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.
Mirror/Mentor brings together work by Warren Wilson College Art professor Lara Nguyen and three of her former students, Steven Horton Jr. (class of 2017), Sather Robinson-Waters (class of 2018), and Jess Self (class of 2014).
The diversity of media, styles, and themes in the art on view reflects Lara’s philosophy of teaching and mentoring. For Lara, the idea of being a mentor who is a mirror does not mean producing students whose work mimics her own. Instead she follows the advice of her mother, who told her to set an example for her four younger siblings–mirror for them how to live fully in this world. As she worked, and sometimes struggled, to integrate the different layers of her own very full life, Lara discovered her students were as curious about this art of living as they were about learning artistic techniques and handling different media.
The terms of Lara’s life changed when she was diagnosed with uterine leiomyosarcoma cancer (uLMS) in 2018. Her works in this exhibition hold up a mirror to teach us her new reality: stage 4 cancer, incurable and terminal. The photo series Un-Broken pictures the scars from her own surgeries and the healed wounds of family and friends embellished in gold as a means of adornment and repair in the vein of the Japanese art of kintsugi. In Brushes with Death, the artist creates new tools from her own hair lost due to chemotherapy. The mixed media sculpture Forbidden Grapefruit is a new iteration of a poem written about her mother’s journey, which became a series of performances and installations.
The body as vessel, trauma, a daily artistic practice, making as a means of social justice, and repurposing and repairing with the hopes of reemergence are among the overlapping themes that connect the works of these four artists–teacher and students
Opening the Door to Change presents the history of education in Western North Carolina, with a particular emphasis on Madison County, from the mid-nineteenth century through the late twentieth. Here, learning has taken many forms, from in-home instruction, common, subscription, and religious schools, to colleges of farming and craft. The curriculum of these schools, as well as their very construction, and in some cases closing, was deeply entwined with the changing needs and values of the Western North Carolina Appalachian community.
The exhibition focuses on the dynamic relationship between community values and education, with a special focus on how students and their families navigated the economic, geographic, and racial challenges to education. Trends and changes in curriculum, assessment, and classroom design will also be explored.
The virtual exhibition will feature didactic panels showcasing a survey of schools within Madison County and highlighting the effect community values had on the curriculum, function, and format of these institutions. Online visitors may also get a sneak-peak at an original film, produced by the Museum, presenting the oral histories of several Madison County residents sharing their personal recollections and memories of past school-days.
Additional films will spotlight the Historic Mars Hill Anderson Rosenwald School and Laurel School, with first-hand accounts from former students and teachers.
This virtual exhibition is sponsored by the Madison County Tourism and Development Authority.
2021 WNC Regional Scholastic Art Awards
The Museum, with the assistance of its volunteer docents and support from the Asheville Area Section of the American Institute of Architects, is proud to sponsor the WNC Regional Scholastic Art Awards. Students in grades 7–12 from all across our region are invited to submit work for this special juried competition. The Museum works with the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers to facilitate regional judging of student artwork and recognition of our community’s burgeoning artistic talent.
In early spring each year, award winners are featured in an exhibition, and are honored at a ceremony. Regional Gold Key recipients’ work is sent to the National Scholastic Art competition hosted by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers.
Across the Atlantic
Across the Atlantic
American Impressionism Through the French Lens
This extraordinary exhibition, drawn from the collection of the Reading Public Museum, explores the path to Impressionism through the 19th century in France. The show examines the sometimes complex relationship between French Impressionism of the 1870s and 1880s and the American interpretation of the style in the decades that followed. More than 65 paintings and works on paper help tell the story of the “new style” of painting which developed at the end of the 19th century—one that emphasized light and atmospheric conditions, rapid or loose brushstrokes, and a focus on brightly colored scenes from everyday life, including both urban and rural settings when artists preferred to paint outdoors and capture changing effects of light during different times of day and seasons of the year.
Across the Atlantic: American Impressionism through the French Lens is organized by the Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.
Generous support for this project provided by Art Bridges and The Maurer Family Foundation.
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.
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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.
Join Megan Pyle, touring docent, for an interactive conversation about three artworks in our Collection and special exhibition Across the Atlantic: American Impressionism Through the French Lens. The goal is simple: slow down, discover the joy of looking at art, and talk about the experience with others. This program takes place via Zoom; space is limited. Generous support for this program is provided by Art Bridges. More info and register at ashevilleart.org/events.
Makers Mixer
Special Guest: Emma Churchman
Join us on Friday March 12, for an informal virtual gathering of artists and creatives from the Western North Carolina region and beyond. This is a relaxed networking event that will begin with a brief introduction and presentation to provide a glimpse of the upcoming 2021 Spring Craft Your Commerce Workshop Series, then we will hear from guest presenter, Emma Churchman on Soul Selling. After the presentation, Emma will hot seat a few volunteers around your thoughts and challenges on selling. We then will use the breakout rooms capacity in Zoom to create networking and connecting opportunities.
Come join us! This event is free and open to any craft or creative based business.
Join us this month… on the 1st dark moon of the month… a powerful time of dissolving and rebirthing! This is a night retreat of releasing… and getting ready to rebirth into the New MOON coming up!
Every month, there is a portal opening of the Lunar Gateway… in which the UNIVERSE offers us an opportunity, the few days just before the NEW MOON… it is a time of rebirth and renewal… but also a time of death. We have have an opportunity to let go… to release consciously what no longer serves us. In our society, we have lost our connection with the transformational alchemical powers of the Great Mother… and many times we fear death and darkness. Yet in the darkness is really where all possibilities are born from… and we cannot birth something into existence… until we have made room by releasing and dying to the old.
During this night… we will focus on releasing, dissolving and rebirthing during the Dark MOON lunar evening as we prepare for the new creation on the New Moon. During this portal we have the opportunity to purify our being… our minds… our emotions, our heart and our soul…. letting go and releasing the veils that stand between direct experience with the Divine and allow us to consciously re-pattern our selves.
During this Lunar Medicine Retreat, we will focus on the monthly theme of the New Moon astrological sign and the wisdom it is bringing in for us to embody. Naturally, we will also have an opportunity to clear conditioning, emotions and wounding of the past. For some, it is also an opportunity to clear the Ancestral and personal wounding that we, as women have inherited. This wounding has been passed on unconsciously through generations of women that have come before us… and at this time of the Golden age, we are here to consciously heal these wounds and step into our Sovereignty and Sacred Power. This is something that our ancestors have known for many lives… and we have unconsciously come to incarnate at this time, when it is possible to awaken to the magnificence power of our divinity.
We will meet in the evening of the dark moon, days will vary… depending on when the New Moon is occurring . We will meet at 8:00pm and dive into a sacred embodied experience of the Lunar Gateway. Through sacred invocation, intentions, direct transmission, chants and transformational healing we will clear the old and make space for the new… as we recalibrate our rhythm to cycle with the moon!
This event is FREE, but we kindly accept donations.
~Dr. Leonor Murciano-Luna
Evening will consist of:
Breathwork, somatic, transformational, purification practices and sound/voice /drumming healing codes.
Sharing/Questions and Answers
Essential Oils/Smudging.
Helpful things to bring:
Yoga Mat
Shawl or Head covering
Blanket for cover
Journal
Learn more and register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dark-moon-medicine-releaserebirthrenewal-online-tickets-141346444019?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch
Opening the Door to Change presents the history of education in Western North Carolina, with a particular emphasis on Madison County, from the mid-nineteenth century through the late twentieth. Here, learning has taken many forms, from in-home instruction, common, subscription, and religious schools, to colleges of farming and craft. The curriculum of these schools, as well as their very construction, and in some cases closing, was deeply entwined with the changing needs and values of the Western North Carolina Appalachian community.
The exhibition focuses on the dynamic relationship between community values and education, with a special focus on how students and their families navigated the economic, geographic, and racial challenges to education. Trends and changes in curriculum, assessment, and classroom design will also be explored.
The virtual exhibition will feature didactic panels showcasing a survey of schools within Madison County and highlighting the effect community values had on the curriculum, function, and format of these institutions. Online visitors may also get a sneak-peak at an original film, produced by the Museum, presenting the oral histories of several Madison County residents sharing their personal recollections and memories of past school-days.
Additional films will spotlight the Historic Mars Hill Anderson Rosenwald School and Laurel School, with first-hand accounts from former students and teachers.
This virtual exhibition is sponsored by the Madison County Tourism and Development Authority.
Marlo Gates will be demonstrating his broom-making techniques (passed down in his family for generations) in the lobby of the Folk Art Center. We invite you to meet and talk with the artist and learn about his process!
Schedule is subject to change. Call ahead for the latest updates: 828-298-7928.
2021 WNC Regional Scholastic Art Awards
The Museum, with the assistance of its volunteer docents and support from the Asheville Area Section of the American Institute of Architects, is proud to sponsor the WNC Regional Scholastic Art Awards. Students in grades 7–12 from all across our region are invited to submit work for this special juried competition. The Museum works with the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers to facilitate regional judging of student artwork and recognition of our community’s burgeoning artistic talent.
In early spring each year, award winners are featured in an exhibition, and are honored at a ceremony. Regional Gold Key recipients’ work is sent to the National Scholastic Art competition hosted by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers.
Across the Atlantic
Across the Atlantic
American Impressionism Through the French Lens
This extraordinary exhibition, drawn from the collection of the Reading Public Museum, explores the path to Impressionism through the 19th century in France. The show examines the sometimes complex relationship between French Impressionism of the 1870s and 1880s and the American interpretation of the style in the decades that followed. More than 65 paintings and works on paper help tell the story of the “new style” of painting which developed at the end of the 19th century—one that emphasized light and atmospheric conditions, rapid or loose brushstrokes, and a focus on brightly colored scenes from everyday life, including both urban and rural settings when artists preferred to paint outdoors and capture changing effects of light during different times of day and seasons of the year.
Across the Atlantic: American Impressionism through the French Lens is organized by the Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.
Generous support for this project provided by Art Bridges and The Maurer Family Foundation.
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.
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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.
MakerSpace is back! Visit our special exhibition Vantage Points: Contemporary Photography from the Whitney Museum of American Art on a scavenger hunt for inspiration, then drop in to explore different photographic techniques in the studio. This program is perfect for connecting with the whole family, an afternoon date, me time, or catching up with bestie. Space is limited to small groups of up to nine participants; face coverings and social distancing are required. More info at ashevilleart.org/events.
Opening the Door to Change presents the history of education in Western North Carolina, with a particular emphasis on Madison County, from the mid-nineteenth century through the late twentieth. Here, learning has taken many forms, from in-home instruction, common, subscription, and religious schools, to colleges of farming and craft. The curriculum of these schools, as well as their very construction, and in some cases closing, was deeply entwined with the changing needs and values of the Western North Carolina Appalachian community.
The exhibition focuses on the dynamic relationship between community values and education, with a special focus on how students and their families navigated the economic, geographic, and racial challenges to education. Trends and changes in curriculum, assessment, and classroom design will also be explored.
The virtual exhibition will feature didactic panels showcasing a survey of schools within Madison County and highlighting the effect community values had on the curriculum, function, and format of these institutions. Online visitors may also get a sneak-peak at an original film, produced by the Museum, presenting the oral histories of several Madison County residents sharing their personal recollections and memories of past school-days.
Additional films will spotlight the Historic Mars Hill Anderson Rosenwald School and Laurel School, with first-hand accounts from former students and teachers.
This virtual exhibition is sponsored by the Madison County Tourism and Development Authority.
Marlo Gates will be demonstrating his broom-making techniques (passed down in his family for generations) in the lobby of the Folk Art Center. We invite you to meet and talk with the artist and learn about his process!
Schedule is subject to change. Call ahead for the latest updates: 828-298-7928.
2021 WNC Regional Scholastic Art Awards
The Museum, with the assistance of its volunteer docents and support from the Asheville Area Section of the American Institute of Architects, is proud to sponsor the WNC Regional Scholastic Art Awards. Students in grades 7–12 from all across our region are invited to submit work for this special juried competition. The Museum works with the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers to facilitate regional judging of student artwork and recognition of our community’s burgeoning artistic talent.
In early spring each year, award winners are featured in an exhibition, and are honored at a ceremony. Regional Gold Key recipients’ work is sent to the National Scholastic Art competition hosted by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers.
Across the Atlantic
Across the Atlantic
American Impressionism Through the French Lens
This extraordinary exhibition, drawn from the collection of the Reading Public Museum, explores the path to Impressionism through the 19th century in France. The show examines the sometimes complex relationship between French Impressionism of the 1870s and 1880s and the American interpretation of the style in the decades that followed. More than 65 paintings and works on paper help tell the story of the “new style” of painting which developed at the end of the 19th century—one that emphasized light and atmospheric conditions, rapid or loose brushstrokes, and a focus on brightly colored scenes from everyday life, including both urban and rural settings when artists preferred to paint outdoors and capture changing effects of light during different times of day and seasons of the year.
Across the Atlantic: American Impressionism through the French Lens is organized by the Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.
Generous support for this project provided by Art Bridges and The Maurer Family Foundation.
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.
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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.
“Guggisberg and Baldwin have laid a new avenue. By joining Italian coldworking to the Swedish overlay, they have embarked upon an innovative sequence of experimentation and research not only on surfaces, but also on color and the interplay of color and texture through surface treatment. These explorations have increasingly drawn them to probe the expressive fields of textural elements. Initially soft and tactile, with the new strong angles, facets and deep cuts, the surface itself takes on a kind of fourth dimension, something sculptural that moves beyond the limits set by height, width, and volume.”
A quote from Louise Berndt, writing in “Battuto 2002: Philip Baldwin and Monica Guggisberg”
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Opening the Door to Change presents the history of education in Western North Carolina, with a particular emphasis on Madison County, from the mid-nineteenth century through the late twentieth. Here, learning has taken many forms, from in-home instruction, common, subscription, and religious schools, to colleges of farming and craft. The curriculum of these schools, as well as their very construction, and in some cases closing, was deeply entwined with the changing needs and values of the Western North Carolina Appalachian community.
The exhibition focuses on the dynamic relationship between community values and education, with a special focus on how students and their families navigated the economic, geographic, and racial challenges to education. Trends and changes in curriculum, assessment, and classroom design will also be explored.
The virtual exhibition will feature didactic panels showcasing a survey of schools within Madison County and highlighting the effect community values had on the curriculum, function, and format of these institutions. Online visitors may also get a sneak-peak at an original film, produced by the Museum, presenting the oral histories of several Madison County residents sharing their personal recollections and memories of past school-days.
Additional films will spotlight the Historic Mars Hill Anderson Rosenwald School and Laurel School, with first-hand accounts from former students and teachers.
This virtual exhibition is sponsored by the Madison County Tourism and Development Authority.
Show Us What the River Means to You!
Every spring we host our Voices of the River: Art & Poetry Contest. We ask kids to use the river as a source of inspiration to showcase their creativity. Each year we are so amazed by the talent of these young artists, poets, and performers. Submissions can include 2D and 3D works in various mediums, poems and creative writings, and video compositions of songs, dances, or skits. Winners are selected by a council of judges made up of local artists, writers, and community leaders. Many generous businesses also donate prizes for winners from each age group and category.
This year we want you to show us “How has the river helped you during this time of isolation?”
All entries are due by Thursday April 22nd