The Albemarle High School Jazz Ensemble returns for its sixth annual Swing Into Spring benefit concert. The award-winning ensemble led by director Andrew LaPrade plays in support of Loaves & Fishes, a food pantry that provides assistance to area families and individuals. The evening features appearances from local and regional jazz musicians including John D’earth, Charles Owens, Taylor Barnett, Greg Thomas, Bobby Gregg, Malik Poindexter, and more.
Sunday 4/16. $17-35, 7pm. The Jefferson Theater, 110 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. jeffersontheater.com
Immerse yourself in the wonders of Earth’s wildlife at Our Planet, a live concert event featuring favorite scenes and highlights from Netflix’s Emmy Award-winning documentary series of the same name. The production combines breathtaking HD cinematography with orchestrations from Oscar-winning composer Steven Price. With narration from legendary broadcaster David Attenborough, and a live soundtrack from a 44-piece orchestra, Our Planet is a once in a lifetime experience.
Sunday 4/16. $29-69, 7:30pm. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. theparamount.net
Tom Chambers’ (right) and Fax Ayres’ (left) photographs evoke magical otherworldliness at Chroma Projects through May 26.
Images courtesy of Chroma Projects.
“Tom Chambers and Fax Ayres: Everything is Extraordinary,” currently on view at Chroma Projects at Vault Virginia, features two artists using distinctive approaches to alter and enhance photographs in order to capture a mood, an evocation of a place, objects, or some mystical imaginary region.
Fax Ayres enjoys playing with perception. This is evident in his transformation of ordinary objects into something special, and the playful shifting back and forth between reality and fiction that’s a recurring theme throughout his work. Photographing each piece incrementally, Ayres works on small sections, taking as many as 200 photographs to end up with the 100 good ones that comprise a finished image.
“I like the fact that they can appear to be paintings or photographs,” says Ayres. “I have a definite affinity for some of the Dutch painters who did those hyper photorealistic paintings.”
To achieve the crystalline quality of his images, Ayres uses light painting. With the camera mounted on a tripod and tethered to a computer, Ayres holds a remote trigger in one hand and a small flashlight in the other. He opens the shutter and skims the light across the surface of the area he’s photographing, throwing the object into high relief. The shutter speed depends on a variety of factors, including the surface area size, how shiny or dull it is, and even how far away it is from the camera.
“I keep the shutter open with a manual count,” he says. “Then I close the shutter and look at the image to see if the highlights look right, if the texture of the surface is revealed in the way I want, etc.”
One can see the result of the process in the remarkable reflecting, haptic, and even emotional qualities Ayres is able to wrest from the ordinary, everyday objects he uses. To preserve the clarity of the work, Ayres has his images printed on smooth, matte aluminum.
At first, “The Usual Suspects” appears to be a sober and imposing work, but then we notice a plastic monkey and parakeet amidst the oil cans, padlocks, and weights. It’s a delightful touch that disrupts the unrelenting browns and grays of old metal by adding color, humor, and frivolity.
In “Portal,” Ayres takes this levity further, creating a faux landscape of fake trees and grass, a dog figurine, and a macabre novelty lamp, all set within a car gear part that’s resting on an old-school style level. These functional objects, made from steel and wood, shine under Ayres’ exacting eye—their humble ordinariness transformed into beauty by proximity to the garish artificial scene they’re paired with.
Ayres steps outside the studio with the striking “Birch Trees” and “Pool Gates.” In these works, intense lighting and hyperrealism work together to produce a curious artificiality that adds drama and suspense.
In his allegorical photomontages, Tom Chambers captures the innate beauty of young girls in a way that exalts them while preserving their innocence. In Chambers’ hands, this central theme yields powerful images.
According to Chambers, “the photographs present something that is possible but not probable,” a land where girls rule (or at least have agency) and feral beings are safe. He photographs his subjects in the studio, while placing them within landscapes that tend to be rugged, northern coastal settings—the perfect foil for the tender girlish pulchritude depicted.
In some images, the girls are either holding or interacting with natural beings—a wolf, birds, fireflies, which are in peril because of demonizing, loss of habitat, or pollution. In these mysterious tableaux, one has the sense that the girl is in control; a junior Mother Nature tending to and protecting her charges. “In each of my images, I’m going for my own expression of a feeling through telling a story,” he says. “I hope the viewer also connects in some way emotionally with his own personal interpretation.”
Chambers clothes his models in garments that sync perfectly with the timbre of the work. Their frocks, muted in color and style, have a timeless elegance about them that’s unusual and piques our interest. One girl, in a plain white shift, sports an arm in a matching sling. It’s unexpected and provocative, engaging the viewer’s curiosity and dispelling any whiffs of cloying sentimentality such enchanting subjects might arouse. Another girl wears a black and white checked dress that echoes the speckled hens at her feet. Still another wears pale pink, the same shade as the teapot she holds.
There’s an unmistakably elegiac quality to the work. The fragility depicted, whether of nature or young girls, is under constant threat. In these brave doe-like visages—serene, fearless, immutable—we see beauty certainly, but we also see strength. And yet, this strength is tempered by our understanding of the girl’s unequivocal vulnerability. It is this last quality together with the subjects’ patent goodness that makes them the ideal incarnation for humanity in these beguiling examples of memento naturae.
Orhun Dikmen moved to Charlottesville to work in the kind of restaurant most people think of when they think Turkish food. But after six years with his brother at Sultan Kebab, he teamed up with chef Tarik Sengul to take his home country’s cooking to another level at Smyrna.
With its blend of Turkish and Aegean cuisine, Smyrna has attracted tons of attention since opening on West Main last summer. How? “It’s all about technique,” Sengul says. “I take the techniques I learned from working in New York and the spices and memories from Turkey. It is the combination of those that makes our food what it is.”
With Smyrna, Orhun Dikmen and Tarik Sengul aim to blend techniques and flavors from across the globe. “It is the combina- tion that makes our food what it is,” says Sengul. Photo: Anna Kariel
Sengul’s technique is hard won. He’s worked under some of the best chefs in the country, including Tom Colicchio and Joël Robuchon (before his death in 2018). Roasting, braising, grilling—Sengul learned it all in the French and new American traditions while working on hot and cold lines over several years.
But technique for Sengul also means the way he’s been taught to care for food from the moment it comes into his restaurant. For vegetables, it might simply be proper cleaning and storing. For protein, it might mean sourcing a full side of beef, breaking it down, and using every piece of the animal to its full potential. “Most restaurants get specific cuts,” Sengul says. “When you do the butchering in-house, you have the chance to have the bones and you can make the stock and the jus.”
Sengul’s cooking also features Japanese and other Asian influences. He describes a sort of east-meets-west distinction between the unique Aegean style and typical Mediterranean food.
Take Smyrna’s octopus dish. The charred protein is accompanied by bok choy and potato, but what elevates it is a sauce known as salgam. With a base of fermented purple carrot, the distinctly Aegean sauce takes the well-known Mediterranean staple in a new direction. “There are certain things we have to keep on the menu to call it Aegean food, like the octopus and the calamari,” Sengul says.
The restaurant’s charred octopus is accompanied by bok choy and potato, then drizzled with an Aegean sauce known as salgam. Photo: Anna Kariel
Ingredients are also critical for Sengul and Smyrna. Virginia offers plentiful farms with fresh produce and beef, which have given rise to Smyrna’s nontraditional burger and rib-eye preparations, but Mediterranean seafood is trickier. In the raki-balik, a fish crudo with fennel-infused compressed melon and a Meyer lemon vinaigrette, Sengul conceived the dish around fluke. But because the fish is difficult to obtain at sushi-grade, he’s transitioned to hamachi, commonly known as yellow tail in the States.
Other Smyrna menu items have a surprisingly familiar feel. Sourdough bread, for example, is extremely common all over Turkey, Sengul says, but “maybe they advertise it better in France and Italy.” The burger, ground in-house, and rib-eye steak preparations both get Sengul’s careful attention to technical detail—the latter garnished with delicate gem lettuce and crispy pommes dauphine and finished with that homemade jus—despite not being Aegean dishes per se.
“Beef is not common in Turkey, but I live in Virginia,” Sengul says.
The raki-balik combines a yellowtail crudo with fennel-in- fused compressed melon and a Meyer lemon vinaigrette. Photo: Anna Kariel
According to the classically trained chef, the two beef dishes are probably the trickiest Smyrna serves. They’re simple constructions, so they both come down to executing the techniques Sengul learned in Colicchio and Robuchon’s restaurants.
After about eight months of service, Sengul says Smyrna is only just finding its groove. It’s been tough to retain service industry staff post-COVID, and he’s still working to train everyone to his standards and have them working from the same culinary philosophy.
“This will evolve—with seasonality, but it also depends on the team,” Sengul says. “As our cooks get more comfortable, we may have some more experimental dishes … more playful and fun dishes. We are conservative at the moment.”
Public Fish & Oyster owner Daniel Kaufman said he’d never open another restaurant unless it was with chef Gregg Dionne. Enter Black Cow Chophouse. Photo: Eze Amos
On the seminal hip-hop album Enter the Wu-Tang, an interviewer asks the renowned rappers about their ultimate goal. Before Raekwon offers a dubious, circuitous response, Method Man sums it up: “Domination, baby.”
Presumably that’s also the endgame for Daniel Kaufman, the Public Fish & Oyster proprietor who’s moving his empire from sea to land with a new eatery, Black Cow Chophouse. The traditional steakhouse opened on Main Street in the old Zinc/Threepenny/Little Star location on February 15. A week before opening, Kaufman spoke to Knife & Fork about where Black Cow fits in his own ultimate goal.
Knife & Fork: Why a steakhouse, why now?
Daniel Kaufman: I said many times that after COVID I was never opening another restaurant. The only person I would have opened a restaurant with was my former chef, Gregg Dionne. He was the longest-serving chef at Public. So, I said, if Gregg wants to do something, I’ll do it. He said he had an idea, and Black Cow was born.
How closely related to Public is this concept?
We considered putting something in the name like, by “Public Fish & Oyster”—I think we’ve developed a pretty good reputation there. I think people like us, and we do things the right way. But each restaurant operates completely independently. There are some dishes that read the same on both menus—when things are tried and trusted, it makes sense to keep doing them.
What’s on the menu at Black Cow?
Product is at the center of what we do. We are not associating with a specific farm or doing all dry-aged or all local. We don’t want to put ourselves in a box. If we find some good wagyu from Australia, we’ll make it available. We want to offer delicious and good value food, regardless of how long it has been aged. We’ll do some game, pork, and lamb, but beef is very much the heart of what we are doing.
That approach actually sounds similar to what you do at Public.
That’s a good way to look at it. If I see good oysters available, I will buy them and make them available. I certainly buy from a handful of Virginia producers every single week, but we also do oysters from the Northeast, the Northwest, and even New Zealand and Mexico.
Can we assume the sides and other dishes will be seasonal?
Absolutely. We have a “little salad” we are going to include with every steak. Whenever you used to go to a restaurant, you got a salad; we’re throwing it back to those days. I was talking to Chef about what the salad would look like and he said, “Why the hell would I sell a salad with tomato, when you can only get a good tomato three months of the year?” Seasonality is very much the thing. If it’s not good, we don’t want to sell it.
What kind of bar program are you planning?
Our bar manager is Scott Coales, who has a lot of experience running beverage programs. He has put together an awesome craft cocktail list, and I’m working on the wine. We’ll have eight carefully selected draft taps. One thing that has been very successful at Public, and we would like to replicate at Black Cow, is the happy hour. At Public, we do dollar off raw oysters from 4 to 6pm. Here, while for the most part we don’t do composed dishes, the one exception is that from 4:30 to 6pm for happy hour, we’ll have a chef’s choice steak frites for 16 bucks.
What’s unique about Black Cow compared to other traditional steakhouses?
Little Star was a great restaurant. They were succeeding. They just didn’t want to do it anymore. And one thing that they had that we might not have otherwise done on our own, is this grill—the most magnificent grill. Every piece of meat is going to be done over oak wood smoke on that grill. The flavor is absolutely unbelievable.
There’s been some change on West Main Street lately. What’s your take?
I’ve been hearing for nine years about how things are changing. But Oakhart and Maya and Orzo, those guys are all killing it. I wouldn’t want to be in any other neighborhood in Charlottesville. It’s a beautiful street and at the center of everything. I have been very lucky and privileged to be supported by this community for nine years now, and I really hope they welcome this as a new addition to West Main.
A baker who enjoys being outdoors, Sarah Rennie combined her two loves and created Two Fire Table. Photo: Katie Thompson
Whether it’s s’mores in the backyard, burgers and ears of corn on the grill, or fresh-caught fish when you’re camping, there’s something about fresh air and a fire that makes food taste better. Two Fire Table wants to bring that feeling to your next gathering—and you won’t even have to build a bonfire.
Two Fire Table is the dream child of Sarah Rennie, an advocate for communal meals, seasonal eating, and wood-fire cooking. But she’s also savvy enough to know that while many people may savor the experience of eating outdoors, most of us would prefer to have her handle the tongs.
Two Fire Table’s offerings are literally soup to nuts. Tell Rennie where, when, and how many, and she will develop a tailored menu—appetizer, local protein, two seasonal sides, and dessert. The day of, she shows up with all the cooking equipment (custom-made for her, including her own portable fire pit), as well as dishes, utensils, linens, glassware, and even tents. It’s the best combination of camping and cuisine.
Rennie’s path began with culinary school in Asheville, North Carolina, and an internship at Farm & Sparrow, a wood-fired bakery and mill where the emphasis is on local produce and regional grains.
“I learned about seasonal eating, about using your farmers’ market, and about cooking in the most authentic way,” Rennie says. “Cooking over a fire, you have to be more attuned to what you’re doing throughout the process—it’s very focused; you can’t be thinking about anything else.”
From Farm & Sparrow, Rennie went to Sub Rosa Wood-Fired Bakery in Richmond, and stayed for six years, eventually becoming kitchen manager (“It was the best experience; I was baking my heart out,” she says). Rennie became the bakery’s croissant master, and worked with local farmers to create pastries using seasonal ingredients from strawberries and pears to jalapeños.
Eventually, Rennie’s husband wanted to start his own business as a fly-fishing guide, which meant being closer to the mountains, and they bought a house in Scottsville.
“I’d always enjoyed being outdoors—I’m a horse person, I’ve been riding since I was 4,” Rennie says, and she began thinking about being a trail guide. She took a summer job out West to learn about trail-guiding, then came a trip to Argentina to learn more about campfire cooking. Amazed by one rider who brought a packet of herbs for the fish cooking over the fire, Rennie recalls, she began to think about combining her love of the outdoors with her devotion to seasonal and conscious cooking.
“I wondered how I could translate this [outdoor cooking experience] and move it around,” she says. “I wanted it to be portable. I wanted to share my perspective on communal eating with others.”
Rennie began practicing.—“I cooked many, many chickens in my backyard”—to learn about timing, when to turn the bird, how to achieve crispy skin and well-cooked but moist flesh. Her husband was more than happy to taste-test the experiments.
Part of the fun of creating Two Fire table, Rennie says, was figuring out how to make moveable wood-fire cooking work. She found metal craftsmen who could make customized equipment—from grills, spits, and tripods to hanging saucepans and Dutch ovens—that she could transport in her car and set up on site. She also developed a network of butchers, suppliers, and farmers because “it always helps to know where your food comes from.”
In 2019, she launched Two Fire Table. “When I first started, I would build a ‘feeder fire’ from which I started others—that’s where the name came from.” Rennie has created meals for family events, weddings, and social gatherings for groups from bird hunters to chefs. She’s got the logistics down—chopping and ingredient prep, including making sauces and dressings, is done ahead of time. Food is served family-style, everyone around the tables passing dishes, because for Rennie that’s an integral element of the experience. “For me, this is about connection—creating community around the fire.”
Former restaurateur Vu Nguyen has a new culinary endeavor: creating handmade tools for home cooks, inspired by the pros.
Tell me briefly about your background and how it led you to start The Dustworks.
I’ve either worked in the food industry or a design-focused company. My foray into food started at Bizou in my last semester at UVA. Then a short stint on the restaurant scene in Chicago before jumping ship and landing at Crate & Barrel with the intention of getting into furniture design. That led me to a drafting program from whence I emerged as a CAD monkey at an architecture firm in D.C.
Then hubris sidled up to me and made me open a restaurant in C’ville. Then another. Then I closed one. Then the other.
Defeated and adrift, I found short-lived respite at Whole Foods before succumbing to the temptations of a new restaurant opportunity. It was at Brazos where I crossed paths with Blanc Creatives, which I thought was just the coolest game in town, especially having just read Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford. So I went to seek employment with them but more importantly, to seek purpose. Then the pandemic provided the perspective to recalibrate my priorities, et voila. I enjoy keeping a toe in the food world but not having to deal with stress of dealing with perishable goods.
Vu Nguyen. Photo: Eze Amos
Where does the name come from?
The name refers to all the dust, both metal and wood, that gets produced and kicked up during the process of making things. The evidence of work or testimony to transformation, I suppose. It also loosely alludes to the idea of a temporal life cycle, the whole “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” thing.
What would you say is The Dustworks’ aesthetic?
“Apple Photos App Filter: Dramatic Warm 50-75%”
Dining at Blue Hill in a chore coat and work boots
Refined texture
Tuxedoed bedhead
Given your culinary history, do you design with chefs/pros in mind?
My experience definitely informs my decisions from product selections to ergonomics. I think about the tools I used back in the day and what other cooks geeked out over, then try to replicate and interpret them for home use. Some items, like Fenster, the mini offset spatula, will likely never gain traction with the home cook, but line cooks and chefs eat it up. Given the exposure and insight the home consumer has into the chef world these days, there seems to be more of an appreciation and willingness to budget for pro-quality tools for home use.
How many items are in your catalog and what are a few highlights?
There are currently nine in the family ranging from a chef’s knife to cocktail picks to spatulas to oyster shuckers. Rose, the bench knife, has been getting a lot of action from both pros and home cooks. Diane, the cherry spatula, has made her way into many happy households. I’m particularly pleased with Janey, the bread knife named after Janey Gioiosa of Janey’s Bread, and Anna, the Japanese style vegetable knife named after Anna Gardner of Umma’s. Two cool designs for two cool women.
Each product is named after a person. Some are people I’ve worked with in restaurants who are now running their own businesses. It’s rad to be in the company of such fearless, creative, and resourceful folks. I’d like to think we’ve been on the same path this whole time and that community gives me comfort. Other people are cultural icons or characters that have made indelible impressions on my formative years like Audrey Hepburn, Diane Lane, Blake Schwarzenbach, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Fred Fenster. The whole exercise is not only fun but keeps me focused on intention, never letting the product just be a soulless thing.
Find The Dustworks on Instagram @the_dustworks, or by email at holler@thedustworks.com.
Tom Chambers at Vault Virginia. All images courtesy of the galleries.
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library 2450 Old Ivy Rd. “Women Making Books,” a new exhibition exploring women’s contributions to English and North American bookmaking from the mid-18th to the 21st centuries, “Visions of Progress,” and other permanent exhibitions.
Botanical Fare 421 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Paths and Roads,” oils by Julia Kindred. Through April 24.
Cavallo Gallery & Custom Framing 117 S. Main St., Gordonsville. Original works on paper and canvas by central Virginia artist Megan Davies. Through May.
Chroma Projects Inside Vault Virginia, Third St. SE. “Pam Black: Architecture of the Field Redux,” paintings and drawings of horses in their natural environment. Through April 28. First Fridays opening.
The Connaughton Gallery Rouss & Robertson Halls, UVA Grounds. “Healing Nature,” acrylic on canvas and oil on canvas by Henry Wingate and Rick Morrow. Through June 15.
Create Gallery InBio, 700 Harris St., Ste. 102. “Pollen,” oils by Linda Staiger. Through April.
Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. Pressed flowers by botanical artist Karla Murphy, and “Gypsy Soul Jewels,” jewelry by Michelle Nevarr. Through April. Meet the artists April 8 at 1pm.
C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Gourd Art” showcases hand-carved, decorative gourds by Vyvyan Rundgren. Through April. First Fridays opening.
Janet Pearlman at Dovetail Design & Cabinetry.
Dovetail Design & Cabinetry 1740 Broadway St., Ste. 3. Impressionistic landscapes and intuitive paintings by Janet Pearlman. Through mid-April.
The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd., UVA Grounds. New exhibitions include “Look Three Ways: Maya Painted Pottery,” “Processing Abstraction,” “N’dakinna Landscapes Acknowledged,” and “Radioactive Inactives: Patrick Nagatani & Andrée Tracey.”
Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. “Picture Me As I Am: Mirror and Memory in the Age of Black Resistance” showcases a selection of portraits taken of African Americans at the Holsinger Studio. Through April 29.
King Family Vineyards 6550 Roseland Farm, Crozet. Fashion Your Own Happily Ever After, a fashion show and silent auction benefiting Charlottesville’s Women’s Shelter, Shelter for Help in Emergency. April 23 at 2pm.
Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “The Denial of Death,” paintings by Russ Warren. Through April 30. Luncheon and artist talk April 16 at 12:30pm.
Live Arts Theater 123 E. Water St. “Secondary Worlds,” pen and ink drawings and collage on paper and wood by Steve Haske. Through April 30.
Loving Cup Vineyard & Winery 3340 Sutherland Rd., North Garden. “Vineyards and Springtime” showcases oils and acrylics by Julia Kindred and Matalie Deane, respectively. Through May 28. First Fridays opening.
McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Smith Gallery, “Group 6,” works by a collective of painters and mixed-media artists from the Beverley Street Studio School. In the first floor hallway galleries, “Traveling the Nile,” oil paintings of landscape views from along the Nile River by Blake Hurt, and “Nature,” large format ceramic tile paintings by Scott Supraner. In the second floor hallway gallery, “Wasteland Revisited,” mixed-media works by David Borszich and “Collage,” a member’s exhibition. In the Associate Gallery, “Rhymes,” works from associate artists.
New City Arts 114 Third St. NE. “Essing, Fawning, Gawping, Hocking, Isling, Jostling, Keening, Legging, Moping, Nodding, Oolong, Putzing, Querling,” an interactive installation of soft sculpture by Conrad Cheung. Through April 22. First Fridays opening.
Phaeton Gallery 114 Old Preston Ave. “Hope Olson: Art From the Garden,” a solo exhibition showcasing acrylic on canvas and mixed-media works. Through May 20. Opens April 14.
PVCC Gallery V. Earl Dickinson Building, 501 College Dr. In the North and South galleries, the 2023 Student Exhibition. Opens April 14 with the Eighth Annual Chocolate Chow Down and an interactive coloring station.
Quirk Gallery 499 W. Main St. “Constant Anomalies,” hyper-realistic paintings by Suzanna Fields. Through April 16. Gallery talk April 8 at 2pm.
Random Row Brewery 608 Preston Ave. “Spring,” a joint show from Carolyn Ratcliffe and Terry M. Coffey featuring pastels, watercolors, and oils. Through April. Reception March 10.
Lara Call Gastinger at Second Street Gallery.
Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the Dové gallery, “House Jungle,” paintings by Brittany Fan. In the main gallery, “Mirabilia naturae (Wonders of Nature)” showcases paintings, photography, encaustic, works on paper, and mixed-media by Lara Call Gastinger, Giselle Gautreau, and Elizabeth Perdue. Through May 19.
Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital 500 Martha Jefferson Dr. Works by members of the Piedmont Pastelists. Opens April 11.
St. John’s Episcopal Church 410 Harrison St., Scottsville. “Latin Connection,” features images taken by photographer Glenn Nash from his travels in Central America and the Caribbean. Through May 27. Open Saturdays from 10:30am to 1pm.
Studio Ix 969 Second St. SE. The Charlottesville Black Arts Collective presents “A Moment to Exhale,” a group photography exhibition that includes Kori Price, Benita Mayo, and Derrick J. Waller. Through April. Artist talk and happy hour April 20 at 5pm.
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Charlottesville 717 Rugby Rd. “Developing,” works by Levonne Yountz. Through April.
University of Virginia Medical Center Main Hospital Lobby, 1300 Jefferson Park Ave. “Serenity,” photographs by Emily Allred. Through May 2.
Vault Virginia 300 E. Main St. “Tom Chambers and Fax Ayres: Everything is Extraordinary,” photographs using theater and light to describe the fantastical. Through May 16. First Fridays opening.
Visible Records 1740 Broadway St. New works. First Fridays opening.
Try to keep up at The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon, a rollicking production that attempts to tell all 206 Brothers Grimm fairy tales in one act. Two narrators put a comedic spin on classic and lesser-known stories, including Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, and Faithful Johannes. These fractured fairy tales keep the original endings intact while mixing things up with a modern twist. The PVCC Drama Club production, helmed by directors Gaby Felipe and Emily Thomas Clarke, is full of family-friendly, madcap fun and audience interaction.
Friday 4/7 & Saturday 4/8. $5, 7:30pm. Main Stage Theatre, PVCC’s V. Earl Dickinson Building, 501 College Dr. pvcc.edu
A late-February 82-degree day followed by a stretch of mornings in the frosty 30s? Yep, we’re talking about winter 2023 in central Virginia. After a mild several months (except for that low of 6 degrees in December), it seems like any weather event or temperature is possible. Does this mean we’ll have a scorching summer? Sadly, there is no good way to predict that, says Robert Davis of UVA’s Department of Environmental Sciences. The only sure thing is weather variations, twice a year.
Weather variations
Both spring and fall transition times are when you would expect big changes, Davis says.
The Northern Hemisphere is warming up in spring, but arctic air blasts from the north hit our area and often late winter and early spring nights are very cold. “So we are getting into the season where you can have cold front passages that are strong. There will be several cold days before it warms up again.” Morning frosts can be continual.
Davis says it’s difficult to comment on whether we are seeing greater variability than in the past. “You can’t look at any particular event and say, ‘That is unusual,’” he explains.
Michael McConkey, owner of Edible Landscaping in Afton, agrees that central Virginia weather is up and down, but is sanguine about the struggle involved. “Peach and plum trees here have always been subject to late frost and changes in the weather, mostly because they evolved as arid Persian plants,” he says. Some trees from Japan and China, however, do well here because of climate similarities. Examples are persimmons and jujube, which is a popular fruit in China, brown on the outside and white on the inside, with a sweet apple taste.
“Everyone growing fruits is aware of weather patterns, and they have changed dramatically” for fruit growers, says McConkey.
Ken Bezilla of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange agrees, and says the variations are hardest on fruit growers. Plum trees, often first to flower among trees here, can amount to “the annual sacrifice to the frost gods,” he says.
In general, as the entire planet warms, we would expect less variability overall, Davis says. That may seem counterintuitive. In many parts of the U.S., as the country warms up, the transitional temperature swings are not as great.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration keeps monthly records of high and low temperature for counties in each state. Notably, Albemarle County was at its warmest ever for the period January to February 2023. According to NOAA, our two-month average was 45.0 degrees Fahrenheit—our warmest-to-date record for those months together, and 9.8 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the 1901 to 2000 mean of 35.2 degrees Fahrenheit for those months together.
Pam Dawling, a farmer at Twin Oaks Community in Louisa, has been tracking several first appearances of the spring season over a 20-year period. Her data on phenology, the study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena, is interesting. Many plants over the past 15 years have made a first appearance in three different months, often March, April, and May. Late frost for the year ranges from April 8 to as late as May 11, with an average date of April 29, Dawling’s records show.
Climatologist and biometeorologist Davis reminds, “I would be very reticent to make anything out of the variations other than this has been a strange winter, and these are the kinds of changes we would often see in the spring.”
Michael McConkey, owner of Edible Landscaping, thinks growers are well-equipped to handle sudden shifts in weather. Photo by Eze Amos.
Climate change in the region
NASA defines weather as the conditions of the atmosphere over a short period of time, while climate is how the atmosphere “behaves” over relatively long periods of time.
How has our climate changed over time? There are explanations thanks to scientists, farmers, and others who keep track.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency says overall that our state has warmed about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the past century (from a 2017 report). Carbon dioxide levels and other gases that keep heat close to the ground account for higher temperatures, the EPA notes. “Evaporation increases and the atmosphere warms, which increases humidity, average rainfall, and the frequency of heavy rainstorms in many places—but contributes to drought in others.”
The EPA reports that our state can expect more energy usage, because electricity consumption is on track to increase over time because of additional air conditioning. “Seventy years from now, temperatures are likely to rise above 95 degrees Fahrenheit approximately 20 to 40 days per year in the southeastern half of Virginia, compared with about 10 days per year today,” the EPA says.
Another indicator of climate change in our region is that our region’s U.S. Department of Agriculture hardening zone officially changed. SESE’s Bezilla says we have moved from winters of zone 6b (-5 to 0 degrees Fahrenheit/-20.6 to -17.8 degrees Celsius) to zone 7a (0 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit/-17.8 to -15 degrees Celsius) as temperatures rose over time.
Lettuce is now a year-round crop in this area. “Recently I revised our lettuce schedules, partly to take account of hotter weather arriving earlier in the year, and also to even out the harvest,” writes blogger Dawling, author of Sustainable Market Farming: Intensive Vegetable Production on a Few Acres.
In another blog post, the Twin Oaks community farmer recorded observations for the future: “I live and farm in the southeast,” Dawling wrote. “Sea level rises and heavy downpours in our region are already obvious. Dangerously high temperatures, higher humidity, new pests and diseases are moving in. … The growing season is ten days longer than it was in the 1960s.”
For the 48-month period from September 2018 to August 2022, Albemarle County was at its warmest, with a value of 47.0 degrees Fahrenheit compared with a value for the mean of 43.5 degrees Fahrenheit for the same 1901 to 2000 period, per the NOAA charts. (This tied for warmest with the same period ending in 2020.)
Trees in Charlottesville bloomed early during winter’s patches of warm weather. Photo by Stephen Barling.
Effects on agriculture and animals
Local growers work hard to protect their fragile plants. For example, Crown Orchard has installed wind turbines at its farms, and Barboursville Vineyard has put in wind machinery to keep cooler air from settling onto its future produce.
Sometimes the fight can seem futile, however.
Susan Smith Ordel, a longtime local gardener, says, “I have noticed just being outside all of the time, the nights in August would cool off. You felt watering was doing some good. Now the plants don’t get a break” from evaporation.
Adaptation is a solution. Crown Orchards is taking advantage of more sun with solar panel arrays near Carter Mountain Orchard, on the rooftop of Chiles Peach Orchard in Crozet, and at the production facility in Covesville, the company’s website notes.
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange creates huge trial tracts each year to see what grows best, and which plants and seeds do best in particular in Virginia and surrounding states. SESE’s trial fields, based in Mineral, are the launching pad for the 28 new varieties the exchange added to its 2023 listings. Among the new winners are Okinawa Pink okra (from Japan), Greek pepperoncini peppers, Gulag Stars kale (from Russia), and Florida conch southern pea. (The SESE website has a category that central Virginia gardeners might do well to peruse: “Especially well-suited to the Southeast.”)
Spinach is a crop that has become too tender for our hot summers. Bezilla says some spinach varieties make for good planting over the winter.
McConkey says native trees like mulberries and pawpaws do well. Still, many shoppers love their peach, pear, and plum trees, which can be marginal here.
Ordel planted five camellias in her yard that she wouldn’t have touched 10 or 15 years ago, she says. “Usually you think of camellias as being in the deep South, in South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, but now we’re starting to be able to see them bloom and thrive here.”
She does mourn a favorite plant that just can’t hack our climate. “Now it is clear we can’t plant hydrangea macrophylla any more” (also called French hydrangea). “The hydrangeas have to have cool nights, and I still have clients asking me for the beautiful blue blooms. We’ve had later frosts, and if the buds don’t get nipped in the spring, the early hot weather either deforms the blooms or keeps them from being realized.”
Winemaker, vineyard, and tasting room owner Michael Shaps can speak to the vagaries of wine production, both with his grapes here at Michael Shaps Wineworks and in Meursault, France, in the Burgundy region. Fortunately, Virginia’s changes are not as dramatic as those he has witnessed in France.
“What I have really noticed in Virginia is the intensity of storms we have seen over the past few years,” Shaps says. The amount of rain and the intensity of storms has been much more severe than in the past 30 years in general, he says. A big fear is hail damage, which has happened at times, but he says is “not significant” for his Virginia vines. The pattern of weather lately has been Gulf of Mexico moisture from the south, rather than storms flowing across the country from the west, he says.
Deforestation, which removes trees that modulate how fast storms move over an area, can also increase storm intensity, Bezilla explains.
On top of that, farmers and growers need to worry about earlier appearances of pests. For example, Dawling’s phenology chart tracks when the harlequin bugs first come out to sip the sap from kale, cabbage, and collards, which has been as early as March 13 for the years 2006 to 2020.
Any year that is warmer earlier may result in extra generations of insects, Bezilla says. This can be detrimental when pests multiply, but also helpful if there are additional pollinating bees.
Ken Bezilla of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange says that spinach can’t take the heat, and some varieties actually plant well in winter. Photo by Irena Hollowell / Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.
Human hardship
There is proof that weather changes also affect human health. Davis and Kyle Enfield, M.D., who works in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care at the UVA School of Medicine, examined 19 years of daily admissions at UVA’s hospital for respiratory reasons. For the first time ever, a measurement called the Acclimatization Thermal Strain Index was applied to human disease. ATSI measures strain on the lung system.
Davis and Enfield learned that there is a definite relationship between seasonal strain stemming from warm, humid air changing to cold, dry air and hospital admissions, on a seasonal scale and on a weekly time scale. Their work, published in 2017 in the International Journal of Biometeorology, showed the adjustment from cold air to warm air didn’t affect health as clearly as during the fall season.
The EPA 2017 report notes that warmer temperatures can also increase the formation of ground-level ozone, a major component of smog. Because ozone can aggravate lung diseases such as asthma, and increases the risk of premature death from heart or lung disease, the EPA and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality have been working to reduce ozone concentrations, which will become more difficult with warming trends.
In 2022, Ordel had her first bout of heat exhaustion because she cannot stay hydrated no matter how much water she drinks. “Even starting early, now I have found that past 2pm it’s just too brutally hot.”
Respiratory difficulties and heat emergencies aside, living with weather changes can cause higher expenses, as air conditioning in longer summers and heating in longer springs extends energy needs.
Ordel’s family depends on a wood stove in their Keswick home. “It was like clockwork for decades that we would start all-day wood in mid-October and go until tax day,” she says. “Now we start full-time fires in the full month of November and go until mid-May, and that’s consistently true now for about five years. It is clear to me there is climate change.”
The camellia flower has migrated up from the Deep South, says gardener Susan Smith Ordel. File photo.
