Exhibition and Public Programming

Vera B. Williams, an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books, started making pictures almost as soon as she could walk. She studied at Black Mountain College in a time where summer institutes were held with classes taught by John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Williams studied under the Bauhaus luminary Josef Albers and went on to make art for the rest of her life. At the time of her death, The New York Times wrote: “Her illustrations, known for bold colors and a style reminiscent of folk art, were praised by reviewers for their great tenderness and crackling vitality.” Despite numerous awards and recognition for her children’s books, much of her wider life and work remains unexplored. This retrospective will showcase the complete range of Williams’ life and work. It will highlight her time at Black Mountain College, her political activism, and her establishment, with Paul Williams, of an influential yet little-known artist community, in addition to her work as an author and illustrator.

Author and illustrator of 17 children’s books, including Caldecott medal winner, A Chair for My Mother, Vera B. Williams always had a passion for the arts. Williams grew up in the Bronx, NY, and in 1936, when she was nine years old, one of her paintings, called Yentas, opens a new window, was included in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. While Williams is widely known for her children’s books today, this exhibition’s expansive scope highlights unexplored aspects of her artistic practice and eight decades of life. From groundbreaking, powerful covers for Liberation Magazine, to Peace calendar collaborations with writer activist Grace Paley, to scenic sketches for Julian Beck and Judith Malina’s Living Theater, to hundreds of late life “Aging and Illness” cartoons sketches and doodles, Vera never sat still.

Williams arrived at Black Mountain College in 1945. While there, she embraced all aspects of living, working, and learning in the intensely creative college community. She was at BMC during a particularly fertile period, which allowed her to study with faculty members Buckminster Fuller and Josef Albers, and to participate in the famed summer sessions with John Cage, Merce Cunningham, M.C. Richards, and Robert Rauschenberg. In 1948, she graduated with Josef Albers as her advisor and sculptor Richard Lippold as her outside examiner. Forever one of the College’s shining stars, Vera graduated from BMC with just six semesters of coursework, at only twenty-one years old. She continued to visit BMC for years afterward, staying deeply involved with the artistic community that BMC incubated.

Anticipating the eventual closure of BMC, Williams, alongside her husband Paul Williams and a group of influential former BMC figures, founded The Gate Hill Cooperative Artists community located 30 miles north of NYC on the outskirts of Stony Point, NY. The Gate Hill Cooperative, also known as The Land, became an outcropping of Black Mountain College’s experimental ethos. Students and faculty including John Cage, M.C. Richards, David Tudor, Karen Karnes, David Weinrib, Stan VanDerBeek, and Patsy Lynch Wood shaped Gate Hill as founding members of the community. Vera B. Williams raised her three children at Gate Hill while continuing to make work.

The early Gate Hill era represented an especially creative phase for the BMC group. For Williams, this period saw the creation of 76 covers for Liberation Magazine, a radical, groundbreaking publication. This exhibition will feature some of Williams’ most powerful Liberation covers including a design for the June 1963 edition, which contained the first full publication of MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Williams’ activism work continued throughout her life. As president of PEN’s Children Committee and member of The War Resisters league, she created a wide range of political and educational posters and journal covers. Williams protested the war in Vietnam and nuclear proliferation while supporting women’s causes and racial equality. In 1981, Williams was arrested and spent a month in a federal prison on charges stemming from her political activism.

In her late 40’s, Williams embarked in earnest on her career as a children’s book author and illustrator, a career which garnered the NY Public Library’s recognition of A Chair for My Mother as one of the greatest 100 children’s books of all time. Infinitely curious and always a wanderer at heart, Williams’ personal life was as expansive as her art. In addition to her prolific picture making, Williams started and helped run a Summerhill-based alternative school, canoed the Yukon, and lived alone on a houseboat in Vancouver Harbor. She helped to organize and attended dozens of political demonstrations throughout her adult life.

Her books won many awards including the Caldecott Medal Honor Book for A Chair for My Mother in 1983, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award– Fiction category– for Scooter in 1994, the Jane Addams Honor for Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart in 2002, and the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature in 2009. Her books reflected her values, emphasizing love, compassion, kindness, joy, strength, individuality, and courage.

Images:

Cover of Vera B. Williams’ A Chair for My Mother, published in 1982.

Vera B. Williams, Cover for Liberation Magazine, November 1958.

“Tallamy lays out all you need to know to participate in one of the great conservation projects of our time. Read it and get started!” —Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction 

Douglas W. Tallamy’s first book, Bringing Nature Home, awakened thousands of readers to an urgent situation: wildlife populations are in decline because the native plants they depend on are fast disappearing. His solution? Plant more natives. Another of Tallamy’s books, The Nature of Oaks, looked at the same issues in connection with one keystone species increasingly more imperiled in our urban canopies: the oak, a powerhouse of the plant kingdom that supports more life forms and interactions than any other tree genus in North America. In Nature’s Best Hope, Tallamy takes the next step and outlines his vision for a grassroots approach to conservation, showing how homeowners everywhere can turn their yards into conservation corridors that provide wildlife habitats. Arboretum environmental educator Libby Oswalt leads this drop-in reading circle in person at the Arboretum over two sessions. Bring your questions, comments and take-away wisdom from this insightful read and let’s discuss your plans for putting Tallamy’s recommendations to work in your own landscapes and communities!

Libby Oswalt loves all plants but is especially passionate about native plants! She graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in Environmental Horticulture and has since gained years of experience working in the nursery industry with a particular interest in native trees, shrubs, and perennials. She currently works as a Youth Environmental Educator at the North Carolina Arboretum where she enjoys teaching students about the many wonders of Appalachian biodiversity. She enjoys spending her free time exploring the woods, gardening, and spreading awareness of the importance of native plants in our landscapes.

Registration and Participation in In-Person Classes through the Arboretum

— Registration for this class will close two days before the class start date.

— Make sure you enter your email address correctly when registering.

— Registrants will be sent a reminder email the day prior to class with the meeting location, current Safety Guidelines, and additional details.

— Access to more information will be available upon registration via your account’s Supplemental Content section (if applicable to your class). To learn how to view this information, please use this helpful guide.

Please add [email protected] to your contacts to ensure our emails do not end up in your spam folder.

Exhibition and Public Programming

Vera B. Williams, an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books, started making pictures almost as soon as she could walk. She studied at Black Mountain College in a time where summer institutes were held with classes taught by John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Williams studied under the Bauhaus luminary Josef Albers and went on to make art for the rest of her life. At the time of her death, The New York Times wrote: “Her illustrations, known for bold colors and a style reminiscent of folk art, were praised by reviewers for their great tenderness and crackling vitality.” Despite numerous awards and recognition for her children’s books, much of her wider life and work remains unexplored. This retrospective will showcase the complete range of Williams’ life and work. It will highlight her time at Black Mountain College, her political activism, and her establishment, with Paul Williams, of an influential yet little-known artist community, in addition to her work as an author and illustrator.

Author and illustrator of 17 children’s books, including Caldecott medal winner, A Chair for My Mother, Vera B. Williams always had a passion for the arts. Williams grew up in the Bronx, NY, and in 1936, when she was nine years old, one of her paintings, called Yentas, opens a new window, was included in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. While Williams is widely known for her children’s books today, this exhibition’s expansive scope highlights unexplored aspects of her artistic practice and eight decades of life. From groundbreaking, powerful covers for Liberation Magazine, to Peace calendar collaborations with writer activist Grace Paley, to scenic sketches for Julian Beck and Judith Malina’s Living Theater, to hundreds of late life “Aging and Illness” cartoons sketches and doodles, Vera never sat still.

Williams arrived at Black Mountain College in 1945. While there, she embraced all aspects of living, working, and learning in the intensely creative college community. She was at BMC during a particularly fertile period, which allowed her to study with faculty members Buckminster Fuller and Josef Albers, and to participate in the famed summer sessions with John Cage, Merce Cunningham, M.C. Richards, and Robert Rauschenberg. In 1948, she graduated with Josef Albers as her advisor and sculptor Richard Lippold as her outside examiner. Forever one of the College’s shining stars, Vera graduated from BMC with just six semesters of coursework, at only twenty-one years old. She continued to visit BMC for years afterward, staying deeply involved with the artistic community that BMC incubated.

Anticipating the eventual closure of BMC, Williams, alongside her husband Paul Williams and a group of influential former BMC figures, founded The Gate Hill Cooperative Artists community located 30 miles north of NYC on the outskirts of Stony Point, NY. The Gate Hill Cooperative, also known as The Land, became an outcropping of Black Mountain College’s experimental ethos. Students and faculty including John Cage, M.C. Richards, David Tudor, Karen Karnes, David Weinrib, Stan VanDerBeek, and Patsy Lynch Wood shaped Gate Hill as founding members of the community. Vera B. Williams raised her three children at Gate Hill while continuing to make work.

The early Gate Hill era represented an especially creative phase for the BMC group. For Williams, this period saw the creation of 76 covers for Liberation Magazine, a radical, groundbreaking publication. This exhibition will feature some of Williams’ most powerful Liberation covers including a design for the June 1963 edition, which contained the first full publication of MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Williams’ activism work continued throughout her life. As president of PEN’s Children Committee and member of The War Resisters league, she created a wide range of political and educational posters and journal covers. Williams protested the war in Vietnam and nuclear proliferation while supporting women’s causes and racial equality. In 1981, Williams was arrested and spent a month in a federal prison on charges stemming from her political activism.

In her late 40’s, Williams embarked in earnest on her career as a children’s book author and illustrator, a career which garnered the NY Public Library’s recognition of A Chair for My Mother as one of the greatest 100 children’s books of all time. Infinitely curious and always a wanderer at heart, Williams’ personal life was as expansive as her art. In addition to her prolific picture making, Williams started and helped run a Summerhill-based alternative school, canoed the Yukon, and lived alone on a houseboat in Vancouver Harbor. She helped to organize and attended dozens of political demonstrations throughout her adult life.

Her books won many awards including the Caldecott Medal Honor Book for A Chair for My Mother in 1983, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award– Fiction category– for Scooter in 1994, the Jane Addams Honor for Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart in 2002, and the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature in 2009. Her books reflected her values, emphasizing love, compassion, kindness, joy, strength, individuality, and courage.

Images:

Cover of Vera B. Williams’ A Chair for My Mother, published in 1982.

Vera B. Williams, Cover for Liberation Magazine, November 1958.

SC Arms Collectors Association Gun & Knife Show – Hall 1 – Parking off Exposition Drive

Saturdays from 10:30 AM – 12 PM

Exhibition and Public Programming

Vera B. Williams, an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books, started making pictures almost as soon as she could walk. She studied at Black Mountain College in a time where summer institutes were held with classes taught by John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Williams studied under the Bauhaus luminary Josef Albers and went on to make art for the rest of her life. At the time of her death, The New York Times wrote: “Her illustrations, known for bold colors and a style reminiscent of folk art, were praised by reviewers for their great tenderness and crackling vitality.” Despite numerous awards and recognition for her children’s books, much of her wider life and work remains unexplored. This retrospective will showcase the complete range of Williams’ life and work. It will highlight her time at Black Mountain College, her political activism, and her establishment, with Paul Williams, of an influential yet little-known artist community, in addition to her work as an author and illustrator.

Author and illustrator of 17 children’s books, including Caldecott medal winner, A Chair for My Mother, Vera B. Williams always had a passion for the arts. Williams grew up in the Bronx, NY, and in 1936, when she was nine years old, one of her paintings, called Yentas, opens a new window, was included in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. While Williams is widely known for her children’s books today, this exhibition’s expansive scope highlights unexplored aspects of her artistic practice and eight decades of life. From groundbreaking, powerful covers for Liberation Magazine, to Peace calendar collaborations with writer activist Grace Paley, to scenic sketches for Julian Beck and Judith Malina’s Living Theater, to hundreds of late life “Aging and Illness” cartoons sketches and doodles, Vera never sat still.

Williams arrived at Black Mountain College in 1945. While there, she embraced all aspects of living, working, and learning in the intensely creative college community. She was at BMC during a particularly fertile period, which allowed her to study with faculty members Buckminster Fuller and Josef Albers, and to participate in the famed summer sessions with John Cage, Merce Cunningham, M.C. Richards, and Robert Rauschenberg. In 1948, she graduated with Josef Albers as her advisor and sculptor Richard Lippold as her outside examiner. Forever one of the College’s shining stars, Vera graduated from BMC with just six semesters of coursework, at only twenty-one years old. She continued to visit BMC for years afterward, staying deeply involved with the artistic community that BMC incubated.

Anticipating the eventual closure of BMC, Williams, alongside her husband Paul Williams and a group of influential former BMC figures, founded The Gate Hill Cooperative Artists community located 30 miles north of NYC on the outskirts of Stony Point, NY. The Gate Hill Cooperative, also known as The Land, became an outcropping of Black Mountain College’s experimental ethos. Students and faculty including John Cage, M.C. Richards, David Tudor, Karen Karnes, David Weinrib, Stan VanDerBeek, and Patsy Lynch Wood shaped Gate Hill as founding members of the community. Vera B. Williams raised her three children at Gate Hill while continuing to make work.

The early Gate Hill era represented an especially creative phase for the BMC group. For Williams, this period saw the creation of 76 covers for Liberation Magazine, a radical, groundbreaking publication. This exhibition will feature some of Williams’ most powerful Liberation covers including a design for the June 1963 edition, which contained the first full publication of MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Williams’ activism work continued throughout her life. As president of PEN’s Children Committee and member of The War Resisters league, she created a wide range of political and educational posters and journal covers. Williams protested the war in Vietnam and nuclear proliferation while supporting women’s causes and racial equality. In 1981, Williams was arrested and spent a month in a federal prison on charges stemming from her political activism.

In her late 40’s, Williams embarked in earnest on her career as a children’s book author and illustrator, a career which garnered the NY Public Library’s recognition of A Chair for My Mother as one of the greatest 100 children’s books of all time. Infinitely curious and always a wanderer at heart, Williams’ personal life was as expansive as her art. In addition to her prolific picture making, Williams started and helped run a Summerhill-based alternative school, canoed the Yukon, and lived alone on a houseboat in Vancouver Harbor. She helped to organize and attended dozens of political demonstrations throughout her adult life.

Her books won many awards including the Caldecott Medal Honor Book for A Chair for My Mother in 1983, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award– Fiction category– for Scooter in 1994, the Jane Addams Honor for Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart in 2002, and the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature in 2009. Her books reflected her values, emphasizing love, compassion, kindness, joy, strength, individuality, and courage.

Images:

Cover of Vera B. Williams’ A Chair for My Mother, published in 1982.

Vera B. Williams, Cover for Liberation Magazine, November 1958.

Rezonance & Slice of Life Comedy present **Canna Comic Cuisine —4.20 Infused Dinner Comedy Show**! Get ready for a night of laughter, delicious food, and a touch of cannabis-infused fun. Join us on **Sat Apr 20 2024** at **7:30 PM** for a unique experience that combines comedy with a gourmet dinner featuring cannabis-infused dishes. Our talented comedians will keep you entertained throughout the evening, while our chefs prepare a mouthwatering meal that will tantalize your taste buds. Don’t miss out on this one-of-a-kind event that promises to be a memorable and hilarious night out!
Saturday 4.20.24
Held at a secret location in downtown Asheville, 21+
Your $42 ticket includes infused vegetarian dinner and a canned drink. Location given out with ticket purchase. Tickets are very limited so book this date now.
Standup Comedy Hosted by Hilliary Begley (netflix Amazon Prime, Votedt Avl Best Comic 5+) featuring Cayla Clark, Miranda Allison & Cody Hughes
Your Comedy Host Hilliary Begley-
Hilliary will make you cry with laughter with her larger than life personality!! Voted repeatedly Asheville’s Favorite comic in the Mountain Xpress, Hilliary’s reach goes well beyond the city to all over the country. Film debut in the Netflix original Dumplin’ as Aunt Lucy, or “Jennifer Anniston’s fat sister,” and in Austin Film Festival winning movie When We Last Spoke with Cloris Leachman, now streaming on Amazon Prime. https ://youtu.be/legRwEg4j-o
Featuring Cayla Clark-
a California native (through no fault of her own), moved to Asheville three years ago and quickly fell in love with the local comedy scene. She created and co-produces Blind Date Live, a quarterly comedic dating show, Bad Date Mic, and several other dating-related events around town. She is also a playwright, and has had original works in the Fringe Festival for the past three years.
Feature Cody Hughes-
Cody is a comedian from Asheville NC. He’s lived in a few different big cities and a lot of comedians like him and a lot of other comedians have heard good things about him from the comedians who like him. A few comedians don’t like him and he can’t do anything about that. Oh well. He has opened for Lewis Black, John Oliver, Maria Bamford, and many others
Feature Miranda Allison-
Sweet but sassy, Miranda Allison is an up and coming stand up comedian with a timid, yet audacious sense of humor. From right here in Asheville, NC, Miranda is quickly becoming a fan favorite in the comedy scene. You can find her co-hosting The Hot Seat on Mondays and at other comedy shows in the area.

Rezonance & Slice of Life Comedy present **Canna Comic Cuisine —4.20 Infused Dessert Comedy Show**! Get ready for a night of laughter, delicious food, and a touch of cannabis-infused fun. Join us on **Sat Apr 20 2024** at **9:30 PM** for a unique experience that combines comedy with a gourmet dinner featuring cannabis-infused dishes. Our talented comedians will keep you entertained throughout the evening, while our chefs prepare a mouthwatering dessert that will tantalize your taste buds. Don’t miss out on this one-of-a-kind event that promises to be a memorable and hilarious night out!

Saturday 4.20.24

Held at a secret location in downtown Asheville, 21+

Your $42 ticket includes infused dessert and a canned drink. Location given out with ticket purchase. Tickets are very limited so book this date now.

Standup Comedy Hosted by Hilliary Begley (netflix Amazon Prime, Votedt Avl Best Comic 5+) featuring Cayla Clark, Miranda Allison & Cody Hughes

Your Comedy Host Hilliary Begley-

Hilliary will make you cry with laughter with her larger than life personality!! Voted repeatedly Asheville’s Favorite comic in the Mountain Xpress, Hilliary’s reach goes well beyond the city to all over the country. Film debut in the Netflix original Dumplin’ as Aunt Lucy, or “Jennifer Anniston’s fat sister,” and in Austin Film Festival winning movie When We Last Spoke with Cloris Leachman, now streaming on Amazon Prime. https ://youtu.be/legRwEg4j-o

Featuring Cayla Clark-

a California native (through no fault of her own), moved to Asheville three years ago and quickly fell in love with the local comedy scene. She created and co-produces Blind Date Live, a quarterly comedic dating show, Bad Date Mic, and several other dating-related events around town. She is also a playwright, and has had original works in the Fringe Festival for the past three years.

Feature Cody Hughes-

Cody is a comedian from Asheville NC. He’s lived in a few different big cities and a lot of comedians like him and a lot of other comedians have heard good things about him from the comedians who like him. A few comedians don’t like him and he can’t do anything about that. Oh well. He has opened for Lewis Black, John Oliver, Maria Bamford, and many others

Feature Miranda Allison-

Sweet but sassy, Miranda Allison is an up and coming stand up comedian with a timid, yet audacious sense of humor. From right here in Asheville, NC, Miranda is quickly becoming a fan favorite in the comedy scene. You can find her co-hosting The Hot Seat on Mondays and at other comedy shows in the area.

SC Arms Collectors Association Gun & Knife Show – Hall 1 – Parking off Exposition Drive

Exhibition and Public Programming

Vera B. Williams, an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books, started making pictures almost as soon as she could walk. She studied at Black Mountain College in a time where summer institutes were held with classes taught by John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Williams studied under the Bauhaus luminary Josef Albers and went on to make art for the rest of her life. At the time of her death, The New York Times wrote: “Her illustrations, known for bold colors and a style reminiscent of folk art, were praised by reviewers for their great tenderness and crackling vitality.” Despite numerous awards and recognition for her children’s books, much of her wider life and work remains unexplored. This retrospective will showcase the complete range of Williams’ life and work. It will highlight her time at Black Mountain College, her political activism, and her establishment, with Paul Williams, of an influential yet little-known artist community, in addition to her work as an author and illustrator.

Author and illustrator of 17 children’s books, including Caldecott medal winner, A Chair for My Mother, Vera B. Williams always had a passion for the arts. Williams grew up in the Bronx, NY, and in 1936, when she was nine years old, one of her paintings, called Yentas, opens a new window, was included in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. While Williams is widely known for her children’s books today, this exhibition’s expansive scope highlights unexplored aspects of her artistic practice and eight decades of life. From groundbreaking, powerful covers for Liberation Magazine, to Peace calendar collaborations with writer activist Grace Paley, to scenic sketches for Julian Beck and Judith Malina’s Living Theater, to hundreds of late life “Aging and Illness” cartoons sketches and doodles, Vera never sat still.

Williams arrived at Black Mountain College in 1945. While there, she embraced all aspects of living, working, and learning in the intensely creative college community. She was at BMC during a particularly fertile period, which allowed her to study with faculty members Buckminster Fuller and Josef Albers, and to participate in the famed summer sessions with John Cage, Merce Cunningham, M.C. Richards, and Robert Rauschenberg. In 1948, she graduated with Josef Albers as her advisor and sculptor Richard Lippold as her outside examiner. Forever one of the College’s shining stars, Vera graduated from BMC with just six semesters of coursework, at only twenty-one years old. She continued to visit BMC for years afterward, staying deeply involved with the artistic community that BMC incubated.

Anticipating the eventual closure of BMC, Williams, alongside her husband Paul Williams and a group of influential former BMC figures, founded The Gate Hill Cooperative Artists community located 30 miles north of NYC on the outskirts of Stony Point, NY. The Gate Hill Cooperative, also known as The Land, became an outcropping of Black Mountain College’s experimental ethos. Students and faculty including John Cage, M.C. Richards, David Tudor, Karen Karnes, David Weinrib, Stan VanDerBeek, and Patsy Lynch Wood shaped Gate Hill as founding members of the community. Vera B. Williams raised her three children at Gate Hill while continuing to make work.

The early Gate Hill era represented an especially creative phase for the BMC group. For Williams, this period saw the creation of 76 covers for Liberation Magazine, a radical, groundbreaking publication. This exhibition will feature some of Williams’ most powerful Liberation covers including a design for the June 1963 edition, which contained the first full publication of MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Williams’ activism work continued throughout her life. As president of PEN’s Children Committee and member of The War Resisters league, she created a wide range of political and educational posters and journal covers. Williams protested the war in Vietnam and nuclear proliferation while supporting women’s causes and racial equality. In 1981, Williams was arrested and spent a month in a federal prison on charges stemming from her political activism.

In her late 40’s, Williams embarked in earnest on her career as a children’s book author and illustrator, a career which garnered the NY Public Library’s recognition of A Chair for My Mother as one of the greatest 100 children’s books of all time. Infinitely curious and always a wanderer at heart, Williams’ personal life was as expansive as her art. In addition to her prolific picture making, Williams started and helped run a Summerhill-based alternative school, canoed the Yukon, and lived alone on a houseboat in Vancouver Harbor. She helped to organize and attended dozens of political demonstrations throughout her adult life.

Her books won many awards including the Caldecott Medal Honor Book for A Chair for My Mother in 1983, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award– Fiction category– for Scooter in 1994, the Jane Addams Honor for Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart in 2002, and the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature in 2009. Her books reflected her values, emphasizing love, compassion, kindness, joy, strength, individuality, and courage.

Images:

Cover of Vera B. Williams’ A Chair for My Mother, published in 1982.

Vera B. Williams, Cover for Liberation Magazine, November 1958.

Exhibition and Public Programming

Vera B. Williams, an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books, started making pictures almost as soon as she could walk. She studied at Black Mountain College in a time where summer institutes were held with classes taught by John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Williams studied under the Bauhaus luminary Josef Albers and went on to make art for the rest of her life. At the time of her death, The New York Times wrote: “Her illustrations, known for bold colors and a style reminiscent of folk art, were praised by reviewers for their great tenderness and crackling vitality.” Despite numerous awards and recognition for her children’s books, much of her wider life and work remains unexplored. This retrospective will showcase the complete range of Williams’ life and work. It will highlight her time at Black Mountain College, her political activism, and her establishment, with Paul Williams, of an influential yet little-known artist community, in addition to her work as an author and illustrator.

Author and illustrator of 17 children’s books, including Caldecott medal winner, A Chair for My Mother, Vera B. Williams always had a passion for the arts. Williams grew up in the Bronx, NY, and in 1936, when she was nine years old, one of her paintings, called Yentas, opens a new window, was included in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. While Williams is widely known for her children’s books today, this exhibition’s expansive scope highlights unexplored aspects of her artistic practice and eight decades of life. From groundbreaking, powerful covers for Liberation Magazine, to Peace calendar collaborations with writer activist Grace Paley, to scenic sketches for Julian Beck and Judith Malina’s Living Theater, to hundreds of late life “Aging and Illness” cartoons sketches and doodles, Vera never sat still.

Williams arrived at Black Mountain College in 1945. While there, she embraced all aspects of living, working, and learning in the intensely creative college community. She was at BMC during a particularly fertile period, which allowed her to study with faculty members Buckminster Fuller and Josef Albers, and to participate in the famed summer sessions with John Cage, Merce Cunningham, M.C. Richards, and Robert Rauschenberg. In 1948, she graduated with Josef Albers as her advisor and sculptor Richard Lippold as her outside examiner. Forever one of the College’s shining stars, Vera graduated from BMC with just six semesters of coursework, at only twenty-one years old. She continued to visit BMC for years afterward, staying deeply involved with the artistic community that BMC incubated.

Anticipating the eventual closure of BMC, Williams, alongside her husband Paul Williams and a group of influential former BMC figures, founded The Gate Hill Cooperative Artists community located 30 miles north of NYC on the outskirts of Stony Point, NY. The Gate Hill Cooperative, also known as The Land, became an outcropping of Black Mountain College’s experimental ethos. Students and faculty including John Cage, M.C. Richards, David Tudor, Karen Karnes, David Weinrib, Stan VanDerBeek, and Patsy Lynch Wood shaped Gate Hill as founding members of the community. Vera B. Williams raised her three children at Gate Hill while continuing to make work.

The early Gate Hill era represented an especially creative phase for the BMC group. For Williams, this period saw the creation of 76 covers for Liberation Magazine, a radical, groundbreaking publication. This exhibition will feature some of Williams’ most powerful Liberation covers including a design for the June 1963 edition, which contained the first full publication of MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Williams’ activism work continued throughout her life. As president of PEN’s Children Committee and member of The War Resisters league, she created a wide range of political and educational posters and journal covers. Williams protested the war in Vietnam and nuclear proliferation while supporting women’s causes and racial equality. In 1981, Williams was arrested and spent a month in a federal prison on charges stemming from her political activism.

In her late 40’s, Williams embarked in earnest on her career as a children’s book author and illustrator, a career which garnered the NY Public Library’s recognition of A Chair for My Mother as one of the greatest 100 children’s books of all time. Infinitely curious and always a wanderer at heart, Williams’ personal life was as expansive as her art. In addition to her prolific picture making, Williams started and helped run a Summerhill-based alternative school, canoed the Yukon, and lived alone on a houseboat in Vancouver Harbor. She helped to organize and attended dozens of political demonstrations throughout her adult life.

Her books won many awards including the Caldecott Medal Honor Book for A Chair for My Mother in 1983, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award– Fiction category– for Scooter in 1994, the Jane Addams Honor for Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart in 2002, and the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature in 2009. Her books reflected her values, emphasizing love, compassion, kindness, joy, strength, individuality, and courage.

Images:

Cover of Vera B. Williams’ A Chair for My Mother, published in 1982.

Vera B. Williams, Cover for Liberation Magazine, November 1958.

Congratulations to our Youth Spoken Word Contest winners:

 Eva S. — 11th grade at Carolina Day

 Tesslyn H. — 8th grade at IC Imagine Public Charter School

 Gabriella B. — 11th grade at School of Inquiry and Life Sciences at Asheville (SILSA)

 Lily A. — 9th grade at Madison Early College High School

Come experience these talented students perform with artist Dasan Ahanu, Tuesday, April 23 at 5:30 p.m. at Atelier Maison’s showroom. Admission is free; RSVP required. Drinks and light appetizers will be provided.

RSVP to [email protected].

Event location:

Atelier Maison Showroom

121 Sweeten Creek Road, Ste. 50

Asheville, NC 28803

About Dasan Ahanu: Christopher Massenburg, better known as Dasan Ahanu, is a public speaker, organizer, curator, educator, poet, spoken word artist, songwriter, emcee, and loyal hip-hop head born and raised in Raleigh, NC.

Sponsored by Atelier Maison.

Join the Dark City Poets Society for a free publishing workshop from 6-8 p.m. on Tuesday, April 23, 2024 at the Black Mountain Library,105 N. Dougherty Street, Black Mountain, NC 28711. This workshop will be led by John Himmelheber, editor of Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, along with Ivy Rosen, editor of Black Mountain Press. Learn tips and tricks on how to get published and what the best practices are for submitting your work for consideration. This workshop is open to all ages, and no registration is required.

oin the Dark City Poets Society for a free publishing workshop at the Black Mountain Library!
This workshop will be led by John Himmelheber, editor of Smoky Blue Literary And Arts Magazine, along with Ivy Rosen, editor of Black Mountain Press. Learn tips and tricks on how to get published.

Exhibition and Public Programming

Vera B. Williams, an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books, started making pictures almost as soon as she could walk. She studied at Black Mountain College in a time where summer institutes were held with classes taught by John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Williams studied under the Bauhaus luminary Josef Albers and went on to make art for the rest of her life. At the time of her death, The New York Times wrote: “Her illustrations, known for bold colors and a style reminiscent of folk art, were praised by reviewers for their great tenderness and crackling vitality.” Despite numerous awards and recognition for her children’s books, much of her wider life and work remains unexplored. This retrospective will showcase the complete range of Williams’ life and work. It will highlight her time at Black Mountain College, her political activism, and her establishment, with Paul Williams, of an influential yet little-known artist community, in addition to her work as an author and illustrator.

Author and illustrator of 17 children’s books, including Caldecott medal winner, A Chair for My Mother, Vera B. Williams always had a passion for the arts. Williams grew up in the Bronx, NY, and in 1936, when she was nine years old, one of her paintings, called Yentas, opens a new window, was included in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. While Williams is widely known for her children’s books today, this exhibition’s expansive scope highlights unexplored aspects of her artistic practice and eight decades of life. From groundbreaking, powerful covers for Liberation Magazine, to Peace calendar collaborations with writer activist Grace Paley, to scenic sketches for Julian Beck and Judith Malina’s Living Theater, to hundreds of late life “Aging and Illness” cartoons sketches and doodles, Vera never sat still.

Williams arrived at Black Mountain College in 1945. While there, she embraced all aspects of living, working, and learning in the intensely creative college community. She was at BMC during a particularly fertile period, which allowed her to study with faculty members Buckminster Fuller and Josef Albers, and to participate in the famed summer sessions with John Cage, Merce Cunningham, M.C. Richards, and Robert Rauschenberg. In 1948, she graduated with Josef Albers as her advisor and sculptor Richard Lippold as her outside examiner. Forever one of the College’s shining stars, Vera graduated from BMC with just six semesters of coursework, at only twenty-one years old. She continued to visit BMC for years afterward, staying deeply involved with the artistic community that BMC incubated.

Anticipating the eventual closure of BMC, Williams, alongside her husband Paul Williams and a group of influential former BMC figures, founded The Gate Hill Cooperative Artists community located 30 miles north of NYC on the outskirts of Stony Point, NY. The Gate Hill Cooperative, also known as The Land, became an outcropping of Black Mountain College’s experimental ethos. Students and faculty including John Cage, M.C. Richards, David Tudor, Karen Karnes, David Weinrib, Stan VanDerBeek, and Patsy Lynch Wood shaped Gate Hill as founding members of the community. Vera B. Williams raised her three children at Gate Hill while continuing to make work.

The early Gate Hill era represented an especially creative phase for the BMC group. For Williams, this period saw the creation of 76 covers for Liberation Magazine, a radical, groundbreaking publication. This exhibition will feature some of Williams’ most powerful Liberation covers including a design for the June 1963 edition, which contained the first full publication of MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Williams’ activism work continued throughout her life. As president of PEN’s Children Committee and member of The War Resisters league, she created a wide range of political and educational posters and journal covers. Williams protested the war in Vietnam and nuclear proliferation while supporting women’s causes and racial equality. In 1981, Williams was arrested and spent a month in a federal prison on charges stemming from her political activism.

In her late 40’s, Williams embarked in earnest on her career as a children’s book author and illustrator, a career which garnered the NY Public Library’s recognition of A Chair for My Mother as one of the greatest 100 children’s books of all time. Infinitely curious and always a wanderer at heart, Williams’ personal life was as expansive as her art. In addition to her prolific picture making, Williams started and helped run a Summerhill-based alternative school, canoed the Yukon, and lived alone on a houseboat in Vancouver Harbor. She helped to organize and attended dozens of political demonstrations throughout her adult life.

Her books won many awards including the Caldecott Medal Honor Book for A Chair for My Mother in 1983, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award– Fiction category– for Scooter in 1994, the Jane Addams Honor for Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart in 2002, and the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature in 2009. Her books reflected her values, emphasizing love, compassion, kindness, joy, strength, individuality, and courage.

Images:

Cover of Vera B. Williams’ A Chair for My Mother, published in 1982.

Vera B. Williams, Cover for Liberation Magazine, November 1958.

Exhibition and Public Programming

Vera B. Williams, an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books, started making pictures almost as soon as she could walk. She studied at Black Mountain College in a time where summer institutes were held with classes taught by John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Williams studied under the Bauhaus luminary Josef Albers and went on to make art for the rest of her life. At the time of her death, The New York Times wrote: “Her illustrations, known for bold colors and a style reminiscent of folk art, were praised by reviewers for their great tenderness and crackling vitality.” Despite numerous awards and recognition for her children’s books, much of her wider life and work remains unexplored. This retrospective will showcase the complete range of Williams’ life and work. It will highlight her time at Black Mountain College, her political activism, and her establishment, with Paul Williams, of an influential yet little-known artist community, in addition to her work as an author and illustrator.

Author and illustrator of 17 children’s books, including Caldecott medal winner, A Chair for My Mother, Vera B. Williams always had a passion for the arts. Williams grew up in the Bronx, NY, and in 1936, when she was nine years old, one of her paintings, called Yentas, opens a new window, was included in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. While Williams is widely known for her children’s books today, this exhibition’s expansive scope highlights unexplored aspects of her artistic practice and eight decades of life. From groundbreaking, powerful covers for Liberation Magazine, to Peace calendar collaborations with writer activist Grace Paley, to scenic sketches for Julian Beck and Judith Malina’s Living Theater, to hundreds of late life “Aging and Illness” cartoons sketches and doodles, Vera never sat still.

Williams arrived at Black Mountain College in 1945. While there, she embraced all aspects of living, working, and learning in the intensely creative college community. She was at BMC during a particularly fertile period, which allowed her to study with faculty members Buckminster Fuller and Josef Albers, and to participate in the famed summer sessions with John Cage, Merce Cunningham, M.C. Richards, and Robert Rauschenberg. In 1948, she graduated with Josef Albers as her advisor and sculptor Richard Lippold as her outside examiner. Forever one of the College’s shining stars, Vera graduated from BMC with just six semesters of coursework, at only twenty-one years old. She continued to visit BMC for years afterward, staying deeply involved with the artistic community that BMC incubated.

Anticipating the eventual closure of BMC, Williams, alongside her husband Paul Williams and a group of influential former BMC figures, founded The Gate Hill Cooperative Artists community located 30 miles north of NYC on the outskirts of Stony Point, NY. The Gate Hill Cooperative, also known as The Land, became an outcropping of Black Mountain College’s experimental ethos. Students and faculty including John Cage, M.C. Richards, David Tudor, Karen Karnes, David Weinrib, Stan VanDerBeek, and Patsy Lynch Wood shaped Gate Hill as founding members of the community. Vera B. Williams raised her three children at Gate Hill while continuing to make work.

The early Gate Hill era represented an especially creative phase for the BMC group. For Williams, this period saw the creation of 76 covers for Liberation Magazine, a radical, groundbreaking publication. This exhibition will feature some of Williams’ most powerful Liberation covers including a design for the June 1963 edition, which contained the first full publication of MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Williams’ activism work continued throughout her life. As president of PEN’s Children Committee and member of The War Resisters league, she created a wide range of political and educational posters and journal covers. Williams protested the war in Vietnam and nuclear proliferation while supporting women’s causes and racial equality. In 1981, Williams was arrested and spent a month in a federal prison on charges stemming from her political activism.

In her late 40’s, Williams embarked in earnest on her career as a children’s book author and illustrator, a career which garnered the NY Public Library’s recognition of A Chair for My Mother as one of the greatest 100 children’s books of all time. Infinitely curious and always a wanderer at heart, Williams’ personal life was as expansive as her art. In addition to her prolific picture making, Williams started and helped run a Summerhill-based alternative school, canoed the Yukon, and lived alone on a houseboat in Vancouver Harbor. She helped to organize and attended dozens of political demonstrations throughout her adult life.

Her books won many awards including the Caldecott Medal Honor Book for A Chair for My Mother in 1983, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award– Fiction category– for Scooter in 1994, the Jane Addams Honor for Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart in 2002, and the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature in 2009. Her books reflected her values, emphasizing love, compassion, kindness, joy, strength, individuality, and courage.

Images:

Cover of Vera B. Williams’ A Chair for My Mother, published in 1982.

Vera B. Williams, Cover for Liberation Magazine, November 1958.

The Asheville Museum of History (Formerly the Western North Carolina Historical Association) announces David Joy’s Those We Thought We Knew as the winner of the 2023 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award

The Asheville Museum of History announces the selection of the winner David Joy for Those We Thought We Knew for the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award. Finalists Erica Abrams Locklear, Elizabeth Giddens, Jennifer McGaha and Terry Roberts will also be honored at an awards ceremony Thursday, April 25, 6 p.m. at A-B Tech’s Ferguson Auditorium (19 Tech Drive). A reception will follow at the Asheville Museum of History at the Smith-McDowell House, 283 Victoria Road, Asheville, NC.

Originated by the Louis Lipinsky family, the Award has been presented annually by the organization since 1955 for printed works that focus special attention on Western North Carolina. To be considered, an entry must be a published work of fiction, nonfiction, drama or poetry and meet the following criteria:

1. It must be a first edition work; revised editions of published works will not be considered.
2. The publication date must have been no later than August 1, 2023.
3. The author must be a native of Western North Carolina or a resident of Western North Carolina for at least twelve months prior to the closing date for the Award.
4. An author may also qualify if the work submitted has a focus on or setting in Western North Carolina.

 The Western North Carolina Historical Association presented the first Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award to Wilma Dykeman in 1955 for The French Broad. Brent Martin won the 2022 award for George Masa’s Wild Vision: A Japanese Immigrant Imagines Western North Carolina. Other authors who have received the award include Robert Brunk, Wayne Caldwell, Wiley Cash, Charles Frazier, John Ehle, Gail Godwin, Michael McFee, Doug Orr, Ron Rash, Fiona Ritchie, Terry Roberts, Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle and Lee Smith.

A prize of $1,000 accompanies the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award and will be awarded to David Joy, winner of this year’s award, at a ceremony at AB Tech’s Ferguson Auditorium (Fernihurst Drive, Asheville) on Thursday, April 25, 6 p.m. Each of the finalists will read a short passage from their work. There will be a reception at 7 p.m. at the Asheville Museum of History at the Smith-McDowell House.

This year’s finalists were chosen from an original group of more than 35 nominations.  The finalists, listed below in alphabetical order, encompass a broad range of genres and forms.

• Erica Abrams Locklear Appalachia on the Table: Representing Mountain Food and People
• Elizabeth Giddens Oconaluftee: The History of a Smoky Mountain Valley
• David Joy Those We Thought We Knew (Winner of the 2023 Thomas Wolfe Literary Award)
• Jennifer McGaha Bushwhacking: How to Get Lost in the Woods and Writer Your Way Out
• Terry Roberts The Sky Club

The Award Panel this year consists of: Catherine Frank, Chair, Director, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UNC Asheville; Wayne Caldwell, author and former Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award winner; Dee James, professor emeritus, UNC-Asheville; and Jim Stokely, President, Wilma Dykeman Legacy.

For more information visit https://www.ashevillehistory.org/literaryaward/ and https://www.simpletix.com/e/thomas-wolfe-literary-award-tickets-167349#location

Exhibition and Public Programming

Vera B. Williams, an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books, started making pictures almost as soon as she could walk. She studied at Black Mountain College in a time where summer institutes were held with classes taught by John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Williams studied under the Bauhaus luminary Josef Albers and went on to make art for the rest of her life. At the time of her death, The New York Times wrote: “Her illustrations, known for bold colors and a style reminiscent of folk art, were praised by reviewers for their great tenderness and crackling vitality.” Despite numerous awards and recognition for her children’s books, much of her wider life and work remains unexplored. This retrospective will showcase the complete range of Williams’ life and work. It will highlight her time at Black Mountain College, her political activism, and her establishment, with Paul Williams, of an influential yet little-known artist community, in addition to her work as an author and illustrator.

Author and illustrator of 17 children’s books, including Caldecott medal winner, A Chair for My Mother, Vera B. Williams always had a passion for the arts. Williams grew up in the Bronx, NY, and in 1936, when she was nine years old, one of her paintings, called Yentas, opens a new window, was included in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. While Williams is widely known for her children’s books today, this exhibition’s expansive scope highlights unexplored aspects of her artistic practice and eight decades of life. From groundbreaking, powerful covers for Liberation Magazine, to Peace calendar collaborations with writer activist Grace Paley, to scenic sketches for Julian Beck and Judith Malina’s Living Theater, to hundreds of late life “Aging and Illness” cartoons sketches and doodles, Vera never sat still.

Williams arrived at Black Mountain College in 1945. While there, she embraced all aspects of living, working, and learning in the intensely creative college community. She was at BMC during a particularly fertile period, which allowed her to study with faculty members Buckminster Fuller and Josef Albers, and to participate in the famed summer sessions with John Cage, Merce Cunningham, M.C. Richards, and Robert Rauschenberg. In 1948, she graduated with Josef Albers as her advisor and sculptor Richard Lippold as her outside examiner. Forever one of the College’s shining stars, Vera graduated from BMC with just six semesters of coursework, at only twenty-one years old. She continued to visit BMC for years afterward, staying deeply involved with the artistic community that BMC incubated.

Anticipating the eventual closure of BMC, Williams, alongside her husband Paul Williams and a group of influential former BMC figures, founded The Gate Hill Cooperative Artists community located 30 miles north of NYC on the outskirts of Stony Point, NY. The Gate Hill Cooperative, also known as The Land, became an outcropping of Black Mountain College’s experimental ethos. Students and faculty including John Cage, M.C. Richards, David Tudor, Karen Karnes, David Weinrib, Stan VanDerBeek, and Patsy Lynch Wood shaped Gate Hill as founding members of the community. Vera B. Williams raised her three children at Gate Hill while continuing to make work.

The early Gate Hill era represented an especially creative phase for the BMC group. For Williams, this period saw the creation of 76 covers for Liberation Magazine, a radical, groundbreaking publication. This exhibition will feature some of Williams’ most powerful Liberation covers including a design for the June 1963 edition, which contained the first full publication of MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Williams’ activism work continued throughout her life. As president of PEN’s Children Committee and member of The War Resisters league, she created a wide range of political and educational posters and journal covers. Williams protested the war in Vietnam and nuclear proliferation while supporting women’s causes and racial equality. In 1981, Williams was arrested and spent a month in a federal prison on charges stemming from her political activism.

In her late 40’s, Williams embarked in earnest on her career as a children’s book author and illustrator, a career which garnered the NY Public Library’s recognition of A Chair for My Mother as one of the greatest 100 children’s books of all time. Infinitely curious and always a wanderer at heart, Williams’ personal life was as expansive as her art. In addition to her prolific picture making, Williams started and helped run a Summerhill-based alternative school, canoed the Yukon, and lived alone on a houseboat in Vancouver Harbor. She helped to organize and attended dozens of political demonstrations throughout her adult life.

Her books won many awards including the Caldecott Medal Honor Book for A Chair for My Mother in 1983, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award– Fiction category– for Scooter in 1994, the Jane Addams Honor for Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart in 2002, and the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature in 2009. Her books reflected her values, emphasizing love, compassion, kindness, joy, strength, individuality, and courage.

Images:

Cover of Vera B. Williams’ A Chair for My Mother, published in 1982.

Vera B. Williams, Cover for Liberation Magazine, November 1958.

Saturdays from 10:30 AM – 12 PM

Exhibition and Public Programming

Vera B. Williams, an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books, started making pictures almost as soon as she could walk. She studied at Black Mountain College in a time where summer institutes were held with classes taught by John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Williams studied under the Bauhaus luminary Josef Albers and went on to make art for the rest of her life. At the time of her death, The New York Times wrote: “Her illustrations, known for bold colors and a style reminiscent of folk art, were praised by reviewers for their great tenderness and crackling vitality.” Despite numerous awards and recognition for her children’s books, much of her wider life and work remains unexplored. This retrospective will showcase the complete range of Williams’ life and work. It will highlight her time at Black Mountain College, her political activism, and her establishment, with Paul Williams, of an influential yet little-known artist community, in addition to her work as an author and illustrator.

Author and illustrator of 17 children’s books, including Caldecott medal winner, A Chair for My Mother, Vera B. Williams always had a passion for the arts. Williams grew up in the Bronx, NY, and in 1936, when she was nine years old, one of her paintings, called Yentas, opens a new window, was included in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. While Williams is widely known for her children’s books today, this exhibition’s expansive scope highlights unexplored aspects of her artistic practice and eight decades of life. From groundbreaking, powerful covers for Liberation Magazine, to Peace calendar collaborations with writer activist Grace Paley, to scenic sketches for Julian Beck and Judith Malina’s Living Theater, to hundreds of late life “Aging and Illness” cartoons sketches and doodles, Vera never sat still.

Williams arrived at Black Mountain College in 1945. While there, she embraced all aspects of living, working, and learning in the intensely creative college community. She was at BMC during a particularly fertile period, which allowed her to study with faculty members Buckminster Fuller and Josef Albers, and to participate in the famed summer sessions with John Cage, Merce Cunningham, M.C. Richards, and Robert Rauschenberg. In 1948, she graduated with Josef Albers as her advisor and sculptor Richard Lippold as her outside examiner. Forever one of the College’s shining stars, Vera graduated from BMC with just six semesters of coursework, at only twenty-one years old. She continued to visit BMC for years afterward, staying deeply involved with the artistic community that BMC incubated.

Anticipating the eventual closure of BMC, Williams, alongside her husband Paul Williams and a group of influential former BMC figures, founded The Gate Hill Cooperative Artists community located 30 miles north of NYC on the outskirts of Stony Point, NY. The Gate Hill Cooperative, also known as The Land, became an outcropping of Black Mountain College’s experimental ethos. Students and faculty including John Cage, M.C. Richards, David Tudor, Karen Karnes, David Weinrib, Stan VanDerBeek, and Patsy Lynch Wood shaped Gate Hill as founding members of the community. Vera B. Williams raised her three children at Gate Hill while continuing to make work.

The early Gate Hill era represented an especially creative phase for the BMC group. For Williams, this period saw the creation of 76 covers for Liberation Magazine, a radical, groundbreaking publication. This exhibition will feature some of Williams’ most powerful Liberation covers including a design for the June 1963 edition, which contained the first full publication of MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Williams’ activism work continued throughout her life. As president of PEN’s Children Committee and member of The War Resisters league, she created a wide range of political and educational posters and journal covers. Williams protested the war in Vietnam and nuclear proliferation while supporting women’s causes and racial equality. In 1981, Williams was arrested and spent a month in a federal prison on charges stemming from her political activism.

In her late 40’s, Williams embarked in earnest on her career as a children’s book author and illustrator, a career which garnered the NY Public Library’s recognition of A Chair for My Mother as one of the greatest 100 children’s books of all time. Infinitely curious and always a wanderer at heart, Williams’ personal life was as expansive as her art. In addition to her prolific picture making, Williams started and helped run a Summerhill-based alternative school, canoed the Yukon, and lived alone on a houseboat in Vancouver Harbor. She helped to organize and attended dozens of political demonstrations throughout her adult life.

Her books won many awards including the Caldecott Medal Honor Book for A Chair for My Mother in 1983, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award– Fiction category– for Scooter in 1994, the Jane Addams Honor for Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart in 2002, and the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature in 2009. Her books reflected her values, emphasizing love, compassion, kindness, joy, strength, individuality, and courage.

Images:

Cover of Vera B. Williams’ A Chair for My Mother, published in 1982.

Vera B. Williams, Cover for Liberation Magazine, November 1958.

Buncombe County Public Library started our inaugural countywide book club called One Book, One Buncombe this spring. The vision for this communal effort is to have as many people as possible read, discuss, meditate, and ultimately have the shared experience of collectively reading the same book this spring.

Our first One Book, One Buncombe selection has been The Violin Conspiracy by North Carolina-based author Brendan Slocumb. Hundreds of people all across the county have been reading this thought provoking novel in March and April, and a wide selection of programs have been well attended.

One Book, One Buncombe 2024 will culminate with a free community event featuring author Brendan Slocumb on Saturday, April 27 at 2 p.m. This event will take place at Ferguson Auditorium at AB Tech. 19 Tech Drive, Asheville, 28801. Admission is free and everyone is welcome! No advance registration is required to attend this program.

Slocumb will speak about the book and sign books after the formal program. Books will also be available for purchase at this event.

If you can’t make it, the event will be streamed on the County’s Facebook page.

Learn more about Brendan Slocumb and The Violin Conspiracy on his author page here.

You can find this book, and lots of other great books, at your local library.