The look: Gifted overalls, thrifted T-shirt, Ada Chen earrings, Muccha painting pendant from a roadside flea market
“I’m half Korean, one-fourth Native American, and one-fourth French-Canadian, so I’ve never felt able to easily fit in or blend into the crowd; maybe I leaned into that feeling of alienation and hodgepodge-ness in my clothing choices because I rarely ever ‘match’ in a traditional way. In addition to my racial background, as a pansexual person, my clothes and I exist at another crux: the extremes of masculine and feminine. I love combining things that feel dirty or grungy or tough with something very soft and femme.”
Photo: @cvillefashion
La’Tasha Strother
Age: 36
Occupation: Author of Tripod Manifesto and professional nanny
The look: Heels from Marshall’s, secondhand handmade dress, gifted earrings
“These clothes disclose my testimony. These heels tell of where I have been, and they stand in hopes of where I am going. These heels are not ashamed of their melanin nor am I. This dress addresses my desire to flow like water. It testifies that I am not afraid to be seen or to be covered.”
Photo: @cvillefashion
Ebe Lakrad
Age: 40
Occupation: Artist, leather craftsman (ebeleather.com), and full-time recycler
The look: Flea market finds (“Flea markets are my paradise and the source of my pure happiness.”)
“What I wear represents my own culture, people I meet, and places I go. I meet artists and recyclers like me from around the world—I go look for them. Some I speak their languages and most I don’t, so I try to transform their energies into something visible. Whether it’s a large city like Marrakesh, Paris, Amsterdam, or Istanbul, or a tiny village in nowhere, our mission is to make (through clothes, and craft, and beauty) mainly international energy.”
Photo: @cvillefashion
Leney Breeden
Age: 29
Occupation: Photographer and owner of Folkling, a vintage shop in Gordonsville
The look: Handmade (by Leney) dress from a 1920s quilt topper, 1950s hunting jacket, her mom’s bandana, vintage feedsack- turned-tote bag, Hunter boots
“I dress entirely from a secondhand/handmade wardrobe and believe strongly in the ethics surrounding those decisions in regards to our fast, fashion-normalized society. I also dress largely out of nostalgia. Most of my clothing has a lot of sentimentality tied up in it. Apart from that, I often push against the societal expectation that I have to dress a particular way, or in a particular style. I enjoy wearing a mixture of men’s and women’s clothing just because I enjoy the various dichotomies of different articles of clothing. Most often you can find me in a pair of old jeans, ragged T-shirt, well-worn boots, and one of my many felt hats.”
Charlottesville Street Style is a collaboration between 434 and Playground of Empathy, a local team that transforms organizational cultures to be more inclusive through immersive POV technology that celebrates expression through clothing and identity. Follow @cvillefashion on Instagram.
The Truth Farm
installation, created to draw attention to immigration issues, was initially centered around a 120-foot sign made from mylar blankets, which are often given to refugees. Photo: Eze Amos
The folks behind the art installation known as the Truth Farm want everyone to know the truth about immigration.
But what is the truth? And could there be more than one?
Unveiled on Refugee Investment Network founder and managing director John Kluge’s family property within the Trump Winery, the Truth Farm installation first centered around a 120-foot sign spelling out “TRUTH” in mylar. Aid workers often give mylar blankets to refugees seeking asylum, and artist Ana Teresa Fernandez used the material to draw attention to wider immigration issues—namely, that worldwide systemic problems beyond people’s control drive them to flee their countries for safety.
The artist’s Truth Table is surrounded by chairs, places where those with different opinions might come to sit, literally break bread, engage, and talk through complex immigration issues.
“When people become entrenched in their ideas, they pull a sound bite or barrage of sound bites that they have been spoonfed, and that becomes their understanding of an issue,” Kluge says. “When people harden their views, they lose their curiosity. You have to be curious to understand issues. Truth requires some inquiry and listening to others.”
Kluge is not an artist, he says, or even a professional curator. But he thought art might kindle at least some people’s curiosity. A U.S.-Mexico Foundation board member, Kluge conceived the Truth Farm project along with the group’s deputy director, Enrique Perret, and Fernandez. Fernandez had previously worked with mylar and thought it fit the Farm perfectly.
The installation grew from there. In addition to the Truth Table, the Truth Farm artwork includes a working adobe oven built by artist Ron Rael and portraits by undocumented dreamer Arleene Correa Valencia. Valencia’s pieces depict migrant parents and their children against black backgrounds. A friend of Fernandez’s and a professional artist herself, Valencia composes the parents using reflective material and fabric repurposed from her own family’s clothing. She etches the children in glow-in-the-dark thread, implying them only by an empty background.
“When you mix the two, you are seeing a full, embodied parent holding the idea of a child,” Valencia says. “The portraits start to create a conversation about separation and the layers that occur through immigration.”
The Truth Farm artwork itself has now begun a migration. Some of Valencia’s work is currently featured at the Instituto Cultural de México in Miami and will next travel to Wisconsin. Federico Cuatlacuatl’s Truth Farm contribution, sculptures in the shape of traditional Mexican kites, has moved to a museum in Toledo. The Truth Farm organizers hope to take Rael’s ovens on the road to host dinners over the next several months, while the Truth Table itself has traveled to Champion Brewing Company and the IX Art Park.
Kluge, Valencia, and Fernandez hope the art’s impact extends even further. They are planning another physical installation in Napa Valley, California. While they positioned the first piece next to a Trump property to draw the former president’s attention, the work of pushing folks to talk through immigration issues continues, even as a new commander-in-chief has taken office.
“I think that one of the really interesting things that has been occurring is the shift in all the information coming out after what happened on January 6 at the Capitol,” Fernandez says, referring to this year’s armed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. “There has been a lot of reconciliation with the facts, but all of this rhetoric is still permeating. It is still a tug of war with this word [truth], and with John being Trump’s neighbor, we enacted everything we want to see good neighbors doing—cooking together and bringing people to the table, being inclusive not exclusive.”
Matt Eich wanted a way to make photography less disposable.
A Charlottesville- based photojournalist and photography professor at George Washington University, Eich has published extensively in the New York Times, The Atlantic, and Time. But he long ago became disillusioned with the short shelf life of photographs as an art form. He established Little Oak Press in response and has since published almost a dozen photography books and zines.
Eich recently spoke to 434 about his work, self-publishing, and brunch.
Pages from Seasonal Blues Vol. VIII. Supplied photo.
434: What’s that terrible noise?
Matt Eich: I apologize for the noise. I’m scrambling some eggs. I was born in Richmond and raised in southeast Virginia. I studied photojournalism at Ohio University and started self-publishing portfolios and projects. Those were the analog days. Then we transitioned to digital, and that wasn’t ideal. So photo books have always been a big inspiration.
How did you get into self-publishing?
In photojournalism, a photographer might spend weeks, months, even years to have an image go to print one day and be lining the litter basket the next day. A lot of us talk about putting sustainable work in the world that has some longevity and shelf life. A lot of us make photos because we want them to outlast and outlive us. But the internet is this black hole for images.
So publishing your own books was the answer.
Books are the ideal form. But they are expensive to make, and there’s really no way to make a profit. In 2010 I did a limited series book called Carry Me Ohio—100 copies through a publisher. There’s a certain process to making a monograph with a publisher. It’s costly and tedious, and I came up in the punk music scene where zines were a part of the culture. Jump to early 2019: I had been freelancing since 2005 and started teaching in 2017 to stabilize things. I’m an avid book collector and was experiencing this drought in work. I was talking to a buddy in D.C., and he encouraged me to slam something together and put it out to get out of my funk and depression. It was called Does Anyone Dare Despise This Day of Small Beginnings, and was a collection of my favorite photos from the year before. I sold enough of them to break even on the printing costs and sent the remaining copies to editors and magazines and curators that could support my career to come. The response was good.
Where did you go from there?
For the last two years I’ve been trying to put out these semi-regular zines called Seasonal Blues. They are collections of pictures from day one of a season to the last day. Those are the only rules. It’s a nod to our frequent hills and valleys and also blues music. Each one opens with a poem and unfolds into poetic visual correlations.
Have you continued to publish in the media?
Yes, but commissions are a double-edged thing. They can open up opportunities, but there are the limitations of time and editors’ expectations. Commission work has grown more and more complicated, and the industry has been deeply affected by the pandemic. It’s not an easy industry, and it is kind of ironic I am teaching photography and photojournalism at an institution. I’m transparent and honest with my students in a way that my professors probably weren’t. Most of them had been out of the industry as long as I’ve now been in the industry.
Matt’s faves
What I’m reading: I’ve been reading mostly poetry of late, including Terrance Hayes, Tim Seibles, Molly McCully Brown, and Charles Wright.
What I’m listening to: A variety of things. Recently I’ve been enjoying songs by Danika Jones, Gregory Alan Isakov, Sylvan Esso, Mulatu Astatke, and Julia Stone.
What I’m watching: We’ve been plowing through too much TV over the past year. My kids are watching lots of baking shows. My wife and I rarely have the energy to watch anything by the time we get the kids in bed.
What I’m eating: We’ve been learning how to make omelets on the weekends. Our family favorite for takeout is Tacos Gomez.
What I’m buying: Too many photo books (always), pour-over coffee supplies (from Vessel Craft Coffee and George Howell Coffee), and photographic materials.
Alicia Walsh-Noel is no stranger to a career pivot. Seven years ago, she left her cubicle job to start as a busser at Zocalo. And in 2018, while working at Brasserie Saison, she approached Will Richey with an offer to run the marketing for his restaurant group.
“My background is a potpourri of photography, communications, and food and beverage,” she says. “But more importantly, I have a background in being scrappy AF.”
Richey said yes, and in June 2019, after the birth of her son and increasing requests to take more clients, Walsh-Noel launched Do Me A Flavor, a local food-focused marketing agency. We asked her to tell us more about her restaurant cred and what local menus she’s pouring over—in and out of the office.
434: You’ve been in the local restaurant scene for a while, yeah?
Alicia Walsh-Noel: Seven years ago, I decided to quit my cubicle job and started as a busser at Zocalo. I mean, technically my first restaurant job was at my dad’s café where I worked the toast station as a 7-year-old. I have had the privilege of being a part of several notable projects including helping to open Kardinal Hall and serving as their marketing director, cooking with my husband, Jon Bray, for his Filipino pop-ups, and opening Brasserie Saison (from a construction site to a 14-services-per-week restaurant) as operations manager.
What types of services does Do Me A Flavor provide?
Web design, photography, videography, copywriting, PR, graphic design, print production, social media marketing, email marketing, high-fives.
Who are some clients you’ve worked with so far?
Wilson Richey was my first client. When I pitched the idea of running marketing for his group, Ten Course Hospitality, he said yes before I could finish my first sentence. I also work with F&B Restaurant Management, whose family members are Ivy Provisions, Shadwell’s, and Fry’s Spring Station. This year, we collaborated with both Crozet Pizzas and The Dairy Market on several projects. We’ve been experimenting with retail lately as well, throwing around ideas for independently owned grocery stores or specialty food shops.
What do you like to eat in Charlottesville?
Kimchi pancakes from Mamabird Farm, all of the food at Basan (especially whatever wild specials they are slinging for the weekend), plate lunch from Mochiko, C&O. I just told my husband that I wished there could be a gypsy jazz and late-night menu there, but earlier for parents who used to party. And Jon Bray’s mom’s house.
Art can be intimidating. In talking with Chicho Lorenzo, Benita Mayo, Heather Owens, Michael Jones, and Megan Read, five visual artists currently working in Charlottesville, we’ve learned about each artists’ process, their comfort zones, and how they overcome their own fears when staring at a blank canvas or searching through a lens. Each one mentioned the value of community, and the vulnerabilities around putting creative output into the world. Their words offer a chance to find our own connections to the gifts of art.
I came here in 2008 when Charlottesville was voted one of the best places to live in the U.S. When I moved here my English was very bad…people related to me as ‘he’s exotic, he’s a Spaniard’ and that was okay. I found the general atmosphere here to be peaceful, and it was a quiet town. To me it was a little bit of a utopia. I’ve come to this place and everybody is happy.
A collective muse:
My work, and I would say my whole life, is very based in mutual cooperation. I don’t take credit for what I make, what I paint. For what I create, I take credit in terms of what I practice every day, so my hand knows. But my topics are very influenced and affected by what is happening around me.
Sowing the seeds of art:
A mural is like a garden. You take care of a garden and things can grow from there.
The mural on Barracks Road had an issue with graffiti on the wall, and I incorporated it. On this mural, there is a figure of a girl with a magic wand, leading the parade. Somebody painted the symbol for Om in white on the tip of her wand, and I thought, “That is super cool. It adds the magic to the magic wand.” I don’t know who painted it, but it makes it a community work.
On art’s impact:
Artists, in many ways, are responsible for creating the impossible. I can draw whatever. If I paint it, if I draw it, it becomes real for you when you see it.
When painting the mural at MAS tapas, there was a guy outside all the time who talked to me very often. He told me, “Mother always wanted me to have a farm.” So I painted a little farm for him far away in the distance, and he got so happy. That is an example of what [art] gives to people in small ways.
For me, my work is a way to ask questions and not necessarily answer them. Some artists present a problem. Mine are just questions.
I get a lot out of hearing from people who are viewing the work. They all feel very personal because I always have something in my mind that’s related to my home life, my personal life, or something that’s going on in the world.
On planning:
I do come with inspiration and (with watercolors) I come with a lot of preliminary sketching. I’ve come in without a plan before and I just end up with a mud painting. So I really have had to plan out more than I used to and it’s been a really good experience.
On making mistakes:
I had a professor who said that the difference between good art and great art is being able to completely ruin a piece by doing something that you think might make it better. That’s something I try to keep in my head as I am working. You have to be willing to completely mess something up.
The art of nature:
I grew up hiking and I used to go off in the woods all the time. I just love finding small unobserved things. Like you go out and see animals interacting of course, but I always enjoyed finding weird insects under rocks, I enjoyed finding these details of life that you don’t normally observe or are not normally privy to. The small interconnected pieces of life that happen in these out of the way places that impact the overall world.
I overheard two people talking about my work and saying it reminded them of Henry Darger. And that made me really happy to hear. He does these incredible paintings of forests with little girls in them. Kind of creepy and fairytale-inspired and I think that’s very much the kind of imagery I tend toward in my work.
The forest feels very familiar and safe to me but also has that element of being wild and uncertain at the same time. I think that duality is something I do try to look for in my work. Being in a place that is both familiar and unfamiliar.
I am coming into the word artist. I’ve never used the word to describe myself before. Photography is my jam. In a way it’s become a very important part of my life and in others it’s become a meditation for me. It allows me to escape and allows me to get to know myself better. Some might call it contemplative photography.
On catching the shutterbug:
It’s been an evolution. When my grandmother retired from teaching she would go on trips and come back with all these photos. She was documenting, and I think in a way I have become an extension of that.
I was getting ready to take a trip to Europe, and thought, “I cannot go to Italy and bring back awful pictures. I just cannot do it.”
I went on my trip…even hired a professional photographer to take me around Florence. He had access to the Duomo, and took me way up in this apartment building that had a perfect view. I took that photo, brought it back…and entered it into competition and got a blue ribbon.
That was it. I didn’t think I would fall in love with the craft. But that little taste encouraged me to want to know more about the art of photography and study the craft.
“Stepping Stones” by Benita Mayo
On the C’ville effect:
Ironically I came back in August 2017 when August 12 happened and all the craziness. That was something I didn’t recognize and that was really weird for me. When I was a student here (in the ’80s), I’m not sure I was as in tune to what was happening with the University and the community.
I think what’s happened in the Charlottesville community has probably helped me to tap into some feelings that I wasn’t even aware of. It’s also made me more curious about lots of things. More curious about the people I meet, things that I hear, things that I see. It’s almost hard to articulate.
Knowing in the moment:
I was in Taos, New Mexico, and I met this gentleman. His name was Augustine, and I found his face to be so interesting. His eyes had a deepness. I could see his soul through his eyes.
We start to talk, and I begin to realize that he and I are the same.
He was Native American, I was African American. He was male, I was female. Other than that, there were so many things that overlapped.
He invited me into his home that he was building. I later found out that that is something that almost never happens. Just in the span of 15 to 20 minutes we had formed this connection.
I can see it as clearly as if it happened yesterday. He was sitting in his truck and I just remember seeing this glimpse, this knowing, so to speak. And I took the photo. I call it my first real portrait.
On staying focused:
My yoga and my meditation practices teach me to approach things with a beginner’s mind. It’s very freeing when you do that. You let go of any preconceived notions, it allows you to let go.
Yoga and photography kind of work hand in hand together. My meditation practice, my yoga practice inform my photography and I see photography more like poetry now.
My main medium is motion pictures, so film and video. I started writing first, but I didn’t go to school for any of those things. I’m self-taught. As far as filmmaking is concerned, I have had on-the-job training with various companies in the area, but most of what I know is a result of my own research, my own studies, my own experimentation.
Choosing your passion:
I really found my passion for cinema when I started interacting with filmmaking groups and getting hands-on experience. I realized there really wasn’t anything else I wanted to do for my career.
The idea of struggling with and doing something that you like seemed like a better idea. So in 2019, I said goodbye to the full-time job and started filmmaking full-time.
Letting the ideas out:
After a certain point of working or experimenting in the various mediums, you’re not necessarily forcing ideas out anymore, they are just kind of coming to you organically.
It’s kind of a nebulous thing, but it just appears in my head. It’s sometimes sparked by something in daily life sometimes not. It’s hard to describe how it comes about. If I don’t do anything, an idea will sit in my head and bug me. So I have to get it out. That applies to whatever I do, whether that’s writing, or photography, or filmmaking.
On following the narrative:
Constantly working is important to me so I tend to do a lot of documentary work. But I am constantly writing ideas for fictional films. I’m only starting to get around to making this happen.
If you had to describe me based on my current portfolio, you’d describe me as a documentary filmmaker, but that’s not how I feel. I feel like a different type of filmmaker.
All of my paintings are meticulously created in oil, sometimes on linen and sometimes on panels, and in general these quiet, shadowy works revolve around traditional elements like flowers or the nude figure (or both) but often include contemporary references. And I paint hands. Lots of hands.
Emerging as an artist:
It was the thing that always came naturally. I remember when I was about 7, and already an avid drawer, being shown by a friend of the family how not to draw what I thought I knew, but only the light and shadow, the shapes, how to use my eyes, and feeling like everything changed. But it never occured to me that it was a career option.
I suppose having my first successful solo show was the thing that made me feel like this was officially “a thing” but even now, no matter how well things go and how far my work travels, the imposter syndrome is strong. Probably always will be.
“Dual” by Megan Read
On Charlottesville:
When I began showing I didn’t think there was a chance that anyone here would be interested in actually buying my work and, on the contrary, there has been such an outpouring of support I am still reeling. And with the internet connecting all of us so easily, not being in a big city hasn’t made much difference in terms of connecting with galleries and participating in international shows so it’s been a very comfortable place to be.
It hasn’t really influenced my process or the content of my work, but has certainly made a huge difference in allowing me the space to create the work that I want to.
Art is a battlefield:
People think that painting must just be this lovely, pleasant pasttime and sometimes that couldn’t be further from the case. It’s true that the reason I loved drawing and painting from the beginning was because it is soothing in certain ways, it’s an escape, and it works with my tendency towards hyperfocus (in very specific areas). But, with painting there is at least as much time where it feels like an all-out war where nothing works the way I want it to. Where I can’t control this ridiculous gooey substance. Where paintings fall off of easels. Where I am sure that whatever I am working on couldn’t possibly turn into something worth looking at. Where I wonder why I bother and it seems impossible. And then there is light again.
So the paintings from the outside are serene and quiet in most cases, but the process of their creation is the most tumultuous thing I have ever experienced and it goes in waves.
Carly Romeo had always been really into chocolate, but it wasn’t until a visit to a chocolate shop with a friend that she realized her interest had grown beyond that of a casual hobbyist.
“I started telling her things about chocolate origins and darkness percentages,” Romeo says, “and she called me a total nerd.”
After that, she did hours of research—learning about the cacao-to-chocolate process and supply chains—with the hope of eventually making chocolate from cacao grown by women. Soon she was introduced to Trinidad-based botanist Sarah Bharath, who encouraged Romeo to travel to Trinidad, meet and learn from her, and, eventually, start Not Your Sweetie.
Today, she uses beans from Trinidad and Tanzania, and has teamed up with Patricia Ross of Splendora’s to make the artisan bars in flavors like Not Wasting My Thyme (dark chocolate with a dusting of za’atar spice) or Not Afraid to (C)rye (dark milk chocolate with caraway seeds).
With her new venture (Romeo is also a Richmond-based photographer and project manager at Soapbox, Inc.), she hopes to bring more awareness and appreciation for the craft of chocolate-making, amplify women’s voices across the supply chain, and create more work for local women as the team grows. “And, of course,” she says, “make delicious chocolate.”
Lorraine Sanders knows FEST. She better. She came up with the acronym.
As a modern marketer, acronyms are kind of Sanders’ thing. So are podcasts, social media campaigns, viral videos, email pitch templates, lookbooks, and online networking. 434 recently chatted with Sanders about her company, Spirit of 608, where she came from, and where she’s going.
434: So what does Spirit of 608 do exactly?
Lorraine Sanders: Spirit of 608 is in a space I call FEST, which is my play on STEM. Fashion, entrepreneurship, sustainability, and technology—when you say it, it becomes clear why I have that acronym.
And what does technology have to do with fashion?
When you look at the fashion industry, what is driving it into the future? Sustainability and technology. Spirit of 608 produces content to help bring brands tips and advice so they can continue to grow and thrive. So they can be better for themselves and for the planet.
What made you invest in FEST?
I was a journalist for many years in San Francisco, both general interest and for fashion publications. I also had a blog about fashion and independent designers, and over the years, I started to write exclusively about fashion. San Francisco is the seat of so many startups, these amazing unicorn companies, and their key focus was on fashion and technology. That drove me to create a podcast in 2015. I wasn’t able to get my editor to give me enough space to report on all this cool news.
Why the move from San Francisco to Charlottesville?
I grew up in Richmond and wanted to move back to be closer to my family. The interesting thing about the world today is you can really be anywhere. I was curious about how it was going to affect the podcast and business, but Charlottesville is such an entrepreneur- and technology-friendly place. It’s growing, and I think the business community is extremely supportive. There is no question being in New York or L.A. gives you physical access to people and companies. But over the past few years, people who are coming into fashion are not located in those places. People are no longer at a disadvantage depending on where they are. This year has made that more of a reality, and it’s only added to our comfort in digital connections.
What’s next for Spirit of 608?
Over the last year, we put out the PressDope course, a DIY training program for fashion entrepreneurs to get visibility without working directly with an agency. Online education is a booming space. The pandemic has absolutely contributed to it, but in reality so many people have been reflecting on their lives and careers. Female entrepreneurs wanting to pursue something tied to a passion or mission are looking to build businesses and families. The online training landscape has aided them.
Last question. What the heck does 608 mean?
It’s a reference to an ’80s film called The Legend of Billie Jean. In the movie, the main character gets into a disagreement over $608. It’s a fun, campy ’80s film, and when I was creating the business, I decided I enjoy thinking about that movie—it makes me smile. I am a big believer in mindset, and the name makes me feel positive and confident.
LORRAINE’S FAVES
What I’m reading: The Last Law of Attraction Book You’ll Ever Need to Read by Andrew Kap and, with my kids, I’m reading Neil Patrick Harris’ Magic Misfits series.
What I’m listening to: Led Zeppelin’s “Tangerine” and Claire Pelletreau’s “The Get Paid Podcast,” which is literally the only show I’ve ever known where the guests discuss real business numbers transparently. It’s a great show for female entrepreneurs.
What I’m watching: I just watched “Tenet,” and I think I’m going to have to watch it again. It’s crazy, but good.
What I’m eating: My absolute favorite splurge takeout is ordering from Petit Pois. So beyond good every time.
What I’m buying: I was so glad when Darling opened their online shop earlier this year. They always have great merch, and I love what they are all about as a company.
They gather in the dozens at the Jefferson School at 6am every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday: Black, brown, and white, women and men, old and young, united by the road ahead of them. Year-round, they run, jog, or walk a challenging route through the city. Members say the group has changed their lives for the better—and together, they’re working to do the same for Charlottesville.
William Jones III, co-owner of Charlottesville’s His Image Barber Shop and Natural Hair Studio, began what’s become the Prolyfyck Run Crew—inspired by lyrics in Nipsey Hussle’s 2018 song “Victory Lap”—to share his love of running.
Jones ran solo when he moved to Charlottesville in 2006, but over the years, he invited friends and customers to come with him, and the group began to grow one or two people at a time.
By 2019, its ranks had begun to bloom; new members included former vice mayor Dr. Wes Bellamy, who worked with Jones to design a roughly five-mile course through Charlottesville’s historically Black neighborhoods and public housing projects.
“We run the route weekly to encourage an active health lifestyle,” says Crew member James Dowell, who runs marketing for the Virginia reggae band Mighty Joshua, “and to also show that it’s people of color, their color, out here running the streets. They’re community members and residents who greet us every day, and they are family.”
Therapist Juanika Howard says the group is her “accountability partner,” helping her get up and go when she’d rather sleep in. She’s seen close to 100 people gather for some runs. Other group members say Prolyfyck lets them run with more safety and confidence.
While collectively the runners don’t speak frequently about how the death of Ahmaud Arbery—who was murdered in 2020 while jogging in Georgia—affects them, “It’s important to be as vigilant as possible while we’re running, especially if it’s alone,” says Chris Cochran, a counselor at Monticello High School. But running with the group makes the whole experience better, he says. “Running with people you know that are going to motivate you, encourage you to push yourself, and hold you accountable really has a way of bringing the best out of you.”
Photo: Derrick J. Waller
That’s proving true on and off the road. “The crew has become an amazing networking vehicle,” says Derrick Waller, a product manager at PRA Health Sciences, “both supporting each other’s businesses and projects, but also serving as a way to positively impact the community.” Those efforts include picking up trash as they run, raising money for charity, dedicating runs to different community causes, and even helping one of their neighbors along the route with an upcoming move.
Cochran says he hopes that in the years ahead, Charlottesville as a whole will start to look more like the Prolyfyck Run Crew: “A bunch of people who don’t all look alike trying to leave the place better than they found it by pitching in and doing what they can individually,” he says. “When we’re all making small contributions, the results can be massive. I’m looking forward to seeing that change.”
In one of Fernando Valverde’s poems, “Ellis Island,” he imagines would-be immigrants to the United States, gathering in European cities like a swelling tide: “The future / sold in first and second class tickets / in the ports of Naples, / of Trieste, / of Constantinople, / grows on the haze of Bremen / or the drizzle of Hamburg / or the loneliness of the Liverpool docks.”
Valverde’s own route to the U.S. from his native Spain has little in common with the fraught journeys of Ellis Island-era newcomers, but he sees his own life in similarly poetic, and global, terms. Now a visiting distinguished professor at UVA, Valverde’s themes cross cultures: suffering, tragedy, nostalgia. And he has tackled the subject of the U.S. head-on, both the promise it offers and the ways that promise fails to manifest.
Born in 1980 and raised in Granada and Almuñécar by his mother and grandparents, Valverde says his early life was marked by the Mediterranean Sea—in his words, “the oldest sea in the world, the sea of Ulysses and Shelley.” In his first memory, “My mother rescues me from the waves. Perhaps it wasn’t the first one, but in some way it installed itself in my mind as the beginning.”
His mother couldn’t save him from the pain of missing his father, who was mostly absent from his life. But he says that as he grew into writing as a way of understanding the world—he started writing poems seriously at age 18—the difficulties of his childhood were an essential ingredient. “It is possible that pain and anguish have been my best professors of poetry,” he says. “I saw my family destroyed very quickly, my father kicking my toys around when I was a child. Poetry has been an insufficient effort to change the world, a failed attempt. But it hasn’t been a bad attempt.”
Valverde spent 10 years as a journalist in Spain, writing for the newspaper El País, while building a reputation as an important young poet. He co-founded and directed a noted literary festival, published several books which found their way into multiple translations, collected prestigious poetry prizes, and earned notice as the “most relevant Spanish-language poet born since 1970” as voted on by an international group of scholars. He is considered a leader of the Spanish literary movement known as The Poetry of Uncertainty.
“Uncertainty is everything that lies in front of us; it belongs to the future but it is filled with errors from the past,” he explains—perhaps something like a statue in his poem that queries Edgar Allan Poe’s history in Baltimore: “the stone / carved by misfortune, / the same as happens with beauty.”
In 2014, Valverde received another honor, unusual for a poet: a Latin Grammy nomination, for lyrics he’d written to accompany flamenco music by his friend, Juan Pinilla. The award ceremony wasn’t his first trip to the U.S.; he’d previously done some teaching at the University of North Georgia, which he calls “a fabulous experience.” But the Grammys opened new doors. He was asked to teach at Emory University that same year, and in 2018, at UVA.
He’s frank about feeling some culture shock here. “I miss Atlanta a lot,” he says. “It’s obvious that moving from Atlanta to Charlottesville has been a radical change in my life. I miss the existence of a cultural fabric in this city that isn’t associated with a social class. I was working on constructing those spaces for dialogue between different races and cultures when the virus arrived.” That said, he adds, “The University of Virginia is a fantastic place, and I have been able to teach what I love, poetry in Spanish.”
Valverde has been published in English translation by more than one American press, and much of his new writing is concerned with the echoes of American writers like Poe, Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost, as well as American history itself—including the painful legacies of slavery and violence. Historical harm weaves in and out of personal longing and sadness, as in his poem “The Boys of Camden,” where the speaker observes “the children of the children of slavery” before slipping into a reverie of individual loss: “I have left the places I loved the most, / those I’ve seen in my dreams where my mother cries for no reason…”.
Having titled one of his books La Insistencia del Daño (The Insistence of Harm), Valverde in a sense claims harm as his poetic territory. “It’s a question of a very concrete harm,” he explains. “My mother suffered a cerebral aneurysm and she can’t retain new memories. She has lost her short term memory completely. You can have the same conversation several times in one hour with her, and she is not going to remember it. For me that repetition is the harm.”
Valverde sees poetry as a means to make connections. He is known as a poet who can speak to a broad audience—his 126,000 Instagram followers, for instance. And he hopes to continue teaching at UVA, using his post to encourage bilingualism and cross-cultural exchange. “My dream is that one day I will be able to broaden the creative writing program so that it will be bilingual,” he says.
As he recently posted on Instagram: “Con nuestro amor, salvaremos el mundo.” (“With our love, we will save the world.”) With his youthful face and mop of dark hair, Valverde bears more than a passing resemblance to the beloved former Beatle George Harrison, from whom he borrowed that quote. And, like the Beatles, Valverde seems to have the ability to broadcast his art around the globe.
Community Bikes has been providing bicycles to Charlottesville kids and adults in need since 2001, but with the widespread rush to ride over the past calendar year, the nonprofit has shifted into another gear.
According to Director of Community Development Lauren Riegl, Community Bikes doubled revenues from 2019 to 2020. The organization was fully registered as a 501(c)(3) as of February this year, and now it’s moving into a new central location in Preston Plaza.
“It’s funny because it is this old organization, but in a lot of ways, we are starting fresh,” Riegl says.
What hasn’t changed over the years? Community Bikes makes cycles with wheels 24 inches and under available to any kid who wants one. It gives bigger bikes to adults, and partners with other nonprofits that have clients in need of transportation. The rest of Community Bikes’ inventory, collected via tax-exempt bicycle donations, is tuned up and sold to support the organization.
In 2020, Community Bikes gave 600 cycles away to children. It gave about 250 more to adults in need and sold roughly 450 refurbished bikes.
“For these families, kids’ bikes are expensive,” Riegl says. “They start with a balance bike and move up from there. They grow out of them. We help with waste, as well.”
Outside of retail sales, Community Bikes runs on monetary donations. Until recently, the nonprofit was 100 percent volunteer-operated, but it’s now hired two full-time and two part-time employees.
The staff growth was a good thing, according to Riegl, because C’ville’s cyclers rushed to bike shops last spring. People who didn’t want to use what little public transportation was available needed a ride. Other quarantine-bound locals wanted to exercise without crowding into gyms. Come summer, most bike shops were out of stock.
“By the end of every day, we were cleared out,” Riegl says. “It was sad. We want to be able to get as many people on bikes as possible.”
The trend was hardly limited to Charlottesville. According to the National Bicycle Dealers Association, cycle sales nationwide jumped by more than 40 percent in 2020. And the increase was none too soon—the previous year, 2019, saw bike unit sales decrease by more than 20 percent.
The past year was not without its difficulties for Community Bikes, though. The group learned in December it was losing its rent-free home at 405 Avon St. to a housing development and would have to be out of the space by June of this year. Reigl said the team fortunately negotiated a new space and signed a letter of intent to move into 917 #D Preston Ave. in February.
Riegl says she hopes the community’s increased interest in biking will continue, and NBDA’s forecasts indicate it might. Based on changing lifestyles, heightened interest in bicycling for recreation, and a continued need to take bikes to work, domestic cycle sales should continue to grow, with U.S. revenues reaching $8 billion by 2025.
For its part, Community Bikes will continue to do what it can to make bicycling appealing—putting on free repair classes, holding bike-friendly events like group rides and bike-in movie nights, advocating to make the region more cycle-friendly, launching a trailer program to bring repairs to disadvantaged areas, and partnering with the Virginia Institute of Autism.
“We don’t want the cost of bike repairs to be prohibitive, and a lot of people have a hard time getting back to the shop,” Reigl says. “We want to expand access…get bikes not just to the people who would immediately come to mind.”
