Titanium Grapes Necklace. Anodized titanium. From the collection of Christina Trevino | Photo by Jason Dowdle
Throughout her life, Raleighite Mary Ann Scherr wore many creative hats. Before she died in 2016 at age 94, Scherr worked as a cartographer, illustrator, industrial designer, fashion designer, graphic designer and jewelry artist during the course of a career that spanned seven decades. But her unique, intricately crafted metal jewelry designs are what Scherr is perhaps best known for and what will continue to be her legacy. Scherr studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art, the University of Akron and Kent State University before landing her first job at Goodyear Aircraft Corporation and, later, at Ford Motor Company and the Aluminum Company of America. At the Aluminum Company, Scherr was commissioned to design a collection of stainless steel jewelry, which set the tone for the industrial-style pieces that would become her signature—a gilt metal collar necklace, a sterling silver bracelet with textured patina and a brown glass and sterling silver necklace, to name just a few of Scherr’s iconic pieces.
In 1986, Scherr moved to Raleigh to open a gallery and studio while continuing to teach courses at the Penland School of Crafts in Bakersville, North Carolina, where she worked as a seasonal professor since 1968. Scherr also taught jewelry making classes at NC State’s Crafts Center and served on the board of the Gregg Museum of Art & Design and the Raleigh Fine Arts Society. Beginning February 20, Scherr’s work will be on display at the Gregg in an exhibition curated by jewelry historian Ana Estrades. Collaborating with locals who knew and worked with Scherr, Estrades and her team will showcase the artist’s finest and most unique pieces.
Lo & Behold Naturals combines clean skincare and community collaboration.
Natural products, whether we’re eating them or using them on our bodies, have become something of a trend of late. Elisabeth Chadbourne, founder of Lo & Behold Naturals in Durham, realizes that in the world we live in, it’s hard to avoid chemicals completely, but in the field of skincare, it’s possible—even easy. Lo & Behold, her skincare company, offers clean, toxic-free products made from natural, plant-based ingredients. Chadbourne’s venture began as a hobby; she studied herbalism with a farmer and applied what she knew to skincare, experimenting with herbal concoctions without harmful ingredients after she learned just how many toxic ingredients were in mainstream skincare products.
Elisabeth Chadbourne, Founder of Lo & Behold Naturals | Photo by Three Region NC
“If we’re going to be [using products on] our bodies, we might as well be using something we trust,” Chadbourne says. Chadbourne founded Lo & Behold six years ago and the company has grown into a popular local apothecary, a source for everything from coconut and rose hip moisturizing face masks to eucalyptus bug sprays. Chadbourne focuses on partnering with local people, including artists, to design her labels and small farmers to source herbs, flowers, honey and other ingredients for her products. These naturally grown ingredients, along with coconut oils and butters, plant extracts and essential oils, not only scent Lo & Behold’s products but provide added benefits from the plants. “I go out of my way for everything to have a really incredible texture and smell,” Chadbourne says. “You’re not just taking a bath or putting on your face cream, you’re going to have an experience that makes you feel better throughout the day.”
Lo & Behold Naturals can be found in Raleigh stores such as Trellis Beauty, Raleigh Provisions, Edge of Urge and Renew, where Chadbourne helped create a build-your-own bath soak bar. Chadbourne says she hopes her products will offer clients a safe and local alternative to conventional skincare. “I just want everyone who uses the product to feel better about themselves,” Chadbourne says, “and feel great about what they’re putting on their skin.”
How do you find out about new places to eat, drink and have fun experiences? For more than a million people in the Triangle and beyond, the answer is through Offline but soon, the six year-old digital media company, whose mission is to encourage people to “rediscover and reconnect with the amazing world around [them],” will be available to subscribers only.
David Shaner started Offline Raleigh in 2014 and grew the company to cover Durham, Charlotte and Nashville. He says he wants Offline to cater to its Premium members going forward, those members who currently pay $12.99 per month for monthly offers to local restaurants, sneak peaks of newly opened businesses and bonus perks such as discounted concert tickets and complimentary happy hours. Currently, more than 3,500 Offline Premium members subscribe in Raleigh and Durham.
“We’re making [Offline Premium] our core offering so we can make it as amazing as we possibly can,” Shaner says.
David Shaner, Founder of Offline | Photo by Jamie Robbins
Offline’s strategy will be to tailor events and perks in a more personalized way to individual members, a concept Shaner says he thinks of as a modern-day concierge service. Whereas Offline Premium currently is one size fits all, the Offline team will soon be able to customize offers to individuals based on a curated list of partners once the team learns where each of their members lives and works and what their interests are.
Shaner says the membership subscription model was inspired by research from the Knight Foundation, a national nonprofit dedicated to fostering “informed and engaged communities.” The Foundation’s research found that the top three things correlated with place attachment were social offerings, aesthetics and openness of the community. By exposing Raleigh and Durham residents to local businesses and experiences every month, Shaner says he feels that Offline Premium is helping community members understand the diversity of the cities’ social offerings and getting Raleigh and Durham residents to fall in love with their cities.
As with the original Offline Raleigh, Shaner’s goal with Offline Premium is to get people in Raleigh and other metros to try new things in their cities and to spend more time out in their communities rather than on their couches with their laptops or phones.
“It’s really awesome to see that, not only is Offline getting individual people to try new things and getting businesses exposed to new customers, but it’s helping people spend more time together in the real world,” says Shaner. “That’s what Offline is all about.”
On a summer day during a break from studying criminal justice at East Carolina University, Cassandra Deck-Brown was sitting on her grandmother’s steps in Philadelphia as a police car drove down the street. The car stopped at a disturbance taking place at the other end of the block. A woman police officer got out, dispersed the crowd that had gathered, addressed the dispersing members, made an arrest and drove away. That’s when Deck-Brown realized she wanted to work in law enforcement.
After she graduated the following spring, Deck-Brown applied for a police officer position in Raleigh, about an hour away from her hometown in Franklin County. She was accepted and entered the police academy on August 3, 1987. In 2013, Deck-Brown was sworn in as Raleigh police chief, the first African American woman to hold the position.
Becoming the head of Raleigh’s police department was a long and intense process, Deck-Brown says, and it’s not a job she takes lightly. After graduating from the academy—there were four women in her class, out of twenty students total—she patrolled like all officers do starting out. Soon, executive staffers within the department approached her about becoming a crime prevention and community policing officer. Deck-Brown rose through the ranks to become a detective, a sergeant in 1997, a lieutenant, a captain, a major in 2006, a deputy chief, interim chief and then, finally, police chief seven years ago. As head of the police force, it is Deck-Brown’s duty to oversee both the safety of the people in Raleigh as well as the officers within her department, along with ensuring they have the training and resources the officers need to serve.
“Being able to manage an organization this size in a city this size comes with tremendous responsibility,” Deck-Brown says. “I often say ‘to whom much is given, much is required.’”
Deck-Brown with Donald Burchell, executive chef at Centerplate
Deck-Brown also focuses on community engagement and forming partnerships with faith communities, youths and non-government entities. It’s these partnerships and relationships that she is most proud of as police chief. “The relationships we have built in this city have been phenomenal in a lot of ways,” she says. “Those same relationships have not only benefited me, but this department as a whole. They have afforded us to be recognized for the great work we’ve done and an opportunity to learn when we’ve not done the best work.”
Last year, Deck-Brown and RPD held the city’s first youth summit, gathering nearly 300 kids to listen to keynote speakers, participate in breakout sessions and workshops and to learn from exhibitors who offered insights on career paths within the police department, internships and other opportunities. Deck-Brown also helped launch the “I Care” (Interfaith Community Ambassadors for Responsive Engagement) team within the department, which represents various faith communities throughout the city, and recently held in-person roundtable meetings across Raleigh to start conversations with members of the community. “Too often people don’t necessarily see the human side of a police officer,” Deck-Brown says. “And when you can sit down and have a conversation, you realize that he or she is a mother, or a father, a sister, or brother; there is a person in that uniform who cares, who has compassion and integrity and a desire to help others.”
Deck-Brown says she is humbled and honored to be Raleigh’s police chief. It’s a position few women in the nation hold and Deck-Brown strives to make an impact on the local community and leave a legacy for the officers who serve alongside her.
“I happen to be an African American woman who happens to be a Raleigh police officer, who happens to be the police chief in the capital city of the state of North Carolina,” Deck-Brown says. “With that, who happens to be a mother, a sister and a grandmom. Once we can see people for who we are, and not just the uniform we wear, we have an opportunity to appreciate each other far more.”
The Cardinal at North Hills celebrates the Art of Living Well® and is proud to commission this special editorial series. To learn more visit, lifeatthecardinal.com.
Ira David Wood III may be best known for his role as Ebenezer Scrooge in Theatre in the Park’s production of “A Christmas Carol,” but he’s anything but selfish in real life. For 45 years now, Wood has sacrificed much of his holiday time to direct, rehearse and perform in the show in Raleigh and Durham. Wood will tell you, however, that he is being selfish, because to him, he says, performing on stage is one of the most thrilling feelings in the world.
Wood came to the role of Scrooge after serving as North Carolina’s first theatre arts consultant, a job he took after declining an invitation from Andy Griffith to play a role in “The Andy Griffith Show” because of the debt he felt he owed to his home state. Wood, who grew up in Halifax County, thanks North Carolina for offering him a way out of the agriculture industry, giving him the resources he needed to get into the Governor’s School—a publicly funded residential summer program for gifted students—and then into the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem.
After successfully directing a production for the Raleigh Children’s Theatre in the early 1970s, Wood was selected to be the theater’s executive director. It was during that time that he changed the institution’s name to Theatre in the Park in order to broaden the scope of the theatre and to attract people of all ages to get involved. In 1974, while most Raleigh theaters were closed during the holiday season, Wood opened Theatre in the Park’s doors to encourage families spending time together around Christmas to come out and see “A Christmas Carol.”
“It’s an honor to have people make us part of their celebration of the holidays,” Wood says.
Ira David Wood III
Wood says he’s learned a lot from playing Scrooge for so long, namely about the spirit of giving and the message of the story, which, according to him, is “that we’re capable of transforming ourselves and becoming better than we were.”
“[Scrooge] has certainly made me better,” Wood continues. “At this point, it’s like meeting an old friend when I go into the dressing room.”
At 72, Wood is gearing up for retirement. On the 50th anniversary of A Christmas Carol, he will pass Scrooge’s signature tights and top hat on to his son, Ira David Wood IV, who has been alternating in the role with his father ever since Wood underwent open heart surgery in 2010. “Nobody wants to see a 72-year-old man in tights running around the stage,” Wood says with a laugh. “It’s time for me to hang them up.” Wood will continue to direct the production as long as his health allows, and son Ira, along with his daughter, the actress Evan Rachel Wood, say they plan to see to it that the show outlasts him. “That’s a very humbling thing to think, that you’ve created something that will outlive you and will continue to touch hearts and change lives.”
Wood says getting older has also given him a meaningful perspective on life in general. “Life is so short in the scheme of things and it’s so important, not just to live, but to celebrate moments,” Wood says. He says he’s learned to celebrate the fellow actors he’s worked with in “A Christmas Carol” and all the memories they’ve made, the simple pleasures that come with Christmastime and the happiness that theatre has brought him. Most of all, Wood says he hopes the production has brought joy to everyone who’s come to see it over the last 45 years, and that it will continue to bring joy to those who see it in the future when he’s no longer on stage playing Scrooge.
“We encourage people to laugh, to celebrate being together and to enjoy those tender moments,” says Wood. “And when you walk out, you’re better equipped to celebrate the holidays; you’re a better person than you were when you walked in.”
The Cardinal at North Hills celebrates the Art of Living Well® and is proud to commission this special editorial series. To learn more visit, lifeatthecardinal.com.
