Month: March 2022

Categories
Arts Culture

Galleries: April

“The Ecstasies of Commitment” is on display at The Local through April 30. You can find Bowmaster’s work on Instagram at @krisbowmaster, and in his Etsy store, BowmasterArt. Image courtesy of the artist.

In the paint

For Kris Bowmaster, a painting is more than a single moment, captured on canvas. It’s a place to go. An event. A happening.

Over 25 years ago, while on a Peace Corps tour in Lesotho during the height of the AIDS epidemic, Bowmaster found painting. “The scope of the suffering was so huge and the days were full of tragedy,” he says. “Painting was the touchstone that I came back to every evening. I still think of painting as a place to go, not a thing to do. It’s a fight where no one gets hurt.”

Years later, along with the rest of the world, Bowmaster found himself surrounded by a public health crisis once more when COVID-19 hit. His new exhibition, “The Ecstasies of Commitment,” on display at The Local, features 10 paintings that he created during the first two years of the pandemic. 

“When starting the works that ended up in this show, I came across a series of images of dancers. One pair of dancers in particular caught my eye—they were so in tune with one another, it looked like ecstasy to me,” he says. “They were flying, jumping, catching, and being caught by one another. You can’t dance like that and be half committed.” 

The exhibition’s title work, “The Ecstasies of Commitment,” is a collision of color and bodies. Bowmaster started the painting when times were tough. “My supplies were low and, like many people, my income was interrupted.” After gathering up old, broken, half-empty spray paint cans, he used a nail to burst the color out onto the canvas, then smeared on thick layers of paint using a pallet knife he inherited from a lost loved one.  

This instinctive, spontaneous process was followed by a long period of intentional nurturing—slowly adding details with oil paints and gold leaf until it was done. The finished painting is full of movement. Sharp splatters of paint push up against fluid figures in a disjointed yet supportive embrace, so entwined it’s hard to tell where one starts and the other ends. 

“Commitments are personal, sometimes shared, and often a long time coming,” says Bowmaster. “Whether it be to a practice or a person, I think of a commitment as a new beginning, something that requires more from you or me than before. I think for all of us, in life, you’re gonna need something more than yourself to find your way.”—Maeve Hayden

April Shows

Artistic Remedies for Creative Hearts 8767 Seminole Tr., Suite 101, Ruckersville. “Women and Their Dogs” by Hope Wood, and “The Elements: Wood, Fire, Metal, Water, Earth and Air,” an ARCH members exhibition. 

Atlas Coffee 2206 Fontaine Ave. “Testing The Waters,” a joint show by Nathaniel Rogers and Kris Bowmaster. Through April.

Chroma Projects Inside Vault Virginia, Third St. SE. “Stillness” features works by Reni Gower. Through April 29.

Reni Gower at Chroma Projects.
Image courtesy of the artist.

Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd. “Artistry and Artisanship,” paintings and wire jewelry by Mae Stoll. Through April 30. Meet the artists at 1pm on April 9. 

Crozet Library 2020 Library Ave. “‘98 to ’22,”  paintings of acrylic, ink, and glass on canvas by Jerry O’Dell.

C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Natural Public Lands of Virginia,” works by landscape, wildlife, and nature photographer Ben Greenberg. Through April. 

Firefly 1304 E. Market St. Works by Dana Wheeles.  

High Tor Gear Exchange 1717 Allied St. “Close to Home—An Environmental Art Exhibit,” works inspired by environmental sustainability, with the intention of connecting artists and environmentalists alike to create conversations about the urgency of climate change.

Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. “Memory Quilts” displays nine quilts by Deloris Thomas that explore the relationship between color and form, and utilize old patterns, some associated with the Underground Railroad. “Picturing Climate Justice” features photographs, artwork, and maps alongside interactive data tools to shed light on the nature of climate injustice in our region. Through June 4 and May 28, respectively.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Turn on the Light!” is a memorial show in honor of Lyn Bolen Warren. The group exhibition features light-filled and Lyn-inspired work from artists Warren represented throughout her career. Through April 30.

The Local 824 Hinton Ave. “The Ecstasies of Commitment,” paintings by Kris Bowmaster. Through April. 

Loving Cup Vineyard & Winery 3340 Sutherland Rd., North Garden. “There is Beauty in Color,” works by Sara Gondwe using the melted crayon technique. Through May 29.

McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Smith Gallery, “redux: revisit, revive, remake,” ceramics by Rebekah Wostrel and fiber works by Lotta Helleberg. On the first floor, “Outflow” by Zoe Edgecom explores local wastewater treatment plants, and “Creation” features abstract paintings by Etta Harmon Levin. On the second floor, “INcompleteness” features photographs by Rob de Bara. In the Associate Gallery, “Gardens” showcases works by McGuffey’s Associate artists. Through May 1.

McIntire Connaughton Gallery Rouss and Robertson Hall, UVA Grounds. “2 Plein Air Painters,” oil on linen, oil on linen panel, and oil on canvas by V-Anne Evans and Lee Christmas Halstead. Through June 13.

New City Arts 114 Third St. NE. “Diaspograms: The Symbology of Black Life,” a celebration of the Black experience distilled as imagery by Kweisi Morris.

PVCC Gallery 501 College Dr. In the North and South Galleries, the Annual Student Exhibition and Eighth Annual Chocolate Chowdown features works by student artists in diverse mediums, with decadent amounts of chocolate available to enjoy. Opens April 15. 

Random Row Brewing Co. 608 Preston Ave. A. “Old and New,” works by Julia Kindred. Through April 30. 

Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the Main Gallery, “Pathways,” layered mixed-media paintings by Francisco Donoso. In the Dové Gallery, “Daughterland” by Meesha Goldberg.

Meesha Goldberg at Second Street Gallery.
Image courtesy of the artist.

Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital 500 Martha Jefferson Dr. In the second floor Lab hall, paintings by Randy Baskerville. Through April.

Shenandoah Valley Art Center 126 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. In the Invitational Gallery, works by Paige Speight. In the Member’s Gallery, “Black,” by SVAC members in a variety of mediums. 

Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “The Prolyfyck Shape of Art” features works from student artists of the Blue Ridge Juvenile Detention Center as part of the Prolyfyck Exhibition Series. Through May 1. 

Student art at Studio IX. Images courtesy of the gallery.

Tandem Friends School 279 Tandem Ln. The Charlottesville Area Quilters Guild Quilt Show, with over 180 quilts on display, plus shopping and demos. April 9 and 10. 

Unitarian-Universalist Church 717 Rugby Rd. Paintings by Matalie Deane. Through April and viewable online. 

Vault Virginia 300 E. Main St. “Nature, Us, and The Future,” a female artists’ group exhibition with works by Christen Yates, Judith Ely, Karen Rosasco, Lesli DeVito, Phyllis Koch-Sheras, and Susan Patrick. Through April 15.

Visible Records 1740 Broadway St. “On the Palette of Scarlet,” photographs by Fumi Ishino, and “Future Elsewhere,” an exhibition by Dana Washington-Queen. Through April 15 and opens April 22, respectively.

Categories
News

In the house

The former Red Carpet Inn off Route 29 is one of the city’s newest low-barrier shelters for people experiencing homelessness. Photo: Eze Amos

After years of public debate over Charlottesville’s housing woes, City Council adopted a new Future Land Use Map last fall, which advocates for increasing housing density across the city—and in turn, creating more affordable housing. Last month, city staff began the lengthy process of rewriting an outdated zoning ordinance, something that could take a year or longer.

During a virtual town hall last week, local residents again stressed the desperate need for emergency and affordable housing in Charlottesville. The city’s Human Rights Commission, the forum’s host, plans to use the community input to guide its future advocacy on the subject.

Resident Sage Boyer discussed the struggles she has faced finding affordable housing as a disabled person. “Most of the affordable housing in Charlottesville is unaffordable to people that are on SSI and SSD. We only usually make $841 a month, and most of the low income places are like around $800 a month,” she said.

While some people move to surrounding rural areas to find cheaper housing, relocating to the country can be more difficult for disabled people, said Daniela Pretzer of the BridgeLine nonprofit. “It is important to live in Charlottesville for people like that or close because of the medical community around here,” she said.

And the affordable housing options in nearby counties are often in poor condition, added Boyer, who has lived outside the city.

“They’re privately owned, cash only—they’re basically just homes owned by slumlords. There’s generally mold, things that are broken, things that don’t work right. These places are just absolutely disgusting,” she said.

Anna Mendez of Partner for Mental Health highlighted the additional housing barriers faced by people living with mental illness. More low-barrier shelters like the former Red Carpet Inn off Route 29—now run by Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless and People and Congregations Engaged in Ministry—are especially needed, connecting guests to mental health services, substance abuse treatment, medical care, and other community resources.

“Many of our community members who have been banned from emergency housing options, including the Salvation Army and PACEM, are disproportionately people that live with mental health diagnoses,” explained Mendez.

To properly address homelessness, entrepreneur and activist Gwen Cassady, who has been homeless four times, suggested Charlottesville follow Finland’s housing first approach, which provides people experiencing homelessness with permanent housing—no strings attached—and then helps them address issues, like mental illness and substance abuse. The concept has been wildly successful—less than 1 percent of Finland’s population is currently homeless, according to the Housing Finance and Development Centre of Finland.

A variety of affordable housing projects are currently in the works in and around Charlottesville. Last year, the city kicked off the redevelopment of South First Street public housing, and is expected to complete the first phase of the 175-plus-unit project this spring. This year, the Piedmont Housing Alliance broke ground on 450 new units at Friendship Court, which will take around eight years to complete.

By 2024, Virginia Supportive Housing plans to build 80 permanent housing units at the motel-turned-shelter at Premier Circle, and will make them available to disabled individuals who chronically struggle with homelessness. The Piedmont Housing Alliance will also build 60 affordable housing units—to be rented for no more than 30 percent of the gross income of future residents—on the property.

And over the next decade, the University of Virginia has pledged to support the development of 1,000 to 1,500 units of affordable housing in Charlottesville and Albemarle County. The university has selected three prospective sites—all owned by the university or the UVA Foundation—for the units: UVA’s Piedmont community off Fontaine Avenue, portions of the North Fork UVA Discovery Park on Route 29, and the 1010 Wertland St. building at the corner of Wertland and 10th Street. It plans to issue a Request for Qualifications from developers this spring.

But UVA could do more to address the city’s housing crisis now, claimed Rich Gregory of The Alliance for Interfaith Ministries during the town hall. He suggested the school use empty dorm rooms to provide emergency housing.

“Ideally, UVA would have 100 free rooms available at any time, with wardens and support people so that homeless people could make use of this facility,” said Gregory. 

Gregory also emphasized the long wait lists for most of the city’s current affordable housing options, requiring residents to wait months or years for a spot to open up. In Charlottesville, there are 1,000 people on a wait list for an affordable housing voucher, according to Virginia Public Media.  

Additionally, rent hikes have made it even harder to find housing that can be fully covered by vouchers, explained Nancy Carpenter, prevention coordinator for The Haven day shelter. She urged the city to increase voucher amounts from 125 to 150 percent of fair market value.

Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority Executive Director John Sales explained that, without additional funding, the agency will not be able to give out as many vouchers if their value is increased. “HUD is not funding it at the level it needs to be funded,” he said.

Activist Ang Conn stressed the need for rent freezes and rent caps. (The city needs permission from the state government to implement such measures.) 

“I checked an apartment complex that was just $1,300 about four weeks ago,” she said. “It is now $1,519.”

Categories
Culture Food & Drink

Small bites

Give them a caul: Botanical Fare’s Crunchy Cauliflower Bowl is sure to satisfy. Supplied photo

Leaving the country

Spring has sprung, and as the season turns, so does the Charlottesville foodscape. The Blue Ridge Country Store, an old-timey convenience store known for its extensive salad bar and homemade hot lunch offerings, is changing owners after more than 25 years. Dan and Patty Pribus say they are currently fielding offers, and plan to retire once they sell the business, but feel the transition will be seamless. “Our customers won’t notice a thing,” says Dan. The Pribuses are looking forward to a relaxing retirement filled with “hobbies and grandkids. We never missed a day in over 25 years,” Dan says, “so it will be nice to sleep past 6am for once.”

Out with the old, in with the new

Named after the birthplace of Thomas Jefferson, Shadwells Restaurant has served a cross section of upscale American cuisine since its debut in 2013. Now, the restaurant is  doing a  spring cleaning of sorts, by completely reimagining its concept. Under the same ownership, Shadwells relaunched as The Piedmont Bar and Kitchen on March 1 in the same location. The Piedmont’s casual, no-frills concept includes stacked burgers, shakes, and a variety of made-from-scratch pizzas, and is open daily from 11am to 9pm.

Fried chicken is a staple below the Mason-Dixon line, and obviously pretty popular here in C’ville, where we impede traffic to score tenders at drive-thrus along Emmet Street’s “Chicken Row.” While we’ll leave the “best” fried chicken to a vote, we can say that Brown’s makes some of it, so there was lots of clucking when the gas station fried-chicken favorite announced it had been sold to Skyline Enterprises. NBC29 reported that the new owners were getting trained on the chicken recipes, and increasing the station’s hours to seven days a week.

Vita Nova Pizza is spinning dough in a new home. The hot-slice fave has moved across the Downtown Mall from its previous location to a bright, roomy corner spot last occupied by The Impeccable Pig clothing store. 

And a few stops down the mall, Red Pump Kitchen is getting pumped for its post-COVID reopening (in mid-April) with a new menu that includes a four-course tasting menu that changes weekly.

Healthy growth

It’s a good time to be vegan in Charlottesville. Botanical Fare, which recently opened in the former Java Java space on the Downtown Mall, offers a 100 percent vegan menu of sandwiches, desserts, and specialty coffees. Even our office meatheads took notice of its crunchy mac-n-cheese, made with miso cashew cheese and mushroom-based bacon.

Brew on it

Local breweries are raising awareness about sexual violence with Simcoe for SARA, a partnership that benefits the lifesaving services and prevention education programs at the Sexual Assault Resource Agency while celebrating local beer. This year, Three Notch’d Brewing Company, Decipher Brewing, Champion Brewing Company, Reason Beer, and Blue Mountain Barrel House & The Smokin’ Barrel Restaurant each created a signature Simcoe for SARA brew, including pale ales, a West Coast IPA, and a hopped hard seltzer, all using Simcoe hops.

Categories
Arts Culture

Pick: Wordplay

The Paramount Theater hosts Wordplay, Charlottesville's original live game show on March 31. Supplied photo

Think fast: If you (like us here at C-VILLE) have been religiously solving the daily Wordle, you’ll enjoy flexing your vocab and trivia skills at Wordplay, Charlottesville’s original live game show. Wordplay is a team-based trivia competition that tests your knowledge of words, vocabulary, pop culture, history, literature, and more. The evening features refreshments and raffle prizes, and raises money for nonprofit Literacy Volunteers of Charlottesville/Albemarle, which  addresses low literacy and undereducation among adults in our region through free, individualized reading, writing, and English language instruction.

Thursday 3/31. $20, 7pm. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. theparamount.net

Categories
Arts Culture

Pick: Popeye

POPEYE, from left: Robin Williams as Popeye, Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl, 1980. ©Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection

I yam what I yam: He’s strong to the finich, ’cause he eats his spinach, he’s Popeye the Sailor Man. Most of us know the spinach-eating, stovepipe-forearmed sailor from the comic strips or cartoons, but there’s also the 1980 live-action musical comedy that helped launch
the career of its star (Robin Williams), almost killed the career of its director (Robert Altman), and was panned by critics, but now is a cult favorite. After the film’s release, Altman, known for M*A*S*H, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and Nashville, was deemed unemployable by some for almost a decade. The screening of Popeye is part of the Auteurs Series, spotlighting  Altman’s work.

Sunday 4/3. $8-10, noon. Violet Crown Cinema, Downtown Mall. violetcrown.com

Categories
Culture Food & Drink

Brewing perfection

As the owner and toji at North American Sake Brewery, Andrew Centofante aims to make sake that competes with the best in Japan. Photo: John Robinson

Sake is believed to have originated in Japan approximately 2,000 years ago. As with many alcoholic beverages, it was refined as part of religious ceremonies, and commercial brewing of the rice-based beverage began in the 14th century. Although recent advances have allowed for automation and large-volume production, high-quality sake is still mostly made by hand, using techniques passed down from toji (master brewers) to apprentices through the centuries.

In the United States, sake is still largely ignored or misunderstood. For many, its mention causes flashbacks to the ’70s and ’80s, when poor-quality sake was served warm (to hide flaws) at hibachi-grill restaurants like Benihana. For a country that loves craft anything, Americans have yet to fully realize that high-quality sake is perhaps the most craft of craft beverages. 

For Andrew Centofante, owner and toji at North American Sake Brewery, it took a trip to Japan and a chance meeting with an English-speaking bartender who loved sake, to realize this oversight. An avid homebrewer and self-described lover of “all kinds of craft beer, wine, cider, and spirits,” Centofante was immediately impressed by the delicious and nuanced flavors of sake. Upon returning, he sought out more sake but quickly became fixated on brewing his own at home. 

“The more I learned, the more I fell in love with the process…before long I had transformed my basement into a small-scale sake brewery,” Centofante says. “And then my wife was like, ‘What are you doing?!’” 

For many, a hobby that disturbs family harmony might have stopped right there. For Centofante, it led to a trip back to Japan, an apprenticeship under a sixth-generation sake brewer, and then, three years ago, the opening of his own sake brewery at IX Art Park. From the outset, NAS has produced sake using a traditional, hands-on, and time-consuming process that honors historical roots. At the same time, NAS is trying to appeal to an American market. 

While he easily admits the process is one of constant learning, Centofante is adamant that the goal is to produce sake that is competitive with, or even better than, other sakes—including those from Japan. He also sees an opportunity to create more sake drinkers by making it more accessible and increasing consumer knowledge. Therefore, NAS intentionally has a less formal atmosphere that allows consumers to relax and have fun while they learn more about the nuances of technique and flavor that are a big part of sake. 

After the brewery opened, Centofante quickly realized that serving food would be an integral part of the experience. He admits, “Food was not always part of the plan, but we also knew that we needed people to taste it in order for them to get it.” The NAS kitchen now serves a Japanese menu with ramen, rice bowls, sushi, and dumplings.

To produce high-quality sake in the United States, especially brews that can rival those coming out of Japan, is no small task. Not only is NAS itself relatively young, but the entire industry outside of Japan is in its infancy. So, Centofante founded the Sake Brewers Association of North America, a nonprofit for which he serves as chairman of the board. The organization is dedicated to bringing the brewing community together, including forging relationships with both the Japanese and United States governments. “A rising tide lifts all ships and I believe that if you enjoy great sake brewed in Cincinnati or Arizona, then you will come here to NAS or pick up bottles of Japanese sake when you see it,” Centofante says.

Seemingly content in this place of tension between honoring ancient tradition while also looking forward to a modern future, Centofante says, “Sake, even though it is ancient, is an incredibly modern drink with so much technical precision, artistry, and innovation happening in Japan and abroad. We are lucky to be part of something so special.”

Style bar

North American Sake Brewery intentionally brews a lineup that showcases different styles of sake. Here are a few of note:

Real Magic: Junmai (brewed only with rice with no addition of alcohol beyond what is produced by fermentation). Not heavily milled, the retention of 70 percent of the rice grain yields flavors of pear and apple accompanying a round mouthfeel and long savory finish.

Big Baby: Unfiltered and cloudy with flavors of melon and banana. NAS uses calrose rice, a sushi
rice grown in the United States,
and this gives the drinker a real sense of how that rice tastes.

Serenity Now!: Junmai, but also daiginjo (the rice has been polished down to less than 50 percent of its original size), which results in a sake lighter in body, more aromatic, and full of fruit flavors.

Categories
News

In brief: Montpelier breaks promise, and more

James Madison's Montpelier. Supplied photo.

Promise broken

The Montpelier Foundation board has revoked its promise to share governance of the historic property with descendants of the over 300 enslaved laborers who lived and worked there. 

The foundation voted in June 2021 to change its bylaws and fill half the board of James Madison’s former home with members of the Montpelier Descendants Committee. Only three of the 16 current board members were committee-nominated; the board’s new vote denies the committee the ability to name any future members to the board, leaving it up to the board’s discretion.

“They really want a narrative that’s restricted to nothing that’s negative about James Madison,” said Matt Reeves, Montpelier’s director of archaeology, in a March 25 Washington Post story detailing the tension between the board and the committee.

Gene Hickok, chairman of the Montpelier Foundation board, told the Post that the board has faced challenges working with the committee, and seeks to select members from a larger pool of candidates. 

“This is an effort to reset the process,” Hickok said. “It certainly doesn’t have the board backing away from parity. We are very committed to parity. The challenge has been organizationally getting there.”

Gene Hickock.
Supplied photo.

A majority of the full-time staff at Montpelier issued a statement requesting the Montpelier Foundation board honor its promise of structural parity and also calling for an end to “the intimidation of staff,” which involved “implied or threatened retaliation” if staff failed to disclose communication with members of the descendants committee. 

Paul Edmondson, chief executive of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which owns Montpelier, wrote a letter to Hickok imploring him to not reverse the bylaws. 

“We believe this change would undermine decades of important work that led to the formation of the committee in the first place, and in turn would set back Montpelier’s efforts to continue the necessary work of uplifting descendants’ voices, and repairing the relationship between the broader African American community and Montpelier, the former site of generations of enslavement,” he wrote. 

In a press release from an attorney representing the committee, Dr. Bettye Kearse, one of the few members nominated to the board by the committee, emphasized the Montpelier Descendants Committee’s continued commitment to the Montpelier Foundation, researching the history of the estate, and coming up with projects. 

“Montpelier is not the board, but the board must be receptive to substantive change for Montpelier to survive and thrive,” she said.—Maryann Xue 

Praising KBJ

UVA School of Law Dean Risa Goluboff testified last Thursday at a hearing on the U.S. Supreme Court nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, whom she has known both personally and professionally for more than 20 years. 

Goluboff remarked that “the Supreme Court and the nation will benefit enormously from the keen intelligence, impeccable integrity, broad experience, and intellectual open-mindedness of a Justice Jackson.”

Risa Goluboff.
Supplied photo.

If appointed, Jackson would be the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. Goluboff noted that while it is a “happy coincidence” that Jackson shares a birthday with her role model Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to serve as a federal judge, it is far more “causal” that Jackson shares Motley’s status as a trailblazer, citing Motley’s work in paving the way.

Referring to the more than 500 cases over which Jackson has presided, Goluboff emphasized Jackson’s consistent commitment to precedent, procedural consistency, and doing justice under the rule of law, regardless of the positions or political affiliations of the parties. 

“These traits place Judge Jackson in the heartland and in the mainstream of the American judicial tradition,” Goluboff said. 

Goluboff also spoke of Jackson’s similarities to retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, for whom both women clerked, comparing their deeply held patriotism and dedication to public service as well as their interest in hearing the views of others.

“If you confirm Judge Jackson, as I urge you to do, those virtues, both personal and judicial, will indeed remain with the court, much to the benefit of us all,” Goluboff said.—Maryann Xue

Skill games, now unregulated, return to Charlottesville 

Skill games—the flashing, whirring, casino-adjacent electronic consoles—are making a comeback in the convenience stores and gas stations of Charlottesville. 

The machines’ legal status in Virginia has gone through a series of swings: The once-banned games were granted a temporary reprieve until July of 2021, with their tax revenue used to pad the coronavirus relief fund. The ban was then reengaged, until they became legal again last December when a judge blocked the commonwealth from enforcing the ban. The state no longer collects data on where these games are located and how much revenue they generate, and the state doesn’t tax them.

Virginia ABC’s April 2021 report says, at that time, there were 380 skill game machines in Virginia’s region 9, which includes the City of Charlottesville and 10 surrounding central Virginia counties. In just the month of February 2021, region 9 spent $7,889,460 on these machines.

When C-VILLE stopped by the 7-day on Maury Avenue last Tuesday afternoon, there was already a line to use its two machines. The Exxon on Cherry Grove has a couple of machines, and the Lucky 7 on Market Street also has a large bank. 

Currently, the commonwealth allocates just 2.5 percent of revenue generated from sports betting toward its Problem Gambling Treatment and Support Fund. Governor Glenn Youngkin has shown no interest in trying to ban or regulate skill game machines, although he did join Virginia Council on Problem Gambling in proclaiming March as Problem Gamblers Awareness Month. 

A handwritten sign hangs above the machines at Lucky 7, reading “Please do not bring your children here to babysit while you gamble.” Legislators and regulators have debated whether or not the machines constitute gambling—we consider Lucky 7’s input decisive.­—Eshaan Sarup


Skill games are ready and waiting for players at convenience stores throughout the city.
Photo: Eze Amos

In brief

IV bar opens downtown

A visit to the newest bar in downtown Charlottesville won’t leave you with a hangover. In fact, it might help cure one! The DripBar on Water Street now offers intravenous vitamin therapy that proponents say can help with weight loss, anxiety, and headache relief, among other benefits. DripBar is the second IV business to open in town, joining Well Room. The DripBar’s IV options include The Soother, for physical and mental tension, and The Time Machine, an allegedly anti-aging concoction. 

Alex Jones settles Unite the Right suit

Conspiracy theorist and Infowars.com host Alex Jones has agreed to pay $50,000 to settle a lawsuit brought against him by Brennan Gilmore, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer who witnessed and recorded the car attack that killed Heather Heyer and injured dozens of others. In a draft order, Jones admits he defamed Gilmore and retracts statements implicating Gilmore in the crime.

Masks off at UVA

Two years since the pandemic began, and UVA students and faculty can now attend classes both in person and mask-free. The change in the university’s mask policy went into effect on Monday, March 28. In addition to making masks optional in classes and in non-clinical UVA Health settings, the school is making masks optional at indoor and outdoor graduation events in May. An email to the university community from UVA Provost Ian Baucom and UVA COO J.J. Davis urges everyone to be considerate. “UVA community members are encouraged to carry a mask in case they are asked to wear one,” they write. 

Categories
News

Who’s investigating who?

Hansel Aguilar, executive director of Charlottesville’s PCOB, is in charge of directly investigating complaints against the Charlottesville Police Department. Supplied photo.

Charlottesville’s Police Civilian Oversight Board met last week to discuss procedures for how the board can investigate complaints against the police—and how board members can investigate complaints against each other, an all-too-relevant process given the fractious history between recent members. At the meeting, board members voted to send a final draft of their operating procedures to City Council for approval.

According to the newly drafted procedures, the board has authority to investigate complaints against CPD employees, including illegal uses of force, discriminatory traffic stops, and injuries or death of a person in custody. The board can also investigate incidents voluntarily, if no complaint is filed. 

In an earlier draft of the procedures, the board’s executive director was solely responsible for deciding whether the board would investigate a complaint, explained Chair Bill Mendez. Now, the director is required to consult with the board.

The executive director can also refer complaints to the commonwealth’s attorney for possible criminal prosecution, or to mediation, during which “two individuals get together and discuss their differences in a non-threatening, non-hyper adversarial atmosphere,” explained Mendez.

“That would allow officers and complainants to actually meet each other as human beings…and that might help a lot to establish better relations between the police and the community,” added Mendez.

Cases involving use of force—or officers with multiple complaints against them—are not eligible for mediation, which would be held confidentially. 

“The object is good faith participation,” added Mendez. “If a complainant is not satisfied, we’re not shutting them out of the process. If they want to go back and say ‘please pursue this investigation,’ they can ask us to do that.” 

The executive director is in charge of directly investigating complaints or engaging independent investigators, and will have access to all of CPD’s records, evidence, and witnesses. During an investigation, the board can subpoena witnesses and evidence, as well as hold public hearings, run by a hearing examiner. 

Last year, community members called for the removal of members Bellamy Brown and Jeffrey Fracher, in light of leaked text messages expressing their contempt for former CPD chief RaShall Brackney, then-mayor Nikuyah Walker, local activists, and several other board members. Some also accused Brown of collaborating with the local Police Benevolent Association to get Brackney fired. In regard to complaints filed against board members, Mendez expressed concerns about the “optics” of allowing board members to investigate each other, and asked the board to change that section of the procedures to language suggested by City Attorney Lisa Robertson.

Hansel Aguilar, the board’s executive director, explained the process by which board members can investigate each other: The board can create a committee (which could also include members of the local Human Rights Commission or city staff) to examine complaints against board members, but only City Council has the authority to remove board members.  

Per the proposed procedures, a member may be removed from the board for violating confidentiality obligations, secretly communicating with a person with a pending case, neglecting their duties, breaking the board’s Code of Ethics, or failing to comply with laws applicable to PCOB business, like the Freedom of Information Act. 

Council is expected to discuss and vote on the operating procedures next month.

Categories
Arts Culture

Pick: Leif Vollebekk

Leif Vollebekk plays at The Southern Café & Music Hall on March 31. Supplied photo

Songs for the taking: “Anything that I wouldn’t ever want to tell anyone—I just put it on the record,” says Canadian indie-folk musician Leif Vollebekk about his latest album, New Ways. The follow-up to Twin Solitude, his breakthrough Polaris Music Prize finalist and Juno-nominated record,  the album reads like a film, with narrative lyrics on unabashed desire, longing, risk, and tenderness. Vollebekk, who sings about losing love, releasing the past, and embracing reality, says, “That last record I made for me, this one is for someone else.”

Thursday 3/31. $15-18, 8pm. The Southern Café & Music Hall, 103 First St. S. thesoutherncville.com

Categories
Arts Culture

Figuring it out

Saul Kaplan began his professional artmaking in 1948 at the prestigious Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts, where he studied drawing under Hofmann, who was a contemporary of Henri Matisse. Photo: Eze Amos

By Matt Dhillon

In February, Saul Kaplan marked both his 93rd birthday and the release of a new book of artwork. The self-published Sketches: Faces of Life & Love highlights what is perhaps the artist’s most discreet and most intimate medium, his drawings.

Having retired to an apartment in Martha Jefferson House, the ceramics and painting that were the priority of Kaplan’s artistic career became more difficult. But Kaplan cannot sit down with a pen without coming away with a drawing. It’s a habit he’s developed from over 60 years of practicing.

“Drawing is a muscle memory, eye muscle coordination,” Kaplan says. The memory that keeps returning to the muscles of his fingers, wrist, and arm is the memory of human faces.

Over the years, Kaplan has drawn thousands of human faces, and on every page his book is populated with that most familiar of images.

“The human face expresses everything,” he says.

Kaplan’s simple lines craft expressions on the shifting array of faces, digging for the bare-bones of emotion buried there. We see eyes meet, or downcast, or slitted, eyes tired, or gentle, or cunning. Lips are curled, puckered, pouting, or tense. Noses sharp and soft, cheeks broad and narrow.

Kaplan released his third book, Sketches: Faces of Life & Love, just before his 93rd birthday. Image courtesy of the artist.

Perhaps it is this simplicity of bare lines that makes drawing, as Kaplan says in the book’s prologue, “the most intimate and direct form of visual communication.” While intricacy serves to expand and amplify, the simplicity of the line drawings in Faces of Life & Love go in the opposite direction, seeking to distill the essence of an eyebrow, or a lip, and identify the essential lines that carry emotion. In the most minimalist renderings, Kaplan refines a somber face into just a handful of lines.

Kaplan also alludes to ancient Egyptian drawings. “The style of the Egyptian eye has been repeated over history,” he writes. “The eye I draw, like Picasso did, had its beginning in Egypt.”

That eye—drawn over and over for centuries—mirrors Kaplan’s endless creation of faces throughout the years. In this obsessive repetition and focus on the geometry of shape, Kaplan’s drawings search for something basic about the human face, its composition, and its familiarity. As the Egyptians did, Kaplan attempts to use the very specific and precise lines of a face to strike a resounding chord.

In this collection, we see the warm human population that Kaplan has created as a result of that repetition. Most of them are not alone, drawings occupied by two or more figures in some form of relationship to each other. Often, their bodies overlap or blend so that we see two faces that share one eye, or three heads that share one torso. In these fusions there is a sense of togetherness, of something shared that merges the characters in a visceral way. 

Each drawing, he says, is a kind of personal signature. “[As artists] we are making our mark some way or another. It’s a kind of waving and saying, ‘I’m here.’”

Kaplan, like his characters, tries to merge with something bigger than himself, participating in the collective story. “That’s what an artist really does,” Kaplan says. “He tries to use the medium he’s in to express something—it could be anything—but it is now part of history, a part of mankind.”

In the same way that the thousands of Egyptian eyes are actually one eye, iterations of the same form, Kaplan’s endless faces resolve into one face, waving at the world.