Author: Tami Keaveny

Nathaniel Star is in love. He has a light in his eyes and he is grinning from ear to ear. This is not the giddiness of a new romance or the rose-colored adoration that comes at first sight. Star is in love with his craft, his artform, the feeling that his music brings and how it connects him to a source.

“I feel that love is so deep it can make you believe in anything,” says Star. “That’s why it’s easy to write about that emotion. Love is crazy.  It makes you feel that anything is possible.”

Star has channeled all of this possibility into his latest record, Eros, a 20-track collection of sensuous neo-soul that encompasses “the highs, the lows, the goods, the bads, the greats—everything that is love.” He even looks back in time on the album’s opener, “1500 B.C.”

“That’s the genesis of the whole album,” says Star. “I’m talking about knowing somebody in a past life, and the whole journey up until now…knowing somebody before they’re even here.”

That fluidity is a comfortable place for Star, whose music manifests in multiple genres. He’s made albums in the categories of blues, country, rock, rap, R&B, West Coast, and Afrobeat, not so much by choice, but through effortless dedication. Musicianship is not just a way of life, but the entire life of the Charlottesville native, who, as a child, sang gospel with his mom and sister and wrote country-ish songs on guitar. “On every album I’ve made,” he says, “I have a song about music.“

Ask him about his process and it’s like asking someone how they breathe.

“I don’t write music, I just turn on the microphone and go and record it, so my process is a lot quicker than some people’s,” he says. “I haven’t written anything down in a few years. It’s more organic that way. It flows. You don’t get writer’s block because you don’t write.”

Star lives in a constant state of creativity. A glance at his whiteboard shows seven projects currently in the works. He recently collaborated with Lorenzo Dickerson and Tanesha Hudson on the soundtrack for A Legacy Unbroken: The Story of Black Charlottesville, and is currently in talks with music supervisors in Los Angeles about film and TV placement for songs on Eros. He’s also planning to drop a hip-hop soul album later this year.

Eros comes out on August 12, the third anniversary of one of Charlottesville’s darkest days. And that’s by design, says Star, who, despite his infectious positivity, is deeply affected by recent events: His brother is recovering from COVID-19, but Star says he’s encouraged by the current pace of activism.

“Usually the machine is very slow moving but it’s fast-forward now,” he says. “I’m not surprised any of this stuff is taking place.  …The activism, just everything, it’s moving fast. You can’t dodge it, it’s right there, in everybody’s face, there’s no getting around this stuff.”

Star says Eros is something the community needs right now; something that connects us to the possibilities of joy. Music gets me to a place that I can’t get myself to,” he says. “I am happy when I talk about it. I’m happy when I do it, when I create it, and I’m happy when I give it to other people and they receive it. It does make me happy.”

For fledgling artists, the Incubator Studio at McGuffey Art Center is an opportunity for growth. Each spring, renting artists Susan Northington and Eileen French select up-and-coming area talent to use the Incubator for a calendar year that runs from July to June, and ends with a group exhibition. “The studio has been set up to nurture and help grow these artists in their artistic practices,” says French.

This year’s show is titled “Cracked,” and like nearly all current gallery openings, it’s online due to the social distancing requirements necessary to control the spread of coronavirus.

French says the show reflects the artistic growth experienced during the artists’ time in the creative space. “At the end of an incubation period, the egg cracks open and the new life emerges,” she says. “So we felt that ‘Cracked’ was an apt title for their end-of-year show.”

The exhibition features the work of Piers Gelly, David Joo, Logan McConaughy, Lisa Philipps, Hannah ThomasClarke, and Abigail Wilson, and the artists chose their own submissions for the online gallery.

Gelly’s oil on canvas pieces are both vivid and intimate, especially “Confession,” which depicts two men in what appears to be a hushed conversation.

McConaughy’s multiple submissions become revelatory through their intricate, orderly patterns, described as the “interpretation of connections between neurons and the intersections between human intent and the energetic flow of our planet.”

In her ongoing project about endangered species, Philipps’ oil on canvas entries, such as “Last Call: Red Fox,” are bright and endearing, and gently balanced by monotypes that include large abstract florals, and a pair of lacy panties in black and white.

ThomasClarke uses embroidery to craft complex scenes that capture “the intersection between the expectations of traditional 1950s-era family dynamics and contemporary society.” “Dishwasher Chronicles” is a busy, thought-provoking caricature that twists and turns through domestic stereotypes.

Wilson’s unique interdependent style is based in symmathesy, exploring a natural order of connection using linoleum block prints, watercolor, pen and ink, and cut paper.

While it’s impossible to declare any one of the diverse works as a favorite, French says the submission that surprised her the most is Joo’s “Imaginary Landscape lll,” a sculpture created with handmade paper. “I was a witness to his process of papermaking, and was fascinated with the amount of effort that went into just that,” she says. “But to then have such a stunning work of art emanate from that was very thrilling to me.”

Jam it all: It’s tough to summarize Brennan Gilmore’s versatile musicianship. His current group Wild Common blends rootsy, folky, power soul that’s shaped by the varied styles of its seven-plus members. Then you have descriptors such as Arab-Appalachian, raw mountain music, and alt-country-soul winding their way through a music career that Gilmore began on local stages in the mid-’90s. Those bluegrass and country leanings will suit him well when he teams up with mandolin virtuoso Andy Thacker for the next installment of The Front Porch’s Save the Music virtual concert series.

Sunday 6/7. Donation proceeds will benefit The PB&J Fund. 8pm. facebook.com/frontporchcville.