Calendar of Events
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.
Join us for a fun and interactive story time designed for children ages 18 months to 3 years.
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The Museum recognizes Western North Carolina youth for their original artworks
Award winners will be featured in a student exhibition in the Museum’s Van Winkle Law Firm Gallery and Multipurpose Space from January 24–March 25, 2024. All regional award recipients will be honored at a closing reception on March 21.
The Asheville Art Museum and the Asheville Area Section of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) are the Western North Carolina (WNC) regional Affiliate Partners of the National Scholastic Art Awards. This ongoing community partnership has supported the creative talents of our region’s youth for 44 years. The WNC regional program is open to students in grades 7–12, ages 13-18, across 24 counties.
“I’m thrilled to witness the incredible talent showcased in the 2024 Western North Carolina Scholastic Art Awards exhibition,” said Susan Hendley, School & Teacher Programs Manager at the Asheville Art Museum. “This is a celebration of original works by students across the WNC region and highlights the profound impact of arts education.”
The regional program is judged in two groups: Group I, grades 7–9 and Group II, grades 10–12. Out of more than 500 total art entries, over 200 works have been recognized by the judges; Gold and Silver Key awards are featured in this exhibition, with select Honorable Mentions displayed digitally. The 2024 regional judges include Victoria Bradbury, Associate Professor and Chair of New Media at UNC Asheville, Andrew Davis, Studio Technician and instructor at Winthrop University, and Jenny Pickens, a native Asheville artist and educator.
Those works receiving Gold Keys have been submitted to compete in the 101st 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 work is the Best in Show of the regional awards. One of these American Visions Nominees will receive an American Visions Medal at the 2024 National Scholastic Art Awards.
Visit the Museum’s website for more information about the student exhibition.
Thanks to our sponsors, Jon and Ann Kemske, Russell and Ladene Newton, and Frugal Framer.
Download Student Artworks
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| Images: Left: Minna Wright Citron, Squid Under Pier, 1948, color etching, soft-ground, and engraving on paper, edition 42/50, 15 x 17 7/8 inches, 2010 Collections Circle purchase, Asheville Art Museum. © Estate of Minna Citron/Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Right: Dorothy Dehner, Woman #2, 1954, watercolor and ink on paper, 22 3/4 x 18”, courtesy of Dolan Maxwell. |
The Asheville Art Museum is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition American Art in the Atomic Age: 1940–1960, which explores the groundbreaking contributions of artists who worked at the experimental printmaking studio Atelier 17 in the wake of World War II. Co-curated by Marilyn Laufer and Tom Butler, American Art in the Atomic Age which draws from the holdings of Dolan/Maxwell, the Asheville Art Museum Collection, and private collections will be on view from November 10, 2023–April 29, 2024.
Atelier 17 operated in New York for fifteen years, between 1940 and 1955. The studio’s founder, Stanley William Hayter (1901–1988) established the workshop in Paris but relocated to New York just as the Nazi occupation of Paris began in 1940. Hayter’s new studio attracted European emigrants like André Masson, Yves Tanguy, and Joan Miró, as well as American artists like Dorothy Dehner, Judith Rothschild, and Karl Schrag, allowing for an exchange of artistic ideas and processes between European and American artists.
The Asheville Art Museum will present over 100 works that exemplify the cross-cultural exchange and profound social and political impact of Atelier 17 on American art. Prints made at Atelier 17—including those by Stanley William Hayter, Louise Nevelson, and Perle Fine—will be in conversation with works by European Surrealists who were working at the studio in the 1940s and 1950s. The exhibition will also feature a selection of domestic mid-century objects that exemplify how the ideas and aesthetics of post-war abstraction became a part of everyday life.
Throughout the history of painting from the mid-19th century forward, artists have used an
endless variety of approaches to record their world. Beyond the Lens: Photorealist Perspectives on Looking, Seeing, and Painting continues this thread, offering an opportunity to explore a singular and still forceful aspect of American art. Photorealism shares many of the approaches of historical and modernist realism, with a twist. The use of the camera as a basic tool for organizing visual information in advance of painterly expression is now quite common, but Photorealists embraced the camera as the focal point in their creative process.
Beyond the Lens presents key works from the collection of Louis K. and Susan Pear Meisel,
bringing together paintings and works on paper dating from the 1970s to the present to focus on this profoundly influential art movement. The exhibition includes work by highly acclaimed formative artists of the movement such as Charles Bell, Robert Bechtle, Tom Blackwell, Richard Estes, Audrey Flack, and Ralph Goings as well as paintings by the successive generations of Photorealist artists Anthony Brunelli, Davis Cone, Bertrand Meniel, Rod Penner, and Raphaella Spence. Featured artworks in the exhibition include diverse subject matters, but the primary focus is on the common and every day: urban scenes, “portraits” of cars, trucks, and motorcycles, still life compositions using toys, food, candy wrappers, and salt and pepper shakers. All provide opportunities for virtuoso studies in how light, reflection, and the camera as intermediary shapes our perception of the material world.
This multigenerational survey demonstrates how the 35-mm camera, and later technological
advances in digital image-making, informed and impacted the painterly gesture. Taken together, the paintings and works on paper in Beyond the Lens show how simply spellbinding these virtuosic works of art can be.
“Beyond the Lens offers a fascinating look into the Photorealism movement and delves into the profound connection between the artists’ observation and creative process,” says Pamela L. Myers, Executive Director of Asheville Art Museum. “We are delighted to present this curated collection of artworks encapsulating the creative vision and technical precision that defines this artistic genre.”
Photorealism found its roots in the late 1960s in California and New York, coexisting with an explosion of new ideas in art-making that included Conceptual, Pop, Minimalism, Land and Performance Art. At first, representational realism coexisted with the thematic and conceptual explosion but was eventually relegated to the margins regarding critical and curatorial attention. Often misunderstood and sometimes negatively criticized or lampooned as a betrayal of modernism’s commitment to abstraction, the artists involved in Photorealism remained committed explorers of the trail they had blazed. In the decades of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century, realistic and symbolic painting experienced a renaissance, as contemporary artists are increasingly drawn to narrative and storytelling. Concurrently, using a camera as a preparatory tool equally legitimate and valuable as pencils and pens has made the rubric of Photorealism increasingly relevant.
This exhibition is organized by the Asheville Art Museum and guest curated by Terrie Sultan.
This exhibition is sponsored in part by Jim and Julia Calkins Peterson.
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Western North Carolina is important in the history of American glass art. Several artists of the Studio Glass Movement came to the region, including its founder Harvey K. Littleton. Begun in 1962 in Wisconsin, it was a student of Littleton’s that first came to the area in 1965 and set up a glass studio at the Penland School of Craft in Penland, North Carolina. By 1967, Mark Peiser was the first glass artist resident at the school and taught many notable artists, like Jak Brewer in 1968 and Richard Ritter who came to study in 1971. By 1977, Littleton retired from teaching and moved to nearby Spruce Pine, North Carolina and set up a glass studio at his home. Since that time, glass artists like Ken Carder, Rick and Valerie Beck, Shane Fero, and Yaffa Sikorsky and Jeff Todd—to name only a few—have flocked to the area to reside, collaborate, and teach, making it a significant place for experimentation and education in glass. The next generation of artists like Hayden Wilson and Alex Bernstein continue to create here. The Museum is dedicated to collecting American studio glass and within that umbrella, explores the work of Artists connected to Western North Carolina. Exhibitions, including Intersections of American Art, explore glass art in the context of American Art of the 20th and 21st centuries. A variety of techniques and a willingness to push boundaries of the medium can be seen in this selection of works from the Museum’s Collection. |
The 54th Annual Upstate SC Boat Show is coming to the Greenville Convention Center on January 25-28, 2024!
The show will host the latest models of boats including:
Fishing, Pontoon, Speed, Ski, Cruisers, and Personal Watercraft. Additionally, you’ll find boating accessories and everything that you need to start the season off right!
Show Hours
Thursday & Friday: 12pm – 9pm
Saturday: 10am – 9pm
Sunday: 12pm – 6pm
Admission & Parking
Adults $7 • Seniors (60+) $6 • Students (7-18) $6 • Children (Age 6 and Under) FREE
Parking $5
Directed by Charlie Flynn-McIver
PLAYFUL | COMING OF AGE | COMEDY
It’s 1973 and 19 year old Linda O’Shea has been tasked by her mother with explaining the birds and the bees to her little sister. Things quickly snowball into crisis after the conversation is overheard by the parish priest. As secrets are unintentionally revealed, it takes every member of the modest, Irish Catholic O’Shea family — from Linda’s quirky younger sister to her sassy aunt — to keep the family’s name in good standing.
Content advisory: strong language and sensitive subject matter
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Join local writing coach, Cornelia Dolian at the Weaverville Library for this three part Memoir Writing Mini Series. Space is limited. Call 828-250-6482 to reserve a spot today! Session One: Memoir Basics & Beginnings Session Two: Memoir Structure and Outline Session Three: Memoir Writing Marathon First Miles Huge thanks to the Friends of the Weaverville Library for sponsoring this series! |
Join local writing coach, Cornelia Dolian at the Weaverville Library for this three part Memoir Writing Mini Series. Space is limited. Call 828-250-6482 to reserve a spot today!
Session One: Memoir Basics & Beginnings
Thursday, January 11th 2:00-3:30
Session Two: Memoir Structure and Outline
Thursday, January 18th 2:00-3:30
Session Three: Memoir Writing Marathon First Miles
Thursday, January 25th 2:00-3:30
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Join local writing coach, Cornelia Dolian at the Weaverville Library for this three part Memoir Writing Mini Series. Space is limited. Call 828-250-6482 to reserve a spot today! Session One: Memoir Basics & Beginnings Session Two: Memoir Structure and Outline Session Three: Memoir Writing Marathon First Miles Huge thanks to the Friends of the Weaverville Library for sponsoring this series! |
The Collider is an event venue with co-working and private office space rentals centered in the middle of Downtown Asheville. Come celebrate The Collider’s Ribbon Cutting with hors d’oeuvres and drinks within a pleasant networking environment. Business After Hours to follow!!
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In celebration of the year of the dragon, let’s read and discuss The Dragon Warrior by Katie Zhao for our first Tween Book Club. Enjoy a dragon craft and sweet rice cakes! Refreshments will be served. Pick up a copy of your book at the Pack Juv desk or read or listen to it using the Libby app. Feel free to join us even if you don’t finish reading the whole book. We will vote on our book for next month on Thursday, February 29th. Open to 4th-6th graders. Juvenile fiction chapter books or graphic novels will be the focus of this book group. |
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Qigong is like Yoga but done standing and with more movement so it creates a flow of energy and gently increases circulation throughout your body. The smooth flowing movements are easy to learn as each exercise is performed 8-10 times before proceeding to the next. It is the grandfather of Tai Chi and other martial arts and is the self-help aspect of Chinese medicine. Suitable for all fitness levels, the benefits of well-being, relaxation, calmness and improved balance are often felt often during the very first lesson. And it can be practiced at home in only a few minutes any time you want to improve how you feel. For information email [email protected] |
Asheville Sister Cities with sister cities of Dunkeld and Birnam, Scotland invite you to a charity benefit celebration of the 265th Birthday of Robert Burns, the Bard of Scotland: Thursday January 25, 2024 – 5:30 pm, Biltmore Double Tree Hotel, Asheville, NC
Guest enjoy a Three Course Dinner, full Robert Burns Night ceremony with Scottish music, poems and songs, and a Live Charity Auction. An optional Guided Scotch Whisky Tasting and Robert Burns Poetry and Song Seminar will also be available.
All proceeds from this Burns Night charity fundraiser will support Asheville Sister Cities, Inc., a 501c3 organization. Past Burns Nights have made possible contributions to the Burns Cottage Restoration, Niel Gow Memorial, Birnam Arts, and the Dunkeld Community Archive.
PROGRAM SCHEDULE:
– Reception – 5:30 pm: Piper greeting, Guest reception, Live music, Full cash or credit card bar service
– Guided Scotch Whisky Tasting – 5:45 pm: Pioneering local craft brewer, Oscar Wong, of Highland Brewing, will conduct a Guided Scotch Whisky Tasting with a quick background on the five recognized whisky regions of Scotland followed by a sample from four of the regions. Tasting notes on each take you on a journey that will whet your appetite for the wide range of Scotch whisky flavors. The cost for this optional tasting is $50 and tickets available below are limited to 30 participants and are sure to sell out.
– Robert Burns Poetry and Song Seminar – 5:45 pm: For the first time this year, a 45 minute Robert Burns Poetry and Song Seminar available to all guests is being added to the program and will begin in the Vanderbilt Room at 5:45 pm. The seminar will reflect on Burns’ work to offer a deeper appreciation of the Bard, and will begin with “Address to a Haggis” to provide a better understanding of this essential part of Burns Night traditions.
– Procession and Address to the Haggis – 6:45 pm: Parade of the Kilts and Tartans to “Scotland the Brave”, Master of Ceremonies’ welcome, “Selkirk Grace” by the Reverend, Henchmen fetch the Haggis, “Address to a Haggis” by the Bard, Toasting the haggis lead by the Bard
– Dinner Service and Entertainment – 7:05 pm: Menu includes salad, dessert, and choice of chicken, salmon, or vegan entree. Haggis available on the side. Complementary water, coffee and tea service will be available. We are excited to announce that Andrew Finn Magill, who is the Coordinator of the Swannanoa Gathering Fiddle Week, will be providing live fiddle music for Burns Night.
– Charity Auction and Closing Ceremony – 8:45pm: Asheville Sister Cities greetings, Live Charity Auction, “Immortal Memory” by the Bard, Musical entertainment, “Toast to the Lassies”, “Toast to the Laddies”, Burns’ works recited, “Auld Lang Syne”
TICKETS:
ASCI member admission: $100
Non-ASCI member admission: $125
Student admission: $50
Optional Guided Scotch Whisky Tasting: $50
Learn the beautiful art of natural dyeing with plants! In this class, you will gain an understanding of how to work with whole plants to create colors and patterns on fiber. We will cover an introduction to natural dye plants and different types of fabric. We will work with natural dyestuffs including food scraps, fresh and dried flowers, locally foraged leaves, and more. You will learn how to bundle dye on silk and cotton, including how to prepare the fabric, place the dyestuffs, create organic patterns, both improvisational and intentional printmaking on cloth, wrap the fabric, and steam the fabric on a stovetop. You will leave with three dyed projects, including a cotton bandana and silk scarf.
Come join us for Business After Hours at The Collider! The Collider is an event venue with co-working and private office space rentals centered in the middle of Downtown Asheville. Come celebrate with hors d’oeuvres and drinks within a pleasant networking environment. Don’t miss the Ribbon Cutting at 4:30 to kick off the evening!!
Feel free to bring a gift to be raffled off as door prizes towards the end of the evening. Bring your business cards for networking and a chance to win prizes!
Please take a look below at our members who have renewed for another year!
Big Brothers Big Sisiters of WNC
Get Lifted Tire and Alignment, LLC
South Slope Acupuncture and Wellness
This event is offered as a benefit for Chamber membership. We welcome you to come and check us out! Please contact Jessica Kanupp, our Member Development Specialist, at [email protected] if you’re considering a Chamber membership.
The Democratic Women of Buncombe County will be hosting the NC District Court Judge candidates Emily Sutton Dezio, Robin Leigh Merrell, Todd Lentz, and Meredith Pressley Stone.
Who should attend: Anyone and everyone interested in electing and supporting Democratic women in office.
This is a hybrid event with limited in-store seating and the option to attend online.
The event is free but registration is required for both in-person and virtual attendance.
Please click here to register for the VIRTUAL event. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event.
Please click here to register for the IN-PERSON event. Note the important event details on the RSVP form.
This event includes a book signing. If you would like a signed book but can’t attend in person, you may order a signed copy online below. If you would like to have your book personalized, please order online or call the store at least two hours before the start of the event. When ordering online, use the comments field to provide a name for personalization, e.g. “To Paul.” NOTE: We do our best to get books personalized when requested but personalization is not guaranteed.
If you decide to attend and to purchase books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!
YOU’LL DO takes a deep dive into the unromantic, but much more common than most would like to think, reasons for marrying throughout history. Its publication date close to Valentine’s Day makes it the perfect time for the subject to be discussed and sure to attract others who are interested. Through revealing storytelling, Zug builds a compelling case that when marriage is touted as “the solution” to such problems, it absolves the government, and society, of the responsibility for directly addressing them.
Marcia Zug is a family law professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law. She is a graduate of Dartmouth College and The Yale Law School. Her previous book, Buying A Bride, explored the history of mail order marriage in the United States. She lives in Columbia, SC with her husband and two daughters.
Emily Suski is the associate dean for clinics and externships and an associate professor of law at the University of South Carolina. Her areas of expertise include education law—particularly, Title IX and civil rights in the public schools; health & poverty law; and clinical legal education. Her scholarship explores issues at the intersection of education law and civil rights as well as the role of the law in the caretaking of children. Her articles have been published in journals including the Iowa Law Review (forthcoming), Minnesota Law Review, California Law Review, UCLA Law Review, Maryland Law Review, and Clinical Law Review.
Join Marcia Zug as she discusses her book, You’ll Do: A History of Marrying for Reasons Other than Love, with Emily Suski. This is a hybrid event, with in-person and virtual options to attend. Registration is required. You’ll Do takes a deep dive into the unromantic, but much more common than most would like to think, reasons for marrying throughout history. Its publication date close to Valentine’s Day makes it the perfect time for the subject to be discussed and sure to attract others who are interested. Through revealing storytelling, Zug builds a compelling case that when marriage is touted as “the solution” to such problems, it absolves the government, and society, of the responsibility for directly addressing them.
Marcia Zug is a family law professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law. She is a graduate of Dartmouth College and The Yale Law School. Her previous book, Buying A Bride, explored the history of mail order marriage in the United States. She lives in Columbia, SC with her husband and two daughters.
Emily Suski is the associate dean for clinics and externships and an associate professor of law at the University of South Carolina. Her areas of expertise include education law—particularly, Title IX and civil rights in the public schools; health & poverty law; and clinical legal education. Her scholarship explores issues at the intersection of education law and civil rights as well as the role of the law in the caretaking of children. Her articles have been published in journals including the Iowa Law Review (forthcoming), Minnesota Law Review, California Law Review, UCLA Law Review, Maryland Law Review, and Clinical Law Review.
The Black Experience Book Club reads books by Black authors about the many facets of the Black experience. Join other book lovers to discuss this month’s pick, People Person, by Candice Carty-Williams.
WHERE TO FIND THE BOOK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
Call your local Buncombe County Public Library or visit buncombecounty.org/library to reserve your copy online.
NOIR COLLECTIVE AT THE YMICC.
Stop by the Noir Collective AVL during open hours, call 828-257-4540, or email [email protected] to check availability.
Join us at 6:30pm for this free hybrid event. When storytelling, native wisdom and nature’s intelligence converge, something beautiful can arise. That’s the theme of the new film Nature’s Wisdom Thru Native Eyes by award-winning documentary filmmaker David Weintraub and the Center for Cultural Preservation. Weintraub will be joined by Cherokee elders Davy Arch and Mary Thompson for a screening Thursday, January 25 co-sponsored by Asheville Museum of History and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at UNCA. There will be time for audience questions at the conclusion of the film.
More information and tickets: https://www.simpletix.com/e/history-hour-natures-wisdom-thru-native-ey-tickets-153780
BLUEGRASS JAM
Hosted by Drew Matulich
Don’t miss your chance to check out some of the best pickers from all over WNC at our amazing Bluegrass Jam curated by the talented Drew Matulich — every Thursday starting at 7:00 pm! A real show-stopping performance only at Jack of the Wood! Open jam starts at 9:30 pm.
Join us for Jazz Jam Thursday every Thursday from 7-10. There is a suggested donation of $10 and local craft beer and wine for sale. Come as you are or bring an instrument! Open jam starts at 8 after a House Band set guaranteed to fill your soul with groove and joy.
Public parking is available at Marjorie Street, across from Packs Tavern.
Standup Comedy at Pulp featuring Cody Hughes
Stand up Comedy at The Orange Peel’s Pulp Lounge
When: Thursday December 25, 2024.
7p-9p, doors at 6:30p
Where:
The Orange Peel’s Comedy Basement, Pulp Lounge, 103 Hilliard Ave, Downtown Asheville
Tickets: $15 (available at door or The Orange Peel website https://theorangepeel.net/event/slice-of-life-comedy-open-mic-24/ )
Cocktails available while you laugh the night away to some of the area’s best Stand Up Comics in a ridiculously fun adult environment!! Free snacks while availability lasts!
Hosted by Hilliary Begley, featuring Cody Hughes
Comedy open mic is 3-5m each, comics get in free with free snacks!
Host Hilliary Begley-
Hilliary will make you cry with laughter. With her larger that life personality!! Voted repeatedly Asheville’s Favorite comic in the Mountain Xpress. Film debut in the Netflix original Dumplin’ as Aunt Lucy, or “Jennifer Anniston’s fat sister,” In Austin Film Festival winning movie When We Last Spoke with Cloris Leachman, now streaming on Amazon Prime.
https ://youtu.be/legRwEg4j-o
Feature Cody Hughes 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.
Watch his new comedy special:
When: January 25th, 7 PM
Where: The Whale, 507 Haywood Rd #10 (Behind Haywood Common)
What: Teams up to 6 members, 7 rounds with 6 words each
How: It’s free – just show up!
Experience the transformative power of sound, intention, and the ancient art of the Cacao Ceremony. Elevate your well-being and connect with your inner self.
Begin with a Cacao Ceremony, fostering emotional release, forgiveness, and gratitude.
Immerse yourself in a short meditation to focus your mind and set intentions for the session.
Allow the resonant frequencies to wash over and through you, bringing harmony and balance. This immersive sound experience is designed to align your energy with your intentions, fostering a deep connection with the self.
Carolina Hurricanes vs. New Jersey Devils
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.