Charlie Romans

By: Charlie Romans
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  • Summary

  • Local Kentucky Journalist and Author, Charlie Romans, invites listeners to join him on his journey through his home town to discover the stories behind the best places to live, work, and play.
    Copyright 2022 Bear Media Services
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Art Cooking History Social Sciences Travel Writing & Commentary
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Episodes
  • Foundry Theater and Appalachian Film Festival

    Foundry Theater and Appalachian Film Festival
    Aug 17 2023
    Rachael Allinder, the Founder and CEO of Foundry Theater shares a little about the Foundry’s history and how it serves local creators. The nonprofit is located on the top floor of the city building in Huntington, WV, and the weekend of Aug 19 will host the Appalachian Film Festival. Patrons can view the Independent film King Coal and meet creators behind that film. Patrons will also be able to connect with screenwriter and n Ironton, Ohio native Mickey Fisher. Do yourself a favor and check out all the Foundry has to offer! Tickets and schedules for the Appalachian Film Festival can be found here.
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    40 mins
  • Jewel Art Gallery

    Jewel Art Gallery
    May 4 2022
    There weren’t many (read any) art galleries where I grew up. The irony to that fact was that I grew up painting, not pastoral scenes or portraits, but automobiles. And though there is a good amount of skill required in rebuilding wrecked cars and trucks and returning them to a “new” condition, I never considered it to be artwork as such. Airbrushing is a different thing entirely, and can be considered art, but that talent was never one that I possessed. Still, art fascinates me because it begins with a blank canvas, a field of pristine whiteness, and somehow the artists breathe passion and soul onto it until it becomes a living thing. I had of course seen pictures of art represented in textbooks or on television, but though often beautiful, I always felt there was something missing. I always wondered about this as I looked at the amazing book covers painted by my old masters Boris Vallejo, Frank Frazetta, and John Jusko to name a few (yes, I was and still am a huge fantasy nerd) and tried to discern what was missing. After quite some time I figured it out, and the solution was frustrating. The problem was that I couldn’t see the brushstrokes, and how they “built” their art. And I had to realize that I probably never would, unfortunately. That’s one of the reasons why it was so wonderful meeting my friends at Jewel Art Gallery in Ashland, Ky. Bri and Elias Reynolds are the owners of the gallery that showcases local artists and are the manager and head artist respectively. I recently was fortunate enough to sit down and speak with Bri Reynolds about everything from art appreciation to different art mediums such as painting and sculpture. She is a wonderful young woman who appreciates art on so many levels and is always ready to answer questions. She let me see the brush strokes, the building blocks of art, from the inside out. Some days you also get really lucky and can talk to the local artists who made those bright swaths of color in person. The walls of the gallery are lined with so many different interpretations and themes. I saw a classic western painting of a cowboy with his horse and dog just feet from an amazing interpretation of African cultural history. “That’s one of the things we wanted to do,” Bri said as I looked around the gallery. “I tried to keep it very diverse so that somebody could come in and be a fan of that specific artist. So, we are creating collectors of people’s works,” she told me. “So, when they come in, they could ask if Gail has any new pieces this week. Or does Jerry have any new pieces,” she said. “For example, we have one artist that only paints endangered wildlife. She used to be a biologist until she got Lyme Disease.” Now the scientist turned artist serves her passion by painting it, which is a story unto itself. Honestly, that’s one I’d love to write. “We have all these different people who create different things,” she said. “And we wanted them to be identifiable for what they are best at, and that way they can create a following within our art gallery.” Different things . . . brushstrokes, sculptures, and wood carvings from dozens of different artists doing all the things that have fascinated me for decades. I don’t know why you might go to an art gallery (honestly, any reason is a good reason), but the opportunity to learn the how and why from people who do things I can’t do seems amazing to me. Am I jealous? No – well, maybe just a little – but I can and do appreciate things I personally don’t do. And at Jewel Art Gallery I can appreciate those things up close and personal, and personally ask the artist not only about the brush strokes, but why they decided to pick up a brush in the first place. That possibility is nothing short of wonderful. It also borders upon the surreal as well. I have used a chainsaw a lot in my life, cleaning hillsides and cutting firewood for instance. But there is an unbelievably detailed lions head at the gallery carved with a chain...
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    25 mins
  • CRe05: Sky37 Bistro

    CRe05: Sky37 Bistro
    Apr 22 2022
    If you are in downtown Ashland Kentucky at the SkyTower business complex, you can find Jason Crum and his wife Carma at Sky37 Bistro brewing an amazing cup of coffee. “It’s been a long way to get here,” Jason said. “We worked a lot through the pandemic, and since it was difficult to find people to work we did most of this ourselves. But it was kind of a labor of love, and we are glad we’re open. And the reception in Ashland has just been great.” There has been, as in many things, and evolution of ideas, he said. “We started down one path,” Jason said of the initial idea. “At first, we were just going to sell coffee, some pastries, and the normal café type of stuff.” That changed, he said, when everyone got wind that his wide’s cooking was “pretty good”. “So the next thing I knew, we had a menu,” he added to customer smiles from behind him as we talked just before lunch. “And we’ve not had a bad meal go out of here,” he added, again to smiles and nods of his patrons. Crum said that his intent was to have a place where people could slow down and come in for a while, which is why he chose the pour over method of coffee brewing, and they also make the pour over kits for customers to use at home. “The standard pour over kit is sort of the camper’s way of making coffee,” he explained. “If you have access to hot water, all you need is some coffee grounds and a cone filter and you pour the water through it. Ultimately that creates a couple of cups at a time.” “It brings out the flavor, and ours is unique because there are channels in the holder that holds the filter better and extracts flavor from the coffee better,” he said. The coffee itself is also specialty coffee that Crum purchases directly from the farm, and then it is roasted at their facility in Lloyd, Kentucky. “So everything is local and we have very fresh coffee all the time.” Crum said that he has introduced Bourbon coffee, and will also be introducing Cachaca Coffee, or Brazilian Rum flavored. “Anything distilled in Brazil has to be called Cachaca, because they aren’t allowed to call it rum,” he said. “We cast the cones in the kit out of a food grade resin.” Jason said of his choice of coffee “brewer”. “That way if they are knocked off the counter they will just bounce or roll across the floor. They’re very robust, and they will last well,” he said. The wire framework stand that holds the cone in place for brewing is of a heavy hand shaped copper wire. The entire kit, he said, from top to bottom is hand crafted and extra durable. “If you break one of these, you really had to work at it,” he added with a laugh. Crum said that there has been a good response to his method and the kits, with quite a few customers purchasing them for home use. “That’s another reason I chose this method, because people can do this at home. It’s not like if I had bought a 30-thousand-dollar expresso machine that people could have it at home. This way you can take our coffee – or anyone’s coffee – and have it in your home and get the same results that we do here. But it forces the coffee to be better coffee, and really gets the flavor out of it. Here I play with the grind a little bit, because I have some customers who want a stronger cup of coffee and some who want a weaker cup of coffee,” he said. The dining room of Sky37 has a big screen television over a fireplace, and what Crum describes as a rustic theme. Clocks and bourbon barrels, as well as handcrafted tables all sit beneath lighting fixtures and Edison bulbs, most of which were crafted by Crum himself, evoke an industrial modern feel. “Lighting and furniture was actually how we got started,” he said. “We started JC Mercantile in Lloyd and carried Brazilian made furniture, and a lot of what we do is with reclaimed wood. We didn’t want to cut any trees down, so what you see in here, every piece is part of a barn we had taken down. Some of it is from a Lexington horse farm.
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    29 mins

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