Category: October 2023

Agent Of Change

How real estate ace Melissa Greer has made a space her own

By Maria Johnson • Photographs by Amy Freeman

Going by the listing alone, real estate agent Melissa Greer was “meh” about the two-bedroom brick cottage that was built in 1941 and painted white.

But she loved the street, a short, curved and somewhat hidden passage in Greensboro’s venerable Sunset Hills — nothing like the busy cut-through where she lived, just around the corner.

“I like to be a little off the radar,” says Greer, who was house shopping for herself in 2004.

Touring the place for the first time, she took her mother, a brother and a sister. That made four real estate agents in all.

Greer’s mom, the late Johnnye Greer Hunter, a well-respected local broker, had raised a passel of property-savvy children, with four of her five kids making the business their life’s work.

On that summer day, Greer, her mom, her sister, Johnnye Letterman, and her brother, Waban Carter, parked at the curb in front of the cottage, careful not to block the driveway, a real estate no-no. They stuck to the brick walkway leading up to the dark green front door. No slogging through the grass like amateurs.

Greer remembers liking the blue slate on the stoop, the replacement windows and the heavy, metal plaque of house numbers bolted into the wall by the front door.

The place was cozy, classy, solid.

The family walked in and commenced their counterclockwise tour: formal living room stretched across the front, formal dining room buttressing one end. Just behind the dining room, a small square kitchen with a step-down sun porch and a painted wooden deck beyond.

Back inside, next to the kitchen, lay a den with its own full bath, which was a little unusual but could be changed, her family pointed out.

They stuck their heads into the primary bedroom, a second full bath on the hall — this one with a funky fish design laid into the tile floor — and a second bedroom.

What did Greer, the baby of the family, think of the home?

She turned to her pack.

They liked it.

Greer paid asking price.

“I’ll negotiate for other people,” she says. “Not so much for myself.”

She wanted to be a teacher, hence the degree in English education from UNC-Chapel Hill.

But English-teaching jobs were as scarce as properly diagrammed sentences when she graduated, so she kept her job at Peppi’s Pizza Den in Chapel Hill, where she often waited on then-UNC basketball star Michael Jordan.

Greer’s next job was serving at an upscale seafood restaurant in Hilton Head, S.C. Her nocturnal life caught the attention of her mother, who suggested that Greer return to Greensboro to work in her real estate business.

“It was a strong recommendation,” Greer says, laughing at the memory.

Johnnye Greer Hunter was a force, personally and professionally.

As a young woman, Hunter dressed windows at the S.H. Kress & Co. five-and-dime store in downtown Greensboro. She was a hostess at The Lotus, one of the city’s first Chinese restaurants. She managed a local doctor’s office. She copped a real estate license in 1968.

Greer remembers learning to read by quizzing her mom with questions from a real estate textbook.

In the days before computerized listings, Hunter enlisted her children to help with removing and replacing pages in her loose-leaf listing book.

Later, when they could drive, the kids delivered paperwork and keys. They pulled and planted for-sale signs.

Hunter worked for a local agency for several years before joining two other women to form their own company, The Property Shop.

“She was one of the first women to become a leader in the real estate industry. Prior to that, most of the leaders were men,” Greer says. “I think the ’70s was a decade when that started to change.”

In 1978, Hunter branched out again, starting Johnnye Greer Hunter & Associates with her daughter, Johnnye Letterman.

Post-plate slinging, Greer’s first job with the family firm was answering phones and writing advertisements for homes.

She made minimum wage. She asked her mom for a commission-only sales job.

“I didn’t think it could be a whole lot worse,” Greer says. “It was.”

After six months, Greer had not sold a single house.

“You don’t like this, do you?” her mother asked.

“No, ma’am,” Greer answered.

Her mother diagnosed the problem and the cure: Greer had a bad attitude. She had 30 days to shape up. If she didn’t, her mom would help her find another job.

On her mother’s advice, Greer hung a mirror on her office wall. When she talked to clients, she checked the mirror to make sure she was smiling.

People can hear a smile in your voice, her mother assured her.

Thirty days passed. Greer had sold four or five homes, nearly a million dollars’ worth of real estate.

“It changed my life,” Greer says, pausing to remember the full impact of the moment. “It was enough for me to get a Honda Accord with a moon roof. She was making me drive a Pontiac Sunbird.”

It’s hard to overstate just how good Greer is at her job.

Among the 50,000-plus agents working in the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices network across the country, she has been No. 1, in terms of transactions, for the last two calendar years.

In 2022, she sold 192 homes, either as the listing agent or buyer’s agent. That averages out to more than three homes a week. Lately, the rate has been closer to five homes a week. In July, she closed the books on 19 homes.

“It was a really good month,” she says, cautious of being too content.

There are several reasons Greer kills it at work.

She learned the business from her mom and older siblings.

She puts in 12-hour days.

She employs a small support staff and hires marketing specialists.

She knows Greensboro thoroughly.

She’s also a natural empath, who finds it easy to slip into other people’s skin and understand what makes them happy. It’s a valuable skill for sales people, whether they’re pushing pizzas, prawns, palaces or patio homes.

It doesn’t hurt that she’s an easy talker with a self-effacing sense of humor and an ability to quickly find common ground with strangers.

“That ‘U’ in conduct is coming in handy,” she says, recalling her report cards from Page High School. A so-so student, she had a lot of friends and did mostly as she was told, she says, dipping into the forbidden only if she was sure she could get away with it.

Her mother sat on her shoulder.

She still does.

“Everything I do, I want her to be proud,” Greer says. “That’s why I don’t have a tattoo, even though I’ve always kinda wanted one. She would never think that was a good idea.”

Her mom had a few maxims about real estate:

Selling homes is a service, not just a sales job, because people’s homes are their havens.

Location, location, location.

If there’s something you don’t like about a home, you can change it, but you can’t change the address (see above).

Greer’s cottage nailed the location part, being in a sought-after neighborhood just a jog from downtown, UNCG, Friendly Center and other city pulse points.

As for changes, Greer shaped the home to her liking, step by step.

She painted walls and refinished hardwoods.

She brought down the wall between the kitchen and den.

She sealed off the full bath’s access to the den and opened it to the primary bedroom on the other side.

She pulled off the old deck and replaced it with a sleek platform of composite planks fenced by black railings.

She expanded and updated the kitchen, swallowing up the sun porch to create an even greater great room, an airy teal, white and gold space where Greer and her beloved rescue dog, Macy — named for R&B singer Macy Gray — spend most of their down time.

“That’s her favorite pillow,” Greer says, pointing to the furry, white cushion in the corner of her sectional sofa. “A friend of mine took her picture sitting on that pillow and posted it, and the real Macy Gray ‘liked’ it.”

What’s Greer’s favorite Macy Gray song?

The answer is quick: “I Try.”

About eight years ago, Greer switched the lighting in the dining room, taking down the crystal chandelier that had once belonged to her mother and replacing it with a bowl-shaped fixture with gold ribs.

It was the first change she had made to the house without asking her family’s opinion.

Her sibs came to visit.

Ugh, they said in different words. Maybe because they thought the new fixture was a tad industrial. Maybe because it was not their mother’s.

Whatever the reason, Greer doubted her decision.

But she let the fixture hang.

“Now, they love it,” she says with a smile anyone could hear over the phone.

The podcast episode is called “Stranger Things in Real Estate.”

Greer is sitting at her kitchen island, kibitzing with her friend and marketing guru, Dave Wilson of Tigermoth Creative in Greensboro.

They started the podcast, Melissa Unscripted, back in 2019 to keep Greer current on social media. Already she maintained a presence on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, now known as X.

“I feel a real responsibility to stay relevant,” says Greer, who nonetheless bristles at the pressure on businesspeople to create and sustain an online brand. “I miss the days when you could do your own thing and disappear. Now that you have to do so much marketing, it’s hard to do that.”

After a cheerful introduction, Wilson asks for examples of weirdness that Greer has witnessed in more than 30 years of selling real estate.

She starts slowly. Once, she showed a home with a bedroom that contained nothing but two mannequins, both wearing clothes. Strange.

What else? Wilson nudges.

Well, once she listed a house with two large crucifixes hanging on the wall, on either side of the bed, in the primary bedroom. A mirrored disco ball hung from the ceiling.

“I said, ‘You gotta pick one. We have to pick a theme,’” she remembers with a laugh.

Wilson prods again: Have you ever walked in on anyone?

“Yes,” Greer says. “I’ve walked in on couples, I’ve walked in on kids skipping school and smoking not-cigarettes. I’ve walked in on people taking naps.”

Haunted houses? Wilson inquires.

Oh, sure, Greer says.

“There’s a website that one of my clients told me about called diedinhouse.com,” she continues. “I’ve actually paid to search things because people want to know.”

Wilson, the marketing man, embraces the curveball with arch humor: “So if we get anything out of this podcast that’s helpful for people buying, it’s diedinhouse.com.”

Greer agrees by continuing full speed ahead. She’s afraid to look up her own house, she tells Wilson, but she used the fee-based service to check her childhood home because she already knew someone had died in there.

“My brother, when I was brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed, he’d hide under my bed,” she says. “And when my mother told me good night and the lights went out, he’d boost the mattress up and say, ‘Ooooou,’ — like a ghost — ‘is that you, George?’ That was the guy’s name. And I’d start screaming.”

The best thing about Greer’s primary bedroom?

Well, no one has died in there. It’s brand new, the latest improvement.

“It’s like a treehouse,” she says, walking into the high-ceilinged suite.

To create the restful perch, which looks into a curtain of green, she ballooned the old bedroom beyond the walk-out basement.

The lofted addition — which covers an outdoor living area below — allowed for the addition of a luxurious bathroom and substantial closet.

“I’ve never had a walk-in closet, so this is cool to me,” she says, beaming as she shows off the space.

It’s hard to believe that a woman who sells million-dollar homes regularly is tickled by such an amenity, but she insists her happiness is genuine.

“I grew up in a small house,” she says. “I always shared a room.”

The new suite, she says, makes the home’s vibe and size — now a little shy of 2,000 square feet — consistent with other upgrades.

The new view allows her to appreciate one of them. The room overlooks a “pandemic pool” with a stony waterfall that gushes skin-friendly salt water.

“It’s like swimming in a water feature,” says Greer, who likes to float with family and friends. “I call it a cocktail pool.”

She overhauled the yard after the pool was installed in 2021. John Newman Garden Design in Winston-Salem, which also built the waterfall, painted the slope with a Japanese-inspired palette of stone, pine, maple, yucca and barbered, bonsai-style azalea, along with a custom Stonehenge-like bench.

“I like the zen feel of it,” says Greer.

Gradually, she says, she has grown to feel more at home in her cottage — and in her own skin.

“There’s a part of me that’s trying to please other people, always. I don’t think that’s ever going to go away, and that’s a good trait to have in a Realtor, but you develop a certain confidence in yourself so you can create what you want and know that’s a beautiful thing.” OH

Garden of Earthly Delights

Dr. Steve Ford tames a wooded beast

By Cynthia Adams

Photographs by Lynn Donovan

What would neurologist Steve Ford choose to do after years of healing others?

Dr. Steve Ford’s former work life meant consulting with stroke patients, treating headaches, seizures, neurological issues or chronic pain. Most days were spent scrutinizing patients’ symptoms in a quest to solve what has been described as a “puzzle” inside a patient’s brain. After more than 43 years of stress-filled work attending those living with chronic pain, would the physician heed the admonition to “heal thyself?”

Ford discovered the answer to that particular puzzle lay in the great outdoors.

In the six years since his retirement, Ford seems to have found an avocation, carving a private woodland garden from the densely forested acreage at Willow Creek, a High Point suburb.

Today, transformed, it is a dreamscape that covers some 2.5 acres. In bringing order to a thick, untamed landscape, he created four pockets of serenity, each designed for cocktail-sipping at dusk in an Adirondack chair or simply enjoying the water sounds, bird calls and, best of all — the soothing sounds of silence.

Water factors heavily into the design of Ford’s gardens. There’s a swimming pool he and his wife, Gillian Overing — also recently retired from a career as an English professor at Wake Forest University — installed when they moved there in 2001, and places aplenty to relax into the charms of a green space tucked inside an urban neighborhood.

Now his daily routine — “whenever the weather’s okay” — is to pull on work clothes and spend hours enhancing his personal vision of peaceful tranquility — toiling in a private retreat. After retiring from a high-stress area of specialization in 2017, Ford could have easily chosen a hobby with less headaches. But he found himself taming not one but three adjoining lots, uncovering all sorts of unexpected possibilities — and a new set of challenges. For instance, a charming footbridge he built to span the brook kept being washed away by storms.

Palms held up in surrender, he explains he’s bowed to the inevitable.

Other projects simply required dogged determination.

Ford had to haul untold barrows of gravel, which he edged with wood, to create walking paths that wouldn’t also wash away during heavy rains and flooding. “All of the paths in the garden were created by me,” he says with modest pride.

The couple has owned the property for 23 years. It offered wooded privacy on both sides of the early-1990 contemporary house, but the rear of the home opened to the Willow Creek golf course, allowing light to flow inside.

Overing, who is British, was born in London. The pair met at Wake Forest “on a blind date set up by friends,” Ford explains. He did his residency at Baptist Hospital after graduating from The Medical University of South Carolina in 1979. “I was in my internship and she was in the first year of her professorship.”

His wife’s true passion, enjoyed since childhood, is horse riding, explains Ford. But his is gardening.

Yet, as an Englishwoman, she, too, appreciates the outdoors.

“Yes, Gillian enjoys the garden,” he says, smiling, pausing outside their contemporary home, proceeding through the garden gate towards the long, rectangular pool. The pool is flanked by Asian touches with an exotic deciduous tree in the corner. John Newman, a professional landscape designer and friend, helped design the Japanese-themed pool area. Brian Hanson, a fellow retiree and friend, created the Japanese lanterns, which sit near the pool, from concrete.

The graveled pathways leading away from the secluded pool feature more and more native plantings. “I guess the underlying theme is that these are mostly plants that grow naturally in a shaded wetland,” Ford says.

The couple’s border collie, Blanche, was obtained from a Charlottesville, Va., friend and breeder. Blanche (named for Blanche DuBois) is uncharacteristically disinterested in herding, Ford explains, but she excels at loyalty.

Never far from Ford’s side, Blanche follows as he walks a path that leads to a shaded brook. The brook is fed by Abbotts Creek, one of their property’s natural side boundaries.

As peaceful as the effect of trickling water is now, it seems idyllic.

Less so, before.

At first, the property was quite overgrown, so much so that even three years after they had purchased it, “we didn’t even know there was a creek,” given the thickness of the woods engulfing the house.

“I’m a hands-in-the dirt person,” Ford explains. As he learned more about gardening, he considered being part of a gardening club for years — hard to do with his medical career, he inserts. With a nudge from fellow gardener Martha Yarborough, the couple opened the garden five years ago for a public tour to benefit the Davidson County Master Gardener program.

At the urging of Yarborough, who devotes her own retirement to developing ornamental and vegetable gardens (see September, 2022 O. Henry, “Simple Abundance”) Ford took the Davidson County Master Gardener classes.

Transformed by 2018, his garden was more than ready for public scrutiny. It was opened for public tour and featured in a North Carolina State Extension Master Garden video as an example of what other native gardeners aspire to: “From the dazzling bluebells that cover ancient woodland in the spring to the bright meadows bursting with buttercups in the summer, wild flowers are what make our woods so beautiful, while providing precious nectar for invertebrates.”

Citing a lettuce-lined path and poolside beds, as well as colonies of ferns along the stream, the introduction promised “. . . the diversity and expanse will amaze and inspire you!”

Now Ford’s focus has turned exclusively to native plants. Walk down one of his pathways and you’ll encounter trillium grandiflorum, trillium x. flexatum, Carolina allspice, and more, each carefully labeled.

There are masses of woodland wildflowers, narcotic in their beauty. There are grasses and sedges. Native ferns that volunteer (sometimes with a helpful assist from Ford).

“The ferns include Christmas ferns, lady ferns, cinnamon ferns, shaggy shield ferns, Japanese painted ferns, ebony spleenwort, ostrich ferns and multiple varieties of maidenhair ferns.”

Mosses, too. All plants that thrive in variable levels of light and high humidity.

“Other flowering plants in the garden include Arum italicum (Italian arum), bear’s breeches, May apple, Solomon’s seal, bloodroot, Jack-in-the-pulpit, Japanese and native pachysandra, Arisaema dracontium, wild ginger and primroses,” Ford says, sometimes citing their botanical names.

“More numerous are the native sessile and trillium cuneatum [or sweet Betsy] that were present before I got involved in the property and have continued to thrive without my cultivation. The same is true about trout lilies that have proliferated in the garden without my cultivation.”

Then there is the tree canopy itself. “The trees that predominate are tulip poplars, sycamores, red cedars and sweet gums, providing the overstory. The understory is populated with American and kousa dogwoods and various Japanese maples, Stewartias, American and Japanese Styrax, deciduous magnolias, azaleas, camelias, rhododendrons, hydrangeas,” says Ford. “I could go on and on, but I think that sounds like enough.”

Now Ford’s routine (when the couple isn’t traveling) is to sink his hands into the soil of the woodland oasis of his own design. Ford once planted Lenten roses, but he points out he is concerned they are too invasive and jokes about taking them out with weed killer.

Those pushy Lenten roses, he says ruefully, have got to go. But as the skies grow grayer and a storm threatens, he heads inside with Blanche padding behind him. She plops on the floor at Ford’s feet where he has settled onto a sofa.

The doctor smiles, reaching to stroke Blanche’s head. When asked the hour he looks mildly surprised, giving a telling answer. Since retirement he finds he has stopped wearing a watch.

And his smile deepens with the soft sounds of a rhythmic rain as Blanche sighs contentedly. OH

2023 Feature

Dogwood Farms: A Canvas of Color

Flowers by the acre, honey by the jar
and views out of this world

By Ross Howell Jr. • Photographs by Lynn Donovan

As you turn into the gravel driveway at Dogwood Farms in Belews Creek, you’re met with a field of yellow sunflowers stretching into the distance.

Continuing along the driveway, you’ll pass brightly-colored zinnias, purple coneflowers, redbud trees and a brilliant red hibiscus.

I park in the shade of an oak tree and get out of the car. The late-July morning air is still cool. I see Chris Crump, founder and owner of Dogwood Farms, step out of his tidy farmhouse. He’s flanked by his handsome, 11-year-old son, Colt, who wears a farmer’s cap — like his father.

Two chocolate Labs lope up to complete the welcoming committee. They check me out with a few sniffs, then bound off to more interesting pursuits.

Chris and I shake hands. There’s a touch of gray in his beard, and from his grip you recognize he’s a man who’s known years of labor.

And he’s a man who’s mindful of legacy.

“Did you notice the hibiscus next to the driveway?” he asks.

I nod yes.

Chris tells me that the plant first grew at his great-grandmother’s home. It was later transplanted to his grandmother’s new house when it was built, and then to his mother’s. When his mother and father decided to move, he transplanted the red hibiscus to the farm.

“Over the years we’ve separated the roots and given transplants to family members, friends and neighbors,” Chris says.

“I think my grandma would really get a kick out of knowing it’s been shared with so many people,” he chuckles.

Chris grew up in the Sedge Garden section of Winston-Salem. While his parents weren’t serious gardeners, his grandfather was.

“My Grandpa was a huge gardener,” Chris recalls with a smile.

The city of Winston-Salem had more of a country feel to it back then, he tells me. On vacant lots, neighbors often would cultivate community gardens.

“I still remember the smell of the dirt when Grandpa would dig potatoes,” Chris says. Together they’d walk the rows, picking up potatoes and sacking them.

After high school, Chris studied horticulture at Forsyth Tech Community College. Straightaway from earning his degree, he took a job with the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

He worked for NCDOT for 25 years — much of that time, supervising teams who planted and maintained wildflower beds along our roadways. As his boss neared retirement, Chris realized the position would probably fall to him. It wasn’t something he wanted to take on.

“I knew it was time to step away,” Chris says. He left NCDOT in 2001.

He purchased his first parcel of land for Dogwood Farms — 24 acres — in 2003. The farm had been neglected for years and was overgrown with trees, bushes and vines. When Chris’s father took a look at the place, he said, “You’re gonna be working till you die if you buy all that land!” “It’ll be all right,” Chris remembers saying to his dad. “I’ll have plenty of kids to help me.”

But 10 years passed before his son Colt was born.

“I bought this place thinking I’d raise a bunch of kids here,” Chris says. “Turns out, there’s only one.”

“But I think it all happened for a reason,” he adds.

That reason’s about legacy, too.

“In my mind, I’m laying the foundation for him,” Chris says, nodding toward Colt. “I want this place to be something he can build on.”

“He’s an old soul,” Chris continues. “I feel like he’s going to be in some kind of heavy equipment. That’s his thing.”

Chris tells me about Colt’s natural hand-eye coordination, about videos he’s shot of his son operating a 12-ton excavator, spinning it around to clean its tracks, skillfully manipulating the bucket to uproot trees from uncleared ground.

“College isn’t going to be for him, and that’s fine,” says Chris.

I ask Colt about his responsibilities at Dogwood Farms.

“I do the honeybees, the honey,” Colt answers, grinning broadly. “We call it Colt’s Signature Honey.”

Colt explains that the farm will be making its first “pull” from the five beehives on the property in the next few days. He describes the process of cleaning out the hives after winter, feeding the bees to keep them healthy, and spinning and putting the honey in jars so it can be sold.

When I ask him how long he’s been managing the bees, he answers, “Five years.”

So Colt’s been a beekeeper from the age of 6.

He scurries back into the house, since he’s getting materials together to enter sixth grade at Triad Baptist Christian Academy in Kernersville.

Chris and I start walking toward the back section of his yard.

“A friend comes over to help Colt,” Chris says. “He has a lot of experience with producing honey. He’s our bee mentor. Working with the bees has been a great learning tool for Colt — seeing how a business works.”

We stop at the edge of the yard and look back toward the farm entrance and the field of sunflowers.

“When I purchased this place, what I wanted to do had nothing to do with flowers,” Chris says. “I wanted to grow ornamental trees for landscaping.”

Chris had done landscaping on the side and had several friends in the business, so he figured he would be able to establish a market readily. But the Great Recession brought home building nearly to a standstill.

So he bided his time.

Then a friend told him the Rockingham County Cooperative Extension office was offering a class on wholesale cut-flowers farming. He decided to attend, and it sparked an interest.

But he wasn’t sure what route to take. He’d grown flowers to give to neighbors and grew sunflowers for dove hunting. And he’d always grown flowers along the property fronting the road.

Then one day a young photographer stopped in and asked if she could take photographs of the farm. In exchange, she’d make family photos of Chris and Colt for free.

Chris figured, sure, why not?

Later, the photographer said to him, “You need to charge people for coming out to the farm.”

Chris answered, “Nobody’s going to pay to see this farm.”

He shakes his head, smiles at me and says, “I was wrong.”

In 2015, after going through a divorce, Chris decided to get serious about opening Dogwood Farms to the public. He’d also bought an additional tract of land that nearly doubled his acreage.

That year, a professional photographer in Charlotte called Chris. She said she wanted to book four hours of shooting on the farm for clients flying in from California.

“I’ve got some pretty colorful friends that love to pull my chain,” Chris laughs, telling the story.

“So I said, ‘Is this a joke?’ She said, ‘No, a race team owner’s son and his girlfriend want to do engagement photos.’”

“I said, ‘You mean to tell me there’s not a sunflower field somewhere between Santa Monica and Belews Creek?’ And she laughed and said, ‘Apparently not!’”

“I said, ‘Absolutely, bring them on.’”

Chris tells me four vans of equipment and people drove in the day of the shoot. And the pièce de résistance?

“The photographer got one picture of a lightning bug that landed right on the girl’s engagement ring,” Chris says. “They told me that photo was used on billboard advertising for the ring designer out in California. I was blown away.”

Interest in Dogwood Farms seemed to snowball from there, mostly on the internet. Photographers scheduled professional sessions. Individuals and families came to pick flowers and take photos, posting their images to Facebook and Instagram.

He tells me people have visited Dogwood Farms from many states — even as far away as Europe.

“Last year we even had refugees from Ukraine,” Chris says.

Now we turn our gaze toward the back of the property.

Chris tells me in the spring a pair of ospreys built a nest in a cell phone tower visible above the tree line. (Belews Lake is not far away.) He points out a dead tree nearby.

“For weeks I’d watch two ospreys crash into that tree, breaking off dead sticks — four or five feet long — and carry them up to that tower,” Chris says. “It was amazing.”

He turns and points toward the view on the horizon.

“Those are the Sauratown Mountains, and you can see Pilot Mountain right there — it’s kind of hazy today — and right behind those trees is Hanging Rock,” Chris says.

“That’s what brings people to this place — our views,” he adds. “The sunsets here are unrivaled.”

Chris and I hop into his ATV to drive toward the back of the property. We pass another field of sunflowers planted later than the field at the farm entrance. They’ll bloom in a couple weeks. We go past the pond. Just beyond the pond, at the woods edge, are Colt’s beehives. Next is a field of zinnias with plump, green buds that will soon be in bloom, too.

Take a moment to imagine that — a field of zinnias with blossoms of red, orange, yellow and pink, the colors of sunset.

And I haven’t even mentioned the spring season at Dogwood Farms.

“The spring flowers we had this year were just out of this world,” Chris says. People were in awe of his field of red poppies.

When we reach a knoll, Chris stops and cuts off the engine. The sunlight is warmer now. When the breeze stirs, it’s soothing. There’s birdsong all about. Bluebirds, finches. Near the pond, a killdeer calls. Cicadas drone in the trees.

The land rolls away from us into a valley thick with shrubs and saplings. Chris points to the tree line in the distance — the edge of his property. He tells me a little stream there feeds into Belews Creek.

“The creek bed is rock,” he says. “Almost like a rock water slide.” He tells me one day that spot will be another great place for photographs.

“It’s getting these last 10 acres cleared that’s the thing,” he sighs. “And making a way for people to get back in there easily.”

Atop the knoll where we’re sitting are piles of raw earth, moved here when the pond was excavated. Chris explains he’ll use the earth to raise a roadbed through the ravine toward the creek.

Where thickets grow now, he’ll plant Bidens cernua, called nodding bur-marigold.

“Just think of all that valley as a river of yellow,” he muses.

And that’s Chris Crump’s genius. He imagines a landscape canvas and sets about painting it with living things.

He tells me after all the years, all the seasons, all the workdays on the farm, at day’s end, he will pause here a moment to reflect.

“God got you to the end of the day and the sunset’s your reward,” he muses. “It’s like a tribute, so you can say to the good Lord, ‘Thank you.’”

And that’s a legacy, too.

“Sunsets here never get old,” Chris adds. OH

For more pictures and information on the attractions at Dogwood Farms, follow Dogwood Farms on Facebook, @dogwoodfarmsupick on Instagram or visit www.dogwoodfarmsbelewscreek.com.

2023 Feature

Found Objects

What’s old is newly loved

By Cassie Bustamante • Photographs by Bert VanderVeen

If you’ve ever wandered the rows of a flea market or gotten lost in an antique store’s surplus of old oddities, you know that sometimes a certain piece calls out to you. Sometimes it’s a portrait of a woman you’ve never seen, but her image inspires a story in your mind. Maybe it’s the midcentury dresser that reminds you of sleepovers at your grandparents’ place, complete with rusty-orange shag carpeting and wood-paneled walls. Whatever it is, something compels you to bring it home and make it yours. We talked to five local homeowners and asked the question: What’s your favorite find?

As a lover of all things midcentury — both furniture and accessories, such as McCoy pottery of the era — Linda Hiatt wandered into Lindley Park Vintage, known for its specialty in that particular era. The atomic stars were shining in her favor that Saturday and she discovered a Henry Rosengren Hansen table that was a perfect fit for her home’s aesthetic. “His pieces are hard to find,” she says. Not only did she score the table, but also found midcentury chairs that, while not designed by Rosengren Hansen, fit the vibe.

Thrifter extraordinaire Seth Anderson has filled his family’s home with treasures found across the Triad’s many secondhand stores, not to mention his collection of paintings by his wife, artist Katie Anderson. Favorite find? How about a favorite nook, bursting with vintage gems? “My wife had done this large square encaustic (wax) piece a few years ago but we hadn’t found a home for it,” he says. The artwork serves as “the anchor” and is complemented by scores galore from the Habitat Restore, Salvation Army and several from Goodwill. “The chair I paid $3 for at Goodwill and spray painted, reupholstering the seat with a remnant from Reconsidered Goods.” Clearly, Anderson doesn’t play favorites with his shops either.

Writer Mallory Miranda walked into Antique Market Place with a mission: Find a vintage secretary’s desk. Why? “I wanted a desk that would serve one purpose.” What she didn’t want was a catchall. She fulfilled her quest in one of her favorite stalls, Dori’s Collection. The many compartments in a secretary “are perfect for squirreling away all my notes and tools for future writing adventures.” But the real bonus for a creative spirit? “The desk folds up to conceal all my messy ‘organization.’” To complement it, Miranda found a chair from another era that is a perfect match — its “soulmate” — at The Red Collection on Mill Street.

Sometimes we find exactly what we’re looking for when we aren’t actually looking for it at all. Shante Kirlew, owner of AK London Lifestyle, a beeswax candle company, discovered a 1970s buffet on “a casual stroll” through Goodwill. “I wasn’t looking for anything specific that day, but when I saw her, it was love at first sight,” she says, adding that it harkened back to Saturday morning furniture-polishing sessions at her grandmother’s house when she was a child. It’s her favorite piece in her home for many functional and aesthetic reasons, but “most importantly, it triggers memories of the happiest time in my life.”

When Kristen and Andy Zeiner moved from California to Greensboro in the spring of 2021, they were thrilled to be so close to “The Furniture Capital of the World” and outfitted their new Irving Park digs with staples from Furnitureland South. But their favorite piece is a Red Collection score, a late 1600s mule chest from Wales, which Kristen appreciates because her 95-year-old father, who lives with them, is Welsh. “It has the scent of many adventures in its travels,” she says. “We wish we could hear its stories.” Plus, adds Andy, “Trying to find something new of this quality and with this history would be impossible. And you can be almost certain that your neighbor won’t have the same exact one.” Adding a touch of golden whimsy, signed Michael Lambert “dancing” Modernist pottery, discovered at a California Goodwill for just $20, sits on top.

Lastly, as a former vintage store owner, I had to play in the sandbox of treasures, too. In an old horse stable filled with abandoned finds of a furniture refinisher (and no remnants of horses, mind you), I came across this pair of veneered midcentury cabinets that appear to have been used in an office — hence the locks. After cleaning them with a vinegar solution, I painted them white and gold-leafed the frame of the facade. Inside, each has a shelf and ample storage. It might not surprise you to find that my makeshift nightstand is stuffed with approximately — no exaggeration — 150 books. OH

2023 Feature

Poem October 2023

Letting Go

Today the trees release their leaves. The wind

a breath that calls the colors down to earth —

wild dance with crimson, gold, and brown

aloft in death, unfurling flaming fields

and forest floor. If I could hurl myself

like this into each ending, long for nothing

sure or safe, but celebrate the letting go,

descend, a woman trusting the fall.

I’d release all claim to expectation,

breathe the air of possibility,

find beginnings everywhere.

I’d settle down to loamy earth long enough

to nourish life that waits, growing still

in the summons from a savage world.

— Pat Riviere-Seel

Pat Riviere-Seel’s latest collection, When There Were Horses, is available from Main Street Rag Publishing Company.

2023 Feature Poem

Almanac October 2023

October dares you not to look away.

These early days of autumn, deciduous trees edging toward full glory, you wouldn’t dream of it. Brisk mornings enliven your senses. You can nearly taste the crispness through your skin.

As golden light alchemizes a brightly colored skyline, yellow becomes more than yellow; red, sharper and truer; orange, otherworldly so.

The merging of light and leaves mesmerizes you. There is nothing soft about this symphony of color. Nothing subtle. The dance is as stunning as molten gold.

Trees become torches. Foliage laps against cerulean skies like ravenous flames licking silent blue heavens. This amalgam of color transforms your very being. You feel both awestruck and emboldened. Ancient and brand new.

Suddenly, a gust of wind sends a wave of leaves swirling earthward. Another gust follows, releasing howling, coppery flurries.

The wind goes rogue.

Wave after furious wave, the leaves descend with reckless abandon. As starling murmurations flash across a brilliant sky, the fleeting beauty makes you ache.

The paradox is arresting: The season has reached its full potential, and there’s nothing to do but watch it make a raging, riotous exit.

Do not look away, you tell yourself. A shock of crimson shakes from open branches. Do not miss one glorious moment.

October commands your faithful presence. As the trees free themselves of all adornment, you soften to their naked truth. This, too, shall pass.

Hold tenderly this precious knowing — this visceral aliveness — and, in the next breath, let it go.

There is a far sweet song in autumn

That catches at my throat,

I hear it in each falling leaf

And in each wild bird’s note . . .

— George Elliston,
“Mine Own” (1927)

Birds of Autumn

Yellow-bellied sapsuckers arrive; ruby-throated hummingbirds depart for warmer climes. Birds come and birds go.

This month, as nature dazzles us with her warm and glorious hues, keep watch for white-throated sparrows, pine siskins and yellow-rumped warblers — winter residents whose songs are as distinctive as their field marks.

Oh, Sweet Canada, Canada, sparrows whistle.

Warblers perform their soft, slow trills.

Pine siskins stun us with their harsh and wheezy zreeeeeeet.

Winter is nigh, the birds seem to say.

In other words: Enjoy the show.

Flower of the Dead

Nothing says autumn like a field of fiery marigolds. Or a tidy garland of them.

Although October’s vibrant birth flower has long been associated with grief and loss, its uses have been — and continue to be — vast. Because their sunny orange and yellow hues are believed to dispel negativity — and to help guide wandering spirits to altars for the dead — marigold garlands are commonly used in religious ceremonies in Asia, Latin America and Mexico.

They’re also a choice natural dye, companion plant and, depending on the variety, edible flower. Bust out a batch of marigold-and-saffron shortbread this season and see if you ever crave pumpkin spice again. OH

2023 Almanac Department

Wandering Billy

Grave Matters

Creating cleaner, greener pastures at Green Hill Cemetery

By Billy Ingram

“Never check an interesting fact.” – Howard Hughes

It may seem odd that someone possesses warm fuzzies for a graveyard, but my fond memories of Green Hill Cemetery go back as far as I can remember.

At 10 years old, I convinced my younger brother and sister that my foot was stuck between the wooden ties of the railroad tracks along the western edge of Green Hill. With one ear on the rails, I could feel (or so I told them) the vibrations of a locomotive speeding toward us, imploring my siblings to run, to save themselves — there was no longer any hope for me.

My sister’s first name is Rives, same as my mother’s maiden name. Mom’s family has a plot at Green Hill centered with a monument that simply reads “Rives.” When she was 7 years old, I told my sister that she had an incurable disease and was going to pass away soon, so mom and dad were just waiting until she died to carve the dates on this, her headstone. She cried and cried and I guffawed like a peg-legged pirate. Was I an awesome brother or what?

It’s been a decade or so since I’ve wandered over to Green Hill, where I recently caught up with my one-time neighbor David Craft, who, alongside a dozen or so stalwart volunteers from the Friends of Green Hill organization, are selflessly assessing, sprucing up and restoring smaller headstones that, over time, have become unmoored by mudslides. These crafty citizens dig out those sunk several feet into the ground and clean covered-over carved marble tablets long ago toppled onto their backs, presently embedded into the soil. At a glance, they tend to go unnoticed, this multitude of mangled monuments, askew stones of all sizes and shapes, spires weighing hundreds, perhaps thousands of pounds, cracked and fractured, resting on their sides, primarily in the oldest tracts.

“You’re walking and you see these gravestones fallen over,” David says about what spurred him into action, pointing out monoliths and burial sites in dire need of rehabilitation. “They’re in the wrong places, they’re broken, and these things are so beautiful, they’re almost like artwork. And I was kind of looking for something else to do.” David dubbed this merry band of recreational restorationists the “Billies” as a hat tip to his dad, Bill Craft — but he’d prefer if you didn’t preface that nickname with “Green Hill.”

In his own way, David is advancing a legacy that took root more than a half-century ago, when his father began implementing his sylvan vision for Greensboro, one that continues to flourish and likely will for generations to come.

As a teenager in the 1970s, I’d notice Bill Craft almost daily planting assorted flora directly across the street from our Blair Street home. Guilford County’s Johnny Appleseed, with persistent prodigality, transformed a perfectly ordinary two-block-long, grassy, creekside strip into a lush environ, what is now known appropriately as Bill Craft Park. With virtually nowhere left to dig at that location, he turned his attention to Green Hill Cemetery’s relatively sparse surroundings beginning in 1980, toiling in that soil for the next 20 years.

When this self-taught botanist began his arbor days-turned-years at Green Hill, there were around 100 trees dotting the 51-acre landscape. By the time Bill was done, he’d seeded an additional 400 saplings and shrubs, just about every species known or suspected to survive here: a rubber tree from China, live oaks from the coast, Florida palms, Atlantic white cedar, Chinese pistache, Savannah holly, Japanese maple, Tupelo gum, Colorado blue spruce, to name a few. Bill Craft passed away in 2010, his herculean efforts costing this city not one dime.

Last year, David attended a seminar in Statesville led by Shawn Rogers, director of Jamestown’s Mendenhall Homeplace, on the proper methods for restoring and repairing marble, slate, and granite markers and footstones without being invasive or intrusive. A precision-oriented approach appealed to David, who likes “doing things with my hands, simple things.” He continues, “So we got permission to straighten [smaller stones and slabs], which is kind of within our skillset.” The goal for these Green Hill aficionados is to perform as many minor repairs as possible while raising money for larger, more difficult projects that will require heavy machinery and extensive expertise.

In addition to this behind-the-scenes undertaking, there are two October happenings at Green Hill I’m personally looking forward to.

Not far from the southern gate (near Fisher Avenue) stands a most striking monument, a 7-foot-tall depiction of a firefighter standing at the ready, carved in Italian marble, perched atop a 10-foot-high granite plinth. Dedicated in 1924, this became the annual site for a service devoted to Greensboro Fire Department personnel who had perished over the last year. For whatever reason, this custom ended around 1970, but in 2021 that yearly ceremony was revived with a well-attended memorial honoring the 16 line-of-duty and retired GFD deaths during that dormant period. On Saturday, October 7, at 2 p.m., the city will once again honor the fallen.

Separately, for the 15th year, Ann Stringfield of the Friends of Green Hill Cemetery’s leadership team leads a tour on October 29 at 1 p.m. Her topic? “The Plants and the Planted” that inhabit the southern portion of Green Hill. Interested in assisting with restoration or want more info about these events, including rain dates? Visit: FriendsOfGreenHillCemetery.org.

A couple of months back, I profiled Gerald Smith, a charming, colorful gentleman who’d recently published a terrific memoir entitled Cotton Mill Hillbilly. Sadly, Gerald passed away on June 26, but what a privilege it was to have met him. Before my time comes, I can only hope to be blessed with even a fraction of his enthusiasm for life and the abundant love that obviously surrounded him. OH

Despite so many familial connections at Green Hill, Billy Ingram’s final resting place will likely be Potter’s Field.

2023 Department Wandering Billy

Birdwatch

Enticing the Baltimore Oriole

Red carpet treatment for an occasional guest

By Susan Campbell

Northerners who relocate to central North Carolina often ask me about birds familiar to them that seem absent here in our fair state. One that is close to the top of the list is the Baltimore oriole. Its striking plumage and affinity for sweet feeder offerings make it a real favorite among backyard bird lovers.

Male Baltimore orioles are unmistakable with bright orange under parts, a black back and head, as well as two bold white wing bars. Females and immature birds are yellow to light orange with the same white wing bars. They have relatively large, yet pointed, bills, which are very versatile while foraging. Males sing a very melodic song made up of several clear, whistled notes.

As it turns out, Baltimore orioles actually do nest in North Carolina — if you venture far enough west. In our mountains they can be found weaving their elaborate nests that dangle from high branches, often over water. Following two weeks of incubation, the young will spend another two weeks before they fledge. By mid-summer the adults spend their days in the treetops, looking for caterpillars and small insects to feed their growing families.

However, since these birds winter throughout Florida and all the way down into Central America, you might spot a few as they pass through in spring or fall. There is also a chance one or two might spend the winter in your neighborhood if you have the kind of habitat they seek out in the cooler months. Should your yard be to their liking, they may return year after year, bringing others (presumably family members) with them. I know winter oriole hosts in the eastern half of the state who count a dozen or more birds frequenting their feeders October through March every year.

Baltimore orioles will seek out areas with lots of mature evergreen trees and shrubs of which a significant portion bear some sort of fruit. These birds are relatively large and colorful so require thick cover for protection from predators — especially fast-flying bird hawks such as Cooper’s and sharp-shinneds. Without this, it has been my experience that they will not linger long even if food is plentiful. Should they feel safe, the odds are they will settle in and become a regular backyard fixture. Baltimore orioles will continue to consume any insects they happen upon but will switch to a diet of berries and whatever fruit or sweet treats they find at bird feeders. They are known to enjoy not only suet mixes with peanut butter but also orange halves, grape jelly and even marshmallows. They also will avail themselves of sugar water from hummingbird feeders they find still hanging. There are special, large sugar water feeders made for orioles that usually contain partitions for placing other solid treats as well. Baltimore orioles definitely enjoy mealworms, too, should your budget allow.

A few very lucky people have been treated to the out-of-place Scott’s oriole, as well as Bullock’s oriole, here in North Carolina. Interestingly, these mega-rarities have turned up at sites without any other orioles present. Keep in mind that we sometimes find western tanagers at feeders in winter. The females and immature birds of this species look very similar to female or immature Baltimore orioles, differing only in the shape of their bills and the color of their wing bars.

Personally, I have had Baltimore orioles show up for a week or so but then move on. In spite of setting out the red carpet (including suet, jelly, oranges, mealworms and sugar water), they have not been enticed to stay long. Maybe this fall will be a different story . . . OH

Susan Campbell would love to receive your wildlife sightings and photographs at susan@ncaves.com.

2023 Birdwatch Department

Home Grown

Mama and the Limousine

Joy-riding with millionaires

By Cynthia Adams

We strolled to our neighborhood haunt, an Italian restaurant attached to a downtown hotel near our Mendenhall money pit. It was far easier to walk than deal with the hassle of parking — a perpetual problem for our historic Westerwood neighborhood.

The joint offered decent fare and prices that fit our always-tight budget. Given it was furniture market time, too, better known places were packed.

Out front, a white stretch limo awaited. A curious thing — until I remembered market. “Some big deal furniture people,” I guessed.

After spaghetti and generous pours of the house red, we left contentedly full, noting the limo and driver still outside.

“Hey, I’m going to ask who the heck they’re waiting on,” I announced, emboldened by the Chianti. I tapped on the window glass.

Then something (perhaps the wine again?) made me open the rear door behind him. The driver responded with a decidedly friendly Southern accent: “Hey!”

“Hey! I’ve always wanted to see the interior of one of these,” I lied, and slid inside as my husband stood, arms dangling, looking appalled. He frowned at me, shaking his head.

“It’s just some furniture people’s rent-a-limo,” I shushed him. Limos were commonplace during two times: prom night and the biannual furniture markets.

The driver explained that his name was Richard and that, actually, I was wrong. He drove full time for the limousine’s owners, who were having dinner.

The owners?

At the neighborhood joint?

He asked if I’d noticed the tag on the front: “Driving Miss Hazel,” a nod to the film Driving Miss Daisy. No, I mumbled.

As I silently explored the posh interior and full bar, Richard suddenly coughed and pointed at two figures leaving the restaurant. “See? There they are now! I’ll introduce you.”

My widening eyes followed his pointing finger; then my torso more or less froze along with the rest of my body.

As Richard leaped out to open the passenger side rear door, I hurled myself across the seat, jumping out the opposite side. Busted! As the smiling owners settled in, I stood outside with the door still ajar, blathering praise about the limo and apologizing.

“Let us give you a ride,” insisted the owners, Dolen and Hazel Bowers. In for a dime, in for a dollar, what could I say? I stepped back inside, but I could feel the reluctant energy teeming off my husband as he slid in beside me. I knew without turning my head to glance at him that his face was red with embarrassment.

Two blocks later, Richard dropped us outside our house. Given the scale of the limo, it seemed very small.

“We’re having a neighborhood party next weekend,” I blurted out, desperately embarrassed. “Saturday at 7. Please come.”

“We’d like that,” the Bowers replied.

Friends of ours, we learned, lived on the same golf course near their befittingly unusual stucco home. Built in a semi-circular design, it was rumored to have an equally unusual interior — notable given its place alongside traditional Southern mansions.

It turned out the couple had made a serious fortune in real estate holdings and development. They were known as personable and extravagant, if eccentric.

The limo and driver, with its own custom garage, underscored the rumors.

I promptly forgot the exchange until Saturday evening, with the party in full swing. My mother was in town to celebrate reaching a cancer-free landmark and things were hopping.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang, which was odd, as everyone else came right in, following the music and party chatter. I answered the door and a uniformed man appeared into view.

Richard.

Richard sort of goose-stepped into the living room, stopping abruptly. Then, five words: “Announcing Mr. and Mrs. Bowers.”

Doffing his cap, he retreated with a flourish.

“Heddo,” said Hazel, adorably, her accent slightly unusual despite her being a local. She wore high heels and tottered into the room. Dolen followed.

The raucous party grew absolutely silent.

Richard insisted that he’d wait in the drive with the limo. When we explained we shared a driveway with our (intractable) neighbors, he decided to simply circle around the block. There was nowhere in a neighborhood that was planned during a time of horse and buggies for a stretch limo, as I imagined what a scene endlessly circling presented.

Mom, guest of honor (dressed in a suede midi-skirt and looking like a westernized Joan Collins), was enraptured and breathed she’d never been in a limo. Clapping, Hazel insisted she deserved a cruise in the limo. Delighted, Mama left in the limo to go God-knows-where. Richard took guests on limo rides as the night wore on, with the Bowers happily mingling. Everybody was happy.

I’d concocted a menu that was a nod to an English high tea. We served little sandwiches, savories, cheeses and sweets — including biscuits and an English trifle. And, naturally, tea.

The spirits were more popular by far.

Dolen enthusiastically sampled everything, including some moonshine a guest brought.

Praising the moonshine, he soon put the high in our high tea.

Weeks passed, and my husband was working in a building mostly occupied by lawyers when he discovered that Dolen was there closing on a major business deal. You might guess the titan would have been wearing some Succession-worthy brand like Zegna. But no. Dolen had worn his favorite bib overalls.

“I guess the man had nothing to prove to anyone,” my husband speculated. Serious wealth conferred a unique social passport; the Bowers traveled through life exactly as they wished with Richard at the wheel.

Not long after that, Dolen died.

Party particulars fade away in time, apart from how you felt. We felt especially fine that night, our guests chattering throughout the house, many settled on the staircase, laughing, sipping drinks.

Hazel, who remained in the Triad, survived until last year.

Mama, too, slipped away three years ago, yet she often remembered the Bowers, Richard and her thrilling ride to nowhere beneath a starry, clear sky. OH

Cynthia Adam is a contributing editor to O.Henry magazine.

2023 Department Home Grown

Art of the State

Careful Chaos

Chieko Murasugi’s art subverts order and changes perspectives

By Liza Roberts

Abstract painter Chieko Murasugi has navigated conflicting perspectives all her life. She holds a Ph.D. in visual science and works as an artist; she is the Tokyo-born daughter of Japanese immigrants who was raised in Toronto and lives in America; she is a former impressionist painter who has turned to visual illusion to anchor her geometric art.

“I want to make the elusive, disparate, confusing, multifaceted nature of the world absolutely clear,” says Murasugi. “I want to be clear in my view that the world is unclear.”

Illusions underpin this message; her interest in them is one of the few things that has remained constant in her life. As a scientist, Murasugi studied visual perception because she was fascinated by mysteries like 3D illustrations that seem to flip upside down or right-side up depending on the angle of the viewer, or the ghosts of afterimages, or the way the interpretation of a color changes depending on the colors that sit beside it. Now, as an artist, she uses phenomena like these to tweak a viewer’s perception, to make a picture plane shift before their eyes, to turn it from one thing into another. She populates these paintings with crisp, unambiguous, flat-colored shapes. “I have clarity and I have ambiguity at the same time,” she says. “And that’s really at the crux of my art. It’s the ambiguity, the clarity, the dichotomy.”

Her art creates it, and she’s long lived it. Murasugi grew up in a “very white” Canadian suburb, “very clearly a minority.” As a child, her father, a descendant of 1600s-era samurai, showed her maps of Japan’s former reach across Asia, and told her “Americans took it away.” He told her about how American forces firebombed downtown Tokyo, and how he and her mother barely escaped with their lives.

But these were not facts she’d been taught in school, or heard anywhere else. “I had taken world history, and I had not heard anything about the firebombings of Japan,” she says. “And so everywhere I went, I was presented with diverging, often conflicting, but very disparate narratives. Who am I supposed to believe?” When she was studying for her doctorate at York University in Canada, she recalls, her professors proudly touted the department’s significance in the field. Then she went to Stanford to do postdoctoral work in neurobiology and nobody had heard of her colleagues at York University. “Again, I had to shift my perspective,” she says. Fueling those shifts was an overwhelming curiosity, she says, “always wanting to know why. Why, why, why. Curiosity has been the driving force of my life.”

Years later, when Murasugi left her accomplished academic career and the world of science for art, her viewpoint shifted again. In a deeply rooted way, she was coming home; she had always drawn and painted, and she studied art in college as well as science. Even at the height of her successful scientific career as a professor and research scientist, Murasugi believed that she didn’t truly belong. She thought she wasn’t quantitative, logical or analytical enough, that “there was something that was missing in the way that I was thinking,” she says. With art, the opposite was the case: “I knew I could do it.”

After she moved to North Carolina with her husband several years ago, this innate conviction took her back to school, to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for an MFA. There she met fellow artists she respected and joined with to co-found and co-curate an artist-run Chapel Hill exhibit space called Basement, which has earned a reputation as an incubator for emerging artists and which regularly exhibits their work to the public.

Over the last 18 months, Murasugi has found fresh directions, resulting in a new body of work, called Chance, that explores randomization, color theory, chance and chaos. “My mother was basically dying when I began this series,” she says. “Her impending death, having to process her death, is what inspired it. And I continued it for about a year, because I was just bereft.” Murasugi’s mother survived World War II “by chance” and always thought of her life as defined by that good fortune; this fueled Murasugi’s experimentation with art made, in part, “by chance.”

Using an algorithm available on the website random.org to arrange her own colors, shapes and patterns into random arrangements and compositions, Murasugi created a series of colorful, geometric works. In late summer 2022, she posted these works on the Instagram feed of Asheville’s Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, part of her digital residency with the museum. She also exhibited them at Craven Allen, her Durham gallery.

More recently, Murasugi has returned to the illusion-anchored canvases she began a few years ago — what she now refers to as her “old way of painting.”

It has been “a huge struggle,” she says, because “the end point is unknown.” Unlike the work made with the guidance of the randomizing program, “the trajectory is not straightforward” with these newer, intuitive paintings. “It’s forward and backwards, left and right. I’ve always worked this way, before I went to the Chance series, and I’d almost forgotten how difficult painting is. Both fun, and excruciatingly difficult.” Some of the pieces currently underway will find their way to CAM Raleigh for a show called Neo-Psychedelia that opens Nov. 10. She will also have a piece featured and sold at ArtSpace’s ArtBash, a fundraising gala, on Nov. 18, also in Raleigh.

Murasugi’s work has also been exhibited in museums in San Francisco, New York and across the South, and is in the collections of the City of Raleigh and Duke University. Its abstraction welcomes any interpretation at all; its subtle illusory elements gently subvert them. “People have said to me over the years: Your work is so beautiful. And I think, well, I hope it doesn’t stop there,” she says. “As long as they see that there were two ways of looking at it.” OH

This is an excerpt from Art of the State: Celebrating the Art of North Carolina, published by UNC Press.

2023 Art of the State Department