Field Guide: Bloomscrolling > Doomscrolling

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Hi! Happy weekend.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years since the onset of COVID-19—beyond everything else, those first two years irreversibly scrabbled and stunted my sense of time. But here we are, and in a feature on Art in Bloom—NCMA’s annual floral extravaganza, which runs through Sunday, March, 23—Raleigh editor Jane Porter takes us back to those early pandemic months in the museum’s park. 

I have vivid memories of strolling the path encircling the sprawling, gently sloping grounds with my daughter, Eve, who was two at the time. We puzzled over Jeppe Hein’s Mirror Labyrinth NY and I have a photo of Eve looking up to the sky, tiny underneath one of the three towering rings that compose Thomas Sayre’s iconic Gyre. 

So it feels right this year, on the fifth anniversary of a global lockdown, that Art in Bloom, the NCMA’s marquee fundraising festival of florals, is themed ‘Art in the Park,’ a celebration of one of Raleigh’s most stunning and accessible open spaces and a likely lifeline for thousands of Triangle residents in recent years.   

I can’t take credit for “bloomscrolling” (reader Pam Brown made that pun on Bluesky), but if you’re not able to make it to NCMA before Sunday, I encourage you to read/scroll Jane’s feature to glimpse the floral handiwork of 30 designers—42 designs in total, all interpreting works in and around the museum’s West Building.

If you do plan to go this weekend, I encourage you to read the piece, anyway, for a rundown of how to navigate the exhibit. (And read our piece, from last week, on the art to seek out across the Triangle this spring.)

Either way, hope you’re able to spend some time outside this weekend. Everything is blooming! 

also in the culture section

Durham’s Brunello Wine Bar will see its last pour tonight. Over the past decade, owner Esteban Brunello ran two iterations of the wine spot downtown—Bar Brunello, a Main Street standard that wasn’t able to keep its doors open during the pandemic, shuttering in 2020. It had been, former INDY art director Annie Maynard wrote at the time, a spot that was “unpretentious and full of genuine warmth. It felt like a secret.” 

In 2022, it opened as Brunello Wine Bar on the CCB Plaza corner. Brunello says that in this second act, and even before, he’s seen a marked shift in consumers—less of an interest in wine, more dates where both parties are buried in their phones. (Having gone on several dates at the bar, I’m truly hoping I wasn’t one of those people.) 

Read on for Lena Geller’s report on Brunello’s next venture in Chapel Hill. 

Also this week: Lena Geller interviewed Adam Sobsey, who works at neighboring wine bar Delafia, about his memoir, A Jewish Appendix, which releases this month. It’s a winding meditation on history and belonging that puts language to the ephemeral and makes “heavy weather out of synchronicities and coincidences.” I loved this smart conversation. 

Next week, I’ll share some coverage of the upcoming Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. 

ICYMI: Things to do this week (a comedy festival, a cosmic (film) festival, and more), sweet treats on wheels, and the Council family legacy continues with Tonya’s Café.

— Sarah Edwards —
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