News

Greensboro Farmers Market Makes Valuable Connections with Local Food Locator

Greensboro, NC – The Greensboro Farmers Market (GFM, Inc.) has developed a digest for local food shopping by gathering information from its farmers and prepared food vendors to publish the Local Food Locator. The new online resource published April 2, 2020, aims to connect fresh, nutritionally dense local foods direct to customers. The tool has been refined each week, using feedback from customers and vendors, to create an easier user experience.

During the recent COVID-19 Stay-at-Home mandate, farmers and food producers are finding new ways to connect with their customers, including online stores and pre-ordering options, which allow customers to select from fresh-from-the-field produce, pre-payment options, and choose from pick-up options and/or delivery locations. These changes create safer shopping experiences, with minimal contact between vendors and customers.

This newly refined interface reflects the rapid changes happening in the small business world today; a shift in traditional retail models adding new online capabilities daily, during a time that social distancing and public health is paramount.

“Our Market management team created the Local Food Locator to further simplify buying locally from Market vendors, by reorganizing our directory into familiar shopping categories (i.e. produce, eggs, meats, etc.),” said Lee Mortensen, GFM Executive Director and Market Manager. “Our aim with this locator is to serve as the bridge between the customer and vendor in as much as we can during this disruptive time. Shoppers are also recognizing the benefit of online/pre-order shopping directly from local producers over larger retail venues. Customers value knowing where their food comes and the limited number of channels it goes through before arriving on their plate.”

See the rest on Yes Weekly! >

Cugino Forno will expand to Clemmons

Cugino Forno is planning to open a Clemmons location this spring.

The wood-fired pizza restaurant has signed a lease for 6316 Clemmons Point Drive, next to Abbott's Frozen Custard in the Clemmons Town Center, said co-owner Joseph Ozbey.

Cugino Forno

Ozbey and his cousins, Yilmaz Guver and Adam Adksoy, own two other Cugino Forno locations. They opened their first restaurant in March 2017 at 1160 Revolution Mill Drive in Greensboro. They opened their second in March 2019 at 486 N. Patterson Ave. in the Bailey Power Plant in downtown Winston-Salem.

Ozbey said that construction is getting ready to begin on the 3,500-square-foot space in Clemmons, which is smaller than the 5,800-square-foot Bailey Power Plant space. He hopes to open the newest location in May.

Ozbey said the restaurant will seat about 100 people inside, plus perhaps 60 more on the large patio outside. The restaurant will again use long wooden picnic tables that seat 10 people each to accommodate large groups or encourage community seating.

The menu will be the same as the other Cugino Forno locations with one major exception: The Clemmons restaurant will not sell gelato. “Since there is frozen custard next door, we don’t want to compete with our neighbors. We’re happy to send people next door if they want ice cream," Ozbey said.

Cugino is known for its wood-fired ovens that can cook a pizza in less than two minutes. Cugino doesn’t sell much else besides pizza, just a few salads, cannoli, cake and cupcakes. There will be beer on tap and wine in the Clemmons restaurant, Ozbey said.

Ozbey said customers have been asking for a Clemmons Cugino Forno for some time, but it took the restaurateurs until now to find a suitable location.

“Clemmons is exactly what we’re looking for — a place with a lot of families,” Ozbey said. “But we let our customers tell us where we should go next. At the end of the day, they are our bosses.”

See the article on News & Record >

'We're here to stay.' -- Inside Kontoor Brands' global headquarters in Greensboro

On the Kontoor Brands campus in downtown Greensboro, you'll see constant motion. Most every day of the week, a photoshoot is taking place. During WFMY News 2's recent visit, male models wore shorts and short-sleeved shirts that will debut in the summer.

At the design center at Revolution Mill, employees are preparing for next year.

"I just finished spring 2021 so we're about to start on fall 2021," said Betty Madden, Lee's Vice President of Design.

The staple of Lee and Wrangler designers is the five-pocket jean but their creations go far beyond that.

"We also make jackets, shirts, t-shirts, graphics, non-denim bottoms..." said Madden.

Those creations will be shipped across the globe.

"You can find Wrangler in Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, South America, everywhere," said Vivian Rivetti, the Vice President of Design for Wrangler.

You'll also find Kontoor employees worldwide. It employs 15,000 people with headquarters in Belgium and Hong Kong. Its global headquarters is in Greensboro, North Carolina also known as Jeansboro.

"This was a denim town so we're here and thriving in this community and making sure we are keeping denim alive in Greensboro. It's really fun," said Tom Waldron, Wrangler's Executive Vice President and Global Brand President.

Kontoor was formed when VF moved its headquarters and 85 executive jobs from Greensboro to Colorado. Wrangler and Lee spun off to create Kontoor. Waldron admits the announcement was a surprise.

 "It was shocking for all of us when it came out."

Kontoor has replaced those VF jobs and then some. It's hired more than 200 workers in the Triad including Lee's Executive Vice President and Global Brand President Chris Waldeck.

"I can tell you the city has been absolutely fantastic. The people of Greensboro have really embraced the employees that have moved over," said Waldeck. 

Designers Rivetti and Madden are also new residents of the Triad.

"Being down here in Greensboro is the most creative environment I've ever been in... I love being in this environment," said Rivetti.

"I think it's a quaint, sophisticated, interesting city with such a cool history especially for denim and textiles," said Madden.

Kontoor is less than a year old and has already grown. It opened the Lee and Wrangler Hometown Studio, a retail store in downtown Greensboro. Its new photo studio is used to create high-resolution images of their clothing to be featured online. The company also opened offices at Revolution Mill which is home to the company's global merchandising, design, product development, and innovation teams.

"Just walking in the door is inspiring every day to me," said Madden.

In all, about 1,500 people work for Kontoor in the Triad. Here's the breakdown: 800 at world headquarters at on North Elm Street in downtown Greensboro; 150 at Revolution Mill; 200 at a service support center on South Elm Eugene Street; and 350 workers at a distribution center in Mocksville.

"When people move in from outside whether it be from New York City, we bring a lot of talent in. They get here and they don't want to leave," said Waldron.

Kontoor may be a new company but their brands are steeped in history. Lee is 130 years old and Wrangler is over 70 years old. You probably recognize their fashions and the famous people who wore them. Actor James Dean wore Lee jeans in 'Rebel Without a Cause.' Actor Bob Denver wore Wranglers on 'Gilligan's Island.'

They are brands with a rich past and a company committed to the future in the Triad.

"This is a natural place for us to be. We're proud to be here. We're here to stay to build a great corporation together with the city," said Waldeck.

See the rest on WFMY >

‘Interiors’ at Gallery 1250 opens on Valentine’s Day

5e7947acba9fa.image.jpg

Gallery 1250 director Jan Lukens said the theme of interiors in mid-winter resonated with him for a February opening. He said he reached out to several of his favorite artists that frequently address the subject of interiors, and put together a dynamic show of paintings, drawings, and mixed media artworks. Although he is not exhibiting in this show, Lukens paints full-time from his studio at Revolution Mill and is known primarily for his equestrian oil paintings and cityscapes.

“I am so excited about this show,” Lukens said. “We are setting a high bar for excellence in painting.”

Artist Tamie Beldue is a native of New York but has lived in Black Mountain since 2008, and her art is in several national museum collections. Beldue said she draws and works in a combination of graphite, watercolor, and charcoal and uses cold wax to seal and protect her drawings. She will have seven pieces in this exhibit dating from 2016-2020. Her inspiration behind this work comes from slightly different things, especially in her recent work, where interiors were constantly changing from day to day (during construction), along with the moving light. “I begin a drawing by dealing with the smaller parts, and when each part forms an image, I put all of the pieces together like a puzzle, and then it starts to make sense,” she said. Beldue will be in her third show at GreenHill this May and hopes to come to the ‘Interiors’ opening with “Greensboro becoming a happening place for the arts.” Julyan Davis is an oil painter who received his B.A. in painting and printmaking at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London. He hails from England but has lived in Asheville for 30 years, painting the American South and working in several national museum collections. Davis will have seven oil paintings in this show. He began painting interiors 15 years ago after painting a lot of architecture and urban scenes. 

 “I have empathy for people who feel trapped by their environment, and I think that comes across in my scenes of empty places, and in my ballad series,” Davis said. 

On his website video, he gives advice to artists, “Whatever peculiar interests we have, it’s where they all meet that’s interesting. The goal is to bring them all together in one’s art.”

Geoffrey Johnson, of Winston-Salem, is a native of Greensboro. He received his BFA in painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. His paintings are collected internationally and are in numerous corporate collections. He has had sold-out solo shows in New York City, Alexandria, Virginia, and Charlotte for 20 years. Johnson, who paints with oil, said he had been very fortunate in how his art keeps moving. He will be exhibiting four oil paintings all done within the year.

“My inspiration for some of this work comes from my travels with my wife to Savannah and our love of the old houses there and with it being such a moody place,” Johnson said. “Some of it comes from Charleston, and other cities, and some are completely made up and not even residential.”

Johnson said he might use a photograph as a take-off point, but mostly, he has worked out of his head for the last seven to eight years. He plans to attend the opening with his wife and manager, Edith.

Greensboro painter Sam Wade graduated from Weaver Academy with a concentration in music and moved to Nashville to explore the music scene. He became interested in art and studied at Middle Tennessee State University. Ten years later, Wade moved back to Greensboro in 2017 to start Foundry Studios & Gallery. Wade paints with oil exclusively and will have four new pieces in this show. His inspiration for this work comes from wanting to create an effect of “absurdity mixed with familiarity.”

“I start by scanning an old photograph into Photoshop where I manipulate, stretch and change the elements,” Wade said. “Then, I use the transformed image to paint on canvas by.” He is looking forward to being at the opening and showcasing of these new atmospheres to contrast the unusual “bizarre” portrait paintings he is known for.

Philip Link is a Greensboro artist who received his BFA in painting from UNCG. He has been painting professionally, off and on, since 1978. Link will have five pieces (three are new) that are primarily brush paintings with acrylic marker and charcoal accents.

“These paintings have more of a conceptual element that leaves something to the imagination, whereas my landscapes are more direct.” Link said his work is kind of a “divinely-led thing,” and he always starts with a prayer.

“The picture tells me what it needs, and I follow the lead as the messenger.” Link has exhibited in GreenHill recently and looks forward to the opening.

Renaissance Man: Jan Lukens’ passion to paint

Renaissance Man: Jan Lukens’ passion to paint  |  Revolution Mill

The shortest distance between two points may be a straight line — unless you’re pursuing a career as a professional artist, as Jan Lukens has discovered over a lifetime. His large, vivid, hyper-realistic canvases of horses, wildlife and cityscapes that fill his studio in Revolution Mill, all precisely wrought in the finest detail, are the culmination of a childhood dream. One that began with, yes, the straight lines of a child’s stick figures but took a turn in the Prehistoric Age.

“There was nothing remarkable about what I was doing,” he says of the rudimentary cowboys and Indians or soldiers engaged in battle that he and his first-grade classmates liked to draw in crayon during art class at Irving Park Elementary School. But at home, the seeds of his artistic ability were taking root. “I had a set of dinosaurs and printed on the belly of each one was the name.” So he could name and identify them: “the stegosaurus and the T-Rex and the triceratops, and all these weird amazing-looking creatures,” Lukens recalls. “I was always fascinated with animals anyway. These were crazy, wonderful.” He had also taken to copying photographs in Newsweek and National Geographic on sample pads of printing paper his father would bring home from his job at Pilot Life Insurance. Perched at a coffee table at his parents’ feet as the family watched TV, “I would do that two or three hours a night, just because that’s what I liked to do,” Lukens remembers.

A year later, those hours of practice would come to the fore when, one day, a second-grade class assignment was to draw a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Lukens’ advanced rendering of the dinosaur was well beyond those of his classmates, who, along with the teacher gathered round his desk expressing admiration and awe. “That’s when I realized, ‘Wow! I’m pretty good at this, and nobody else in the class can do it; this is pretty cool.” In the ensuing years, he would capitalize on Beatlemania, parlaying his skills into a lunchroom trade by copying images of the Fab Four from trading cards and other memorabilia for appetizing contents of his classmates’ lunchboxes. “I saw my market and I went after it,” he jokes. A foreshadowing of things to come.

By the time he was coming of age in the early to mid-1970s, Lukens had spent about a year at East Carolina before withdrawing to work for a couple of years. He also faced another hurdle: His preference for representational art, exemplified by Renaissance masters Titian, Caravaggio, Rubens and Velázquez and later artists such as Corot, Degas, John Singer Sargent, George Bellows and Edward Hopper, was unfashionable at the time. “It was all about Modern art,” Lukens remembers. With Abstract Expressionism ruling the day, art instruction emphasized “an idea,” he observes, while basic skills — drawing, composition, color — “got swept under the rug.”

Nonetheless, his dream of becoming a professional artist burned bright. To fulfill it, he enrolled in a nascent but rigorous commercial art program at GTI (now GTCC). He was one of only eight out of 120 students to graduate and embarked on a career as an advertising illustrator. “When I was in advertising, I would make ads and then do the illustration for it, because that’s what I really wanted to be doing. Not making ads. But I also needed to make a living as an artist. And this was the best way I could figure out,” he concedes. He talks of the layers of agency bureaucracy — art directors, creative directors, committees of clients — affecting the final outcome of his work. “You learn to put your ego in a box,” he notes.

After 15 years in the business and earning a good living, Lukens was approaching a turning point. He was also keenly aware of changes in the business that the digital age had ushered in. “All the art directors and illustrators were sitting in front of a computer all day long doing their work. And I thought, ‘There’s no way I’m going to do that.’”

He wanted to paint full time and knew he had to find a market — just as he had with his lucrative Beatlemania enterprise all those years ago — and considered wildlife paintings, which were popular. The only problem? “You do three paintings a year, you pay for a thousand prints of each and you’d spend the rest of the time selling those prints,” Lukens says. “That just didn’t appeal to me. I just wanted to paint all the time.”

In the early ’90s, a visit to the Sedgefield Horse Show with a colleague provided him with a solution. “I got the picture pretty quick that this is an expensive sport and all the people who participate in it are wealthy.” In other words, he’d found a market. It would take some trial and error, and making the rounds of the horse-show circuit with a vendor’s tent and forging connections that led to clients by word-of-mouth, but again, Lukens succeeded.

His approach to equestrian portraiture was unusual. Working in acrylics, Prismacolor pencil and watercolor from photographs taken at his clients’ stables (“you can’t get a 1,200-pound horse to stand still”), he applied his uncompromising representational style in depicting equine anatomy, highlighting every sinew beneath the sheen of his subjects’ glossy coats. But he brought to his compositions a contemporary feel, perhaps owing to his advertising background. In one painting, the graceful curve of a horse’s neck dominates the foreground, as its head is turned in profile. In another, the muscles of a foreleg are set in high relief, framed by the rider’s boot in the stirrup at the painting’s edge. Sure, Lukens’ artistic eye didn’t always jibe with clients’ wishes and he’d have to make concessions, as he did in the advertising business, but he was living out his dream.

Or partially.

Lukens’ desire to work in oil on canvas, like his Renaissance idols, tugged at him. “I started thinking: ‘How can I improve?’” the artist remembers. “I literally thought, ‘these old masters that painted oil on canvas .  . . I’m just not worthy.’” He tried the medium on his own, took workshops here and there “but just couldn’t get it.” And that’s why, at age 47, Lukens went back to art school.

At the time, in 1998, there were no institutions in the Southeast offering the classic academic curriculum the artist sought. His choices were by and large limited to the Northeast. Having lived for seven years alone on a 600-acre farm in Lewisville, he packed up his belongings and moved to a bungalow in the tiny coastal town of Old Lyme Connecticut, home of Lyme Academy of Fine Arts. “It was fantastic,” Lukens enthuses. “The second year I had over 1,000 hours of drawing and painting from a live model, which was the training that all my heroes from the Renaissance had.” With classmates ranging from recent high school graduates to 65-plus retirees, he was the only middle-aged student, but he says, “Everybody was in it together, there to learn.” He relished the moments, when live models would take breaks, affording the students opportunities to assess each other’s works. “I learned as much from the other artists during the model breaks as from the instructors,” Lukens says. One of them, Sam Adoquei, had made a profound influence in a life-drawing class. “He taught me how to construct the figure and the composition in a third the amount of time that I’d been spending,” the artist remembers. “That gave me two-thirds my time to develop my drawing. So all of a sudden, my work just looks phenomenally improved.”

He decided to study further under Adoquei’s tutelage at the National Academy in New York, conquering one hurdle of finding affordable housing through an equestrian connection, only to face another: The course of study began in early September of 2001. Lukens’ stay in New York started with the attacks on the World Trade Center, which the artist would witness from atop a 41-story building at 90th Street and Broadway. After a semester at the National Academy, he applied for the Copyist Program at no less than the Metropolitan Museum of Art, replicating the works of Velázquez. “It was as good as any class I took,” he allows. Sure, you can read about the artist or observe it. “Or you could attempt to copy what the artist has done, which forces you to observe all the nuances.” He likens the process to playing tennis against a stronger opponent, who ups your game. He was even filmed on PBS program, EGG the Arts Show, expressing a similar sentiment. Following his brief appearance on camera, the Met saw a spike in copyist applicants.

While living in New York, Lukens also took to painting streetscapes, but big city representational galleries were interested only in artists with Ivy League training. So in 2008, with his aging parents in need of help, Lukens headed home.

Greensboro, like so many places at the time, was falling into the slumber of the Great Recession, but Lukens still had his equestrian portraiture to keep him going. He was reconnecting with family and friends, ensconcing himself in the local arts scene. With a studio downtown, he took a notion to start painting streetscapes of the Gate City. In one, a ghostly Jefferson Building looms on the horizon. Another depicts the former location of the Green Bean, one of Lukens’ favorite haunts, glowing against a night sky. After his move to Revolution Mill, he would paint its courtyard, painstakingly recreating the individual bricks of the old factory. “I’ve always worked very tightly,” Lukens says. “I guess that’s my Dutch-German roots,” he adds.

This tendency stands out in a close-up of a butterfly alighting on a flower. The brilliance of the wings, with every marking visible and every vein of a plant framing the foreground, stands in stark contrast to a plain background of dark green. Lukens explains how he had painted out a busier background consisting of hills and woods and a pond that competed with the butterfly. The plainer background makes the image pop. It’s also bears out the artist’s love of oils. Not only is the medium more forgiving, allowing him to paint over something if he chooses to change, it also “creates an aura” or added layer of energy to the painting. 

Greensboro, it turns out, is more receptive to these true-to-life works. In fact, the world at large is waking up to the value of representational painting. “It’s huge!” Lukens says, citing a movement called Disrupted Realism, combining representational art with abstract, the vindication in his voice palpable. A major catalyst for the change in attitude? Social media. “I’m there for inspiration,” he explains. “When I have time to work on my own paintings, it’s the imagery that I’m finding on Instagram that inspires me that motivates me to tackle my next painting and how I’m going to tackle it.” 

It’s also led him to other artists, such as the five he’s highlighting in a new show, Interiors, which opened last month at Gallery 1250, across from his studio at Revolution Mill. As chronicled in this magazine last fall, Lukens proposed a use for the space originally intended as an extension of Weatherspoon. “One of the things that motivated me to start this gallery: I want to show the best professional painters in the area and showcase them. I want to expose them to people who might not be familiar with their work,” he says. The role of gallery director is uncharted territory for the artist, who estimates it’s taking up about 70 percent of his time. Even so, Lukens carves out enough to sustain the dream that he’s pursued so relentlessly, for, as he says, “It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do.”  

See it on O Henry Magazine’s website >

Food Photographer Dhanraj Emanuel Puts Secrets on the Wall

Food Photographer Dhanraj Emanuel Puts Secrets on the Wall

After moving to the states, Dhanraj Emanuel craved the Indian dishes of his childhood. He had never cooked before, so he mixed spices by smell to sate his nostalgia.

Emanuel comes from a family of photographers. Soon enough, the two worlds collided and Emanuel found his way into the field of food photography. Finding commercial success required leveraging food to elicit emotions like desire, FOMO, or comfort. But his new project does just the opposite.

The project is an expression of Emanuel’s experience with overwhelming grief. He uses photography to deconstruct and make that origin abstract. “Reclaiming” interacts with the symbolic nature of color, texture and form using only powdered foods and spices.

Host Frank Stasio discusses the changing landscape of food photography in the age of social media and organic food with Dhanraj Emanuel, who is also an instructor at Randolph Community College. The exhibit is on view at Revolution Mill in Greensboro through the end of 2019 with a special reception on Saturday, Dec. 7 at 6 p.m.

Listen on WUNC >

Greensboro Farmers Market Temporarily Moving To Revolution Mill

AdobeStock_286511738-e1575057053524-1208x640.jpeg

If the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market on Yanceyville Street is part of your Saturday routine, that routine is going to need some adjustment for the first month of the new year.

The Greensboro Farmers Curb Market at 501 Yanceyville St., across the street from the World War Memorial Stadium, is moving for the month of January 2020 to Revolution Mill at 1601 Yanceyville St.

The building at 501 Yanceyville, which has housed the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market since 1963, will have the interior painted and extensive ceiling work done, which is supposed to be finished by the beginning of February when the Farmers Market is scheduled to return to its home.

The work on the ceiling will highlight the curved barrel ceiling by removing layers of paint to reveal the wood lathing, and the massive interior steel beans will painted to bring focus to the expansive ceiling.

The Farmers Market management expects the majority of the vendors to make the move to Revolution Mill. It’s a good time for the move since the winter months are considerably slower at the Farmers Market, but the market at its temporary location will continue to offer fresh seasonal produce, eggs, dairy, seafood, meats, baked goods, crafts and more.

Greensboro Farmers Curb Market Executive Director Lee Mortensen said, “We’re building on the synergy with Revolution Mill created when we partnered in October for A&T Homecoming and we’re looking forward to returning to a refreshed Market building in February.”

During the past four years the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market has had nearly $200,000 in building and grounds improvement including the establishment of a chef demonstration kitchen and cafe, a community education and meeting room, interior and exterior performance states and an audio and video system.

If you find that your car takes you to 501 Yanceyville Street on Saturday mornings out of habit, the temporary location at Revolution Mill at 1601 Yanceyville is only a mile north.

See it on Rhino Times >

Revolution Mill opens Gallery 1250 with first exhibition ‘Triple Vision’

VISIONS-MAIN-Mike-Northuis-Annunciation-detail-1-750x354.jpg

Revolution Mill will officially open Gallery 1250 and host their first art exhibit, “Triple Vision,” on Oct. 11 at 1250 Revolution Mill Dr. in Greensboro. The opening reception will be from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., and the exhibit will run through early January 2020, said artist and director of Gallery 1250 Jan Lukens. Lukens said that The Bearded Goat would provide drinks and everyone is invited to this free event with complimentary food. Gallery 1250 is not to be confused with the Central Gallery, which is still operating and located at 1150 Revolution Mill Dr.

Lukens said that Gallery 1250 is a 2,800 square foot art gallery that was formerly known as the WamRev Gallery, a satellite exhibition space that was utilized by the Weatherspoon Art Museum. During a period of time awaiting grants, Revolution Mill decided to host the first WamRev Gallery exhibit. This featured James Cameron, a mural street artist from Raleigh, who painted the entire gallery’s 18-foot walls from floor to ceiling in green geometric patterns with only house paint and masking tape during the same week that Lukens moved his studio across the hall. The WamRev Gallery art opening for Cameron was in October 2016.

“Because the grants were not received and the walls were covered with a mural, the Weatherspoon was unable to use the space, and the gallery was only used for business meetings and events for the next two and a half years,” Lukens said.

Lukens said he pushed to utilize the space as an art gallery again and was asked to submit a business proposal. Management at Revolution Mill responded by making him the director. He contacted two other artist friends, Roy Nydorf and Michael Northuis, and invited them to the gallery so they could do the first show together. After a lengthy discussion, they all decided it was a good idea. That happened in June, and the walls were re-painted in July. Lukens said he is pleased to be a part of Gallery 1250’s first exhibition with two of his good friends whose art he has admired for decades.

Read the rest on Yes! Weekly >

Artists revive Revolution Mill gallery space

5d926c7165092.image.jpg

For nearly three years, Jan Lukens looked out from his Revolution Mill art studio onto a mostly-empty gallery space across the hall.

Lukens creates paintings in the historic former textile mill off Yanceyville Street, now a campus of offices, studios, event areas, apartments and restaurants.

Back in 2016, UNCG’s Weatherspoon Art Museum and Revolution Mill managers had arranged for Raleigh-based artist James Marshall (aka Dalek) to paint a colorful geometric design on the walls of the 2,800-square-foot space with 18-foot ceilings.

They called it Gallery 1250 for the building’s address on Revolution Mill Drive.

They wanted to make that mural the first in a series of collaborations, reflecting a commitment to present bold and imaginative exhibitions and reach new audiences.

But there it stood. Weatherspoon didn’t receive the grants needed to proceed with other artists’ projects there. Campus tenants used the space for meetings.

This year, Lukens proposed another idea for Gallery 1250 to Revolution Mill’s managers.

“Give it to me,” Lukens said.

They did.

On Oct. 11, Gallery 1250 will reopen as an art exhibition space.

Read the rest on News & Record >

North Carolina’s Handcrafted Denim Comeback

Denim might just be the most universal of fabrics. The hardy cotton twill has its origins in France – it was originally called “serge de Nîmes,” named for the town where it was developed – but the textile’s star has become quintessentially American. Blue jeans go along with the mindset of America; of freedom and rule breaking. They’re casual and cool, functional and tough, at home in a farmer’s field, on a rock stage and on a catwalk. While Bruce Springsteen dons denim on an album cover, Meghan Markle wears fashionably ripped blue jeans on outings with Prince Harry.

Despite the fabric’s French roots, North Carolina has mastered the denim craft. Beginning in the late 18th century, the state’s cash crops of indigo and cotton, combined with easy railroad access, meant that the denim industry flourished here. In 1890, Greensboro had so many trains coming in and out of it that it was nicknamed the Gate City. Six years later, brothers Moses and Ceasar Cone (Americanized from Kahn) came to Greensboro on one of those very trains and opened the textile manufacturer that would eventually become Cone Mills. Another man, C.C. Hudson, arrived in 1897 to work in a factory that made overalls. When it closed, Hudson and a few colleagues set up their own small shop, which would evolve into Wrangler. Up until the late 20th century, it’s a safe bet that nearly every pair of jeans in the United States had fingerprints on it from someone in North Carolina.

Things started to change in 1994, when the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed. An overwhelming number of American textile producers pulled up stakes and moved production to Mexico in search of cheaper labour; later, it was China. Throughout the 1990s, North Carolina became a hub of new industries, specifically technology and pharmaceuticals, much of which was centred in the Research Triangle Park region outside of Raleigh. But while industry in the state has diversified and the huge textile mills are gone, there’s still denim production – albeit on a smaller, more thoughtful scale. And the history is everywhere, as long as you know where to look.

Learn more on Air Canada >

Art-o-mat dispenses art to the people

Clark Whittington is inviting the world to be a part of the growing Art-o-mat family of artists, hosts and collectors, with over 170 machines across the United States as well as Canada, Australia and Austria. You can track the locations with an online map, so you are “never artless” in your travels, but you don’t have to leave the Triad to find an Art-o-mat machine. Whittington’s concept of encouraging more art consumption while reaching audiences that artists may have never accessed is keeping old vending machines out of the landfill and repurposing them into art dispensing machines where people can buy art on their own terms for $5.

Local Art-o-mats can be found in Greensboro at Revolution Mill and in its hometown of Winston-Salem at the Southeastern Center of Contemporary Art, the Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Foothill’s Brewing Tasting Room, Mary’s Gourmet Diner, A/perture Cinema, Salem Fine Arts Center, Artwork’s Gallery, Krankies Coffee, Earl’s, Jugheads Growlers & Pints, Wake Forest University, Wherehouse Art Hotel, The Olio Glasshouse, St. Paul’s Episcopal, and the Benton Convention Center. From locations in Walnut Cove, Durham, Cary, Boone and beyond North Carolina, Art-o-mats are on the move.

Whittington, an artist and native of Concord, owned Rococo Fish Gallery in the Charlotte’s NoDa (North Davidson) Arts District in the late ‘80s before he moved to Winston-Salem. He said his art comes to him from his experiences and ideas. One day, he observed a friend’s Pavlovian reaction to seek a vending machine upon hearing the crinkling of a cellophane snack wrapper, he sketched out his first Art-o-mat machine, a piece of art itself created from retired cigarette vending machines.

In 1997, he transformed his first old cigarette machine into a functional piece of art to dispense his black and white peel-a-part Polaroids and later invited other artists to be involved creating “Artists in Cellophane” for his conceptual work that included an Art-o-mat.

“I love how artists take this format and make it their own,” he said. “I enjoy seeing people come up with great ideas and getting them into an Art-o-mat and keeping their art alive. When artists and buyers connect through an Art-o-mat, it’s tangible, it’s real, and it’s something people can take with them and enjoy.”

Read the rest on Yes! Weekly >

'A Huge Deal For Us': Greensboro's Revolution Mill Adds Popular Downtown Bar

GREENSBORO, N.C. — When The Bearded Goat lit up its "open" sign Friday night, the bar became the latest addition to an ambitious development converting a 120-year-old textile mill into a modern destination to live, work, and play.

Greensboro's Revolution Mill has packed a lot into what used to be an aging flannel mill, the first in the U.S. South. The property is large enough to need a "campus map" to help people find their way around the 150-unit apartment complex, cafe, pizzeria, restaurant, workspaces for 109 companies, and more on site.

"All of the sudden, this little kind of campus community has come alive," said Nick Piornack, General Manager of Revolution Mill, whose job includes managing leasing, construction, and third-party relationships.

Beneath towering smokestacks built in 1898, family and friends gathered at the Bearded Goat on Friday night for a soft opening. 

The grand opening for the general public at the Bearded Goat bar at Revolution Mill is Saturday, June 29 at 6 p.m.

"We're very casual. Our motto is, 'Come as you are.' Come as who you are. It doesn't matter how much money you have in your pocket. If you want to spend two bucks or if you want to spend 100 bucks. And we've just really lived by that motto," said Seth Mapes, owners of the Bearded Goat.

The Bearded Goat is expanding to Revolution Mill from its original location in Downtown Greensboro, which opened in October 2016. Revolution Mill first approached Mapes about the prospect of growing to the revamped textile mill about a year and a half ago, said Mapes.

"When we first opened up downtown, I had, I think, three employees for the first couple months. Right now, with Revolution Mill opening, we have roughly between 20 and 28 people working for us with security, bar-backs, bartenders, everything like that," said Mapes.

As for the larger Revolution Mill project, the Bearded Goat is one of the last additions in phase one of development, said Piornack. Architects for the project aim to preserve the historic textile mill atmosphere. 

See the rest on WFMY >

Greensboro Fashion Week Presents Summer Edition

Greensboro Fashion Week (GSOFW) will hold a "Summer Edition" fashion show on Saturday at the iconic Revolution Mill.  

It is an annual showcase of the glamour, style, and talent present across the state of North Carolina.

GSOFW Creators Witneigh Davis and Giovanni Ramadani introduced the fashion show to give local models, hairstylists, make-up artists, and clothing designers an opportunity to gain hands-on experience in the realm of fashion. 

Watch the rest on WFMY 2 >

The Syllabus: UNCG's museum studies program

5d039ecb5e13e.image.jpg

I don't write often about existing academic programs. New ones, sure, like this one at N.C. A&T, for instance, and this one at High Point University. But existing ones? Rarely, if at all. Professors teach, students learn, lather, rinse, repeat. Where's the news in that, right? 

There's one program that seems to be an exception to my coverage blackout, and that's the museum studies program at UNCG. This master's degree program offered through the history department is for those interested in working as curators, educators and managers at museums, historical sites, battlegrounds, government agencies and anyplace else there's an historical story to be told.

This week, I wrote a story about the new highway marker that captures the history of Greensboro's old polio hospital in just 23 words and abbreviations. The dedication ceremony is Saturday, and the students enrolled in the program did much of the heavy lifting to get state approval for the sign. (This group of students got their master's degrees in May, by the way.)

Read the rest on News & Record >

Our Opinion: Kontoor fits here like a pair of old jeans

When three executives from the freshly minted Kontoor Brands paid a visit last week, they came dressed in denim and steeped in optimism.

They were bullish about their company, which was part of a more familiar company, VF Jeanswear, before it was spun off last year.

They see sales ticking up and new possibilities for their marquee brands, Wrangler and Lee, which will remain separate.

And most encouraging, they see a bright future in Greensboro, which they have embraced warmly and unequivocally as their hometown.

They say they like it here because of Wrangler’s deep roots in Greensboro.

They also consider this city a good place to live and raise a family, with reasonably priced housing and manageable traffic.

And they not only want to be in Greensboro, they want to be partof Greensboro.

See the rest on News & Record >

Kontoor is coming: Opening date for the new VF jeanswear spinoff is just weeks away

Screen Shot 2019-06-24 at 12.37.28 PM.png

Within the next month, a publicly traded company with annual revenues of about $2.7 billion will officially call Greensboro its home. 

Kontoor Brands, consisting of Wrangler, Lee, Rock & Republic and VF Outlets, will spinoff from VF Corp. on May 23, according to Zack Matheny, president of Downtown Greensboro Inc. The retention of Kontoor Brands is the silver lining to the news that broke in August 2018 that VF will move its headquarters from Greensboro to Denver. 

"Losing that (VF's global headquarters) is difficult," Matheny said. "I've never sugar-coated that. It's tough."

HEADQUARTERS: The company's local footprint will consist of its headquarters at the Wrangler building on North Elm and 43,000 square feet at Revolution Mill. Matheny told Triad Business Journal that Kontoor also will move 115 people into the former Home Savings Bank building at 444 N. Elm St. Kontoor declined to confirm this to TBJ.

Read the rest on Triad Business Journal >

Revolution Mill event not a typical comic-con

“Comics Life is not a comics convention,” stressed Tristin Miller, who organized the March 31 event at Greensboro’s Revolution Mill with Acme Comics’ Jermaine Exum.

Greensboro artist and event organizer Miller is a longtime fan who thinks comic book conventions are great, but she and Exum wanted to do something a bit different with Comics Life, which she described as “more like a TEDx-style event centered around comics” in a recent phone conversation. “It’s about skill-sharing, networking, having real conversations. It’s an opportunity to connect on a deeper level and have a real talk about the industry.”

She said that doing the Greensboro Zine Fest, as well as seeing a variety of comics artists use the zine format to share information, had been a big inspiration and that the format was inspired by the Hand-to-Hand Market she’s been doing for the past eight years.

“So, the booths and the costumes and the boxes of comics for sale and the artist meet-and-greets, all the stuff you usually see at a comics convention, will only be one part of Comics Life. The meat of it will be the workshops, the panel discussions, and the presentations.”

Read the rest on Yes! Weekly >

Revolution Mill execs dig out opportunity at old self-storage building

No treasure chests. 

No long-lost works by Renoir or Rembrandt.

No rare, multimillion dollar finds a la the History Channel's "Storage Wars" unfolded as Revolution Mill General Manager Nick Piornack and company cleared out the old self-storage facility in the Mill House building of Greensboro's Revolution Mill.

Piornack said there are no concrete plans for a tenant – or tenants, potentially – for the 167,000 square feet inside the old relic. It's too soon to discuss costs, timelines, even occupancy, he said. 

"The main thing is we’ve started clearing the building and we’ll also start working on the exterior windows here in the next several months," he said. "You know, get the building good and solid and clean and dry."

Belk Architects, the firm that has done the bulk of the work on the Revolution Mill project, is in the early stages of analyzing the building. None of the other construction or trade work has been contracted yet, he said. 

The good news is the building is empty. Crews are clearing out old storage lockers, but so far they haven't uncovered anything of substantial monetary or historical value, Piornack said.

Read the rest on Triad Business Journal >

Bringing back the mill village: Nick Piornack talks Revolution

“It would be great to rebrand this whole area as the Mill Village.”

So said Nick Piornack, general manager of Revolution Mill, when I interviewed him last week. Piornack envisions the 45-acre mixed-use development off Yanceyville as the heart of a once neglected but now revitalized Northeast Greensboro, and closer to downtown than many people realize.

“When I started here, my friends downtown were amazed I was moving ‘all the way out there’ to Revolution Mill.” But it’s actually only six minutes from his old office at Downtown Greensboro, Inc. on Elm Street. “Just one mile from Moses Cone and all the medical complexes, and 2.1 miles from downtown.”

Built in 1898, Revolution was the first flannel mill in the South. By the 1930s, it was the largest producer of that fabric in the world. But it ceased operation in 1982, and by the end of the 20th century, the huge buildings that once housed looms and other machinery were empty shells.

Revolution Mill was the second textile plant established in Greensboro by brothers Moses and Ceasar Cone, three years after their Proximity Cotton Mill became the South’s first denim plant. The Cones built two additional Greensboro mills; White Oak in 1905 and Proximity Printworks in 1912.

Kau opens in former Kitchen + Market at Revolution Mill space

Kayne Fisher has unveiled a new brand, a new look and direction for The Kitchen + Market at Revolution Mill. The restaurant and market, which was part of the Natty Greene’s Brewing company brand until last fall, will now be known as Kau, which is pronounced as “cow,” to better reflect the self-taught chef and entrepreneur’s aspirations for the space. Kau will be a restaurant, a butchery, and a bar. Its unveiling took place Jan. 8 with local influencers and media getting a first glance. 

The Kitchen + Market opened in its industrial mill quarters in the summer of 2017. It’s a casual restaurant that its curator calls “industrial warmth” that has some upscale items and includes a butcher shop and market. It has been Fisher’s childhood dream.

“I spent summers with my grandparents in Detroit, and when my grandfather got off from Chrysler, we’d go to a deli or a butcher shop, grab some meat and we’d cook that night’s meal. I was always intrigued by the idea of a market and butchery. Since the age of 15, I have had the concept in mind, and this space allowed that to come to life.” 

Fisher, who said he’s learned from “the culinary school of life” since age 5, parted with the Natty Greene’s franchise last fall and said the foundational menu that made the Kitchen + Market remains unchanged, but he still wanted to start fresh with a new name to avoid confusion.

Read the rest on Yes! Weekly >