Faces & Stories

David grew up on a tobacco farm in Boone, North Carolina and was brought up by a single mother who worked as a faculty librarian at Appalachian State University. Though David describes himself as un-homed since 19, he did not experience true homelessness until about a year and a half ago, after completing a detox program in...

I met Joan, the new Garden Coordinator, at the first gardening meeting of the year. Something that stuck out to me was a phrase written at the top of our agenda: Interactive Gardening. While I had a general idea what this meant, curiosity clung to me for weeks until my second meeting with Joan several...

Brook [part of the Haywood Street Marks & Memoire series] Grace was my first tattoo. I went with my brother’s girlfriend to a seedy shop downtown. The artist went by the name ‘Captain Morgan’. My eighteen-year-old self said, “Yes, this is a good idea.”  Grace is a three-fold thing. It’s a way to move in the...

Robert [part of the Haywood Street Marks & Memoire series] ‘’I reckon it was around 1994–the bull tattoo. I was recovering from a spinal cord injury, going back and forth between doctors. And then one day I just decided to take a detour and head to the tattoo parlor.” Robert tells me there’s not a lot to...