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Monticello Road is a community arts project in Charlottesville, Virginia. Through photography and a series of public events and conversations, we explore how an art can be an essential, integral and everyday part of a healthy community.


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Sunday, April 19, 2009



April is one of the most amazing parts of the Natural Calendar and I’ve missed it the past few years by being trapped in the City. Here at Springtree it’s been soggy, misty, and lovely—like living inside a Nick Drake song. Everywhere things are sprouting from the ground or blooming from the trees. There is a very healthy tulip poplar along the walkway from one house to the other and it’s just exploding with vitality. I can easily see the progression from hour to hour as its leaves slowly, but visibly, unfurl. The orchards and forests and woods and roadside pastures are just riots of color.

Such a blessing to be here for Easter and to mark Spring’s arrival. Spring is the least assertive/aggressive of the seasons. She doesn’t seem to mind all that much if you don’t notice her presence—or her passage. Sebastian and I have been fortunate to be able to explore some of the wonderful things about spring that are so easily missed: violets in the grass, babies in nests, trees adorned in blossoms, the garden starting to show the first sprouts that will be the summer’s cornucopia.

When I was a child my mother would take me on walks through the woods and tell me about maypole dances and other pagan celebrations that we’ve somehow managed to lose. But Springtime endures, even if we don’t know how to celebrate it properly. She does her thing every year, quite in the open, and we are always invited to join in the bliss. Even if we as a people don’t take much time to savor it, I will make sure that I breathe deeply. And my child will know it as well.

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