My Sins Found Me Out in Ashland

If art and writers are placed at the center of the universe, I will go on a Sunday afternoon.

That meant a short drive up Route 301 to the Flippo Gallery at Randolph Macon for the opening of "Artists and Writers II," a biennial invitational exhibit of collaborative works between, duh, artists and writers, even when they're the same person.

Which was the case with comic book artist Dash Shaw, whose monochromatically blue and green panels of a dating adventure opened the show. I was especially taken with the panels of a couple discussing their pasts.

Him: When I was in college, I was with a 33-year old.
Her: What did she teach you?
Him: There are things that are illegal in certain states that women really enjoy over the age of 30.

I was the only one who laughed out loud at those panels, admittedly, but I was in a cluster of people all of whom appeared to be under 30.

The Susan Singer/Valley Haggard collaboration involved Singer taking over 300 nude photos of Haggard and from them producing three paintings which hung in today's show, surrounded by two lists of words.

One held negatives (fat, cellulite, lard ass, thunder thighs) and the other positives (luscious, curvy, voluptuous, goddess), demonstrating the mental progress Haggard made about her body over the year they worked together.

Man-about-town Harry Kollatz collaborated with Amie Oliver for a series of paintings that included some of Harry's scribbles over the past fifteen years. The paintings of coffee cups, flowers and Harry were all done in beautiful winter shades of white, gray and black.

Oliver had traced over Harry's jottings to achieve words on canvas, my favorite being "I have lived long enough that my sins have found me out." A painting of Harry's ubiquitous hat was overlaid with, "C'est ne pas Harry," for a touch of humor.

Poet Joshua Poteat and architectural historian Roberto Ventura came together for a series of panels called, "For Lucy and Yard Sale," based on a news story about a homeless man's murder and the friends he left behind. The thematic nature of the piece was based on railroads, since the friends had hopped trains together.

Lines from one of Poteat's poems were used on wooden panels for a site-specific installation and some also had bits of the news story on them; the proceeds of the sale of the individual pieces will go to the Daily Planet.

I was so taken with a line of poetry on one of the panels that I immediately found the gallery's director and bought it.

While I'll have to wait until April when the show closes to collect it, I look forward to having a piece of poetry on my wall, especially one purchased for a worthwhile and local cause.

The opening was packed and most people stayed for the reading afterwards. Haggard began with ruminations about the self-exploration she'd done during the course of the project.

She said the end result was the ability to allow her insecurities to coexist with her body's past (six surgeries, six miscarriages and one child) in a peaceful and gentle way.

Harry put on his actor's hat (that is, voice) for a reading from old journals of random jottings and overheard conversations; thus we heard things like, "You have to be young, stoned and have good bowels to make art." He spoke of seeing graffiti saying, "Jesus is a gay Boy Scout" in three different handwritings.

Josh Poteat read his previously-written poem, the one that had resonated so strongly when they began their site-specific project. It's the second such piece he's done with Ventura and they hope to do more.

And I got to hear the poet read the line which had compelled me to buy a piece of art in Ashland when I had no intention of doing any such thing.

There is an agreeable sound here, under the thistle...

Not that craving words and art could be considered sins, at least not in my (illustrated) book.

Anything Goes at Avalon

Tonight was the last night of my Modern Romance class, so I finally discovered what happens after the First Kiss, True Love, and Broken Hearts.

And the final stage of a modern romance is...drum roll...anything goes!

As I can attest, you can go through those first three stages and any number of outcomes are possible, good, painful and bad.

My plan going forward is to revel in the first two categories, skip the third and replace anything goes with a happy ending.

But, of course, we're talking about architecture here and tonight's class was about the years 1980-2000, the period representing the death of modernism's dogmatic point of view and the opening up of numerous viewpoints.

We'll call it post-modernism; it's the years when the focus was on how architects shifted from an emphasis on problem-solving to an attitude of opportunity finding.

Like in a relationship, it was all about how you look at these moments when they present themselves.

This week's after-school snack was at Avalon with a friend who wanted to discuss architecture, romance and fancy food, a category he thinks Avalon falls into because of the abundance of ingredients listed for each item on the menu.

Personally, I like any place that offers small plates and since he always defers to my choice of restaurants, he just has to sift through the menu for dishes that don't contain something on his "will not eat" list, like beets and Brussels Sprouts.

He did so as the bartender opened a bottle of the Fantail Pinotage for our quaffing pleasure.

Okay, so Avalon does use long-winded ingredient descriptions.

My salad read as: watercress with golden raisins, blackberries, crispy toasted pumpkin seeds and Hooks 1 year bleu cheese chunks with nutmeg vinaigrette.

I just asked for the blue cheese salad and let it go at that.

My friend ordered the deconstructed tuna sushi roll: ginger sticky rice wrapped in a wasabi pickle slice and ahi tuna with carrot coulis and a soy, rice wine gastrique.

Then he turned to me and asked, "Why they gotta deconstruct it and what does that even mean?"

I explained, knowing the man had a point about the overly descriptive names, but both dishes were excellent so what's a little extra reading?

Then we both moved on to the Chorizo course.

He followed seafood with seafood, namely the Littleneck clams with Spanish Chorizo and fennel in almond, pine nut and sherry broth with focaccia.

The broth was incredibly rich and creamy, and ideal for soaking the bread in; I know because he insisted I try it.

My plate of richness came in the form of Spanish Chorizo over saffron Israeli cous cous with Parmesan cheese.

Luckily I'd had the sense to order the small plate of this and not the entree because it was decadent.

Dessert was sharing the chocolate rum pate with berries while discussing other restaurants.

He and a date had been to a play I'd recommended with a pre-performance dinner at, of all places, Bill's BBQ behind CVS.

I made a limeade crack and he was quick to tell me about the new bar at Bill's, where you can now enjoy your limeade with the refreshing addition of gin, vodka or rum.

He questioned the owner about the origin of this brilliant stroke, only to be told, "People been doing it in their cars for years, so why not us?"

Don't you just love the corruption of a Richmond tradition?

Limeades all around!!