Rapper LaQuinn is one of the local artists who has received aid from the Charlottesville Emergency Relief Fund for Artists, set up to help artists who have lost gigs, gallery shows, and more due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo by Amy and Jackson Smith
In an effort to help artists facing financial hardship because of venue closures and event cancellations due to COVID-19, The Bridge PAI and New City Arts Initiative launched the Charlottesville Emergency Relief Fund for Artists on March 20. Artists can apply to receive up to $300; all they need to show is “proof of practice,” says Bridge Director Alan Goffinski. “Proof of a canceled gig, book tour, art show, etc.,” he adds. “The quality of the work will not be judged. We just need to see proof that artists are artists.”
Andrew Stronge requested funds to recoup a fraction of the contract work he lost due to the cancellation of various regional comic-cons. A graphic designer and screen printer who creates posters, shirts, hats, and more, he relies on those events for a significant chunk of his income. He used his relief fund allocation to buy groceries for himself and his wife, who is pregnant with their first child.
Rapper LaQuinn Gilmore (you’ve seen his posters) will use his allotment to stay afloat, even if it’s for a short time—his live gigs were canceled and in-studio recording sessions are not social-distancing friendly, so he can’t record new stuff to sell. And his restaurant job’s gone to boot. Even before the pandemic, he says he was struggling to find affordable housing for himself and his daughter.
As of March 25, 61 artists had applied for $15,700 in funding, says New City Arts Executive Director Maureen Brondyke. The initial $10,000 raised has already been dispersed, and they hope donations will continue to come in to cover new requests.
“Many of these artists carefully plan from month to month, juggling [multiple] jobs on top of their creative practice in order to pay the bills,” says Brondyke about the need for immediate help. “We’re all acutely aware right now of how difficult it is to not connect with others in person, and artists are often the ones either on stage or behind the scenes creating these opportunities—at performances, at markets or fairs, in restaurants, at school, in galleries and theaters—work that often goes undervalued until it’s gone.”
Devon Sproule is one of the Front Porch music teachers offering online lessons for her students. It’s helped her maintain some sense of routine and personal connection in this very uncertain, socially distant time, and she hopes it’s doing this same for her students. Photo by Paul Curreri
As we adjust to life amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ll likely turn to the arts—a favorite poem, a beloved album, a treasured painting—over and over in search of comfort and relief. Art, in all its forms, is a vital part not just of our personal lives but of our community. Social distancing measures and the resulting venue closures have turned the local creative world upside down, both for individual artists and the organizations that support them. Here’s what some of those folks are saying about the state of the arts in Charlottesville, and what might come next.
St. Patrick’s Day was supposed to be Matthew O’Donnell’s busiest day of the entire year. A multi-instrumentalist who specializes in Irish music, he was booked for 15 hours of serenading audiences, from senior center residents to late-night beer-swigging revelers.
But this year, his St. Paddy’s calendar was wide open. As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads throughout the United States, Virginia governor Ralph Northam has banned all nonessential gatherings of more than 10 people. In response, local venues that support the arts—concert halls, theaters, galleries, bookshops, libraries, restaurant-bars, you name it—have shuttered their doors for an undetermined amount of time.
This leaves O’Donnell and many other artists in Charlottesville without physical places to share their work—not just for art’s sake, but for a living. It’s also worth noting that many local artists participate in the service industry and gig economy—they tend bar, wait tables, work retail, drive ride-shares, and more. And most of those jobs are gone, or paused until, well, who knows when.
O’Donnell makes his entire living from performances, and he looks forward to the month of March—in large part because of St. Patrick’s Day—when he can bring in twice what he makes in an averagemonth, to make up for the lean ones (namely January and February).
“I began to get concerned in late February,” as the senior communities closed their doors to visitors, says O’Donnell, and that concern grew as gigs canceled one by one during the first couple weeks of March. “I thought the worst-case scenario would be that everything would shut down, but I honestly didn’t think the worst-case scenario would come.”
Matthew O’Donnell, who has seen his gig calendar wiped clean by the threat of COVID-19, hosted a concert via Facebook Live on March 18. “It went astoundingly well,” he says. “A boatload of people tuned in, [made] lots of requests. People sent videos of them and their families dancing to the music. It was really beautiful.” Photo by Katie McCartney
At first, “it was a professional worry of realizing that all of my business is gone,” says O’Donnell, who hopes he can make some money by playing donation-based virtual concerts. But the worry, the sadness, has turned personal: “These people are my friends,” he says of his audiences, particularly those folks at the senior centers. When he sings with them, he says he “feels something profound. And [now] I can’t go see my friends. I do want to be looking forward to the next thing…but all I know is that the next thing I do is going to be very different from what I’ve been doing.”
Graphic novelist Laura Lee Gulledge knows that, too. “I’m friends with change and constant reinvention,” she says.As a full-time artist Gulledge relies not just on book sales and illustration commissions but art teaching residencies. She says she often feels like she’ll “get by on the skin of my teeth, but [I] make it work.” Artists are always having to come up with new business models, she says. “It’s implode or evolve.”
Her new book, The Dark Matter of Mona Starr, is scheduled to be released on April 7, and she planned to launch it at last week’s Virginia Festival of the Book. But the festival was canceled due to the threat of COVID-19, as was the rest of her North American book tour.
In a way, the book is more relevant than Gulledge could have predicted, or ever wanted to imagine. The protagonist, Mona, is a sensitive and creative teen learning to live with anxiety and depression. In the back of the book, Gulledge includes a guide for creating a self-care plan for particularly dark and stressful times, and she shares her own.
“It’s like my masterpiece,” she says of The Dark Matter of Mona Starr. “I was finally mentally prepared to own it and step into it, and start conversations about mental health and not feel like a fraud.”
Rather than consider the whole thing a wash, Gulledge will do a virtual book tour via Facebook Live, where she’ll be talking about topics such as drawing through depression and cultivating healthy artistic practices.
The Front Porch roots music school is also pivoting to an online lessons model, to keep instructors paid and to keep students in practice. Songwriter Devon Sproule (who had to cancel her upcoming U.K. tour) usually teaches somewhere around 80 students a week between group classes and private lessons, and, so far, a handful of them have made the leap to live virtual lessons. Keeping the routine and personal connection of a lesson could be particularly important right now, says Sproule. She had to teach one young pupil how to tune a ukulele, a task Sproule had taken on in their in-person lessons. “I had no idea this kid could tune their own ukulele, and I don’t think they did either,” says Sproule. “I think it was empowering.”
The Charlottesville Players Guild, the city’s only black theater troupe, has postponed its run of August Wilson’s Radio Golf, originally scheduled to premiere at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center April 16. The paid cast and crew were in the middle of rehearsals, and while they hope to be able to open the show on April 30, things are still very uncertain, says CPG artistic director Leslie Scott-Jones. “When you hear medical professionals say this might go through July or longer, it’s like, ‘What’ll we do?’”
Leslie Scott-Jones, a singer and theater artist who relies on performance for all of her income, is one of many Charlottesville artists left wondering what’s next, as venues have closed due to the threat of COVID-19. Publicity photo
The JSAAHC has also had to cancel two benefit concerts for Eko Ise, a music conservatory program for local black children, that the center hoped to launch later this year. Now, they’ll be months behind in that fundraising effort, says Scott-Jones.
The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative, which provides not only a physical gallery space for visual and performance art, but funding for public art and after-school programs, has canceled all in-person events (though it is finding creative ways for people to participate from a distance, such as its virtual Quarantine Haiku video series). The Bridge has also postponed its annual Revel fundraiser, originally scheduled for May 2. Revel brings in between 20 and 30 percent of the organization’s operating budget for the year, says director Alan Goffinski,
Gulledge makes an excellent case for continued support of the arts as we face uncertainty: “This is the sort of moment where people will look to the creative thinkers to generate hope, and to generate positivity and be beacons of light in this moment of darkness. This is part of our purpose.”
The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative and New City Arts announced Friday, March 20, that it has established the Charlottesville Emergency Relief Fund for Artists. We will have more information on that soon.
The Front Porch and WTJU 91.1 FM are also teaming up to broadcast live concerts Friday and Wednesday evenings. Follow us at @cville_culture on Twitter for regular updates about virtual arts events that will take place over the coming weeks.
Painter Robert Shetterly's portrait series "Americans Who Tell the Truth" is on view all over town—and includes three local residents. Zyahna Bryant (pictured) is the latest addition to this series. Image courtesy Robert Shetterly/Americans Who Tell the Truth
Unless you’ve been living off the grid (or in denial) you know the story: In spring 2016, Zyahna Bryant wrote an open letter to City Council, calling for the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue and the renaming of the downtown public park bearing Lee’s name.
“When I think of Robert E. Lee, I instantly think of someone fighting in favor of slavery,” she began her letter. “Thoughts of physical harm, cruelty, and disenfranchisement flood my mind.”
Bryant wrote that she was disgusted with the “selective display of history” in the city. “There is more to Charlottesville than just the memories of Confederate fighters. There is more to this city that makes it great. …I struggle with the fact that meaningful things that are unique to Charlottesville are constantly overlooked. I believe that we should celebrate the things that have been done in this great city to uplift and bring people together, rather than trying to divide them.”
Bryant was just 15, a student at Charlottesville High School, at the time.
This week, Bryant herself was celebrated for her work: On March 1, at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, Bryant’s image became part of the “Americans Who Tell the Truth” portrait series by contemporary American painter Robert Shetterly.
Among other things, Bryant’s letter sparked support throughout the Charlottesville community and precipitated the formation of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials, and Public Spaces. In 2017, after considering the commission’s report and recommendations, Charlottesville City Council voted to remove not just the Robert E. Lee statue, but the Stonewall Jackson statue from another nearby public park.
A lawsuit citing state law protecting war memorials blocked the city’s plans to remove the statues, but the Virginia General Assembly is working on legislation that, if passed, would give localities control over what to do with the statues.
Shetterly, an artist who lives and works in Maine, heard about Bryant’s work via his son and daughter-in-law, who both live in Charlottesville. Struck by Bryant’s clarity andpersistence (now a first-year student at UVA, she’s continued her local activism), he decided to include her portrait in “Americans Who Tell the Truth.”
Painter Robert Shetterly (left) converses with Zyahna Bryant (right), a local activist and UVA student who is the latest addition to Shetterly’s “Americans Who Tell the Truth” portrait series. Bryant’s portrait is now on view at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center through April 18. Photo by Eze Amos
“So much depends on an individual who refuses to give in,” says Shetterly, a career illustrator who began this portrait series in 2001. He intended to paint 50 such individuals, to bring their truths closer to his own ears and to those of his audience.
In the nearly two decades since, he’s painted nearly 250 portraits, and he has no plans toslow down. “It got so interesting,” says Shetterly, who believes that “we are all made up of stories. And if we only tell the stories that make us feel good, we’re in real danger of not having any idea who we really are.”
“I [am] learning so much from doing it,” he adds. “I [keep] hearing more stories about more people, and thinking, ‘oh, I have to include that person in this story.’”
It’s difficult to exhibit all of the portraits together, and so they travel in different groups to different places around the country (one gets the sense that the same combination of portraits is rarely shown twice). Currently, portraits of about 60 truth-telling Americans are on view in various locations around Charlottesville (see sidebar), and each show has a different theme, among them civil rights leaders, African American women, and youth activism.
Some of Shetterly’s subjects are contemporary figures, people he’s had the opportunity to meet and get to know (as he has with Bryant); others are long deceased, and so he relies on other portraits and photographs, as well as historical documents, for information. Shetterly paints each subject against a plain and usually colorful background and uses a key to etch a quote from the subject into the canvas, words related to the truth they’re telling. Other than the quote, each portrait is free from embellishment, thereby emphasizing the individuals and the ideals for which they stand.
It’s a “wonderful way to honor people,” says David Swanson, a Charlottesville-based author and peace activist who is one of three locals whose portrait appears in the series. Certainly better than “giant equestrian statues,” he adds. The portraits are personal; taking the time to look at a painting and read the quote is more or less like having a one-on-one conversation with the person in the portrait. And so, “when we hear all about apathy and ‘nobody’s doing anything,’ and ‘we have no leaders,’ and ‘we have nobody who’s getting active,’ just point them towards these portraits of people,” says Swanson.
When Shetterly asked to paint Bryant’s portrait, Bryant considered carefully. She wondered how she might be perceived, not just by viewers of the portrait, but by her community. “Will people think I’m essentially doing this for clout?” she asked herself. She consulted close friends, her mother, and her grandmother, and then looked to see who Shetterly had included in the series so far.
Among the portraits, Bryant saw many black women she admired: Alicia Garza, who, along with Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, founded the Black Lives Matter movement; Michelle Alexander, civil rights advocate and author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness; Ella Baker, who worked behind the scenes in the American civil rights movement for more than 50 years and often does not get the credit she deserves; Tarana Burke, founder of the #MeToo movement; and politician Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Congress, who fought for the rights of women, children, minorities, and the poor. “If they don’t give you a seat at the table,” Chisholm once said, “bring a folding chair.”
Bryant was pleased to see that these women, who are often left out of conversations and historical narratives about the very movements they helped spark, and sometimes even ignored by their own communities, were included in the series. She saw people “who do the work as a means of survival…not because they are looking to become someone’s idols, or searching for fame, but literally because if they don’t do the work, people are going to die.”
She thought, too, about how Charlottesville is often cited as a hashtag, an event rather than a place where people live. For those who do not live here (and even for some who do), “there’s no depth in people’s understanding of this place and what happened here,” says Bryant. She hoped that if another Charlottesville resident was added to the series, it would be a person of color.
“So I thought, ‘Who else would be better for this?’ And because I’m so young, and because the work that I did has been erased in certain ways, and it has been miscredited to other people who did not do what I did, I just really think that now it’s important for young black women to take control of our own narratives. That was one of the pushing factors for me to choose to be there [in the series],” she says.
For all of these reasons, Bryant wanted in on “Americans Who Tell the Truth,” and she agreed in part because she gets the sense that Shetterly “puts a lot of care into his work.” She appreciates the artist’s goal of “not just painting portraits, but traveling with these pieces of art and starting conversations in different spaces about who these people are,” she says. “I thought that was really dope.”
With each portrait, Shetterly includes a quote from the subject. Bryant’s brings the viewer to the beginning of the movement she sparked: “In the spring of 2016, I did something that scared me, but something that I knew needed to be done. I wrote the petition, a letter to the editor and City Council, calling for the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue and the renaming of the park, formerly known as Robert E. Lee Park. I was 15.” Image courtesy Robert Shetterly and Americans Who Tell the Truth
Bryant’s portrait—either photographed or illustrated—has appeared in many places, including on the side of the Violet Crown Theater on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall, in a wheat paste mural with more than 100 other local activists; inside and outside the Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond; in Teen Vogue magazine, where she was named one of “21 Under 21” in 2019; and on poster board projects created by local middle school students (Bryant herself was in middle school when, at age 12, she organized her first protest, a rally for Trayvon Martin). And while she says it’s always an honor (and still a surprise) to have her portrait anywhere, having her image included in a traveling art exhibition is something else entirely.
“Oftentimes the platforms that I have access to are traditional articles, or written pieces, so, to then be able to extend into a different medium, or have my story be told and shared with other people in that way, that’s really cool,” says Bryant, who insists that her daily life (college classes, work, friends, family, community organizing) is “pretty average.” She particularly likes that Shetterly includes a quote from each subject, right there in the painting, to add some context. And context can sometimes be lacking in portraiture that’s aiming to relay a specific message.
When asked about the truth she tells, Bryant says that among other things, it’s one “about how people of color have been silently marginalized, silently killed, by this kind of war on our memories, this war on narrative. [My truth] is a truth about our need to reconsider, and reckon with, our past, thinking about how we haven’t done right by certain people—indigenous people, black people, Latinx people—and how we’ve basically continued to build on top of, and cover up, these narratives of displacement, and violence, instead of actually working to do the groundwork and make structural change.”
Those sorts of changes require showing up, and being present, over and over again. And now that Bryant—a young black woman from Charlottesville who braved public scrutiny to catalyze a change she believes in—is included in the “Americans Who Tell the Truth” series, her truth, as well as that of those who work alongside her, will be present in new ways, present in more spaces both physically and intellectually. Says Bryant, “it’s given me a different outlook on how I see art as a means to convey certain messages, to start certain conversations.”
Charlottesville’s truth tellers
Images courtesy of Robert Shetterly and Americans Who Tell the Truth
Bryant is the third Charlottesville resident to be included in Shetterly’s series. The other two are John Hunter, schoolteacher and founder of the World Peace Game (left); and David Swanson, journalist and peace activist (right).
Hunter, who taught at Venable and Agnor-Hurt elementary schools, says that his work—his truth—is about “teaching children the work of peace so that they can increase compassion in the world and decrease suffering in the world.”
The World Peace Game is now taught in 37 countries, by more than 1,000 specially trained educators, and its mission is really about legacy, says Hunter. “The results of the work that we do…will be decades in coming to fruition.”
In 2011, Swanson, a longtime anti-war activist and author of several books, including War is a Lie, learned that then-vice president Dick Cheney was planning a visit to Charlottesville. He emailed local law enforcement requesting that they arrest Cheney for conspiracy to commit torture, and shortly after that, Cheney canceled his visit. “The encouraging thing about these portraits is that there are so many…and [Shetterly] can’t keep up!” says Swanson, who thinks that there are even more people in Charlottesville who should be included in the series.
Where to see it
More than 60 of Shetterly’s “Americans Who Tell the Truth” portraits are on view at various spots around town. The “Truth to Climate Change” exhibit at CitySpace has already closed, but here’s where you can find the others:
“A Place Fit for Women”
Jefferson School African American Heritage Center
Through April 18
Featuring 14 paintings of African American women and commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“Youth Speaking Truth”
The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative
Through March 31
Featuring 120 portraits made by Charlottesville High School students, alongside eight of Shetterly’s.
“Portraits of Change”
The UVA McIntire School of
Commerce
Through April 10
Highlighting leadership in business and commerce.
“Americans Who Tell the Truth @ Charlottesville”
Washington Hall, Hotel B, UVA
Through April 10
Featuring portraits of eight civil rights activists.
“Created Equal: Portraits of Civil Rights Heroes”
Monticello
Through March 31
Featuring portraits of three iconic civil rights activists.
Through dexterous utilization of non-traditional lighting techniques such as lasers, LED wands, programmed projections, and various other homemade light sources, photographer Billy Hunt creates transcendent images for his new portrait series. And he does it all without the use of digital editing techniques. Hunt is known for his photographs of the Charlottesville Lady Arm Wrestlers, and as the inventor of the Screamotron 3000, which takes a picture when the person in front of the camera screams, and his latest series is just as interactive as his previous ones. When “Laser Portraits” opens at 5:30 Friday evening at Studio IX, Hunt will be there to demonstrate for anyone who wants to play with light—or strike a pose. —Erin O’Hare
First Fridays: March 6
Openings
Artful Living Popup The Shops at Stonefield. An exhibition of acrylic paintings, ceramics, found art, and photography by Susannah Wagner, Linda Hollett, Noah Hughey-Commers, Keith Ramsey, Susan Patrick, Alex Solmssen, Keith Ramsey, and Diana Eichles. 5-7:30pm.
The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative 209 Monticello Rd. “Americans Who Tell The Truth: Youth Speaking Truth,” an exhibit of 120 portraits made by Charlottesville High School students alongside some of the portraits from Robert Shetterly’s “Americans Who Tell the Truth” series. 5:30-8:30pm.
Bill Atwood at Chroma Projects
Chroma Projects InsideVault Virginia, Third St. SE. “FIGMENTS,” featuring mostly constructions and collage work by Bill Atwood, all demonstrating the artist’s signature expressions of joyful, chaotic eccentricity. 5-7pm.
CitySpace 100 Fifth St. NE. An exhibit of student art from Albemarle County Public Schools. 5-7pm.
C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Storytelling with Paint,” a show of dreamlike works by Milenko Katic. 6-8pm.
IX Art Park 522 Second St. SE. “ECSTASIS,” a series of surrealist figure paintings in oil by Kathryn Wingate. 4-6pm.
McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, works by Renee Balfour; in the Lower Hall Gallery, a show by Fred Crist; and in the Upper North Hall Gallery, an exhibition related to the Virginia Festival of the Book. 5:30-7:30pm.
Milli Coffee Roasters 400 Preston Ave. #150. “Busker,” photographic prints by Eze Amos. 5-7pm.
Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the Main Gallery, “By the Strength of Their Skin,” paintings by Regina Pilawuk Wilson, Mabel Juli, and Nonggirrnga Marawili, three of Australia’s most acclaimed women artists. In the Dové Gallery, “Nature Tells Its Own Story,” featuring paintings by Pakistani artist Tanya Minhas. 5:30-7:30pm
Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Laser Portraits,” a photography exhibition and demonstration (everyone is welcome to model) by Billy Hunt. 5:30-7:30pm.
Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “Sin & Salvation in Baptist Town,” an exhibition of archival pigment prints from photographer Matt Eich. 5-7:30pm.
WVTF Radio IQ 216 W. Water St. “Book Art,” featuring Eugene Provenzo’s eclectic collages, assemblages, and sculpture that compliment the Virginia Festival of the Book. 5-7pm.
Ryan Trott at VMDO Architects
VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. “What,” an exhibition of paintings by Ryan Trott. 5:30-7:30pm.
Other March shows
Albemarle County Circuit Court 501 E. Jefferson St. An exhibition of work by members of the Central Virginia Watercolor Guild.
ALC Copies 156 Carlton Rd. #104. “Favorite Places: Home and Abroad,” recent oil paintings by Randy Baskerville.
Annie Gould Gallery 109 S. Main St., Gordonsville. A show featuring work by Cecelia Schultz, Annie Waldrop, and Chuxin Zhang closes March 8; a show of works by Jeannine Barton Regan and Kathy Kuhlmann opens March 14, 4-6pm..
Charlottesville Tango 208 E. Water St. “Stillness,” a show of pencil sketches by David Currier.
Virginia Scotchie at City Clay
City Clay 700 Harris St. #104. “Recent Work by Faculty and Members of City Clay,” featuring ceramics by Randy Bill, Sam Deering, Sophie Gibson, Judd Jarvis, Julie Madden, and others; and “Visual Investigations,” featuring the work of South Carolina-based ceramic artist Virginia Scotchie. Opens March 24, 5-7pm.
Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. A show and sale of ceramic bowls, jars, plates, teapots, and other functional items by Stephen Palmer.
The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Select Works from the Alan Groh-Buzz Miller Collection”; “The Inside World: Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Memorial Poles,” and “Figures of Memory.”
Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. “A Place Fit for Women,” part of Robert Shetterly’s “Americans Who Tell The Truth” portrait series.
The Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Tithuyil (Moving with the Rhythm of the Stars),” featuring linocut prints and sculptural works by Brian Robinson, a Torres Strait Islander artist who combines Torres Strait cultural motifs with references to Western Classical art and popular culture; and “With Her Hands: Women’s Fiber Art from Gapuwiyak.”
Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Same Difference,” featuring paintings by Dorothy Robinson and sculpture by Kurt Steger. Opens March 14.
Live Arts 123 E. Water St. “Reimagined,” a show of Polaroids as well as a few lightboxes, prints on wood and mixed media pieces by Cary Oliva.
Mudhouse Coffee 213 W. Main St. “Du Temps Perdu,” featuring paintings by Brian Geiger.
New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “A Tribute to Eloise,” an exhibition of works by the e salon watercolorists.
Northside Library 705 Rio Rd. W. “Bold,” featuring acrylic paintings by Novi Beerens and collages by Karen Whitehill.
PVCC Gallery 501 College Dr. “Bloom: In Honor of the Centennial Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage,” a group show with paintings, sculpture, photography, and more by a roster of notable local artists.
Quirk Hotel Charlottesville 499 W. Main St. “Hello There,” a show of work by a variety of artists intended to introduce the community to the new hotel. Opens March 5, 5-8pm.
The Rotunda UVA. “Munguyhmunguyh (Forever),” an exhibition celebrating the 30th anniversary of the John W. Kluge Injalak commission and featuring both new and older works commissioned from the Aboriginal community of Kunbarlanja in western Arnhem Land, Australia.
Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital 500 Martha Jefferson Way. “In Another World,” featuring works by members of the BozART Fine Art Collective, including Carol Barber, Frank Feigert, Craig Lineburger, Juliette Swenson, and others.
Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. “40 Under 40,” featuring the work of 40 Virginia artists under age 40; and “Orange,” a themed show by SVAC members. Opens March 7, 5-7pm.
Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian-Universalist 717 Rugby Rd. “Umbrellas,” an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Donna Redmond.
Vitae Spirits Distillery 715 Henry Ave. “Go Wahoos,” a show of UVA-themed acrylic works by Matalie Deane.
First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many area art galleries and exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions. To list an exhibit, email arts@c-ville.com.
Films on Song performs at Magnolia House on February 29.
Most musicians will tell you that Craigslist isn’t the best place to find bandmates. Sure, it’s worked for some groups (The Killers), but in a small town like Charlottesville, the odds of finding a copacetic match on the internet are especially slim. You’re more likely to meet like-minded musicians at a show.
But Films on Song needed both to achieve its current lineup and develop the jangle-pop post-punk sound that makes the band stick out in the current Charlottesville music scene.
Francis McKee had been living in town for about a year when he realized he hadn’t done anything musical. “I had a mini panic attack and thought, ‘Well, I’ll take a shot at Craigslist.’”
Jonathan Teeter—who was already performing pop songs under the Films on Song moniker—was one of the first people to reply to the ad that listed bands like The Smiths and The Cure, and dream pop as potential influences.
“Not that we’re dream pop at all,” says Teeter (who counts Damon Albarn, the musical brains behind Britpop band Blur and trip hop virtual band Gorillaz, as one of his own biggest influences). When he and McKee started working on songs, they developed with a post-punk tilt—the songs were groovy and uptempo, more oomph-atically, and less dreamily pop.
And adding Sam Roberts, known in the area for his drumming in punk ‘n’ roll band Wild Rose and hardcore band Fried Egg, only increased that post-punk angle.
Teeter asked Roberts to join on a whim: The band’s previous drummer was returning to school, and Roberts agreed after hearing a Films on Song set at Magnolia House, the DIY spot Roberts runs.
“What immediately appealed to me was that this is a pop band, unapologetically,” says Roberts. “That was something brand new for me [as a drummer], that I want to see in town, and done well.”
Who gives a shit about what’s cool these days, or what any other band is doing, but for the most part, “hip” bands (in Charlottesville and elsewhere) aren’t making pop music, and they’re certainly not focusing on melody. Films on Song doesn’t quite understand why. Perhaps it’s because those songs are pretty difficult to write, proposes Roberts.
Teeter agrees. “I’ll throw out entire songs I’ve written because I don’t think they’re catchy enough. Different strokes for different folks,” he says with a shrug.
But the truth is that “everyone likes catchy music,” says Roberts. “Everyone.”
(Yes, even those who stand at shows with their arms across their chests, refusing to nod their heads with the beat unless they’ve had a few drinks. Just dance, for crying out loud.)
Catchy is what Films on Song supplies. But don’t mistake it for a one-note band. There’s variation from song to song, and in a way, each band member’s favorite track reflects his distinct musical contributions.
McKee’s particularly attached to the riff in “New Light” (or, “I’m Starting to See You in a New Light”—the band hasn’t decided which title to use yet)—not only is it memorable, it inspires him to write more earworms to sing along to.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Roberts is partial to “Sushi.” “It’s the rocker,” he says, progressively building in volume before exploding into distortion at the end. Roberts likes it even more when, during this interview, Teeter explains what it’s about: Taking a vacation from his grueling restaurant industry job, and the bizarre experience of being served by another server (and then developing a crush on that server).
The band agrees that “Friends of Mine” is its catchiest song—and thus the one Teeter most fancies. He wrote the song after learning that a few of the animators who perished in the Kyoto Animation studio fire in July 2019 had created some of his favorite animes, folks who’d created characters who felt like friends to Teeter.
Films on Song hopes to get the crowd bopping at its Magnolia House show Saturday night, and the band promises to release an EP (or two) this year.
And for alt-weekly music column readers who also happen to be musicians, take note: The band is seeking a keyboard player as well as a bass player, so that McKee can move on to lead guitar and Teeter can focus on vocals. So, if you’re into playing jangle pop and post-punk, consider this—and the show—the Films on Song’s classified ad.
Films on Song performs at Magnolia House on February 29.
Amber Zion (top), seen here in Deaf West Theatre’s production of My Sister in This House, is in town to push the boundaries of opera during a VHO workshop. She has performed music since she was a child, but this will be her first opera performance. Opera singers “have so much more emotions in their voice,” she says, and “[as deaf actors], I think we will be able to bring that out through our beautiful ASL.” courtesy of VHO.
Amber Zion started analyzing acting techniques when she was 5 years old. The only deaf child in her family, she grew up watching movies without captions, and she made up her own stories based on what she saw in the actors’ expressions and gestures.
When she watched MTV, she’d ask her mother to act out scenes from different videos—such as Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”—then she’d jump in and follow along.
Those videos “were very artistic, and I wanted to be able to give that to the deaf community,” says Zion, who got involved in theater in college and has since made her own music videos of popular songs like “Let It Go” and Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep,” performed in American Sign Language. She’s also performed the national anthem at the Super Bowl. “I wanted to create our own meaning behind the music,” she says.
This week, Zion comes to Charlottesville to tackle a new type of musical expression: opera.
Over the course of a three-day workshop, three deaf actors and three hearing opera singers, along with a director, a conductor, an ASL master, and a pianist, will explore a selection of scenes from Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, written in the 20th century and set in a convent on the eve of the French Revolution.
The public will have the opportunity to experience the resulting performance (performed simultaneously in English and ASL) on February 27 at UVA’s Old Cabell Hall, as part of the UVA Disability Studies Symposium.
Victory Hall Opera, an innovative local company, proposed the initial concept. Artistic director, Miriam Gordon-Stewart, a hearing soprano who is also singing in this experiment, got the idea from reading Andrew Solomon’s Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity, a book about parenting children who are different from their parents.
One section of the book looks at the experience of a deaf child growing up with hearing parents, and Solomon explains the origins of sign language: French priest Charles-Michel de l’Épée founded the first known public school for the deaf in Paris in 1755.
Gordon-Stewart’s mind “immediately went to” Dialogues of the Carmelites, an opera singer’s opera, set about 35 years later. “Wouldn’t it be great,” she thought, “if we could talk about Dialogues of the Carmelites through a deaf lens?”
That provoked further questions, such as “What is opera without sound? Is there a unique performing style to opera that can transcend the sound itself? How can we heighten the visual elements of opera to express its essence?”
Director Alek Lev is curious to discover (among other things) what operatic sign language looks like. Sign language looks and feels a certain way while signing Shakespeare, and that’s different from how the language looks and feels when signing, say, Neil Simon dialogue, he says.
Plus, he says, there’s an “essential metaphor” in the opera—one of fighting against the system—that might resonate with the deaf community, whose members have been “historically marginalized and misunderstood…they are more and more fighting for their linguistic and cultural rights, their civil rights,” says Lev. “It’s exciting that [Dialogues of the Carmelites] gives us this pretty easily.”
There’s a unique physicality to singing opera. “The body resonates as an instrument to produce these enormous amounts of sound; there’s an athleticism to it,” says Gordon-Stewart.
And there’s a certain, also unique, physicality to signing, implies Sandra Mae Frank, who will sign the role of Blanche.
“I don’t need to hear [music] to understand it,” Frank says. “I don’t need to hear what everyone else hears, because I see it. I feel it. I understand it on a deeper level. When I sing in ASL, it’s like I can almost see the wavelength of the song. My body glows inside and my heart pours out openly. I’m not interpreting the music, I am performing it with emotions, inside and out. I use my entire body, including my facial expressions and using the right translation to show the beat of the music. In a way, singing in ASL adds more abstract emotional quality. It’s not always about hearing the music, but seeing and feeling the music.”
ASL “is already a visual language that sometimes stands alone without adding any actual choreography,” adds Frank, and sometimes it can work with choreography to convey new layers of emotion and meaning. To “hearing audience members, that’s dancing, but to the deaf/hard-of-hearing audience members, that’s ASL. It’s beautiful how both naturally come together,” she says.
With this in mind, Frank, whose credits include Deaf West Theatre’s Broadway revival of Spring Awakening, is curious to find out if she’ll sign differently in opera than she does in musical theater.
This is Zion’s first opera performance as well. Opera singers “have so much more emotions in their voice,” she says, and “[as deaf actors], I think we will be able to bring that out through our beautiful ASL.”
In many musical productions featuring deaf actors and hearing actors, two actors essentially split a role, where one signs and one speaks. And there will be some of that in these Dialogues of the Carmelites scenes, but Gordon-Stewart says they won’t stick strictly to the doubling. Such an approach will allow the cast and crew to plumb some of the work’s spiritual themes and explore the bonds between characters and between actors.
Both the hearing actors and the deaf actors expect to learn plenty from one another throughout the workshop. That’s what acting’s all about anyhow, says Zion. Whether performing an opera about nuns or The King of Pop’s dance moves, “you will never stop learning, and that’s what makes you a great actor.”
Frank agrees. “That’s the beauty of theater: You never stop learning something new together.”
Growing up on the Torres Strait Islands of Australia, Brian Robinson drew on walls, windows, the kitchen table, the back fence. “Pretty much everywhere,” he told C-VILLE last month. “That creativity continued to grow and flourish” over decades of art-making, says the artist, who is now in his 40s, and has works in major public collections all over Australia, including the National Gallery of Australia.
About a dozen of Robinson’s recent linocut prints and etchings are currently on view at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection in “Tithuyil: Moving With the Rhythm of the Stars,” through May 31.
Robinson, who is of the Maluyligal and Wuthani tribal groups of the Torres Strait and Cape York Peninsula, and a descendant of the Dayak people of Malaysia, says his works take a look “at life in the Torres Strait, with a bit of a twist.” He writes in his artist statement that these pieces “present an intoxicating worldview, one where iconic works of classical art and popular sources from global culture”—such as the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars and the Tardis from “Dr. Who” in “Mapping the Cosmos” (above)—“are co-opted into the spirit world of the Islander imagination.”
The artist will be at the Kluge-Ruhe for the “Tithuyil” opening reception on February 20 at 5:30pm. —Erin O’Hare
This is "the ultimate KISS show," band co-founder Paul Stanley tells C-VILLE about the band's End of the Road World Tour, which stops into John Paul Jones Arena Friday, February 7. Publicity photo by Jen Rosenstein
They’ve shown us everything they’ve got, kept us dancing while the room got hot. They’ve driven us wild, we’ve driven them crazy. KISS has taken us for a spin, but now the party’s winding down, and for one last time, they’re letting us in: The legendary hard rockers play John Paul Jones Arena Friday, on their End of the Road World Tour.
In advance of the show, we spoke with band co-founder and “Black Diamond” and “Detroit Rock City” songwriter Paul Stanley—aka The Starchild—about 40-plus years of rocking and rolling all night, his makeup removal routine, fan stories that rock his world, and whether or not this really is the end of the road for the band.
C-VILLE: This is your last tour. What song will you be happy to never play again?
Paul Stanley: I’m thrilled with every song we play. My point of view is, if you’re tired of playing a song, it’s probably not a good song. Some of these songs come from 45 years ago, or even longer, and they’ve stood the test of time because they’re that good. And for me to not give them the respect that they deserve, would be me being undeserving of those songs. I’m thrilled to play “Rock & Roll All Nite.” I’m thrilled to play “Love Gun.” I’m thrilled to play “God of Thunder,” “Detroit Rock City,” and on and on and on. So, those songs are rallying cries for us and our audience. Our connection to our audience is so strong because we never lose sight of wanting to please them. And on this final tour, this is the ultimate KISS show. It’s bombastic. It’s over two hours of all the songs you want to hear. It’s a unique opportunity to know that this is the last time. Many times in life, we all find ourselves losing someone, or losing something, and saying, “If I had only known, I would have done something different.” Well, instead of going out with a whimper, we’re going out with a bang! And this is a victory lap where we all get together—because it’s like a congregation of everyone cheering for what we’ve accomplished. And by “we,” I mean us and the fans.
What song will you most miss playing?
I love ’em all. And again, it’s important to note that this is the end of touring. The band isn’t necessarily disappearing into thin air. It’s just reached a time where touring, and doing 100 shows in seven months, which is what we’ve done so far, is just…it’s just too demanding and time-consuming, when there’s other things to do in life.
The band put together a book of official KISS memorabilia (KISS: The Hottest Brand in the Land)…but I’m curious, what’s the coolest or most bizarre piece of fan-made KISS swag you’ve seen?
Oh my gosh! That’s an interesting question. I don’t know that off the top of my head, that I can come out with a particular piece. But, I’m always just taken by how many people I get to meet who tell me that KISS was instrumental in them becoming lawyers, doctors, getting off drugs, staying out of prison, the list goes on and on—becoming a famous musician. The fact that we can serve as inspiration without preaching, is probably the most powerful way you can influence somebody, [and that’s done] by leading by example. And we’ve always done that, by not being limited by the boundaries or limitations of other bands. When we started this band out, we were facing incredible odds, but, you find out how much something is worth to you by how hard you’re willing to work for it. So, hard work is how you achieve things. If you think you’re just going to win the lottery, the chances of that are slim and none.
What’s your preferred brand of makeup remover?
I think it’s Dermalogic. It’s better than sandpaper, that’s for sure.
KISS did a farewell tour 20 years ago [ed. note: with the original lineup of Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss]. Why should we believe you this time?
Well, because the writing’s on the wall: We’re 20 years older, for starters. And secondly, the first time we did a farewell tour, it was ill-conceived. The idea that we should let two members who were making us—meaning Gene and I—miserable, and compromising the band, shouldn’t be a reason for calling it quits. We have always believed that the band is bigger and stronger than any individual members, and we suddenly got caught up in the idea of putting the horse down instead of just getting rid of a couple of the jockeys.
Has your costume ever gotten in your way of shredding a sick riff? I imagine that studs and sequins and chest hair don’t exactly mix. And then you add platform shoes….
You know, I have to say, if you complain about any of the above, then it’s like complaining about taxes when you win the grand sweepstakes. I won, and I have no complaints.
KISS plays John Paul Jones Arena Friday, February 7. David Lee Roth (of Van Halen fame) opens.
Sculpture and drawings by Phuong Nguyen are on view in “Constructions” at the New City Arts Welcome Gallery this month. Image courtesy artist
Phuong Nguyen’s small wonders
In recent years, artist Phuong Nguyen has learned the truth of a common proverb: Big things do indeed come in small packages.
After graduating from UVA in 2015, she struggled to find a studio that would allow her to paint and print on a large scale. So she changed her creative practice and started working small, drawing with pencil and paper and sculpting with fabric, embroidery thread, beads, and other craft materials.
The shift suits Nguyen’s work well. Small pieces require viewers to slow down, to come closer in order to appropriately understand the message, which, for Nguyen is quite personal and intimate: Her work, on view this month in a solo show, “Constructions,” at the New City Arts Welcome Gallery, explores identity and the trauma of immigration.
“In some ways, it’s hard for me to talk about my experiences,” says Nguyen, who came with her family to the U.S. from Vietnam in 2006. Instead, she says she lets her art do the talking by “making these things, and making them brightly colored and attracting attention, as an avatar…letting them stand for my narrative, it’s helpful and fun.”
Image courtesy Phuong Nguyen
Immigration offered her family more opportunities for a better future, but at a cost, says Nguyen. She didn’t speak English when she started middle school in the States, which often made her feel like an outsider. But art class put her at ease, made her feel confident and helped her communicate with her teachers, her peers, and even herself.
“Looking back on it, I realize the power of art to connect people, and [of art] as therapy. That’s really a powerful tool for me now, for processing,” she says.
Laughter helped her cope, too. After Nguyen spent months tying thousands of tiny French knots on fabric for one piece, she removed the embroidery from the hoop and tossed it over a nearby yogurt cup (which she uses to organize studio materials). “It cracked me up,” she says, and that’s when she knew the piece was complete, yogurt cup and all. “When you know, you just kind of know,” she adds, laughing.
First Fridays: February 7
Openings
The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative 209 Monticello Rd. “Face to Face: Portraits of Our Vibrant City,” an annual exhibition that uses the intimate process of portraiture to connect artists and community members who have different life experiences. 5:30-9:30pm.
Charlottesville Tango 208 E. Water St. “Stillness,” a show of pencil sketches by David Currier. 5-7:30pm.
Veronica Jackson at Chroma Projects
Chroma Projects InsideVault Virginia, Third Street SE. “That’s Pops’s Money,” an installation of fabricated time cards by Veronica Jackson that relates the story of Jackson’s grandmother’s silently devalued work as a homemaker. 5-7pm.
City Clay 700 Harris St. #104. “Out of the Round,” featuring ceramics by Dina Halme, Beth Bernatowicz, John Williamson, Lauren McQuiston, and Paula Whitmer. 5:30-8pm.
CitySpace 100 Fifth St. NE. “Americans Who Tell The Truth: Climate Change,” part of the Robert Shetterly portrait series. 5-7pm.
C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Drawing on Life with Laughter,” featuring the uplifting and sometimes humorous work of illustrator Jesse Bellavance. 6-8pm.
IX Art Park 522 Second St. SE. “Through the Looking Glass,” an immersive art experience featuring paintings, photography, and mixed- media pieces by artists such as Aaron Farrington, Joe Vena, Kataryzna Borek, Brielle DuFlon, Chicho Lorenzo, and others. 4-6pm.
McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, “Fiber Transformed,” featuring work from Mary Beth Bellah, Lotta Helleberg, Jill Jensen, Jill Kerttula, Lorie McCown, and Wrenn Slocum; in the Lower Hall Galleries, “Arts Beyond the Streets,” an exhibition by the Black Power Station collaborative from Makhanda, South Africa; in the Upper North Hall Gallery, a show by Nate Szarmach; and in the Upper South Hall Gallery, “Serenity in the Mountains,” a show by Alison Thomas. 5:30-7:30pm.
Milli Coffee Roasters 400 Preston Ave. #150. “Art for String Education,” featuring works by Jessie Meehan. 5-7pm.
Mudhouse Coffee 213 W. Main St. “Du Temps Perdu,” featuring paintings by Brian Geiger. 6-8pm.
New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “A Tribute to Eloise,” an exhibition of works by the e salon watercolorists. 5-7pm.
Tanya Minhas at Second Street Gallery
Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the Main Gallery, “By the Strength of Their Skin,” paintings by Regina Pilawuk Wilson, Mabel Juli, and Nonggirrnga Marawili, three of Australia’s most acclaimed women artists. In the Dové Gallery, “Nature Tells Its Own Story,” featuring paintings by Pakistani artist Tanya Minhas. 5:30-7:30pm
Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Be the Bravest Version of Yourself,” featuring oil and canvas and printmaking works by Tomie Deng. 6-8pm.
Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “Constructions,” sculpture and works on paper exploring identity and the trauma of immigration, by Phuong Duyen Nguyen. 5-7:30pm.
WriterHouse 508 Dale Ave. “What’s Left,” sculpture by Richmond artist Kiel Posner. 5-7pm.
WVTF Radio IQ 216 W. Water St. “Forty Years—Forty Faces,” a series of photographs and written works by Glen McClure and Marshall McClure of folks who have received help from the Virginia Poverty Law Center. 5-7pm.
VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. “A Colorful Perspective,” featuring watercolor, acrylic, oil, and digital design pieces by Julia Kwolyk. 5:30-7:30pm.
Other February shows
Albemarle County Circuit Court 501 E. Jefferson St. An exhibition of work by members of the Central Virginia Watercolor Guild.
Annie Gould Gallery 109 S. Main St., Gordonsville. Featuring work by Cecelia Schultz, Annie Waldrop, and Chuxin Zhang.
Buck Mountain Episcopal Church 4133 Earlysville Rd., Earlysville. A show of mixed media works on canvas by Paula Boyland.
Mike Sorge at Crozet Artisan Depot
Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd. Featuring the work of sculptural winged woodturnings and contemporary bowls by Mike Sorge. Reception February 8, 1-3pm.
Crozet Library 2020 Library Ave., Crozet. “Fraile Eden,” a show by underwater photo- grapher Gary Powell.
The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Select Works from the Alan Groh-Buzz Miller Collection”; and “The Inside World: Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Memorial Poles,” and “Figures of Memory.”
Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. “A Place Fit for Women,” part of the Robert Shetterly portrait series.
Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Time,” featuring works by Ann Lyne, John McCarthy, and Ana Rendich.”
Robert Shetterly at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center
Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. An exhibition of work by mixed media artist Sigrid Eilertson.
Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Retrospective,” a show chronicling more than a decade of the “Every Day is a Holiday” calendars made annually by collaborative artists and lifelong friends Eliza Evans and Virginia Rieley.
Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian-Universalist 717 Rugby Rd. “Nature,” featuring watercolor, pastel, and acrylic works by Billie Williams.
UVA Health System main hospital lobby, 1215 Lee St. “Expressions in Color,” featuring works by the Piedmont Pastelists.
UVA McIntire School of Commerce 125 Ruppel Dr. “Encrypted Metamorphosis,” a show of work in a variety of media by Deborah Davis and Craig Snodgrass.
Vitae Spirits Distillery 715 Henry Ave. “Go Wahoos,” a show of UVA-themed acrylic works by Matalie Deane.
Woodberry Forest School 898 Woodberry Forest Rd., Woodberry Forest. “in context.,” featuring paintings in acrylic on canvas and paper by Madeleine Rhondeau-Rhodes.
First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many area art galleries and exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions. To list an exhibit, email arts@c-ville.com.
Sketches of humanlike hot dogs making cultural commentary have been popping up around the City of Charlottesville since last summer. Image courtesy @stilts_walker
They appeared over the summer, three identical wheatpaste posters of anthropomorphic hot dogs in buns, wearing sneakers and pedaling unicycles as they exclaimed in speech bubbles, “Hot dog!”
One, pasted to the side of the raised parking lot between Market and South Streets, was gone after about a week, but the others—on Cherry Avenue and West Main Street, stuck around. And then more started to pop up.
“A hard rain’s gonna fall,” warns a hot dog holding an umbrella on the Dewberry hotel skeleton. “Lockheed Martin stock increased 3.6% today,” its twin hollers from the side of another downtown building. “Rise up,” insists one standing atop a pair of stilts. “Shred the gnar,” “no war but class war,” say two others on skateboards.
A few weeks ago, the images appeared on Instagram under the handle @stilts_walker, and this reporter saw it as an opportunity to catch up with the artist, Charlottesville’s hot dog Banksy, if you will.
I slid into @stilts_walker’s DMs, expecting the wurst (“no way, you weenie”). But the artist agreed to an interview on three conditions: One, that we link up in the old Chili’s parking lot. Two, that I mention the location of our meeting in this story. And three, that their identity remain anonymous.
Image courtesy @stilts_walker
As we sit in my car on a chilly January day, the artist is frank about how the sausage was made. “People should do the things they wish were happening. I wanted to see this happening, so I did it,” the artist says. “I thought a hot dog on a unicycle sounded fun. It’s ubiquitous…everyone can inherently understand the humor in an animated hot dog. And it’s easy to draw, fast.”
“I initially didn’t plan on doing more than one,” @stilts_walker continues. “I had some supplies and a few free hours, so I threw it together and didn’t give much thought to continuing the project or doing new things, new adaptations.”
At the same time, the artist understands the influence art and culture can have in shaping movements, particularly progressive movements. Could an anthropomorphic hot dog help shape a movement, even in a small way? The artist believes it can. The character can be adapted into a variety of situations, and more than one dimension (at least conceptually speaking…the posters are 2-D), and it can say just about anything. “The things that are being expressed in these speech bubbles are things that a lot of people are thinking about all the time, so why wouldn’t the hot dog also be thinking about them? It seemed like a way to, in a fairly non-aggressive manner, communicate some pretty blunt ideas and ideologies,” says the artist, who’s incorporated social and political commentary into some of the posters (i.e., “Rise up”).
A couple weeks ago, the artist pasted up a hot dog riding a hobby horse in the CAT bus shelter on Market Street directly across from the Robert E. Lee statue in Market Street Park. The illustration humorously mocks the statue, but the speech bubble’s no joke: “That’s racist,” this hot dog said.
This particular poster, pasted in the CAT bus shelter on Market Street directly across from the Robert E. Lee statue, was removed within hours of its appearance. Image courtesy @stilts_walker
That particular poster disappeared only a few hours after it went up, but the artist isn’t jumping to conclusions about why it was removed. It may or may not have been a statue supporter who took it down, the artist says. “It could very well just be the reality that a bus driver sees something and reports it, and perhaps Charlottesville Area Transit has a reputation for quickly addressing graffiti concerns on their property.”
The artist (or artists…there may be more than one hot dogger out there) hopes the wheatpaste posters can inspire, or at least pique the curiosity of Charlottesville’s citizens. “It’s no earth-shattering or groundbreaking act,” the artist says of the work. “But I do strongly believe that culture, and having a vibrant, creative underbelly in a city is critical to maintaining [that city’s] cultural identity. And I would like that identity to be progressive and welcoming and friendly, and fun.”
And by doing this anonymously, @stilts_walker isn’t just watching their buns. That anonymity injects a much-needed element of curiosity into the city. People (including some Charlottesville city councilors) regularly post their own pics of the hot dog posters to social media, expressing surprise and delight over the project that began on a playful whim and has evolved into something quite engaging. Some folks have even sent the artist fan art.
Image courtesy @stilts_walker
Going forward, the series creator plans to play around with the poster illustrations, text, and context in order to keep Charlottesville on its toes and in conversation with whatever these hot dogs have to say.
“In a small-ish town like Charlottesville, where it’s easy to feel like you know everything about everything, having a little mysterious whimsy enter your day, enter your life, is exciting,” says the artist. The hot dogs give us something to relish.
