Month: March 2023

Podcasts are the fastest-growing audio entertainment platform in the country, according to the Radio Agency—more than one-third of Americans listen to them regularly. Charlottesville is home to some of the most engaging, from lighthearted chats to compelling true crime investigations. Give these five a stream.—Laura Drummond

“Bold Dominion” “Bold Dominion” covers all things Virginia state politics in succinct snippets. This podcast is a member of the Virginia Audio Collective and produced by WTJU 91.1 FM, the nonprofit radio station at UVA. Knowledgeable host Nathan Moore, WTJU’s general manager, keeps you informed of the most relevant topics impacting our commonwealth, like affordable housing, broadband expansion, abortion access, and right-wing extremism. Airing twice a month, episodes are thoughtful and educational. 

“Green Light with Chris Long” Hosted by retired NFL star and UVA football titan Chris Long and his best friend Macon Gunter, “Green Light” is a sports podcast and then some. Rated one of the Top 10 football podcasts by Apple, it offers expert NFL and football analysis through recurring segments with Stanford Steve and Mina Kimes. It also tackles all sorts of other topics—entertainment, parenting, history, politics—nothing is off limits. Long has interviewed the likes of actor Matthew McConaughey, retired NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr., and Buffalo Bills tight end Dawson Knox. Most episodes extend beyond an hour, making them perfect listening for long commutes.

“Small Town Big Crime” Focusing on turning up new leads in unsolved cases, this true-crime podcast is hosted by Charlottesville journalists Courteney Stuart and Rachel Ryan. Listen to the complete first season about the 1985 murders of Derek and Nancy Haysom in Bedford County and the subsequent conviction of their daughter and her boyfriend, Jens Soering. This podcast spans an extensive three-year investigation in easily consumable 30-minute episodes. Plans are in the works to cover other cold cases. 

“Speaking in Hues” Produced at the UVA Maxine Platzer Lynn Women’s Center, this podcast discusses the experiences of Black women living and working in Charlottesville. It’s hosted by friends and colleagues Taylor Nichols, diversity, equity & inclusion expert and self-described pop culture queen, and Jaronda Miller-Bryant, scholar, mother of two, and self-described vegan fit-goddess. The episodes, usually around half an hour long, delve into topics like code switching, navigating white spaces, food, travel, and so much more.  

“Stitch Please” “Stitch Please” is the official podcast of Black Women Stitch, a sewing group that centers Black women, girls, and femmes in sewing. Hosted by Lisa Woolfork, founder of Black Women Stitch and a UVA associate professor of African American literature and culture, this weekly podcast offers short and sweet sewing specifics while furthering the discussions of social justice and empowerment. Notable guests include entrepreneur Carmen Green, author Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, and dollmaker Tracy Perry.

Honorable Mentions

These local podcasts may not have new episodes, but their archives are robust and thought-provoking.

-“Backstory”

-“Charlottesville Soundboard”

-“Uncommon Voices by United Way” 

With the Virginia Festival of the Book already on our calendar (March 23-26), we reached out to Kalela Williams—the Center for the Book’s new director—to tell us what she’s most looking forward to reading from this year’s lineup. See her picks below, and visit vabook.org for the full festival schedule.—CH

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel

I love reimaginings, especially when authors revisit female characters. Kaikeyi is a queen from the ancient Hindu epic, though sadly, I’m not familiar with the Ramayana. Somehow I never learned a word about it in school or college. So getting to know the original text would be an education for me, and I’d love to see how Patel has reconsidered this figure.

Deaf Utopia: A Memoir—And a Love Letter to a Way of Life by Nyle DiMarco

I’m really interested in stories that describe thriving in a world that isn’t built for everyone. That’s DiMarco in his memoir Deaf Utopia. His book is also an honoring of Deaf culture. Celebrations are always sweeter when they’re mothered by resilience. 

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

I started digging horror movies at the start of the pandemic, and now I’ve got the spine to creep into books, which are much more intimate and lingering—basically, more terrifying. How to Sell has got the lift of humor, though, and you can’t scream all that much when you’re laughing. 

Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders by Kathryn Miles

True crime is my thing, and so is getting outdoors. Trailed chronicles a search to find out who killed a couple—two women who went camping together—so it might not seem like a nudge to get out there. But it’s a call that the wild should be safe for all of us. I mean, let me go hiking and just worry about bears, not murderers. 

Inciting Joy by Ross Gay

Ross Gay’s writing calls me back to a childhood at my grandmother’s house in Summerville, South Carolina, to the legions of flowers she spent hours tending, and how she carried on about each bloom. Her joy. Gay’s new book explores finding mine. Yours. All of ours. Yeah, that’s pretty special. 

Here’s one way to get the creative juices flowing: Rose’s Inspiration Station. The mobile arts and crafts studio comes right to you, infusing imagination into kids’ birthday parties, weddings, and even work events.

Book online by selecting a predetermined theme—fantasy world, for example—or reach out with a one-of-a-kind idea of your own. On the day of the event, the whimsical wagon rolls up, brimming with creative materials to appeal to the traditional artist, paint, felt, and glue—or to the experimental one, battery-powered fairy lights, tiny plastic dinosaurs, and peacock feathers. Guests receive a project base and the freedom to choose from the materials on hand. When it’s all said and done, they walk away with finished crafts and an unforgettable experience of playfulness and positivity.  

Inspiration Station is the creation of Rose Guterbock, award-winning figurative oil painter, self-taught silversmith, and neurodivergent mother of two. While her other endeavors felt worthwhile, creating art in her studio at the Shenandoah Valley Art Center and teaching traditional art techniques as a private instructor, Guterbock wanted to do more within the community. “I’ve seen my private students feel better about who they are as people over time,” she says. “I realized I could encourage this same positive growth in a more intentional, and far-reaching capacity.” 

In addition to bringing the mobile studio to parties and events, Guterbock also partners with local businesses. She recently teamed up with Bluebird & Co. in Crozet, hosting wine and design events for adults and a regular art club for adolescents. She hopes to reach people where they are, fostering an inclusive atmosphere for imaginative thinking wherever she sets up shop. 

Guterbock outfits the Inspiration Station with thoughtfully selected supplies, repurposing and upcycling as much as she can. The Scrappy Elephant is a go-to for like-new tools and other items. “Bringing unique and reclaimed creative materials helps our planet and keeps my prices affordable,” says Guterbock. “Every time you work with me, the materials on hand will be a little different. Embracing the unexpected can lead to some awe-inspiring creativity.”  

With no doubt that art has positively impacted her life, Guterbock says her mission is to share that with as many people as she can. “Making art is healing. Making art connects us to one another. I hope that the individuals I work with will inspire others, passing the positive effects of creative expression on.”

Jen Deibert doesn’t care much for categories. “I would not call myself a potter,” she says, although her cozy cluttered studio is packed with ceramic pieces. (It actually looks like a vintage shoppe and a crystals booth got married in a kiln and had children.) Asked about her art, Deibert simply says, “I make things.” But whatever she’s creating, she clearly has The Touch, because people love her work.

Deibert starting creating early: “I always loved rocks and crystals and digging in the dirt.” By the time her family moved to Charlottesville in her middle-school years, she recalls, “I was making my own necklaces and earrings. My parents loved to go to antique shopping—they’d take me along, and I would get these great vintage jewelry pieces and take them apart to make new things. And the girls at school would say, ‘Could you make me something?’ I would decorate my notebook covers, and people would say, ‘Where did you get that?’”

Next, Deibert says, she taught herself how to make stained glass, and sold it on the Downtown Mall. She left college because she couldn’t decide on a major; she got a real estate license, but all she really wanted to do was make things. She has no formal art training: “I never liked sitting still or following directions,” Deibert says with characteristic candor. 

She kept on doing what she loved: finding and using vintage jewelry, clothing, and objects to make new things in her own eclectic style. But she found the distinction people made between her work as “craft,” and the more valid, respectable “art” to be a false one. “It’s taken me 45 years to say I’m an artist,” she says.

Two years ago, Deibert began developing her own approach to ceramics. She had bought a cheap potter’s wheel to try out (“I hated it—it’s now a spider house”), but she found working with clay and hand-building felt really familiar. “Working with the earth […] there are endless possibilities. There’s nothing you can’t make from clay.” 

And to prove it, Deibert’s current and most popular creations are trophies—recognition of achievements which have nothing to do with competition. Her trophies are child-like, homemade, painted in gleaming white and bright colors, each one unique and proudly displaying affirmative or thought-provoking mantras: “Keep going.” “You’re doing great.” “Good job floating through space.” “Is any of this even real?” “Oh dear, what a year!” Even, “We’re going to need a better trophy.”

Deibert says her ideas start from a phrase. “My [work] is more about the message, but in a physical thing you can touch,” she says. “It’s more about the things I’m trying to get people to think about.” Many of these ideas come to Deibert while she is meditating under a special lamp called a Lucia No. 3. She has one mounted over the couch/bed in her studio; she characterizes its impact as “like a more modern version of staring into the flames. It’s a tool for creativity.”

Deibert works on other objects as well. Scattered around her studio are ceramic cups, vases, and animals as well as vintage objects modified with crystals, paint, clay, and papier-mache. (A favorite example: a table lamp modified into a bright yellow banana decorated with quartz prisms and one staring bright blue eye, emblazoned with “Don’t forget we are here to have fun!” around the shade.) Her works are available for sale on her Facebook and Instagram pages and at The Quirk Gallery.

While she’s enthusiastic about her ceramic work, Deibert also wants to continue working with jewelry and vintage clothing. “I have this mental list of all the things I want to make,” she says. “When I get old, I want to have all these things [around me] that were made by me.” 

Which is a wonderful description of the Deibert home in Esmont, where Jen, husband Josh, 8-year-old daughter Birdie (“already a wonderful artist,” says her proud mother), and their five dogs have lived since 2017. The large farmhouse has a charmingly overgrown Secret Garden atmosphere. Her studio in the vine-draped English basement has a worktable watched over by a turquoise papier-mache dolphin, a plastic chair the shape of a giant cupped hand, and the Lucia meditation bed under a parachute canopy. 

Whether it’s vintage jewelry, a second-hand lamp, or a 1950s housedress, “I just like recycling old things,” Deibert says. “I love pointing out or finding things other people ignore. They are begging you to look at them. We all want to be validated.”