Horton Vineyards has long been recognized as one of our area’s most innovative wineries, starting in 1991 when the late Dennis Horton planted viognier grapes against the advice of many in the industry. It was one of the Madison County winery’s great successes, owing to Dennis’ wife, Sharon, who meticulously nurtured each vine and this year earned the prestigious Monteith Trophy.
Is it just us, or does it seem like lately there’s been an abundance of our friends and neighbors on television? From a singer and a chef, to an author and a dog, here’s who you may have seen recently on the small screen.
Yes, chef
It’s safe to say Siren chef Laura Fonner is the champion of Flavortown. Back in 2019, Fonner was the winner of her episode of Guy Fieri’s Food Network show, “Guy’s Grocery Games.” Her win earned her a place in the tournament of champions, “Summer Grillin’ Games,” where Fonner duked it out with the best of the best. Fonner’s final task was to create the “ultimate grilled feast” using frozen peaches, Worcestershire sauce, and corn. Her simple take on Mexican street corn and surf and turf won over the celebrity judges and she went home with the $25,000 prize.
Pop star
It took less than two minutes for Crozet native Kenedi Anderson to solidify herself as the stand-out star of “American Idol” season 20. Her acoustic rendition of Lady Gaga’s “Applause” wowed judges Katy Perry, Luke Bryan, and Lionel Richie so much that they awarded her one of three coveted platinum tickets, sending her straight to the second round of Hollywood Week. Her later performances of “Talking to the Moon” and “Human” made her a clear favorite to win. But, after recording her Top 24 performance, Anderson announced she was leaving the competition due to personal reasons. We doubt this is the last we’ll see of the local star—recently, Anderson’s Instagram showed her busy in a recording booth. Could new music be on the way?
Love games
Charlottesville native Salley Carson made a memorable entrance and a swift exit on the 26th season of “The Bachelor.” Described as “a real-life Meredith Grey looking for her McDreamy,” the surgery robot operator was engaged shortly before she joined the competition, but she didn’t let that stop her from charming eligible bachelor Clayton Echard. Sparks flew after their initial meeting, and Echard offered Carson the first rose of the season. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be for the two lovebirds. Not emotionally ready for a new relationship, Carson turned down the rose and left the competition before night one.
Answer…
University of Virginia student Megan Sullivan’s dreams came true when she made it onto the “Jeopardy! National College Championship.” The classics major knew her trivia chops were up to snuff, so she decided to work on buzzer skills—an overlooked but important aspect of “Jeopardy!” gameplay. Sullivan’s quick reflexes paid off—she made it all the way to the semifinals.
The underdog
Envy is the local Jack Russell terrier who was the smallest competitor on season two of the A&E show “America’s Top Dog.” The pooch competed with her owner Patricia Howell, tackling obstacle courses and going head-to-head with other dogs. Though Envy had the confidence to keep up with the big dogs, she didn’t make it to round two. She sure is a good girl though.
Coming soon
Jocelyn Nicole Johnson released her debut collection of short stories, My Monticello, to national acclaim. Colson Whitehead called it “a badass debut,” it was a Kirkus Prize finalist, named one of Time magazine’s 10 best fiction books of 2021, and a Netflix adaptation of the title novella is in the works. “My Monticello” takes place in the midst of a societal collapse caused by ecological disaster. White supremacists are taking over Charlottesville, and First Street resident Da’Naisha Love and her neighbors and family find safety by driving a Jaunt bus to Monticello. No word yet on a release date, but with Johnson serving as executive producer we’re pretty sure the small-screen adaptation will satisfy fans of the book.
Katie Kishore’s vision—to create a welcoming and inclusive space where adults with cognitive disabilities could flourish—came to life at the height of COVID, when she opened Kindness Café in the lobby of the Brooks Family YMCA. Serving Grit coffee and treats from found., the coffee shop employs eight workers with disabilities and big hearts.
Charlottesville’s Tree Commission works with the Parks & Recreation Department to protect and improve the urban forest as a natural resource for our quality of life. The commission comprises 10 members plus the city’s urban forester, a planning commission representative, and one member of the Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards. Tree preservation is critical to climate sustainability, public health, and ensuring environmental justice and equity. We asked several of these tree huggers to express their deep-rooted passion by answering the question: If you were a tree, which one would you be (and why)?
Peggy Van Yahres
The white oak (Quercus alba). For one thing it’s one of the longest-lived trees. I call it the king (or, in this case, the queen) of the eastern forest. It can have a massive crown spread, like the airport oak. It harbors more insects and feeds more wildlife than any other tree in the east, and it’s just so majestic.
Vicki Metcalf
I’d be a cedar in a cedar grove. We’d make a great hidden play area for kids. I’d smell great, I’d have blueberries that smell like gin, my bark would peel wonderfully, and I’d be marvelously gnarly.
Jean Umiker-Sebeok
I’d like to be a gala apple tree growing in a communal food garden in the city. With my horizontal limbs, I’d be safe enough for kids to climb for fun or fruit but tall and wide enough to provide shade for birds and tired gardeners or picnickers.
In early spring, some would say my pink and white blossoms look like little ballerinas, a sight for winter-weary eyes.
Bees and other insects would love my nectar and, although I’m self-pollinating, they could help with that if, as I hope, people have thought to plant another gala tree nearby so that I have a friend to keep me company. I would continuously breathe out oxygen to make the city air more healthful.
Beginning in August, my fruit would ripen into lovely, golden red apples, which are sweet, crisp, and fruity. The neighborhood families who tend the garden would enjoy munching on my fruit as they take a break from their work, later gathering basketfuls and hurrying home to make apple crisp, muffins, pies, or applesauce. My apples would grace children’s lunch boxes as they return to school, and provide a bit of hilarity as kids dunk for them at Halloween parties. People would, I hope, share my fruit with the birds, mice, rabbits, squirrels, and deer that live in the neighborhood.
As temperatures drop and I prepare myself for hibernation, fallen leaves and apples on the ground would decay, supplying my roots with warmth and feeding the millions of unseen organisms in the soil that I depend on for my health.
Steve Gaines
Most any variety of tropical fig would suit me just fine (except the strangler fig, which can be wildly parasitic and usually kills its host tree). I’d be able to produce fruit year-round to nourish all kinds of wildlife. And between the monkeys, macaws, and big cats that would visit me, I’d have all kinds of interesting company and amusing stories to tell.
Mark Rylander
I would be an American elm (Ulmus americana), the classic street tree, reaching my graceful, arm-like branches across to link with my brothers and sisters, and creating a shade canopy that is like a cathedral. Some would say I am doomed since Dutch elm disease has decimated our population, but great examples live on in Court Square and along East High Street, and some new variations are making a comeback. But we can only survive like this in cities if zoning requires buildings to be set back far enough to allow us room to grow.
The stone walls looming over the deep water of The Quarry Gardens in Schuyler do more than provide a scenic picnic destination 40 minutes south of downtown Charlottesville.
They also form a natural stage, where the Victory Hall Opera troupe performed everything from Mozart to Carly Simon last June in what Artistic Director Miriam Gordon-Stewart considers an acoustic collaboration with nature.
“It feels similar in some ways to singing in an opera house, as you are singing out across the water in these beautiful quarries,” says Gordon-Stewart. “But it is different in the sense that you also have the natural sounds. You have these beautiful bird sounds, and frogs, and all sort of critters that chime in as you’re presenting the music.”
Earlysville-based VHO will begin its seventh season with another unique collaboration. At Fry’s Spring Beach Club in the fall, Metropolitan Opera soprano Janinah Burnett’s Love the Color of Your Butterfly will intertwine soaring operatic vocals with soulful Americana piano in a groundbreaking blend of opera, blues, and jazz.
Australian-born Gordon-Stewart has performed everywhere from Sydney to Paris to Seoul, but she has never seen a performance like Burnett’s or an audience like Charlottesville’s.
“Engaging across disciplines and performing in alternative venues gives people a chance to experience opera in a way that they relate to, and that they can enjoy,” says Gordon-Stewart.
On a Sunday morning in March, Jason Elliott woke up feeling excited and prepared. Makeup and garment bags—five, to be exact—in hand, he headed downtown to begin a crazy day of work as the master of ceremonies at Live Arts’ Boozy Drag Brunch.
Jason began working with Live Arts when he was hired as the drag consultant on The Legend of Georgia McBride, which follows a young Elvis impersonator who makes a living by becoming a drag queen. Inspired and awed by the colorful costumes and drag culture depicted in the production, Live Arts saw an opportunity to do something completely new with its yearly fundraiser, and the Boozy Drag Brunch was born.
No detail was spared at this eleganza extravaganza. Held beneath the soaring ceilings of Vault Virginia, attendees enjoyed a fabulous array of fun, games, food, and beverages. Brunchers first stopped by the bank to pick up their currency for the afternoon—Drag Bucks. The colorful bills with RuPaul’s face could be used to tip performers, participate in games, or purchase a mystery box. The Bradbury provided an unlimited buffet stocked with brunch favorites, and a Bloody Mary bar meant drinks were available all afternoon.
After greeting and directing guests, and enjoying the morning’s carnival-like atmosphere, it was time for the main event—drag—and Elliott’s first outfit change. Now wearing a bedazzled jacket, cape, and matching cap and sunglasses, he got to work entertaining and introducing the queens, who came ready to slay.
On the main stage they performed everything from fierce, acrobatic dance numbers to raunchy, tongue-in-cheek monologues. Michelle Livigne, founder of Driveway Drag Show in Richmond, helped recruit local talent and performed three numbers of her own. Sweet Pickles hit the stage in a flurry of bright colors and crazy patterns, and brought a whimsical, doll-like vibe, and Javon Love wowed with dancing queen leaps and splits while wearing a seafoam blue mermaid-inspired look, complete with a shell bra. Also working the crowd were Bebe Gunn and Cherry Poppins.
A couple of outfit changes later, it was time for Elliott to host the silent auction. A former drag queen himself, Elliott is no stranger to performing or emceeing, but auctioneering was a new challenge.
“My favorite part of the entire event was when we got into this groove of one of the prizes, a hot ticket item. The price kept going up and up, with three people in a bidding war,” Elliott says. “I think I blacked out. I ended up ripping off my jacket and I was dripping sweat. Energy was bursting out of that ballroom and spilling onto the Downtown Mall.”
Elliott ended the show in his favorite fit—a Boozy Drag Brunch souvenir T-shirt—feeling proud of his community, the beautiful future they locked in for the theater, and the way Live Arts came together to honor and elevate, not replicate, the art of drag. “They did the research and they asked the questions,” Elliott says. “They made sure they weren’t using the queer community to their benefit, but showcasing the beauty of the queer community.”
While some of us were binge watching and baking, the UVA dance team HooRaas spent thousands of hours perfecting the synchronization, expressions, energy, themes, costumes, and dozens of other elements necessary to compete at the Raas All-Stars competition in Dallas on April 16. The national collegiate dance competition has soared in popularity after forming in 2009 around the Raas-Garba tradition, a folk dance that originated in western India. This time around, the HooRaas earned an admirable 10 points, and shared third place with Cornell Big Red Raas and Texas Raas, while Rutgers RAGA took home the gold with a score of 16.
Charlottesville’s tattoo culture is on the rise, with enough shops
opening in the past two years to nearly double the town’s total. While the saturation of body art doesn’t rival that of neighboring Richmond, which consistently ranks among the most-tattooed cities in the country, Charlottesville does absorb some of that energy and talent.
Tattoo parlors and the artists who work in them all have different approaches. Some go through a lot of flash (the premade designs you’ll see hanging on the shop’s walls), others are highly customized, drawing multiple drafts to match a client’s vision. Traditional style features bold, simple lines, basic shading, and colors that pop; photorealism is clearly more realistic; black and gray is reminiscent of a pen-and-ink drawing; and fine art styles adopt techniques of painting. It’s important to find the style that matches you.
Charlottesville staples
Ben Around Tattoos (below) One of the city’s longest-running parlors, Ben Around was opened by award-winning tattoo artist Ben Miller in 2006. The shop has sustained its reputation for high-end custom artwork, and Miller particularly enjoys black and gray realism and fine-detail work that comes to life.
ACME Tattoo and Piercing Located off 14th Street, ACME can do it all: tattoo,
piercing, custom, or flash. The shop’s colorful atmosphere reflects the traditional
style and punchy pop artwork you’ll see in this space.
Scottyrock’s Twisted Ink With decades of experience, owner Scott Morris aims to give his customers exactly what they want. Father and son run the place, and promise to treat their patrons like family.
Newcomers
Magnolia Tattoo Studio Newly opened by Molly Freeman, a former apprentice of Miller’s, Magnolia fosters an intimate, welcoming environment. With a degree in fine art, Freeman enjoys fine-lined, delicate botanical work.
Spitfire Tattoo In partnership with ACME, this custom-only operation shares an affinity for comic-book heroes, arcade culture, and bold colors, and has experience in large-scale tattoos.
Have Heart Tattoo Recently opened on the Downtown Mall, Have Heart focuses on traditional black and gray stamps with clear, bold lines.
That clarinet gathering dust in your closet isn’t going to play itself, is it? Lucky for you, The Center’s Second-Wind Band offers seniors an opportunity to, well, play it again. Organized in 1994, Second-Wind is a group of experienced musicians that performs classical, Broadway, patriotic, and holiday music during two annual concerts at The Center, as well as a few other venues around town. And a one, and a two…
Jennifer Mowad knows from chocolate. The Cocoa & Spice owner handcrafts each of her treats—truffles, toffees, barks, and brownies among them—using chocolate made in-house straight from the cacao bean. In 2019, Mowad took her operation from a small spot on Stewart Street to a shop in York Place. The new space is a far cry from the cart she once pushed down the mall, with an expanded product line that occasionally even includes ice cream. Cocoa & Spice and everything nice, indeed.