Hands dangle from the ceiling in a studio with bucolic views of the Blue Ridge Foothills. Casually unsettling, life-size heads stare blankly among table saws, planers, sculpting tools, a woodstove, and a Bruegel engraving. This is where artist Bob Trotman sculpts businessmen and -women enraptured — or captured — by their careers. A giant, pure-white man wearing a suit, a signet ring inscribed ME, and a disturbing grimace, strains against a wire tether. Life-size or knee-high, carved or cast, Trotman’s creations are purposely ambiguous. Are his inanimate humans reaching for freedom or grasping for wealth? Fleeing their desks or forging chains to their cubicles? “I’m not unsympathetic,” Trotman says, and smiles.
Trotman’s work is inspired, in part, by traditional religious carvings and the figureheads once found at the prows of ships. See his work at bobtrotman.com.
Across the globe from Vietnam, effects of the war reverberate through the state, where social and political perspectives are shifting quickly and dramatically.
These places are the stewards of some very special items: Doc Watson’s first recording, the desk Virginia Woolf used to redefine the novel, and Elisha Mitchell’s pocket watch are just some of the cherished pieces that teach us about our state’s history and the people who preserve it.
From burgers to comfort food to elegant entrées, the range of plant-based dining in North Carolina is growing. Restaurants on this list are exclusively vegetarian and/or vegan.
