Join the Asheville Fit Tribe Group for a 60 minute of strength training. You will get personalized training with the power of the group to positively motivate you. Get ready to get a full body workout in for all fitness levels. So, no matter where you are at from beginner to collegiate athlete Trainer Preston will make sure you get a phenomenal workout. For Strength day we focus on slow controlled weight lifting. Learning how to become more aware of our bodies. We hope you give us a shot and see what we are all about!! For any question shoot Preston a text/call (984)204-0591.

YMI Cultural Center and Buncombe County Public Libraries have partnered on a book club exploring modern Black authors. December’s selection is The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Asheville’s YMI Cultural Center (YMI) and Buncombe County Public Libraries (BCPL) are partnering to create a book club focusing on modern Black authors and readers. Beginning Thursday, Dec. 10, 2020, the Black Experience Book Club will meet twice per month at 6:30 p.m. on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month.

To maximize safety, meetings will be held in a hybrid in-person and online format during the COVID-19 pandemic. Anyone interested may join the meeting via Zoom or meet in person at the YMI Impact Center, 39 S. Market St., Suite A, Asheville, NC 28801. In-person meetings will be capped at 10 participants in order to observe social distancing.

To register to attend in-person, please call YMI staff at 828-257-4540 from 9 a.m.-4 p.m., Monday through Thursday or email [email protected] at any time. To receive the Zoom link or for questions regarding finding copies of book club titles, please contact Alexandra Duncan at [email protected]. You may also find information about upcoming titles and request the Zoom link through the library’s Events Calendar. Visit buncombecounty.org/library and click on Events Calendar at the top of the page.

In December 2020, the Black Experience Book Club will discuss The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. In January 2021, members will discuss The Coldest Winter Ever, by Sister Souljah, and in February 2021, Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi. Selected titles for future months will be announced in book club meetings, on the library’s Events Calendar, and via YMI and BCPL social media channels. Readers may borrow any of these titles at any BCPL location or at the YMI. Copies will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis, so participants are encouraged to reserve their copies early.

Acting: An Organic Approach

Check out Jack’s Bluegrass Jam hosted by the Drew Matulich and his band of talented Bluegrass players every Thursday @ 7pm. Lively pluckin’ and cold pints to roll into the weekend! Sláinte!

Whitney Pirtle, assistant professor of sociology and McArthur Foundation Chair in International Justice and Human Rights at the University of California, Merced, will present, and she provides this description of her lecture:

“Health sociologists have long explained how socioeconomic status, and later racism, are basic root causes of health disparities. I extend this work to argue that racial capitalism, or the idea that racialized exploitation and capital accumulation are mutually reinforced systems, structure health inequities. Furthermore, these intersecting systems are exacerbated in the face of additional forms of oppression and in times of health crises. Synthesizing early reports and preliminary empirical studies, I demonstrate how multiple, overlapping mechanisms shape the excess deaths in COVID-19 across racial lines. This analysis demonstrates that health inequities will continue to be replicated unless we can fundamentally change our unequal system.”

Pirtle is an award-winning author, teacher, and mentor whose work has been published in academic journals such as Ethnic & Racial Studies, Social Science & Medicine, and Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, as well as public media websites such as The Atlantic, Huffington Post and Feminist Wire. 

She continues to research racial disparities in COVID-19, with a forthcoming article in Gender & Society urging for a structural intersectional analysis of the pandemic. In addition, her co-edited volume Black Feminist Sociology: Perspectives and Praxis is forthcoming with Routledge Spring 2021. She recently won the 2020 A. Wade Smith Award for Teaching, Mentoring, and Service from the Association of Black Sociologists.

Pirtle received her B.A. from Grand Valley State University, and earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from Vanderbilt University. At UC Merced, she has affiliations with the Public Health, and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Departments and directs the Sociology of Health and Equity (SHE) Lab.

For more information on UNC Asheville’s MLK Commemoration events and programs, please email Megan Pugh, director of the University’s Office of Multicultural Affairs, at [email protected].

Robert Longo, Untitled (Eric, from the series Men in the Cities), 1980 (printed 1998), silver dye bleach print, 41 7/8 × 29 5/8 inches. © Robert Longo, image courtesy the Artist and Metro Pictures, New York.

The Museum is thrilled to present a special evening program with Robert Longo, an American artist of international renown whose works are currently on view in Vantage Points and recently in Reverberations. With a 40+ year career as an artist, filmmaker, photographer, and musician, Longo is best known for his detailed photorealistic drawings of jumping figures, sharks, tigers, and guns. For this program, Longo discusses his body of work—including five photographs from his Men in the Cities series on view in Vantage Points—then joins Museum staff for a conversation about the narrative power of art and audience Q&A.

Beginner’s workshop lesson at 7:30 P.M., then 8-11 P.M. Contra Dance with Country Waltzing at the break and the final dance. This is a partner dance but it’s not necessary to come with a partner. We have different live bands and callers.

Michael Logen is a prolific Grammy Award^®-winning and platinum-selling singer-songwriter with a style that speaks right to the heart. His music can frequently be heard on hit TV shows like “SUITS,” “Parenthood,” “Nashville,” “One Tree Hill” and “The Fosters” including his songs “St. Christopher” and “Darkness Within.”

Logen’s songs have been recorded by a variety of artists including Jonny Lang, Mat Kearney and Sister Hazel. “Breaking Your Own Heart,” a song co-written with Jennifer Hanson, was recorded by Kelly Clarkson on her platinum-selling, Grammy Award-winning album, “Stronger.”

He has “express[ed] the inexpressible” with his prolific songs while touring every state in the continental US as well as Denmark, The Netherlands, the UK, France and Spain. On the road, Logen has opened for John Hiatt, John Legend, India.Arie, Jonny Lang and Mat Kearney.

Join me for this 4-week intensive program where you will dive into intuitive drawings, aura drawings and auragraphs.

Intuitive Art
Doodling your Feelings. Intuitive drawings can begin as simple doodle that will become more eloquent as you practice. You can use ballpoint pens, markers, gel pens or pastels. Draw for the surprise and joy of the process, without knowing in advance how each drawing will turn out.

Aura Drawings
Your energy field contains massive information about your life. The oval field surrounding you can reveal the energetic memory of your life before conception and to present day.

Auragraphs
An auragraph is a beautiful way of giving a psychic reading. It is a representation of a person’s life story, their past, present and potential future. A Psychic or Medium will tune into the auric field and draw a symbolic representation.

Each week we will discuss a different type of soul work. Each student will draw, read another student and receive a reading. Each reading is unique and contains information that your sitter is ready to hear, and the information Spirit wants you to have.

Be sure to bring paper and colored pencils or crayons (or anything that you would like to use to draw with).

This workshop will take place Thursday evenings at 7:30PM – for 4 weeks and 2 hours each. January 7 – 28, 2021
$90/person payable via paypal.me/mediumrobyn or Venmo (@Robyn-Wolf-11).