Why I Write

Why I Write Image

People ask me why I write and I ask how can you not? How do you make sense of the world, hang it on a pegboard with outlines, turn it over in your hands or pin it to the wall to examine later, without the writing of words? Words are my tools and my toys.…

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An Iron Will

HUNTLY, VIRGINIA – Nol Putnam forges wind from iron, his hammer metronomic at 2½ strikes a second, steel against iron against anvil. The angle of the peen and the force of his follow-through shape hot metal the way a rolling pin pushes pastry. Putnam, 80, has been creating art from iron for more than 40 years. His…

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The American Windsor

Photography by KEITH LANPHER

On the Eastern Shore, the Lewins carve, bend and paint so folks can sit in comfort                       Kurt Lewin pulls the drawknife toward himself, and oak shavings fall to the floor. He alters the angle and pulls again. Thousands of times a day he will…

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Edwards Ham

Slider Image for Cured Story

From the spark of an idea, the Edwards family has built a legacy of taste. SURRY – Sam Wallace Edwards III pulls open the doors and thick gray smoke smelling of hickory and ham rolls out like a fog. His father built this business, and his grandfather before him, and Sam has known since he…

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A River Of Chips

photography by Eric Lusher

Mount Jackson, Virginia – Inside a beige cinderblock building half an hour from Harrisonburg up I-81, 15,000 pounds of potatoes a day thunder down a stainless steel chute and through a chamber where they’re tossed by an auger, knocking off farm soil that is then captured and reused as topsoil for Route 11 Potato Chip employees.…

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