Barbecue, Bourbon, Boutiques

BARBECUE, BOURBON, BOUTIQUES

Home
Feature

Barbecue, Bourbon, Boutiques

A journey into Jamestown

By Danielle Rotella Guerrieri

Photographs by Laura Gingerich

On a crisp, chilly day with a deep indigo-blue sky overhead, I maneuver my car through a couple of smooth turns into historic downtown Jamestown. Oak and cedar behemoths line my path before being replaced by skinny, black rod-iron light posts, all protecting the quaint village center, comprised of nine one-or two-level buildings. Historic Jamestown, a mere 12 miles from downtown Greensboro, is one of the oldest established communities in the Triad, a hidden gem tucked between Greensboro and High Point, offering enough locally owned eateries and boutiques to make it worth blocking out a whole day on your 2026 calendar.

Since the COVID pandemic ended, Jamestown has been focusing on revitalization in the form of newly emerging shops and eateries — an impressive transformation I’ve witnessed in the short four years since I lived there.

Excited to explore, I meet my friend, Janna, for a full day of shopping and exploring. But first, we fuel up on caffeine at Kindred Coffee. Engulfed by the smoky, rich, chocolatey aroma as we walk in the door, we’re greeted by owner Greg Pittman’s friendly face behind the counter. Pittman and his mom, Marsha, opened Kindred in late 2022 after their online coffee subscription and Cause Roast coffee truck business took off.

“We wanted to create a space where people felt loved and cared for when they’re here,” says Pittman. Jamestown didn’t have a dedicated coffee shop at the time, so it was an easy transition to shift their coffee operation to the space at River Station Twist. After sipping my cuppa espresso, I’m rarin’ to go.

At Second Chance Closet, a boutique-like thrift store that opened in the former Wells Fargo building in 2024, all proceeds go toward Chance Walters Ministry, operated by owners Kacie and her husband, Chance Walters. “The reason we succeed,” says Kacie, “is word of mouth and being part of such a tight-knit community.” Filled to the brim with clothing for all ages, it doesn’t look like a former bank until you veer to the right and notice the formal wear section housed in an old vault. Janna finds a long, alabaster sweater coat for $12.99, and I snag a funky, avocado-green, animal-print sweater for $6.99 — deals we definitely can’t pass up.

Guilford + Main, a large clothing and home goods shop that opened in 2021, is owned by Lisa Perdue and run by her daughter, Alexis Turner. Silver Gallery, its sister store, has been a shopping staple at Friendly Center in Greensboro for 25 years. But, notes Turner, “We have more space here than Silver Gallery, so we can carry more things.” A pair of earrings, gold spikes glimmering on a cream-colored loop, draws my attention, while Janna picks out a few $5 silver dangles from their sprawling bracelet bar.

Strolling back down Main Street, it’s hard to miss Jamestown artist John Firesheets’ enormous sea-blue mermaid-and-squid mural painted on the side of The Soap Lady. Flanked by inviting black front porch rockers, Soap Lady’s creaky screen door announces our arrival to owner Susan Stringer, who’s greeting us with a genuine ear-to-ear grin. In business in Jamestown for 27 years, Stringer expanded to her larger storefront in 2012, where she’s been selling her handmade artisanal soaps and lotions ever since, and has added pottery, soy candles, cards, and many other locally crafted goods to her inventory. Stringer makes all the soaps, body wash, shower gel, sugar scrub, lip balm, body powder and bath bombs using an olive oil base and other natural ingredients. “We have a lot of people going through issues like cancer and radiation, and they can’t use fragrances,” says Stringer, “and using a real soap makes a huge difference.”

Our bellies soon start growling, so we stop for lunch at Southern Roots, one of several eateries on Main Street. Full Moon Oyster Bar, Simply Thai and Black Powder Smokehouse are just as enticing, but walking into Southern Roots is similar to breezing through your favorite aunt’s sunlit beach house — you feel right at home. But, please, keep your shoes on! Owner Lisa Hawley uses her family’s Southern recipes, supporting local farmers and sustainable agriculture. As Hawley puts it, “Our food is prepared with love.”

Our charming waitress, Sydney, takes our orders. Janna can’t resist her favorite gluten-free meal: flat iron steak with a bourbon glaze, cheese grits and Crowder beans, while I select a cup of chicken-and-dumpling soup and a chicken salad sandwich half on buttery, toasted sourdough.

Satiated, we walk a few doors down for a sweet treat, as the mix of sweet and savory scents emanating from Cakes by B’s Blue House Bakery tickles our cold noses and lures us inside. There, we find owner Bridgid Murphy, who co-owns it with husband Bob, whipping up her rosemary goat cheese quiche. Murphy has been satisfying the town’s sweet tooth in her adorable blue house for the last 10 years, preparing everything from caramel-and-pecan-pie bars to savory gluten-free cheddar biscuits. “Our quiches and chocolate chip cookies are incredibly popular,” says Murphy. “We also have a fun one called ‘What the Heck.’“ What the heck, you’re wondering. “It’s devil’s food cake,” she says, “with cookies-and-cream filling and vanilla buttercream on top.” When she first opened, she aimed to have a bakery that doubled as a community haven, and she delivers with baking and decorating classes, meet-the-candidate events during election season, food truck festivals and a trunk-or-treat every Halloween. We snag a batch of Murphy’s famous chocolate chip cookies before our next shop.

Feeling like we entered a high-end art gallery, we step into Bottone Home, a design and decor store with “home vibes on point” owned by Kody Bottone. After we ooh and aah at the exquisite leather chairs, funky modern vases, smooth-edged end tables and enormous wood sculptures, Bottone tells us the shop opened just last year and the company also manages interior design projects. My eyes are immediately captivated by Greensboro artist Erin Beck’s paintings, featuring broad brushstrokes of deep burgundies, vivid emerald greens and auburns, beautifully capturing florals, nature and still lifes. Her paintings make a vibrant splash against Bottone Home’s modern, neutral furnishings.

As 5 o’clock looms, we head up the street to meet our husbands for drinks and dinner. Crafted cocktails call our names as we enter Barrell & Co., where we’re struck by low lighting and smooth jazz and the calming, clean, soothing aroma of tobacco mixed with vanilla. Opened last year, owners Ket Jones, Matt Lokercome and Paul Lothakoun designed the space for enjoying elegant cocktails while phones take a back seat and conversation takes hold. Old fashioneds and smoked fashioneds are ordered, although, not being a huge bourbon fan myself (yet!), I sample a few varieties, courtesy of Jones, and I discover I just might like Eagle Rare.

Black Powder Smokehouse is our dinner pick — a high-energy barbecue restaurant so good they opened a second location in Asheboro. The smoked turkey breast, jalapeno sausage, and pork spare ribs beckon, but we opt for the ever popular, beef brisket, barbecue pork and chicken. Opened in 2019 by pitmaster Keith “Big Brisket” Henning, in a converted 1920s gas station, the establishment features beautifully preserved old gas pumps and massive garage doors that open for outdoor seating on warm days. Four sauces line each table, from house signature sweet sauce to “The Heat,” a hint of fire for spicy enthusiasts. Between us, we share crunchy, cool coleslaw — an excellent heat cleanser — golden-to-perfection tater-tot casserole and an elevated take on mac-and-cheese, smoked gouda kicking it up a notch.

As a yawn stretches across my face, we make plans to return another time for drinks at Potent Potables followed by live music at The Deck. Bags and belly full, I start my short drive home, the historic Jamestown street lamps flickering and fading in the rearview.

Jamestown History

Laid out as a community in 1792 by prominent Quaker George Mendenall, the official town of Jamestown was chartered in 1816 and named for George’s father, James. At Mendenhall Homestead, the home of George Mendenhall’s son, Richard, built in 1800, I’m accompanied by two tour guides, Will Ragsdale and Jay McQuillan, members of the Historic Jamestown Society. McQuillan serves as president, and Ragsdale is the grandson of William and Mary Elizabeth Ragsdale, who previously owned the property and later donated it to the Historic Jamestown Society, which they helped start.

Walking through a sunken summer kitchen in the original part of the house, I imagine Richard taking off his wide-brimmed hat to duck into the cramped room. He expanded the home before marrying Mary Pegg in 1812, adding a parlor and sitting rooms downstairs, as well as bedrooms upstairs, which, in addition to the couple’s seven children, sometimes housed their many out-of-town visitors.

“Quakers welcomed any travelers in; it was part of their makeup and religion,” explains Ragsdale, “Quakers were also focused on education and human rights, believing that women were just as capable and able to learn and do everything men could do.” A black-and-white photo from the 1840s shows the first faculty of Guilford College, half of them women. The school was founded by Quakers, including members of the Mendenhall family.

Stored in the property’s Bank Barn, the Stanley Murrow false-bottom wagon serves as a reminder of how Quakers helped transport enslaved Black people to freedom in the early to mid-1800s. May we all take a note from the Quakers and support those in need through compassionate service and think of everyone in our community as a “friend.”

A Culinary Course in Community

A CULINARY COURSE IN COMMUNITY

Home
Feature

A Culinary Course in Community

Tina Firesheets and Ling Sue Withers weave women’s stories into supper

By Cassie Bustamante

Photographs by Bert VanderVeen & Nancy Sidelinger

When Tina Firesheets first watched the documentary, Bite of Bénin, an idea took root. “I don’t let go of an idea,” says Firesheets, who describes herself as a “writer, daydreamer and creative thinker.” She immediately texted longtime friend Ling Sue Withers. Thus began the conversation that would eventually turn into disCOURSE dining, culinary experiences for women, by women, where culturally diverse dishes are served with a side of sensory storytelling.

“I reached out to Ling Sue because we both love food and we both love culture,” says Firesheets. Plus, she adds, “If you want to get anything done, you want her to be involved.”

“I sat down and watched [the documentary] in one night,” says Withers. “And I cried.”

The film centers around North Carolina Restaurant & Lodging Association (NCRLA) 2023 Chef of the Year Adé Carrena. Carrena, a Durham-based chef whose Neo-African chops won her the top spot on Food Network’s Chopped last summer, currently serves as culinary director of Triangle Central Kitchen, a nonprofit dedicated to turning food waste into culinary training and community meals. She was adopted at the age of 10 from Bénin, West Africa, because her birth parents desperately wanted a better life for her. Instead, says Withers, Carrena and her younger sister were adopted into a “horrible” household in America.

Carrena’s story of adoption — and eventually healing — especially moved Withers, a Chinese American “Air Force brat” with family in Taiwan who grew up in the tiny town of Maiden. Like Carrena, she, too, had also experienced “a lot of childhood trauma.”

Firesheets, who grew up in Western North Carolina, was adopted from Korea; her adopted mother was Japanese and her father white. She, too, felt a connection with Carrena. At the time, she had been working as associate creative director for Pace Communications and had been introduced to Carrena through a project Pace was doing with NCRLA. “We just kind of bonded that day because we’re both adoptees and we both kind of had traumatic adoptee experiences,” says Firesheets.

Both Firesheets and Withers felt a strong desire to spread Carrena’s message. “It’s really about healing and how she healed through food and how food helped her reconnect to her country and her family,” says Firesheets.

At the root of it all, though, was the shared passion the disCOURSE founders have for food — and not just food, but unique culinary experiences meant to be savored.

Once, as a birthday gift to Withers, Firesheets took on planning an Atlanta excursion, although Withers is by vocation a professional planner. Withers is a festival organizer who has worked with the North Carolina Folk Fest since its inception and has also amped up her resume with Greensboro’s Solstice Festival and the Piedmont Blues Preservation Society. “Taking a trip? I will make you a spreadsheet,” she says. “Pregnant? I will make you a spreadsheet.”

But, this time, Firesheets took on the daunting task of creating a spreadsheet for the spreadsheet queen herself, filling it with must-visit restaurants, including notes about where they needed to eat while the food was fresh and where they could load up their coolers to haul it home. “I knew then,” says Withers, “lifelong — life-long — friends.”

On another trip, the two visited the mountain town of Sylva, where Firsheets introduced her pal to her favorite restaurant, Dalaya Thai Cuisine, owned by James Beard Award-nominated Chef Kanlaya “Gun” Supachana. In the dead of winter, the place was hopping, no indoor seating available. Undeterred, the two claimed an outdoor seat. Who cares that they could see their breath? Next thing they knew, other diners followed suit and soon the patio was as packed as the dining room. Worth the bitter chill? Definitely. “Her food is so stinking good,” says Firesheets.

At home in her Greensboro kitchen, Withers, too, is an excellent cook. Firesheets admits that she’ll “drop anything” to attend one of her pal’s famous dinner parties. “If I had plans elsewhere, I would just cancel.”

Fueled by their shared love of food and ignited by Carrena’s story, the two women jumped into action. Firesheets had formerly been involved with Ethnosh, an organization that hosted ticketed events highlighting local and mostly immigrant-owned restaurants until COVID shuttered its operations in 2020.

Less than four years later, disCOURSE began plotting its very first event featuring Chef Adé Carrena at Machete, which owner Tal Blevins generously allowed them to use, in January 2024.

Venue and chef locked in, the two women began reaching out to potential guests, hand curating a group of women who exhibited, according to Firesheets, “diversity in culture, professions, experiences.”

On top of that, says Withers, their theme mirrored Carrena’s own story: healing. And they wanted “to bring together women to have a serious connection.” So, they skipped the alcohol — opting instead to serve mocktails — played the documentary and gave Carrena the floor in between dishing out her Neo-African bites.

“We had an idea of what we would like to accomplish,” says Firesheets, “but she leveled up the storytelling.”

It was Carrena’s idea to incorporate an African handwashing ceremony before food was served. “Most people had never experienced that,” says Firesheets.

Ashley Madden, who was in attendance at that very first event, believes ritual is important to women in general. “Just to have that experience and to start with that cleansing, everyone is starting with a fresh slate,” she says. “I thought that was really beautiful.”

Madden also notes that she came away having made new friends — a mother and daughter who were seated at her table — and she was introduced to a chef she wasn’t familiar with prior. “Ade [Carrena] has gone on to do Food Network and I feel like I am just in her corner,” she says. “I am just cheering her on.”

During that first disCOURSE dining event, Withers, who prefers to be in the background observing, watched as women made connections and held thoughtful conversations around various subjects. “It’s exactly what we had wanted.”

But that begged the question both women wondered aloud. “How are we going to top that?”

Just a few months later, in May 2024, they hosted their second event, a kimchi tasting at Potent Potables in Jamestown. The chef was Eunice Chang, owner of The Spicy Hermit, a Durham-based company that creates traditional and seasonal kimchi using fresh, locally farmed produce. (Kimchi is a traditional and often quite spicy Korean form of pickled vegetables.)

To make the meal more substantial, Withers pan-fried sausages from Moonbelly Meat Co., a woman-owned business based in Durham. And this time, the women introduced alcoholic beverages.

“We did a kimchi michelada [beer paired with lime, salt and hot sauces] because The Spicy Hermit also has a kimchi bloody Mary mix,” says Withers, adding that it “was really awesome.” A couple other cocktails and mocktails were on the menu, too.

The Spicy Hermit event also introduced occasional workshop add-ons. After a February 2025 event featuring an array of dumplings by Durham-based Sister Liu’s Kitchen, Chef Cuiying Liu, who came to America from China in 2013, taught attendees to handmake their own. Madden opted for the add-on and admits that hers weren’t quite as good as Chef Liu’s. “Although mine were great because I made them,” she says, “but, gosh, it just made you appreciate what goes into that!”

To build on the sense of community disCOURSE was creating, Firesheets and Withers began adding conversation cards to tables. For example, at their May 2025 event featuring Durham based Chef Silvana Rangel-Duque, the Colombian owner of Latin-infused, plant-based Soul Cocina, one card read: When Silvana moved to Colorado in 2009, she began cooking because she really missed Colombian cuisine. What dish do you miss from home (perhaps from your childhood)? Are you able to recreate it?

Of course, as any entrepreneur can tell you, growing something from nothing is often a case of two steps forward and one step back.

And disCOURSE has not been without its setbacks. At their 2024 summer event featuring Greensboro’s Shafna Shamsuddin, owner of cardamom-infused frozen dessert company Elaka Treats, they ran into some technical difficulties. “We could barely get it scooped in time to serve it,” says Withers. “It was starting to melt already.”

In the end, Withers said they had a blast but learned something: “We’re skipping summer!”

Then there was the 2025 closing event, which had been planned to a T for October 19. The chef was none other than Winston-Salem’s Jordan Rainbolt, owner of Native Root, who uses indigenous ingredients of the Southeast. Rainbolt, whose own native roots are Cherokee and Choctaw, had been the 2024 finale chef, hosted at Moonbird Sanctuary. Firesheets and Withers describe that event as “magical.” But, for whatever reason, this time around, the tickets just weren’t selling as anticipated. They were going to have to cancel.

Was it a tough decision? “We made it actually in about 5 minutes!” quips Withers.

“I didn’t see it as a failure or disappointment,” adds Firesheets.

While most things have worked out for disCOURSE dining, Firesheets says that they don’t stress when it doesn’t. “It’ll be what it is. Even when things didn’t fall into place with this last one, you know.”

Now, they’ve got their eyes focused on the future — the immediate future, that is, as they take it “season by season.” They’re currently on the hunt for a coastal Carolina chef. “We just need to find her,” says Firesheets.

So, why bring in women from outside Greensboro when there are many talented female chefs right under our nose? “We wanted to bring chefs from outside the area so that women here could hear their stories,” says Firesheets. After all, it’s the cultural stories that are at the heart of disCOURSE. Plus, she notes, their events have to offer something attendees can’t otherwise access by going to a locally owned restaurant or food truck. As she puts it, they need “some reason to come to our event and pay more.”

But, she teases, though they are tight-lipped as of now on who it is, they’ve decided to include a Greensboro-based chef in the 2026 season of disCOURSE. They can, however, spill who their 2026 opener will be — none other than Chef Kanlaya “Gun” Supachana, made possible, Firesheets says, by a private donor who wishes to remain anonymous, but is a fan of the disCOURSE mission. (That event is scheduled for the afternoon of Sunday, February 22, at Machete.)

While those ticket sales help Firesheets and Withers pay their chefs and venue hosts fairly, they admit to needing support to be able to keep going and to bring in even more chefs.

“Ling Sue and I actually make very little,” says Firesheets.

“There was one where we walked away with 33 bucks each,” adds Withers. Enough to grab an order to go from the featured chef? Yep, “and that’s pretty much what we do, exactly what we do!”

Thankfully, their goal is not monetary. “It started from a place of inspiration, passion, and when it ceases to be that, then we won’t do it,” says Firsheets.

First-time disCOURSErs Lindsay Morgan and pal Emily Morris ventured to last spring’s Soul Cocina event held in the backyard of Double Oaks on a sweltering day. While they spent time catching up after not seeing one another for a while, a solo attendee sat with them and asked if she could join the conversation. That wouldn’t happen at your standard Starbucks, says Morgan.

Morris agrees. “A lot of community was built here and that’s amazing.”

Marci Peace, who has attended a few disCOURSE events, says, “It’s so important right now to have space to have conversations. With everything, with people pitted so much against each other, it’s important.”

From the beginning, Firesheets and Withers have served course after course of connection, conversation, community and cultural cuisine with a goal of sharing women’s stories. Theirs, it seems, is still being told, bite by bite.

Winter is for the Birds

WINTER IS FOR THE BIRDS

Home
Feature
You can always count on a blue-headed vireo to make sure you don’t miss your morning alarm. After all, the early bird gets the worm.
This red-shouldered hawk ruffles some feathers as it swooshes in on his prey.
Considered to bring good luck, a red cardinal shows off surrounded by heaps of frosty snow.
This female northern cardinal, though not as vibrant as her male counterpart, is unmissable with a beak as bright as hers.

Winter is for the Birds

Lynn Donovan focuses on our bright-beaked buddies

By Joi Floyd

With the brisk, wintry temperatures approaching and the holidays in full swing, you’re sure to hear about the partridge in a pear tree — over and over again. But the real tweet of the town comes from our favorite chirping, warbling friends. Though most birds of a feather flock together, you’re bound to find one or two different breeds cozying up next to each other for warmth. Whether gathering leaves and tiny twigs for nesting or feasting on tasty nuts and seeds, these sweet tweeties stick close together. Photographer Lynn Donovan captures our precious woodland buddies in action as they face the snowy — we can hope — season.

A Cooper’s hawk keeps a keen eye on his surroundings.
A creature stirring? Something has piqued this cedar waxwing’s interest and made it peer over the end of the branch.
There’s nothing stronger than a pileated woodpecker’s beak — except maybe the urge to dye our hair red.
A red-tailed hawk nestles on a branch as the winter season draws closer.
It’s hard to miss this American crow as he trots through the pure white snow.
What could bring more winter wonder than a white-breasted nuthatch playing in the snowfall?
A brown-headed cowbird hunkers down as sleet falls from
Two turtle doves? These are two mourning doves and two is always better than one.
In a wintry world of gray, brown and white, a bright eastern bluebird is sure to catch your attention.
This raging turkey vulture is hard to miss as it confidently stretches its wings post-landing.

Lowe and Behold

LOWE AND BEHOLD

Home
Feature

Lowe and Behold

A Greensboro home sparkles from a dash of family tradition with a merry-making twist

By Cassie Bustamante   •   Photographs by Amy Freeman

The stockings on Charlie and Linda Lowe’s mantel are hung by the chimney with care. But they aren’t your ordinary, run-of-the-mill stockings. Nope, these five-of-a-kind stockings, in a soft, gold tone, are shaped whimsically, curved like an elf’s boot, trimmed and monogrammed in an orange-coral. And let’s not forget the pleated, black-and-white striped cuff.

The gold stocking fabric came from a Greensboro Symphony Guild Super Sale, back when they were held at Printers Alley. “I went with a friend of mine,” says Linda, “and there was a pair of drapes for next to nothing, like 20 bucks, and it was that beautiful, quilted fabric.” She snagged the deal, knowing she could Maria von Trapp those curtains and give them new life somehow. “It had all the trim and everything.”

“That is how an artist shops,” says Charlie. “They see other things in things.” His blue eyes twinkle proudly. And the beard on his chin? Well, it’s as white as the snow, naturally. Though Charlie, Linda’s jolly little helper elf and husband of 39 years, wears his a little more closely cropped than Saint Nick’s.

More symphony drapery panels surround the base of the couple’s Christmas tree, serving as a make-shift skirt. Mercury-glass beads in red and silver swag from bough to bough. The beads, purchased sometime in the 1960s from Friendly Shopping Center’s Woolworth’s, which Linda and her mom frequented, are a glimmering reminder of childhood Christmases. Linda says she inherited her love of Christmas decorating along with the beads from her mother, who passed away 30 years ago.

“My mom always played the organ in the living room where the tree was,” says Linda, “and she said I would just lie down under the tree and look up at the lights.” Her mom also told her how she’d cry at the first signs of the tree’s imminent death as it dropped needles on her.

Of course, some mementos are perhaps better cherished only once a year. A bell, also from 1960s Woolworth’s, plays — very annoyingly, says Linda — “Jingle Bells” when you pull its chain. As the keeper of the family bell, to this day, she calls her older brothers on Christmas and plays it over the phone as a prank. “Sixty plus years of doing that!”

Charlie, too, has fond memories of his boyhood Christmas tree. His parents both grew up on farms without much else to their families’ names, so when it came time to celebrate the holidays with their only son, Charlie recalls the tree overflowing with gifts for him. “My parents lavished me,” he says. But his mom brought one of her favorite farm traditions with her into her young family — a fresh cedar tree.

His mother, who passed away in 2016, regaled him with stories from her own childhood about cutting and hauling the chosen tree straight from the family’s farmland. “She and her sister finally got to the age to be trusted with an axe,” says Charlie, “and they would go out on the farm, and find the tree that they loved, and down it went.” And how old did one have to be to wield an axe? “Oh, they were probably 6, 7 or 8.”

“I saved all of her — what’s now vintage — Christmas stuff,” says Linda of Charlie’s mom’s decorations, everything from plastic candelabras with red bulbs to ornaments.

Linda and Charlie have been celebrating Christmas together for almost four decades. Married since 1986, they have, between them, three grown children — Alex, Rebecca and April — four grandchildren and one great-grandson. Linda was a customer at the camera shop where Charlie worked as a sales associate. He’d ask her out and she’d say no, but, eventually, as with the film in the lab, a romance developed.

After a quick courtship, the couple married and began their lives together. Both are retired now. “I retired early because of Mom and Pop,” says Charlie, who cared for his parents in their final years. Linda retired from a long career as a graphic designer that included 20-plus years with the News & Record.

But, as young parents, they were always on the go. Dropping their young children off with the grandparents, they’d haul cameras, lighting and lenses to shoot weekend weddings together. “I don’t know how we did it, but we did,” says Linda.

They worked long hours, but still found the energy to infuse some holiday magic into their own children’s memories. Before the internet even existed and clever Christmas ideas were easily found, Linda’s mother was making Santa’s boot prints on the hearth by setting down a pair of boots, sprinkling something white — perhaps confectioner’s sugar or flour — around them, lifting them off and leaving behind evidence that the jolliest elf had, in fact, been there. Linda took a cue from her mom and did the same for her kids using sprayable fake snow.

Plus, Linda decked the halls of their home and did the holiday shopping for the kids and extended family. “I look back and I am like, good grief.”

Charlie looks at his wife knowingly. “That’s what moms do,” he says. “They fill in the space.”

But Linda doesn’t just fill in the space. Her decorations, especially the ones she’s made herself, are over the top, and changed out year after year. As she unboxes her attic-full of holiday decor each year, she says, “I just pick things up and reinvent the wheel.”

In fact, when Linda sees something she likes, she wonders how she can recreate it in her own unique way. One item she knocked off her to-do-my-way list? A fox doll. Linda, who used to horseback ride, has collected hunt scenes and equestrian decor for years, and had always coveted a fox dressed for the hunt. When she couldn’t find exactly what she wanted — “they always look like bears or something” — she set her mind to making one by needle felting, something she’d never done before.

“Of course, I jump right into things,” she says. “I don’t start small.” She made one tiny bird as practice and then went full speed into crafting her fox, who sits on her entry bench for the holidays, greeting guests. He’s a few feet tall and his face is expertly crafted with a naturally sly expression. A riding helmet sits atop his head and, of course, he’s wearing a red riding jacket with gold buttons, all of it needle-felted. No small feat for her first foray into the craft.

Upon the encouragement of a friend, Linda, who used to belong to Daughters of the American Revolution, decided to enter her fox into their annual D.C. craft show in the doll category. “And it won best of show,” she says, as in winner of the whole shebang.

“Another art form that she dabbled in. She has the touch,” says Charlie. Whereas in the North Pole, Santa gets all the credit, Charlie simply can’t resist touting his own “Mrs. Claus’s” talents.

There is also the large painting in her kitchen nook. She’d gone to High Point Market with a friend and spotted a heron painting. “Gosh, I could do that,” she recalls thinking, and set up an easel right there in her kitchen to get the lighting just right as she painted. To add a touch of Linda Lowe signature whimsy, she put the bird in a blue-and-white basin, bubbles pouring out.

“But you know, in reality, they’re tromping around in mud all day,” muses Charlie. “They have got to do something! You gotta get that goop off somehow.”

A footbridge in the background of the painting is coral, a color Linda particularly loves. To set her kitchen table for the holidays, she used festive wrapping paper as a runner, edging it with scalloped, peach-colored ribbon she scored at Anthropologie. “Of course, I bought every roll!”

In the dining room, swags of greenery and blush-colored faux pomegranates adorn an unsigned vintage painting of, they’re guessing, George Washington. The fruit picks up on the colors in Linda’s custom cornices, though they weren’t custom built for this space, and — this should come as no surprise — were found at an estate sale, Parker Washburn’s to be exact. She, of course, Linda bubbles, was the daughter of Leon Oldham, founder of Leon’s Beauty School, and Aileen “Mrs. Leon” Oldham, and the estate sale was located inside the old, stone home the couple once lived in on Elm Street.

They’d need new side panels to work for Linda’s purposes, so Charlie suggested he could just make new ones. In his years of working at the camera shop, he’d honed his own carpentry skills by building store walls and fixtures. Plus, Linda recalls at their former home, “He made an amazing gate and fence for our patio.”

Charlie, ever so humble about his own accomplishments, says, “I used to like to piddle a little bit with woodworking and things like that.”

Linda knew Charlie could build her whatever she wanted, but what she wanted was to reuse something with history from an iconic Greensboro home. New side panels in place, thanks to Charlie, she recovered the cornices in a soft blue, floral fabric, piped in red. The blue blends into the Benjamin Moore Gossamer Blue on the walls.

In the living room, the mantel is decked out in nontraditional holiday colors — chartreuse and orange. The built-in bookcases that flank it feature books, blue-and-white transferware and white foo dogs that once belonged to Linda’s mom. But on the white mantel, orange foo dogs stand out and stand guard on either side, swags of greenery draping down with orange ribbon and chartreuse ginkgo leaves interwoven. “I have a thing about things being symmetrical,” she says.

The tree, however, remains traditional. And, she quips, “I only put up one big tree!” For as long as she can remember, she’s decorated the tree by herself. “It’s not a theme tree. It’s always got the same ornaments, same beads.” She especially loves a tree that’s covered in glass baubles reflecting the shine of her rainbow lights.

Did the kids help when they were little? “I would let them hang their stuff along the bottom,” says Linda, then, under her breath adds, “Then I’d go back and fix them.”

“My job is to hand them to her,” notes Charlie.

For years, the couple purchased a real tree, usually from Wagoner’s tree lot. But sometimes, Linda notes, the family would take off for West Jefferson, on a quest for that quintessential Currier and Ives moment, “which never went quite that smoothly!” 

After Charlie’s mother, who still loved the smell of fresh cedar in the home, passed, Linda caved and bought an artificial tree. The one she wanted came prewired with white lights, so Linda figured out how they were attached and painstakingly rewired it with her own strings of colored lights. “A big operation,” notes Charlie.

“I still haven’t found the right topper,” notes Linda. “I’ve never had one that’s like, ‘That’s it!’” An angel, a bow, a star — you name it — nothing has hit that high note. Once, they even hung a Moravian star from the ceiling above the tree.

“And then we just adjusted the tree under it,” says Charlie. “That was a collaborative idea.”

Linda walks into a room featuring four corner cabinets, each cabinet filled to the brim with vintage cameras Charlie has collected, mostly Nikons, but Canons and other models as well. The cabinets, mostly scored at estate sales, are by Greensboro’s iconic Benbow Furniture, now closed.

Does she decorate inside these cabinets at Christmas, too? Nope. “Don’t touch my stuff,” Charlie says with a smirk.

Charlie points to a particular black-and-silver Nikon. “This is [from] like 1951, something like that. This was occupied Japan, after WWII.  Nikon started out making telescopes and microscopes, and then went into cameras because that was something you could sell,” he says. “And we were trying to make their industry work so they could support themselves.”

“I figured I have the rest of the house, I can let him have this room,” she says with a chuckle.

“You’re not going to open that door, are you?” Charlie asks Linda teasingly as they approach the first-floor bedroom, which now serves as Linda’s craft room.

“Yeah, I am,” she says. “You know I am.”

What they both assume is a cluttered mess is actually an artist’s treasure box, overflowing with tools and materials a creative person would have a field day with. One very tall wall is piled high with various small, handmade shelving units, including one her brother made as well as her grandfather’s old shaving stand. Her vision for it? “The Harry Potter wand shop, where everything was just stacks of books.” Fitting, as this, indeed, is where the magic happens. Paints, colored pencils, glues, markers, ribbons, brushes and all sorts of crafting supplies line the shelves. An old, wooden spoon rack holds wax seal molds.

On another wall hangs a gallery of paintings and sketches from throughout the years — some by Linda, some by her mom, who was also an artist — and even a floral painting that’s been in the family for years. Linda also spent time during COVID organizing her family’s history and has rows and rows of photo albums dated by year. In fact, during that time, Linda created two round family “trees,” one for her family of origin and one for Charlie’s. Never one to follow the beaten path, hers are more garden than tree. The names, arranged in a circle, form a sort of labyrinth of hedges that resembles an English boxwood garden. They now hang in the dining room.

On the project table in the middle of her craft room sits a current project — a mirror adorned with shells she’s been collecting for years.

“If I can spill the beans a little bit,” says Charlie, “we’re trying to get a beach house.” The couple has spent the last few months searching for a property on Sunset Beach or perhaps Ocean Isle, something they can vacation at with their family but also rent out.

“I’ve been beach-deprived my whole life and I’m like, ‘You know what? I’m going to the beach!’” Linda says. “I’ve got so much stuff piled up back there!”

“I have always said about Linda,” quips Charlie, “too much is never enough.”

Going to Seed

GOING TO SEED

Home
Feature

Going to Seed

A family strives to protect a way of life in Julian

The first thing you’ll likely notice when you pull up to the rambling, wood-and-corrugated facade of the Julian Milling Company on Old 2nd Street is the cats.

They’re parti-colored and striped, light-colored and dark. They’re napping under a tree, they’re lolling on the loading dock — some perched primly on upturned buckets. There’s even a cat peering down from high up in the rafters.

Here’s the irony.

I’ve driven out to rural Julian to speak with Eric Horney, purveyor of the mill’s most popular product these days — Beardo’s Birdseed.

A little history.

The Julian Milling Company is a landmark. It’s been around since 1895, first milling flour and, later, cornmeal. The first machines were powered by steam — the facility converted to electricity with mills to grind livestock feed in the 1940s. Generations of Guilford and Randolph county farmers have hauled grain — hundreds of thousands of tons — to this very spot, where it has been ground into feed for horses, cattle, swine and poultry.

I can’t tell you how many feline generations have protected the mill, but I can tell you that the Horney family has been involved with the business for three.

Eric’s grandfather, J. Davis Horney, who began working at the mill in 1935, purchased the operation a decade later and was joined by his son James Davis Jr. — nicknamed Jimmy. The two of them worked together, growing the production of the mill, for more than 50 years.

Jimmy, Eric’s father, who is now 83 years old, emerges from back in the mill as Eric gently encourages a couple of cats to make room for me to step up onto the dock.

We shake hands and they invite me to sit a spell.

Jimmy and Eric are big, genial, country men. Jimmy is clean-shaven, but Eric, who is 53 years old, sports a thick beard that would be the envy of any Civil War general you can think of.

These men have seen many changes in agriculture over the years.

Growing up, Eric split his time between Greensboro and Julian after his parents divorced.

“I went to Page High School,” Eric says. “But on weekends, I’d come out to Julian to work with my dad and granddad.”

After graduating from Lees-McRae College with a degree in business administration, Eric returned to work at the mill in Julian.

The period of the 1960s through the 1990s was a prosperous time for Julian Milling Company. The business had not only its milling operation, but also a garden center. People could walk around and buy plants and shrubs while their grain was being milled.

Many of its biggest feed customers were dairy farms.

The mill owned and operated two trucks, each with a capacity of eight tons. Some of the dairies were so large that they received a truckload of feed each day.

“We’d mill the grain, add ingredients like protein, molasses and minerals, and haul it out to a farm,” Eric says.

In 1997, the year his grandfather died, Eric worked full time at the mill, along with two other full-time employees.

But many of the dairy farms were shutting down. And Eric noticed another change.

Saturdays were always the busiest day for grinding livestock feed. When the mill opened at 7 a.m., there would already be a long line of trucks and pickups outside loaded with grain, waiting.

“So one day, I said to my Dad, ‘Now wait, all these people here on a Saturday morning, what do they do all week?’”

Jimmy nods, remembering the conversation.

“And I said, ‘Well, they have full-time jobs,’” Eric continues. “‘They aren’t farmers, they’re weekend farmers.’”

Over time, even the ranks of the part-time farmers diminished.

“The children of the weekend farmers, they didn’t usually go into farming,” Eric says. “They’d take a job, sell the land off to developers.”

We pause for a moment, watching as a Mustang convertible pulls up in front of the mill.

“That’s my brother, Neil,” Eric says.

A couple of the cats move over to the shade of Neil’s car as he makes his way up the steps to the dock.

“Neil’s a full-time pilot for NetJet,” Eric says. “He comes in on his days off and helps out.”

“We’re all part-timers,” Jimmy laughs.

“Yeah, I got my licenses to sell health and life insurance last summer,” Eric says. “But I haven’t sold any policies. I keep hanging onto a dream.”

The dream is to earn a living with his work at the mill.

Yes, for decades the old mill has survived trying times — but maybe the biggest challenge yet lies just half a mile down the road.

The new Toyota Battery Manufacturing Plant.

To see it emerge from the trees and fields while you’re driving in this rural area is surreal.

A campus of 2,200 acres. A capital investment of $13.9 billion. Employment for 5,000 souls. Building restrictions on nearby properties because of the accident risks in lithium battery manufacturing.

“It’s changed the whole world around here,” Jimmy says, shaking his head. “It’s crippled our walk-in traffic.”

“Anybody who lives close by has a ‘for sale’ sign in front of their house,” Neil adds.

Eric nods his head.

“The future is online,” he says. “If no one ever walks through the front door of the mill again, we can still make it.”

Eric has a strategy.

At the Julian Milling Company location, you’ll still find packets of vegetable and flower seeds, hand implements, fertilizers and weed killers — some on the shelves for so long that they’re practically relics. There are also bags of “sweet feed” for goats, cows and horses, chicken feed for laying hens, “scratch” (a mixture of grains and seeds) for chickens, pigeon feed and birdseed.

Eric has focused on his bestselling birdseed for the past couple of years, marketing it online through Etsy and Amazon along with placing it with selected retailers and farmers markets.

“We’ve already shipped our birdseed to all 50 states, Guam and Puerto Rico,” Eric says.

During this time, he’s concentrated on finding local, high-quality suppliers of his ingredients to enhance the freshness of his product. Plus, the mill is a participant in the Got To Be NC initiative with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services.

And Eric has just launched an online platform selling — remember the beard I told you about? — Beardo’s Birdseed.

Eric takes me back to the oldest part of the building, where one of the electric mills is located. This is the machine he uses to mix the ingredients for Beardo’s Birdseed.

“There’s not a blade inside cutting anything — there’s an auger,” he says. “It’s funnel-shaped, gravity-fed, so it just mixes the ingredients over and over.”

“This is basically just like the mixer on the kitchen counter in your house,” Eric says. “But this one holds a thousand pounds.”

He points out the grill opening on the floor where he pours the various grains and seeds into the mill. Once mixed, the birdseed is bagged right on the spot.

Beardo’s is available online by individual order or by subscription and can also be purchased by nonprofits for fundraising purposes.

Dusk is approaching, so Eric takes me back out onto the loading dock, where I say my goodbyes to Jimmy and Neil. Some of the cats stand and take a stretch.

Eric looks up in the rafters.

“Ellie,” he says, “get on down here.”

The cat makes her way gracefully to the dock.

Eric tells me that the rafters are Ellie’s favorite spot. To his knowledge, she’s the eldest of the cats at age 12.

“Someday, she’s going to doze off up there and fall and hurt herself,” he mutters.

All the cats, of course, are just doing their jobs, protecting the mill — as they’ve done for generations.

And that’s something the old mill needs right now.

I think the birds will understand. 

Seasons Greetings

SEASONS GREETINGS

Home
Feature

Since the 1800s, America has been sending the very best

By Cynthia Adams

Dale Kearns, a Greensboro postal carrier, is accustomed to the crushing volume of holiday cards mailed out each and every year by well-wishing Americans — the annual estimate exceeds 1.3 billion.

“One customer on my route sent over 100 Christmas cards last year,” says Kearns, with a business-as-usual shrug.

New Year greetings — which are hardly a new concept, by the way — escalate that figure higher. In local designer Todd Nabor’s private collection of vintage cards, shown here, there are as many New Year greetings as Christmas ones, dating from the late 19th to the early 20th century in age.

Long before the advent of folded cards tucked inside an envelope, a postcard — cheaper and vastly easier to send than a personal letter — changed the game in the late 1800s.

But don’t think that postcard messages were necessarily short.  A 1918 postcard to Mrs. Adeline Shoppell in Greencastle, Ind. wished “Many Happy Days in your New Year,” with the sender squeezing a long message into the cramped space on the reverse side that promised a letter soon.

In 1924, Larisse Justice mailed a poinsettia-embellished postcard to Miss Hazel Hill in Greensboro. “Flowers will early fade away/But my wishes will last for many a day.” 

And what a bargain! Holiday postcards cost only a penny to mail in early-20th-century America, equivalent today to about $.18.   

Seems the whole notion of personal greetings even predates the Egyptians and Romans, who dispatched letters (especially on birthdays) written on papyrus and scrolls via fleet-footed couriers.

The sending of New Year’s greetings is attributed to China’s Emperor Taizon, who inscribed messages on gold leaves to his ministers during the Tang dynasty. The idea caught on with the general population, who wrote messages on rice paper. The practice of holiday messaging slowly crossed cultures and continents. 

While the Romans may have left Britannia, the custom of letter writing remained. Over the centuries, rice paper, papyrus and scrolls gave way to stationery and envelopes.

By the Victorian era, posting personal greetings was what well-mannered folk did come the holidays. But Henry Cole, the busy founder of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, faced a dilemma. Having neither time nor personal couriers to deploy a holiday scroll to his hundreds of admiring friends, he innovated.

Wishing to avoid a social faux pax — failing to send a cheery gift or letter in reply was bad form — Cole, in 1843, conceived of a standardized postcard greeting. As the British “penny post” made holiday communiques cheap and more popular than ever, he had a Christmas greeting postcard designed and printed for his own use, hoping to keep himself in good social standing. 

In time, Brits took to the idea, which further spread throughout Europe. Eventually, German immigrant Louis Prang migrated to America, bringing the concept with him.

In 1875, Prang printed a simple postcard featuring roses and “Merry Christmas.” Americans embraced the concept with gusto. By the early-20th century, postcards were a craze.

The Hall Brothers postcard presses began rolling in 1910. By the 1920s, folded Christmas cards in envelopes had grown in popularity. In 1928, the brothers embossed the “Hallmark” brand on the envelope flap — an idea borrowed from minting gold.

“When you care enough to send the very best,” the slogan we’ve all come to know, debuted in 1944. In the same timeframe, Hanukah cards emerged as options expanded. Slowly, too, Americans began sending personalized cards featuring family photos or supporting a favorite charity — a concept that quickly crossed the pond back to the U.K.

Today, Hallmark alone offers more than 2,000 designs and hundreds of boxed sets. At least 2,500 other American businesses compete for their market share of the greeting card business.

Yet there were greenbacks still left on the holiday table. What said you cared even more than the Hallmark logo?

A holiday-themed stamp. 

By 1962, the United States Postal Service debuted holiday stamps — lagging far behind in recognizing another way to commodify the holidays. Seems Austria lapped us by 25 years, debuting holiday stamps in 1937.

Canada introduced holiday stamps in 1939 and Cuba in 1951.

Today, stamps commemorating Diwali, Hanukah and Kwanza reflect a diverse range of holiday traditions. 

Hewing to tradition, this year’s “Holiday Cheer” stamps feature a Whitman’s chocolates style assortment of all-inclusive images: amaryllis, cardinals, fruit on a branch and a wreath. 

This year, too, philatelists can scoop up re-released favorites “Holiday Elves” and “Winter Whimsy” — miniature pieces of artwork to adorn each and every letter. 

But in an era of hastily composed texts and digital greetings, do recipients still care about receiving old-school, holiday snail mail? 

Overwhelmingly, yes. Online surveys strongly indicate the majority still prefer receiving a paper greeting card, including the younger demographics — who understand digital fatigue as well as anyone.   

Bad news, perhaps, for USPS’s hard-working Dale Kearns. 

But good tidings for those who trouble themselves to find, write, address, stamp and post those millions and millions of cards he and his colleagues deliver to each and every door across the land. 

Seems the very act of putting pen to paper, extending good wishes to one and all, is an act of engagement — of personal connection. For the faithful senders of greetings and recipients alike, a gift.

Poem December 2025

POEM

Home
Feature

A Christmas Night

It was a cold night

And there was ice on the road,

Our car started to slide

As it moved up the small hill,

And the headlights caught the old man

In a thin jacket

Pushing a cart filled with sticks.

There were some bundles and a package

Piled on top, and the old man

Grinned and waved at us

As he pushed the cart

Into the yard of the little house

Where a single light shone.

The tires gripped the road

And we drove on into the darkness,

But suddenly it was warm.

So Many Windows

SO MANY WINDOWS

Home
Feature

So Many Windows

UNCG Spartan Recovery members partner with The Moth for StorySLAM

By Brian Clarey, courtesy of UNCG University Communications
Photographs by Lynn Hey

Ches Kennedy works the room before the storytelling event begins on a late summer Sunday evening in UNC Greensboro’s Elliott University Center Auditorium. As he makes his way down the aisle, he shakes hands with people in the seats, nodding acknowledgements, exchanging kind words.

He greets newcomers as they come through the doors with the words heard so many times in rooms like these: “Welcome. Glad you’re here.”

Kennedy is here because he speaks the language of recovery. A veteran of the programs that have helped millions recover from drug and alcohol addiction, he’s fluent in the 12-step process, seasoned in the ways of chemical dependency, intricately familiar with the well-trod path from active addiction to . . . something better, something more.

He’s walked it himself.

“I never imagined 23 years ago that I, an alcoholic college dropout, would end up with an undergraduate and graduate degree, working with students in a collegiate recovery program,” he says. “A life in recovery, without the use of alcohol and other drugs, is work, but it is worth it.”

Kennedy is the coordinator of Spartan Recovery at UNCG, an organization dedicated to creating a community of Spartans — as UNCGeans call themselves — according to the organization webpage, who are in recovery or may be “sober curious.” The organization helps its members “to safely be their authentic selves as they find their way through academic life, while breaking down the stigma associated with mental health and substance use disorders through understanding and education.”

Part of recovery is speaking about the process and the changes it brings. It’s also listening to the stories of others as they’ve become better, more stable versions of themselves. So, this event — a live StorySLAM produced in conjunction with The Moth where members of Spartan Recovery can tell their stories without notes, outlines or rote memorization — falls squarely into 12-step methodology.

Since 1997, The Moth has helped launch many thousands of stories into the world, all told in person, through its radio broadcast on NPR, storytelling workshops, a book series and live events like this one. The idea came from its founder, novelist George Dawes Green, who wanted to formalize the practice of the extemporaneous storytelling like he remembered from the front porch of his boyhood Georgia home, where moths would flicker around the light as the tales were spun. Moth events hew loosely to a theme; this one is no different.

Not all the stories told on stage this night relate specifically to drugs or alcohol. But then, the disease touches everything in the lives of those who abuse them. And recovery is, at its root, about meaningful change.

“There has to be change,” says Amy Blumberg, an instructor from The Moth’s Education Program, from the stage. “The storyteller has to come out a little bit differently at the end. Or a lot differently.” These tenets form the basis of The Moth’s brand of storytelling. Blumberg and a couple other producers from The Moth worked with Spartan Recovery students through the weekend to get their narratives into shape for this final performance.

Blumberg tells the audience, about 50 people from the University community and beyond, that all stories must be true — “as remembered” — and about the storytellers themselves.

“We’re not fact-checkers,” she adds. “If they say it’s true, I believe them.”

So when, in her story, Trinity M. shares, “I was the only gay person I knew,” there are no doubts as to the veracity of her statement. Her coming-out tale begins with a childhood infatuation with Cinderella, drinking as a way of coping with her sexual identity crisis, her time as a “proud baby gay,” and the fellowship and strength she found at Spartan Recovery.

“I am Cinderella,” she finishes. “And Cinderella can get the girl, too.”

Not all stories center on recovery. Ella D. speaks about her complicated relationship with the color orange and how it changed over time. Brian N.’s opening lament, “I’m not good enough,” chronicles his path from community college dropout to UNCG master’s degree candidate. Bennett W. discloses an incident that happened to him during a hyper-competitive game of hide-and-seek. Marc R. reveals how his own insensitivity had wounded his best student, a trans man, and how the incident “showed me that I’m not the person I thought I was.” Queen R. remembers how her grandmother used to leave Post-it notes on the bathroom mirror for her to read while her grandma was at work. And Mike K. documents his path from a troubled youth who loved comics to a real-life hero as a scholar — and father.

Yes, real first names and last initials are being used in the printed program and on stage, as acknowledgement of the outward-facing nature of Spartan Recovery, although the practice goes against the traditions of some other recovery groups.

“The lack of anonymity is not a concession,” says Jennifer Whitney, director of Counseling and Psychological Services at UNCG. “Our members are living out loud, turning stigma on its head and giving a new name to recovery — one of dignity, achievement and pride.”

“There are many anonymous recovery programs in existence,” Kennedy says, “and they are so important. But ours is a program that is fighting the stigma associated with drug and alcohol addiction.”

Recovery features prominently in the story of Regan H., whose alcoholism coexisted with an abusive boyfriend before she fled to Holden Beach and met a woman at a fish market who changed her life.

John M.’s dark tale of pain — “I knew I had to die,” he begins — hews to the more traditional recovery narratives: living in his parents’ dark and windowless basement, a desire to live while pushing through thoughts of death and suicide, a cry for help.

“Now I’m seven years sober, and my life is amazing,” he finishes. “So many windows.” 

Poem November 2025

POEM

Home
Feature

November 2025

Why I Bought the Economy Size

Because she was not pretty,

her overbite designed to rip prey,

canines sharp as javelins, slight

lisp. Because she could stand

to lose a few pounds, and wore

a flowing flora, and a gray cardigan

strained across her chest. Because

she smiled when she talked, her voice

soft as a mother soothing a fussy child;

because she suggested the best bargain

but did not insist, just gently opened

the jar, offered it like a sacrament,

invited me to dip my finger into the cool

face cream, gently imploring, try it;

because I needed moisturizer, and she

needed that job, I bought the large size,

thanked her for the free gift, samples

wrapped in tissue paper and tucked

inside a pink pouch, the color of her dress.

— Pat Riviere-Seel

Kuyathi

KUYATHI

Home
Feature

Kuyathi

A potter spins her story in a backyard studio

By Cassie Bustamante

Photography by Amy Freeman

Mrunalini Ranganathan sits on a rust-orange loveseat in her backyard pottery studio, where golden afternoon sunlight casts tree-shaped shadows onto its blue exterior. Her name, she notes, is difficult for American English speakers to pronounce, so she often tells people to simply call her Miru. Her native Indian language derives from one of the longest surviving classical languages in the world, Tamil, which she uses in the center of her Lotus Stalks Pottery logo. “The four letters in the middle, they spell out ‘kuyathi,’” says Miru, “and I am so proud that I come from a civilization that had a word to say ‘female potter.’”

And the name Lotus Stalks Pottery? That comes from her own name. “Mrunal is one stalk. Mrunalini makes it plural, meaning a bunch of lotus stalks,” she explains.

While “kuyathi” has ancient origins, Miru, 49, has only been behind the pottery wheel for 13 years. Glancing around her studio, its shelves lined with stunning and intricately detailed earthenware, you wouldn’t know it. Born in Southern India where the highly structured class system regulates who can do what, she never imagined she’d ever have the opportunity to dip her hands into wet clay, let alone become a potter. “I don’t belong to the potter family,” she notes, “and in India, as you know, the caste system is so well defined. Sadly, you look down upon [potters].”

Her parents were both highly educated, as was her sister, who’s 14 years her senior and the one who came up with the name Mrunalini. Miru followed suit, never questioning her place and eventually working in the field of science as a lab manager and research biologist. “You go into school, you finish your schooling, then you go into college, become a professional of some sort,” says Miru. “If you’re a woman, of course, get married, have children and that’s it — your life is done.”

Even though it felt out of reach, she recalls, “I was always fascinated by the potter’s wheel.” In India, it is wooden and as large as as a bull cart wheel, with spokes and a hole in the outer rim. The potter inserts a big stick to spin it as fast as possible, then throws the clay and yields two pots before it’s slowed to a stop. “I would be like, oh . . . my . . . God.”

While becoming an artist wasn’t their wish for their daughter, Miru’s parents nurtured her interest and enrolled her in art classes from third to fifth grade, only stopping when her father retired and the family relocated. Her mother also influenced her interest in gardening, which is evident in the natural oasis surrounding her studio. “I was always following her around and around the house, talking to flowers and buds and wondering who was going to open up tomorrow,” she recalls. In fact, she often scratched her creative itch by pressing flowers and making greeting cards.

Eventually, art fell to the wayside as Miru followed the expected path. She holds a master’s in biology from Duquesne University, is married to an infectious disease doctor, Balaji Desai, and has two children. Mahinda graduated from Grimsley earlier this year, where he was on the drum line, and just started his first year at the University of Washington in Seattle. Sanga is in her sophomore year at Grimsley and plays on the girls varsity soccer team.

But before calling the Triad home, the family bounced around — from Balaji’s residency at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center to his fellowship at SUNY Upstate Medical University. “The cold north,” Miru quips of Syracuse, N.Y. “People are cold, the place is cold.” It was a stark difference to the hottest part of India. Plus, throughout her husband’s career development — residency, fellowship, preparing for his four United States Medical Licensing Examinations (USMLE), submitting applications and going through rounds of interviews — Miru continued working to support the young family. “It was a lot,” she says.

After two years in Syracuse, Balaji was ready to pursue work with a practice and settle. The family had one major requirement for their future hometown: The sunshine had to be plentiful. Thankfully, Balaji landed with a practice in Danville, Va. Narrowing their search to within a 45-minute radius of Balaji’s new job, the family discovered Greensboro, which featured another checklist item, a Montessori school. The Gate City, she notes, “took us by surprise.”

In September 2012, after eight moves since immigrating to the U.S., the family finally put down roots in a brick, traditional home in Summerfield. Miru, done, at last, with what she calls a “rat race,” was able to catch her breath. “I suddenly felt like, now I really can step into what I have been missing in this life,” she says.

And that was art — to be exact, an art form that dates back to at least 28,000 B.C. “Clay is probably the oldest material that was used by humankind across the globe and still is relevant,” Miru muses. “How many things can you say that about?”

She registered for her first pottery class in October 2012, an evening class at Art Alliance. Turns out, mornings were better for her family’s lifestyle and she soon swapped to a Thursday morning class, where she found more than clay and creativity — she found community. To this day, her Thursday morning crew remains a circle of friends. “It’s like an alma mater for me, Art Alliance.”

Her first teacher, L.T. Hoisington, who has been an Art Alliance instructor for almost 20 years, is one of the most gentle souls she’s encountered. Plus, she notes, he is the only person of non-Indian origin who calls her by her first name, challenging because of the way the “R” rolls and is immediately followed by a cupped-tongue “U” sound. “He took time to practice it.” She also studied under Leanne Pizio, known locally for her vibrant, folk-art style pieces.

An Art Alliance comrade — “Fireman Bob, that’s what we called him” — taught Miru how to fire pots at home over a fire pit. His nickname, she notes, comes from his job as a fireman, not his technique. As soon as he demonstrated his process, she knew, “I have found what talks to me.” Now, a couple of metal barrels dot her own backyard.

On the shelves inside her studio sit the very pots she fired that day, which she’ll never sell. “They are so near and dear to me.” The pit-firing process is a delicate balance compared to the kiln and Miru says of all the pieces she puts over an open flame, about 70% survive. The finished look is worth the risk, earthy and unique, mottled in dark, ashen colors.

Seeing his wife blossom in her newfound passion, Balaji had been persistently asking if she wanted her own wheel, almost from the beginning. Her response never changed: “No, not yet. I don’t think I can throw well enough.”

Four years in, he stopped asking, surprising her with her own wheel. The family added a small, backyard shed to house it, which allowed her to shape and prepare pieces for firing right at home.

But the real turning point came in 2018, when Art Alliance launched a short-lived independent study program. An artist was given a time frame, a mentor and a material budget to focus on a singular concept. Miru had recently discovered terra sigillata, a thin, clay solution not to be confused with glaze, and centered her independent study around it. Patrick Rowe, “a kind-hearted, genuine human who wants you to succeed,” served as her mentor. That four-month program gave her the confidence to set off in her own artistic direction.

Her second surprise came in December 2019 when Balaji gave his wife a kiln for Christmas. She recalls squealing with joy, but it was short lived because, two days later, her father suffered a heart attack. Miru rushed to India, but didn’t make it in time to say good-bye. When she returned home, the kiln sat in their garage while she sat on the couch. “I would be blank,” she says.

She gave herself time to grieve and process her loss, slowly tiptoeing her way back to clay at home rather than in a class setting, skipping out on registering for the first time in seven years. And, of course, that spring, COVID happened. That kiln she’d gotten for Christmas made its way to the small backyard shed, where she put it to use beginning in the summer of 2020. “I would have gone crazy otherwise,” she quips.

Clay has become the antidote to nights “when I can’t sleep — perimenopause!” That’s when she fantasizes about her pottery, creating pieces in her mind before she gets to the wheel. “Sometimes it works, sometimes there is something else going on inside my head and the energy that is flowing through my hands is like, mmm-nnnn, not going to work there.”

Other things can go wrong, too. But, she says, “I have learned to take failures as learning experiences to better that process and see if I can make something even better.”

Case in point, Balaji put in a request for a bird bath — a large bird bath. After all, the couple enjoys backyard birdwatching and gardening. It took Miru a week just to cut all of the pieces. When it came time to flip it, she needed her husband’s help, but before she could get out the words, “Don’t do it like this,” he did it just like that, and, crrrrrrrrck.

Now the pieces sit in a large bucket, waiting.

With her kiln and new-found techniques, it wasn’t long before her backyard shed began to feel a little cramped. COVID still rampant, the couple decided to hire immigrant workers, who, she says, “were having a very tough time,” to frame the skeleton of what now serves as her studio. It sits adjacent to the original shed, where her kiln remains.

Once the studio’s shell was in place, the family of four worked together when they had spare time, installing flooring, shiplap walls, a wooden ceiling and shelving, and, of course, painting the blue exterior. From start to finish, it took them two-and-a-half years, working around the kids’ practice schedules and work schedules.

Miru sourced every part of her studio with the intention of keeping it as local as possible. Antique porcelain lampshades that hang pendant-style from the ceiling were collected over time and taken to a local craftsman, who sandblasted and painted them. The planks used for the ceiling and walls still emit the soft, earthy scent of pine. “This is not Home Depot or Lowe’s,” Miru says, waving her hand toward her walls. “This is from two guys who sell lumber that is discarded because it’s crooked or not up to the mark or something.”

On one wall, framed winter woodland photos of wild animals  stand out in snowy contrast against the warmth of knotty pine. “All from Yellowstone,” says Miru. Turns out the motor home parked in their driveway rolls out west almost every year. “We’re avid Yellowstoners,” she says.

The photographer? Balaji. “He has an eye, I should say,” Miru says proudly of her husband. “You might think I am the artistic kind, but I stop with the surface of the clay.”

In fact, Balaji is responsible for the studio design. He’s selected the furnishings and decor, including a blue, vintage typewriter and a couple old, metal-and-wood schoolhouse chairs. He even artfully arranges Miru’s pottery to show off her collections to shoppers.

When Miru has peddled her wares at local art shows, such as ArtStock and Art in the Arboretum, Balaji has been the one to curate her setup. But, she notes, it’s a family affair. “It takes the whole village” when it comes to packing, unpacking, popping up a tent and manning the booth all day.

While she has plans to participate in this month’s Made 4 Market at the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market and Creative Clay Works at Revolution Mill, she says that doing shows has become “an energy sucker.” She’s more than happy to open her backyard studio doors and welcome people to “just come over, take a look, feel it, pick it up, look at it, fall in love.” Earlier this year, she even hosted her very first Mother’s Day sale.

Since stepping into that first Art Alliance class, much has changed. She’s grown much more confident, but admits that self doubt can still creep in at times. When it does, she reminds herself to trust her instincts: “Make it for yourself,” she tells herself. “You’re not doing this for others.”

And she’s shifted away from taking classes. “Maybe one or two workshops with certain potters, but, other than that, it has just been me practicing and trying to bring out my own style.”

These days, her pottery is the culmination of everything she’s learned as well as where she comes from, combining kiln firing, terra sigillata, pit firing and, often times, a slip-trailed pattern.

“What makes me the happiest is adding texture,” she says, dressed in a deep indigo block-print dress, flecked in a raspberry-colored pattern that mimics the designs she meticulously creates by hand. The slip-trail process itself can take hours, coaxing cream-cheese-consistency clay out of a squeeze bottle’s tiny tip. The lengthy process reminds her of the ancient Indian art of henna, still used today.

But clay has taught her patience. She’s learned to go with the flow. “Don’t control it — let it control you.” And don’t ever sit at your wheel frustrated. “Don’t put that energy into your clay. Then it won’t work for you — you’re making it sad.”