Author: ruhlwrite

The lights and stars are twinkling in tandem. The women are shopping in the outdoor farmers’ market, and the men are sawing logs and stomping on grapes to make wine. A crowned king on a camel approaches, bearing gifts for Mary and Joseph’s newborn babe in the stable. It’s Christmas time in Jose Leon‘s village. Every time Jose looks at it, he thinks of home. Nativity scenes such as this are a tradition in Cabra, the rural town in Spain where he comes from. Most people…

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It’s early in the morning when Nick Robyn sprints up the stairs of his three-floor walkup. He’s headed to the roof. He can tell you what he does for fun and for a living, but it’s easier if he shows you. He puts on his boxing gloves and strikes a fierce pose, his locks, the color of caramelized carrots, cascading down his back. He tosses the mitts aside kicks his leg into the air, scowling as a sign to all to beware. If these moves seem natural, it’s because Nick, a personal trainer,…

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In a corner of the bedroom, on a tiny table, Evgeniya Bavaeva sets up her portable Brother sewing machine. It’s always at night, usually at 10, after her 3-year-old daughter, Celine, is in bed and while her husband, Serafim Ferdeklis, is working at his restaurant, BZ Grill. She listens to Ludovico Einaudi on her headphones to drown out the rhythmic sound of the needle marching through the fabric. “This is my time,” she says. “Serafim comes home around midnight. I keep working until…

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It’s early in the morning, and the first order of the day at Juuz.me is super simple. Zsolt “George” Csonka cuts a green apple, a peach and pineapple into chunks and pops them into the blender with some coconut water. He takes the ice-cold smoothie, hip-health in every sip, to the woman making herself at home in the window seat. On his way back, he serves herbal tea and a warm croissant to customer No. 2. Before he opened the bar and grill in March 2016, George spent his restaurant…

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The small studio is hidden, behind a hollow-core wooden door, in a corner of the basement apartment. Its scant space is squandered by a plastic shower curtain that separates it from the mechanical machinery that runs the four-family house. It is here, in the shallow night light of a single ceiling bulb, that Angelo Giokas retreats to create the pseudo-urban mixed-media hodge-podge collages that define his artistic life. “My working process is akin to a dance or a song,” he says. “I respond…

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