehouse, says Gibson, “We had no idea what this building would look like. It was a leap of faith.”

Keeping the faith paid off with a location two blocks from the mall, 16′ to 18′ ceilings and walls of windows with natural light flooding into a building that is quite unlike anything else in town. “It’s a funny, polarizing design,” says Gibson, and the reaction to it has been mixed.

“Some say it’s the coolest thing in Charlottesville,” he says. “Others said, ‘Who designed that?’” For the designers at Ten Flavors, says Gibson, “We’re all familiar with the shock of the new.”

Gibson describes the “wildly creative way” Kuttner went about building, redoing something if it didn’t work out. Ten Flavors occupies the second floor, and he says the space on the third floor that will hold WillowTree’s 150 or so employees is “even more quixotic.”

Kuttner wanted to prove that there could be height without an intimidating mass at the sidewalk, and he says there was some experimentation, with architect Gate Pratt helping in the early stages.

Initially Kuttner wanted the exterior to be a living surface of plants, but he backed off that idea. “I was opening myself up to a lot of maintenance problems,” he concedes. And with his goal to spend half his time in Europe, says Kuttner, “I need to get away from maintenance.”

As for cost, he says, “I have no idea. It depends on how much you value your time.” One area in which he invested heavily was thermal mass. “I spent a huge amount on insulation,” he says.

The Treehouse and an apartment building—the micro apartments to which the city gave a cold shoulder—will be some of his last projects here, says Kuttner. He’ll do the apartments by right with 80 units. “It’ll be extremely popular,” he predicts. And he’s selling land behind the Treehouse, which will become a nine-story office building.

Speaking of mass, that project, with four floors of parking and five of offices on top of 200 parking spaces, is squeezed in behind the Treehouse and Glass Building, and shaves off the back section of the latter, according to plans from Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer. It also turns the parking spaces in front of The Bluegrass Grill & Bakery and The Bebedero into a plaza for seating.

While the parking/office nine-story combo inevitably will change some of the views from the Treehouse, for those inhabiting what Gibson calls Kuttner’s “strange but beautiful” building, there’s a certain joy in coming to work in something that’s not a low-ceiling cubicle. “The thing I’m most grateful for,” says Gibson, “is the opportunity to get a space this out-of-the-ordinary.”

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View from above. Matteus Frankovich/SkycladAP

Categories
Living

Southern Crescent makes Cajun-Creole debut in Belmont and more restaurant news

The muffuletta (and po’ boy) sandwiches are made with bread sourced from Leidenheimer Baking Company in New Orleans. Photo: Tom McGovern

Anyone who pays attention to Belmont will tell you the same thing: This has been a long time coming. Lucinda Ewell and her husband, Ian Day, first conceptualized Southern Crescent in 2009, when they started dreaming about turning their New Orleans garden-esque Hinton Avenue home into a restaurant. Seven years later, after successfully rezoning the property and undertaking an extensive remodel of the house, Ewell and Day officially opened the doors of Southern Crescent.

“It’s been a very slow, soft opening for us, which we’ve enjoyed,” says Ewell, adding that the space turned out exactly how she and her husband pictured it. “From the renovation to the opening, every step has been fun.”

Ewell, who grew up in New Orleans and spent several years with Day and their son on a 31-foot sailboat in the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic and Haiti, has worked in the food industry for years. So it made sense that her next business venture would be a restaurant inspired by the Cajun and island Creole flavors she knows and loves. Chef de cuisine Taylor Pitts helps Ewell in the kitchen, and Day runs the operational side of the business.

Lucinda Ewell and Ian Day combine influences from Ewell’s hometown, New Orleans with time spent in the Bahamas, Dominican Republic and Haiti to create their Cajun-Creole menu. Photo: Tom McGovern
Lucinda Ewell and Ian Day combine influences from Ewell’s hometown, New Orleans with time spent in the Bahamas, Dominican Republic and Haiti to create their Cajun-Creole menu. Photo: Tom McGovern

Ewell and Day finally received their ABC license last weekend, making the dinner menu and a selection of beer, wine and cider available. The menu started off small but mighty—oysters on the half-shell, gumbo and a selection of po’ boys, plus sides and starters like salad and heirloom tomato gazpacho.

All the seafood is from the U.S. and wild-caught, and Ewell says she uses local and regional purveyors to source the rest of the ingredients. She even handwrites the menu each morning based on what’s available that day, and dinner entrées like fresh fish, Bahamian fried chicken and New Orleans-style barbecue shrimp will rotate depending on what’s available locally.

A non-local exception on the menu is the bread they use for the po’ boys and muffulettas. Sourced from Leidenheimer Baking Company in the heart of New Orleans, the soft, pillowy French loaf is the only acceptable bread when it comes to po’ boys, Ewell says, and she swears even the most skeptical Louisianan will feel right at home with these sandwiches. The lightly battered catfish is tender and flaky with a little kick, and the housemade thinly cut purple potato chips round out the platter. Other po’ boy options include fried shrimp and fried oysters.

Lunch and dinner are both available now, along with a small selection of booze, on the garden-style brick patio. The inside dining room and full bar with cocktails aren’t up and running quite yet, but Ewell says the goal is to be fully operational in about a month.

Good food, good cause

The Charlottesville 29 blog writer and C-VILLE columnist C. Simon Davidson as well as the other guys at law firm McGuireWoods are collaborating with more than two dozen local restaurants to benefit the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank. Each of the eateries on Davidson’s list of his top 29 restaurants in town is creating a signature dining experience to be auctioned off, and the proceeds will go directly to the food bank, which feeds an average of 118,000 people per month.

For more information about the restaurants and auctions, visit charlottesville29.com.

Farewell

“You’ve got the best job in town.”

As a food and drink writer, I get that a lot. And I can’t say I disagree—yes, my job involves sampling dishes and cocktails on a pretty regular basis. But it also involves sitting down with chefs, farmers, restaurant owners and mixologists who have so much passion for what they do you can (literally) taste it.

When I moved here in 2011 and showed up at C-VILLE Weekly to pester then-editor Giles Morris for a freelance gig, Charlottesville was foreign to me. I couldn’t tell you the name of a single city councilor, where to find the best Sunday morning Bloody Mary or how to get to Monticello. Stonefield hadn’t opened yet, and I didn’t know the difference between Belmont and Fry’s Spring.

Four-and-a-half years later, I don’t claim to be a food expert by any stretch of the imagination—just a reporter who knocks on a lot of chefs’ doors and has a tendency to pepper friends and visitors with (mostly useless) knowledge about every restaurant we pass.

As I wind down at C-VILLE and prepare to move to Richmond, where I’ll take on the role of digital editor at Virginia Living magazine, I can’t help but reflect on how Charlottesville and I have both grown and evolved since 2011. I could prattle on for pages about the affection I have for this town and this paper, but I’ll spare you.

Thanks for reading, Charlottesville. If anyone needs me, I’ll be eating my way through Richmond.

Categories
News

Missing doctors: Patient seeks records after clinic closes

Dr. Zachary Bush, right, opened alternative clinic Revolution Health Center in Scottsville. Dr. Martin Katz was a partner there, and both told their patients: “You have the power to heal yourself.” John Robinson

When a medical practice in Scottsville shut down and relocated to Charlottesville, a lupus-stricken patient was frantic, thinking 15 years’ worth of her medical records had vanished.

Jennie Hamilton-Thorne of Keene says she last visited a doctor at Revolution Health Center in December and was not notified the practice was moving in January. When she went back again in late April, the clinic had closed. She says she learned from Scottsville Pharmacy that the “doctors had left town.”

“I sent an e-mail in May, asking for my records because I did not wish to travel out to Charlottesville,” says Hamilton-Thorne. “I received no reply, so I called and left messages. I even wrote them.”

She says she received no response, leading her to believe that her doctor had gone missing and the practice was ignoring her.

“I hadn’t seen him in weeks or heard from anyone, so I involved the Virginia Board of Medicine to help obtain my records,” says Hamilton-Thorne. She learned that her physician had an address change. The board also assisted her in a written request for her records.

One of Hamilton-Thorne’s doctors wasn’t missing at all—but instead, had left the practice. Dr. Martin Katz is now with Downtown Family Health Care in Charlottesville.

According to the Code of Virginia, physicians are required to transfer patient records when a practice relocates, is sold or closes.

In an e-mail to Hamilton-Thorne, Revolution says it attempted to notify patients of its move starting in late 2015, and that it changed its phone message, posted signs, sent e-mails and in some cases letters to patients without e-mail.

Hamilton-Thorne notes that she received her first response from Revolution Health Center after contacting C-VILLE, and she found an unsigned e-mail lurking in her junk mail June 22 that offered a brief apology followed by an explanation of Revolution’s attempt to notify patients of its move.

Revolution says it mailed Hamilton-Thorne’s records June 21 after receiving her e-mail request and before C-VILLE contacted the clinic.

Revolution says it did not receive Hamilton-Thorne’s previous e-mails and phone calls. “I do not remember receiving a phone call nor voice message from you in May either,” writes Stacey Forren in an e-mail to Hamilton-Thorne.

“A written medical records request must be received by Revolution Health Center to have a patient’s medical records transferred either to themselves or another physician’s office,” Forren says.

All medical record requests will be processed within 48 hours upon receipt, she says. Revolution Health Center will not e-mail records to patients or other physicians’ offices; however, records can be faxed or mailed via the United States Postal Service. Patients may also pick up their records from the office if they’ve made prior arrangements to do so.

Hamilton-Thorne consulted Revolution’s website, which says the grand opening of the new center is anticipated in mid-2016 and provides details of the location of the temporary clinic.

C-VILLE reached out to Dr. Zachary Bush, one of the senior founding partners at Revolution Health Center. “At this time he is not giving any interviews with the local media as the transition to Charlottesville is not complete,” says an e-mail signed by the Revolution Health Team.

On June 25, Hamilton-Thorne received some of her records and says she’s continuing to lobby for the rest.

Categories
News

No emergency: Judge rejects parking center petition for special receiver

After a judge denies the Charlottesville Parking Center’s petition for a third party to run the garage, CPC general manager Dave Norris says there are much bigger challenges facing parking downtown than one garage. Staff photo

A judge heard Charlottesville Parking Center’s emergency petition to appoint a receiver to run the Water Street Garage June 27, three days before the parking center’s contract with the city expired, and he concluded such a move wasn’t justified.

“This is an emergency of your own making,” said Judge Rick Moore in Charlottesville Circuit Court. “I don’t think there’s a compelling need for the court to intervene.”

The Water Street Parking Garage Condominium Association, the organization that owns the garage, has been deadlocked since late last year when its board, with four seats controlled by the city and four by the Mark Brown-owned CPC, was unable to approve a budget with the higher rates desired by Brown, and has operated without a budget since December 31.

CPC’s own agreement to manage the Water Street Garage expires June 30. “We are standing at the precipice of July 1,” said CPC attorney Christopher Malone.

The city, represented by Richmond attorney Tom Wolf, said the garage had been operating just fine the past six months, the city had okayed expenses, and there was no emergency and no evidence of irreparable harm.

Wolf said the Water Street Parking Garage Condominium Association’s articles of incorporation say owners do “not contemplate pecuniary gain or profit to the members.” Brown testified the city earned $596,000 in profit last year from the garage.

“We’re not saying there’s no profit,” said Wolf. “We’re saying the purpose is not to maximize profit.”

Brown testified he did not accept a city offer to implement the rate increase he wanted over years, instead of in 2016. “It was not acceptable,” said Brown, who has filed suit against the city contending he’s being forced to operate parking at below-market rates.

According to Wolf, Brown’s lawsuit is based on the “bogus theory” the city and CPC were involved in a joint venture and the city was breaching its fiduciary duty by not trying to maximize profits from the garage.

And while Brown, as a condo owner, has a fiduciary responsibility to keep the garage open, said Wolf, there were plenty of other companies that could manage the garage. “It’s not rocket science to run a garage,” he said. Ironically, the city earlier had challenged former mayor Dave Norris’ qualifications to become the parking center’s general manager.

The hearing came after the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville sent a letter June 23 asking the city and Brown to knock off the “extreme threats” like eminent domain and closing the garage.

The next day, Norris sent a letter to the city offering a resolution in which the city could set whatever parking rates it wished—as long as it compensated CPC for lost revenues resulting from rates “lower than what the market would reasonably bear.”

City Councilor Bob Fenwick said that’s an offer the city has seen before. “That was old news repackaged,” he said after the hearing.

Also present at the latest parking wars skirmish were Susan Payne and Joan Fenwick, who rallied downtown businesses to petition City Council to not sell its shares in the garage to Brown.

susanPayneCraigBrown
Susan Payne and City Attorney Craig Brown after the city prevails in court. Staff photo

Up until a June 2 meeting hosted by the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville at Violet Crown with 60 riled attendees, Norris says he thought the city and CPC were on the verge of a settlement. “Mark and CPC agreed to all of the conditions the city set forth,” including maintaining the validation system, honoring the monthly parking contracts in place and maintaining his ownership in the garage until the ground lease expires in 2024, says Norris.

The city offered to sell its 629 spaces in the garage for $10 million. CPC offered the appraised value of around $4 million plus a 20 percent premium, says Norris.

According to Norris, Mayor Mike Signer asked Brown to not send representation to the meeting. “He specifically asked Mark Brown to pull me from the meeting,” says Norris. He didn’t go, he says, “as a good-faith gesture because we believed the basic terms had been reached,” a decision he now calls a mistake.

Signer referred a request for comment to the city’s attorney. Wolf said he was not at that meeting.

Wolf also disputes that they were near a settlement. “Absolutely not the case,” he says. “There was absolutely no indication that we think this is a good offer we were inclined to take.” Had Brown offered the $10 million the city wanted, “that would have been a good offer,” says the attorney.

Instead, a “spooked” City Council voted June 6 to offer to buy out Brown’s spaces in the garage, a surprise move to CPC, according to Norris. “Basically it’s a story of how the city snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.”

Along with a June 8 offer to buy CPC’s share was a threat that if CPC didn’t sell, the city would begin eminent domain proceedings.

In a phone call June 24, Wolf backed off that. “The city has not irrevocably committed to eminent domain,” he says. “All we said is we were going to take the first steps.”

Fenton says she thinks eminent domain is a reasonable solution “once Mark Brown said he was going to shut down the garage.”

However, not everyone supports what Norris calls the “nuclear option” to settle the parking rate dispute. Says Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce President Timothy Hulbert, “Eminent domain is a hammer that isn’t necessary.”

The next round in the ongoing saga is June 30, when the deadlocked Water Street condo association meets to make a plan to run the garage. Stay tuned.

Categories
Arts

The imminent rise of the Will Overman Band

Drawing comparisons to The Avett Brothers and Jason Isbell, the Will Overman Band has generated a huge fanbase and lots of buzz about what’s next. See them at Fridays After Five this week. Photo: Publicity photo

While playing an album release show at the Southern on June 4, the five members of local amped-up folk-rock outfit Will Overman Band stepped off the stage and into the crowd to perform an acoustic rendition of the song “Ode to Virginia.”

“We plopped down in the middle of the crowd and they formed a circle around us,” recalls frontman Will Overman. “We were all touching and all sweaty, and we were as much a part of the crowd as we were musicians. People were belting the words—I knew they knew our lyrics…but I didn’t know it would go that well. It was glorious,” he says with a wide smile.

Musicians and crowd alike beamed as they sang, “Take me back to Virginia! / Back before I had a name / Lay me in a golden field on a mountainside / Let the blue sky fill my veins / Let the James carry me home / And wash away all my sins / Like an old dogwood I’ll die where I began.”

The bouncy tune, with its fingerpicked guitar and just enough twinkle and twang, is the perfect opener for the Will Overman Band’s eponymous full-length debut, an 11-track love letter to the Commonwealth of Virginia, its landscapes, its people and the stories therein.

“We draw a lot of inspiration from where we’re from, and we love our roots,” says Overman, the band’s primary songwriter, who, inspired by John Prine, The Avett Brothers and other Americana artists with their hearts on their sleeves, picked up the guitar at 17 and began writing songs to work out what he was feeling.

Now 22, Overman continues to find songs through experience, and relies on his bandmates of more than two years—vocalist Brittney Wagner, drummer Christopher Helms, guitarist Daniel McCarthy and bassist J. Wilkerson—to help him bring those stories to life so they resonate with a wide audience.

Earlier this year, the group recorded Will Overman Band with producer and engineer Dave Stipe at Monkeyclaus Recording Studio in Roseland, Virginia. While the band prides itself on its energetic live show, Overman says the group was eager to get into the studio and lay down the tracks they’d been road-testing in venues up and down the East Coast. They also revisit some of the songs featured on their January 2015 EP, Die Where I Began.

The result is a record that glances back at the band’s past while casting a sharp eye toward its future.

Some of the songs on the record, like “Assateague Island,” “Trail Song” and “Son,” have been around for a while. Overman wrote “Son” six or seven years ago, when he was still a teenager, and says he’d lost the drive to play it live, because it no longer felt like an accurate representation. All of that changed in the studio.

Overman says that when Stipe recommended adding pedal steel guitar and starting the song in a different way, it helped him hear the song anew and understand that it’s still relevant—he’s still a son, he’s just moving forward on the journey.

In a Will Overman Band song, even the most mundane things—such as dancing in daisy pants, reading history books and being bit by bugs on Assateague Island—contain great beauty and wonder. The band aims to “give the common story an epic feel” by putting it into poetry and setting it to music, says Overman.

Many of the stories on Will Overman Band are indeed common. The fivesome sings about loving one’s home (“Ode to Virginia”) and wanderlust (“Gravedigger”), about fading romantic relationships (“All I Say”), about first cars and the loss of innocence (“Adventures with Sunny”), and encourages the listener to find deeper meaning in seemingly average experiences.

On “AHQ” and “Fix My Girl,” the band chronicles a not-so-common story: Overman’s girlfriend’s battle with cancer. The story itself is extraordinary and deeply personal, but the feeling is universal: It’s a horrible, devastating thing to watch a loved one suffer and to feel powerless in your ability to help her.

Overman says that listeners are often surprised to find out these two songs, the upbeat “AHQ” in particular, are about cancer. “It’s like The Smiths’ approach, where you put really grim lyrics over a happy melody,” Overman says. With the album release, Overman hopes fans will spend time with the lyrics, listen carefully and discover the songs anew.

And although the album may be finished, it’s only the beginning for the band. “This is in no way a time for relaxation,” says Wagner. “If anything, it makes me want to focus more time on making new music.” Overman agrees. “I’m glad [these songs] are recorded, and we can move on and write a fresh crop of new songs that represent us, as a band, right now.”

Will Overman Band wraps up with “Pilot Mountain,” a song about the bittersweetness of life on the road. “Pilot Mountain watches over me / Like a mother watches her kin / Though she stays while I’m moving on / I know I’ll see her again,” the song begins, echoing the band’s journeys back and forth across the Virginia/North Carolina border. “Is it a sunrise or a Shell sign?” And then, “Sometimes you gotta rock an empty room,” Overman and Wagner sing in wearily amazed unison. But there’s hope in the music and the voices—they’re playing music for an audience, and, for them, there’s nothing better.

The song ends, fittingly, with a jammy vamp-out “and leaves an open mind to everything,” Overman says. “That’s where we are. We’re looking forward, and we know all that we have to do.”

–Erin O’Hare

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Danielle Collins clinches women’s singles tennis title, and other sports news

The Virginia Cavaliers baseball team, which only returned three seniors, fell short of back-to-back national championships. Photo: Jeff Lack/ICON SMI BAJ/Jeff Lack/ICON SMI/Newscom

Baseball

The year after their championship-winning season, UVA looked to repeat last year’s success. However, the Cavaliers faced the challenge of a young squad with only three returning seniors going into the 2016 season.

After a rough start against East Carolina, UVA picked up momentum winning eight of 10 games in the first half of March. Then the Cavaliers fell into a slump, losing eight of 11 games between March 26 and April 10, which included a 15-0 defeat against Louisville.

UVA lost to both Clemson and Wake Forest in the ACC tournament and turned their sights to the Charlottesville Regional to qualify for the College World Series. There, UVA defeated William & Mary 17-4, but then fell to East Carolina sending them to a rematch with the Tribe. William & Mary upset the Cavaliers 5-4, ending UVA’s season.

Golf

The UVA men’s golf team began play in September with the DICK’s Sporting Goods Collegiate Challenge Cup. The cup is a challenge between ACC and SEC schools, a competition between the two conferences. UVA led the pack of teams throughout most of the tournament and finished tied for first place with Vanderbilt, helping the ACC take down the SEC for the second time in three years.

In the ACC tournament, UVA finished the first day in third place but then slipped during the final two days of competition. The Cavaliers finished the ACC tournament in eighth place after going six-over-par across the three-day tournament.

Finally, in the NCAA tournament, UVA elevated their play and finished 22nd overall while Derek Bard finished 17th individually.

The women’s golf team dominated the ACC tournament, leading by at least five strokes through all three days. The Cavaliers finished the tournament 11 strokes above Wake Forest, the runner-up.

But the NCAA tournament did not prove to be so easy for UVA. The Cavaliers fell to Washington, the eventual champions, in the NCAA quarterfinals.

Tennis

The men’s tennis squad dominated the 2016 season with a 30-4 record. They finished with an 11-1 record in the ACC although lost 4-3 to Wake Forest in the ACC tournament final.

However, with their eyes pressed on the NCAA tournament, UVA entered the competition as the No. 1 overall seed. The Cavaliers swept opponents Florida and California in the quarterfinals and semifinals respectively. UVA faced 11-seed Oklahoma in the final. The Hoos made short work of the Sooners as they cruised to a 4-1 victory and an NCAA title.

The women’s team also had a successful 2016 season with a 19-11 regular season record. UVA fell to top-seeded North Carolina 4-1 in the ACC semifinals.

However, in the third round of the NCAA tournament, UVA and UNC met again. This time the Cavaliers conquered the third-seeded Tar Heels 4-2. In the quarterfinals UVA met Vanderbilt, the tournament’s six seed. The Commodores ended UVA’s season with a 4-2 victory.

Despite the loss in team play, senior Danielle Collins continued into the women’s singles tournament as a two seed. Collins defeated five opponents to reach the championship match against top-seeded Hayley Carter of North Carolina. Despite the underdog title, Collins dominated Carter, winning in just two sets. This championship was Collins’ second NCAA singles title in three years, making her the seventh woman ever to win two NCAA singles titles.

Rowing

The UVA rowing team dominated their season, winning the ACC championships and finishing third in the NCAA tournament.

Lacrosse

The typical dynasty of UVA men’s lacrosse broke this year. The team struggled through the regular season, finishing with a 7-8 record, failing to qualify for post-season play. Although UVA has one of the toughest lacrosse schedules in the country, their 0-4 ACC record was shocking to the program. The Cavaliers’ long-time head coach, Dom Starsia, left the program after the regular season and Lars Tiffany, former player under Starsia’s guidance, will take the reins for the 2017 season.

The women’s team performed slightly better with an even 9-9 record. In the postseason, UVA narrowly lost to Duke 9-8 in the ACC quarterfinals. Then, UVA fell to Johns Hopkins 12-10 in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Softball

The UVA softball program suffered a tough 18-33 season as the team failed to produce runs. A low-scoring offense was the cause for the Cavaliers’ difficult season. UVA failed to reach the post season, finishing third to last in the ACC. The Cavaliers named Joanna Hardin as their new head coach for the 2017 season.

Swim and Dive

The men’s swim and dive team finished the ACC tournament in sixth place. However, in the NCAA tournament, the Hoos exceeded expectations and placed 28th overall.

A typical contender, the women’s squad dominated the ACC tournament with 1332.5 points and a first-place finish. In the NCAA championship, UVA finished fifth overall while Georgia took home the title.

Outdoor Track and Field

After a typical regular season, the men’s track and field team finished in third place in the ACC tournament. The Hoos then finishing eighth overall with 20 points in the NCAA championship meet.

As for the women’s team, they started out the ACC tournament in first place but slipped to fourth by the end of the tournament, failing to qualify for the NCAA tournament.