400 The Life - October 2017

Building an icon

Why Forsyth artist Gregory Johnson’s most recent work is his biggest yet, in more than just size.

PLUS: Former state Rep. Geoff Duncan finds his solace from the Gold Dome on the field

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riting this on the other side of Hurricane Irma, I hope this issue finds you safe and sound. Once the storm rolled out, the clear fall weather rolled back in. I, for one, could not be happier to welcome that change.

And, speaking of change, we here at the Forsyth County News have had a change for ourselves. Our previous publisher, Vince Johnson, has resigned, and we are proud to welcome Stephanie Woody as our new publisher. We’d like to thank Vince for his time here at FCN and wish him luck in his future endeavors. Stephanie grew up in Forsyth and graduated from North Forsyth High School, so she is more than familiar with the area.

We are excited to continue our efforts to bring you the most interesting stories on the 400 corridor, with Stephanie at the helm. Here’s to her first issue!

Now that we have the formalities out of the way, you should get to reading — because we have some seriously interesting stories: local artist Gregory Johnson and his 27-foot peach, a lieutenant governor candidate who shows us his favorite place to take a break, a tiny dancer with big talent, and more, all in this issue of 400-The Life.

— Micah Green

Parsons Gallery Events Join us for these artist events in our gallery.

Come in now to reserve your favorite paintings and to visit us.

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October 2017

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Personal Place: Former Rep. Geoff Duncan

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Tiny Dancer, Big Talent: Corinne Artiste

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7 Things: Family Haven's Shandra Dawkins

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COVER STORY: Gregory Johnson, James and their Giant Peach

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Sports Portraits: Football

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Just One: Apple

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Entertainment Guide

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Events

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CONTRIBUTORS Stephanie Woody Publisher

MICAH GREEN

Ryan Garmon Advertising Director

Angie decker Graphic Designer

Kayla Robins Editor

Tracie Pike Production Manager

Creative Director

Isabel Hughes Staff Writer

KELLY WHITMIRE Staff Writer

Ian Frazer Sports Writer

Connor Kelly

carly wages

allison althauser

Advertising Intern

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PERSONAL PLACE STORY BY KELLY WHITMIRE PHOTO BY MICAH GREEN

E

veryone needs a place to call their own and get away from life’s stresses, even those seeking one of the state’s highest political offices.

These days, Geoff Duncan can be found running across the state in the hopes of being elected Georgia’s next lieutenant governor, but in his rare free moments, he’d much rather be watching his sons — Parker, Bayler and Ryder — run across the fields at Sharon Springs Park.

“I have three boys, and all three of them, at some point or another, are at Sharon Springs to play baseball or football,” he said. “For the last, I guess it’s been 10 years, there hasn’t been a week out of the year I haven’t been at Sharon Springs for something.”

Duncan, who, until recently, represented parts of north and west Forsyth as the District 26 state Representative, announced in April he would be running for lieutenant governor. In August, he stepped down from the seat to focus on his campaign.

But Sharon Springs gives Duncan a brief reprieve from the campaign trail, even if it means changing in the parking lot from the suit of a candidate to the workout gear of a coach.

“It’s one of the only places in the state that I walk in that folks

don’t recognize me,” Duncan said.

“I’m wearing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and a baseball cap and running shoes, and I get to spend two or three hours coaching my kids, and nobody’s talking about politics.”

Duncan was a scholarship pitcher for Georgia Tech, reaching the 1994 College World Series, and a minor league player for the then Florida Marlins franchise.

Just a few years into that, injuries ended his playing career, and Duncan took up youth coaching.

“My baseball career ended in the early 2000s, and a few years passed,” Duncan said. “But then when my son was at the age of 4, I started coaching him over there at Sharon Springs."

Duncan is no stranger to juggling politics and coaching. On the night of his first primary as an incumbent in 2014, he was checking the results on his phone from the county’s Central Park, where he was coaching Bayler’s youth baseball game.

“For me, sports is my comfort place,” he said. “All the way growing up, I was quarterback of the football team at Chattahoochee High School and played baseball.

“I’ve been around sports my entire life, and it's just my comfort spot.”

At the end of the day, we all need a place to call our own, and for Geoff Duncan, he prefers the field over the Gold Dome.

Continued on 12

Story by Sydney Robinson

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tiny dancer,

BIG TALENT Story by

C

Isabel Hughes

orinne Artiste is nearly impossible to miss.

Even without a bright costume and fully made-up face, the 10-year-old grabs your attention even before she begins talking, let alone dancing, her hair — which has earned her the nickname ‘Lion’ — bouncing as she walks in.

A three-time national champion and two-time dancer of the year, Artiste has only been dancing for four years, though her wall of trophies would indicate much longer

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Ten years old.

Three-time national champion.

Two-time dancer of the year.

Photos by Micah Green

— several of the them standing taller than the girl who earned them.

They are certainly well-earned and appreciated by the young dancer, who winks as she flashes a competition-ready smile.

“I really love to win,” Artiste said, “but I also really love productions because you’re dancing with [people] who are almost like your family. When I’m off stage, I’m like, you know, nice and stuff, but when I get on stage, it’s like beast mode.”

What does it take?

15-20 hours of dance practice

per week over four weekdays and Saturday and Sunday

5-6 pairs of shoes, one for each dance type

20 costumes or competitions over the last four years

October 2017

excel, not win, because that’s not what it’s all about,” Ray said. “It’s about challenging yourself and putting your best out there, and sometimes at your best you don’t win.

“Going out there and giving 100 percent every time is what [it’s about], and every time [they perform] you tell them it’s a different set of judges, and one judge might like lyrical [dance] more or one judge might like older kids more, so you always just have to go out there and be happy with your own performance and know that you either hit your steps or what you messed up on.”

Despite knowing making mistakes is natural, Artiste said the nerves never go away.

“I’m always so nervous before going on stage — am I going to screw up? Am I going to forget my dance? Because there’s always something new in my dance,” she said. “So I’m always worried I’m going to mess up, but I don’t stop [if I do]. I keep on going if I forget it, and I just improvise but I never lose my face, because if you do that’ll just give it away.”

She even has moves she knows to do when she does make a mistake.

“Sometimes I’ll look at the judges to just, like, smirk at them, but I also just keep a big, cheesy smile on my face,” she said.

“And winks,” Ray said. “She likes to give the judges winks.”

In part, that’s what has helped her win national champion and dancer of the year — two separate titles — consecutively for the last two years.

But, as she stands in the wings waiting to enter the stage, it’s her attitude that also helps her win.

“Right before I go on, [I say], ‘Get ready to be in beast mode.’”

PUBLIC SERVICE NOTICE TO THE FORSYTH COUNTY VOTERS S.R. 400

CITY OF CHESTATEE

CITY OF MATT S.R. 20

Stephenie Ray always knew her daughter had a spark, but it wasn’t until she enrolled Artiste in gymnastics that she realized the girl’s true potential.

“She was in gymnastics first, but that was really boring for her — imagine that,” Ray said, laughing. “It wasn’t sassy enough, and you had to listen and sit in one place for too long, so we went to an audition for a [dance] company, which are the people who compete, and I didn’t expect her to make it, but she did.

She was offered a spot in the company immediately upon auditioning.

The first year at N-Step, a dance academy located in south Forsyth, Artiste, who was 6 at the time, started performing with others, and she quickly proved her aptitude for the sport.

“The next year, she got her first solo,” Ray said, “and I think [it’s because] she turns into someone else when she gets on stage — she just turns it on. We call her little Beyoncé because she’s got that vibe.

“After she got that first solo, she was scared to do it at first — you know, being on stage by yourself is [frightening]. But being so young, too, made her not care as much, and now what a glamorous life she leads.”

Ray beams as she jokes of her daughter’s glamour; though the dancer excels in nearly every performance, the girl is down-to-earth, protesting her mother’s request to don a recently-won tiara.

“It’s too much,” she said, tugging on the nearly dozen medals hanging from her neck, as if eager to discard them.

Ray smiles at Artiste’s reaction, a validation of the mantra she tries to instill in the girl.

“My favorite part [of all this] is watching her perform and

Propose Forsyth County be divided into:

CITY OF BETHELVIEW

City of Cumming (Existing Boundries) City of Sharon Springs (East of Hwy 400, South of Hwy 20)

20 R.

S.

S.R

City of Bethelview (West of Hwy 400, South of Hwy 20) .

City of Matt (West of Hwy 400, North of Hwy 20) City of Chestatee (East of Hwy 400, North of Hwy 20)

CITY OF SHARON SPRINGS 0

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PLEASE TELL OUR FORSYTH COUNTY STATE LEGISLATORS TO ADD: 1. Creation Of The New City Of Chestatee....YES or NO 2. Creation Of The New City Of Bethelview....YES or NO 3. Creation Of The New City Of Matt....YES or NO 4. Creation Of The New City Of Sharon Springs....YES or NO TO THE NOVEMBER 6, 2018 BALLOT FOR COUNTY WIDE VOTE.

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Seven

What are the seven things that help define your life?

things

Growing up as the youngest of seven siblings, Shandra Dawkins had the best of both worlds — older siblings she could turn to in times of need but often the sole attention of her parents. Though her own family life was stable, the executive director of Family Haven of Forsyth County — a nonprofit shelter that advocates for women and child victims of domestic violence — had activism in her blood from a young age, which drew her to her career. “[My mom] had an impact on individuals, and I watched that from early on,” Dawkins said.

“For the longest time, I thought I had hundreds of uncles and aunts and cousins, until I realized they were other individuals in the community because [our] door was always open. Driving forces in her life, Dawkins’ mother and faith are present in each of the seven things she values most.

STORY BY ISABEL HUGHES PHOTOS BY MICAH GREEN

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orn and raised in the West Palm Beach area, the 53-year-old was an unexpected addition to her parents’ six children. “I had the beauty of two things,” she said. “I had a large family with [six] siblings — three brothers and three sisters — but they were all older than me because I was somewhat of a surprise, so they were all out of the house, and I was the only one there. I got the best of two worlds — I got my siblings when I needed them but then I was an only child because I was there by myself.” Dawkins treasures

1 her UNICORN FIGURINE (1) as key to what her family means to her, both because of the creature’s beauty and its mastery of transformation. “It benevolently gives us the power to believe anything is possible,” she said. “It’s been instilled in my family members [that] you can do the impossible.”

Dawkins’ mother, Louise GainesDawkins, also showed her she could do the impossible. A mental health and social services worker, she championed the rights of others. “She was the type of person where if someone felt like the underdog, she would stand up for the right thing when no one else [stood] up,” Dawkins said. “I got a lot of her values and morals, and from a young age. I remember being strolled around at community events that were about the rights of others. I have BOOKS (2) and things but also some of my mother’s works because she wrote a lot and transcribed things for ministers and individuals in the community, and those are that symbol for me.”

Another important symbol – also of her Continued on 16

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October 2017

Shandra Dawkins spends a lot of time dealing with heavy circumstances that come with domestic violance victim advocacy, but she keeps a positive outlook on life to make the people she works with more comfortable.

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mother – is a SEASHELL (3) Dawkins keeps by her side. “She passed away last August, and that’s my constant reminder of her because of her free spirit and savviness and things of that nature,” she said. “The person who gave [my mom] the [seashell] depicted her just as I would have – as the unique shell.” Dawkins said it was that uniqueness that helped shaped her ultimate foray into domestic violence advocacy, a path she didn’t always intend to follow.

“When I started attending college, my major was law,because I wanted to be an attorney,” Dawkins said. “I didn’t know what kind of attor-

ney I wanted to be, but I knew I wanted to do something to help other individuals out. During my time in school, I decided to do something a little different and go volunteer at a domestic violence shelter and complete three months of an internship there to do things a little differently.

“Little did I know, when I went to that shelter, it made a huge impact on my entire life. I was called upon to help a little girl, Sarah. Sarah was five years old going on six, and she had stopped talking completely because she was traumatized from all of the family violence she had witnessed between her mother and father. For me, it was my mission that I [was] going to make sure Sarah talked before I [left] in those three months, and after a while she started writing, and we became really close. She started laughing one day and then started talking, and then she started blossoming.”

That experience pushed Dawkins into the field she is today. “What I call my life’s mission is to work in the field of domestic family violence,” she said. “I received a HUGE AWARD (4) that’s two hands and a ladder and a little kid climbing up the ladder, and that’s in my office.” That mission also led Dawkins to develop a SCHOOL CURRICULUM (5) to reach children who may not physically be in a shelter – a way to give aid without ever meeting them.

As much as she gives to others, Dawkins also takes time to focus on her religion, which has always been important to her. “I have a LITTLE CROSS (6) that someone gave me as a symbol,” she said. “[It was] the perfect stranger and they

said some things that were really profound to me, so I carry that with me.” With all the evil she sees, Dawkins said it’s her faith that keeps her going – as well as HER SENSE OF HUMOR (7), which she said helps her diffuse difficult or uncomfortable situations. “I try to look at the world positively all the time,” she said, “and even though [domestic violence] is something that is extremely sad, I feel like comedy just comes naturally to me, and it just kind of makes people laugh. I also kind of weave it into things, and I think because growing up [I didn’t] really talk that much, looking first and being somewhat shy made me able to read people, and I know when they need someone to lighten the load.

“If it makes someone feel comfortable and diffuses the situation and relates me with other individuals, I’m all about it, and that’s what I think gets me going to the next level.”

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October 2017

Building an icon Story by Kayla Robins

Forsyth sculptor Gregory Johnson and his team recently unveiled what he hopes will become the symbol of downtown Atlanta.

And it was no easy feat.

Photos by Micah Green

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nder cover of the almostmorning darkness, a caravan of cars carried a most unusual load. In the middle, a trailer bed balanced tons of metal that had been welded, shaped, willed into two soon-tobe-gleaming arches, more unassuming than it would be at the end of the 16-hour day it would take to install the pieces into one 27-foot sculpture in downtown Atlanta.

In front and in back, other cars towed two desk-sized leaves and machinery. All occup a n t s wo r e p e a c h - c o l o r e d T-shirts. It was cold for August,

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even for the time.

It was 4:45 a.m. as Gregory Johnson’s stainless steel sculpture of a peach rode down Ga. 400, narrowly passing under the first bridge from Lumpkin County before cruising by stoplights and underpasses until it reached the Georgia World Congress Center. Its home.

T h e t r i p s o u t h wa s t h e almost-final step in a two-year process that began not with a peach, but with a pear.

“At Christmas Eve, we were sitting and having some champ a g n e t a l k i n g a b o u t h ow Atlanta needed a peach. And it

had to be spectacular.”

That’s Johnson. The artist whose work — 20 years’ worth of traditional bronze statues and six years’ worth of modern metal pieces — span the world, from seven countries all the way back to Lady Justice at the Forsyth County Courthouse.

“My friends sit there, and we literally cut up a pear, and we had toothpicks left over from our hor d'oeurves. And we cut up the pear. By New Year’s Eve, I had made about two or three clay models. They were real heavy. I didn’t really like it.

And then one night it occurred

to me the design, and I woke up and drew it out.”

Add in some more modifications, a lot of bids to corporations, even more offers to engineers and almost as many no’s, the Peach Bowl Inc. had commissioned the project to go near the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium just in time for the 2017 Chick-fil-A Kick Off Game.

“When I got to [Peach Bowl President and CEO Gary P. Stokan’s] office, I sat down in his board room and he said, ‘The only reason you’re sitting here is because [acclaimed forOctober 2017

"Atlanta needed a peach. And it had to be spectacular."

- Gregory Johnson

mer University of Georgia football coach] Vince Dooley told me to take this appointment.’

He said I had 15 minutes. An hour and 45 minutes later, with him swiveling around and looking at the poster, he fell in love with it.”

Two years after the pear turned into a peach and 3,000 sanding disks later, James Carnes took a picture of the arches, still secured on the trailer in the middle of the blockedoff Andrew Young International Boulevard. The sun had not yet risen, but there was light enough.

October 2017

“I gotta send this to a buddy of mine. He saw this and said no way you’re gunna get that down there.”

Carnes is the welder who has helped Johnson with all of his projects for the past four years.

They, along with Scott Lacey, took thousands of pounds of metal and found the peach in it a t C a r n e s ’s s h o p , C & A Welding. “James has a fix for everything,” Johnson said.

“Since I’ve been here, only once has he said I don’t know.

Typically, he’ll say let me think on it.”

Still hours later, the massive

crane creaked an inch one way, half an inch back, to move each piece of the peach into place, fitting finger-sized pins into holes. Both crane and peach were heavy and large enough to slice off a hand with the slightest mistake, but, just as they ran their hands over its surface thousands of times to sand it to its mirror finish, they buffed the tiniest scratch and led the hanging arches into place.

As Atlanta came to life in the morning commute, so did the peach. Sleepy at first, slowly awakening with each crane move. Hordes of collared but-

ton-downs and business casual suits arriving to work caught a glimpse on a smoke break, strolling past on their way to lunch at the CNN Center.

Sun bounced off the now setin-place arches later that week, combined to form the Modern Peach, Johnson’s tallest sculpture yet. Passersby stopped to look, point, take photos in front of the reflective surface, looking upward to the grand design.

Atlanta has its Olympic rings, its Martin Luther King Jr. statue. It got its falcon. Now, Atlanta has its peach.

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Their Story

The artist Gregory Johnson has his work displayed around the world, but the joy in the process of seeing his creations come to life is as present as ever.

Gregory Johnson has always liked to draw, and he has always been good at it.

He’s now a seasoned artist — his nearly 1,000 sculptures stand in 17 counties in Georgia, 40 state and seven countries and have homes in front of the Forsyth County Courthouse and Administration Building, Fow ler Pa r k a n d Saw n ee M o u n ta in . T h e Forsyth resident’s journey has taken him on turns and changes in medium, but it has always been on the path of an artist.

“I was a weird little kid. I mean, I’d rather be up in the living room drawing with my pencils than out in the street playing football or baseball, and, of course, that’s why I suck as an athlete. These hands were meant for drawing, not for catching balls.”

His hands appear strong, weathered by work but not worn down. His tanned skin and dark white hair sit more naturally, at least in the last few months when I’d been following him around, in his work attire — T-shirt, often bright, shorts that sit just above the knee, often khaki or dark beige, and hard, coveredtoed shoes — than the one time I saw him in a suit.

After college, he moved to Georgia from Illinois and became a figurative painter.

“A lot like Norman Rockwell. I love old people on porches. But they didn’t sell well, and people don’t want them in their restaurant

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of their corporate lobby. So I ended up going into traditional bronze sculpture, and I hung out there for about 20 years … About six years ago, I decided to go into the modern world. It was a freedom that I didn’t have. The problem with being a traditional bronze sculptor is you’re sculpting dead generals, dead presidents, dead children — which is really heartbreaking — veterans, etc.”

Since working with metal and stainless steel, he said he likes the clean, simple finish of a piece.

“I like simple. I like elegant. I like modern.

I like forward-thinking. I like things that look like they’re in motion. And most of all, I like things that when people walk up to them, they go ‘well that reminds of me of,’ and you never saw that in the piece. So people can come to the piece. There is no right or wrong answer.

If you see something in it, if you feel something in it, well that’s a good thing for me.

“With all my artwork, I want it to be an inspiration. I want it to bring a smile to your face. I want it to have the ‘wow’ factor where you round the corner and you go, ‘My gosh, look at that.’ And to distract people long enough for them to come see an object of beauty, maybe get a feeling or harmony and beauty, a piece of excitement, a giggle. That, to me, is the nicest compliment people can pay an artist.”

T

James Carnes has always had to pass seemingly insu James Carnes was on a family trip at a resort in Mexico almost six years ago when his world changed forever.

“There was a pier that went out into the ocean, I would say a dock, probably, about four feet out of the water. And we w e r e j u s t d iv i n g o ff i t a n d found something on the bottom, hit my head, and there I was.”

The shop foreman of C&A Welding in Dahlonega was paralyzed from the neck down.

He’d always been a welder.

He’d held a welding job since getting out of school, doing other gigs but always running a small personal shop. He decided to open his own business about 12 years ago. It was a mobile shop then, so he had to stop after the injury.

“I like the fact that you’re not just going to the same ol’ job every day doing the same thing every day. Every job’s different.

You meet new, interesting people all the time. I mean, there’s October 2017

Lanier Crossing

VOTE FOR US www.forsythnews.com/best-of-forsyth-2018 Voting starts October 4th

The welder

s been a welder and has always enjoyed doing it, but he urmountable obstacles to relearn how to get in the shop. always someone new coming here in the door every week.

And I’ve just always enjoyed welding.

“My first year after coming home from the hospital, I didn’t think I would ever be able to do anything again. I had limited use of my arms, could hardly move my arms. My hands d i d n ’t wo r k a t a l l … A f t e r about, I don’t know, six-eight months of just sittin’ ‘round, pure boredom, thinking, my god, what am I gunna do, you k n ow, t o k e e p f r o m g o i n g crazy? I started digging some stuff out of the basement and putting it in the garage, just started tinkering around and trying to see what I could do, and turns out that was the best therapy for me and my hands, mentally and everything.”

Then he met Gregory Johnson.

“He showed up with the first piece, and I was kind of, eh, I don’t know. This might be more October 2017

than I can do and handle. And of course my wife, she is b e h i n d m e a l l t h e wa y a n d always pushing me and encouraging me to do things, and was like, ‘I can help you, I can help you. We can do this, we can do this. It’s not a big deal.’'

That was less than two years after his injury. Now, five years later, Carnes has adjusted to using equipment with his hands that are still affected by partial paralysis, and he navigates his shop with what looks like ease in a wheelchair. He is Johnson’s only welder.

“That first piece, it’s kind of circles with pieces cut out. I liked it so much and just remembered that was the first thing we started with, I actually bought one of the pieces from him. I’ve got that in the living room, and I look at it all the time and think, man, that right there is what got me out of the rut. Out of the house, back to doing something again.”

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Athlete Gallery

Our favorite portraits of some of the area’s most talented football players.

Photographs by Micah Green

Mark Heard, Jack Leak, Brad Thiltgen - Forsyth Central

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October 2017

Zach Burns - West Forsyth Richard Jordan - South Forsyth

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JUST ONE

Our celebration of a single delicious, versatile ingredient. This month we stay crisp with — the APPLE.

By Isabel Hughes

Why we love it Aside from carving pumpkins and jumping in leaf piles, apple picking is another staple of the fall excursions across north Georgia.

Apples are the perfect fall snack and can be cooked in almost any way.

From grabbing them on the go for a quick bite to baking them in pastries, apples provide endless opportunity for myriad creations.

Did you know?

About 2,500 varieties of apples are grown in the United States, though 7,500 varieties are found throughout the world.

According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, Cortland, Rome Beauty and Winesap apples — all of which can be found in Georgia orchards — are the best for pies.

Try this To keep apples that have

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been cut from turning brown, dissolve 1/8 teaspoon of salt into a cup of water, soak the apple slices for a few minutes and then drain them. Rinse the slices after draining them so the fruit doesn’t taste salty.

North Georgia apple events Each year, Ellijay hosts the largest apple festival in the state — the Georgia Apple Festival. Held over two weekends, hundreds of vendors offer food, arts and

crafts and more. This year’s runs Oct. 14 and 15 and Oct. 21 and 22. More information can be found at georgiaapplefestival.org.

North Georgia apple orchards Hillcrest Orchards Ellijay B.J. Reece Orchards Ellijay Mercier Orchards Blue Ridge Mountain View Orchards McCaysville

October 2017

JUST ONE COOKBOOK

Recipes that highlight our ingredient of the month

Curried Apple Soup Ingredients

1 tbsp. unsalted butter 2 shallots, minced 2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger 1 ½ tablespoons curry powder 2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1-inch pieces 1 small russet potato, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces 1 teaspoon coarse salt, plus more for seasoning 3 ¾ cups homemade or low-sodium canned chicken stock ½ cup heavy cream or milk Freshly ground pepper Sour cream, for garnish

more than halfway; puree just until smooth (do not over-process).

4. Return soup to pan; stir in cream, and season with salt and pepper.

Place over medium heat

until soup is just heated through; do not let it boil.

5. Divide soup among serving bowls, and garnish with sour cream. source: marthastewart.com Continued on 26

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JUST ONE COOKBOOK

Fireball Apples a boozy twist on a classic fall treat

Ingredients

3 apples 3 Fireball mini bottles 2/3 cups caramel

Directions

1.Using a melon baller, remove the stem and some of the fruit from the top of apples.

2. Unscrew fireball caps

and place the apple stem side down on the open bott l e , l i ke a c a p . Tw i s t t h e apple with a small amount of force on the Fireball in order to secure the opening.

3. Flip apple over so that the fireball is sticking up.

Pour caramel around the bottle where it meets the apple. Chill for 10 minutes in the refrigerator and serve.

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October 2017

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2017

Movies // T movies

Our guide to the month's notable releases

Blade Runner Friday, October 6

Wonderstruck Friday, October 20

Jigsaw Friday, October 27

A sequel to the 1982 sci-fi classic follows a new Blade Runner, played by Ryan Gosling, who discovers a dark secret that leads to the discovery of a former Blade Runner who disappeared 30 years ago, played by Harrison Ford.

Todd Haynes’ drama takes place along two timelines, 1927 and 1977, as a young boy in the Midwest and a young girl in NewYork City seek a mysterious connection.

A decade after the release of the last film in the franchise, the eighth Saw film follows the investigation of new murderers that use a dead killer’s, Jigsaw, methods.

Curb Your Enthusiasm After a six-year hiatus, Larry David will return with the ninth season of HBO’s critically acclaimed comedy.

Sunday, October 1 Valor Monday, October 9 Kyle Jarrow’s new Atlanta-filmed drama series follows a unit of U.S. Army helicopter pilots trained to take part in covert missions.

television 28

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Lore Friday, October 13 Based on the popular podcast of the same name, Amazon’s Lore will combine documentary footage and shot scenes to recreate horror stories.

October 2017

V // Music P!nk - Beautiful Trauma Friday, October 13 The singer co-wrote all the songs for her seventh studio album.The album’s single “What About Us” was released in August and has made it to the Billboard charts for Adult Contemporary, AdultTop 40, Hot 100 and MainstreamTop 40.

Darius Rucker - When Was the Last Time Friday, October 20 In his fifth solo country album, the former Hootie & the Blowfish front man has said the album is the best representation of his country music yet.

Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile Lotta Sea Lice Friday, October 13 The first-ever collaboration from two indie rockers is named for the backing band formed for the album and will feature nine songs, including single “Over Everything.”

music

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Events in your area

What’s happening?

October 2017

20-22

Cumming Greek Festival

5-15

Cumming Country Fair & Festival Enjoy carnival rides, daily ground acts, petting zoo, Heritage Village with working exhibits, concert lineup, Indian Village and much more.

14

Laid Back Festival

Headlining the festival this year in Atlanta is Lynyrd Skynyrd along with The Gregg Allman Band featuring Devon Allman performing his father’s last album, "Southern Blood,” in its entirety plus Allman Brothers Band favorites. They will be joined by Bishop Gunn and Jaimoe’s Jasssz Band.

Visit vzwamp.com Doors open at 4 p.m.

Verizon Amphitheatre 2200 Encore Pkwy., Alpharetta

Visit www.cummingfair.net Check hours on website Cumming Fairgrounds

7

6th Annual Atlanta Chili Cook Off Taste chili and Brunswick stew from 75-plus restaurant and amateur competition teams, plus live music from Atlanta Retro Band, Martay Partay & DJ Suspense and more.

Visit brookhavenchilicookoff.com 1 to 5 p.m., Brookhaven Park 2660 Osborne Road Brookhaven, Georgia 30319

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The Cumming Greek Festival is Forsyth County’s largest ethnic event and will last for 3 days. It offers the community a unique opportunity to experience the rich Greek culture.

Visit cumminggreekfestival.com Saints Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene Greek Orthodox Church 3074 Bethelview Road, Cumming

21-22 Gold Rush Days

More than 300 art and craft exhibitors and food vendors will be in attendance to see fall colors and celebrate Dahlonega’s 1828 discovery of gold.

Visit dahlonegajaycees.com./ gold-rush-days

14-15 27-29 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday Downtown Dahlonega

Weekend two: Oct. 21-22

Georgia Apple Festival

There are over 300 vendors with handmade, hand-crafted items, as well as many on-site demonstrations of how selected types of crafts are made.

Georgia Apple Festival Ellijay Lions Club 1729 S Main St, Ellijay, GA 30540

50th Annual Mountain Moonshine Festival

Enjoy vendors, arts & crafts, food, live music, kids games, petting zoo, and more all weekend long.

Visit kareforkids.org Check website for events, times Downtown Dawsonville October 2017

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