A true Southerner, the muscadine is both sweet and tough — a resilient survivor in our hot, humid climate. Much like the winemakers who grow it, the story of our native grape is deeply rooted in the landscape of our state.
The Barn Issue
Hollywood Meets Hickory
When two movie buffs started a film society at their local theater, they discovered a community of cinephiles waiting in the wings. Now, their international film festival has created new fans of this charming foothills town.
Making a Masterpiece
On a six-acre campus of renovated barns and an old covered bridge, The Bascom gives people from the rural western part of the state a chance to experience the awe of seeing fine art and the satisfaction of bringing their own creations to life.
Color Amid the Kudzu
In 1999, a crew of urban artists descended on rural Moore County, painted some 25 tobacco barns and other buildings, and then zipped back up to New York City. Two decades later, folks still drive to Cameron in search of these curious murals.
Follow the Barn Quilts
Like your grandmother’s narrative needlework, the growing patchwork of creative designs on rural outbuildings across the state tells a larger story.
Playing the Doodad
It started as a 50th birthday gift to a music-loving dad: Turn a 140-year-old tobacco barn on a family’s 60-acre farm near Greensboro into a stage. Eight years later, it’s a gift to music lovers across the Piedmont.
Altered State: Photographer Watson Brown Preserves a Landscape
A retired city planner finds his calling photographing the barns and historic homes of Edgecombe County. His images preserve a fading landscape while helping us see it anew.
History in a Handbag
In neglected barns and abandoned pickup trucks in eastern North Carolina, a seamstress finds old, forgotten stories — in the form of vintage fabrics — that she makes new again.
Mountain Ripples
On a farm in a cove in the Smokies, a biologist turned cheesemaker is bringing a slice of woods back to life. Like a pebble tossed into a pond, every careful decision she makes, every creature she cares for, has a lasting effect on the forest she’s trying to save.
