April showers bring May flowers but, in Raleigh, they also bring bright, colorful storm drains.
This month, local artist Sarahlaine Calva, in a partnership with the city’s stormwater management division, will complete her fifth installation in a series of vibrant designs on stormwater grates and surrounding sidewalk in locations across Raleigh. You may have seen art on stormwater drains in Nash Square Park, Peterson Street and at the corner of Sutton and Smallwood Drive near Cameron Village that Calva has already completed. Two more are slated for drains on North Hills Drive and Lenoir Street at Chavis Way.
The purpose of the project, explains Kristin Freeman, a communications analyst in the city’s engineering services department, is to turn residents’ attention to keeping trash, pet waste, paint, grease, yard waste and other pollution out of storm drains; water that runs into the drains eventually flows into local waterways, including Raleigh’s major lakes as well as Walnut Creek and Crabtree Creek which, in turn, flow into the Neuse River.
“All of this is to bring awareness in a fun way,” Freeman says. “Normally, you don’t notice a storm drain, so we wanted to do something that’s vibrant and colorful to bring attention.”
Calva, a Raleigh native and self-taught freelance artist, uses Sherwin-Williams porch and floor enamel to paint her colorful fish, flowers, sunshine and raindrops. The 20-year-old artist was selected after responding to a request for design proposals from the stormwater division, which will pay her for her work. Before Calva paints, city workers pressure wash the sidewalks and dismantle the storm drain grates. They deliver the grates to Calva, who primes them and paints a base design before the grates are reinstalled and Calva can paint the surrounding sidewalk.
“I tried to incorporate my style into each, to make sure it’s related to water in some way, and the environment, and came up with a bunch of sketches,” Calva says of her process. “I really like vibrant colors and using lines and geometric and linear shapes and evoking a cheerful feeling when you look at my art. I’ve gotten a lot of appreciation from the community. People are like, ‘Oh, thank you for doing this.’”
And the colorful storm drains aren’t the only artsy installations to look for this spring.
You’ve likely seen artist Graymon Ward’s giant slice of pepperoni pizza on the pedestrian median where Wilmington, Salisbury and Peace streets intersect, or Leah Preiss’s tiny trash monsters protesting litter at the trash and recycling bins on W. Morgan Street, or Buffy Taylor’s colorful, happy lady in “Go with the Flow” at the corner of W. Lenoir and W. Cabarrus.
These sidewalk murals comprise Raleigh ArtBeats, a collaboration between the city’s public arts office and the transportation department, with support from Artspace and the Downtown Raleigh Alliance. By the end of June, a total of 15 artists’ murals will pop up within the 110 blocks of the downtown municipal services district. The murals range from the large—Chika Gujarathi’s colorful “Maze” in Nash Square or the aforementioned pizza—to the tiny—Preiss’s “Litter Critters,” Helen Seebold’s quilt blocks on Wilmington Street or Megan O’Connor’s “Flora and Fauna of Raleigh” at the corner of S. Person Street and New Bern Avenue. Like Calva, all 15 Raleigh ArtBeats artists were given free rein to come up with their designs and will be compensated for their work.
“It’s been exciting for artists who don’t normally get opportunities to do this,” says Kelly McChesney, the city’s public art director. “They’re taking each public art piece to really make it their own.”
Raleigh ArtBeats has been so successful that the American Planning Association recently named it one of the top 12 creative placemaking projects in the country. And there are plans to keep it alive for the foreseeable future, says Jen Baker, the downtown coordinator for the city’s transportation department; next year, artists will wrap city signal cabinets with vinyl.
The city’s goal, say Baker and McChesney, is to put a toolkit in place for artists to create in public- or city-owned spaces, no matter their vision.
“It has been great to see these artists just take it and run with whatever their vision was for these spaces,” Baker says. “It’s been a lot of fun.”
Check out raleighnc.gov for links to maps with the locations of Raleigh ArtBeats and storm drain murals. Look for Calva’s storm drain artwork with the hashtag #raleighstormwater. Check out the city’s website for RFPs for projects seeking artists or to book an outreach specialist knowledgable about stormwater runoff for any school, community or business event.
When former team captain, Stanley cup champ and NHL legend Rod Brind’Amour was named last year as head coach of the Carolina Hurricanes, he had one mission for the upcoming season: to take the team to the playoffs. And, while we can’t tell you whether the Canes are bringing home another Stanley cup—as of press time, the team is locked in a mighty playoff battle with defending champions, the Washington Capitals—we can, for Roddy Brind’Amour, happily say “mission accomplished.” The outlook wasn’t always so rosy. As in all sports, brilliant hockey players don’t always make the best head coaches and Brind’Amour, who spent the last seven seasons as the team’s assistant coach, had his share of doubters. A disastrous, humiliating 2017-2018 season was still fresh in mind when Brind’Amour was hired to succeed Bill Peters, and naysayers made the argument that Brind’Amour was at least partially to blame for that. There was always the risk that the marquee defensive forward could flame out spectacularly, putting Canes management in the uncomfortable position of having to fire another beloved franchise figurehead, à la former player-turned-general-manager Ron Francis. For Canes fans, who before this year hadn’t seen their team make it to the playoffs in nearly a decade, it’s hard to think of any scenario more demoralizing than that. But Brind’Amour, widely praised for his work ethic, leadership attributes and strength of character, rose to the challenge. He presciently named Stanley cup veteran Justin Williams the team’s captain and promptly began racking up the wins. The team’s state of play against the Capitals has modulated from electric to anemic but PNC Arena has seen record-setting attendance numbers and Canes fans have reason to feel good about their team. To borrow a turn of phrase, Brind’Amour has made Hurricanes hockey great again. Stanley cup or no, we think his seat is safe.
A yellow and orange cat has fun with leaves and trees. A blue and purple penguin with a green smile is flying because it cannot wait to get home. A tiger is happy because it feels orange.
The animals are King Godwin’s friends, creations that come alive in bright acrylic paint, dabbled over in tiny numbers—often ones and sevens—if you look closely, because, in the Raleigh artist’s mind, numbers and colors correlate with feelings.
This month, “The Artist Is Having a Very Good Day,” a book celebrating Godwin’s paintings, will make its official debut in Raleigh. Artist Susan Woodson, a friend of Godwin and his mother, Yuko Taylor, a painter, wanted to capture Godwin’s work, and his story, in print. Woodson plans to promote the book with an eye toward catching a publisher’s attention for wider distribution.
In the light-filled ground floor of her studio, Moondog Fine Arts, on W. Morgan Street, Woodson recalls watching Godwin, who is autistic, grow into a confident, happy young person the more time he spent painting and creating.
“The more he painted, the better it got. The more he worked, the more he sold, the prouder he got,” Woodson says. “King started developing as a person and his personality came out and now, he stands tall and is very proud of his work. It has been amazing to watch that development.”
It was a transformation Woodson felt she had to capture in print.
Godwin, 27, came to painting nearly a decade ago when Taylor told him he had to find a job. He could stock shelves at the grocery store, or sort books in the library, but his mother made it clear that he had to find a useful way to fill his time. So, Godwin said, like her, he wanted to paint. They sought out art collections at museums and bookstores, hoping to land upon a style.
Godwin pointed to a painting of a pink background, filled with yellow circles.
“Oh, you want to do that?” Taylor asked him. Godwin said he did. Taylor gave him her paints, and a space in her own studio at home, and let him at it.
Today, Godwin, who also has studio space at Moondog, is a prolific painter. His process is meticulous and he labors over every number until each painting feels complete. His work is for sale both at the studio and online and Taylor believes painting, working as an artist, brings her son much happiness.
“These animals and lovely friends he paints are himself, I personally think,” Taylor says. “It’s him in his life. It’s inspiring. As a mom, I was told he had some kind of limitation, or lots of limitations. But my goal was to have him grow up as a person who already has everything he needed and to express himself. I told him, ‘Be proud of who you are, unique is good, it’s the essence of your life.’”
“Every parent wants their child to grow up to be happy and successful and that is exactly how King is,” Woodson says. “He’s happy with his life and what he’s doing with it. That’s a blessing for any parent, autistic or whatever. It’s what you always hope for for your child.”
“King Noboyushi Godwin: The Artist is Having a Very Good Day” debuts May 8 at the Gregg Museum from 6—8 p.m. The book launch is open to the public and you can check out Godwin’s work online at kinggodwin.com.
In October of 1983, Katie Beckstrand was born at the Women’s Center at UNC REX Hospital in Raleigh. This February, Beckstrand returned to that same hospital—where she’d already given birth to seven children—to have her eighth baby, a boy.
Katie Beckstrand with her husband and newest baby boy
“I love the nursing staff from each and every delivery,” says Beckstrand, who currently lives in Franklinton, NC. “I always felt like they were close friends or family members supporting me. Having a number of kids, they make you feel like each one is still special. Not just, ‘oh, you have another baby,’ but ‘this is so exciting.’ They are there to serve.”
It’s commonly said that, in Wake County, a kindergarten class is born each day. Coupling that sheer demand for spaces for moms to deliver with the mixture of excitement and anxiety that parents feel when they’re expecting has translated into big business for local birth centers. And why shouldn’t it? Though official numbers are hard to come by, anecdotal evidence (read, we asked a lot of moms) suggests that giving birth in the Triangle costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $20,000, though out-of-pocket costs, of course, vary widely based on the birth experience and different insurance plans.
In Wake, there are four traditional hospital options for expectant moms to choose from: UNC REX on Lake Boone Trail, WakeMed Raleigh on New Bern Avenue, WakeMed North on Falls of Neuse Road and WakeMed Cary. And, in 2021, labor and delivery services will be available at another REX hospital planned to open in Holly Springs.
Each facility offers its own unique mix of services and amenities, running the gamut from using cutting-edge technology to monitor delivery and recovery to ensuring patients’ experiences are more spa-like than sterile.
“We know the environment is part of the healing process,” says Sheri DeShazo, a nurse and the senior vice president and administrator of WakeMed North Hospital, WakeMed’s newest facility offering labor and delivery services. “We have seen a 37 percent increase in volumes in delivery at [WakeMed North] from last year to this year. So we are really seeing that growth.”
April Lalumiere, the director of the UNC REX Women’s Center whose background is in labor and delivery, says around 5,000 babies are delivered at REX each year, making it one of the busiest birth centers in the Triangle and across the state.
“The patient experience and quality is our number one focus in order to keep parents coming back here,” Lalumiere says. “We see daily when we talk to families that, many times, patients are either coming back to us to have their babies here, or decided to come here for their second or third.”
Technology and Tradition
Both REX and WakeMed offer a mix of modern and traditional methods to ensure the best patient experience and quality of care before, during and after each birth.
At REX, this includes making midwives available to patients, a practice that has helped bring the birth center’s rate of caesarean deliveries to well below the national average and has boosted breastfeeding rates among new moms, according to Lalumiere. A midwifery clinic, City of Oaks Midwifery, opened recently in a building adjacent to REX and moms interested in using a midwife for their birth can book appointments and start building a relationship with a midwife in addition to their OB/GYN physician.
“It’s a different type of care,” Lalumiere explains. “Midwives are trained as nurses and they tend to have a little more time with patients. Our patients recognize that and they like that aspect of care.”
Though traditional birth practices coupled with modern medicine are increasingly popular, giving birth in the U.S. doesn’t fully come without risks these days. And in North Carolina, unfortunately, there is a high rate of premature births and infant deaths that the state is working to address.
Over the past 15 years, maternal deaths and postpartum complications have increased sharply due to undetected blood loss, especially in cesarean deliveries. Last year, REX invested in a product, Triton, that monitors and quantifies blood loss using digital imaging—capturing photos of blood-soaked sponges and canisters of amniotic fluid and using machine learning to estimate the amount of blood lost—rather than having to rely on nurses’ and doctors’ visual estimates.
REX now uses Triton for all deliveries at the hospital and the product has been associated with significant increases in detecting maternal hemorrhaging during delivery. “We decided it was a much more accurate way of measuring blood loss and we have a protocol in place where, depending on how much blood the mom has lost, there are different interventions and medications to consider,” Lalumiere says.
At WakeMed, patients can use technology to track their own progress. When moms check in to deliver, they’re given an iPad with a program called MyChart Bedside that allows them to track their care.
“It’s the way we provide opportunities for additional education and information and access to everything while patients are in our care,” DeShazo says. There’s also an emphasis on the traditional mom and baby bonding methods at WakeMed hospitals. According to DeShazo, WakeMed boasts breastfeeding rates of 86 percent while patients are in the hospital’s care, as well as a 95 percent skin-to-skin contact rate at the time of delivery for uncomplicated births.
UNC REX maternity birth center
Supporting Babies and Families
In step with the hospital’s commitment to breastfeeding for moms and babies, WakeMed North recently opened a Milk Bank Depot where moms can donate breast milk to support vulnerable babies locally and in other states. Since it opened in September, the Milk Bank Depot collected 31,000 ounces, or 3,879 cups, of breastmilk in its first five months as part of a goal to collect 200,000 ounces of milk for yearly distribution.
“With moms having premature babies, or clinical conditions where breastfeeding isn’t something they’re able to do, donor milk is a way babies still get the advantage of having had breast milk in the early stages of life,” DeShazo says. “We are proud to be a part of supporting not just our local community but hospitals in other states across the country out of our lactation commitment.”
At REX, a new program supports babies and parents in a literal way. The Cuddlers program that launched last fall trains volunteers to hold, swaddle and comfort infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit under the guidance of nursing and medical staff.
“Studies show that human touch can decrease the length of a baby’s stay in the NICU,” Lalumiere says. “One of the most stressful things for parents is when they go back to work or have other children at home and can’t be in NICU 24/7. Having cuddlers step in to hold and comfort their baby when they can’t be there, we’re hoping reduces their stress and hopefully enhances their infants’ stay.”
An Elevated Experience
While technology and services clearly play a major role in local parents’ decisions about where to have their babies, like much in life there’s often an element of the intangible that tips the scales for where families choose to have their babies in one direction or another.
At WakeMed North, for instance, the goal is to make parents’ stay feel “more like a hotel than a hospital,” in De Shazo’s words. That means natural light and sliding barn doors in patients’ rooms, waffle robes, partnerships with a local spa for massages and facials, birthday celebrations complete with cake and sparkling cider and a take-home meal that feeds up to eight, so new parents don’t have to worry about cooking when they get home.
“When you walk through our hospital, there is spa music playing, no constant drone of overhead pages,” DeShazo says. “We’re really focusing on those little things that make the experience exceptional and personalized.”
For Beckstrand, the mom of eight, that intangible quality comes from the warm staff at REX who are always welcoming to her and her family. Oh, and also, the food.
“It’s not just the labor and delivery nurses, but the nursery nurses and the postpartum nurses … everyone is really great,” Beckstrand says. “And, it’s funny, I’m being serious, I really like their food! I get food delivered to me and it is actually good! So, the staff, the food, the facility was just always comforting. I know the hospital is sterile, but the experience is not.”
How Five Points residents, an architect and Hayes Barton Baptist Church came together in compromise.
The house at 1814 White Oak Road, a classic-frame craftsman bungalow, is painted white, with hardwood floors, a covered porch and an original decorative fireplace.
Though charming, there’s not much to distinguish it from other historic homes in Raleigh’s old Five Points neighborhood. But for William Dodge, who lived in the home in the ’90s as a teenager with his educator parents—roaming the streets with neighborhood kids, playing basketball on the church’s parking lot courts—it was the house that made him want to study to become an architect.
William Dodge
Hayes Barton Baptist Church, located at the pinnacle of the Five Points intersection if you’re traveling north on Glenwood from downtown, is one of the best-known buildings in Raleigh. Built in 1926, the sprawling building’s towering spire, its classical columns and beige-toned brick and trim work make it iconic in most residents’ minds.
A little over a year ago, the church’s pastor, Dr. David Hailey, announced plans to tear down six homes, all constructed between 1921 and 1930, that the church owned on adjacent White Oak Road—including 1814—to accommodate its growing membership. The church, which had been renting the homes at affordable prices for decades to students and working class families such as Dodge’s, needed space to build a parking lot in order to better serve senior and disabled congregants and parents dropping off and picking up their young children.
Dr. David Hailey
As often happens in Raleigh when the old and less monied are perceived as being forced out to accommodate the new and wealthy—whether it’s property, or people, or both—residents living nearby were indignant. As well as upset over the prospect of losing the historic houses—all are included in the Bloomsbury Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places, part of the fabric of a neighborhood that, uniquely for Raleigh’s older districts, has remained intact for over a century—neighbors feared for their children’s safety due to increased traffic that the parking lot could generate on one-way White Oak Road and exacerbated issues with stormwater runoff, an already existing problem.
Tempers flared. Picket signs imploring the church to “Save Six” went up in front yards all over Five Points and beyond.
But what followed wasn’t an acrimonious, drawn-out battle between a powerful parish and a group of principled preservationists, or a rightful property owner and a bunch of NIMBYs, depending on the perspective.
Instead, last month, the neighbors and church leadership reached a compromise, encoded in a memorandum of understanding, that presents a solution to the church’s needs while still seeking to preserve at least three of the houses on White Oak Road. All parties agree that the final master plan is a better one than existed before, both for the church and for the neighborhood.
And there’s a real possibility that all six of the homes could eventually be saved.
Yard signs urging the church to preserve the six homes
A Contentious Beginning
The Five Points CAC meeting was packed on March 21 of last year.
Hailey, who had presented a conceptual framework of the church’s expansion plans to his congregation earlier that month had sent volunteers to knock on neighbors’ doors and pass along the information. This is where the trouble started.
“[The plan] was not presented to us that this was a proposal,” said Jennifer Williams, a White Oak resident and Save Six organizer, at the CAC meeting that night. “It was presented that this was a done deal and that this would be good for us. We could barely react. We were handed a pamphlet that seemed very official and it was like, ‘This is what we’re doing, it’s going to be good for you and will be good for the neighborhood.’”
“The neighbors felt we locked them out,” Hailey says. “And I guess we did lock them out. But it wasn’t malicious. So at the meeting, there was a high level of contention.”
“Serious anxiety and contention,” Dodge adds. “People were yelling at people.”
“The uproar had already begun in the press,” Hailey says, “and we determined when we went to the meeting, we’d tell a little bit of the story. And then, we were just going to listen.”
Though emotions were running high, both church leaders and neighbors insisted they didn’t want an adversarial relationship with one another. And, during the meeting, it became clear that the church was open to taking suggestions. Dodge—who by then hadn’t had anything to do with the church for two decades, though he still had friends in the area and frequented Hayes Barton Café and the Five Points post office—approached Hailey and offered to lend his expertise.
The two sat down together a few weeks later.
“I had just started as one of the partners at a new architecture firm,” Dodge recalls. “My friend is the CEO and I told him, ‘I think I just found the most high-profile, contentious, non-paying project ever. Aren’t you super excited about that?’”
Turns out, he was.
Dodge and his design partner, Jesse Green, at Hanbury—an architecture and planning firm—acted as pro bono outside design advisers in order to help both the neighborhood and the church resolve many of the issues raised in the church’s initial plan. Over several months, Dodge and Green were able to draw up a master plan that gives the church its expanded parking, as well as the accessibility and flexibility it needs, while still preserving three of the homes—1814, 1816 and 1818—onsite.
“We kept going back and forth, like can we try to get by with just two houses being removed,” Dodge says. “But it really needed handicap accessibility parking and that just wouldn’t have given them enough. That was not an easy thing for me to say. I love these houses and am very familiar with them. But we were trying to create a community dynamic between the overall neighborhood and the church and ultimately, this is the best possible solution that could have happened.”
Durham-based landscape architecture firm Surface 678 will install landscaping between White Oak Road and the parking lot and the civil engineering firm WithersRavenel will work with the church in order to realize the master plan while also providing an enhanced but inviting landscape buffer as well as mitigating stormwater issues.
Furthermore, Hayes Barton Baptist Church is exploring ways to create a joint partnership with its neighbors to develop the three homes for affordable housing.
“We want to be a little more intentional,” Hailey says. “We understand that to create a community and a home, you need not only a safe shelter but a welcoming community. We want to partner with the neighborhood in providing that welcoming community. We look at the homes as part of our mission, as part of a ministry strategy.”
But there won’t be any proselytizing, Hailey clarifies. Instead, the church wants and welcomes diversity. He’s looking at the Catholic Church’s “Support Circle” model, where communities support families in acclimating to their new neighborhoods.
1810 and 1806 White Oak Road
Loving Your Neighbor
By most accounts, the Save Six saga is a Raleigh success story. When church and community leaders signed the MOU last month, dozens of neighbors turned out to witness it, bringing their kids, exchanging hugs and posing for group pictures.
“We can’t help but see this as a symbol of community,” said Vernon Hunter, a Five Points resident involved in the negotiations. “Despite our different needs, we were able to come together as neighbors and reach an agreement that works for everyone involved.”
“I applaud the neighbors for coming to the table,” Hailey says. “It was hard for them to think about removing three houses.”
Hailey also applauds Dodge: “He was a bridge to the past and a bridge to the future.”
And Dodge applauds Hailey: “99 percent of people in [his] situation would not care what the neighbors have to say.”
So, the biblical parable is clear: It’s about loving your neighbor.
“It saved three houses but built multiple relationships,” Hailey says. “[Dodge] and I met through this and I promise there will be times in the future when I pick up the phone and call him because we built this friendship. Sometimes, what appears to be your worst experience ends up being your best, because it becomes a pathway. You can’t get to the promised land except through the wilderness.”
“It’s almost been, in a cheesy way, a love story,” Dodge says. “It could not have come together better. It’s funny, this is by far the most time I’ve spent in a church in 30 years. But I grew up in this house, trained as an architect, know nothing about the Baptist church but I go to a meeting, have a conversation and it turns out to be this really cool project that at least saved three houses. Maybe all.”
Maybe all?
Indeed, what will become of the other three houses—1806 White Oak Road, another craftsman bungalow, 1810, a Dutch Colonial Revival, and 1812, an American Foursquare?
In the best-case scenario, the church, already raising money to get the plan underway, can partner with someone in real estate with the means to physically move the homes onto vacant lots elsewhere in Five Points, or in Raleigh. It’s been done here before.
“That would be a great outcome,” Hailey says. “We would be delighted to try and make that happen.”
In any event, the Five Points bungalow that inspired an architect—and brought together a community—is here to stay.
