Month: February 2018

Categories
Living

Lampo team primed for steakhouse opening in former bank space

Prime 109, a steakhouse bent on highlighting products from three cornerstone farms, is slated to open in May in the former Bank of America space on the Downtown Mall. Staff photo

The owners of Lampo, the cozy Neapolitan pizzeria in Belmont, first started conceptualizing the idea of a local-farm-centered steakhouse after hearing from area producers that they were frustrated with the distribution process.

Enter Prime 109, a steakhouse bent on highlighting products from three cornerstone farms, which is slated to open in May in the former Bank of America space on the Downtown Mall. The restaurant will buy whole animals from farmers, a processor will do a basic breakdown of the animal, and Prime will finish dry-aging the beef and prepare individual cuts in-house.

A butchering area and the main production part of the kitchen will occupy a space on the far left of the 109-seat restaurant, and diners will have the opportunity to sit at the chef’s table in front of a custom-built, wood-fired grill from Corey Blanc, of Blanc Creatives, or at a table underneath an antique gilded ceiling.

The Prime 109 team wants to enhance the character of the space, built in 1915, by bringing in antique materials and putting down maple flooring from an 1860 building. New additions to the space include a carrara marble staircase.

“There’s something about the classic grandeur of a bank like this, and concept of the classic American steakhouse, that really fits well together,” says Prime 109 co-owner Loren Mendosa.

We suggest starting the stakeout now.

Categories
Arts

Designer Annie Temmink coaxes ‘Beasts!’ to life

Join Annie Temmink and other artists for DIY crafting and a special performance at the opening of “Beasts!” on March 2. By Martyn Kyle

After years spent living abroad and around the U.S., Annie Temmink thought something was missing from her native Charlottesville.

“I miss really great dancing and really wild visual clothing and adornment,” she says. “They’re rich opportunities for people to have moments of unbridled, creative expression, and they’re really critical for connection, and happiness, and all the things that most people want.”

As an internationally awarded sculptor and costume designer, Temmink is tackling the problem head-on by collaborating with other local artists to build “more wild and outrageous experiences in Charlottesville.”

The revolution begins with “Beasts!,” a show about imagining and creating wild creatures, on display in March at The Bridge PAI and featuring pieces in Temmink’s trademark style—architectural costumes with kinetic elements—developed around the idea of making creatures she hadn’t seen before.

“I didn’t set out to create a particular narrative,” she says. Rather, the works take on life once they are created, especially once they are worn.

In addition to soaking up the visuals and musical performances by Weird Mob and Free Idea at the “Beasts!” opening, visitors can try their hand at creating their own work. “I work with common household items like cardboard, construction scraps and cast-off materials, and I think that adds to the fun,” Temmink says.

Her wearables center on elaborate headdresses that sweep up, down or out, spanning the wearer’s crown, shoulders or entire body. From dangling mobiles to fanning coronas to glittering starbursts made of spoons, her concepts begin with everyday items and go big.

“The first time you look at a spoon, you’re like, ‘I don’t know what to do with this,’” she says. But her willingness to explore—to look at a spoon over and over again, to get inspired by ice crystals and plant geometry, to arrange and rearrange shapes with pleasing emotional qualities until something clicks—evolves into works that are larger than life.

Growing up in an artistic family—her father is a carpenter and her mom runs City Clay—Temmink always made things by hand. In college, she studied sculpture and realized she wanted to do something beyond “make this thing that sits on the wall.”

After college, she became a Watson Fellow, receiving $25,000 and 12 months to pursue a research topic outside the U.S. “I made adornment and costumes and textiles in Uganda, Ghana, Tanzania, Indonesia, Japan and India,” she explains. “Seeing how adornment is celebrated in other cultures gave me the link that costume is sort of like sculpture but way more fun.”

Once back in Charlottesville, she got a job working in carpentry and rented a studio space where she made costumes after work and on weekends. “It was definitely one of those jumping off the deep end moments,” she says. But Temmink was committed to going outside her comfort zone, to showing up to the work and being disciplined about creation.

In 2016, she produced a fashion show for the Maker Faire and began making giant hats. From there, she started getting commissions for theaters and private clients, including a fireproof Donald Trump wig for a fire ballet opera company and bedazzled shorts for Ke$ha, and for numerous fashion shows along the East Coast.

Most recently, Temmink’s work was featured at the World of Wearable Art in Wellington, New Zealand. “It’s like the Olympics of costumes,” she says. “The most amazing things you’ve ever seen are on display in this hybrid of fashion and theater and runway.

The organization found her work on Instagram, invited her to submit it, and her creation went on to win the award for Best New Entrant.

“It’s really as simple as staring doubt in the face, and saying, ‘Look, I hear you, but I’m not going to go with that. I’m really going to be courageous and explore this idea, even if it’s crazy, or it’s not profitable,” Temmink says. “…because there’s something about it that’s really important.’”

The beasts in “Beasts!” originate from that very same place. “The concept came from thinking a lot about the blocks that come up in a creative practice. To me, a beast is a thing that has a positive side to it, but it might look overwhelming at first.”

And of course, she says, it’s also huge fun to make a giant creature.

“The point of all of it is a joyful expression,” she says. “To make me laugh, to make other people laugh. As we get older there’s less and less room for that, or it doesn’t come up because we take things so seriously. I think it’s important to create your own joy. And there’s nothing more fun than making these wild creatures and getting to see how they come to life.”

Categories
Arts

Movie Review: Game Night wins with humor and tension

Game Night is a surprisingly satisfying thriller-comedy with an excellent cast that includes Rachel Adams and Jason Bateman (far right). Courtesy Warner Bros.

Game Night is a funny, exciting thriller-comedy with fun performances and a story that keeps you guessing. Who in the world saw this coming? Certainly not whoever edited the trailer, which sold it as another underwritten yarn with an on-the-nose title about insufferable schmucks who get in over their heads and shout about things seconds after they happen. But that’s not what we get from directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, who had previously written hits Horrible Bosses and contributed to the Spider-Man: Homecoming script. Almost immediately, Game Night sets a strikingly unique tone and remains confident in its material not relying on vamping and excessive improvisation from a talented cast.

Game Night
R, 93 minutes
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX, Violet Crown Cinema

Game Night follows a group of friends who, you guessed it, gather for a regular game night that gets wrapped up in a vast criminal conspiracy. Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams play married couple Max and Annie, whose relationship is firmly rooted in their shared competitive nature. The arrival of Max’s brother, Brooks (Kyle Chandler), who Max has never been able to beat in a game, throws him off his edge mentally and physically—his stress, as it turns out, is interfering with the couple’s ability to conceive. Brooks offers to kick things up a notch, promising a murder mystery that blurs the line between reality and fiction. But when the company Brooks hired is hijacked by actual criminals, no one is certain who to trust.

That plot summary sounds predictable, right? It’s possible you may guess a twist or two but you won’t anticipate how effectively it all comes together. To pull off any of the individual genres at play here—comedy, action, crime-thriller—requires a flexible yet confident sense of style, which Game Night has. Think of the slew of action-comedies that limp into theaters every year and are instantly forgotten. The focus is in the wrong place, hoping to slide into your good grace by charisma alone. A confident director with a smart cast can turn a milquetoast gag into a hilarious moment, but the best writing in the world can’t make up for sloppy filmmaking. In Game Night, the direction and editing are taut, the action scenes are legitimately tense and inventive, and the script is hilarious even before it’s elevated by the cast.

The performers deserve special recognition, whether they play into type (Bateman) or against (McAdams, Chandler). Every character is memorable and none are wasted—Lamorne Morris and Kylie Bunbury as a couple that’s been together since childhood (you know the ones), Billy Magnussen and Sharon Horgan as co-workers on a not-date (tough to explain but spectacular to behold) and a scene-stealing turn by Jesse Plemons as creepy neighbor Gary. As individuals they shine, as a group their interplay never gets old.

The jokes land, the action sequences are exciting, and the performers are all terrific, making Game Night the funniest movie in 2018 so far. I’m as surprised as you are.

Playing this week

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema
377 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056

Annihilation, Black Panther, Early Man, Fifty Shades Freed, Heathers, Peter Rabbit

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213

The 15:17 to Paris, Annihilation, Black Panther, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Early Man, Every Day, Fifty Shades Freed, The Greatest Showman, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Peter Rabbit, Phantom Thread, The Post, Samson, The Shape of Water

Violet Crown Cinema
200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000

2018 Oscar Nominated Shorts, The 15:17 to Paris, Annihilation, Black Panther, Call Me By Your Name, Darkest Hour, Fifty Shades Freed, I, Tonya, Peter Rabbit, Phantom Thread, The Post, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Categories
Arts

See what’s on display at First Fridays

Judy McLeod exhibits work from her career in three shows at three different galleries this month. She will give a progressive gallery talk beginning at 2pm on March 25 at McGuffey Art Center. Photo by Martyn Kyle

During the month of March, local artist Judy McLeod exhibits work from her oeuvre at three different galleries, each individual show representing a different phase in her 40-plus years of art-making.

“An artist works in series whereby an idea is pursued visually for months or years in terms of a medium,” says McLeod, and while selecting pieces for her retrospective, she sought to tell the story of her “art ideas and energies.”

On view in the Dickinson Galleries at Piedmont Virginia Community College is “Patterns of Life, 1980-2000,” which McLeod says takes a “me, my, mine” approach to looking at things. “Inspirations, 2000-2015,” at McGuffey Art Center’s Smith Gallery, offers a “we, our, others” perspective, while the show of her current work at Les Yeux du Monde Gallery includes ruminations on horizons as well as invented maps of history (her own and that of others), with an eye to a shared future.

Certain themes course through all of McLeod’s work, including life patterns and water, but the most notable is of womanhood. Many of the pieces look at what it means to be a woman, at feminism and the desire for independence while also embracing sisterhood with other women in the world.

First Fridays: March 2

Annie Gould Gallery 121B S. Main St., Gordonsville. An exhibition of works by Morganne Ashlie, Jennie Carr, Susan Graeber, Louise Greer and Valerie Sargent.

Art on the Trax 5784 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Tracy’s Folly,” a painting and printmaking series by Tracy Knight. Opens March 10.

FF The Bridge PAI 2019 Monticello Rd. “Beasts!,” a show about imagining and creating wild creatures featuring the work of sculptor and costume designer Annie Temmink. 5-7:30pm.

Buck Mountain Episcopal Church 4133 Earlysville Rd., Earlysville. “Our Town,” featuring photography by Melody Robbins. Opens March 4.

Charlottesville Senior Center 491 Hillsdale Dr. “Local Scenes,” a multimedia group show featuring the work of the BozART Fine Art Collective.

FF Chroma Projects 103 W. Water St. “Sacred and Profane,” featuring Leigh Anne Chambers’ sculptural paintings about salvaging the materials beneath our feet. 5-7pm.

FF CitySpace Art Gallery 100 Fifth St. NE. Artwork by students of Albemarle County Public Schools. 5:30-7:30pm.

Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Juxtapositions,” featuring pen and ink drawings by Laura Grice. Opens March 10.

FF C’Ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St. “The Wonders of Wood,” an exhibition of boxes, chef boards, cheese boards, pepper mills and more by woodworker Alex Pettigrew. 6-8pm.

FF C’ville Coffee 1301 Harris St. An exhibition of oil paintings by Caroline Planting. 4:30-6pm.

Darden Art Gallery Alumni Lounge UVA Darden School of Business Camp Library, 100 Darden Blvd. “Lexicon of Landscapes,” featuring work from Michelle Gagliano’s VMFA fellowship exhibition.

FF Dovetail Design + Cabinetry 309 E. Water St. “Exploratory Journey,” featuring mixed media art by Sri Kodakalla. 5-7pm.

FF Fellini’s 200 Market St. An exhibition of assemblage and collage work by Catherine V. Ratliff. 5:30-7pm.

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd.  “Feminine Likeness: Portraits of Women by American Artists, 1809-1960,” featuring works from The Fralin Museum of Art collection; “A Painter’s Hand: The Monotypes of Adolph Gottlieb,” an exhibit of works from one of the original Abstract Expressionists;  “From the Grounds Up: Thomas Jefferson’s Architecture and Design”; “Oriforme” by Jean Arp.

FF The Haven 112 W. Market St. “August in Perspective: Creative Responses to #Charlottesville,” featuring theater, dance, music and visual art from area high school students, community organizations, UVA students and faculty. 7-10pm.

Indoor Biotechnologies 700 Harris St. An exhibition of paintings of local scenes by Richard Crozier.

Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. “Ankhrasmation Symbolic Language: Earth,” an exhibit of illustrated scores by Pulitzer Prize-winning musician and composer Wadada Leo Smith.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Three Voices,” featuring work by Pam Black, Sally Bowring and Lou Jordan; and an exhibition of recent work by Judy McLeod.

FF McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. “Inspirations 2000-2015,” one of three shows in a retrospective of Judy McLeod’s artistic and emotional paths and experiences, in the Sarah B. Smith Gallery; “Elements of a Landscape,” S.h. Wolf’s show reflecting an evolution elapsing several years, in the Lower Hall North Gallery; “For the Love of Science: Imaginary Views through the Microscope,” an exhibition of work by Jurgen Ziesmann, in the Lower Hall South Gallery; “Books As Art & Art For Books,” an exhibition of books and book illustrations by 15 artists in the Upper Hall North and South Gallery. 5:30-7:30pm.

Mudhouse Coffee Downtown Mall 213 E. Main St. “Fruitbodies,” a show of sculpture by Lily Erb that uses repeated organic forms to create a language of a new and alien plant colony.

FF Music Resource Center 105 Ridge St. “The Chinese Zodiac in Mixed Media Collage,” featuring the work of Sigrid Eilertson. 5:30-7pm.

FF Old Metropolitan Hall 101 E. Main St. “Wind Marks,” a series of Nina Ozbey’s large-scale vibrant paintings inspired by the continual flux, new growth and abundance of nature.

Piedmont Virginia Community College V. Earl Dickinson Building 501 College Dr. “Patterns of Life,” featuring works created by Judy McLeod between 1980 and 1998 as part of a multi-venue retrospective of McLeod’s work.

FF Roy Wheeler Realty 404 Eighth St. “Places You May Know,” featuring contemporary paintings and abstract landscapes by Judith Ely. 5-7pm.

FF Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the main gallery, “Language of the Heart,” a combination of installation, sculpture, video, photography, drawings and collaborative performance by Adejoke Tugbiyele; in the Dove Gallery, “Point of Origin,” featuring an interactive installation by Judith Pratt; and in the back room, an exhibition of encaustic works by Kristie Wood. 5:30-7:30pm.

Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. “40 Under 40,” featuring work from Virginia artists aged 40 and under. Opens March 3.

FF Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St. “Between the Lines,” a show of mixed media work by Jennifer Ansardi. 6-8pm.

FF Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Magic Flight,” featuring recent illustrations by Charlottesville author and illustrator Laura Lee Gulledge. 5-7pm.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian-Universalist 717 Rugby Rd. An exhibition of landscape paintings by Billy Williams. Opens March 4.

FF VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. An exhibition of oil paintings by former art educator Bettie Dexter. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF WriterHouse 508 Dale Ave. An exhibition of watercolor and charcoal abstractions by Emma Brodeur; and “Tendresse,” an exhibition of photography by Emmanuel Ndenguebi-Essimi. 5-7pm.

FF Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “The Practice of Process,” featuring large-scale abstract sketches and studies by Frank Phillips. 5-7:30pm.

FF WVTF and Radio IQ 216 W. Water St. A show of work created by the artists’ group Matter of Color, which promotes understanding through art and supports an annual visit by Richmond dancers who unite Israeli and Arab school kids through the Minds in Motion program. 5-7pm.

FF First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions.

Categories
Arts

Vibe Riot wants to know what’s on your mind

Vibe Riot (fronted by Jay “Jaewar” King, above) plays Vibe Fest at IX Art Park on Friday. Photo by Eze Amos

Jay “Jaewar” King listened to a lot of reggae while growing up in Virginia Beach. His Jamaican-born father always had the stereo on, with good vibes floating through the speakers and into the home.

But it was hip-hop that took hold of him. Captivated by the imagery of the lyrics and by artists like LL Cool J who were “cool and powerful” and socially conscious all at once, a young Jaewar started filling books with lyrics of his own.

So it’s no surprise that this soft-spoken industrial engineer who fronts local hip-hop/reggae/rock/go-go band Vibe Riot has a certain hope for what his music might accomplish: “If I could have my wish…I would be the Bob Marley of hip-hop…have this music be a force that has political influence and be able to [use that] for good,” says Jaewar with a hint of shyness.

But when he’s on the mic, he’s not so quiet, and he’s supported by a full backing band that includes Tim Burnett on bass, Pierrick Houziaux on drums and Larry Johnson on percussion, along with a rotating lineup of supporting players that have joined the band for various live sets and in-studio sessions.

The band released True! Raw Honey last year, a six-song EP that includes new versions of songs that Jaewar’s kicked around for years. He says the EP “is kind of like my thesis,” touting his theory that everything that’s important can be traced back to one of two things. “Good art is going to be about love or politics. Otherwise, you’re just making noise,” he says.

The artist bases his lyrics in reality, on real stories and real emotions, both of which he says are felt most intensely on “Waddup,” which he was inspired to write around the time Trayvon Martin was fatally shot by George Zimmerman. When fatal shootings of young black men by police officers “kept happening and happening and happening,” the stories splashed all over newspapers and television screens, an overwhelmed Jaewar put the song away for a while. He picked it back up again when he saw himself in one of these men. “That would have been me,” he thought. “I’ve always felt like I’m well-spoken, I’m educated. I could talk my way out of these incidents, so this would never happen to me. But after reading his story, I cried. That would have been me, and I probably would have died, too.” With that in mind, he finished the song:

“They want us crucified / Mad ’cause we’re still alive / Sometimes a killer higher / Just to feel alive. / Elevated minds / It’s ’bout damn time / Black lives matter / I advise, don’t trivialize,” the song begins.

Throughout the course of the song, the lyrics transcend Jaewar’s own feelings and ask the listener, no matter his race, religion, gender, nationality, political affiliation or life experience, to stop and ask themselves, “Waddup?” What’s going on in the song? In the world? In his heart, his mind? This sort of unification is what Jaewar is going for with Vibe Riot’s music.

During live performances, he’s even willing to alter his lyrics for the sake of unification.

The song “Babylon Falls” uses one verse to tell a politician’s story, then examines the feelings that story provokes. And while Jaewar doesn’t usually freestyle, he’ll change up the line about “Trump supporters” to something like “blind supporters” if he feels like the Trump line wouldn’t work in the room in that particular time and place. He’ll do it partly for the safety of the band, and partly because he hates to lose listeners who might eventually come around to what he’s saying.

“You can say things, and depending on your delivery, you can…either shut people off, or, you can have them listen to you; you can piss people off, or you can challenge them with a thought,” he says, and perhaps forge a link of understanding between seemingly different people.

So even when Jaewar’s talking about politics…he’s really talking about love.

“I’m passionate and driven to create art and a better world,” he says, and that’s his motivation for both Vibe Riot and the Vibe Fest event taking place at IX Art Park on Friday night. Vibe Riot will perform alongside other local artists with the intent to “harness the joy of an artful experience to help strengthen a community we love,” Jaewar says, adding that he’s making a particular effort “not to leave Charlottesville’s underrepresented underrepresented again.”

Music “is a language that we all use,” he says. “We might not speak the same language, but we can still rock to the same beat.”

Categories
Arts

Charlottesville Playwrights Collective finds its feet

Launched in 2017, the Charlottesville Playwrights Collective offers local writers like Sean McCord an outlet for original work. Publicity photo

By Leslie Scott-Jones

Charlottesville has always looked at itself as a place where art can flourish, and the theater scene is no different. From Four County Players to the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center to Live Arts, our area has enough live theater to go around. On any given night there is an opportunity to see live performances of all shapes and sizes, to fit all kinds of tastes. But it doesn’t become available without a great deal of work, intention and collaboration.

The Charlottesville Playwrights Collective, formed more than a year ago, can tell you exactly how much work it takes. The group’s second show, Stolen Moon, by Alex Citron, opens March 2 at the Belmont Arts Collaborative. With a cast of nine, and a full set to be constructed (compared to the inaugural show Moving, which had a cast of two and a set of empty boxes), Stolen Moon is more than a few steps up. It is “A whimsical journey through the adventures of a young girl as she learns about the moon and what its magical powers are; an adult look at a traditional children’s story,” says Citron.

The new organization is still working through the kinks and procedures of being a formal 501(c)(3), but has found its niche by presenting original full-length works from local playwrights, and the risk taken by the collective is starting to pay off. “If it’s a theater producing just new work, I don’t think it could work,” says Citron. “But people will come out three times a year to a 60-seat theater to see new work.”

With all the live theater happening in town, it may seem risky to start a company dedicated to completely unknown plays. But as playwright and CPC member Kate Monaghan puts it, “The impetus for the formation of this group is all due to Sean,” speaking of Sean McCord, who is a local playwright, MFA student at Hollins University and founding member of the collective. (Moving, written by McCord, was produced in September of last year).

“Our original thought was let’s do a show and see how it goes,” says McCord. However, after several conversations with local playwrights and theater professionals, the group decided to form with a season of shows it could promote to build an audience. The third production, The Crying Tree by Peter Gunter, will open in June.

Community theater is tricky to navigate. Successful organizations with a building and staff depend largely on volunteers for tech crew, actors, musicians and the people who take tickets. The collective is set up a little differently. “The important thing that we stress to playwrights is that this is not a submission opportunity,” McCord says. “If a playwright is selected, they have to produce their own show.” It is also expected that if your show is chosen, you will work in some way on another show during the season. Creating this collaborative culture from the beginning gives stability and sustainability that most brick-and-mortar theaters can’t rely on.

The CPC welcomes participation and submissions that have been workshopped and are ready to stand on their own. “That’s the [type of] play to come into the collective,” says Monaghan, positioning the collective as a place to work out the kinks, “if it won’t improve until it goes through the rehearsal process with actors and a director.” The organization is truly committed and has a vested interest in producing work by local writers, because they are writers. And while it may be new work, it’s nice work if you can get it.

Categories
News

County budget basics: How to spend $430 million

The biggest slice of budget pie goes to the school division.

Albemarle County Executive Jeff Richardson, who took the job November 6, went before the Board of Supervisors on February 16 to propose his first budget, which is nearly 8 percent higher than the one for the current year.

He’s recommending $428,500,374 for fiscal year 2019, a $13.5 million increase.

Per usual, the biggest slice of budget pie goes to county schools—they’ll get 47 percent, or $188.5 million, if it’s adopted, compared to $181.1 million in 2018.

The tax rate will stay at its current rate of 83.9 cents per $100 of assessed value, thanks to a 2.2 percent increase in assessments. Property tax revenues, which include real estate and personal property taxes, are expected to increase by $8.6 million—or 4.8 percent—to $188,734,918.

County employees would get a 2 percent raise and the county will add 29 full-time positions and one part-time job. These include two new police officers and additional rescue personnel in the southern part of the county.

Richardson says residents tend to judge how well their local government works for the good of its citizens in three ways: by the community’s economic vitality, its quality of life and the local government’s responsiveness to residents’ needs.

“I believe this budget strategically recommends alignment of resources and funding to each of these areas,” he says.
“It absolutely does not address every identified need in our community, that’s for sure.”

Here’s (some of) what we’re looking at:

• $201,105 for a Bright Stars classroom at Woodbrook Elementary School. The county currently funds 10 of these classrooms for at-risk 4-year-olds

• $44,500,727 for salaries for county employees

• $18,871,131 for the Albemarle County Police Department, a 5 percent increase

• $1,199,788 for Charlottesville Area
Transit, which is about $64,000 more than last year

• $178,670 for increased median
mowing, landscaping and street sweeping—up more than $70,000 from the current year

• $173,259 in funding for an energy program coordinator and to develop a climate action plan

• $116,699 for the Charlottesville Free Clinic

• $80,307 for the public defender’s office

• $50,000 for JABA’s Mountainside Memory Care contingency

• $21,218 for the Sexual Assault Resource Agency

• $13,521 to keep the Northside Library open two extra hours per week

• $10,000 for the Virginia Film Festival

• $8,000 for the Charlottesville Municipal Band

Categories
News

Steven Meeks has left the building

Steven Meeks' abrupt resignation from the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society comes at a time the city is questioning the organization's subsidized rent in the McIntire Buidling. Photo Eze Amos

The controversial president of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society abruptly resigned February 11 after cleaning out his office in the city-owned McIntire Building.

In a “hastily written note,” says Will Lyster, a historical society director, Steven G. Meeks resigned from the organization he’s headed for about a decade. The board asked Lyster to step in as interim president February 14.

“We realized that in the past couple of months, Steven had done nothing,” says Lyster, including the “10 easy things the city wanted done to renew the lease.” And Meeks’ departure comes at a time when the city is reconsidering its lease for the historical society, whose membership has dropped by half during his tenure.

Meeks drew scrutiny last summer when the historical society stalled a UVA professor’s access to its collection of Ku Klux Klan robes. At a September City Council meeting, planning commissioner Genevieve Keller said the society’s leadership had been “antagonistic” toward the Jefferson School African American Center, and Councilor Kathy Galvin called the nonprofit “an absolute mess.”

“We have a lot of housekeeping,” says Lyster, who is working on the city’s demands, including a more diverse board and inventory of the society’s assets.

Meeks did not return phone calls from C-VILLE.

Categories
News

Clean slate: Mason Pickett cleared of two assault charges

On August 29, Mason Pickett was once again spotted writing "Bellamy is a jackass" on the Downtown Mall's Freedom of Speech Wall. File photo

 

“Wes is a jackass” became a familiar slogan to those living in Charlottesville last summer, as it was scrawled on a giant cardboard sign carried by local retiree Mason Pickett, and its derivative, “Bellamy is a jackass,” was often chalked on the Downtown Mall’s Freedom of Speech Wall as well as several sidewalks.

It’s a phrase that took a shot at City Councilor Wes Bellamy, who was vice-mayor at the time and called for the removal of the monuments of Confederate war heroes General Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson from their eponymous downtown parks. The verbiage with an unfavorable adjective left Pickett scorned by many and at the center of two misdemeanor assault charges.

Judge Joseph Serkes heard testimony from two alleged victims—Davyd Williams and Lara Harrison—who described what they deemed aggressive behavior from Pickett on two separate occasions.

On the first occasion, Williams said he was erasing “Wes is a jackass” off the free speech wall with a newspaper and a bottle of Windex on August 24. When Pickett approached Williams, the retiree allegedly “shoulder-checked” him as he was erasing, smacked his hand twice and snatched the bottle of liquid cleaner out of his hand “hard enough that the handle broke,” according to the testimony.

When officers with the Charlottesville Police Department spotted the interaction and intervened, Pickett allegedly walked a few hundred feet to a CVS, bought a bottle of Windex and gave it to an officer to give to Williams. He offered that he made a mistake and was sorry.

Williams told the judge he had erased multiple times Pickett’s “obscenities,” which were written on the wall directly outside the Virginia Discovery Museum, a hotspot for young kids.

“Did anyone designate you to be the obscenity police?” Sirks asked, and eventually said justice would not be furthered by finding Pickett guilty of assaulting him.

Pickett racked up his second assault charge on September 11, when he was holding a large cardboard sign, painted black and decorated with his aforementioned catch phrase in thick red letters, in front of the Albemarle County Office Building on the corner of McIntire Road and Preston Avenue.

Harrison testified she was driving past when she saw Pickett and his sign. She decided to park and display one of her own.

“I had seen him several times and I wanted to be able to counter his sign with a sign that I thought was accurate and protective of our community,” she gave as the reason she wrote “racist” on a legal pad she found in the backseat of her car and took her position on the sidewalk in front of him. The two had never met.

Pickett called police, and testified that he and Harrison were beside each other on the sidewalk. She allegedly stepped onto the street to get in front of him, and as he was moving his sign from side to side to face oncoming traffic, he says he may or may not have hit her in the face with it.

“He assaulted me,” said the woman who has attended meetings of the activist group Showing Up For Racial Justice. Its members are known for accosting people with beliefs that don’t match their own, according to Pickett’s defense attorney, Charles “Buddy” Weber, but Harrison said she has studied and taught nonviolent intervention.

You may recognize her from an August 15 image taken in Emancipation Park, where a lone young man dressed as a Confederate soldier and carrying a rifle and semi-automatic handgun was surrounded by numerous anti-racist activists, including members of SURJ. Harrison is photographed sticking her two middle fingers mere inches from the North Carolina man’s face.

In Pickett’s assault trial, prosecutor Nina Alice-Antony entered a photo of a red mark on Harrison’s left cheek as evidence, but the defendant insisted that he had “certainly no intention to hit the young lady.” The judge found him not guilty, citing that Harrison had witnessed Pickett turning his sign from side to side and still stepped in front of him on the street.

“Everyone has a right to protest, but you gotta use your common sense,” Serkes said. “Next time, use your common sense.”

 

Updated February 26 at 1:05pm with clarifications.

Correction: Judge Serkes’ name was misspelled in the original story.

Categories
Living

Changes ahead for Market Street Wineshop

Robert Harllee of Market Street Wineshops has watched an increase in Virginia wine sales at his various locations. Photo by Martyn Kyle

After 31 years of selling wine, fresh bread, cheese and more at Market Street Wineshop from the basement level of 311 E. Market St., Robert Harllee has decided to retire.

But fear not; Charlottesville is not about to lose another jewel from its quirky downtown crown: Two of Harllee’s longtime employees, Siân Richards and Thadd McQuade, are taking over. And they don’t plan on changing much: Market Street Wineshop will become Market Street Wine.

In a letter to the editor printed in the July 14, 2005, issue of The Hook, Harllee detailed the history of his shop: Philip Stafford opened The Market Street Vine Shop (at the time, “wine” couldn’t legally be part of a store’s name) in December 1979 and created “the character and flavor” of the wine shop that Stafford’s successor, David Fowler, maintained and passed along to Harllee and his former business partner, Bill Bird. Harllee and Bird purchased the shop from the late Fowler’s estate and opened up in December 1986, with a cash advance from Visa to stock the drawer.

Harllee says that, at first, he waited tables five nights a week to help cover shop costs.

Back in December 1986, there were a few other wine shops in town at the time (among them The Cellarmaster on Elliewood Avenue, In Vino Veritas, Fleurie at Barracks Road, Foods of All Nations), but finding a good bottle of wine is a bit easier now: Nowadays, even grocery stores have decent wine selections. Plus, Harllee says, Virginia wine has undergone “a new renaissance,” which has made not just oenophiles but the average person more interested in the libation. It’s been an exciting thing to witness as a wine shop owner, says Harllee, who closed Market Street Wineshop’s second location on 29 North late last year.

Over the years, Harllee says he’s loved participating in both the big and small of his customers’ lives, helping them choose wines for dinners at home, for birthday parties and engagement celebrations. These are his most cherished memories.

Richards and McQuade are perhaps best known around town as theater artists, but they’ve each worked for Market Street Wineshop in some capacity since 2006 and 1990, respectively. Harllee says they are “infused with the spirit of the shop.” He trusts they’ll carry on what’s special about the shop—the feel of the space, individualized attention for each customer—while also sustaining it for the future.

Market Street Wine will continue to offer fresh bread from Albemarle Baking Company and The Bread Basket, plus cheeses and other delicious things to eat. The Friday night wine tastings will also continue, and Richards and McQuade plan to offer even more specialized and themed tastings, plus classes and other public events.

And in a time when Charlottesville is changing rapidly, when it feels like small businesses with character are being edged out for a new office building, hotel or luxury condos, keeping a small business’ beloved personality is especially important to Richards and McQuade.

The shop has a very “insistent and particular personality,” Richards says, and she and McQuade don’t want to do anything to erase or alter that. She says they want it to remain “a hidden treasure trove that people are excited to uncover” and visit time and time again.“The goal is to make it feel new and refreshed, re-energized, but also be mindful of the years of tradition that are already in place,” Richards says.

Market Street Wineshop will close Saturday, February 24, and Richards and McQuade will replace the floors and rearrange shelving before opening the shop as Market Street Wine sometime in April.