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Articles by Devon Sarian
Women's Wave - Folio Weekly
It’s Washington, D.C., Jan. 21, 2017, and attorney Emma Collum is helping to coordinate the more than 27,000 women who had taken buses north from all over the state of Florida to participate in the inaugural Women’s March. Incidentally, the event made history as the largest and most logistically complex mass assembly this nation has ever seen.
To Your Health - Folio Weekly
The party atmosphere of New Year’s Eve is over and the bubbles are fading. Now it’s all about resolutions. Many Jacksonvillians—heck, many Americans—are focusing on eating right and hitting the gym after the gluttony of the holiday season. For my part, my ongoing resolution is to shop as local and as healthfully as possible. We’re lucky that there are spots in this area that make it easy.
Solid Ground - Folio Weekly
"There is no compromise when it comes to my creative vision.” Indie-rock guitarist Randall Mentzos, who performs under the name Terrain, is deeply passionate about his work. Determined to bring something different to the table, Mentzos is not shy about letting his audience know about his DIY drive and singular vision. It all started–where else?–in his youth. Mentzos grew up in a musical household. “Music has always been a part of my life,” he says.
Open to All
In a world where ego is king, his modesty is refreshing. High-profile Jacksonville trial lawyer Hank Coxe has much of which to be proud. Coxe, director of the Bedell Firm, has served as president of The Jacksonville Bar Association and The Florida Bar. A good number of awards have been bestowed upon him and many of his cases have received national attention. Yet you won’t likely hear him brag about his accomplishments.
Kenny the Great
Science says an object in motion stays in motion, and Chef Kenny Gilbert never stops moving. Days after learning he was voted Best Chef in our Best of Jax 2018 readers’ poll, Gilbert boarded a plane for California. It was Thanksgiving. He had been invited to cook for Oprah Winfrey. Gilbert began his culinary career as a 15-year-old at his local McDonald’s. Since then, he has overcome every obstacle in front of him, working in countless five-star establishments and reaching celeb chef status.
Dollars at Work - Folio Weekly
Our recent Best of Jax 2018 readers’ poll yielded superlatives across a full 500 categories, from Best Margarita to Best Marijuana Lawyer (and everything in between). This year’s laureate for Best Philanthropist is Delores Barr Weaver. Far from an unknown quantity, DBW has been in local headlines since she first landed on the First Coast in the mid-1990s. Her claim to fame back then: she was half of the power couple that owned the city’s brand-new NFL expansion team, the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Lifestyles of the Rich and Roarin'
The Jacksonville Jaguars’ season is already at the halfway mark, and yet there’s still so much preparation for each game happening behind the scenes—both before the players step on TIAA Bank Field and after each game. Gear must be gathered, luxury vehicles must be gassed up, and each player must eventually get back to his home sweet home. Pro football players aren’t usually local men—most of them relocate to the Jacksonville area to play the game they love.
Expressions of Truth
Musical instruments can be learned. Voices can be trained. Scales can be mastered. Creativity can be conjured. But fearlessness, humility, confidence and sincerity: These are traits that, in true artists, often seem to spring forth fully formed. Maybe such gifts take time to emerge; maybe they struggle to find an appropriate outlet. But they’re baked in, intrinsic.
The Art of Impermanence
When you’re young, you think everything lasts forever, and as you get older, you realize everything that once was is now gone. Everything is changing. And sometimes you wish you could go back and capture some of those moments you’ll never get back.” You may be forgiven if you start to read this and wonder, “Who is Bob Self?” He is a soft-spoken, softhearted, thoughtful, genuine sweetheart of a man who, if you’re not paying attention, could easily slip by you without your ever being aware of him.
Green Grocery Pioneers
For 20 years, from fringe, outsider buzz to mainstream consumption, the term “organic” has been transformed. Companies that positioned themselves as the go-to hub for the “better-living-through-chemistry generation” now pivot with breakneck speed, cleaning up their images, projecting a new greenness in an attempt to win over a new generation of conscious consumers.
Guardian of the Waterway
Nestled along the water you’ll find a vibrantly colored rustic building adorned with reclaimed wood and a beautiful view of the Matanzas River. Inside, there’s a solitary, clean room with hardwood floors; a single desk stands by the window and several diplomas are hung on the wall. The Matanzas Riverkeeper definitely has the best office around.
Hear the Girl
Big waves emanate from a small classroom at Robert E. Lee High School on Jacksonville's Westside, as teacher Amy Donofrio guides the students toward positive changes. The kids are part of the EVAC movement, a project rooted in self-empowerment, which, in turn, is rooted in students claiming, owning and transcending their life stories. Together, she and her students have found a way to cut through the emotional walls that too often rise between "at-risk" students and adults in high school.
Fighting Back: Poison Place Continues
A company that left dangerous contamination on portions of a tract of land in Green Cove Springs, and the developer it wants to sell the land to, face continued opposition as they head before the Clay County Board of Commissioners on June 26. That company, Solite, its consultant Susan Fraser, and developer Michael Danhour of The Danhour Group are positioned against area residents who oppose any development of the property without cleaning it up first. It's a classic David and Goliath story.
Fashion Forward
Jacksonville's DIY design community is alive and well—and even attracting transplants from across Florida. Stuart native Gwen Meking landed here in October 2016, after knocking around the country for several months. She and her partner chose Jacksonville specifically because of its "vibrant and growing art scene." Within a year, she had reinvented herself as the sustainable and social media-savvy designer Aunt Gwen.
Community Divided: The Wedge Between Policing and the Policed
Cindy Taylor recalls urging her son to not plead guilty. But, at the age of 17, he feared he would spend the rest of his life behind bars if he did not. "Momma, I am scared," Taylor remembers him saying. "I will get out in 20 or 30 years. At least, I will get out. If I go to trial and lose, they told me I will get life without parole." Apprehended as a juvenile and tried as an adult, in March 2009, Kenneth Drotar received a sentence of 20 years at Florida State Prison in Raiford, for felony murder.
Poison Place
It was late July 1995 when neighbors of the Solite Corporation plant in the Russell Community of Green Cove Springs noticed an eerie quiet had descended upon the usually clamorous facility. Gone were the deep earthshakes and the rattling guttural sounds that echoed throughout the little community each time the big kiln's furnaces were fired and re-fired. Gone were the dark puffy plumes from the smokestacks that darkened the skies, even on the brightest of days.
Sell Off
On March 21, the Mayor's Chief Administrative Officer Sam Mousa filed a white paper outlining his plan to sell a city-owned painting at auction. It wasn't just any painting, however, and it wasn't just any auction. The work, titled Iva, is a gigantic oil-on-canvas triptych, painted by American abstract expressionist Joan Mitchell in 1973. Its estimated value is between $3 and $5 million.
The King of the Waves
"I've done this once before on a river up in New England," my new friend says as we carry oversized paddleboards to the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. He's just moved to Jacksonville from London and this is the first time he's put his toes in the waters of Northeast Florida. I'm supposed to be teaching him how to surf, but the ocean is flat.
The Rebels of W.I.L.D.
In this day and age, a practical person must ask what the future holds. As the neoteric mainstream media depict a vivid image of worldwide calamity, hope is shelved in a far dusty corner. The United States has entered a new Dark Age that gives antagonism the limelight, inducing a sensation of little promise for a brighter, better tomorrow.
The Sign Lady
In more than three years, Sonja Fitch has produced more than 400 pieces of satirical political artwork-her gallery walls are her fence on Ninth Street South in Jacksonville Beach. As a result, she says, she's been a victim of hate crimes, hate speech, vulgarities and vandalism, and continues navigating the political gauntlet of the city of Jacksonville Beach that wants Fitch to put an end to her signage because it claims it violates the city's temporary sign ordinance.
Demotion Bonus
Workplace inequity is a reality. While employers pay women, on average, 80 cents for every dollar they pay a man, don't expect to read about the gender-based pay gap in the employee handbook. To preserve the idea of a fair workplace, companies guard salaries, raises and bonuses. Who gets them and how much they receive is protected information, though equal pay for equal work will be the official line.
Captain of the Special Forces of Animal Rights
All is quiet in this tranquil, residential neighborhood off Atlantic Boulevard near the Intracoastal Waterway. The transfixed figure at the keyboard in a room awash in blue computer light has been awake since before daybreak, worked a full day, hit the gym, fielded emails and phone calls and requests for assistance, yet he remains animated as the minutes bleed away to midnight.
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