Vanessa Infanzon

Freelance Writer

LEARN MORE

Featured Stories

Click this text to start editing. This block is a basic combination of a title and a paragraph. Use it to welcome visitors to your website, or explain a product or service without using an image. Try keeping the paragraph short and breaking off the text-only areas of your page to keep your website interesting to visitors.

Dishing vegetarian

When the owners of the newly opened The Restaurant at Alchemy asked Ken Aponte to join the team as executive chef, he wasn’t sure if the idea would work. The vegetarian-focused restaurant is part of C3Lab, the South End arts incubator and coworking hub owned by Glen and Maria Nocik. PHOTO: Glyn A. Stanley Photography

Spoken word artist creates poetry by drawing from pain — to help others cope with theirs

Spoken word artist Jah Smalls texted poems to his teenage daughter to help her cope with depression last year. Smalls had experienced depression just months before and a poem he wrote changed his outlook, he said. Photo: Tyrone Combs

He wrote his first love song in third grade. Now 25, he’s teaching others to love singing.

Vocal performer Jonathan “Jay” Smith wrote his first song, “Only Once,” when he was in the third grade. It was heavily influenced by singer-songwriter Ray J’s “One Wish.”

PHOTO: Daniel Coston

The Charlotte Art League wants to be more inclusive. Its new director will lead the way.

On June 1, Jim Dukes became the second executive director of Charlotte Art League. His goal: to make CAL into one of the most diverse and engaged creative studio spaces in Charlotte. PHOTO CREDIT: Chandler Snipe

This emerging Charlotte artist faced her sadness and fears to pursue art full time

Every life has turning points. For Rosa Renteria Jimenez it was her grandfather’s death. He died last October, a few months after she visited him in Mexico. His passing gave her the courage to put everything she had into becoming a professional artist.

Ludwig Drums’ striking craftsmanship

Seven years ago, before Anderson Hall became plant supervisor, he stepped into Ludwig Drums in Monroe for a job interview, expecting to see robots producing the legendary instruments. He couldn’t imagine they were handcrafted and finished by men and women, some with more than 30 years of experience at the business.