Source: Piedmont Council of the Arts

Is Charlottesville doing enough to market itself as a regional destination for patrons of the arts? What else can be done to ensure that the visual, performing and literary arts not only survive, but thrive? Those are just a couple of the questions explored during the second Creative Conversation organized by the Piedmont Council of the Arts.

Representatives of various groups were invited to Charlottesville’s CitySpace meeting room on the Downtown Mall to discuss the topic “Marketing Charlottesville as a Creative Community.”  The event was held on January 13, 2009 in the City Space Meeting Room at the Charlottesville Community Design Center.  We’ve condensed the two hour discussion into a 45 minute podcast.

The participants were:

• Mary Beth Aungier  The Paramount Theater
• Allie Baer   Convention and Visitors Bureau (CACVB)
• Nancy Bass   Local Artist
• Olivia Branch   UVA Engineering Foundation
• Elizabeth Breeden  Art in Place
• Wendy Brown   Center for Nonprofit Excellence
• Erik Curren   American Shakespeare Center
• Chris Engel   Charlottesville Office of Economic Development
• Jane Fisher   Charlottesville Community Design Center
• Liz Flynn   John Paul Jones Arena
• David Hopper   Virginia Film Festival
• Lindsay Howerton  Arts and Cultural Council of Staunton
• Kirby Hutto   Charlottesville Pavilion: Red Light Management
• Annie Jacobs   Albemarle Public Schools
• Rob Jones   Migration: A Gallery
• Dabney Kerr   Consultant: Sagacious Solutions
• Hollie Lee   Charlottesville Office of Economic Development
• Morgan MacKenzie- Perkins Sage Moon Gallery
• Kevin McFadden  Virginia Festival of the Book
• Jane Norris   Charlottesville Daily Progress
• Kyle Redinger   Spicy Bear Media
• Jim Respess   Local Artist
• George Sampson  UVA Arts Administration Program
• Sherri Smith   Lander Creative, Artisans Center of Virginia
• Jessica Thayer   Consultant/Artist Services
• Katharine Vlcek  The Paramount Theater
• Kathryn Wagner  Local Artist
• Lyn Warren   Les Yeux du Monde

I borrowed the format from a profile of the Norfolk State University Spartan Legion that I had done two years earlier for With Good Reason. In the interest of reviving UVA spirits after Saturday’s game, I thought it might be nice to post this here.

What do you think? Has the Marching Band become part of the Scott Stadium experience?

I would like to do a follow-up on this in the future, but of course, there are very few places to sell a story like this. In a perfect world, the Charlottesville Podcasting Network would have some funding source that could be used to support the production of new programming. Perhaps some of this new programming could find its way to the radio.

This second seven and a half minute installment begins with the voice of the late Mitch Van Yahres reading a list of the offenses that could get you a vasectomy or your tubes tied, courtesy of the state. We then hear the voices of two former “patients” of the Virginia Colony for the Epileptic and the Feeble-minded, just north of Lynchburg in Madison Heights. Both live in Lynchburg, and I’m not sure what’s happened to them. When I spoke with them, the resolution expressing the state’s “profound regret” had not yet passed.

Since posting the first story last week, I was contacted by Paul Lombardo, the U.Va historian and bioethicist whose scholarship helped revive academic attention into this chapter of American and Virginia history. Paul tells me he’s writing a book on Buck v. Bell, which will come out this summer. He reminded me that then-Governor Mark Warner apologized for the eugenics era on May 2, 2002, the same day that a historic marker commemorating Carrie Buck was unveiled outside Region 10′s headquarters on Preston Avenue. Pictured on the left is Jesse Meadows, and Paul Lombardo is on the right.

Earlier this year, former Delegate Mitch Van Yahres died. Seven years ago, it was his legislation that helped Virginia kind of apologize. I’m reposting this series I produced in part to honor his legacy, but also because I don’t think it gets mentioned enough. It’s been a while since I’ve heard this, and I’ve come a long way as a producer since then. Still, this series won a regional Edward R. Murrow award for best documentary. I’ll post the other three installments in the days to come.

This project was originally funded by a grant to WVTF Public Radio from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.

Chad Prather, a history teacher at Charlottesville High School, is part of the movement to abolish tracking, and has created a “detracked” class for the 2007-2008 school year. The Charlottesville Podcasting Network’s Michael Strickland spoke with Prather about his class, and how students will be affected by this new style of teaching. Also interviewed were Rick Wellbeloved-Stone, an environmental science teacher at CHS who would prefer the tracking system stay put, and Carol Ann Tomlinson, a Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Virginia who is an international advocate for detracking.

Currently a heated and sensitive topic among school administrations, this piece overviews the tracking system as well as the movement towards detracking, and presents the highly varied opinions teachers have on the issue.

You should always be questioning authority. It isn’t that authority is granted to them from the heavens, they are our representatives, and if they’re not representing us in a way that makes us proud, then they need to be replaced.

-Mike Shea

Trumpeter John D’earthPhoto: U.Va

John D’earth has been a fixture on Charlottesville’s music scene for decades. The trumpeter and his band play a set at Miller’s every Thursday night, and he’s also an instructor at the University of Virginia, playing in the school’s Free Bridge Quintet. So, when First Night Virginia wanted someone to write to score for a piece commemorating the event’s 25th anniversary, they turned to D’earth. I stopped by his studio to find out more. Click here to download the file if you’re reading this through an RSS reader or on cvilleblogs.com. This podcast has two interesting bits of trivia associated with it. The opening music is from the Thompson-D’earth Band’s new album, When the Serpent Flies. This is a track called Second of Many. The second bit of trivia comes at the end of the piece. Don’t be startled by the sound of my 14-month-old daughter Josephine, who tagged along with me to John D’earth’s studio. She was really quiet for most of the interview, but let out a splendid squeal at the very end of the musical selection I was recording. John insisted I leave it in, so I obliged!

This is a first-hand account of an island in Japan called Gunkanjima. In the spring of 2005, I traveled to this island to photograph and explore its history. Gunkanjima was an old coal mining island that holds the highest population density recording in the world. In the 1970′s the island was shut down, leaving behind a ghost town of a once thriving society.