Upcoming events and things to do in Asheville, NC. Below is a list of events for festivals, concerts, art exhibitions, group meetups and more.

Interested in adding an event to our calendar? Please click the green “Post Your Event” button below.

Saturday, November 13, 2021
Glass Blowing | Live Demo
Nov 13 @ 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Southern Highland Craft Guild

Jason Probstein will be demonstrating glass blowing in the lobby of the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The schedule is subject to change. Call ahead for the latest updates: 828-298-7928.

Heart of Health Art and Social Science Exhibit: WNC African American Lives
Nov 13 @ 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
John Cram Partner Gallery at the Center for Craft
“He”, by artist Ann Miller Woodford, will be on display as part of the Black in Black on Black exhibit in downtown Asheville, NC’s John Cram Partner Gallery at the Center for Craft

Black in Black on Black: Making the Invisible Visible 

On September 6th, UNC Asheville, the Asheville Buncombe Institute of Parity Achievement (ABIPA), and partners will launch a new exhibit, Black in Black on Black: Making the Invisible Visible in the John Cram Partner Gallery at the Center for Craft. The new exhibit is a visual conversation about the lives and contributions of Black/African American communities in Western North Carolina (WNC).

Bringing together stunning artwork and visual design by WNC-based artists Ann Miller Woodford, Ronda Birtha, Viola Spells, and Reggie Tidwell, with social science data and stories, this exhibit invites audiences into an often invisible history of our region. As Woodford states, “My emphasis has been on people who have dedicated their lives to humanity, but have been overlooked, ignored, and often forgotten.”

Deeply personal art is integrated with charts and quotes from the Heart of Health: Race, Place, and Faith in Western North Carolina project. Heart of Health is a three-year community-participatory research study that seeks to better understand the role and impact of race and racism on health through secondary data analyses and interviews. It is co-led by researchers from UNC Asheville, ABIPA, and Sparrow Research, and community partners from around WNC. “One of our first findings was that much of the data on African Americans and drivers of health and inequities, for example, land and business ownership, have been suppressed due to small populations or other reasons. This collaborative research seeks to highlight and encourage responsible collection and use of data and stories,” said Ameena Batada, UNC Asheville professor of health and wellness and one of the co-leads on the Heart of Health project.

Visitors to the exhibit, both in-person and online, are invited to a multisensory and interactive experience, including paintings, photographs, narrative text, quotes and graphics, sculptural pieces, digital data visualization, and music. The exhibit also invites visitors to learn about the ways in which African Americans and others in WNC are working to reduce racism and build community through grassroots and organizational efforts. JéWana Grier McEachin, executive director of ABIPA, co-lead on the Heart of Health project, and member of exhibit partner The LINKS Incorporated, remarked, “The gathering of data and translation of research through Black in Black on Black has been influenced by the connections of the Artists, WNC Research Team and Community Advisory Board. This sort of six degrees of separation between the research exhibit and active change agents through Organizations in Western North Carolina is impactful and invaluable.”

Black in Black on Black: Making the Invisible Visible will be up in the John Cram Partner Gallery at the Center for Craft at 67 Broadway Street in Asheville, NC from September 6, 2021 – January 7, 2021, and a virtual tour soon online. Support for this project was provided by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Interdisciplinary Research Leaders program. Interdisciplinary Research Leaders is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation led by the University of Minnesota. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Foundation or the University of Minnesota.

Learn more about the exhibit, artists, and research at: heartofhealthwnc.wordpress.com/annstree.comthinlyfoldedegg.comwww.facebook.com/ZenobiaStudio/, and pro16productions.com.

Silk Painting | Live Demo
Nov 13 @ 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Southern Highland Craft Guild

Meet & learn from artist, Joanna White, as she demonstrates the art of silk painting from 10-4 in the lobby of the Folk Art Center

A Dance of Images and Words: The Nancy Graves/Pedro Cuperman Tango Portfolio Art Exhibition
Nov 13 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum
Nancy Graves, Parable of Nostalgia from the Tango portfolio, 1991, intaglio on cotton rag paper, edition 12/26, publisher: Iris Editions, New York, image: 26 × 17 5/8 inches, sheet: 35 3/4 × 26 inches. Asheville Art Museum. © Nancy Graves Foundation, Inc. / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Dance of Images and Words: The Nancy Graves/Pedro Cuperman Tango Portfolio features a series of eight intaglio prints that depict plants and animals alongside eleven sheets of prose that explore the steps of the Argentinian dance, the tango. Organized by the Asheville Art Museum from the Museum’s Collection and curated by Hilary Schroeder, assistant curator, this exhibition will be on view in The Van Winkle Law Firm Gallery at the Museum from September 29, 2021 through January 10, 2022.

The common idiom “it takes two to tango” is immediately called into question in both the imagery and words of the Tango portfolio. The portfolio is an expression of artist Nancy Graves (Pittsfield, MA 1939–1995 New York, NY) writer Pedro Cuperman’s (1936–2016 Buenos Aires, Argentina) meditations on the dance. Their imagery and words become paired in an illustrated book though their explorations take different formats and directions. Both Graves and Cuperman look towards humankind and nature as a place where beings come together in the experience of living. This exhibition presents Graves’s eight prints alongside the portfolio frontispiece and a page of Cuperman’s text to immerse visitors in the collaborative dance of the tango.

Gestures: Mid-Century Abstraction from the Collection and Modernist Design at Black Mountain College to Open at Asheville Art Museum
Nov 13 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum
Claude Stoller, Jalowetz Cottage, 1942, gelatin silver print on paper, 8 × 10 inches. Asheville Art Museum. © Claude Stoller, image David Dietrich.

The Asheville Art Museum is proud to announce two new companion exhibitions highlighting artworks from the Collection. GesturesMid-Century Abstraction from the Collection explores works in a variety of media that speak to the vibrant abstract experiments in American art making during the middle of the 20th century. Modernist Design at Black Mountain College features the Museum’s collection of groundbreaking designs from Black Mountain College (BMC)—including architecture, furniture, ceramics, textiles, and more—and situates them in the context for BMC’s influences and surroundings. Artists featured in the two exhibitions include Anni Albers, Josef Albers, Ruth Asawa, Jorge Fick, Buckminster Fuller, Mary “Molly” Gregory, Karen Karnes, A. Lawrence Kocher, Albert Lanier, Jo Sandman, Mim Sihvonen, Robert Turner, Gerald Van de Wiele, and more. The exhibitions will be on view in the Museum’s Explore Asheville Exhibition Hall from October 22, 2021 through January 24, 2022.

Modernist Design at Black Mountain College Art Exhibit
Nov 13 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum
Mary “Molly” Gregory, Lazy-J Chair, circa 1945, ash, leather, and brass, 26 3/4 × 17 1/8 × 24 1/2 inches. Asheville Art Museum. © Estate of Mary Gregory, image David Dietrich. | Mary “Molly” Gregory, Stool, circa 1941–1945, stained oak, 15 1/2 × 18 × 15 inches each. Asheville Art Museum. © Estate of Mary Gregory, image David Dietrich.
Asheville, N.C.Modernist Design at Black Mountain College will feature works of design from the Asheville Art Museum’s Collection by Black Mountain College artists including Anni Albers, Josef Albers, A. Lawrence Kocher, Buckminster Fuller, Karen Karnes, Robert Turner, Mary “Molly” Gregory, Ruth Asawa, Albert Lanier, Mim Sihvonen, and more. The exhibition will be on view in the Museum’s Explore Asheville Exhibition Hall from October 22, 2021 through January 24, 2022.

The experiment known as Black Mountain College (BMC) began in 1933 in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina. The country was in the midst of the Great Depression and headed towards World War II; budgets were low, but creativity was high. When Josef & Anni Albers emigrated from Germany to the United States, they left the Bauhaus school of art and design behind but brought with them their modern aesthetic and design prowess. As faculty leaders at BMC, they attracted well known architects like A. Lawrence Kocher and Buckminster Fuller, among others, to teach architecture and design.

Perhaps most progressive of their actions was to hire a woman, Mary “Molly” Gregory, to head the furniture workshop. An openness to creativity and a smart resourcefulness—on the part of both faculty and students (like Ruth Asawa, Albert Lanier, and Mim Sihvonen)—meant an artistic output of groundbreaking designs including architecture, furniture, ceramics, textiles, and more that has yet to be fully assessed. This exhibition highlights the Asheville Art Museum’s collection of design from BMC, like the rarely seen Gregory furniture, and situates it in the context of its influences and surroundings at BMC.

“This exhibition combines artworks from the Museum’s Collection and on loan to explore a particular aspect of Black Mountain College that hasn’t been considered in depth: its design,” says Asheville Art Museum’s Associate Curator Whitney Richardson. “From the chairs used at the Blue Ridge Assembly to the architecture built at the Lake Eden Campus, the story of the design elements utilized by the faculty and students, and what they created within those contexts and environments, helps us look back at this place and time to proclaim BMC’s importance in the historical timeline of design. The aspect of this exhibition that excites me the most is displaying all of the Museum’s Molly Gregory furniture together for the first time since the Museum acquired it in 2017. Gregory’s ability to instruct BMC students on how to make their own furniture—mixed with her resourcefulness in using what the inadequately funded college could provide and the production of simple, modernistic furniture that has stood the test of time—astounds me.”

Walter B. Stephen Pottery: Cameo to Crystalline
Nov 13 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

Artist Walter B. Stephen (Clinton, IA 1875–1961 Asheville, NC) contributed to Western North Carolina’s identity as a flourishing site for pottery production and craftsmanship in the early 20th century. Walter B. Stephen Pottery: Cameo to Crystalline features art pottery and functional vessels from each stage of Stephen’s career, from his origins discovering the medium alongside his mother Nellie C. Randall Stephen in Shelby County, TN from 1901 through 1910 to his multi-decade production just outside of Asheville. This exhibition will be on view in the Asheville Art Museum’s Debra McClinton Gallery July 28, 2021 through January 17, 2022.

In 1926, Stephen founded his third and last pottery studio, Pisgah Forest, in Arden, NC, which he operated until his death in 1961. It was at this studio that the artist perfected the “cameo” decoration technique for which he became best known. His hand-painted images, achieved with layers of white translucent clay, often feature American folk imagery, from covered wagons and livestock to cabins and spinning wheels. A selection of works from the Museum’s Collection showcase his innovation in form and in decorative surface details, including experimentation with crystalline glazing.

Maker’s Market at Oak and Grist
Nov 13 @ 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Oak and Grist Distilling Company

Maker’s Market at Oak and Grist

Food by Grush’s Cajun Dino Grill

Grab a friend and come check out the work of dozens of local artists, as well as incredible cajun food and craft cocktails! Featuring all manner of handmade homegoods, pottery, apparel, fine art and functional crafts, you’ll find a unique selection of holiday gifts straight from our vibrant local community. Shopping’s a little more fun with a cocktail and a po’ boy, we promise.

Mountain Landscape Art Class: Watercolor our World with Nate Barton
Nov 13 @ 2:00 pm
Fairview Library

 

Join Fairview artist Nate Barton for a class where we’ll use watercolor techniques to create a landscape of our mountains. No experience is necessary as you’ll be guided through the whole process. This class is free but registration is REQUIRED. Call 828-250-6484 or email [email protected] to register.

MakerSpace at Asheville Art Museum: Homemade Clay
Nov 13 @ 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

Visit the galleries on a scavenger hunt for inspiration, then mix three simple ingredients to make homemade salt dough in the studio. Add details and designs using a variety of tools and materials to get your pottery ready to bake at home. This program is perfect for date-day, me time, or catching up with family and friends.

Please note:

  • In accordance with Buncombe County and city directives, a limited number of people can be in the studio at one time. To ensure all participants have time to create, we may ask you to limit your time.
Sunday, November 14, 2021
Asheville Art Museum From Home
Nov 14 all-day
online
WORK OF THE WEEK
Jeff Koons’s One Ball Total Equilibrium Tank (Spalding Dr. J Silver Series) is currently on view in the Museum’s Artistic Tribute: Representation of the Athlete exhibition. Keira Ezzo, summer 2021 communications – multimedia storytelling intern, shares her take on this work for our Work of the Week. Read more about this work on the blog.

ENGAGE WITH THE MUSEUM FROM HOME

Check back often for new content that provides inspiration, calm, comfort, and yes, even some fun during this unprecedented time.

Reimagined Competition for 2021 Gingerbread Season
Nov 14 all-day
The Omni Grove Park Inn

The National Gingerbread House Competition™

The Omni Grove Park Inn, home of the iconic National Gingerbread House Competition, announced a reimagined Competition for 2021. After a virtual 2020, the Resort is planning to welcome back participants in-person this year, along with an esteemed panel of judges, including renowned Food Network Chef, Carla Hall.

Gingerbread enthusiasts are now encouraged to enter the Competition (find entry details HERE) and begin dreaming up dazzling designs for their confectionary creations. The 2021 Competition will take place at The Omni Grove Park Inn on November 22, 2021.

November 8, 2021: Competitor Entry Form Deadline.

 

November 15, 2021: Digital Content and Description Summary Form Deadline.

 

November 22, 2021: Awards Ceremony and Winners Announcement.

 

December 1-12, 2021: 12 Days of Gingerbread series on The Omni Grove Park Inn social channels highlighting top finalists. Assets will be available.

 

November 2021 – January 2, 2022: In-person Gingerbread Display will be open for public viewing at The Omni Grove Park Inn.

Van Gogh Alive at Biltmore Estate
Nov 14 all-day
Biltmore Estate

See the source image

Various times

His masterworks have been displayed around the world for over a century… but never like this. Described as “an unforgettable multi-sensory experience,” Van Gogh Alive is a powerful and vibrant symphony of light, color, sound, and scent that compels you to leave the world behind and immerse yourself in Van Gogh’s paintings. Simultaneously enchanting, entertaining, and educational, Van Gogh Alive stimulates all the senses and opens the mind.

EVANESCENT!: Leigh Svenson Art Exhibit
Nov 14 @ 7:45 am – 1:00 pm
UNC Asheville’s Ramsey Library

UNC Asheville’s Ramsey Library presents EVANESCENT! featuring photography by Leigh Svenson. The collection of black and white photographs feature fleeting images captured during vacations at the Golden Isles of Georgia including images of driftwood cathedrals being taken by the sea and mercurial dune grass etchings and ebb tide carvings.

Viewing during open library hours.

Community Expectations

As members of this community, we care about everyone. Faculty, staff, students, and visitors have a shared commitment to take the necessary precautions to avoid spreading COVID-19 while following all recommended health guidelines. Please see UNC Asheville’s Community Expectations. Masks are required of all students, faculty, staff, and visitors.


Accessibility

Find accessibility information for campus buildings at maps.unca.edu. For accessibility questions or to request event accommodations, please contact [email protected] or 828.250.3832.

Visitor Parking

Visitors must have a permit to park on campus — please visit the Transportation website to register.

Arbor Huescapes: Paintings by Michael Fowler
Nov 14 @ 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
The North Carolina Arboretum

Artist Michael Fowler creates evocative abstract landscape paintings by incorporating vibrant colors with subtle, complex details. His semi-large-scale approach invites viewers to step into his work and build a sense of wonder and contemplation surrounding the natural world. Fowler’s artistic response in contemplating nature is to capture something of a landscape’s pleasantness, which is often unexpected harmonies of color and shape. In his latest exhibit, Arbor Huescapes, Fowler highlights the distinctive vegetation – primarily trees – and topography of North and South Carolina’s midlands and piedmont regions.

Fowler received his Bachelor of Arts from Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas with a focus in Advertising Design. He then attended the University of Nebraska where he received a Master’s degree in Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing with a minor in Art History. From there, he attended the University of Memphis where he earned a Doctorate in Higher Education. Based in North Augusta, South Carolina, Fowler is currently an associate professor of design and computer graphics and serves as the Mary Durban Toole Chair of Art at the University of South Carolina in Aiken. His paintings are in a number of public and private collections nationally, and he actively exhibits in regional and national shows.

Please note: Arbor Huescapes has been rescheduled due to the COVID-19 crisis and will now open in fall 2021. The exhibit is on display daily September 18, 2021 – January 9, 2022, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. inside the Baker Exhibit Center. All works are available for purchase and a portion of sales will be donated to The North Carolina Arboretum Society.

BLACK + WHITE 4
Nov 14 @ 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
Folk Art Center

Main Gallery show featuring members of the Southern Highland Craft Guild.

Glass Blowing | Live Demo
Nov 14 @ 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Southern Highland Craft Guild

Jason Probstein will be demonstrating glass blowing in the lobby of the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The schedule is subject to change. Call ahead for the latest updates: 828-298-7928.

Heart of Health Art and Social Science Exhibit: WNC African American Lives
Nov 14 @ 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
John Cram Partner Gallery at the Center for Craft
“He”, by artist Ann Miller Woodford, will be on display as part of the Black in Black on Black exhibit in downtown Asheville, NC’s John Cram Partner Gallery at the Center for Craft

Black in Black on Black: Making the Invisible Visible 

On September 6th, UNC Asheville, the Asheville Buncombe Institute of Parity Achievement (ABIPA), and partners will launch a new exhibit, Black in Black on Black: Making the Invisible Visible in the John Cram Partner Gallery at the Center for Craft. The new exhibit is a visual conversation about the lives and contributions of Black/African American communities in Western North Carolina (WNC).

Bringing together stunning artwork and visual design by WNC-based artists Ann Miller Woodford, Ronda Birtha, Viola Spells, and Reggie Tidwell, with social science data and stories, this exhibit invites audiences into an often invisible history of our region. As Woodford states, “My emphasis has been on people who have dedicated their lives to humanity, but have been overlooked, ignored, and often forgotten.”

Deeply personal art is integrated with charts and quotes from the Heart of Health: Race, Place, and Faith in Western North Carolina project. Heart of Health is a three-year community-participatory research study that seeks to better understand the role and impact of race and racism on health through secondary data analyses and interviews. It is co-led by researchers from UNC Asheville, ABIPA, and Sparrow Research, and community partners from around WNC. “One of our first findings was that much of the data on African Americans and drivers of health and inequities, for example, land and business ownership, have been suppressed due to small populations or other reasons. This collaborative research seeks to highlight and encourage responsible collection and use of data and stories,” said Ameena Batada, UNC Asheville professor of health and wellness and one of the co-leads on the Heart of Health project.

Visitors to the exhibit, both in-person and online, are invited to a multisensory and interactive experience, including paintings, photographs, narrative text, quotes and graphics, sculptural pieces, digital data visualization, and music. The exhibit also invites visitors to learn about the ways in which African Americans and others in WNC are working to reduce racism and build community through grassroots and organizational efforts. JéWana Grier McEachin, executive director of ABIPA, co-lead on the Heart of Health project, and member of exhibit partner The LINKS Incorporated, remarked, “The gathering of data and translation of research through Black in Black on Black has been influenced by the connections of the Artists, WNC Research Team and Community Advisory Board. This sort of six degrees of separation between the research exhibit and active change agents through Organizations in Western North Carolina is impactful and invaluable.”

Black in Black on Black: Making the Invisible Visible will be up in the John Cram Partner Gallery at the Center for Craft at 67 Broadway Street in Asheville, NC from September 6, 2021 – January 7, 2021, and a virtual tour soon online. Support for this project was provided by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Interdisciplinary Research Leaders program. Interdisciplinary Research Leaders is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation led by the University of Minnesota. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Foundation or the University of Minnesota.

Learn more about the exhibit, artists, and research at: heartofhealthwnc.wordpress.com/annstree.comthinlyfoldedegg.comwww.facebook.com/ZenobiaStudio/, and pro16productions.com.

Silk Painting | Live Demo
Nov 14 @ 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Southern Highland Craft Guild

Meet & learn from artist, Joanna White, as she demonstrates the art of silk painting from 10-4 in the lobby of the Folk Art Center

A Dance of Images and Words: The Nancy Graves/Pedro Cuperman Tango Portfolio Art Exhibition
Nov 14 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum
Nancy Graves, Parable of Nostalgia from the Tango portfolio, 1991, intaglio on cotton rag paper, edition 12/26, publisher: Iris Editions, New York, image: 26 × 17 5/8 inches, sheet: 35 3/4 × 26 inches. Asheville Art Museum. © Nancy Graves Foundation, Inc. / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Dance of Images and Words: The Nancy Graves/Pedro Cuperman Tango Portfolio features a series of eight intaglio prints that depict plants and animals alongside eleven sheets of prose that explore the steps of the Argentinian dance, the tango. Organized by the Asheville Art Museum from the Museum’s Collection and curated by Hilary Schroeder, assistant curator, this exhibition will be on view in The Van Winkle Law Firm Gallery at the Museum from September 29, 2021 through January 10, 2022.

The common idiom “it takes two to tango” is immediately called into question in both the imagery and words of the Tango portfolio. The portfolio is an expression of artist Nancy Graves (Pittsfield, MA 1939–1995 New York, NY) writer Pedro Cuperman’s (1936–2016 Buenos Aires, Argentina) meditations on the dance. Their imagery and words become paired in an illustrated book though their explorations take different formats and directions. Both Graves and Cuperman look towards humankind and nature as a place where beings come together in the experience of living. This exhibition presents Graves’s eight prints alongside the portfolio frontispiece and a page of Cuperman’s text to immerse visitors in the collaborative dance of the tango.

Gestures: Mid-Century Abstraction from the Collection and Modernist Design at Black Mountain College to Open at Asheville Art Museum
Nov 14 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum
Claude Stoller, Jalowetz Cottage, 1942, gelatin silver print on paper, 8 × 10 inches. Asheville Art Museum. © Claude Stoller, image David Dietrich.

The Asheville Art Museum is proud to announce two new companion exhibitions highlighting artworks from the Collection. GesturesMid-Century Abstraction from the Collection explores works in a variety of media that speak to the vibrant abstract experiments in American art making during the middle of the 20th century. Modernist Design at Black Mountain College features the Museum’s collection of groundbreaking designs from Black Mountain College (BMC)—including architecture, furniture, ceramics, textiles, and more—and situates them in the context for BMC’s influences and surroundings. Artists featured in the two exhibitions include Anni Albers, Josef Albers, Ruth Asawa, Jorge Fick, Buckminster Fuller, Mary “Molly” Gregory, Karen Karnes, A. Lawrence Kocher, Albert Lanier, Jo Sandman, Mim Sihvonen, Robert Turner, Gerald Van de Wiele, and more. The exhibitions will be on view in the Museum’s Explore Asheville Exhibition Hall from October 22, 2021 through January 24, 2022.

Modernist Design at Black Mountain College Art Exhibit
Nov 14 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum
Mary “Molly” Gregory, Lazy-J Chair, circa 1945, ash, leather, and brass, 26 3/4 × 17 1/8 × 24 1/2 inches. Asheville Art Museum. © Estate of Mary Gregory, image David Dietrich. | Mary “Molly” Gregory, Stool, circa 1941–1945, stained oak, 15 1/2 × 18 × 15 inches each. Asheville Art Museum. © Estate of Mary Gregory, image David Dietrich.
Asheville, N.C.Modernist Design at Black Mountain College will feature works of design from the Asheville Art Museum’s Collection by Black Mountain College artists including Anni Albers, Josef Albers, A. Lawrence Kocher, Buckminster Fuller, Karen Karnes, Robert Turner, Mary “Molly” Gregory, Ruth Asawa, Albert Lanier, Mim Sihvonen, and more. The exhibition will be on view in the Museum’s Explore Asheville Exhibition Hall from October 22, 2021 through January 24, 2022.

The experiment known as Black Mountain College (BMC) began in 1933 in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina. The country was in the midst of the Great Depression and headed towards World War II; budgets were low, but creativity was high. When Josef & Anni Albers emigrated from Germany to the United States, they left the Bauhaus school of art and design behind but brought with them their modern aesthetic and design prowess. As faculty leaders at BMC, they attracted well known architects like A. Lawrence Kocher and Buckminster Fuller, among others, to teach architecture and design.

Perhaps most progressive of their actions was to hire a woman, Mary “Molly” Gregory, to head the furniture workshop. An openness to creativity and a smart resourcefulness—on the part of both faculty and students (like Ruth Asawa, Albert Lanier, and Mim Sihvonen)—meant an artistic output of groundbreaking designs including architecture, furniture, ceramics, textiles, and more that has yet to be fully assessed. This exhibition highlights the Asheville Art Museum’s collection of design from BMC, like the rarely seen Gregory furniture, and situates it in the context of its influences and surroundings at BMC.

“This exhibition combines artworks from the Museum’s Collection and on loan to explore a particular aspect of Black Mountain College that hasn’t been considered in depth: its design,” says Asheville Art Museum’s Associate Curator Whitney Richardson. “From the chairs used at the Blue Ridge Assembly to the architecture built at the Lake Eden Campus, the story of the design elements utilized by the faculty and students, and what they created within those contexts and environments, helps us look back at this place and time to proclaim BMC’s importance in the historical timeline of design. The aspect of this exhibition that excites me the most is displaying all of the Museum’s Molly Gregory furniture together for the first time since the Museum acquired it in 2017. Gregory’s ability to instruct BMC students on how to make their own furniture—mixed with her resourcefulness in using what the inadequately funded college could provide and the production of simple, modernistic furniture that has stood the test of time—astounds me.”

Walter B. Stephen Pottery: Cameo to Crystalline
Nov 14 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

Artist Walter B. Stephen (Clinton, IA 1875–1961 Asheville, NC) contributed to Western North Carolina’s identity as a flourishing site for pottery production and craftsmanship in the early 20th century. Walter B. Stephen Pottery: Cameo to Crystalline features art pottery and functional vessels from each stage of Stephen’s career, from his origins discovering the medium alongside his mother Nellie C. Randall Stephen in Shelby County, TN from 1901 through 1910 to his multi-decade production just outside of Asheville. This exhibition will be on view in the Asheville Art Museum’s Debra McClinton Gallery July 28, 2021 through January 17, 2022.

In 1926, Stephen founded his third and last pottery studio, Pisgah Forest, in Arden, NC, which he operated until his death in 1961. It was at this studio that the artist perfected the “cameo” decoration technique for which he became best known. His hand-painted images, achieved with layers of white translucent clay, often feature American folk imagery, from covered wagons and livestock to cabins and spinning wheels. A selection of works from the Museum’s Collection showcase his innovation in form and in decorative surface details, including experimentation with crystalline glazing.

Monday, November 15, 2021
Asheville Art Museum From Home
Nov 15 all-day
online
WORK OF THE WEEK
Jeff Koons’s One Ball Total Equilibrium Tank (Spalding Dr. J Silver Series) is currently on view in the Museum’s Artistic Tribute: Representation of the Athlete exhibition. Keira Ezzo, summer 2021 communications – multimedia storytelling intern, shares her take on this work for our Work of the Week. Read more about this work on the blog.

ENGAGE WITH THE MUSEUM FROM HOME

Check back often for new content that provides inspiration, calm, comfort, and yes, even some fun during this unprecedented time.

Fall Photo Contest – “Contrasting Colors”
Nov 15 all-day
Chimney Rock State Park

It’s during this time of year that the mountains explode with autumn color. Capture photos of the fall season and enter them into our “Contrasting Colors” Photo Contest. We’ll use the winning entries on our website and Facebook album, and you’ll win some fun prizes. Photos must be taken within the Chimney Rock section of the Park.

GREAT PRIZES WILL BE AWARDED TO 3 WINNING ENTRIES

CONTEST RULES:

  1. There is no fee to enter the contest. All photographs must be taken inside Chimney Rock at Chimney Rock State Park only in areas accessible to guests between October 15, 2021 – November 15, 2021.
    The contest is open to amateur and professional photographers.
  2. Up to three photos per person can be submitted via any of the following ways to be eligible to win:
    1. Facebook: First, like the Chimney Rock at Chimney Rock State Park page and share our photo contest post on your wall. Then post your photo to our wall with the photographer’s name and a brief caption (25-75 words) through your personal Facebook account. Next, send us a private message including your contact information specified in rule #3.
    2. Pinterest: First, re-pin our photo contest pin to one of your boards and follow our 2017 The Different Seasons of Chimney Rock Spring Photo Contest Board so we can easily contact you. Then pin your photo with the hashtags #chimneyrock AND #photocontest with your personal account, and include the photographer’s name and a brief caption (25-75 words).
    3. Twitter: First, follow Chimney Rock Park and retweet our tweet about the photo contest. Then tweet your photo to @ChimneyRockPark with the photographer’s name and the hashtag #photocontest. Next, send us private messages with your brief photo caption.
    4. E-mail: If you don’t have access to any social media sites listed above, you may email your digital photo with your contact information specified in rule #3 to [email protected].
    5. Snail Mail: Send your print photo with the clearly marked photographer’s name, city & state, a brief typed photo caption and a phone number to: Photo Contest, Chimney Rock Management LLC, PO Box 39, Chimney Rock, NC 28720.
  3. Every entry should be clearly labeled with the photographer’s name, city & state, a brief photo caption your photo of the Seasons of Chimney Rock, an email address and the best phone number to reach you.
  4. Photos should be available at a minimum resolution of 1200 x 1600 pixels (1 MB minimum) to be eligible to win. Photos taken via smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices are welcome if they meet minimum requirements.
  5. For entries showing human faces, you must list their name(s) and have written permission from any photographed person(s) to use their image.
  6. Entries should reflect the photographer’s interpretation of love at Chimney Rock. Emphasis will be placed on quality, composition and creativity. All entries may be used in promotions of Chimney Rock and park-related activities.
  7. Digital images can be optimized but not dramatically altered with photo editing software. Black and white photographs are welcome.
  8. Decisions of the judges are final.

Winners will be notified and announced on Chimney Rock’s social media channels. For more information, call 1-828-625-9611 or email us at [email protected].

Photo Contest: All Things Climbing
Nov 15 all-day
online
Van Gogh Alive at Biltmore Estate
Nov 15 all-day
Biltmore Estate

See the source image

Various times

His masterworks have been displayed around the world for over a century… but never like this. Described as “an unforgettable multi-sensory experience,” Van Gogh Alive is a powerful and vibrant symphony of light, color, sound, and scent that compels you to leave the world behind and immerse yourself in Van Gogh’s paintings. Simultaneously enchanting, entertaining, and educational, Van Gogh Alive stimulates all the senses and opens the mind.

Arbor Huescapes: Paintings by Michael Fowler
Nov 15 @ 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
The North Carolina Arboretum

Artist Michael Fowler creates evocative abstract landscape paintings by incorporating vibrant colors with subtle, complex details. His semi-large-scale approach invites viewers to step into his work and build a sense of wonder and contemplation surrounding the natural world. Fowler’s artistic response in contemplating nature is to capture something of a landscape’s pleasantness, which is often unexpected harmonies of color and shape. In his latest exhibit, Arbor Huescapes, Fowler highlights the distinctive vegetation – primarily trees – and topography of North and South Carolina’s midlands and piedmont regions.

Fowler received his Bachelor of Arts from Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas with a focus in Advertising Design. He then attended the University of Nebraska where he received a Master’s degree in Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing with a minor in Art History. From there, he attended the University of Memphis where he earned a Doctorate in Higher Education. Based in North Augusta, South Carolina, Fowler is currently an associate professor of design and computer graphics and serves as the Mary Durban Toole Chair of Art at the University of South Carolina in Aiken. His paintings are in a number of public and private collections nationally, and he actively exhibits in regional and national shows.

Please note: Arbor Huescapes has been rescheduled due to the COVID-19 crisis and will now open in fall 2021. The exhibit is on display daily September 18, 2021 – January 9, 2022, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. inside the Baker Exhibit Center. All works are available for purchase and a portion of sales will be donated to The North Carolina Arboretum Society.

BLACK + WHITE 4
Nov 15 @ 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
Folk Art Center

Main Gallery show featuring members of the Southern Highland Craft Guild.

Glass Blowing | Live Demo
Nov 15 @ 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Southern Highland Craft Guild

Jason Probstein will be demonstrating glass blowing in the lobby of the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The schedule is subject to change. Call ahead for the latest updates: 828-298-7928.