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You have a spot – Need a lift?

WCCA cares about our community’s health! Apple Country Transportation is offering free rides to Henderson County vaccination sites for Covid-19 immunizations. A pre-scheduled vaccination appointment is required. Call Apple Country Transportation at (828) 698-8571 for more info and schedule a ride today!

Seniors (65+) in Henderson County can schedule an immunization appointment in one of 4 ways:
1) Pardee UNC Health: Call (828) 694-8222 or visit: www.pardeehospital.org/covid-19
2) Advent Health: Visit: www.AdventHealthNC.com
3) Henderson County Health Dept: Call (828) 585-4700

Once a vaccine appointment is scheduled, individuals may contact Apple Country Transportation
at (828) 698-8571 to schedule to immunization clinic sites in Henderson County including East
Henderson High School, Blue Ridge Community College, Apple Valley Middle, North Henderson
High School and other community sites as they become available.

Wake, Mel Chin’s giant animatronic sculpture, installed in New York City’s Times Square last summer, will be on view in Asheville through March 15, 2021, at 44 Collier Avenue. Chin, a WNC based conceptual artist, was named a MacArthur Fellow in September 2019.

Wake was commissioned as part of Mel Chin: All Over the Place, a multi-site survey of his works from across many decades that took place in several New York City locations. A collaborative group, led by UNC Asheville’s STEAM Studio and The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, formed to plan and raise funds for the sculpture to be seen locally.

Wake – 60 feet long, 34 feet wide and 24 feet high, conceived and designed by the artist – was engineered, sculpted and fabricated by an interdisciplinary team of UNC Asheville students, faculty, staff and community artists led by Chin. The sculpture is interactive and features decks and places to sit and contemplate.

Wake evokes the hull of a shipwreck crossed with the skeletal remains of a marine mammal. The structure is linked with a carved, 21-foot-tall animatronic sculpture, accurately derived from a figurehead of the opera star Jenny Lind that was once mounted on the 19th century clipper ship, USS Nightingale. Jenny Lind moves subtly as she breathes and scans the sky.

Visitors can experience Wake daily from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. at 44 Collier Avenue. For more details and a schedule of programming, visit ashevillearts.com.

We were thrilled to have Mills River Brewing Co as our home base for Rigs & Coffee in Asheville, North Carolina.
Rigs & Coffee is a reoccurring “Meetup” every 3rd Saturday of the month from 9am – 11am. It’s open to ALL Rigs! ALL makes, ALL models, ALL styles.
Just good people, hanging out with good company, enjoying a good conversation. Share ideas, experiences and show off your Rig! Maybe you might learn something new too. Who knows!

Pack Youth Services introduces Take & Play, a pilot program that offers everyone the opportunity to borrow games, ukuleles, and disc golf sets from the Youth Services department at Pack Library. Take & Play items check out for three weeks, and you need to pick them up and drop them off at Pack Library. Games, ukuleles, and disc golf sets are available on a first-come, first-served basis and you check them out with your library card just like a book. Call 250-4720 for details, or drop by the library anytime we’re open.

All our library hours are listed here.

PLEASE SCHEDULE YOUR APPOINTMENT TODAY: Asheville Center – Donate Blood – The Blood Connection

Platelet Information

PLEASE SCHEDULE YOUR APPOINTMENT TODAY: Hendersonville Center – Donate Blood – The Blood Connection

General Information

The market is located in A-B Tech parking lot A-13, adjacent to the A-B Tech/Mission Health Conference Center (16 Fernihurst Dr.). Enter the market via Fernihurst Dr. off Victoria Rd., following campus signs to the conference center.

Market staff will control the number of shoppers in the market area at one time by limiting the number of cars in the parking lot.  When you arrive at  the market, please follow signs and staff directions to queue inside your vehicle until instructed to park your car in the parking lot.  There may be a 15 – 30 minute wait to park during peak shopping times.

Dates and Hours

Saturdays, 9 a.m. to noon until December 19th…

The ASAP Winter Market will run Saturdays, 10am – 1pm, January 9th until March 27th in the same location.

Market Rules

• No customers or vendors exhibiting symptoms may enter the market.
• Maintain 6 feet of social distance at all times.
• One customer at a time for each vendor table.
• Only handle product you are purchasing. Vendors will pre-package or bunch products.
• All vendors and shoppers are required to wear masks. Customers who are not able to wear a mask may arrange to pre-order from vendors. Market staff will direct you to a separate parking area and deliver prepaid items to the car.
• Children, if they must attend with adult shoppers, must be closely supervised.
• Please leave your pets at home.

Staff will direct anyone failing to comply with these conditions to leave the market.

Paying for Purchases

Vendors accept touch-free credit or debit payments as well as SNAP. Some take exact cash (no change given) or check. Thanks to generous support from the community, we are offering Double SNAP.

The Need Continues, Sign Up Today! In response to continued demand, Asheville Outlets will host two blood drives in the month of February:

• Saturday, February 13 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Asheville Outlets will partner with the American Red Cross for a donation drive in Suite 348 located across from RH Outlet. Donors are asked to register in advance by visiting https://www.RedCrossBlood.org/give.html/find-drive and entering the sponsor code AshevilleOutlets. All blood donations are tested for COVID-19 Antibody.

• Saturday, February 20 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Blood Connection Blood Mobile will be in the Asheville Outlets’ parking lot behind the food court. Check-in will be located next to the bus. Donors are asked to register in advance by visiting https://TheBloodConnection.org/wnc-blood-drives and entering the sponsor code AshevilleOutlets. All blood donations are tested for COVID-19 Antibody.

Blood donation organizers will practice social distancing procedures and advanced safety protocols. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has stated that the coronavirus (COVID-19) does not pose any known risk to blood donors during the donation process or from attending blood drives, and that it is safe to donate blood. For more information, visit ShopAshevilleOutlets.com.

Dreaming of starting your own farm? Farm Dreams is an entry-level, day-long workshop designed to help people who are seeking practical, common-sense information on sustainable farming and how to move forward. This is a great workshop to attend if you are in the exploratory stages of starting a farm.

In this one-day, exploratory workshop participants will…
Learn about sustainable farming careers in Western North Carolina.
Discover and assess your resources, skills and farming intentions.
Begin to develop an educational plan toward farming.
Connect with regional training opportunities and support networks.
Prioritize your next steps toward your farming goals.
Hear from experienced farmers running successful farms in WNC.

Register here/links to tickets: www.organicgrowersschool.org/farmers/farm-dreams

Beginning Tuesday, Jan. 19, Pack Memorial Library will reopen to the public with limited hours and services. See below for schedule information for most other Buncombe County Public Libraries.

The Pack library schedule will be:

• Tuesday-Thursday, 1-6 p.m.
• Friday & Saturday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
• Sunday & Monday, Closed

We are OPEN Fridays and Saturdays
for private, pre-booked tours at:
10:30 AM
12:00 PM
1:30 PM
3:00 PM

Welcome to your new home, Samson and Bonita!  The two red foxes will be joining the other residents of the WNC Nature Center and are coming to us from Izzie’s Pond Sanctuary in Liberty, S.C.

Samson and Bonita have something more in common than their new home.  They are both less than a year old and were both injured as a result of being caught in leg-hold traps and each has three legs, which means they would not be able to survive in the wild but can live safely in a zoo environment.

“The Nature Center has long provided excellent care for animals that, for one reason or another, could not live in the wild,” said WNC Nature Center Director Chris Gentile. “We are so excited to be able to welcome red foxes back to our Center.”

Come say “Hi!” to Samson and Bonita at the WNC Nature center beginning Feb. 11, when they’ll enter their new habitat for the first time.

The Asheville Art Museum announces Meeting the Moon, an exhibition featuring prints, photographs, ceramics, sculptures, and more from the Museum’s Collection. This exhibition will be on view in the Asheville Art Museum’s McClinton Gallery February 3 through July 26, 2021.

2021 marks the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Apollo space program at NASA, but its inception was hardly the beginning of humankind’s fascination with Earth’s only moon. Before space travel existed, the moon—its shape, its mystery, and the face we see in it—inspired countless artists. Once astronauts landed on the moon and we saw our world from a new perspective, a surge of creativity flooded the American art scene, in paintings, prints, sculpture, music, crafts, film, and poetry.

This exhibition, whose title is taken from a 1913 Robert Frost poem, examines artwork in the Asheville Art Museum’s Collection of artists who were inspired by the unknown, then increasingly familiar moon. Meeting the Moon includes works by nationally renowned artists Newcomb Pottery, James Rosenquist, Maltby Sykes, Paul Soldner, John Lewis, Richard Ritter (Bakersville, NC), and Mark Peiser (Penland, NC). Western North Carolina artists include Jane Peiser (Penland, NC), Jak Brewer (Zionville, NC), Dirck Cruser (Asheville, NC), George Peterson (Lake Toxaway, NC), John B. Neff (NC), and Maud Gatewood (Yanceyville, NC).

“Meeting the Moon offers the opportunity to combine science and popular culture with works of art in the Museum’s Collection,” says Whitney Richardson, associate curator. “I think all visitors will find something that draws them into this exhibition, whether it’s the artwork, poetry, music, or science of space travel. It’s such an affirmation of humanity to find these mysteries, like the moon, which enchant us all.”

This exhibition is organized by the Asheville Art Museum and curated by Whitney Richardson, associate curator. Visit ashevilleart.org for more information about this and other exhibitions.

This exhibition features archival objects from the Theodore Dreier Sr. Document Collection presented alongside artworks from the Museum’s Black Mountain College Collection to explore the connections between artworks and ephemera. This exhibition is organized by the Asheville Art Museum and curated by lydia see, fall 2020 curatorial fellow, with support from a Digitizing Hidden Collections grant through the Council on Library and Information Resources.

The Asheville Art Museum presents Fantastical Forms: Ceramics as Sculpture on view at the Museum November 4, 2020 through April 5, 2021. The 25 works in this exhibition—curated by associate curator Whitney Richardson—highlight the Museum’s Collection of sculptural ceramics from the last two decades of the 20th century to the present. Each work illustrates the artist’s ability to push beyond the utilitarian and transition ceramics into the world of sculpture.

North and South Carolina artists featured include Elma McBride Johnson, Neil Noland, Norm Schulman, Virginia Scotchie, Cynthia Bringle, Jane Palmer, Michael Sherrill, and Akira Satake. Works by American artists Don Reitz, Robert Chapman Turner, Karen Karnes, Toshiko Takaezu, Bill Griffith, and Xavier Toubes are also featured in the exhibition.

Join us for a relaxing ride through quiet countryside on your way to small town life in western North Carolina on the Tuckasegee River Excursion. Departing from Bryson City, this 4 hour excursion travels 32 miles round-trip to Dillsboro and back to the Bryson City Depot. Pass by the famous movie set of The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford!

The Tuckasegee (tuck-uh-SEE-jee) River Excursion includes an 1½ hour layover in the historic town of Dillsboro, where you’ll find more than 50 shops, restaurants, bed and breakfasts and country inns. There is time to shop, snack, and visit the many unique shops before returning to Bryson City.

Black Is Beautiful is a collaborative effort in partnership with our friends at @weatheredsoulsbrewing whose shared mission is to bring awareness to the injustices that many People of Color face daily. Additional proceeds from select retailers will be donated to the Know Your Rights Campaign.

Robert Kushner, Plumeria Scatter IV, 2014, watercolor, ink, and gold leaf on paper,

15 × 30 1/8 inches. 2014.29.04.60.

Registration deadline: February 12

In this workshop, celebrate your favorite season using images, designs, and memories of plants and flowers. Explore many mixed-media applications, incorporate pattern and lots of seasonal color, and finish with the delicate application of metal leaf for the ultimate homage to nature.

Originally from Rhode Island, instructor Bonnie Parker has lived in North Carolina for most of her adult life. She has instructed and tutored a range of ages in painting, especially with her preferred medium of acrylic. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature and studio art.

Please note:

• This Adult Studio is held indoors in the Museum’s John & Robyn Horn Education Center.
• Space is limited to small groups of up to eight students; face coverings and social distancing are required.

26th Annual Bluegrass First Class – February 19, 20, and 21, 2021.

Join us for three hours “off the eaten path” as we find and gather over a dozen wild edibles. We’ll whip up a little tasting right on the trail. Take home the rest of your finds and/or get ready for some find dining when one of our award-winning restaurant partners prepares your “catch of the day,” with lunch, brunch or dinner, for free. Wild mushroom pizza, daylily tamales, sassafras root beer, wisteria ice cream… it all depends on what we find!

Pricing

• Adult (Ages 12+): $75
• Child (Ages 5-11): $35
• Child (Ages 4 & Under): Free

Come enjoy an evening of live music, food and drinks at the Isis Music Hall. Reservations are highly recommended.

Winner of the 1995 Tony Award for Best Play

Written by Terrence McNally

Directed by Stephanie Hickling Beckman

Winner of the 1995 Tony Award for Best Play, Love! Valour! Compassion! explores the lives, loves, and fears of eight gay men in the 1990s. Over the course of three holiday weekends, the men’s conversations touch on themes of infidelity, flirting, AIDS, skinny-dipping, and questions about life and death. By turns soul-searching and hilarious, the play sings with truth.

Writes McNally, “I think I wanted to write about what it’s like to be a gay man at this particular moment in our history. I think I wanted to tell my friends how much they’ve meant to me. I think I wanted to tell everyone else who we are when they aren’t around.”

“[…]his most ambitiously unambiguous gay play, and it speaks difficult truths with acid grace and all those generous words exclaimed in his title.” —New York Newsday

Love! Valour! Compassion! was the first show ever produced by Different Strokes! We re-visit it now in celebration of our 10-year anniversary!

What to expect: Open, honest, articulate discussion
Bring: Yourself, and an open mind
Find us by RSVPing to the event, and being prepared to explore

Discussion topic: What topic do you get incredibly excited and passionate discussing/sharing?

What we’re about