Art of the State

Art of the State

Triumph in a Bridge

Matthew Steele celebrates the beauty of the manufactured world through sculpture

By Liza Roberts

     

 

Left: Gallery view of Mirrored Turbine, 2022, walnut, copper rod, 23-gauge nails, 84 x 84 x 4 inches. Commission through Hodges Taylor.

Right: Telophase no.1, 2022, oak and 23-gauge nails, 24 x 24 x 72 inches.

Infrastructure inspires Charlotte artist Matthew Steele. Bridges, highways, architecture and other physical manifestations of technology demonstrate to him the lengths human beings will go to “transcend the greatest obstacles we know.”

With honed precision, Steele’s work explores the elegance, complexity and rigor of such industrial and manmade structures, the labor that made them, and the life they each contain. The still rotors of a turbine become a thrumming work of abstract beauty when Steele makes them of wood and copper. He allows them to hang alone, the promise of movement in every blade. Steele’s scaffold-like towers of walnut merge to create a geometric, jagged skyline, but with an irregular, tendriled base: Are they putting down roots? Are these structures not built, but alive?

“There is desire in a highway,” Steele says. “There is triumph in a bridge.”

Steele moved to Charlotte in 2012 for a McColl Center residency and has made the city his home. “I’ve always been interested in the manufactured world,” he says. “I came from a super small town in Indiana. I knew the feeling I had when I would go to a city or a large industrial space, and just how alien it felt. I think I’m still narrowing in on that feeling.”

In 2015, Steele became an artist-in-residence at Goodyear Arts, a nonprofit arts program in Charlotte. This allowed him to further explore that feeling and its embodiment in his work, which has been exhibited and collected internationally. Steele and his wife, Susan Jedrzejewski, associate at Charlotte’s Hodges Taylor Gallery and a former codirector of Goodyear Arts, live in a 2,000-square-foot house with a walk-out basement that serves as Steele’s studio. This is where he makes the work that fuels his creativity. “There’s something incredible about waking up and making something,” Steele says, “of walking downstairs and turning on the table saw.” At the end of the day, Steele says, nothing can compare to the satisfaction of that kind of work: “Something can exist that didn’t exist that morning.”

   

Left: Sundowning, 2021, machine drawing / pen on black Stonehenge, 50 x 92 inches.

Right: Noir no. 2, 2023, walnut, 23-gauge nails, 47 x 73 x 4 inches. Right: Telophase no. 1, 2022, oak and 23-gauge nails, 72 x 24 x 24 inches. Commissions through Hodges Taylor.

Most of the time, that something is made of wood, and usually, that wood is walnut. It’s the wood he first learned to use many years ago when his father brought home a huge supply, and still, no other wood compares. “It’s pretty forgiving,” Steele says. “It has a quality that feels special. I’ve created the deepest relationship with walnut.”

It’s this richly colored, earthy-scented material that forms the work inspired by steel buttresses, by engine components, by industrial infrastructure. To Steele, that paradox points to a larger message. “I remember a thought I had in college about people in the world that we build,” he says. “It’s so easy for us to think of us as separate from nature, but we make our beehives, and we make our own beaver dams. We’re just animals.”

In Charlotte, Steele is making his mark. Last year, he received an Emerging Creators Fellowship from the Arts & Science Council, and he is currently at work on a major piece of City of Charlotte-funded public art that will anchor a streetscape project on J.W. Clay Boulevard in the University City area.

Making public art — which has kept him busy in recent years — is the realization of a long-held goal. In 2019, after a series of rejections for proposals he’d submitted for public art commissions, Steele decided to make a work of art to please himself: “I just thought, Nothing is working. I’m just going to make whatever I want.” He took the form of Greek statue The Winged Victory of Samothrace as inspiration and “depicted that idealized sculpture as this sort of grim, dark oil-covered mess.” The resulting (Nothing is Working) Victory is a metal form that recalls the iconic sculpture’s shape, but is built using intersecting pieces of metal, held up on a wooden trestle. The process taught him to make organic, volumetric shapes he hadn’t been able to create before. A few weeks later, Steele got his first call to make a piece of public art — one that called on his newfound skill.

   

Left: Basalt Pillars, 2021, walnut, 23-gauge nails, 16 x 48 x 4 inches.

Right: Rendering of Fabric, a city-funded work slated for installation in University City in 2026. Rendering courtesy of Matthew Steele.

Guaranteed funding, a larger scale, a public audience and a sense of permanence make these commissions particularly prized. But the making of a piece of public art can become weighed down in procedure — paperwork and correspondence and engineering — that can remove an artist from the creative process. “It’s a tricky transition,” Steele says. “You’re using new materials, on a completely different scale.”

Schematic depictions of Fabric, the piece he’s currently working on for the City of Charlotte, clearly share the elegance, energy and story of his studio work. Before submitting his proposal for the commission, Steele researched the industrial history of the area and became inspired by the early-1900s textile mills of the NoDa area. “I found old photos from the archives, images of factory rooms with thousands of spools of thread,” he says. “I just couldn’t get over the visual, all of these threads coming through.”

He began to experiment with steel rods and developed the design for what will become a 10-foot-tall, 6-ton piece of steel rods. Slated to be installed in 2026 on a median in J.W. Clay Boulevard, the piece will be a sort of pyramid of rebar, where slivers of daylight will shift with the movement of a viewer.

“Public art is really, really exciting,” he says. “You get to do something you wouldn’t do any other way.”  PS

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

Focus on Food

Focus on Food

Hearts of Stone

A sweet and savory summer flatbread

Story and Photograph by Rose Shewey

We no longer want to be just rich. We want to be eco-rich. It may be a generational thing or perhaps it is the zeitgeist, but either way, forget the townhouse with the smart fridge in your up-and-coming neighborhood. Give us an apple orchard with flower meadows on a spring-fed creek and we’ll consider ourselves wealthy. With peach vendors popping up like beach umbrellas and hot tub-sized crates of watermelon lining the produce aisles of every store this time of year, even if you’re not lucky enough to have the acreage (or the time) for a garden of your own, it’s impossible not to see the beauty and richness Mother Nature is affording us, particularly in the stone fruit department.

Cherries were my first love; I grew up with a cherry tree in my parents’ courtyard, and year after year it grew heaps of the most aromatic, crimson-colored cherries. Apricots and plums would grow lavishly in our cool temperate fields, but the climate in my home pastures didn’t allow for peaches. What once was an exotic fruit to me, lumped in with kiwis and mangoes on the market shelves, is now a cherished local harvest, thanks to the sandy soil of this region.

Let’s put the traditional grilled stone fruit and cobbler business on the back burner and try out a more hearty, wholesome meal idea. This sweet and savory flatbread comes together in no time, and cooking is completely optional — that is, if you use a store bought (or pre-made) base, otherwise it will just take minutes to make your own delicious flatbread. You can make this ahead of time or when you need it; topping options and combinations are limitless, and the end result has always been, without fail, a beautiful reflection of summer’s bounty.

 

Easy Skillet Flatbread

(Makes 4 medium size flatbreads)

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon sweetener, such as honey or granulated sugar

3/4 cup cold water

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and knead for 3-5 minutes, until smooth. If the dough is too sticky, add extra flour; if the dough is too dry, add water, one teaspoon at a time. Divide into four equal parts and roll out to desired shape (about 1/4-inch thick). Heat a large skillet over medium/high heat. Add heat-stable oil (e.g., avocado oil) to the pan and, once heated, add rolled-out dough and cook for about 2 minutes on each side. Reduce heat slightly once you flip the bread, repeat with all remaining portions.

 

Whipped Goat Cheese

8 ounces goat cheese

3 ounces cream cheese

2 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon olive oil

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon lemon zest

2-3 teaspoon fresh herbs, chopped, such as chives or thyme (optional)

Remove goat cheese and cream cheese from the refrigerator about 30 minutes before preparing this dish. Add all ingredients, except for the fresh herbs, if using, to a food processor and blend until creamy. If the texture is still crumbly after blending for 1-2 minutes, add more olive oil, one teaspoon at a time. Fold in fresh herbs and refrigerate up to 3 days.

 

Toppings

2-3 pieces of sliced stone fruit per person (such as peaches, apricots or plums)

Prosciutto slices

Blackberries

Honey

To assemble, spread whipped goat cheese generously on your flatbread, arrange sliced stone fruit, prosciutto and berries to your liking, drizzle with honey and serve.  PS

German native Rose Shewey is a food stylist and food photographer. To see more of her work visit her website, suessholz.com.

Tea Leaf Astrologer

Tea Leaf Astrologer

Leo

(July 23 – August 22)

No surprise: You’re in the driver’s seat this month, kiddo — just the way you like it. Control is a clever little temptress. With Venus retrograde in Leo until September 3, you can expect more than a few obstacles to arise in relation to an old flame. Navigate wisely, resisting the urge to make any brash or sudden detours. Clarity will return. In the meantime, crack the windows, crank up the tunes and celebrate this wild and precious life with lionhearted exuberance.

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)

To thine own self be kind.

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

There’s a balm for that.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)

Don’t let the muck get the best of you.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

Finish what you started.

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)

Lather, rinse and repeat.

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)

Keep the kindling dry.

Pisces (February 19 – March 20)

Big feelings? Release them with paint.

Aries (March 21 – April 19) 

Someone needs a time-out.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20)

The irony won’t be lost on you for long.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

Inaction speaks louder than words.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

Does “toxic productivity” mean anything to you?   PS

Zora Stellanova has been divining with tea leaves since Game of Thrones’ Starbucks cup mishap of 2019. While she’s not exactly a medium, she’s far from average. She lives in the N.C. foothills with her Sphynx cat, Lyla. 

Simple Life

Simple Life

Let There Be Darkness

In defense of the dark side

By Jim Dodson

During a business trip to a remote part of New Zealand last winter, I was reminded of the staggering beauty of the night. Stepping out of my bungalow just after midnight, the stars of the Southern Hemisphere took my breath away. There were untold millions of them arching overhead, blazing like white diamonds on black velvet.

Because it was summer down under, there were also vivid sounds of calling night birds and insects murmuring in the fields and forests around me. I sat down on a wooden rocking chair and just listened for the better part of an hour, a perfect bedtime lullaby that reminded me of my daily wake-up routine back home in North Carolina.

Well before sunrise most days, I take my coffee outside to sit beneath a grove of old trees and wait for the first songbird to herald the breaking day. Save for an occasional passing train or distant siren that briefly mars the silence, it’s the stillest part of any day, the perfect moment to think, meditate, pray or just be.

I’ve captured the first birdsong many times on my handy Cornell Lab Merlin Bird app. In my neck of the suburban woods, it’s usually a Carolina wren or eastern towhee that breaks the serenity of pre-dawn. Sometimes it’s the northern cardinal or melodious song sparrow who takes lead solo. Every now and then, a great horned owl or brown thrasher cues the chorus. Whichever one starts, as sure as night is dark, a chorus of a dozen or more birds soon joins the songfest, including gray catbirds, mourning doves and American crows.

I never tire of this avian awakening, finding a sense of true gratitude for my tiny spot on Earth as a new day begins.

And yet, I worry.

Last year, a report from National Audubon on the state of birds reported that the U.S. and Canada have lost 3 billion birds over the past half-century. The same report notes that half of America’s bird populations are in decline, prompting more than one expert to warn that we are already in the early throes of the Earth’s sixth mass extinction.

Global warming, loss of natural habitat, various forms of pollution and the fact that the night is no longer as dark as it used to be are cited as primary contributing factors to the decline of thousands of species of birds, insects, reptiles and mammals, roughly half of which hunt, mate, feed and travel by night. Disappearing forests accelerate this decline.

Historian Jill Lapore echoes similar concerns in a recent New Yorker essay titled “What We Owe Our Trees:”

“Even if you haven’t been to the woods lately, you probably know that the forest is disappearing. In the past 10,000 years, the Earth has lost about a third of its forests, which wouldn’t be so worrying if it weren’t for the fact that almost all that loss has happened in the past 300 years or so. As much forest has been lost in the past hundred years as in the 9,000 before. With the forest go the worlds within those woods, each habitat and dwelling place, a universe within each rotting log, a galaxy within a pinecone. And, unlike earlier losses of forests, owing to ice and fire, volcanoes, comets, and earthquakes — actuarially acts of God — nearly all the destruction in the past three centuries has been done deliberately, by people actuarially at fault: cutting down trees to harvest wood, plant crops and graze animals.”

So what is an ordinary, suburban nature-lover and bird nut to do? That depends, I suppose, partly, at least, how you grew up.

I sometimes joke that I grew up in darkness.

I had the privilege to grow up in a succession of sleepy Southern towns, following my dad’s itinerant newspaper career. From the coast of Mississippi to the Carolinas, Yeats’ proverbial “The Stolen Child,” with an imagination fired by nature, I explored woods and creeks, bringing home frogs and injured birds. The rule was, I had to be home by “full” darkness. Many an evening, I lingered in the twilight just to watch the fireflies come out and listen for the sounds of crickets, bullfrogs and night birds. In those days, the streetlights in these quiet rural towns were few.

I’m not speaking, mind you, of the metaphorical darkness showcased by everything from the Bible’s rich imagery of light and darkness (good and evil) to modern cable TV’s endless news loops of crime and disaster. There’s a perfectly good reason why depression is rightly called a “dark night of the soul.” Anyone who has experienced it might be forgiven for believing that the world is coming apart at the seams.

Thirty years ago, in an effort to give our children the benefits of a quieter, natural world, my wife and I built our house on a coastal Maine hilltop surrounded by a dense forest of beech and hemlock, where the nights were deep and woods teemed with animal life.

The first thing I did when we moved back to my hometown neighborhood seven years ago was plant 20 trees around the property. Today in summer, our house sits in a grove of beautiful trees. The neighborhood is called Starmount Forest, after all, and most residents appreciate the giant oaks, maples and poplar trees that still arch like druid elders throughout. Living up to the name, these trees provide home to a rich variety of birds and insects. They also give us welcome shade in summer and showcase the stars on winter nights.

Turning down the lights at night strikes me as one small but sensible act of kindness to nature, encouraging the living world around us to rest, so moths and other nighttime creatures can pollinate plants, fertilizing the start of the world’s food chain.

In her lovely spiritual memoir Learning to Walk in the Dark, theologian Barbara Brown Taylor points out that most of the monsters we fear in the dark are simply phantoms we create in our anxious, sleep-deprived minds.

“I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light,” she writes. “Things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light.”

I was reminded of this fact one morning at summer’s beginning while awaiting my woodland wake-up call. Savoring the pre-dawn stillness beneath the trees, I suddenly realized that the fireflies had returned, magical messengers of hope that would be nowhere without the night.

As August passes over us and the days grow shorter, the darkness grows.

I say, bring it on, dear neighbors, and sleep well.  PS

Jim Dodson can be reached at jwdauthor@gmail.com.

Emily Good + Tim Kenny

Emily Good + Tim Kenny

Emily Good and Tim Kenny met on Hinge in 2019. Little did they know, Emily’s grandparents and Tim’s great aunt and uncle had been lifelong friends since they met on a flight to Bermuda for their honeymoons nearly seven decades ago.

Two years into dating, Emily and Tim were hosting friends and family for a Fourth of July barbecue. “I ran around for weeks getting the menu together and the decorations and yard games ready,” Emily says. On the day of, Tim pulled out a ring box and dropped to one knee. “I had unknowingly planned my own engagement party,” Emily says.

The following July, the bride and groom said “I do” at Emily’s childhood church, Sacred Heart Catholic Church, in Pinehurst. The bride’s uncle Mark, who is a priest in Charleston, South Carolina, traveled north to marry his niece.

After the wedding mass ended, the Sandhills Trolley Company shuttled guests across town to the celebrate the newlyweds with an evening of dinner and dancing at The Fair Barn.

photographer: Jennifer B. Photography
videographer: Story Focused Weddings
wedding planner: Vision Events Wedding & Event Planning
ceremony: Sacred Heart Catholic Church
reception: The Fair Barn
dress: Landon by Amsale
shoes: ASOS
hair & makeup: Lindsey Webster, Brush and Beauty
bridesmaids: “Reception Dress” by ELLIAT
groom & groomsmen: Men’s Warehouse
cake: The Bakehouse
catering: Elliotts on Linden
flowers: Hollyfield Design Inc.
rentals: Ward Productions and Greenhouse Picker Sisters
invitations: The Knot
transportation: Sandhills Trolley Company and Kirk Tours & Limousine