“Life is not happening to you; it’s happening for you.” I’ve heard bestselling author (and former advice columnist for O Magazine) Martha Beck say that. A quick Google search shows that Tony Robbins has said it, too. Maybe all life coaches and motivational speakers say some version of it.

Signs are everywhere – on interstates, on highways and byways, on restaurants and retail establishments. No trespassing. Wrong way. Masks required. We encounter so many signs in our daily lives that we can start to tune them out. Unless a sign stands out.

The ever-changing rhythms of the Queen City are reimagined as an immersive experience of abstract animations in Charlotte’s newest public artwork. “SKYLINE,” a site-specific artwork integrated into the Charlotte Convention Center overstreet pedestrian walkway, was unveiled in October as part of the convention center’s expansion opening celebration.

When Covid-19 first began to impact our community in early 2020, the Charlotte Journalism Collaborative (CJC), a diverse group of six area media and three community partners, invested in an innovative approach to reach an audience of untypical news consumers with credible and actionable messaging.

Don’t put limits on Kenya Templeton. She doesn’t believe in them and will do her best to defy them anyway.

As a young boy growing up in Shanghai, China, Raphael “Ray” Tsu would look skyward wondering about the universe beyond the clouds. “I asked my mother, ‘What is behind the clouds?’” recalled Tsu. “She told me, ‘The sun.’ I’d then ask, ‘What is behind the sun?’ and she told me, ‘The stars.’ When I finally asked, ‘What is behind the stars?’ she told me, ‘Only God knows.’ I knew then at 10 years old there was so much we didn’t know. This is what drives me as a scientist, to learn about what we don’t know.”

Telling others’ stories is a privilege documentary filmmaker Beverley Penninger undertakes with the utmost respect and sense of responsibility. “I never start a project with any preconceived ideas,” said Penninger. “My goal is to honor the subject and share the journey of discovery with the viewer.”

Sonia Handelman Meyer’s passion for photography grew from a chance encounter she had in 1942 while working as a civilian for the U.S. Army Signal Corp at Ft. Buchanan in Puerto Rico. “I met a young man working for the National Youth Administration taking pictures of the conditions,” recalled Meyer. “His photographs were beautiful and exposed things that needed to be changed. I knew immediately this was something I wanted to do.”

Tyrone Jefferson likes to quote civil rights activist Marcus M. Garvey who said, “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” The quest for ancestral knowledge is not only Jefferson’s lifelong passion, but part of the mission of A Sign of The Times, the nonprofit community service organization he founded in 2006.

When Tom Hanchett arrived in Charlotte in the early ‘80s to work for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission his job was to study neighborhoods many saw as old and run down.