Carrboro: Faces of the Fourth
(photographs taken at the Carrboro July 4th Celebration at on Weaver Street down to Town Hall)
Sidewalk Swingin'
“There is a place where the sidewalk ends and before the street begins, and there the grass grows soft and white, and there the sun burns crimson bright, and there the moon-bird rests from his flight to cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black and the dark street winds and bends. Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow we shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow and watch where the chalk-white arrows go to the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow, and we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go, for the children, they mark, and the children, they know, the place where the sidewalk ends.”
(photograph taken on the sidewalks adjacent to Weaver Street in Carrboro)
Porch Sittin': Relax and Watch the World Unravel
(photograph taken near the corner of Rosemary and Main streets in Carrboro)
Beauty in the Embrace
Rob on Lindsay: "She could make the best out of any situation. She just always brings a spark in." Lindsay on Rob: "A thousand things I love about Robbie D....definitely one of the coolest most funny laid back guys and extremely talented musicians that I know."
Ran across the duo near Open Eye Cafe in full embrace as they were parting ways for the afternoon. Rob cohosts the Monday night Open Mic at The Station.
(photograph taken near S. Greensboro and Roberson streets in Carrboro)
Blow by Blow
"I always wanted to play. I saw a sax player at my church one time. I was like 'Who was that?' That person was really good. And I kept begging my parents 'Can I have a saxophone, can I have a saxophone?' So they got tired of the begging and they're like 'Alright, if that's what you want to do, we'll make it happen for you,'" says Jesse, 23, who landed his first paid gig playing at The Franklin Hotel when he was spotted with his saxophone on Franklin Street. "People are shocked to hear jazz around here," he says as a passerby drops a dollar bill into his case. "It's how I express myself. It's something positive."
When he is not blowing on brass for onlookers, he's on stage throughout the Triangle as the saxophonist for the funk/jazz/jam band Boss Nacho.
(photograph taken on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill)
Incognito Style
(photograph taken on the corner of Franklin and Columbia Streets in Chapel Hill)
Galoshes of Franklin Street
“Susie’s Galoshes
Make splishes and sploshes
And slooshes and sloshes,
As Susie steps slowly
Along in the slush.
They stamp and they tramp
On the ice and the concrete.
They get stuck in the muck and the mud;
But Susie likes much best to hear
The slippery slush
As it slooshes and sloshes
And splishes and sploshes,
All round her galoshes!”
(photographs taken on the corner of Franklin and Columbia Streets in Chapel Hill)
Chapel Hill: Rain on The Starry Night
Reproduced in repetition on this umbrella is Van Gogh's The Starry Night (1889). It is perhaps the artist's best-known piece. The painting depicts the night sky outside Van Gogh's window during his stay at a mental institution in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. Van Gogh committed himself to the hospital in 1889 after he severed his ear with a razor. He later delivered the ear wrapped in paper to a brothel he frequented. It was at the hospital that he arguably created his best work including the blue self portrait.
(photograph taken on the corner of Franklin and Columbia Streets in Chapel Hill)
Carrboro: Taglines
“If it takes more than 5 minutes, it’s not graffiti.”
(photograph taken off of Smith Level Road in Carrboro)
Carrboro: Keep on Track
(photograph taken near the train tracks that run through Carrboro)
Fostering Friendship in a Foreign Land
“A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and souls of its people.”
(photographs taken at the Chapel Hill-Durham Japanese Association fall picnic at Wilson Park in Carrboro)
Carrboro: Divergent Takes to a Snapshot
This boy said not a word but spoke loudly with his eyes. He was frolicking in the sandbox and kicking up dirt at the Carrboro Community Gardens off of Hillsborough Street where about half a dozen families were harvesting vegetables and tending plots of land. While his mother prodded the soil in their garden box, he tinkered -- sometimes alone, sometimes with his sister -- throughout the maze of towering plants. Each time I raised the camera to my face the boy stopped mid-step and stared back. For his sister the lens heralded a live performance.
(photograph taken at the Carrboro Community Gardens off of Hillsborough Road in Carrboro)
Chapel Hill: Feels Like Paris on a Rainy Day
(photographs taken on the corner of Franklin and Columbia Streets in Chapel Hill)
On the Street: Weather Together
(photograph taken on the corner of Columbia and Franklin streets in Chapel Hill)
In the Twinkling of an Eye
(photograph taken on the corner of Colombia Street & Cameron Ave in Chapel Hill)
Chapel Hill: Pickards Mountain Eco Institute
They come from across the country. States like Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan. Some make their way from neighboring cities like Charlotte, even Raleigh. They are college students, those escaping dense cities, those who have abandoned careers and those seeking a simpler living. Mostly, they all journey here for the same overarching reason: to find a way to live in harmony with the earth in a fully sustainable, hands-on, green community. This means growing the food they eat. Relying on alternative energy. And understanding how to become an integral part of a collective. About half a dozen interns live and work at Pickards Mountain Eco Intistute from Spring to Fall. They come here in search of a more amicable life with nature, oftentimes a response to issues like overpopulation, water toxicity, air pollution, industrialization and deforestation. In line with permaculture principles, they -- along with volunteers and residents -- till land, tend the fenced-in community gardens, keep bees, harvest nuts, cook seasonal fresh greens and raise farm animals, all in exchange for room and board. While in residence, they live in yomes (imagine yurt-dome hybrids) tucked into the adjacent forest. Some folks bomerang year after year.
The institute was founded in 2002 by Meg and Tim Toben to help heal the human-earth relationship through earth education and local economy. It sits on 70 acres down the dirt road from the Honeysuckle Tea House, which the Tobens opened earlier this year. Along with a wholly community sustainable internship program, the institute offers volunteer opportunities, herbalist programs, summer camps for kids, lunar eclipse potlucks, and Qigong in the red-roof gazebo overlooking a pond.
The institute is quite the sanctuary...some interns call it magical.
Pickards Mountain Eco Institute - Chapel Hill, NC - Sustainable Community Living
(photographs taken at Pickards Mountain Eco Institute in Chapel Hill)
Moments: 17th Annual Carrboro Music Festival
Carrboro was riddled with people this weekend strolling from the wonted to the curious of concert venues -- gravel parking lots, plaza passageways, wooden porches, even beneath tree shadows musicians played to crowds. The 17th Annual Carrboro Music Festival lured thousands for more than 180 free live performances running the gamut from those in grunge gear to the understated folk singer. Here are some festival moments...
(photographs taken at the 17th Annual Carrboro Music Festival in Carrboro)
Chapel Hill & Carrboro: NC PRIDE 2014
North Carolina's 30th Annual Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Festival celebrates full throttle today across the triangle with colorful parades, 5K runs, live music performances, and dance parties. Here in Chapel Hill/Carrboro, we have many NC Pride "firsts" to laud. Here are some: Chapel Hill elected its first openly gay mayor, Mark Kleinschmidt, in 2009. It was the first North Carolina municipality to elect an openly gay town council member, and also the first to include sexual orientation as a classification under the NC hate-crimes law. It too was the first in the state to support the repeal of NC Amendment One, the North Carolina Defense of Marriage Act.
Carrboro was the first NC municipality to elect an openly gay mayor, Mike Nelson, in 1995. The town's current mayor, Lydia Lavelle, is the first openly lesbian mayor in the state of North Carolina. Its police chief, Carolyn Hutchison, was the state’s first openly gay police chief, appointed in 1998. Carrboro also was the first municipality in North Carolina to grant domestic-partner benefits to same-sex couples.
North Carolina Pride 2014 - Carrboro - NC
(photographs taken on Main Street in Carrboro)
On the Street: Quad in Carrboro
(photographs taken on Roberson Street, a stone's throw from Greensboro Street in Carrboro)
On the Street: Magic Moment
“In the moment.”
(photograph taken on Main Street in Carrboro)