The full Harvest Moon — also called the Singing Moon — will rise at approximately 7:30 p.m. on Friday, September 16. Owing to its close proximity to the horizon, the moon will appear vast and orange-colored. Don’t be surprised if you get the sudden urge to dance beneath it. close-up three violet asters, isolated on white

Asters (also called Italian starwort or Michaelmas Daisy) are the birth flower of September, their daisy-like blooms a talisman of love and symbol of patience. The ancient Greeks burned aster leaves to ward off evil spirits, and the plant was sacred to both Roman and Greek deities. Those familiar with the hidden language of flowers will tell you that a gift of asters reads:

Take care of yourself for me, Love.

“The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last forever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year — the days when summer is changing into autumn — the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change.”
―
E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

Plant your garlic now until the first hard freeze — the earlier the better, as large root systems are key. Although it won’t be ready for harvest until next June, growing your own garlic means you’ll be well equipped for cold (and collard) season next fall. Aside from boosting your immune system and enhancing your sautéed greens, garlic, researchers believe, can reduce the risk of various cancers. Roast a head until tender and add it to your rosemary mashed potatoes and squash casseroles.

This month, with the sun entering Libra (the Scales) on the autumnal equinox, we look to Nature and our gardens to remind us of our own need for balance and harmony. On Thursday, September 22, day and night will exist for approximately the same length of time. Mid-morning, when the astrological start of autumn occurs, take a quiet moment for introspection. In the fall, just as kaleidoscopes of monarchs descend for nectar before their mystical pilgrimage to Mexico, we must prepare to journey inward. Breathe in the beauty of this dreamy twilight — this sacred space between abundance and decay. The duality of darkness and light is essential to all of life.

Tolkien fans have double the reason to celebrate the equinox. In 1978, the American Tolkien Society proclaimed the calendar week containing September 22 as Tolkien Week. In J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy novels, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, hobbits Bilbo and Frodo Baggins were both said to be born on September 22; Bilbo in the year of 2890, Frodo in 2968 (refer to the Shire calendar of Tolkien’s fictional Middle-earth).

This year, since Hobbit Day officially falls on the first day of autumn, consider hosting a grand birthday feast — call it Second Breakfast if you’d like — with a menu showcasing the bounty of the season. Decorate with ornamental corn, squash and gourds. Since no hobbit meal is complete without ale, mead or wine, you’ll want to have plenty. Punctuate the evening with fresh-baked apple pie. 

Alternatively, you might celebrate Hobbit Day by walking barefoot on the earth, a simple meditation practice with remarkable health benefits. If you’ve never heard of barefoot healing, check out Clinton Ober’s Earthing (2010) or Warren Grossman’s To Be Healed by the Earth (1999). Think about it: If the average hobbit lives about 100 years, they must be doing something right.  OH

For Cindy Jones and Craig Wagoner, 19 years was just enough time to produce a magical garden shaped by imagination and spirit

By Ross Howell Jr.    •   Photographs by Lynn Donovan

On a macadam road outside Greensboro, my wife, Mary Leigh, and I pass small farms with pastures bordered by tidy, four-board fences. Horses lift their heads from grazing to watch us go by, flicking their tails. Barn swallows dip and swerve over hayfields. We pass tree groves, creek bottoms and modest houses with wide expanses of lawn. A lady wearing a straw bonnet waves at us from her riding mower.

We turn onto another road and slow when we see the address on a mailbox. Tires crunch on gravel as we turn into the drive. Before us stands a glade. Several hardwoods. The drive begins a gentle descent. Then we see the entrance.

Boulders stand by the road, as though they’d been deposited by a glacier, and before us rise impressive stone gate guards. Beyond, I see something I haven’t seen since I lived in the Midwest. Limestone fence posts.

The gravel drive winds past a pond, past scattered Japanese maples, magnolia trees, more boulders before starting to rise. Atop a knoll stands a handsome house with a big front porch. Walking toward us from the other side of the drive is a trim man, suntanned, a touch of gray in his hair. He’s carrying a watering can.

That’s Craig Wagoner. He puts the can by a spigot and greets us as we get out of the car. The front door of the house opens. Cindy Jones calls hello and invites us inside. She is suntanned, too, trim as Craig, her smile as bright and friendly as her invitation.

A female Great Dane, her coat so dark a gray she looks blue, gallops by Cindy’s knee and trots down the porch steps.

“That’s Daphne,” Cindy says. “She’s friendly.” The Dane snuffles my hand, moves on to Mary Leigh, then surveys the slope in front of the house.

“Really helps with the deer,” Craig says. “Here, come on in.”

We sit in the living room under a high ceiling, the wide stone fireplace rising to the peak of the roof. There are metal sculptures on the walls. Through the back windows I can see sweet corn just beginning to tassel, the tops of tomato plants bright with yellow blossoms.

There’s a rustling in the flue.

“Chimney swifts,” Craig says, grinning as he shakes his head. “Every summer. We’re definitely in the country here.”

I feel calm, though I’m with strangers, as though the place I’m sitting was prepared for me starting a long time ago.

Turns out, it was. Starting nineteen years ago, to be specific.

Craig purchased this 6-acre parcel in 1997. After a career in finance and insurance, he was in a position to act on a dream.

“I always wanted to live in a park,” he says. “I was born and raised in Kansas — on farms. We had livestock and my parents grew vegetables. It seemed like I was always outside, exploring, and Nature just spoke to me somehow.” He nods his head, musing.

“This land was part of the Carter farm,” he continues. “They were an old Virginia family from Richmond. The place was so overgrown with brush and vines I couldn’t even walk through. So I started clearing.”

About that time, Cindy Jones moved to North Carolina to continue her career in leadership development.

“When we met, I think Craig was surprised I was as passionate about gardening as he was,” she says. I hear her Canadian accent in the word, “about.” Cindy grew up in Montreal, where the growing seasons are short and the winters fierce.

“Everyone in our neighborhood was a gardener,” she says. “As soon as the weather began to warm, people were outside, working in their vegetables and flowers. Both my parents were devoted to it. And I loved being outside with them. In fact, that’s how I was punished if I misbehaved. I had to stay inside the house.”

“People in my Montreal neighborhood had big gardens, with only a little bit of grass,” she says. “It surprised me when I moved to North Carolina, where we have a long growing season and temperate climate, ideal for all sorts of plants, yet everyone seems to want a big yard to mow!”

As Craig began to clear brush and vines, thinking about where he might locate the gardens and house, he discovered that the Civilian Conservation Corps had built six earthen terraces on the land.

“I don’t know why,” he says. “We’re on a knoll here, not far from the Haw River. Maybe topography had something to do with it. Anyway, we had to take the terraces into account when we started planning the gardens. Want to have a look?”

We walk along the gravel drive over a gentle rise. I see more limestone fence posts by the drive. Cindy tells me there are more than sixty of them on the property. Below us the drive makes a turnabout, with massive stones arranged in a concentric ring.

“These are the Standing Stones,” Craig says. “Thirteen boulders, Tennessee stone, for the thirteen full phases of the moon in a year. Good place to meditate.”

Beyond the ring of stones are other boulders, and here and there, stone fence posts. Nearby, a big stone sculpture of Buddha rests on a wooden pallet.

“Haven’t got him where he’s supposed to be,” Craig says. “See the top of that big pine up the hill? He’ll go up there, for a Buddha Garden.”

“Definitely a work in progress,” Cindy says. “The whole place. There’s something new, something different, every year.”

Past the circle of stones, Craig points up the slope.

“See the dragon bridge? The dragon is a Buddhist protector. Good luck in a garden.”

From my vantage, I now see the pattern of rocks depicting the creature’s back, with a broad stone for its head.

“I’ve always been interested in stone,” Craig says. “But I got more and more interested in how the Japanese use it when I started on the gardens here. It’s said that walking barefoot on stone will help forestall the onset of dementia.”

He looks about. “The limestone fence posts we trucked in from Kansas. Blue stone from Pennsylvania. North Carolina stone from old gristmills. Stone from all over. See? Those small millstones are from China.”

Craig pauses. “And there’s the contrast of stone with living things. The Japanese see stone as the passive element of a garden. Plants are the active, vigorous element. So that led to my interest in Japanese maples. They’re so hardy, we started planting them all over the property.”

“Because meditation is essential to the design of Japanese gardens,” he continues, “Cindy and I started thinking of our gardens as destinations. They would be places where people could go to meditate.”

We leave the Standing Stones and approach a grassy open area at the edge of a wood. I see pits for pitching horseshoes.

“There’s a stone path from here that leads down to a pond,” Craig says. “In this open space, we can put up picnic tables, maybe a badminton set, for cookouts.”

“How is it everything is so well-kept? The beds, the lawns, everything?” I ask.

“Cindy and I have done all the new plantings here,” Craig says. “All of them. But Cindy and I operate the Edgefield Plant and Stone Center. It’s a great way for us to make a living, get plant materials at good prices and have help maintaining the gardens. So once a week I come in with a crew of three. We mow and tend all the beds, so everything gets done right.”

“Even with help,” Cindy says, “Craig and I work out here every evening, every weekend. It’s what we love.”

We walk up the hill, closer to the house. The shape of one of the old CCC earthen terraces comes into view. There are teak benches near a big field of boulders planted with flowers and perennials.

“The Boulder Garden,” Craig says. I take a seat on one of the benches, its seat and back cut from a massive teak log. It’s incredibly comfortable. Bees drone in the flowers. The breeze freshens.

Nearby is a bowl cut in the earth, almost perfectly circular, filled with tall grasses and cattails.

“That’s the Frog Pond,” Craig says. By it stands the statue of a goddess. Craig follows my eye to the stone figure.

“The pond was supposed to be a formal fountain,” Craig says. “My plan was to build the house here, by the fountain.”

“We debated about where to build for five years,” Cindy says. Her eyes twinkle.

“I guess you can tell who won,” Craig says. He grins sheepishly at Cindy. “Anyway, the frogs enjoy it. You should hear them in the spring.”

We approach a green farm gate near the house. I get a good view of the vegetable garden I’d first noticed through the back windows of the house. We pass through the gate. There are flowers and hostas planted here, and pretty birdhouses and feeders. Mary Leigh remarks on a small headstone among the flowers.

“Our Emma and Lily Garden,” Cindy says. “Two of our pets are buried here.”

There are a variety of conifers where we’re walking now. We’re in the Pines destination, and most are native to the region. The contrast of their color, size, bark and foliage is fascinating. Various Japanese maples are scattered among them. Craig stoops and brushes the needles of a low-growing conifer the size and shape of a basketball.

“This little guy? A native of Hungary,” he says. “It’s a mature plant. Only grows about an inch a year. We’ve planted a real hodgepodge.”

“We have more than seventy types of Japanese maple, somewhere in the twenties for different types of pine and more than twenty types of cryptomeria,” Cindy says.

“There’s no irrigation, and we like to grow organically, so what we plant has to be hardy and sustainable,” Craig says. “All the magnolias, for example, are native species.”

A cardinal perches atop one of the pines.

“We see remarkable bird migrations,” Craig says. “You know rose-breasted grosbeaks, how pretty they are? One evening there must have been 200 of them in a flock. Right here. It was unbelievable. So we take into account the birds when we do our planting. And, of course, the deer. They bed down by the Frog Pond all the time. So we put up stakes to make sure bucks rubbing their antlers won’t girdle a new tree.”

We stop by a large bush, 15–20 feet tall.

“Witch hazel,” Cindy says. “There are tiny white fruits at the base of the leaves as early as February. They have this delicate cinnamon scent. The bush comes into full bloom in the fall. We planted it next to our daughter’s bedroom window because she loves the fragrance.”

As we top the brow of the hill on the entrance side of the house, we see an aerated pond below us, in the dell. Near it are big willow oaks, cryptomeria, Japanese maples, hostas, stone pathways. As we approach, I spy a small metal sculpture with wings next to a wooden bench. By the tiny creek feeding the pond, I see another winged figure fashioned in glass. There are gnomes carved in wood and whimsically painted birdhouses.

“The Pond and Fairy Garden,” Craig says. “Cindy’s creation. There are all sorts of turtles in the pond. I can scatter some pellets, if you want to see them feed?”

I shake my head, “No.” I’m enjoying the quietude.

Craig points out a couple of Japanese maples.

“These are pretty unusual,” he said. “This is Acer griseum, paperback maple, and here, Acer circinatum, vine maple.”

A few more steps along the stone path we arrive at our last destination, the Swings at Willow Oak Tree. It’s cool here in the shade, not far from the pond. Tranquil. My wife, Mary Leigh, flies, arms and legs akimbo, in one of the swings Craig has suspended by thick ropes from the limb of an oak. She smiles and smiles, like a little girl. Cindy and I are sitting on a wooden bench, watching. The sensation that came over me in Cindy’s and Craig’s house returns. I feel I’m sitting in a place prepared for me — for us — over a long period of time. Nineteen years, to be specific.

The shadows in the woods deepen. The plash of water in the pond is gentle, soothing. I hear a towhee call from the trees across the gravel drive.

I look at Craig, who’s sitting on another bench. We smile at each other.

“People always like the swings,” Craig says. “I tell them, ‘Breathe deep, and be free.’”  OH

Ross Howell Jr. lives “on the artsy side” of Fisher Park, Greensboro, with his wife, Mary Leigh, a public relations professional specializing in home and garden; a geriatric English cocker spaniel, Pinot; and two rescued pit bulls, Sam and Elly.

The Happy House in the Woods

A quiltist and master gardener custom-create their ideal home in the lively woods of Summerfield

By Annie Ferguson   •   photographs by Amy Freeman

Think of Ken and Judi Bastion as two artists in the woods, living in a home that radiates with their love of design, surrounded by wild turkeys, foxes, deer, eagles and rabbits.

If you build it, they will (still) come. Truer words were never spoken when it comes to the animals that share the space around the custom home the Bastions created with love — from the inside out.

“It’s great for wildlife-viewing,” says Ken. “Every Memorial Day a snapping turtle lays her eggs, digging a very large hole,” says Judi.

Ken, a retired environmental health and safety engineer who graduated from the Boston’s Massachusetts College of Art and Design, volunteers as an extension master gardener at the Guilford County Cooperative Extension. With a bachelor’s degree in theater from State University of New York and a master’s in art administration from Golden Gate University in San Francisco, Judi demonstrates her design talents in her quilting studio and in shows with Greensboro’s Gate City Quilt Guild and Cary’s Professional Art Quilters Alliance. Combining their love of the outdoors and their passion for art and design, the Bastions have created a haven for wildlife and a unique and colorful two-story house on a 2.5-acre wooded lot near the shores and walking trails of Lake Higgins. “We designed from the inside out, so it functioned the way we wanted it to,” says Judi, who spent two-and-a-half years designing the house with Ken.

As someone who has loved the outdoors ever since his mother took him out in the snow in a stroller, Ken knows you have to roll with the punches when it comes to nature and planning your landscape. The couple has had to take into account not only the water course that cuts across their land into the lake but also the climate in the South where the humidity and heat are more of an issue than in his native New England. To create a landscape you can enjoy in any season, Ken has selected a range of plants — red cone flowers (Echinacea purpurea in Sombrero Salsa Red), a hardy long flowering and easy to grow perennial flower; autumn fern (Dryopteris erythrosora in Brilliance), a large feathery evergreen fern with a beautiful copper tone in the spring; Raywood’s Weeping Blue Ice Cypress (Cupressus glabra in Raywood’s Weeping), an energetic wild and shaggy evergreen tree with a strong blue cast.

Ken’s volunteer work helping educate the public about planting and growing has helped inform his planning of the landscape: “It was really important to have the property be a blank canvas when we were scouting out places to build. Other things to consider are how you move through the spaces and how plants move through spaces. You have to be very good at imagining or drawing models to get an idea of how it’ll look,” he says. “Finding out what the deer like to eat was key, and we’re still in a running battle with raccoons,” Ken explains. “They dig for grubs creating a trench that makes it look as though a small bulldozer went through our garden.”

Ken and Judi point out some of their strategies for coexisting with nature as we walk along a long gravel driveway leading to a white-and-teal trimmed house and free-standing garden workshop with an attached pergola built with Cypress sourced from the North Carolina Coast.

As we enter the main entrance on the side of the house, a striking foyer gives the visitor a first glimpse of the kaleidoscope of colors on the walls of the home. “When I first walked in after the paint job, I thought it looked like a Jamaican restaurant! The painters called it ‘the happy house,’” Ken says. “But we only had to adjust the shade of one of the yellows to match the vision we had for the place.”

If you look up in the soaring foyer, you’ll see stained glass windows with a quilt-inspired design, one leading into a guest bedroom and one leading to Judi’s custom quilting studio.

As a quiltist (someone who blends art and quilting), Judi has been spending a lot of time recently in her studio, which is perfectly designed for of the three quilt production phases: design, construction and finishing. Each takes up different spaces, supplies and materials. The studio, featuring a custom table with a measuring grid atop and specially designed storage areas in addition to a large supply room, would be the envy of quilters, or any craftsperson for that matter.

Hardwood floors throughout the house give it the rustic feeling befitting its location, but the abundance of light through the home’s many windows (in addition to the cheery colors) give it a beach house vibe, reminiscent of the house Judi’s family had along the Rhode Island coast. The couple also made sure they had plenty of wall space and built-in shelving to display art from family in Maine, as well as from local artists.

The Bastions bought a clawfoot tub, which sits in the master bath near a short wall inlaid with seashells and river stones. For the kitchen: A sink with porcelain surfaces on both sides makes dishwashing almost a pleasure. The pieces came from the Preservation Greensboro shop and add just the right amount of old-time character to this new construction. “Believe it or not, Ken, one day we’ll be old,” Judi says with a wry smile as she explains the kitchen design that includes deep drawers to store plates and pans. The drawer that holds plates has a strategic peg system, keeping the different size dishes in order.

“We’re already there.” Ken responds.

Thoughtful details and adornments from the Bastions’ life together appear throughout their home, such as a whale vertebra on the staircase landing. Washed up on the Rhode Island shore many years ago, it had been in Judi’s grandfather’s house ever since she could remember.

The house has an abundance of windows and a patio for viewing wildlife and Ken’s meticulously cared for garden.

Above a large window in the den hangs a panoramic photograph of single shots that were pieced together. Ken’s father, a U.S. Army photographer, took the photos from the top of the Eiffel Tower in 1945 and 1946. He’d originally joined as a paratrooper, but due to an injury was placed into the photographic corps. Ken’s father also photographed the Nuremberg trials. The younger Bastion recalls growing up among his father’s photos of infamous Nazis such as Hermann Göring and Rudolf Hess at the trials.

Also hanging in the den is a framed certificate that belonged to Judi’s father. Dated July 7, 1937 it commemorates his transition from lowly Pollywog to Shellback or Son of Neptune for crossing the Equator during his service on a destroyer — which, by the way, took part in the U.S. Navy’s search for Amelia Earhart.

As talented as Ken and Judi are, they did have help with the design and building of the house in 2009. They worked with Buck Nichols of E.S. Nichols Builder, who was very flexible and worked hand-in-hand with them as the house evolved. Nichols also encouraged the Bastions to keep an open mind as the house took shape, sensing that the couple might discover unexpected ways to use various aspects of their home.

“Buck is a real craftsman,” Judi says. “He was with us before the lot was even prepped. He and his crew are amazing workers, and they understand that it’s the details that make a difference. Buck’s homes are built well, and he works with local people and sources materials locally.”

Like many things in life, meeting Nichols seemed to be the work of providence. The Bastions were living in The Cardinal neighborhood after migrating to Greensboro from Maine in 2004 for the warmer weather and Judi’s teaching career. “The winter of our last year in Maine included two solid weeks of sub-zero temperatures during the day, 4-plus feet of snow and winds in excess of 50 mph.” Ken recalls. “It was the final straw debunking our belief that there was anything ‘romantic’ about long, cold, dark northern winters.”

Free of the harsh climate and living in Greensboro, the couple started searching for a secluded yet convenient lot to build on. Judi was working at a local Montessori school where she came to know Buck’s twins. First she met his wife and, eventually, Nichols himself. “The Bastions were so creative. We just had a really fun time with the whole process,” Nichols says. Judi bought stained glass pieces from Paynes [Stained] Glass, a company in Pittsboro that sources pieces from old churches in England. Buck’s team added the casement and installed them as two separate windows opening from the guest bedroom and Judi’s studio at the top of the two-story foyer. The builders also had Judy lay out the stones and shells in a pattern she wanted for the inlaid piece in the master bath. The builder and his crew fashioned all of the cabinetry throughout the house as well as the built-in shelving in the open living area. Nothing was production made. “We used as many honest materials as we could,” Nichols says, “like the metal roof and wood siding.”

The E.S. Nichols team is pretty small, and Buck says he has a love of history. “I really like to build in style whether it’s traditional, classical or vernacular. We try to keep the bones of our houses consistent with historical precedent. We don’t want to misappropriate detailing,” Nichols explains. “Most of what we try to do is actually editing. It’s a better idea is to edit a solid composition as you go along, as opposed to creating bits and pieces that don’t really form a cohesive composition.”

It’s all about being constantly conscious of design as the house takes shape and evolves, which only comes from a homeowner/building team appreciative of an artistic vision. As Judi works in her studio overlooking the woods, finishing up a twelve-quilt series based on photographs, she has a proposal out to several venues to house them. “My quilts travel more than I do,” she quips. (Her work can be seen on October 14 and 15 at Greensboro’s Gate City Quilt Guild show.) Her love of quilting started when she was living in Seattle thirty years ago. Judi’s sister gave her a box with quilting basics and supplies. “I signed up for a sampler class to see how it worked and haven’t looked back since,” she says. “The teacher was Marsha McCloskey, who is a very well-known quilter I ran into years later at an annual quilt show.”

Judi is also a photographer and is working on combining the two crafts more in the future. By the end of the year Judi plans to spend all of her time working on her art. She does, however, plan to take time off to attend the National Folk Festival this month in Greensboro.

“We went in 2015 and loved it, and we have friends from Maine joining us this year,” Judi says. “Many times my inspiration for quilts comes from folk music. I also enjoy that there’s such a rich history in quilting back to the Underground Railroad and the Civil War.”

Clearly, the Bastions’ have an affinity for the folksier things in life, as exemplified by their wooded retreat — where the two happily toil away on their beloved works of art.  OH

Talent in the folk arts skips a generation in Annie Ferguson’s family, but she won’t entirely have to do without — her mother promises to bequeath her handmade quilts to Annie and her siblings.

There’s more to The National Folk Festival than music

By Ogi Overman

The primary draw for the multicultural The National Folk Festival, held in downtown Greensboro September 9–11, is the lineup of eclectic, upper-echelon musical acts, but as festival-goers discovered last year, much of the event’s appeal was found off-stage. The talent and creativity that is on display between stages, in the streets and in the North Carolina Folklife Area (adjacent to the Melvin Municipal Office Building) adds exponentially to the sense of discovery and wonderment.

So, as folks meander from stage to stage, if they want the full Folk Festival experience, they are advised to pause at many of the exhibits, demonstrations, interactive displays, and even a couple of parades so as to soak it all in. We are the world in microcosm for three days — let’s explore as much of it as possible.

Below are a dozen of the between-stage delights that await.

• Alberti Flea Circus — Patrons of MerleFest will know this act — or at least their kids will — as they have been regulars there almost from its inception. The Winston-Salem–based troupe, headed by Jim Alberti, was founded and brought to the United States by his great-great uncle in the 1880s. The flea circus tradition dates back to 16th-century Europe, yet there are only a handful of performers keeping it alive today.

• Bouncing Bulldogs — This team of 140 youngsters ages 7–19 has won the World Jump Rope Championships for the past five years. Based in the Triangle, the group was founded in 1986 by Ray Frederick. This is serious stuff, as evidenced by the 200 other jumpers from age 4 and up on the waiting list who participate in the club program.

• Chankas of Peru — The Peruvian dance troupe carries on the ancient scissors dance, an acrobatic ritual dance indigenous to the southern Andes. The name “scissors dance” refers to a pair of polished iron rods held in the dancers’ right hands that add a percussive accompaniment to the intricate steps.

• Chico Simoes — This master puppeteer began studying the Brazilian art form in 1981, forming his own puppet theater in 1985, on his way to becoming an international goodwill ambassador. The Brazilian tradition can be traced to the Italian 16th-century commedia dell’arte, and this Portuguese native is one if its most notable practitioners.

• Dancing On Air Crew — At the heart of hip-hop culture is breakdancing — or “breaking” as it’s now known — and this crew of eight “b-boys” ages 17–26 rivals any troupe around. Hailing from Charleston, South Carolina, DOA has been drawing crowds throughout the Southeast since they formed in 2010.

• Echelman Sculpture — The centerpiece of LeBauer Park is the magnificent sculpture by the world-renowned Janet Echelman. All during the festival, volunteers will be underneath the colorful, tent-like piece, explaining what it represents and its significance as Greensboro’s signature artwork.

• Ethnic Cuisines and Cookery — This area features cooking demonstrations from chefs hailing from all parts of the globe. Many of them are first-generation Americans, providing a sensory link to the people and places they left behind. Expect to find such distinctive dishes as papaya salad from Laos, Egyptian koshary and Salvadoran corn tamales steamed in banana leaves, not to mention good ole’ North Carolina barbecue.

• Joe Bruchac — A Native American storyteller with a Ph.D in comparative literature, Bruchac has authored more than 120 works of both fiction and nonfiction, most centered around Native American themes. He is a member of the Abenaki, an Algonquin-speaking tribe from New England and Eastern Canada.

• Montagnard Weavers — One of the main attractions of the North Carolina Folklife Area will be these Vietnamese-Americans, many of whom settled in Greensboro after helping U.S. Armed Forces during the Vietnam War. They have been recognized the world over for their intricate and colorful silk designs and patterns, produced on the looms used by their ancestors.

• Paperhand Puppet Intervention — Opening the festival will be this contingent based in Saxapahaw, each carrying giant owls, green goddesses and dozens of other magical and mythical creatures. It is fun with a purpose, as its mission of celebrating humanity and “shifting the paradigm to more compassion and justice so people and the creatures we share the planet with can survive.”

• Steam Locomotives — Engineers from the North Carolina Railroad Company will drive at least two steam engines from the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer, North Carolina, each restored to mint condition as they were in the 1800s. The locomotives will be on display on the tracks near the J. Douglas Galyon Depot and remain for the duration of the festival.

• UNCG Art Truck — Reminiscent of the old bookmobiles, students and professors at UNCG have created this eye-catching vehicle, full of various art exhibitions and projects. It was transformed from an 18-foot U-Haul truck into this mobile museum.  OH

Andy Zimmerman’s and ArtsGreensboro’s 

mini-folk fest on Lewis Street

By Grant Britt

Crossing the barrier is a leap of faith. Marked with flashing red lights, clanging bells and a metal arm that bars your way, it divides the town. Historically and metaphorically, crossing the tracks means going from a prosperous part of town to an economically deprived one. But if Andy Zimmerman has his way, the railroad crossing that separates his West Lewis Street empire from the rest of downtown Greensboro will no longer be a barrier, but a gateway for the Lewis street homesteaders he calls “the creative class on the other side of the tracks.”

If you haven’t ventured down to lower South Elm in the past year, you won’t recognize it. Not too long ago, Lewis Street looked like a slum, the buildings shabby, derelicts leaning drunkenly on one another, barely able to keep from collapsing in the street. Zimmerman’s interest was piqued two and a half years ago after he had just sold off a string of watercentric businesses including Confluence Water Sports, Wilderness Systems and Legacy Paddlesports when a friend asked his advice about buying the building at 117 West Lewis, formerly an antique shop. But Zimmerman’s friend only wanted advice. “And I said, ‘Do you mind if I buy it, ’cause I like it.’ It was just, ah, I don’t have anything to do, let me buy this building,” Zimmerman adds, breaking into a laugh. He hung out a sign hoping to entice entrepreneurs to put up a restaurant or bar in the space and a month later signed a deal with Gibbs Brewing Company. Greensboro Distilling Company has begun making small-batch spirits right next door. He planned to have his office in the other half of the building but two weeks later, Joey Adams, president of the board of directors of the Forge, a makers space for community hands-on craftsmen, called and explained what a makers place entailed, and an hour later they had a deal.

On a guided tour of the properties, Zimmerman is a genial host, casually dressed in shorts and a T-shirt and sandals. Everybody knows him. He can’t go ten feet without somebody wanting a word, and he deals with all of it on the fly, calling people by name, taking care of the problems with a word or two as he keeps moving. “Welcome to The Forge,” he says as we pass through the outside doors with two sledgehammers as door openers. Seconds later, we’re confronted by two big box wrenches mounted as handles on the inside doors. What was once the Flying Anvil is unrecognizable, inside and out. The raggedy chain link and barbed-wire fence around the property is gone, replaced by what Zimmerman proudly describes as “a cool, artsy-type fence.” Inside, the place has been gutted, re-imagined as a hands-on learning place for trades. “I spent too much money fixing it up,” Zimmerman admits. “But I get a different kind of return with this place; it’s really created some neat businesses job opportunities and a place for retired people, or for the unconnected, as we like to say.”

We pass one member operating a laser-engraving machine. His attitude embodies the spirit of the Forge. Asked how it’s going, the man tells Zimmerman that he’s not getting all the power he needs because of a part he’s waiting on, but “instead of moping, either I give this stuff up or get back at it, so I’m just back at it. Thank you for supporting us,” he says as Zimmerman pats him on the back and we move on.

Another Forge stalwart is Joe Tiska, head of machining, who worked at P. Lorillard for thirty-three years. When he retired, the company gave him these two enormous milling machines on which Tiska is happy to teach anybody who wants to learn more about metalworking. “Somebody wants to try welding or machine shop, they come in here,” Joe says. “Some people just come and get hooked on it.”  Zimmerman points out that “this is a lot less intimidating than down at GTCC.”

The last tour stop is Zimmerman’s office, aka HQ Greensboro. “In 1898, this was Lewis [Bros.] Wagon Company, next door where my offices are, was a livery stable,” Zimmerman says.  “When I bought it, it was falling down.” It’s beautifully restored, with 300-year-old pine floors salvaged from a building near Revolution Mill and two levels of twenty-five office spaces filled to capacity.

Zimmerman’s office door is camouflaged as a bookcase. Prominently displayed is the book and CD combination, We Are The Music Makers: Preserving The Soul Of America’s Music, produced by Timothy and Denise Duffy. (“I’m trying to help him market his photography,” Zimmerman says.)

But as impressive as this place is, we’re here to discuss Zimmerman’s plans for a local stage for the National Folk Festival. Dubbed the Lewis Street Amphitheatre, the area outside the former Flying Anvil, now the Forge, features seating for 300–500 and standing room for 800. The ambitious project will debut as a stage hosting local acts during the National Folk Festival. An architect’s drawing describes the outdoor area as “an urban event space in a park-like setting to enhance this gateway to downtown.”

ArtsGreensboro President and CEO Tom Philion got together with Zimmerman to jumpstart the project. “Last year we did “Songs of Hope and Glory” with Laurelyn [Dossett] and Rhiannon [Giddens] on Thursday night as a pre-celebration event at the Railyards. Friday night, in Hamburger Square, we had doby, kind of a late-night thing outside of Natty Greene’s.” Philion describes the reaction as “fantastic, so we were thinking, what are we gonna do this year?”  Philion says one of the things that became a consideration this year was how to focus on the Elm Street corridor and more specifically the South End, in terms of introducing people to all the neat stuff that’s going on down there.
But the tracks turned out to be more than just an economic barrier. “The sanctioned Folk Festival people said ‘no, there are issues with having events on the other side of the tracks,’” Zimmerman says. “One of the issues was making sure it was safe for people to cross railroad tracks. And I certainly get that, but then you say, there’s cross-gates, and there’s whistles, and there’s lights and all of that, but I’m not one to take no for an answer,” he says. “There’s gotta be a win-win situation where the loving can be spread to the other side of downtown Greensboro.”

Philion and ArtsGeeensboro jumped into the love fest. “We had a conversation with Andy Zimmerman, and thru Andy, with a lot of the merchants at that end of town, decided to do a new stage Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday late afternoon,” Philion says. “After all, it’s an activity that draws people ’cause they hear the music. Far enough off the footprint so people would have to say, ‘Hey let’s go check that out.’ Idea is to have fun and draw people to south end, introduce them to that community.”

Estimates of the crowd for the Folk Festival’s second year in town are running 130,000 or more. “It’s a community effort because we really want everybody to benefit from the festival coming to town,” Philion says. The additional local stage will run later than the Folk Festival on Friday and Saturday night. “The Folk Festival pretty much shuts down around 10 p.m.,” Philion says. “This stage will give people who aren’t done yet, who want more, to move down and see what’s going on down there in the South End.”

Zimmerman is cooking up more treats from his end as well. “We’ve got a good collection of people down here, creative, artsy-craftsy musicians, so we’re also going to be lining up our own music as well as utilizing Tom’s resources.”

“A lot of my development work downtown has been happy collisions,” Zimmerman says. “Now I’m much more calculating in my development work and planning. Once upon a time, he says his way of doing thing was ready fire, aim. “Now it’s a lot more ‘ready, aim, fire.’ But a lot of it at the beginning, it just felt good, so I did it.”  OH

A Remembrance of Greensboro’s music scene

By Jim Clark

In this month of festivals when the playbills are filled with the faces of John Coltrane and scores of jazz and folk musicians headed our way, and as Jaime Coggins once again sets the stage for the Tate Street Festival, it is not surprising that a quarter-century-old debate should reemerge in the pubs and eateries of College Hill: Who really is the face of Tate Street music?

And without fail, someone will always answer quite definitively, “That would just have to be Emmylou Harris.”

But for many of us who have long called Tate Street home, these are fighting words, evoking as much passion as the geopolitics of Southern barbecue sauces and rubs.

And yes, I’ve always had a dog in this fight — well, actually three.

Now please understand that I, like most of us connected to Tate Street or UNCG, am right proud Emmylou Harris took her first steps toward stardom in our neighborhood. And we admire too her leaving behind the stage of what was then Aycock Auditorium, where she played leading roles in The Tempest and in The Dancing Donkey, to cross the street and begin singing at the Red Door at a time when it was taboo for campus women to even go down to Tate Street.

At the Red Door, she was paid $10 a night to sing, plus all the beer she could drink — and she didn’t even drink beer at all.

Some of the Red Door patrons weren’t quite sure what to make of her. One of them was Ted Keaton, longtime Greensboro musician and former keyboardist/vocalist for Kallabash. “She was this nice, quiet hippie girl. We really never had any idea she would go so far,” he recalls. 

But surprised by her success or not, fans have given Emmylou an enthusiastic welcome whenever she has returned to Greensboro.

In April 1976, ten years after leaving the Gate City, she returned to give a concert at the old Piedmont Sports Arena. The Greensboro Chamber of Commerce along with local promoter Bill Kennedy had the day declared Emmylou Harris Day, complete with a birthday party at the old Hilton on Market Street. When she leaned over to cut the cake, her long hair kept spilling over onto the icing, so she asked fans to hold her hair back for her, and several hurried to her aid.

Then in June 1997, she returned again to give a concert at the Carolina Theatre and the Greensboro News & Record review gushed over her performance: “Standing among her quite casually attired comrades, this beautiful lady stood out like a gray-tipped rose in her modest, full-length, maroon-colored skirt. The gold-inlaid walls of the majestic Carolina Theatre were a perfect setting as the angelic voice of Emmylou Harris soared toward the heavens”

So yes, she is definitely one of our musical angels, but the face of Tate Street music after little more than a year singing there a half century ago? No way.

The first face that comes to my mind when I think of Tate Street music is, of course, folksinger/songwriter and poet Bruce Piephoff, who got his start there around 1970, and where he did, as he puts it, “an apprenticeship for ten years: “Back then there was a lot of playing in kitchens, and sleeping on couches,” he remembers. Now with more than twenty-three CDs to his credit, Piephoff’s “Tate Street Blues” defines the spirit of those days when the street was known as Tate-Ashbury.

Young man walking down the street at night

Young man, he’s lookin’ quite a fright

He got the Tate St. Blues

He got nothing to lose

He got the Tate St. Blues

Up all night pickin’ in the kitchen

Sleeping on the couch

Eatin’ fried chicken

He got the Tate St. Blues

He got nothing to lose

He got the Tate St. Blues

(Words & music by Bruce Piephoff, Piephoff Music, ASCAP)

And, of course, then there was Psyche Wanzandae, one of the founding members of the Truth and Rights One Love Reggae Band. In the early ’70s I spent many nights picking him up on Tate Street and driving him to various Greensboro clubs, where a high point of one of his acts was setting himself on fire. I was there the night of his clothing malfunction when the flames on his wristbands refused to go out on their own. Born Terence Quinton Lindsay, Psyche died last year. You can see some of his contributions to the musical scene near and far by watching “Celebrating the Life of Psyche Wanzandae,” available on YouTube.

Someday when the definitive history of Tate Street music is written, probably by the likes of an Ogi Overman, a Grant Britt or a Billy Ingram, there will emerge a panoply of musical faces and places, including Amelia Leung, who opened Hong Kong House in 1971 and who nourished the bodies and souls of so many of the Tate Street musicians for twenty-eight years, including Bruce Piephoff, who would take out the trash in exchange for a meal. Surely there will be a chapter on Aliza Gottlieb of the subterranean Aliza’s Café, opened in 1972, later renamed the Nightshade Café. And, of course, Friday’s, where R.E.M. and Eugene Chadbourne performed and where Henry Rollins from Black Flag rolled across broken glass on the floor. But for now, we have only brief snippets of this rich history, represented, for example, in that fine 15-minute tribute to Tate Street music, Ian Pasquini’s “Tate Street That Great Street,” which went up on YouTube last year. The video appropriately concludes with Bruce Piephoff’s “Tate Street Blues,” with him singing a couple of lines about “Sittin’ on the wall in front of the Hong Kong House / Listenin’ to Electro playin’ Son House.”

Ah yes, Electro, the Tate Street bluesman who twenty-three years ago was literally supposed to be the face of Tate Street music and as a result has become the center of one of Greensboro’s longest running urban legends.

Electro, who has always described himself as “just a hard-core ’60s hippie.” Born Harry Wilton Perkins Jr., after a stint in the U.S. Air Force as a radar technician, Electro arrived on Tate Street in 1969, where he started playing slide guitar. And, yes, he pretty much lived . . . on the street. (These days he is living in a trailer in Roxboro.)

A quarter of a century later, when a group of Tate Street merchants selected communication and design student Michael Crouch to do a mural on the wall at Tate and Walker Avenue, the mural was to feature O.Henry, General Greene, and originally Electro. But some of the merchants objected to glorifying one of the street people, so Electro was supposedly replaced by Emmylou Harris. However, the legend goes, when her handlers heard about this, they objected, and Emmylou was replaced by Dolley Madison, who eventually made it onto the final version of the mural (which, alas, was painted over a few years back).

Crouch at the time of the controversy said he really wanted Electro on the mural, because he was “such a landmark.”

Now a marketing specialist at Guilford College, Crouch insists Electro was only on the planning stages of the mural and was never actually painted on the wall, although many Tate Street denizens still swear they remember the image of Electro on the mural. (Back in those lazy, hazy days we saw lots of things that may or may not have been there.) Crouch did sneak in the words “Inspiration by Electro” at the bottom of the mural.

And, Crouch adds, “I have to re-emphasize that Emmylou was never a part of the mural project in any way — not in my sketches, not in my proposal, not in the concept [or] execution in any way. I hope I have cleared that up; I would hate to see that misconception perpetuated in print. No offense to Emmylou, she simply was not part of my generation’s understanding of the Tate Street area or its history.”

I wish we had known neither Electro’s image (nor Emmylou’s) was ever actually on that wall. As Bruce Piephoff sings in his “Tate Street Blues,” lots of folks sat on Tate Street “waiting for the night,” when interesting things were bound to happen. On some moonless nights, after UNCG had planted thorn bushes on Hippie Hill to keep the street people away, Also Aswell (aka Chuck Alston) dressed in his cosmic ray deflector garb would lead forays unto the hill where he’d plant thorn bush — killing vines. And on other darkened nights bell-bottomed Johnny Appleseeds would sow marijuana seeds among the thorny tares in a sarcastic nod to UNCG as a bastion of higher education. And on still other such nights, there were those who argued for sneaking down to the mural with paint remover where — not to take anything away from Emmylou or Dolley — they wanted to carefully rub away the face of Dolley and then the face of Emmylou to reveal the face of Electro, shining there for all to see the way it should have all along. OH

Jim Clark, the editor of The Greensboro Sun in the 1970s, was one of the organizers of the first Tate Street Festival in 1973. He now directs UNCG’s MFA Creative Writing Program.

Globalizing Greensboro Folk

By Grant Britt

Greensboro has a brand-new music festival. Most everything about it has been good so far, and it looks to keep getting better over time. The only problem is with the name. Putting the term “Folk” in front of “Festival” still is off-putting for some people. Folks who attended the first one know, that it’s not about old hippies with acoustic guitars blowing in the wind.

The point is, you can’t easily define in a single word what the National Folk Festival is, and its organizers don’t want you to.

If you had to use one word to describe it, try “diversity.” Participants come in all genres, from all over the world. Trying to put the artists in boxes not only makes them uncomfortable, it’s misleading to the audience. If festival-goers arrive expecting one thing and get another because of the definition used to describe a particular artist, they go away confused or unhappy.

The best solution? Educate the audience and expand their perception of folk. Even though folk music almost always originates as regional music, its influences are global.

The folk music label first surfaced in the mid-1800s, but since the beginning of man’s footprints on the Earth, every tribe, every group of huddled masses has always had a style of music of their own. As the globe shrank, the music spread, cross-pollinating cultures, influencing regional music.     

Appalachian folk music leaned heavily on Scottish and English ballads. And even bluegrass’ main instrument, the banjo, is of African origin. And look at the Carter Family. Although they’re responsible for contributing a sheaf of original songs to the American folk music canon, founder and patriarch A.P. was also a song collector, traveling around with black guitarist Lesley Riddle accumulating songs to Carterize with Mother Maybelle’s distinctive flat-picking style.

Many musical historians put Pete Seeger up as the godfather of folk, but African-American folksinger Josh White was writing protest songs and civil rights anthems in the 1930s while Seeger was still a young ’un. White became a confidant and friend to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and wife Eleanor,  serving as Roosevelt’s overseas ambassador. In fact, the Presidential couple became the godparents of White’s son, Josh Jr. White performed at Roosevelt’s inauguration in ’41, the first African-American artist invited for a command performance. The president was so impressed with White that he invited him to his chambers to discuss racism, and White confided that he had written two songs, “Uncle Sam Says,” and “Low Cotton,” that addressed the president directly. He was referring to Roosevelt as Uncle Sam, asking him to change how blacks in the Army at Fort Dix were treated. (The song was inspired by the ordeals his brother had to endure there.) 1933’s “Low Cotton” concerned the plight of poor cotton pickers who were still little more than slaves at the time, and appealed to the president for help.

White paid a heavy price for his songs and ideals, blacklisted for nearly twenty years for being a communist and subversive from 1950–63, when President Kennedy got him on CBS Television’s civil rights special, Dinner with the President.

But one man, Elektra records founder Jac Holzman, was willing to give White a chance to earn some money in spite of the blacklisting, backing what would become White’s seminal album, Josh At Midnight, recorded over two nights in a converted Manhattan Church in 1955. Recently re-released on Ramseur Records, founded and run by The Avett Brothers and Carolina Chocolate Drops manager Dolph Ramseur, the record shows what an influence White had on generations of folkies including Peter Paul and Mary’s Peter Yarrow, a protegé of White’s. Harry Belafonte acknowledged his influence, as did Eartha Kitt and Lena Horne. White’s vocal and guitar styles are reflected closely in the honeyed sound and pristine picking of Eric Bibb, whose father, Leon, was also a folk pioneer blacklisted as well for his outspoken views. Like countless folk artists before and since, White worked from a large arsenal of material in the public domain, including prison work songs, spirituals and music with European origins.    

Even folk legend Woody Guthrie, who wrote Americana’s anthem “This Land Is Your Land,” as well as hundreds of other songs, also adapted and covered music from blues, country and gospel. 

All that paved the way for the folk revival that bloomed in the ’50s with well- scrubbed collegians in matching fancy shirts warbling clean versions of the old standards. A little later, a passel of not-so-clean-cut longhairs blowin’ in the wind snarled over a new wave of protest and once again revived the old stuff, hurling it out for another global spin.

All this is a long-winded way of saying that the term “folk” shouldn’t make you pigeonhole the music that will echo up and down Greensboro’s downtown this month. Open up your ears and your mind and soak up the flavors drifting in from all over the planet.

Here are a few 2016 National Folk Festival performers to whet your appetite and expand your horizons:   

The Bahamas Junkanoo Revue is a mind-bending mashup of New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians lookalikes, brass bands and Caribbean rhythms cavorting in the streets for a feather strewn, whistle-tootling, talking drum celebration that leaves onlookers no choice but to surrender to the beat and prance along. The Bahamas Junkanoo Revue began in ’93 as an offshoot of Miami’s legendary Sunshine Junkanoo Band, formed in ’57.

Samba Mapangala & Orchestra Virunga is one of the best examples of globalized folk music at the festival. As far back as the ’30s, Afro-Cuban and Haitian music mingled with traditional Congolese tunes, first dubbed rumba, now known as soukous. Mapalanga mixes in ’50s style–dance music from Kenya called benga for a lilting, upbeat music that tickles your feet and warms your soul.

Mangum & Company’s usual gig is at Charlotte’s Mother United House Of Prayer for All People. But the brassy call to worship is so strong that the band regularly takes the trombone choir to the streets to spread the gospel to those who don’t make it to a house of prayer (for any people) on Sunday. The shout band replaces the traditional organ in church worship services, the brassy hymns of praise stirring up feelings that make your whole body vibrate with the stirring rhythms.

Jeffery Broussard & the Creole Cowboys will rock your world. Whether it’s the rawer sound of the button accordion or the rocking zydeco pumping from his piano squeezebox, Frilot Cove, Louisiana native Brousard’s relentless beat will having you doing the crippled pony step out on the dance floor to Cajun and Zydeco dance tunes. Once again, it’s a global mix, handed down from their French ancestors, remaining somewhat more traditional on the Cajun side, with some country mixed in, and the Creole side seasoned with R&B and blues for a spicier gumbo.

That’s just a small sampling of the global flavors awaiting you at the 2016 National Folk Festival. Your best course is to create your own menu, a feast that you need to stretch out over the three-day celebration to fully savor the best meal you ever had, served up hot and ready on your own stomping grounds.  OH

Grant Britt is a frequent contributor to O.Henry