Artist-in-residence Damien Shen’s “Self-Portrait #2” is on display at Kluge-Ruhe through December 18. Courtesy of the artist
Like many creatives, Damien Shen spent most of his adult life focused on building a career instead of a formal art practice.
But in 2013, the South Australia native and current Kluge-Ruhe artist-in-residence realized he had a calling. He just needed to work out what it was.
“I did this journey down the east coast of Australia and went to pretty much every gallery in our contemporary space I could find in a two-week period,” Shen says. “I just needed to try and work out what it all meant to be an artist.”
A descendant of Ngarrindjeri and Chinese bloodlines, Shen was inspired by fellow Australian aboriginal artists Tony Albert and Vernon Ah Kee.
“When I saw [Ah Kee’s charcoal portraits], I was quite overwhelmed,” says Shen. “I just sat there in front of it and thought, ‘Man, this is amazing.’ I wondered if I could still draw, and if maybe I could draw like that. And I thought, ‘Maybe one day I can have my own exhibition.’”
Shen enrolled in a three-day charcoal portraiture workshop. On the third day, he received word that his aboriginal grandmother, Charlotte, passed away.
“That really was the catalyst to begin drawing a lot,” he says.
Shen focused intensely on developing his technique. Through drawings, paintings and lithographs, he committed to mastering a level of technical excellence that would allow him to break the rules. His first project focused on family genealogy, sourcing his maternal uncle’s and aunts’ memories as the last generation to experience growing up on Raukkan, a Ngarrindjeri mission south of Adelaide. Much like the American Indians, Australian aboriginal men and women suffered intergenerational trauma and cultural disenfranchisement under the colonial regime, including genocide, segregation, dispossession, marginalization and assimilation.
During his research, Shen discovered that the remains of more than 500 Ngarrindjeri people had been stolen by William Ramsay Smith, an Australian coroner, and sent to a scientist in Scotland for comparative anatomy.
“[Smith] used to go out and actually look for remains down near the Coorong,” says Shen. “There’s a lot of sand dunes and stuff out there, so the wind would expose parts of the grounds and sometimes expose remains. Other times he would dig them up. When he died in 1937, he had 182 skulls in his house. That was his own personal collection.”
Shen’s current exhibition at Kluge-Ruhe includes portraits of the perpetrators of these crimes, as well as a portrait of Boorborrowie, a Ngarrindjeri man whose remains were later repatriated to Australia.
“I remember as a younger lad there was this event at Camp Coorong,” Shen says. “There was a ceremony and all these white crates. …Huge amounts of remains were being released by the museum in Edinburgh and brought back to South Australia.”
In addition to showcasing precise and fluid portraiture styles, Shen’s exhibit “On the Fabric of the Ngarrindjeri Body” references 19th century scientific anatomical renderings of the human form. The show’s titular work echoes an illustration from Andreas Vesalius’ medical book, De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body). The text is an apt reference point for Shen’s themes, as its clinical accuracy objectifies the physical body much like colonials, coroners and scientists dehumanized Australian aboriginal men, women and their remains.
Shen’s etching reclaims this spirit by inserting Vesalius’ version of the male form into a natural landscape and superimposing iconic Ngarrindjeri body designs, ritualistic paraphernalia and the face, hair and beard of Major Sumner (a Ngarrindjeri elder and Shen’s Uncle Moogy) in ceremonial dress.
In his series, “On the Fabric of the Ngarrindjeri Body—Volume II,” inspired by Irving Penn’s ethnographic photography, Shen sought to create a studio scene that combined hero shots with behind-the-scenes candids of himself and his uncle painting in the traditional Ngarrindjeri way. “These are images that could have been shot back in the 1800s but they were done a couple of years ago,” says Shen.
He wanted, he says, to highlight the tension between gazing in and observing a culture, “this part of Australian culture that is lost and I believe struggling to stay alive,” and the contemporary reality of cultural preservation and revivification.
“It’s very difficult to understand unless you’re from those areas that have been able to hold a cultural practice through time,” he says. “All we really have are old photos and illustrations by guys who were traveling through in the 1800s.”
Shen says the experience of actually painting his skin for the first time was surreal—and very intimate.
“It’s not an initiation,” he says. “I’m not going to pretend it’s anything like that. For me, it meant a lot to be able to do it with Uncle Moogy.”
Shen sounds surprised that The National Gallery of Australia asked to acquire these intimate moments. But these photos, in addition to his first volume of work, earned him an avalanche of critical acclaim. In just two and a half years, the artist has been featured in 30 exhibitions around Australia, and he’s won multiple accolades, including the 2014 South Australian NAIDOC Artist of the Year Award, the 2015 Prospect Portrait Prize and the 64th Blake Prize for Emerging Artists in 2016.
Shen’s current residency at the Kluge-Ruhe is also his first.
“So many times in the last three years I’ve been pinching myself,” says Shen. “You win an award or you get accepted into a residency or this and that. Like, ‘Wow, this is the artist’s life.’ It doesn’t always go your way, but today I have this incredible view [of Charlottesville]. I have an atrium I can call my studio for the month. I’m incredibly blessed.”
Washington, D.C.-based big brass band Black Masala marches its traveling dance party onto the Levitt AMP Music Series stage to pound out gypsy funk and soul. Publicity photo
Friday is coming (we promise) and you’ll know it’s here when Washington, D.C.-based big brass band Black Masala marches its traveling dance party onto the Levitt AMP Music Series stage to pound out gypsy funk and soul. The groove machine arrives on a wave of good vibes supporting the group’s latest album, I Love You Madly, and promises to launch your weekend with an infectious, high-energy blast of joy.
Friday, October 21. Free, 8pm. IX Art Park, 522 Second St. S.E. ixartpark.com.
Matt Curreri & The Exfriends leave the clever pop behind and re-examine things through a smartly crafted rock 'n' roll lens. Photo by Martyn Kyle
Every Wednesday night after dinner, Matt Curreri, Jesse Fiske, Gerald Soriano and Brian Wilson gather in a tiny, warmly lit music studio in Fiske’s Belmont backyard.
They unpack their guitars, bass and drums, and set up mics and amps. Fiske’s Single Barrel Studio is a cozy fit for the four-piece, but they tune up. They plug in. They rock out.
For the members of Matt Curreri & The Exfriends, these precious few hours are time for self-expression, an opportunity to translate the pressures of daily life into notes, rhythms and lyrics. It’s a time to decompress—together.
Curreri, the band’s songwriter, has been writing and recording music since he was a teenager; he says it quickly became his favorite thing to do whenever he found a few solitary moments. He’s released albums every few years and played monthly shows for nearly two decades, but says, “It’s never about success. I just love writing songs. There’s always some music kicking around in my head, waiting to come out.”
When Curreri moved to Charlottesville from San Diego about three years ago, he’d just finished putting that music into a poppy horns record, Get Along, with his San Diego Exfriends. He put together a small band—sax, trumpet, Wilson on drums, former Hackensaw Boy Fiske on bass—but says it was quickly “apparent that we should not play that album with horns. We should just be a new band.”
So they ditched the horns and went fully into rock ’n’ roll.
Curreri, Fiske and Wilson played as a three-piece for a bit before Soriano joined after a birthday party conversation with Fiske, when he confessed his aspirations to be a lead guitarist (he’d played bass in a slew of local bands such as Gallatin Canyon, Ragged Mountain String Band and Faster Than Walking). “Can you rip it?” Fiske asked Soriano. “I know just the band.”
With his new Exfriends formed, Curreri, whose previous records consisted of plenty of well-written, clever pop-rock tunes in a storytelling vein (Fiske likens some of the tracks off Exercise Music for the Lonely and Joy of Life to something one might find on a Wes Anderson film soundtrack), found himself drawn more toward straightforward rock ’n’ roll, partly because he and his bandmates played great rock music together, and partly because he doesn’t feel like being clever in a cute, poppy way anymore.
Perhaps it’s because he’s getting older—he’s married, he has a kid. But, more likely, he says it’s because he can come to Single Barrel Studio every Wednesday and play loudly. The band is “very much a rock interpretation of Matt’s not-so-rock-y” songs, says Wilson, who also plays with The Can-Do Attitude. So, for the past year or so, they’ve taken songs from Get Along and rearranged them for a four-piece rock outfit.
Rock or not, all of Curreri’s songs are about life. They examine the ties that bind us, the forces that loosen those ties and the shears that sometimes sever those ties all together. The Get Along songs cover everything from band synergy and breakups (“Get Along”) to brothers going through life together (“At the Seashore”). Curreri sings about a respectable woman who sings at night, knowing that her daytime society friends would be appalled to know what she does when the sun goes down (“Mary’s Nightlife”); he also sings about love (“All the Time”), losing everything (“Almost Perfect”) and about life’s massive losses evening out over time (“The Old Meandering Song”).
“It’s a sincere expression. I’m not trying to copy a style or pretend to be a rock star,” he says. “These are just my songs.”
Curreri mostly writes from his own perspective, but always hopes that his bandmates and listeners can connect to the lyrics and music. There has to be a purpose for making such personal songs, Curreri says, “and that people connect to it allows me to spend the time doing it. It gives me a reason outside of selfish reasons.”
It also gives the music another purpose, though Fiske is quick to note that what happens in that tiny studio every Wednesday night is purpose enough. “We’re a good band,” he says. “We communicate well with each other when we play music; whether that’s perceived as being a good band on the outside isn’t as important as being in this room and feeling like we’re a good band.”
Curreri’s been writing new songs, too, as he locates new corners of life. “Gonna Freak Out” “started as chords that I was playing around my baby and came together as a song one night when everything seemed too difficult,” Curreri says. It’s a song about looking at the big decisions you’ve made for your life—marriage, parenthood—and freaking out about the fact that you’ve made them, even if they’re good decisions that make you happy. It’s a relatable song that parallels another new track, “Gonna Be a King”—we’ve all freaked out one moment only to feel like a king (or queen) the next, and vice versa. The ebb and flow of life.
Both of those tracks are played live and will likely appear on the next Matt Curreri & The Exfriends album, recorded at Single Barrel Studio and on track for release this winter. The album features cameos from some local music mainstays—Paul Curreri (Matt’s brother), Devon Sproule, Sally Rose Monnes and others—emphasizing the band’s deep ties to the local music community, both on stage and in the studio.
“Playing music can be tricky,” emotionally and technically, Curreri says. But playing “for friends, playing with other bands and artists who are your friends…it’s the ideal situation. Those are the best nights of music.”
Twenty-three home cooks and chefs entered this year’s Cville Pie Fest competition. Photo by Rammelkamp Foto
“I love the way an empty pie crust shell looks like an opportunity,” says local food writer and amateur baker Jenée Libby. “Are you going to make a sweet pie? A savory one?”
Libby recently made a sweet pie—a sweet potato speculoos pie with a gingersnap crust, to be exact—to nab top honors at this year’s Cville Pie Fest, held on October 9 at Crozet Mudhouse. She was one of 23 home cooks and chefs who submitted two pies apiece—one to be judged on overall flavor, crust, presentation and originality/traditionality; the other to be eaten by less-discerning pie fanatics.
The Cville Pie Fest’s humble beginnings stem from a 2008 “pie down” between Brian Geiger and Marijean Oldham. Each baked two pies and presented them to a panel of three judges. “I get…a tiny bit competitive, so after I won that competition, I decided it would be best to avoid temptation and just judge from then on,” says Geiger, who helped found the official contest in 2009, and notes that getting to taste all of the pies is the best part of being a judge.
But the hardest part is tasting all those pies, he says. “If you’re not careful with portions, those last 10 or so pies can be very dangerous.”
Libby’s pie, adapted from both Patti LaBelle’s Washington Post sweet potato pie recipe and Emily Hilliard’s Nothing in the House sweet potato speculoos pie, was “a well-balanced pie that tasted fantastic,” Geiger says. Turns out speculoos—spiced shortcrust biscuit—spread blends nicely with sweet potato. Kai and Quinn Fusco took home second place for their local wineberry with blackberries pie, and Priscilla Benjamin’s Banana Treat Pie was named the contest’s best gluten-free offering.
As for Libby, she’s already thinking about next year’s contest. She wants to enter the Lonely Chicago Pie from the movie Waitress (cinnamon, spices, sugar, melted chocolate and smashed berries), or maybe Mollie Cox Bryan’s Lovey-Dovey Red Velvet Pie. She also has an idea for an Arnold Palmer Pie, but hasn’t quite worked out the logistics yet. “That’s the thing with pie,” Libby says. “The only limit is your imagination.”
RECIPE
Sweet Potato Speculoos Pie
2016 Cville Pie Fest Winner
Start to finish: About 3 hours (1 ½ hours active)
Makes one 10-inch pie
Baker’s note: I used organic butter, local sweet potatoes, organic heavy cream, and pasture-raised eggs, and spices from The Spice Diva.
Ingredients
For crust:
2 cups gingersnap crumbs
5 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon sugar
Pinch of kosher salt
For filling:
3-5 large orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, scrubbed (enough for 3 full cups of purée)
Pinch of kosher salt
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon ground Vietnamese cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2-3/4 cup of speculoos (cookie butter)
Preparation
Crust:
Set oven rack to the middle position and preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Pour gingersnap crumbs in a bowl and add melted butter, sugar and salt, stirring until well mixed.
Pat the buttery crumbs into a 10-inch pie pan, pressing mixture into the bottom and sides to form a pie crust.
Place in the oven and bake until crust is lightly browned, about 10-12 minutes.
Place on a cooling rack and let cool to room temperature before adding filling.
Filing:
Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat.
Add a generous pinch of salt, then add the sweet potatoes. Reduce heat to medium and cook until the sweet potatoes are tender when pierced with a knife, about 30 to 45 minutes.
Drain the sweet potatoes, letting them fall into a colander, then run the sweet potatoes under cold water until cool enough to handle. Discard the skins and transfer the cooked sweet potatoes to a mixing bowl.
Use a hand-held electric mixer to blend until creamy and smooth. You’ll need 3 cups for filling; if there’s any excess, scoop it out to reserve for another use. Add the 7 tablespoons of melted butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs, heavy cream, and spices, and beat on medium speed until well incorporated. Pour the mixture into the crumb crust, smoothing the surface.
Warm the speculoos in a spouted measuring cup in the microwave for 20 seconds—no more! It should have the consistency of thick pancake batter, enough to pour easily, but not runny. If it’s too runny, stick the cup in the freezer for 3-5 minutes to firm it.
Now starting from the outside of the pie, pour the cookie butter in a spiral, working inward to the center. Probably two spirals total for a 10-inch pie. Then take a chopstick and drag it through the pie from the outside to the center like you’re making a marbleized cheesecake or brownies. Don’t be afraid, the surface of this pie should turn out rough like the soft rolling mountains we live in.
Bake in the middle rack until a knife inserted in the center of the filling comes out clean yet the filling still jiggles a bit, 1 to 1-1/2 hours. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely, then cover loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Recipe provided by 2016 Cville Pie Fest winner Jenée Libby, who adapted it from Patti Labelle’s Sweet Potato Pie (Washington Post) and Emily Hilliard’s Sweet Potato Speculoos Pie (Nothing in the House blog).
Eat your viddles
Look up “viddles” in the Urban Dictionary and you’ll find this definition: “Southern slang for vegetables or any other food that gives vital nutrients.” It’s precisely what siblings Shannon and Rob Campbell are offering at Croby’s Urban Viddles, newly opened in the Southside Shopping Center, next to Food Lion. Chef Shannon and manager Rob say they always wanted to have a restaurant together, one inspired by a shared love of family dinners. Croby’s serves up rotisserie chicken and pork plus Southern-inspired entrées and sides with a healthy twist: Think baked then flash-fried chicken tenders and cauliflower mash in lieu of deep-fried chicken tenders and mashed potatoes. Everything is made in-house. Entrées cost around $10 each, and kids’ meals, served with a side and a cookie, are $5. Croby’s also offers set daily specials, such as guava barbecue baby back ribs on Wednesdays and chicken pot pie on Thursdays.
Chris Saunders hikes Blackrock Summit in Shenandoah National Park. Photo by Natalie Jacobsen
Early-morning light catches a tinge of red on the edges of the maple leaves. The air is crisp after a cold fall night in early October. Chris Saunders steps onto the Blackrock Summit Trail with the confidence and speed of someone who has been there before.
“I’ve hiked it five or six times,” he says. “Last time I was here for the sunrise.” He hikes in black jeans and a sweatshirt. His thin frame moves fast through the trees. He swipes at his face and laughs.
“My fiancee always makes me go in front to catch all the spiderwebs,” he says.
It’s not only spiderwebs and sunrise hikes that define Saunders’ relationship to these mountains. In April, he completed his goal to hike every trail within the Shenandoah National Park. That’s 509 miles of trails, including 101 miles of the Appalachian Trail.
“One day I was looking on the available hiking maps on SNP’s website, and I just realized, ‘Wow, I’ve done almost all of these,’” he says. It was then he decided to make it a goal to hike every one.
Saunders, a 24-year-old marketing manager for Roy Wheeler Realty Company, grew up in Charlottesville. He first learned about Shenandoah in the halls of Charlottesville High School, when he overheard a friend talking about hiking in the park the previous weekend.
“As soon as the weekend came, I grabbed some clothes, packed some dog food and two blankets, set out Friday evening with my dog and just went,” he says. “Had no idea what I was doing.” Saunders chose a trail near Loft Mountain Campground and slept on blankets on the ground. He woke up covered in bug bites, walked some more, and his love for hiking was born.
Chris Saunders, 24, who recently hiked all 509 miles in Shenandoah National Park, started hiking as a student at Charlottesville High School. Photo by Natalie Jacobsen
“It quickly evolved into a way to get away from school, people, the city, the noise. I was somewhat of a quiet kid. I still am that way,” he says. “I never really had a goal in mind, I just kept going and going, always wanting to try different trails to see different things.”
For Saunders, hiking all the trails in Shenandoah happened bit by bit, over many years. Sometimes he hikes with his fiancée, Maddy Rushing (they got engaged while hiking in Yosemite National Park). Sometimes he hikes with his two dogs. Sometimes he hikes alone.
“The views, the wildlife, the serene sounds and smells, it’s just a completely different world once you get on the trail,” Saunders says. He pauses by a dead tree that rises starkly against the blue sky. The tree looks like a sculpture, stripped of bark and with woodpecker holes carved into the trunk.
“I’ve never noticed this tree before,” he says, bemused. “Every time there’s something new.”
Park place
Each year more than 1 million visitors flock to Shenandoah National Park, just 30 minutes west of Charlottesville, to hike and take in the views from the overlooks along Skyline Drive. This year, which marks the centennial celebration of the National Park Service, visitation is up 35 percent, says Susan Sherman, president of the Shenandoah National Park Trust.
“Shenandoah National Park is remarkable in that it is the protector of wild lands and wildlife—and also the rich history of this region,” says Sherman.
Most of Shenandoah’s 500 miles of trails were built in the Depression era as part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal project. The 10,000 men enlisted within Shenandoah as part of the Civilian Conservation Corps worked for $30 a month, $25 of which they were required to send home to their families. Over the course of nine years, the CCC men planted trees and built roads, facilities and the trails now enjoyed by hikers and visitors from all over the country and world.
Founded in 1935, the park is also rich with the history of the homesteading families who lived there before being forced to leave their lands for Shenandoah’s establishment. Visitors can see historical relics such as cabins and grave sites that stand as evidence of these old settlements. Gnarled apple and fruit orchards still dot the landscape.
Thanks to the original efforts of the CCC and subsequent management over the years, says Sherman, “Shenandoah is now a hiker’s paradise and offers extraordinarily diverse landscapes, from mountaintops to stream valleys to open meadows to secluded hollows.”
Old Rag is the park’s most popular hike. Sherman calls it “Shenandoah’s Half Dome,” referring to Yosemite’s famous rock formation. Old Rag attracts thousands of visitors each year for its strenuous ascent, rock scramble and panoramic views from the top.
Other popular hikes are Stony Man, Limberlost and Hawksbill, which is the highest peak in the park.
The Shenandoah Park Trust works to protect Shenandoah’s 200,000 acres. As a philanthropic partner to the park, Sherman sees the nonprofit organization as a vehicle that allows people who love and use the park to take responsibility for it.
“It belongs to all of us here in Charlottesville, but it’s true that with ownership comes responsibility,” she says. “We who live in the Charlottesville area are incredibly lucky to have this remarkable national treasure in our backyard, and we shouldn’t take it for granted.”
Climb every mountain
Saunders is not the only local person who’s hiked all 500 miles of Shenandoah’s trails. Eric Seaborg also recently completed the feat. Seaborg, who has been to the highest points of 49 states, thought hiking the Shenandoah 500 would be another fun goal.
“Once I got the idea, I just thought, ‘Wouldn’t that be interesting to do?’” says Seaborg, a freelance writer and avid hiker who lives in Charlottesville with his wife, Ellen Dudley. “I got some maps and studied them to see which trails I had done and which I hadn’t.”
Seaborg is no stranger to committed hiking. He and Dudley scouted the first American coast-to-coast trail in 1990-91, an endeavor that took them 14 months. Dudley recalls with a shiver the cold winter they spent that year hiking through the Midwest.
“I have one picture of a lightboard in Kansas showing the temperature at minus 8 degrees,” she says. They hiked from Point Reyes National Seashore in California to Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware on what is now called the American Discovery Trail. The couple later wrote the book American Discoveries: Scouting the First Coast-to-Coast Recreational Trail about their experience.
Both Seaborg and Dudley grew up hiking.
“My parents used to make me hike,” says Dudley. “I remember scuffing along through the leaves, thinking, ‘This is boring.’”But her relationship with hiking has since changed. “It’s so pretty to be out there,” she says.
Husband-and-wife Eric Seaborg and Ellen Dudley both grew up hiking; together they scouted the first American coast-to-coast trail in 1990-91. Photo by Eze Amos
Seaborg grew up in Washington, D.C., and visited Shenandoah as a kid. “It was my father’s method of relaxation from his high-pressure jobs and he would take me along,” he says.
The love of getting outside stuck. As for how long it has it taken Seaborg to complete all the trails in Shenandoah? “It took 50 years!” he laughs, pointing out that he counts the hikes he did with his father as a kid.
The experience of hiking every trail in Shenandoah got Seaborg out to new and unexpected places.
“He went to all these obscure little trails,” says Dudley, who couldn’t hike with him because of a knee injury. She helped Seaborg keep track of his progress with maps and lists. “He never would’ve hiked on some of those normally.”
Seaborg says that it was worth the extra effort. “There’s no hike I did that I didn’t think, ‘Oh that was worth doing.’ There’s usually something: a great forest or a graveyard or something that made it worthwhile.”
Seaborg is a member of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, which has been maintaining and advocating for more than 1,000 miles of trails in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia since 1927. As a PATC volunteer, Seaborg maintains a 1.5-mile section of the AT at Simmons Gap.
“There are studies that have shown that exposure to nature lowers blood pressure and helps your health in lots of ways,” Seaborg says. “I love to hike because I love the beauty. I love to see the stuff; I love the way it makes me feel; I like the exercise and being out there with my dog.” Seaborg notes that Shenandoah is one of only two national parks in the U.S. that allows dogs on the trails.
“Fall is also a great time to be in the park because there’s no hunting within the boundaries,” he says.
For many years, Seaborg and Dudley lived within walking distance of the park boundary at Simmons Gap, and Dudley kept records of the peak fall colors.
“October 24 is the special date,” she says. Seaborg recommends taking trails in the fall that go up ravines and along streams. “That’s where the colors are, the red maples, the tulip poplars,” he says.
But those who miss the foliage shouldn’t despair, says Seaborg. The trails in Shenandoah never close.
“There are lots of places where you can see views in the winter that you can’t see otherwise because the leaves have fallen,” he says. “When people go out into nature and come back they talk about coming back to the ‘real world.’ But really, when they’re going into nature they’re going into the real world.”
The view from the top
After only 15 minutes of hiking through trees, the trail at Blackrock Summit opens wide. A jagged rock scramble spills down the mountainside and Saunders leads the way up. The purple-gray rocks are streaked with rusty red and covered in chalk-green lichen. They shift and tip as we climb. Saunders’ shadow stretches out long behind him as he faces the strong morning sun. He chooses a high ledge of rock and we turn to take in the view.
The “real world” stretches out before us: rolling mountains, playful edges of yellow and red on the high-altitude leaves; a turkey vulture passes overhead with a rhythmic whoosh of wings. The Shenandoah Valley lies far below like a quilt, patterned with farms, silos and small towns. An immense quiet settles over us. The rocks warm as the sun rises higher and the air hardly stirs.
“The feeling of a grand view is complete satisfaction mixed perfectly with the most relaxing, stress-relieving experience you can imagine,” says Saunders. “It will make you forget whatever problems and background noise you have going on in your life. Even if only for a few seconds, it never fails to clear your mind and remind you that you’re alive.”
Great hikes close to home
“I like to combine the slogans ‘Get outside’ and ‘Just do it,’” says JoAnn Dalley, who has lived in Charlottesville for 36 years. She gets outdoors as often as she can, whether its in the Blue Ridge Mountains or on one of the many trail systems in town. Even if you’re not an experienced hiker, being outside is good for health and a sense of connection with nature, she says.
“The bottom line is that we live in such a rich environment,” Dalley says. “Hiking and walking outdoors is a great way to appreciate that environment and learn from it.”
“If you can walk to a place, that’s the best,” she says. “If you can drive within half an hour, that’s second best.”
Dalley and her husband, David, a longtime Charlottesville dentist, have section-hiked the Appalachian Trail from Mountain Lake to Leesburg. This means their feet have walked every bit of the trail within Shenandoah’s limits, though not all the way through at one time.
“We often hike the same hikes over and over again,” says Dalley, “because they’re convenient and familiar.”
Dalley has served as a Girl Scout leader and is an active volunteer with Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards and Rivanna Master Naturalists. She has a thick folder of maps of area hikes, as well as REI checklists for what to bring along on a hike (water, sunscreen, wind protection, food, first-aid kit). She even has a printout of the forage rules for Shenandoah, which describe the amount of edible items such as apples, mushrooms, berries and nuts a person is allowed to take out of the park.
JoAnn Dalley has served as a Girl Scout leader and is an active volunteer with Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards and Rivanna Master Naturalists. She and her husband, David, have section-hiked the Appalachian Trail from Mountain Lake to Leesburg. Photo by Eze Amos
But some of her favorite experiences in nature happen close to home. She loves to go for walks around Charlottesville with her dog, Rachel.
“If you take the same route over and over, you can really see the change of seasons,” she says.
Here are some of Dalley’s favorite close-to-home hikes:
The Rivanna Trail Network
The Rivanna Trail Foundation maintains around 20 miles of trail that loop around the city of Charlottesville. Though the circuit is not entirely contiguous (much of the trail is in easement through private property, presenting ongoing accessibility challenges), the trail makes for an amazing natural oasis right in the middle of the city. Popular sections include the paved trail running from Riverview Park in the Woolen Mills neighborhood to Darden Towe Park, the Greenbrier neighborhood trail and the section that curves by Observatory Hill near UVA. Other sections offer wooded meanders along Moore’s and Meadow creeks and travel through both residential and commercial areas with many access points. Used by runners, mountain bikers, hikers and open to dogs, the Rivanna Trail has something for everyone.
Ivy Creek Natural Area
Jointly owned by the city and Albemarle County, Ivy Creek is a 219-acre preserve managed by the Ivy Creek Foundation with at least six miles of trails. These include paved, handicap-accessible trails. Ivy Creek is a great birder’s paradise because bikes, jogging and dogs are all prohibited. “I’ve spent 15 minutes on these trails and seen something like 20 bird species,” says Dalley. In the fall, Ivy Creek hosts nighttime hikes to watch the nighthawk migration. Its diversity of landscapes, including fields, woods and wetlands, makes for a unique and quiet escape.
Observatory Hill
Called “O-Hill” by most, this university-owned property is popular with bikers and hikers, especially those who own dogs (they are allowed off-leash here). O-Hill is situated near campus with many winding and intersecting trails. “O-Hill is a little wild and woolly,” says Dalley, referring to the mountain bikers who might fly by on the trails. It’s high, dry and rocky. In autumn, acorns from the chestnut oaks that dominate the forest there fall in abundance. “I literally have gotten hit on the head with an acorn walking at O-Hill,” Dalley says. Parking is available at the observatory or at a few other locations close to the bottom of the hill.
Saunders Trail and the Secluded Farm Trails
Many people know of the Saunders Trail (handicap accessible) that winds up to the entrance of Monticello and includes a beautiful boardwalk section through the trees (note: No dogs are allowed on this portion of the trail). But fewer are familiar with the Secluded Farm trails, which meander through managed meadows and hilly forest to the south of the start of the Saunders Trail. “This is a great, underutilized network of trails,” says Dalley. Dogs are allowed on-leash.
Get out of here
Along with some classics like Humpback Rocks and Sugar Hollow, here are a few lesser-appreciated hikes within an hour’s drive of Charlottesville that offer views, leaves, rock outcroppings, water features, wildlife and more.
Beagle Gap
(to Bear Den Mountain summit or to Calf Mountain summit)
Distance from Charlottesville: 40-minute drive
Elevation change: 355 to 495 feet
Miles: 1.2 to 2.1
Time: 30 minutes to 2 hours
Difficulty: Easy to moderate
Entrance fee: $20
Access: In Shenandoah National Park. The south entrance is at Rockfish Gap: Route 64, exit 99, then drive 5.9 miles north on Skyline Drive to milepost 99.5.
What to look for: This is a short hike upward to a view. In the gap there is a big meadow with old apple trees. “Earlier in the fall you’ll see butterflies and the meadow changing with the seasons,” says JoAnn Dalley. She goes every year to forage apples for applesauce. “They’re wormy and everything, but they’re fun to forage,” she says. These old apple trees are remnants of orchards that were planted and managed by families that were removed from their lands in the 1930s upon the establishment of the park.
Bear Church Rock
Distance from Charlottesville: 50-minute drive
Elevation change: 2,210 feet
Miles: 8.5 (up and back)
Time: 5 to 7 hours
Difficulty: Challenging
Access: Graves Mill trailhead at the Shenandoah National Park boundary near Madison
What to look for: A lesser-known but picturesque hike south of Old Rag, Bear Church Rock is a favorite for Eric Seaborg, Ellen Dudley and Susan Sherman. It begins along the Rapidan River and makes its way up along the Staunton River Trail past several small waterfalls. Look out for the Jones Mountain cabin on a short side trail to the right. This is one of many cabins maintained by the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club and is available for rent. This hike ends at the Bear Church Rock overlook, which is on a short side trail to the right (the Jones Mountain trail continues up the mountain, but the rocks are the turnaround point for this hike).
Blackrock Summit
Distance from Charlottesville: 1-hour drive
Elevation change: 175 feet
Miles: 1.2-mile loop
Time: 1 hour
Difficulty: Easy
Entrance fee: $20
Access: In Shenandoah National Park: milepost 84.1 on Skyline Drive at Blackrock Summit parking area
What to look for: After only 15 minutes of hiking through the woods, the Blackrock Summit trail opens up to a distinctive rock scramble and stunning 360-degree view. If you love wide vistas, Blackrock offers the most bang for your buck of any trail on this list. The plentiful, jutting rocks at the top make for interesting explorations and test your surefootedness, and it’s a large enough area to find a quiet spot of your own to take in the views in all directions.
Fortune’s Cove Loop
Distance from Charlottesville: 40-minute drive
Elevation change: 1,725 feet
Miles: 5.5
Difficulty: Challenging
Time: 4 hours
Access: Turn right off of Route 29 just before Lovingston onto Mountain Cove Road. After 1.6 miles, turn right on Fortune’s Cove Lane. Parking area is on left after 1.6 miles.
What to look for: This is a challenging hike located within a 755-acre Nature Conservancy Preserve (no dogs allowed). At the meeting point of the Virginia Piedmont and Blue Ridge Mountain ecosystems, Fortune’s Cove hosts a special diversity of plant and animal life. “There are glades or ravines along the Fortune’s Cove hike that have really unique and rare plant communities,” says Dalley. Views from the back half of the hike look toward the Blue Ridge around Wintergreen.
Humpback Rocks
Distance from Charlottesville: 40-minute drive
Elevation change: 1,240 feet
Miles: 2
Time: 2.5 hours
Difficulty: Challenging
Access: 6 miles south of Rockfish Gap (Route 64, exit 99) on the Blue Ridge Parkway, milepost 6
What to look for: This hike is very popular due to its proximity to the 64 exit at the Rockfish Gap entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is short, but extremely challenging as it goes straight up for a mile to the summit. The views are worth the climb, however, and it is a well-worn sunset and sunrise hike destination.
Mint Springs Valley Park
Distance from Charlottesville: 30-minute drive
Elevation change: Between 60 and 370 feet
Miles: 5 miles of trails
Difficulty: Easy to moderate
Access: 5-minute drive northwest of downtown Crozet on Mint Springs Road
What to look for: “There’s a high prevalence of spectacular sassafras trees, which provide great color in the fall,” says Seaborg. The sassafras has recognizable leaves that can be three
different shapes: oval, mittened or three-pronged. In the fall, sassafras leaves turns yellow, rosy-red and orange. The fire trail provides beautiful views to the east.
Riprap Hollow Loop Trail
Distance from Charlottesville: 1-hour drive
Elevation change: 2,225 feet
Miles: 9.8-mile loop
Time: 6 to 8 hours
Difficulty: Challenging
Entrance fee: $20
Access: In Shenandoah National Park: milepost 90 on the Skyline Drive at Riprap parking area.
What to look for: This hike includes two beautiful vistas along the ridge of Rock Mountain and at the Chimney Rocks overlook. It also features a 20-foot waterfall and large swimming hole. It can be done as an out-and-back hike or as a circuit using the Wildcat Ridge Trail.
Sugar Hollow and Moormons River
Distance from Charlottesville: 30-minute drive
Elevation change: 360 feet
Miles: 2 to 3
Difficulty: Easy to moderate
Access: Drive out Barracks Road/Garth Road and continue straight through White Hall on Sugar Hollow Road. Parking is located past the Sugar Hollow Reservoir.
What to look for: From the parking area, you can choose two trails. The trail along the north fork of the Moormons River passes a swimming hole, and the beautiful waterfall two miles up and on the left makes for a worthwhile destination. The trail that follows the south fork is the well-known route to Blue Hole, a refreshing place to swim in the summer. Expect brilliant color in the fall from the tulip poplars along both forks of the river.
Get into gear
JoAnn Dalley uses REI’s Day Hiking Checklist before setting out on the trail.
Holly Andres is known for using multiple images to tell a story, such as in "The Fallen Fawn" series. Photo courtesy Neal Guma
With just five photographs on view, Neal Guma has assembled a richly satisfying show featuring some of the most interesting photographers working today at his new, eponymously named gallery on Third Street. While different in terms of style, approach and subject matter, the work is linked by a sense of mystery, foreboding and even danger.
Julie Blackmon’s “Rope Swing” in the window has been attracting a lot of attention, according to Guma. The image presents a backyard scene of children playing. Like a spy from the land of grown-ups, Blackmon captured a moment when the adults are absent and children are running the show. At the center of the image, a girl of about 8 is caught by Blackmon as she shimmies impossibly high up a rope. Danger is conveyed not only by how high off the ground she is, but also with the tangled hair and skimpy attire of her companions.
“Blackmon’s photographs really take you back to a time when kids were freer, less organized,” says Guma. “A big influence on her is the Dutch 17th century painter Jan Steen who painted many family scenes with kids and animals everywhere. There’s a sense of absolute chaos and that’s what Blackmon loves and yet, at the same time, her work’s so well composed. It’s a brilliant edge.”
Holly Andres is known for using multiple images to tell a story. “River Road: Mile Marker 39” from “The Fallen Fawn” series is pleasing from both a formal and descriptive standpoint. The autumnal palette, shape of the car windows and roof line, and the way the girls are dressed and styled, all work together to impart a nostalgic ’60s quality to the work. Reflections and shadows play on the windows, adding pattern and texture that both draws attention to and shields the girls. The image is loaded with suspense.
Andres melds two entirely different trajectories in “River Road.” It’s almost like there are two photographs contained within it: The winsome, romantic girls and the forceful abstract diagonals that frame them make for a highly unusual and compelling image.
Though not a photographer, Julie Cockburn works with discarded photographs. She painstakingly embroiders these with precisely stitched shapes that she uses to draw attention to the psychological undertones lurking beneath the surface of the vintage formal studio shots she favors.
“Carita” is embellished with pastel-colored circles that trail across the image like an effervescence of bubbles that almost completely obscures Carita’s face. The exception is her eye, which stares out with such haunting soulfulness, it stops you in your tracks.
The clues we have to “Carita” are few, but the softly coiffed curls, pearls at her throat and the lustrous sheen of the soft bow on her dress convey a certain refinement. And then there is the kicker, the inscription: “To my darling a teacher, Aurora…” which throws a big pot of doubt and suspicion onto the image. While this could be entirely innocent, Cockburn’s manipulation of the piece invites a different, much darker interpretation, causing you to wonder about the nature of the relationship of teacher and student.
“What makes his work is the play between the flatness and the detail,” says Guma about German photographer Markus Brunetti’s “Wells Cathedral Church of Saint Andrews.” The photograph is one from a series of European sacred structures Brunetti and his partner, Betty Schoener, photographed over the course of 10 years. Brunetti shot each building in multiple sections, which Schoener then painstakingly assembled to form a composite. The result has more clarity than a traditional camera could capture, or the naked eye could see.
With an equal field of focus, everything is incredibly distinct: the saints’ faces, their hair, the live pigeons roosting in the edifice’s crannies, the lichen, weathered wooden doors and strip of brilliant green at the base, and they all work to animate and revitalize an iconic image to which we have almost become blind.
Lois Conner is known for her photographs of China, where she has spent many years taking pictures. Her long, narrow proportions, specific to the camera she uses, recall a Chinese screen. “Atchafalaya Swamp, Louisiana,” dating to 1988, is the only black-and-white image. A masterful technician, Conner’s tonalities are ravishing.
At times you wonder whether you’re even looking at a photograph; it’s more like graphite on paper. The pops of white that are the fruit at the center of the bush and the abandoned rowboat that seems to float above the ground in otherworldly fashion are extraordinary. With consummate craftsmanship and enormous sensitivity, Conner has created an image that’s mysterious, evocative and timeless.
“Putting together a group show like this is kind of like making a playlist,” says Guma. “You like every song, but you want the whole thing to work together. And it sort of takes on this theme. There are connections, and some of them you don’t foresee, but when they happen it’s magic.”
It was a courtroom with tears shed on both sides of the aisle.
The defamation trial pitting former University of Virginia dean Nicole Eramo against her portrayal by Rolling Stone magazine’s Sabrina Rubin Erdely got into full swing Tuesday with both women crying at the federal courthouse. There was even talk of past tears, such as when Eramo, the only person whose image ran with the story, was depicted with a demonic smile and hollow eyes while protesters mass outside her office.
“I started to cry when I saw the picture,” Eramo testified. “They made me look like the devil.”
According to the plaintiff, her negative portrayal didn’t end with that digitally-manipulated image. Rolling Stone suggested that Eramo steered victims away from police reports, downplayed sexual violence statistics and called UVA “the rape school,” allegations she categorically denied from the witness stand.
“They made me into something they wanted me to be for their own narrative,” she said.
Eramo conceded that she canceled a planned interview at the behest of UVA’s communications office, but said she would have answered a fact-checker’s questions—if only she’d been called.
“I would have checked with communications, and if allowed to answer I would have done so,” Eramo said.
Some of Eramo’s most emotional testimony concerned November 19, 2014, the day that “A Rape on Campus” screamed across the Internet, telling a tale—eventually debunked—of a gang rape in a fraternity house.
“I read it on my phone about five o’clock in the morning,” Eramo testified. “I was stunned.”
She described the opening sequence of a seven-against-one gang rape as horrific, but horror gave way to puzzlement as Jackie, she said, had previously portrayed to Eramo a different rape scenario.
“I was shocked,” Eramo said. “I was very confused why she hadn’t shared such a horrific incident and let me help her.”
Eramo began to realize her own depiction didn’t end as a devil in imagery, but also in deed. “I was accused of manipulating a student after gaining her trust, which is so far from what I had tried to do,” she said.
By the time she got to the office in Peabody Hall, she realized the story was already having an impact, and she wondered if her boss, Allen Groves, had read it.
“When I walked in, the office was deadly quiet, which was strange,” Eramo said. “Allen asked me if I was okay.”
She says she was asked to come to a 3pm meeting and bring all her case files—so other administrators could follow up on them.
“I felt alone and scared,” she testified. “I thought I was going to get fired.”
Eramo wasn’t the only one harmed by the story. Defense attorney Scott Sexton noted in his opening statement that reporter Erdely regrets the “life-changing mistake” of putting her trust in Jackie and hasn’t published a story since this one.
“Yes, we regret using Jackie as the lede more than you can ever know,” said Sexton. “It was a disservice to all women who truly were sexually assaulted.”
“Today, we heard opening statements and from Dean Eramo herself,” said Rolling Stone in a statement. “Throughout Eramo’s testimony, it was abundantly clear that she believed in the credibility of Jackie, whom she counseled for many months.”
Entering the courthouse for his sentencing, social media celebrity Bryan Silva offered no comment to the media. Staff photo
Social media celebrity Bryan Silva, who prompted the first SWAT standoff of the year, was sentenced to one year and nine months of jail time October 18 in Charlottesville Circuit Court for possessing and brandishing an illegal firearm and disobeying the court.
Silva’s attorney, John March, asked for a lesser sentence, arguing that the four months Silva already served were a “wake-up call” and that he is not the gun-toting, rapping “gangsta” he once portrayed himself as online.
Silva became famous with a video he created on Vine—a site where users post seconds-long videos to the web—in which he says “gratata,” imitating the sound of a gun. Although he has since gained a following of millions of people, March says they aren’t celebrating him—they’re mocking him.
“He is the butt of the joke,” March said at the sentencing. And when the defendant’s brother, Phillip Silva, testified, he described the “slew of Internet hate” his younger brother received, which led to bouts of depression.
The night before Silva allegedly pointed a loaded gun at his then-girlfriend, who was 17, March said his client was under an unexpected amount of stress, because the girlfriend told him she thought she was pregnant.
Judge Richard Moore said excuses can’t be made for the “disturbing case,” in which the girl feared for her life and fled to a neighbor’s house where she called police and the standoff was initiated.
“Needless to say, this is one of the most unusual cases I’ve ever seen,” the judge said, adding that the focus should not be on Silva’s internet persona, but on the fact that he pointed a loaded gun at another person. “This is real life. This is not pretend on the Internet.”
But in his testimony, Phillip Silva suggested that perhaps some elements were pretend, and he’s “certain” that some of the photos of the defendant with weapons, which were pulled from his Facebook page, showed him with fake guns.
In a February 11 preliminary hearing, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania said police found a 9mm handgun in Silva’s house after the standoff that matched a gun Silva can be seen holding in his Facebook photos. Both the gun police found and the one in the photo had a LaserMax mounted on it, which matched the description of what Silva’s girlfriend said he pointed at her that morning.
Judge Moore agreed to impose the maximum sentence of five years for possessing a gun as a convicted felon, 12 months for brandishing it and 86 days for not obeying all probation regulations. He suspended all but one year and nine months, and Silva has already served four months.
He was ordered to report to jail immediately, despite pleas from family and friends for a delayed sentencing. “I love you, Bryan,” three voices called out.
Outside the courtroom, Silva’s brother and mother watched for him to be led into the back of a police car. Handcuffed, he spewed profanities, though he told the judge he had changed, and was “deeply sorry” just minutes earlier.
When halfway to the police vehicle, Silva abruptly turned to the media and shouted, “Free me.”
NGIC employee Mike Sienda has gotten the okay to display a smaller Trump sign on his vehicle at work, but the Rutherford Institute still wants clarification on what the spy center means when it calls this one a campaign vehicle. Photo by Eze Amos
Mike Sienda already felt aggrieved when his boss at the National Ground Intelligence Center’s Rivanna Station told him in early September to not show up on grounds with his giant Trump-Pence signs on the side of his box truck.
When he was told he couldn’t park on the federal property with a smaller Trump 2016: Make America Great Again sign in the back window of his Jeep, Sienda contacted the Rutherford Institute, a local civil rights org. And within two days of its attorneys writing NGIC October 12, he was told, uh, never mind, the smaller sign is just fine.
“I think they realized it’s protected speech,” says Sienda.
The spy center had cited the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in on-the-job campaigning, when it first banned Sienda’s box truck. However, the Rutherford Institute argues that the act says workers can exercise their rights “unless expressly prohibited by law,” and the regs allow bumper stickers on personal vehicles, and do not “expressly prohibit” signs over a certain size.
Sienda still hasn’t gotten the okay to bring back the bigger signs on his truck, which the Rivanna Station called a “campaign vehicle.”
“We’re going to ask them to clarify that,” says Rutherford founder John Whitehead. “If the government uses these terms, they have to define them.”
NGIC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sienda is happy with his partial victory. “I’m glad to be able to participate in the political process and not worry about doing anything wrong,” he says.
Swamp and soul play out on John Paul White's new solo album, Beulah. He's at the Southern on October 19. Publicity image.
Originating in the 19th century, “Beulah Land” is a popular gospel song based on the biblical reference of Israel. It’s a hymn that Alabama singer-songwriter John Paul White grew up hearing (his dad’s side of the family is Southern Baptist), and one that sparked a familial namesake.
“My dad called my little sister Beulah as a term of endearment and I noticed that I do it, too, with my daughter and with my wife,” White explains. “It’s just another way of saying ‘honey.’”
Beulah is also a term unique to the world of William Blake, one of White’s favorite poets.
“He was a very spiritual guy and he had his own little mythology for what he believed, and one of the things that he did believe was that there was a place that you could escape to through meditation—a place you could go to heal and to re-center to just relax and get your life back together,” White says. “And then you had to come back to earth. You couldn’t stay there. It wasn’t heaven; it was just a little place, a little oasis.”
It was Blake’s usage of the word that inspired the title for Beulah, White’s solo album that came out in August.
“There’s no better term for the process I’ve been going through and how these records were born, and what state they were born in, than that,” he says.
White’s referring to the quiet years he’s spent since the dissolution of The Civil Wars, the celebrated harmonious duo he formed with singer Joy Williams. Once the pair called it quits in 2013, White returned home to Florence, Alabama, to recharge and focus on his family.
“I was so blissfully happy at home being husband and dad and also label owner and studio owner that when [these songs] started popping into my head, I really wanted to ignore them because I knew that once I wrote them, I’d have to record them,” he says. “And as soon as I did, all I could think about was playing them for other people and wondering what their reaction would be, if they would connect with it.”
Just as White couldn’t resist these songs, they also beckon to the listener. Part swamp, part twang, and all soul, they’re sonic enchantments woven together by White’s hypnotic acoustic guitar. Released on Single Lock Records, the label he co-founded with Ben Tanner of Alabama Shakes and local businessman Will Trapp, he split the recording process between Single Lock Records studios and the legendary Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, where he grew up. It’s an area steeped in a storied musical tradition, known for producing its own distinct sound and caliber of artists—some of whom make up the rhythm section on the record.
“When I was coming up through the ranks…that was the level that you had to come to to be able to get a job around here,” he says. “So I always had that bar set, which was a really great thing for me as a musician. But these guys all became my close friends and heroes and confidants and they’ve all been extremely supportive of what my generation and the generation behind me is doing and they’re all very proud and we’re proud to carry on the legacy.”
An allegiance to his roots combined with a tendency to stay humble is quintessential to White’s approach to music, as evidenced on his latest single “What’s So.”
“The way that I was always raised is you know don’t put on airs, don’t act like you’re better than anybody else,” he says. “Any time that I would have some sort of success, I’d always just kind of ‘aw shucks’ it away…And I’m still kind of that guy and I’m okay with that.”
