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

All our library hours are listed here.

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

Platelet Information

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

General Information

Help neighbors in need. As food insecurity continues to rise in Western North Carolina, Asheville Outlets will host a healthy food drive with MANNA FoodBank February 2-14, 2021. Items of need include: green tea, low-sodium canned vegetables, canned tuna and chicken, low salt nuts, no sugar added fruits, shelf stable milk, whole grain pasta, brown rice, oatmeal, canola & olive oil, peanut butter, low sodium soups, canned and dried beans, low sugar cereals, granola bars and popcorn. Collection bins will be located in the Asheville Outlets food court. To make a monetary donation visit ManaFoodBank.org. For more information, visit ShopAshevilleOutlets.com.

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

The Pack library schedule will be:

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

Brunch B’Yahad is now available through Zoom meeting here.   

Join new and old friends for light brunch, socialization and lively discussion.  Featured guest speakers, and relevant cultural and timely topics will fill our minds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Desire Paths looks at makers within the discourse of craft and those existing on the periphery of the craftscape who focus on the movement of the body towards something desirable. These desires of the body are in relationship to nature, technology, self, and society. Using architectural theory and queer curatorial strategies, Desire Paths examines the possibilities and futures of bodies, revealing connections between the corporeal and craft.

“Desire paths,” a term taken from urban planning, are lines trodden in the landscape when constructed walkways do not provide a direct or desired route. Through action, repetition, and intentionality, desire paths are crafted modifications to the landscape that allow for a body to move towards a horizon. The format of the works include traditional craft media, performance, video, and interactive web-based work. Through this variety of media and performative tactics the makers in Desire Paths consider how we view, value, and ascribe meaning to a body/the body/the others body. They show us the power and agency held in body and present us with crafted visions of the body that confront and expand expectations

The works in this exhibition reclaim the concept of craft from its historical associations with the decorative, frivolous, feminine, indigenous, and the other. The makers use the medium of craft, and the action of crafting, to produce powerful representations and counter narratives to dominant culture.

Two Ways to View

Virtual Tour

Online visitors can register to attend a virtual tour of this exhibition. This is a free event. A $5-10 donation at time of registration is recommended.

In-Person

The Center is offering free, unguided visits and affordable tours of its exhibitions to the public. Guests can reserve a 30-minute visit to explore the current exhibitions, learn more about the Center’s national impact in their Craft Research Fund Study Collection, and enjoy interactive activities. The Center is open to the public Tuesday-Friday, 11 am -5 pm. Hours of operation may be subject to change.

Center for Craft is monitoring the effects of COVID-19 on the community and following the instruction of federal, state, and local health departments. Our top priority is always the health and safety of our staff, coworkers, and visitors. At this time, the Center can only allow a maximum of five guests in its public space at once and will require the use of masks or face coverings by all visitors, including children. The Center reserves the right to refuse entry to any visitor that will not comply.

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

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

SLOW ART FRIDAYS

Each Friday at 12pm, docents lead virtual, in-depth conversations about a few artworks in our Collection or special exhibitions. The goal is simple: slow down, discover the joy of looking at art, and talk about the experience with others. Topics, artworks, and self-guided questions are posted on the Museum’s website in advance for participants, or for those wishing to have a self-guided experience on their own.

This virtual program takes place via Zoom. Space is limited; registration is required. To register, click here.

Join Kathy Seguin, touring docent, for an interactive conversation about three artworks in our Collection and special exhibition Across the Atlantic. Before the discussion, find a quiet space. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Now open your eyes, and engage with the artworks in the image gallery; click on the thumbnail for a larger image, and spend about 15 minutes looking slowly at each.

• What’s going on in this artwork? What do you see that makes you say that?
• What are some common threads weaving these artworks together?
• Where do you see cut, sewn, and pressed elements in these artworks? What might they symbolize?
• 

  Amelia Bennett, Scrap Up, 1992, cotton, cotton/polyester blend, and wool blend (pant legs), 80 × 82 inches. Museum purchase with funds provided by the 2019 Collectors’ Circle and 2019 Collectors’ Circle member Omari Simmons, and gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, 2019.44.02. © Estate of Amelia Bennett, image Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio.

Learn how to properly prune ornamental trees and shrubs with Bullington’s John Murphy. ZOOM Class. Class fills up quickly.

Come Jam with the Band!

What we’re about

YMI Cultural Center – Ladies in Shape is a new fitness/wellness program that meets twice a month. As we know, working out is not a one size fits all situation and there are a variety of workout types such as yoga, weight-lifting, aerobics, and creative dance! The goal is to highlight a workout theme for the month and the instructor(s)/businesses who teach them.