Calendar of Events

Hours
Friday: 10:00 a.m. till 7:00 p.m.
Saturday: 10:00 a.m. till 7:00 p.m.
Sunday: 10:00 a.m. till 5:00 p.m.

After a temporary shift in operating hours, Buncombe County Special Collections (BCSC) at Pack Memorial Library will return to regular service hours beginning Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. We look forward to welcoming the public back on a more regular basis.

The new hours will be:

• Sunday & Monday – Closed
• Tuesday – 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
• Wednesday – 10 a.m.- 6 p.m.
• Thursday – 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
• Friday – 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
• Saturday – 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Follow the Special Collections blog to stay up to date on current events and news from our Special Collections library.

Buncombe County Public Libraries offers 16 story times a week at library locations all across the County. Did you know there are two bilingual story times included in our story time schedule?

Parents can find Hora del Cuento at the Skyland/South Buncombe Library every Friday at 10:30 a.m. and at the Oakley Library every Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. We’ll share books, rhymes, and songs in Spanish and English–fun for the whole family. Speakers of all languages and children of all ages are welcome to attend.

Let us know if you have any questions and we look forward to seeing you at the Library!

Hora del Cuento bilingual en la Biblioteca

Buncombe County Public Libraries ofrecen 16 story times a la semana en las bibliotecas de todo el Condado.  ¿Sepa que hay dos Horas del Cuento bilinguales que están incluidos en nuestro horario de story time?

Puede encontrar Hora del Cuento en la biblioteca de Skyland/South Buncombe cada Viernes a las 10:30am y en la biblioteca de Oakley cada Martes a las 10:30am.   Vamos a compartir libros, ritmos, y canciones en Espanol y Ingles.  ¡Diversión para toda la familia!  Hablantes de todas las lenguas y niños de todas las edades son bienvenidos.

Nos avisan de cualquier pregunta, y nos vemos en la Biblioteca!

Buncombe County Public Libraries offers 16 story times a week at library locations all across the County. Did you know there are two bilingual story times included in our story time schedule?

Parents can find Hora del Cuento at the Skyland/South Buncombe Library every Friday at 10:30 a.m. and at the Oakley Library every Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. We’ll share books, rhymes, and songs in Spanish and English–fun for the whole family. Speakers of all languages and children of all ages are welcome to attend.

Let us know if you have any questions and we look forward to seeing you at the Library!

Hora del Cuento bilingual en la Biblioteca

Buncombe County Public Libraries ofrecen 16 story times a la semana en las bibliotecas de todo el Condado.  ¿Sepa que hay dos Horas del Cuento bilinguales que están incluidos en nuestro horario de story time?

Puede encontrar Hora del Cuento en la biblioteca de Skyland/South Buncombe cada Viernes a las 10:30am y en la biblioteca de Oakley cada Martes a las 10:30am.   Vamos a compartir libros, ritmos, y canciones en Espanol y Ingles.  ¡Diversión para toda la familia!  Hablantes de todas las lenguas y niños de todas las edades son bienvenidos.

Nos avisan de cualquier pregunta, y nos vemos en la Biblioteca!

Explore Biltmore House with an Audio Guide that introduces you to the Vanderbilt family and their magnificent home’s history, architecture, and collections of fine art and furnishings.

PLUS: Immersive, multi-sensory Leonardo da Vinci – 500 Years of Genius exhibition created and produced by Grande Experiences

PLUS: FREE next-day access to Biltmore’s Gardens and Grounds

This visit includes access to:

• Leonardo da Vinci – 500 Years of Genius at Amherst at Deerpark®
• 8,000 Acres of Gardens and Grounds for two consecutive days
• Antler Hill Village & Winery
• Complimentary Wine Tastings at the Winery
• Tastings require a Day-of-Visit Reservation, which can be made by:
  • Scanning the QR Code found in your Estate Guide
  • Visiting any Guest Services location
• Complimentary parking

Art Exhibition: Leonardo da Vinci – 500 Years of Genius

Immerse yourself in the world’s most comprehensive and thrilling Da Vinci experience as his brilliance and extraordinary achievements are brought to vivid life!

The Van Winkle Law Firm Gallery, Level 1 • On View January 25–March 6   The Asheville Art Museum and the Asheville Area Section of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) are the Western North Carolina (WNC) regional affiliates of the National Scholastic Art Awards. This ongoing community partnership has supported the creative talents of our region’s youth for more than 43 years. The WNC regional program is open to students in grades 7–12 across 20 WNC counties. The regional program is judged in two groups: Group I, grades 7–8; and Group II, grades 9–12. Out of 534 total entries, 156 artworks have been recognized by the judges and are featured in this new exhibition. The 2023 WNC Regional Judges are: Kelly Hider of Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Alexandria Monque of YMI Cultural Center and Noir Collective AVL, and Lei Han of University of North Carolina Asheville. The judges carefully viewed each entry then selected Gold Key, Silver Key, and Honorable Mention award recipients across all media. Artworks receiving Gold Keys have been submitted to compete in the 100th-Annual National Scholastic Art Awards Program in New York City. Of the Gold Key Award recipients, five students have also been nominated for American Visions—indicating their artwork is one of the Best in Show of the WNC regional awards. One of these American Visions nominees will be chosen to receive an American Visions Medal at the 2023 National Scholastic Art Awards. Since the program’s founding in 1923, the Scholastic Art Awards have fostered the creativity and talent of millions of students, and include a distinguished list of alumni including Andy Warhol—who received recognition from the Awards as a teen. National Gold Key medalists will be announced in March 2023 and honored during a special awards ceremony in June 2023. For more information about the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers and the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, visit their website.

Tracey Morgan Gallery is pleased to present landmarks, an exhibition of new work by photographer Colby Caldwell. On view are large-scale, wax coated color photographic prints of elements from the natural world abstracted by digital interventions. Paired with these are small, meditative photographs taken from the forest floor of bright skies framed by treetops. In his most recent work, Caldwell explores the forests of the Blue Ridge Mountains collecting what could be thought of as visual “field recordings.” Using a flatbed scanner as a makeshift camera, Caldwell documents what he encounters on his wanderings: decomposing leaves, moss, lichen, tree bark. The resulting images are punctuated by digital interferences – unnatural hues of pinks, reds, and greens, swaths of pixilation, and large streaks where the scanner attempts and fails to “accurately” record information. Caldwell asks us to examine often overlooked details from the forest floor in a new view, not shying from the digital idiosyncrasies inherent in the process of scanning 3-dimensional objects on a flat surface. Where much of Caldwell’s previous work has included bringing nature into his studio, this series flips the script in a unique examination of technology’s place in the natural world. The work pushes at the parameters of traditional, photo historical nature specimen documentation. Caldwell is less interested in precisely cataloging samples, and more interested in investigating which tools we use to do so. The work additionally looks at how history is held within the landscape, and the ways humans have appropriated the land, contested its ownership, and used it for sustenance. Caldwell’s unconventional, experimental methodology of documentation seems to be pointing to the many ways these histories have been obscured, and the way our connection to nature has changed in the contemporary digital era. Colby Caldwell (American, born 1965), once a student of history, has tested virtually every avenue of the personal uses of photography as an instrument of memory. While his early work replicated the theatrical feeling of 19th Century “drawing with light,” his most recent efforts deconstruct the very elements of digital photography. Caldwell has held teaching positions at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC; St. Mary’s College of Maryland; and currently at Warren Wilson College, Swannanoa, NC. His work is included in the collections of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC; and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA. Caldwell received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Corcoran College of Art + Design in 1990. Recent solo exhibitions include Selu Songs at the Radford Art Museum in early 2022. He was featured in the book Art of the State, published November 2022, which surveys contemporary art in his home state of North Carolina. He currently lives and works in Asheville, NC.

An enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Luzene Hill advocates for Indigenous sovereignty—linguistically, culturally, and individually. Revelate builds upon Hill’s investigation of pre-contact cultures. This has led Hill to incorporate the idea of Ollin, the Nahuatl word for the natural rhythms of the universe, in Aztec cosmology in her work. Before Europeans arrived in North America, Indigenous societies were predominantly matrilineal. Women were considered sacred, involved in the decision-making process, and thrived within communities holding a worldview based on equilibrium.

Ollin emphasizes that we are in constant state of motion and discovery. Adopted as an educational framework, particularly in social justice and ethnic studies, Ollin guides individuals through a process of reflection, action, reconciliation, and transformation. This exhibition combines Hill’s use of mylar safety blankets alongside recent drawings. Capes constructed of mylar burst with energy and rustle with subtle sound, the shining material a signifier of care, awareness, displacement, and presence. Though Hill works primarily in sculpture, drawing has increasingly become an essential part of her practice as she seeks to communicate themes of feminine and Indigenous power across her entire body of work. The energy within her drawings extends to the bursts of light reflecting from her capes or the accumulation of materials in other installation works.

Luzene Hill was born in Atlanta, GA, in 1946. She received her bachelor of fine art and master of fine art from Western Carolina University. She lives and works on the Qualla Boundary, Cherokee, NC.

Natural Collector is organized by the Asheville Art Museum. IMAGE: Christian Burchard, Untitled (nesting bowls), 1998, madrone burl, various from 6 × 6 × 6 to ⅜ × ⅜ × ⅜ inches. Gift of Fleur S. Bresler, 2021.76.01.

Natural Collector | Gifts of Fleur S. Bresler features around 15 artworks from the collection of Fleur S. Bresler, which include important examples of modern and contemporary American craft including wood and fiber art, as well as glass and ceramics. These works that were generously donated by contemporary craft collector Bresler to the Asheville Art Museum over the years reflect her strong interest in wood-based art and themes of nature. According to Associate Curator Whitney Richardson, “This exhibition highlights artworks that consider the natural element from which they were created or replicate known flora and fauna in unexpected materials. The selection of objects displayed illustrates how Bresler’s eye for collecting craft not only draws attention to nature and artists’ interest in it, but also accentuates her role as a natural collector with an intuitive ability to identify themes and ideas that speak to one another.” This exhibition presents work from the Collection representing the first generation of American wood turners like Rude Osolnik and Ed Moulthrop, as well as those that came after and learned from them, such as Philip Moulthrop, John Jordan, and local Western North Carolina (WNC) artist Stoney Lamar. Other WNC-based artists in Natural Collector include Anne Lemanski, whose paper sculpture of a snake captures the viewer’s imagination, and Michael Sherrill’s multimedia work that tricks the eye with its similarity to true-to-life berries. Also represented are beadwork and sculpture by Joyce J. Scott and Jack and Linda Fifield.

Asheville-born and Raleigh-Durham-based interdisciplinary artist Sherrill Roland’s socially driven practice draws upon his experience with wrongful incarceration for a crime he did not commit and seeks to open conversations about how we care for our communities and one another with compassion and understanding. Through sculpture, installation, and conceptual art, Roland engages visitors in dialogues around community, social contract, identity, biases, and other deeply human experiences. Comprised of artwork created from 2016 to the present, Sherrill Roland: Sugar, Water, Lemon Squeeze reflects on making something from nothing, lemonade from lemons, the best of a situation. A reference to a simple recipe from the artist’s childhood, the title also speaks to Roland’s employment of materials available to him while incarcerated, such as Kool-Aid and mail from family members. In the face of his personal experiences, he invites viewers to confront their own uncomfortable complicity in perpetuating injustice. Roland’s work humanizes these difficult topics and creates a space for communication and envisioning a better future. This exhibition is organized by the Asheville Art Museum and curated by Hilary Schroeder, assistant curator, in collaboration with the Artist. This exhibition is funded, in part, by a grant from South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.

In the past 50 years in the United States and beyond, artists have sought to break down social and political hierarchies that include issues of identity, gender, power, race, authority, and authenticity. Unsurprisingly, these decades generated a reconsideration of the idea of pattern and decoration as a third option to figuration and abstraction in art. From 1972 to 1985, artists in the Pattern and Decoration movement worked to expand the visual vocabulary of contemporary art to include ethnically and culturally diverse options that eradicated the barriers between fine art and craft and questioned the dominant minimalist aesthetic. These artists did so by incorporating opulence and bold intricacies garnered from such wide-ranging inspirations as United States quilt-making and Islamic architecture. Too Much Is Just Right: The Legacy of Pattern and Decoration features more than 70 artworks in an array of media from both the original time frame of the Pattern and Decoration movement, as well as contemporary artworks created between 1985 and the present. The artworks in this exhibition demonstrate the vibrant and varied approaches to pattern and decoration in art. Artworks from the 21st century elucidate contemporary perspectives on the employment of pattern to inform visual vocabularies and investigations of diverse themes in the present day. Artworks drawn from the Asheville Art Museum’s Collection join select major loans and feature Pattern and Decoration artists Valerie Jaudon, Joyce Kozloff, Robert Kushner, and Miriam Schapiro, as well as Anni Albers, Elizabeth Alexander, Sanford Biggers, Tawny Chatmon, Margaret Curtis, Mary Engel, Cathy Fussell, Samantha Hennekke, John Himmelfarb, Anne Lemanski, Rashaad Newsome, Peter Olson, Don Reitz, Sarah Sense, Billie Ruth Sudduth, Mickalene Thomas, Shoku Teruyama, Anna Valdez, Kehinde Wiley, and more. This exhibition is organized by the Asheville Art Museum and guest curated by Marilyn Laufer & Tom Butler.

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!

• About This Trip
• Things To Do
• Itinerary
• Classes of Service and Pricing
• Class Comparison
• How to Purchase
• Schedule
• The Tuckasegee (tuck-uh-SEE-jee) River Excursion includes an 1 hour and 20 minute layover in the historic town of Dillsboro, where you’ll find more than 50 shops, restaurants, a brewery, and country inns. There is time to shop, snack, and visit the many unique shops before returning to Bryson City.

Black Diamond Enterprise presents Black Poetry Theatre* for Black History Month @ The Foundry (*along with other happenings), Feb. 3rd, 5pm. This is a FREE event. Come join us as we explore the Joy, Pain, Sunshine & Rain of life. Enjoy the encouragement and singing with us!

Check for other dates as well.

La Vie Boheme! Join the HS Company in the musical that shaped a generation of audiences and taught us all to measure our life in love.

Set in the East Village of New York City, Rent School Edition is about falling in love, finding your voice and living for today. Winner of the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, it has become a pop cultural phenomenon with songs that rock and a story that resonates with audiences of all ages.

Based loosely on Puccini’s La Boheme, Rent School Edition follows a year in the life of a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive and create in New York’s Lower East Side, under the shadow of HIV/AIDS. The physical and emotional complications of the disease pervade the lives of Roger, Mimi, Tom and Angel. Maureen deals with her chronic infidelity through performance art; her partner, Joanne, wonders if their relationship is worth the trouble. Benny has sold out his Bohemian ideals in exchange for a hefty income and is on the outs with his former friends. Mark, an aspiring filmmaker, feels like an outsider to life in general. How these young bohemians negotiate their dreams, loves and conflicts provides the narrative thread to this groundbreaking musical.

Please note, this performance is rated PG-13. This musical contains mature themes that center around the AIDS Crisis.

Written by Carlyle Brown

Directed by Stephanie Hickling Beckman

ABE LINCOLN AND UNCLE TOM IN THE WHITE HOUSE portrays a gripping re-imagination of the the events the night before Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Alone in the Executive Office, President Abraham Lincoln is struggling with signing the Emancipation Proclamation when he is mysteriously visited by Uncle Tom, the fictional character in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s abolitionist novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly. These two iconic characters from life and literature—one real, the other fiction—attempt to understand each other across a chasm of race in the midst of the Civil War. Throughout one late night and into the dawning day, they find themselves crossing over into each other’s world in a tale of suffering, self-discovery, and redemption.

“I hadn’t read the book [Uncle Tom’s Cabin], and I had fallen victim to the mentality that says when you hear the name Uncle Tom you get the picture of the worst individual you could imagine, In reading the book, I found a character of honor and dignity and I thought, maybe this character deserves to be looked at again.” – James A Williams

By Duncan MacMillian with Jonny Donahoe

Directed by Charlie Flynn-McIver and Starring Scott Treadway

One of the funniest plays you’ll ever see about depression—and possibly one of the funniest plays you’ll ever see, full stop…There is something tough being confronted here—the guilt of not being able to make those we love happy—and it is explored with unflinching honesty.” —The Guardian (UK)

Content Warning: Although the play balances the struggles of life while celebrating all that is wonderful in living each day, Every Brilliant Thing contains descriptions of depression, self-harm, and suicide. It is recommended for audience members 14 and older.  If you or somebody you know is struggling, please call 988, The Suicide & Crisis Hotline.

Edvard Tchivzhel, conductor
Virginia Metzger, oboe
MOZART Divertimento, K. 136
MOZART Oboe Concerto
MOZART Symphony No. 28

Virginia Zeblisky Metzger, a native of Long Island, holds an M.A. degree from the City University of New York, Hunter College, and a B.F.A. degree from the State University of New York, Purchase College.  Her major teachers include Ronald Roseman, Joseph Robinson, Joel Timm, and John Mack.

Ginny has held the position of Principal Oboe with the Greenville Symphony Orchestra since 1985.  In addition to her position with the GSO, she currently holds principal oboe positions with the Spartanburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Hendersonville Symphony and the Greater Anderson Musical Arts Consortium.  She previously held principal oboe positions with the Asheville Symphony and Brevard Chamber Orchestra, and has performed with many other regional orchestras, including the North Carolina Symphony, Charlotte Symphony, and Charleston Symphony. She has been featured as a soloist with various orchestras, including the Greenville Symphony Chamber Orchestra, Hendersonville Symphony, and Brevard Chamber Orchestra.

Before coming to South Carolina, Ginny was a founding member of the Kaiser Woodwind Quintet, a group which was sponsored by Carnegie Neighborhood Concerts and which performed throughout the tri-state area.    She also played regularly with the Amato Opera and New Amsterdam Symphony, and free-lanced with diverse musical organizations such as Scovasso Opera, Putnam Symphony, and Darien Dinner Theatre.  She spent the 1984-1985 season touring Europe with ‘Showboat’ before moving to Greenville.

In Greenville, Ginny has performed various chamber works in the Greenville Symphony’s ‘Spotlight Series’.  She has also performed with the Galliard Woodwind Quintet, the Bob Jones University Woodwind Quintet, and the Heritage Woodwind Quintet, and was a founding member of the French Broad River Woodwind Quintet.  With the Greenville Symphony Woodwind Quintet, she has played educational concerts in all of the elementary schools in Greenville County.

Ginny has served as artist-in-residence at the Greenville Fine Arts Center, and has taught oboe at Furman University.  Her reeds have been sold nationally through Covey Oboes in Atlanta.

Lua Flora’s sun-kissed melodies are rooted in the harmonies of Appalachia, rhythms of the West Indies, and lyricism of American folk. Joined by indie folk band, Strawhouse, for this intimate concert.

WWE FRIDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN RETURNS TO GREENVILLE!
FEEL THE FALLOUT OF ROYAL RUMBLE LIVE!
SEE YOUR FAVORITE WWE SUPERSTARS
DREW MCINTYRE
SMACKDOWN WOMEN’S CHAMPION CHARLOTTE FLAIR
BRAUN STROWMAN
THE BRAWLING BRUTES
SAMI ZAYN AND
UNDISPUTED TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS THE USOS

PLUS, FROM MONDAY NIGHT RAW
THE O.C.’S LUKE GALLOWS AND KARL ANDERSON VS.
THE JUDGEMENT DAY’S
FINN BALOR AND DAMIAN PRIEST!

One of classic literature’s most beloved romantic comedies, this sharp social satire takes on the nuances of love and marriage in a way that transcends time — humorously skewering the hypocrisies and absurdities of the English class system, while putting women characters front and center. A local favorite each season, Aquila Theatre returns to bring this classic thrillingly to life, with all the passion, energy and visual flair for which this world-class company is known.

Connect with Aquila Theatre

• Master Class: Learn from Aquila Theatre in a Physical Theatre Master Class on February 4 for actors ages 16+. Learn more here.
• Pre-show Discussions: February 3 & 4 at 7 p.m. Tina McGuire Theatre.

Carolina Clay is a band started in 2017 by North Carolina native singer/songwriter Heather Foster. Carolina Clay was established to embody the ideation of living in the Carolinas through a unique style of country music. Their latest album “Whiskey & Women” seamlessly blends a punch of southern rock with the storytelling of folk and Americana music. Lyrically, Carolina Clay is known for telling the gut wrenching truth with just a touch of outlaw to keep things interesting.

Moving into 2023, the band is touring regionally to promote their latest release as well as defining a permanent roster. Works for a second EP with the new line up are already in progress!