LISTENING TO NORTH CAROLINA (2025)

Last month, I had the opportunity to spend a week in Boone, North Carolina. It was for an artist residency at Appalachian State University. I loved my time there, and wanted to share some of the highlights.

Driving to western North Carolina from Columbus, Ohio is fascinating: the most direct route is to take Route 23 due south nearly all of the way. 23 is also our High Street in Columbus, and cuts through the center of town. If you were to take it traveling north, it leads close to Lake Erie, and continues on into Michigan. If you continue to take it south, it goes all the way to Jacksonville, Florida. Route 23 is also one of those older roads that remind me of my childhood — with roadside stops and mom-and-pop stores, small towns, industrial plants, and run-down buildings. I love taking it out of Columbus to watch the landscape change, becoming both hillier and more rural.

The residency was originally scheduled for last fall, but was delayed due to Hurricane Helene. As I drove through Kentucky, I saw the remnants of recent flooding and the recovery efforts to return things to normal; in some towns, the streets were neatly lined with debris and bags of trash waiting to be hauled away. And as I approached and entered North Carolina, the tell-tale signs of last fall’s Hurricane Helene were everywhere — more debris and dirt, and large swaths of trees bent over like toothpicks across the hills. It is a testament to the communities that live there that the towns otherwise looked like they had mostly gone back to normal. I can only imagine the work that had gone into their recovery, and know that the hurricane still looms large in residents’ minds.

I carried these images with me as I began my residency at Appalachian State. On my first day, I visited my friend Tom Hansell and his family on their farm just outside of Boone, along the New River. We walked around his property, and Tom showed me the damage the river wrought on his Civil War-era barn. He also pointed out the massive amounts of silt and sand the river deposited as it receded. Tom and his family were lucky, but I got the sense that the experience profoundly shook them.