By Monica Jones You don’t have to know much about art to recognize when something is worth your time. You feel it when a room slows you down. When the work asks you to stand still. When beauty, history, and craft meet you without explanation and quietly say, stay with this. That’s what happens inside We Are the Drum and the Scribe, now on view at the Bo Bartlett Center. Drawn from the Black Art…
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Baddie, Spelled with a V By Monica Jones Some people leave Columbus and never look back. Most of us are not those people. Most of us are boomerangs – we go, we grow, we test ourselves somewhere bigger, louder, faster. Then, one day, we circle back to the place that built us. Not because we failed, but because we finally know what we’re building, and we want to build it here. That’s the energy behind…
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A Night Out with Riverdance By Monica Jones There are moments when we don’t need another obligation, another errand, or another item on the calendar. What we need instead is to step outside of our routine and into something that reminds us why we love being here at all. On February 10, Riverdance will arrive at RiverCenter with exactly that kind of invitation. For some, the name Riverdance brings up a set of familiar images:…
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How Sydney Helms Built a Growing, Glowing Local Empire Rooted in Community By Monica Jones There’s a verse in the Bible about a mustard seed. Tiny. Unassuming. Easy to overlook – and yet, when planted with care, it grows into something far larger than anyone expects. For Sydney Helms, the mustard seed wasn’t just a name for her shop. It was a philosophy. Long before she owned multiple businesses, before her spaces became known for…
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Why an Old Place Is Quietly Opening Its Doors Again By Monica Jones For a while, it felt like Westville existed mostly in memory. People spoke about it in the past tense. School trips. Blacksmith forges. Quilts, looms, and the smell of iron and wood smoke clinging to a warm afternoon. Then the pandemic came, and like so many cultural spaces built on shared presence, Westville went quiet. Now, quietly and deliberately, Historic Westville Village…
Read MoreThe Astrological Alchemy on 6th Street By Monica Jones The Vibe on 6th is a quantum leap for Columbus culture, forged in the fires of entrepreneurial necessity and guided by the lunar glow of the Full Moon Market. It’s a story the city needs right now—three titans of local hustle, each a veteran in the high-stakes game of keeping things interesting, finally joining forces to create a space so undeniably cool, it’s practically vibrating. Forget…
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Inside Columbus Ballet’s 29th Year of Holiday Magic Images provided by the Columbus Ballet (@braxleestudios) By Monica Jones Each December, just as Columbus starts to glow with lights and wreaths, another kind of magic begins to stir at RiverCenter for the Performing Arts. Backstage, pointe shoes are being broken in, tutus sewn and resewn, and young dancers run their variations again and again until the counts live in their bones. This year, that familiar ritual…
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The Story of Ginger Goolsby Howze: The Hope Dealer By Monica Jones Ginger Goolsby Howze now lives a life of purpose. She has seven years clean, an amazing relationship with her son, and works as a Certified Peer Specialist—a job that allows her to use her painful past to guide others. But the path to this stable, fulfilling life involved losing everything, including her mind. Her journey pulls back the curtain on the real and…
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Gary Mullen & The Works Return to Columbus This Sunday For One Night of Queen By Monica Jones When Gary Mullen answers the phone, he doesn’t sound like a man easing his way to the finish line of a long tour. He sounds wired. Focused. Laughing, he jokes that his recovery playlist has basically been “Eye of the Tiger on repeat,” all in preparation for finally making it to Columbus. After illness forced the postponement…
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Three Dog Night and 50 Million Records at the RiverCenter By Monica Jones Forget what you thought you knew about classic rock; when a legendary band that literally invented the arena tour rolls into town, you stop scrolling. Three Dog Night is about to descend on the RiverCenter for the Performing Arts, and this isn’t some dusty nostalgia act—it’s a vibrant, decades-deep journey through the very DNA of pop music, a sound that defined radio…
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