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.

Friday, May 10, 2024
FEAST: School Garden Plant Sales
May 10 @ 8:00 am – 5:00 pm
Francine Delaney Elementary School
 

Please plan to support our FEAST program and long-term food security through edible education by buying your spring plants at one of these upcoming plant sales!
We empower youth and families to grow, prepare, and enjoy fruits and vegetables through hands-on cooking and garden education. 

FEAST classes focus on:

  • Problem-solving, communication, and teamwork.
  • Increasing fresh, locally grown produce in everyday living.
  • Gaining confidence by exploring different ways to grow and prepare fresh produce.
  • Creating and changing recipes and substituting ingredients.
  • Learning how food and the environment affects the brain and body.
  • Connecting to Core Curriculum and Essential Standards in math, reading, writing, science, health, and nutrition.
SCHOOL BASED PROGRAMS
Nature’s Blueprints: Biomimicry in Art and Design
May 10 @ 8:00 am – 7:00 pm
NC Arboretum

Baker Exhibit Center

In an age of complex environmental challenges, why not look to the ingenuity of nature for solutions? The forms, patterns, and processes found in the natural world—refined by 3.8 billion years of evolution—can inspire our design of everything from clothing to skyscrapers. This approach to innovation, called biomimicry, is becoming increasingly popular.

Nature’s Blueprints is supported in part by The North Carolina Arboretum Society, The Laurel of Asheville, RomanticAsheville.com Travel Guide, and Smoky Mountain Living Magazine.

New Park Pavilion Reservation Software
May 10 @ 8:00 am
online

Buncombe County Parks & Recreation is announcing the launch of its new online reservation system for park pavilions.

ACTIVENet, the new online reservation system, allows for a hassle-free user experience for Buncombe County park visitors. With just a few clicks, visitors can make and cancel reservations from the comfort of their home, in addition to checking real-time availability of the pavilions. Park pavilions are located at Lake Jullian, Charles D. Owen, and the Buncombe County Sports Park. Field rental is also available through this new portal.

Key takeaways of the new reservation system include: 

Seamless Interface: The user-friendly layout of the reservation system allows for hassle-free bookings and cancelations.

Real-time Park Pavilion Availability: Users are able to check the availability of the park pavilions at their favorite park, and on their preferred date and time.

Secure Payment: ACTIVENet’s secure payment portal ensures data protection and encryption with Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant technology.

Email confirmations: Once a reservation is made or canceled, users will receive a confirmation email with the details of their booking.

Click here to view a tutorial on how to book a park pavilion. 

To access the new park pavilion reservation system, please visit www.buncombecounty.org/parks. There is a “Reserve & Register” button that will take users directly to the reservation portal. Please note that users must create an account prior to booking a park pavilion. For any inquiries or additional information, please contact [email protected] or call (828) 250-4260.

Free Microchip Event
May 10 @ 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
ASPCA Spay/Neuter Alliance
Join the ASPCA, Asheville Humane Society and Brother Wolf Animal Rescue on May 10th for another successful free microchipping event at the ASPCA Spay/Neuter Alliance! From 9:00 am-12:00pm, cats and dogs will receive free microchips and pet owners can receive valuable resources to ensure the safety of their pets.
Please register in advance at the following link: https://clinichq.com/…/f4e304dd-8a36-4935-a4b2…. Walk-ins will be accepted based on availability. Each furry friend will receive a tag for their collar/harness featuring a QR code, enabling swift reunification with their owner in case they go missing.
With Memorial Day and the summer season approaching, the risk of pets going missing increases. Barbecues, open windows, people coming in and out of the house, and loud fireworks can lead to pets getting lost. A microchip ensures that should you need it, your pet will be easily recognized, and reunification will be streamlined, avoiding the shelter altogether.
*please make sure you have a leash for your dog and a carrier for your cat.
Less Plastic Asheville Challenge
May 10 @ 9:00 am
Asheville Area
 

This City of Asheville is launching the Less Plastic Asheville Challenge to encourage residents to reduce their consumption of single-use plastics. The campaign has two key features, a social media challenge called Less Plastic Bingo and a Pass on Plastic Pledge. The City will provide information on the impacts of single-use plastic on our community and tips for how our residents can understand and reduce their consumption of single-use plastics at tabling events around town and on our social media platforms. Those participating in the social media challenge can post photos and videos of themselves taking action to reduce single-use plastic consumption.

Those who take the pledge will make commitments to sustainable lifestyle choices such as using reusable grocery bags and refusing single-use plastics. Residents who participate in either the Less Plastic Bingo Challenge or Pass on Plastic Pledge will win great prizes!  The Less Plastic Asheville Challenge will begin in February 14, 2024 and end May 31, 2024. Follow the link at the top of the page to learn more about how you can participate and win these great sustainable items.

 


Background

In October 2022, Asheville City Council directed the Sustainability Department to take a phased approach to reduce the consumption of single-use plastic.

The first phase included an update to Chapter 15 of the City Code to prohibit the use of plastic bags in curbside brush and leaf collection. This ordinance change was approved by City Council on January 10, 2023 and was implemented August 1, 2023. For more information about this change and resources available check out this sanitation webpage.

The second phase included further analysis and stakeholder engagement with area businesses, residents and city staff to inform a recommendation on additional single-use plastic reduction strategies surrounding plastic bags at point of sale and expanded polystyrene (StyrofoamTM) disposable foodware products. To see the results of this engagement read this blog post.

On September 22, 2023 the North Carolina General Assembly approved the state budget that included a law prohibiting local governments from banning single-use plastic products. Due to this regulation, the City cannot adopt an ordinance banning plastic bags or expanded polystyrene (StyrofoamTM) takeout containers. Instead, the City is providing information and resources to residents and businesses to reduce single-use plastic consumption voluntarily through the Less Plastic Asheville Challenge. For more information on the previous plastic-reduction projects go to this webpage.

 


Less Plastic Asheville Challenge

To reduce single-use plastic consumption and litter in our community it will take all of us! We invite you to join us, have a little fun and earn some prizes in the process!

There are two ways to participate in the Less Plastic Asheville Challenge. You can take the Pass on Plastic Pledge and/or play Less Plastic Asheville Bingo. The pledge asks for you to commit to changes in your life to reduce your own plastic footprint, and the Bingo Challenge asks you to spread the word and help educate and inspire others about the issue through social media.

The Pass on Plastic Pledge

The Pass on Plastic Pledge asks you to look at your own habits regarding single-use plastics and commit to practices that cut down your consumption, simple acts that improve our community and the environment. By taking this pledge, you are taking the charge to reduce your own plastic consumption. You can do this in a number of ways and the City of Asheville is here to inspire, support and cheer you on!

When you commit to any one of the sustainable practices in the pledge, you will win plastic reducing prizes from the City.  Your actions alone can reduce hundreds of pounds of plastic waste every year! By taking this pledge, you are showing that you care about the health, cleanliness, and pristine environment of our home in Asheville. It’s a big deal, and the City of Asheville thanks you.

Take the Pass on Plastic Pledge

 

 

Less Plastic Asheville Bingo

This bingo game is a social media challenge. It’s a fun way for you to help spread the word about single-use plastics, and to inspire the people around you to make changes and support sustainable businesses and habits. When you sign up, you will be emailed a bingo card. Once you have your card, follow the steps below in order to earn your swag.

  1. Take videos or pictures to create social media content that matches the descriptions on the bingo card. You can choose any five pieces of content that form a complete bingo row. Content that does not form a straight line bingo will not count.
  2. Post this content on your own social media page (Facebook or Instagram Only) and include the hashtag #LessPlasticAsheville and tag @CityofAsheville.
  3. Copy the links from all five of your posts and send them in a single email to [email protected]. After we check out your great posts we will send you an email with our appreciation letting you know how you can collect your prizes!
  4. If you chose to take the Less Plastic Pledge as one of your bingo items (the center square) please include the email you used to take the pledge as one of your five email items.

Sign up below to receive your Less Plastic Bingo Card.

NC Arboretum Hiking Trails
May 10 @ 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
NC Arboretum

Located within the wildly-popular and botanically beautiful Southern Appalachian Mountains, The North Carolina Arboretum offers more than 10 miles of hiking trails that connect to many other area attractions such as Lake Powhatan, the Pisgah National Forest and the Blue Ridge Parkway. Visitors of all ages and abilities can enjoy their hiking experience at the Arboretum as trail options include easy, moderate, and difficult challenge levels. All trails are dog-friendly and visitors are asked to adhere to the proper waste disposing procedures for pets.

Part of a running group that would like to use the Arboretum as a starting point or parking location? Please review our Running Group Guidance and email [email protected] with any questions.

Take Your Momma to the Greenhouse
May 10 @ 9:00 am – 6:00 pm
Ross Farm Nursery and Greenhouses
25% off all plants, Mother’s Day BANANZA! 🌷🥳 Come celebrate your momma at Ross Farm in our beautiful greenhouses on…
-Friday, May 10th from 9-6 pm
-Saturday, May 11th from 9-6 pm
All orders $100+ at the farm get a free, hanging, ceramic, moon-phase pot! Treat yourself, AND momma, to the gift of plant beauty this Mother’s Day!
“Nurtured by Nature” Art Exhibition
May 10 @ 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
The Village Potters Clay Center 

The Village Potters Clay Center (TVPCC), announces the opening of “Nurtured by Nature”, a special exhibit featuring new works by each of the six resident potters of TVPCC.

When you have six wildly talented, skilled, and creative artists working together, it can be a challenge to pick a singular theme for a show. But it didn’t take long before the resident potters at TVPCC realized that they each had a connection to nature, and it expressed itself in different ways in their lives and work.

Sarah Wells Rolland grew up in Florida near the water and life that grew in and around it. For this exhibit, she has created singular pieces using broad strokes through slip to emulate Water Grass, and her deliciously beautiful glazes invite you to touch. You can almost feel a soft Florida breeze!

Judi Harwood has her work already rooted deeply in nature, using corn husks, bamboo leaves, and other organic materials in her sagger fired vessels. On a recent trip to the beach, she noticed an amazing pattern in the sand from the ebb and flow of the tide dragging shells across the sand. She knew instantly that she needed to carve a similar design in her pieces for Raku and other alternate firing processes, and you will find those pieces in this exhibit.

Caroline Renée Woolard has always had a deep love for nature, in particular the forest and the element of water and the rhythm of waves. You will find these things in the movement of her slip application, and in her carved mushrooms that invite a child-like sense of wonder and joy.

Katie Meili Messersmith is a self-proclaimed math nerd, and she loves the beauty of sequencing and patterning that she achieves in her slip dot applications on her pots. She also sees this beauty of math sequencing in nature, like in the petals of flowers, and has explored this in her work in a stunning series of bowls.

Julia Mann’s work has always been inspired by her love of nature and love of season, as well as her love of women and love of Goddess. Venus of Willendorf remains a guiding influence on her work more than twenty years after carving her first form. Julia has created new Venus pieces as well as pieces inscribed with other symbols of nature that inspire her, from spider webs to trees and mountains.

Lori Theriault grew up on the edge of the woods in central Vermont, and spent many afternoons hiking in the trees, touching each bark to feel what she saw. She also spent many nights star gazing with her father, waiting for an Apollo rocket to fly overhead. Lori represents her love of trees and flowers in functional work with her wax resist designs, and she is exploring more sculptural work in her “Vincent Series” that celebrates her love of a star-filled sky and her love and admiration for Van Gogh’s impasto technique in ‘Starry Night’.

Nurtured by Nature will be on exhibit through the end of June at The Village Potters Clay Center. The gallery is open daily, 10am-5pm.

The Village Potters are Sarah Wells Rolland, Judi Harwood, Lori Theriault, Julia Mann, Katie Meili Messersmith, and Caroline Renée Woolard, along with Director of Operations, Keira Peterson. They comprise an intentional Collective of potters who share a commitment to nurture creative exploration through education, experience, and community. The Village Potters includes a fine craft gallery, a Teaching Center offering ongoing classes in wheel, hand building, and sculpture for adults, an Advanced Ceramic Studies Program, and online demonstrations and workshops. The Village Potters Clay Center is an educational member of The Craft Guild of the Southern Highlands, and is an official distributor for Laguna Clays.

Art Exhibition: Hammer and Hope
May 10 @ 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Center for Craft

Historians estimate that skilled Black artisans outnumbered their white counterparts in the antebellum South by a margin of five to one. However, despite their presence and prevalence in all corners of the pre-industrial trade and craft fields, the stories of these skilled workers go largely unacknowledged.

Borrowing its title from a Black culture and politics magazine of the same name, Hammer and Hope celebrates the life and labor of Black chairmakers in early America. Featuring the work of two contemporary furniture makers – Robell Awake and Charlie Ryland – the pieces in this exhibition are based on the artists’ research into ladderback chairs created by the Poynors, a multigenerational family of free and enslaved craftspeople working in central Tennessee between the early nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Through the objects featured in Hammer and Hope, Awake and Ryland explore, reinterpret, and reimagine what the field of furniture-making today would look like had the history and legacy of the Poynors – and countless others that have been subject to a similar pattern of erasure – been celebrated rather than hidden. Hammer and Hope represents Awake and Ryland’s attempts, in their own words,  “at fighting erasure by making objects that engage with these long-suppressed stories.”

Robell Awake and Charlie Ryland are recipients of the Center for Craft’s 2022 Craft Research Fund Artist Fellowship. This substantial mid-career grant is awarded to two artists to support research projects that advance, expand, and support the creation of new research and knowledge through craft practice.

Preservers, Innovators, and Rescuers of Culture in Chiapas
May 10 @ 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Center for Craft

Preservers, Innovators, and Rescuers of Culture in Chiapas features eleven textiles by acclaimed Indigenous artisanas  (artists) from Chiapas, Mexico commissioned by US-based fiber artists and activist Aram Han Sifuentes. As part of their 2022 Craft Research Fund Artist Fellowship, Han Sifuentes traveled to Chiapas to understand the function of garments and textiles within the social and cultural context of the area and to learn the traditional practice of backstrap weaving. Through the works on view, combined with a series of interviews Han Sifuentes conducted during her research, visitors learn about the artisanas and their role as preservers, rescuers, and innovators of culture and as protectors of Mayan ancestral knowledge. Together, these works present an approach to connecting and learning about culture through craft practices

Han Sifuentes is interested in backstrap weaving because it is one of the oldest forms used across cultures. The vibrant hues and elaborate designs of each textile express the artisanas identities and medium to tell their stories. To understand how these values manifested in textiles made in Chiapas, Han Sifuentes invited the artisanas to create whatever weaving they desired over the course of three months.  This is unique because most textiles in the area are created to meet tourist-driven and marketplace demands. Incorporating traditional backstrap weaving and natural dye techniques, some artisans created textiles to rescue or reintroduce weaving practices that are almost or completely lost in their communities, while others were created through material and conceptual experimentation. This range of approaches reflects how artistanas are constantly innovating while at the same time honoring and keeping to tradition.

Preservers, Innovators, and Rescuers of Culture in Chiapas is on view from November 17, 2023 to July 13, 2024.

Aram Han Sifuentes is a recipient of the Center for Craft’s 2022 Craft Research Fund Artist Fellowship. This substantial mid-career grant is awarded to two artists to support research projects that advance, expand, and support the creation of new research and knowledge through craft practice.

The featured artisanas include: Juana Victoria Hernandez Gomez from San Juan Cancuc, Maria Josefina Gómez Sanchez and Maria de Jesus Gómez Sanchez from Oxchujk (Oxchuc), Marcela Gómez Diaz and Cecilia Gómez Diaz from San Andrés Larráinzar, Rosa Margarita Enríquez Bolóm from Huixtán, Cristina García Pérez from Chalchihuitán, Susana Maria Gómez Gonzalez, Maria Gonzalez Guillén, and Anastacia Juana Gómez Gonzalez from Zinacantán, Angelica Leticia Gómez Santiz from Pantelhó, and Susana Guadalupe Méndez Santiz from Aldama

 

Baby Story Time with Ms. Kate
May 10 @ 10:30 am – 11:30 am
Enka-Candler Library

These early literacy programs for kids and their caregivers are designed to develop a joy for learning through books, songs, and activities.

Story time takes place in our library community room. This is not a ticketed event.

North Carolina Winery Tour Adventures
May 10 @ 10:30 am – 3:30 pm
North Carolina Wineries

Join us for a North Carolina winery tour and celebrate a date night, bachelorette party, retirement, family, or a weekend away while sampling our favorite local beverages along the way. Our standard tour includes visits to three Asheville area vineyards. With safe and reliable transportation provided, you can sit back, relax and just have fun.

Included:

  • Round trip transportation*
  • Three vineyard visits
  • Tastings at two of your three stops. Let’s just say that the pours at the first couple of locations are generous so we like to leave the third-stop beverage choice up to you.
  • Time commitment = up to 5 hours

Want to include specific vineyards on your Asheville wine tours? If you have “must-see” wineries in mind or want to craft a full day catered to your group’s interests, we’re always happy to create a custom experience. Reach out any time!

Art Exhibit: Dusk till Dawn
May 10 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Blue Spiral 1 Gallery

May 3 – June 26, 2024 MON – SAT 11 – 6SUN 11 – 5

Artists: Caleb Clark, Bryant Holsenbeck, Bill Killebrew, Inigo Navarro, Isaac Payne, Amy Putansu, Daniel Robbins, Peggy Root, and Deborah Squier.

This group exhibition features paintings, collages, and sculptures that embody the alluring ambiance between sunrise and sunset. Plein air paintings capture the scattered, sleepy light of Dawn; Collaged drawings depict sidewalks blanketed by moonlight; Mixed-media sculptures portray nocturnal animals. Each artist reminds us of the recurrent and striking period of time when the atmosphere is neither totally dark, nor completely lit.

Europa’s 10th Anniversary Celebration
May 10 @ 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
Europa

Join us on Friday, May 10, as we celebrate 10 years in business and thank you for your support! Visit Europa at 125 Cherry Street in Black Mountain, NC. Since its launch in 2014, Europa has grown from a modest startup to a regional destination for imported handcrafted gifts, including German cuckoo clocks and nutcrackers, Italian glass, French pocket knives, Swedish Dala horses, and Scottish tartan accessories. Europa now imports gifts from artisans in 17 European countries and has established itself as the largest purveyor of Polish pottery in North Carolina. See europafinegifts.com for more information about Europa.

Honoring Nature: Early Southern Appalachian Landscape Painting
May 10 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

In the early 1900s, travel by train and automobile became more accessible in the United States, leading to an increase in tourism and a revitalized interest in landscape painting. The relative ease of transportation, as well as the creation of National Parks, allowed people to experience the breathtaking landscapes of the United States in new ways. Artists traveled along popular routes, recording the terrain they encountered.

This exhibition explores the sublime natural landscapes of the Smokey Mountains of Western North Carolina and Tennessee. While there were several regional schools of painting around this time, this group is largely from the Midwest and many of the artists trained at the Art Institute of Chicago or in New York City. Through their travels, they captured waterfalls, sunsets, thunderstorms, autumn foliage, lush green summers, and snow-covered mountains—elements that were novel for viewers from cities and rural areas. Though some of these paintings include people, they are usually used for scale and painted with little to no detail, highlighting the magnificence of nature.

Rudolph F. Ingerle, Mirrored Mountain, not dated, oil on canvas, 28 × 32 inches. Courtesy of Allen & Barry Huffman, Asheville Art Museum.

Joseph Fiore: Black Mountain College Paintings
May 10 @ 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center

 11am – 5pm Tuesday through Saturday

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Joseph Fiore (1925-2008) first enrolled at Black Mountain College for the Summer Session of 1946, the summer that Josef Albers invited Jacob Lawrence to teach painting at BMC. Over the next three years, Fiore also studied with Ilya Bolotowsky, Willem de Kooning, and Jean Varda. In 1949, after Josef and Anni Albers’ departure, Joe was invited to join the faculty, and he taught painting and drawing until 1956 when the college leaders decided to close.

After BMC closed, Joe and his wife Mary, whom he met and married at BMC, moved to New York City. There he became involved with the 10th Street art scene of the late 1950s and 1960s, a group of galleries that exhibited the work of young artists on the rise. Eventually he resumed his teaching career at the Philadelphia College of Art, Maryland Institute College of Art, and the National Academy.

In May of 2001, Joseph Fiore was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Prize at the National Academy of Design in New York. The Carnegie Prize is awarded “for painting” at the National Academy’s Members’ Show.

This exhibition consists of paintings in our collection donated by the artist and by The Falcon Foundation. All of the paintings were made at Black Mountain College and show Fiore’s distinctive use of color and his ability to work comfortably in the spaces between abstraction and representation.

Curated by Alice Sebrell, Director of Preservation

The New Salon: A Contemporary View
May 10 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum
Bender Gallery Artists

Featured in

Asheville Art Museum Exhibition

The New Salon: A Contemporary View

The Asheville Art Museum will be opening their exhibit, The New Salon: A Contemporary View, on March 8 and it will run until August 19, 2024. The New Salon offers a modern take on the prestigious tradition of the Parisian Salon with the diversity and innovation of today’s art world. Guest-curated by Gabriel Shaffer, the show will include works from Pop Surrealism, Outsider Art, Street Art, and Graffiti genres.

 

Bender Gallery has been collaborating with the Asheville Art Museum to loan four paintings from three of our artists. The artists are Laine Bachman, Kukula, and Yui Sakamoto. Be sure to check out this special exhibition in downtown Asheville.

Learn More

Kukula, Impossible Voyage, oil on board, 48 x 24 inches

Kukula (b. 1980, Israel)

Nataly Abramovitch, better known in the art world as, Kukula, paints imagined worlds filled with elaborately dressed women in fanciful settings. The artist does extensive research on the layouts of paintings from the Renaissance and Rococo periods. Kukula subverts these images by depicting women characters in place of traditionally male positions and settings. Her characters are powerful, commanding, and have an air of indifference.

Available Work

Yui Sakamoto, Self Portrait, oil on canvas, 63 x 63 inches

Yui Sakamoto (b. 1981, Japan)

Our surrealist artist, Yui Sakamoto, will have two paintings featured including My Soul and Self Portrait. Self Portrait is still available from his recent solo exhibition at Bender Gallery. Standing in front of Self Portrait, one is immersed in the dual-worlds of Sakamoto’s Japanese and Mexican cultures. There is a sense of calm reflected in the repeating rose pattern, mixed with the uneasy realization that the coral, fungi, and otherworldly forms are what makeup the figure.

Available Work

Laine Bachman, Night Bloomers, acrylic on canvas, 18 x 24 inches

Laine Bachman (b. 1974, USA)

Our prolific Magical Realism artist, Laine Bachman, makes a feature in the exhibition with her painting, Night Bloomers. She has been hard at work making 17 new pieces for her solo exhibition at the Canton Art Museum in Canton, Ohio. The Canton show opens on April 28 and continues through to July 28, 2024.

Available Work
Vera B. Williams / STORIES Eight Decades of Politics and Picture Making
May 10 @ 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center

 

Exhibition and Public Programming

Vera B. Williams, an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books, started making pictures almost as soon as she could walk. She studied at Black Mountain College in a time where summer institutes were held with classes taught by John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Williams studied under the Bauhaus luminary Josef Albers and went on to make art for the rest of her life. At the time of her death, The New York Times wrote: “Her illustrations, known for bold colors and a style reminiscent of folk art, were praised by reviewers for their great tenderness and crackling vitality.” Despite numerous awards and recognition for her children’s books, much of her wider life and work remains unexplored. This retrospective will showcase the complete range of Williams’ life and work. It will highlight her time at Black Mountain College, her political activism, and her establishment, with Paul Williams, of an influential yet little-known artist community, in addition to her work as an author and illustrator.

Author and illustrator of 17 children’s books, including Caldecott medal winner, A Chair for My Mother, Vera B. Williams always had a passion for the arts. Williams grew up in the Bronx, NY, and in 1936, when she was nine years old, one of her paintings, called Yentas, opens a new window, was included in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. While Williams is widely known for her children’s books today, this exhibition’s expansive scope highlights unexplored aspects of her artistic practice and eight decades of life. From groundbreaking, powerful covers for Liberation Magazine, to Peace calendar collaborations with writer activist Grace Paley, to scenic sketches for Julian Beck and Judith Malina’s Living Theater, to hundreds of late life “Aging and Illness” cartoons sketches and doodles, Vera never sat still.

Williams arrived at Black Mountain College in 1945. While there, she embraced all aspects of living, working, and learning in the intensely creative college community. She was at BMC during a particularly fertile period, which allowed her to study with faculty members Buckminster Fuller and Josef Albers, and to participate in the famed summer sessions with John Cage, Merce Cunningham, M.C. Richards, and Robert Rauschenberg. In 1948, she graduated with Josef Albers as her advisor and sculptor Richard Lippold as her outside examiner. Forever one of the College’s shining stars, Vera graduated from BMC with just six semesters of coursework, at only twenty-one years old. She continued to visit BMC for years afterward, staying deeply involved with the artistic community that BMC incubated.

Anticipating the eventual closure of BMC, Williams, alongside her husband Paul Williams and a group of influential former BMC figures, founded The Gate Hill Cooperative Artists community located 30 miles north of NYC on the outskirts of Stony Point, NY. The Gate Hill Cooperative, also known as The Land, became an outcropping of Black Mountain College’s experimental ethos. Students and faculty including John Cage, M.C. Richards, David Tudor, Karen Karnes, David Weinrib, Stan VanDerBeek, and Patsy Lynch Wood shaped Gate Hill as founding members of the community. Vera B. Williams raised her three children at Gate Hill while continuing to make work.

The early Gate Hill era represented an especially creative phase for the BMC group. For Williams, this period saw the creation of 76 covers for Liberation Magazine, a radical, groundbreaking publication. This exhibition will feature some of Williams’ most powerful Liberation covers including a design for the June 1963 edition, which contained the first full publication of MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Williams’ activism work continued throughout her life. As president of PEN’s Children Committee and member of The War Resisters league, she created a wide range of political and educational posters and journal covers. Williams protested the war in Vietnam and nuclear proliferation while supporting women’s causes and racial equality. In 1981, Williams was arrested and spent a month in a federal prison on charges stemming from her political activism.

In her late 40’s, Williams embarked in earnest on her career as a children’s book author and illustrator, a career which garnered the NY Public Library’s recognition of A Chair for My Mother as one of the greatest 100 children’s books of all time. Infinitely curious and always a wanderer at heart, Williams’ personal life was as expansive as her art. In addition to her prolific picture making, Williams started and helped run a Summerhill-based alternative school, canoed the Yukon, and lived alone on a houseboat in Vancouver Harbor. She helped to organize and attended dozens of political demonstrations throughout her adult life.

Her books won many awards including the Caldecott Medal Honor Book for A Chair for My Mother in 1983, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award– Fiction category– for Scooter in 1994, the Jane Addams Honor for Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart in 2002, and the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature in 2009. Her books reflected her values, emphasizing love, compassion, kindness, joy, strength, individuality, and courage.

Images:

Cover of Vera B. Williams’ A Chair for My Mother, published in 1982.

Vera B. Williams, Cover for Liberation Magazine, November 1958.

Fairy Hair Sparkles for Mother’s Day
May 10 @ 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm
My Fresh Palette

Come glam up your life!

You can wash, brush, comb, curl, flat iron, (up to 450°!), color, straighten, perm, blow it dry, get your haircut, etc.

Do whatever you normally do to your hair -but most of all; ENJOY IT!

Long lasting, super fun, and affordable!

Covid precautions will be used.

Space is limited.

Reserve your Magical Sparkling Session at FairyKimSparkles.com/calendar

Thurgood
May 10 @ 2:00 pm
NC Stage Co.

Directed by Philip Kershaw

 

CAPTIVATING | HISTORICAL | BIODRAMA

From his landmark victory in Brown v. Board of Education to becoming the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court—Thurgood Marshall devoted his life to the pursuit of a more just world. This captivating one-man play explores his work and life with riveting and inspiring storytelling.

“All bio dramas should be as vivid and entertaining as THURGOOD. A story rich in history, humanity and humor.”

New York Daily News

 

Content advisory: strong language, use of racial slurs, and descriptions of violence

Avery’s Creek Elementary School: Spring Musical Finding Nemo KIDS
May 10 @ 2:30 pm – 4:00 pm
Avery's Creek Elementary School

Spring Musical

Finding Nemo KIDS

2nd-4th Grades

Fridays

2:30pm-4:00pm

2/2, 2/9, 2/16, 2/23, 3/8, 3/15, 3/22, 4/12, 4/19, 4/26, 5/3, 5/10

No Class: 3/1 TWD, 3/29 Early Release, 4/5 Spring Break

Dress Rehearsal: 5/3 2:30-4:00pm

Performance: 5/10/2024 3:30pm

Tuition: $270

Students will learn all about teamwork as they work together with their classmates and a professional Teaching Artist to perform scenes and songs from a short musical. Each actor will receive their own part with lines and songs to learn. Class time will be used for rehearsal and a performance complete with costumes and props will take place on the final class day.

In Person at Avery’s Creek Elementary School

15 Park S Blvd, Arden, NC 28704

FEAST: School Garden Plant Sales
May 10 @ 2:30 pm – 3:00 pm
Isaac Dickson Elementary School
Please plan to support our FEAST program and long-term food security through edible education by buying your spring plants at one of these upcoming plant sales!
We empower youth and families to grow, prepare, and enjoy fruits and vegetables through hands-on cooking and garden education. 

FEAST classes focus on:

  • Problem-solving, communication, and teamwork.
  • Increasing fresh, locally grown produce in everyday living.
  • Gaining confidence by exploring different ways to grow and prepare fresh produce.
  • Creating and changing recipes and substituting ingredients.
  • Learning how food and the environment affects the brain and body.
  • Connecting to Core Curriculum and Essential Standards in math, reading, writing, science, health, and nutrition.
SCHOOL BASED PROGRAMS
ArtsAVL Town Hall Series
May 10 @ 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Center for Craft

The 2023-24 ArtsAVL Town Hall Series tackles important issues facing the arts community through four quarterly events: Arts Marketing, Arts Data, Arts Access, and Creative Spaces. Topics were selected through a poll conducted in early 2023, and planned in partnership with the Arts Coalition.

Events are at the Center for Craft from 3-4:30 pm. The series is free and open to the public but advanced registration is required for each event.

ARTS MARKETING

Friday, August 11, 2023

Just how is the local arts scene marketed outside of Asheville? And, how can you take advantage of these opportunities? Join us as the marketing team from Explore Asheville talks about their approach to marketing the arts and how to work with them to promote your creative offerings. The session will end with a breakout session to gather participant feedback.

ARTS DATA

Friday, November 10, 2023

It is clear from the data that the arts have a large impact in Buncombe County, but what do these numbers really mean? Join us as Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce Senior Director of Research Heidi Reiber breaks down the local creative economy, and Director of AEP6 Community Engagement & Equity for Americans for the Arts Dr. Genna Styles-Lyas zooms in on the results of the latest Arts & Economic Prosperity Report. The session will conclude with breakout groups to discuss how this data might be used and what data we might be missing.

ARTS ACCESS

Friday, February 9, 2024

Accessibility is giving equitable access to everyone along the continuum of human ability and experience. But, what does this mean for the local arts sector?  During this event we will explore this question from both a disability and an arts equity perspective. Breakout groups will also examine ways we can work together to improve access, what resources are needed, and the larger access barriers that need to be addressed.

CREATIVE SPACES

Friday, May 10, 2024

As the cost of living rises, creatives are getting priced out of Buncombe County. At this event, ArtsAVL will present the results of their Creative Space study. Attendees will also hear from a panel about different creative solutions they are trying to combat space challenges. The event will end with a break session to discuss how we might use/ support some of the ideas discussed, and what else might be done to address local creative space issues.

Creative Spaces Town Hall
May 10 @ 3:00 pm
Asheville Community Theatre

ArtsAVL will present the results of the Creative Spaces study, and a panel will discuss local impacts and creative solutions.

 

This event is free, but registration is required.

Register Now
East Asheville Tailgate Market
May 10 @ 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm
East Asheville Tailgate Market

🖤 Vendor list drop! Welcome new vendors @blazingstarflowers @djspickles and @monkasbakery and welcome back @wildgoodsforaging!

Buncombe County will continue to offer ASAP’s Double SNAP for Fruits and Vegetables and Farm Fresh Produce Prescription.

Acoustic Jam Session
May 10 @ 4:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Sideways Farm & Brewery

Plan to collaborate with other musicians at Sideways Farm & Brewery in Etowah. Bring your instruments and voices and enjoy making music and networking with other artists, while enjoying the beautiful scenery. Food truck is on site and beverages available for purchase from Sideways (small
batch craft beers, hard jun, ciders, wine, and non alcoholic drinks). Family, fans, friends, and leashed dogs are all welcome!
During winter months enjoy playing under the covered, sheltered, heated porch! And during the summer months enjoy
collaborating in the fields, on the stage, or under the patio

Intimate bar: Wine + Roses Opens
May 10 @ 4:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Zelda Dearest Hotel
Asheville’s Zelda Dearest. Intimate wine bar Wine & Roses officially opened its doors in the boutique hotel today.

The parlour bar features a curated beer and wine selection, craft cocktails, and a design and vibe inspired by the hotel’s namesake, Zelda Fitzgerald. A small menu of decadent bites will debut later this summer.

Wine & Roses is open to guests Sunday through Thursday from 4pm to 8pm, and to the public Friday and Saturday nights from 4pm to 10pm. 

With a curated beer and wine selection, craft cocktails, and air of sophistication, Wine & Roses offers a peek into the
captivating personality of the hotel’s namesake, Zelda Fitzgerald.
Designed by Hatteras Sky and with interiors by Nashville-based firm, Anderson Design Studio,
Wine & Roses is tucked within a thoughtfully restored turn-of-the-century mansion in Asheville’s
South Slope neighborhood. Wine & Roses is inspired by the clandestine meetings that first
ignited their whirlwind courtship, leaving Zelda wistfully nostalgic and furiously imaginative in her
writing and artistry. The space exudes warmth with golden hues, dim lighting, and lush velvet
accents. Always topped with fresh roses, the eight-seat bar at Wine & Roses sits under
glimmering chandeliers and overlooks a portrait of Zelda herself. Additional seating for up to 21
guests is spread throughout the bar area. A dreamy outdoor patio boasts two roaring fire pits
and 24 additional seats for those who choose to indulge al fresco.
Wine & Roses serves craft cocktails like The Sayre (Monkey 47, lemon, orange blossom, egg
white, and orange bitters), The Fitz (Four Roses, demerara simple syrup, angostura bitters,
orange, and luxardo cherry), and the Gilded Girl (Casamigos Reposado, orange curacao,
apricot juice, and lime juice), and a curated selection of local beers and wines by the glass. A
small menu of decadent bites will debut later this summer.
Wine & Roses is open to guests Sunday through Thursday from 4pm to 8pm, and to the public
Friday and Saturday nights from 4pm to 10pm. For additional information about Wine & Roses,
to book a private event, or to reserve a seat at the bar, call Zelda Dearest at 828.514.2489, visit
zeldadearest.com, or follow @zeldadearest on Instagram.

Wofford Terriers vs East Tennessee State University
May 10 @ 5:30 pm
Russell C. King Field

Follow the Terriers on Twitter at @WoffordBaseball

Orville Peck – Stampede Tour
May 10 @ 6:00 pm
Rabbit Rabbit
All Ages – not recommended for children under 4

Popcorn Falls by James Hindman
May 10 @ 7:00 pm
Black Mountain Center for the Arts

The sleepy town of Popcorn Falls is forced into bankruptcy when a neighboring town threatens to turn them into a sewage treatment plant. Their only hope – open a theater! Two actors play over twenty roles in a world of farce, love, and desperation, proving once and for all that art can save the world.