The Fall Studio Tour Preview Exhibition opens in the Kokol Gallery, in Toe River Arts’ Spruce Pine location at 269 Oak Ave, October 29 and runs through the end December 2022.  This exhibition gives visitors an opportunity to have a glimpse into each studio and plan their route. It’s also a great place to begin the tour or take a break from a day of non-stop art and artists.

There’s something breathtaking and awe-inspiring about driving through the mountains of western North Carolina in the Fall.  The way the trees show off by turning vibrant shades of red, yellow, and orange before leaving bare branches to the crisp winds and snowy days of winter, reminds us that nature herself is the original artist.

For more than a quarter century, the Toe River Arts Studio Tour has intrigued those who make the journey to visit places of inspiration and creation. Situated between Roan Mountain which boasts the world’s largest rhododendron garden and Mt. Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi, the Toe River Arts Studio Tour is a free, self-guided journey of the arts. This arts adventure through Mitchell and Yancey Counties will take visitors along the meandering Toe River, across its many bridges, around barns, acres of fields and miles of forests all while visiting the 83 talented studio artists who often take inspiration from the mountains they call home and 8 galleries featuring local and international art.

It doesn’t matter if you live up the hill or across the state. The Studio Tour provides an adventure for the intrepid seeker of the art experience. Artist studios come in many iterations—the building off to the side of the house, or across the field or down the road or right off the main road or down a gravel one-lane. Two-stories with a gallery space or small and cozy with a table set up or cleared off for display. Still there are others that devote a corner to each artist sharing the space. Wherever and however they are set up, the studios are exciting places to visit because they demonstrate the dynamic process used to create a finished piece. Every artist has their own way of telling a story, inviting visitors to ask questions, hold their work, and share a moment.

The art is as diverse as the artists who create it and features the work of glassblowers, jewelers, printmakers, potters, fiber artists, ironworkers, painters, sculptors, and woodworkers.

Collage paintings, assemblages, textiles, & faux artifacts designed by Jean Hess to explore the 1920 WV mining labor dispute as metaphor for the human condition.

Three rooms are filled with an eclectic mix of collage paintings ranging in scale from 6×6” to 50×70”; 3-D assemblages and faux artifacts; hand-stitched textiles; documentation in the form of historic notes, catalog entries for a collection of ephemera, photographs.
Call 828-273-3332 for weekend hours or to make an appointment. Exhibits through November 30, 2022.
Flood Gallery Fine Art Center is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization, and educates, encourages, challenges and inspires the community through music, film, literary, and contemporary art.

“Matewan as Metaphor” is an experiment in artistic license. Mixed-media artist Jean Hess creates a personal story by combining real and imagined resources with the intention of healing her own memory and transcending limits on what is possible and allowed in creative and scholarly endeavors as well as in visual art. The 1920 mining labor dispute in Matewan, West Virginia, which involved her own family, stands for a full life and its adversities.

Matewan was, in 1920, the scene of an armed skirmish between coal miners, mining companies, local union officials and hired strike-breakers. Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency thugs hired by the coal operators traveled by train to cast striking miners and their families out of their homes. The local mayor and several Baldwin-Felts agents were killed. The chief of police, the Matewan mayor, and several other locals gathered at the train station to confront the hired guns about the unlawful evictions. The Baldwin-Felts agents refused to recognize the local authority, and a shootout ensued. The mayor, some miners, and several detectives were killed. This was one of many violent conflicts that took place in Southern WV between pro-union miners and men hired by coal companies to use force and intimidation to prevent miners from unionizing.

Jean Hess takes serious training in cultural anthropology and visual art to playful levels. Her mixed-media paintings and constructions come from personal memory and nostalgia, ancestral ties and historical fact. Mining illustrations and maps signify coal mining in early twentieth century Appalachia, as well as issues concerning extractive industries, population displacement, exploitative labor practices, suffering and loss. Using collage, paint, layered resins and found ephemera Hess experiments with myriad ways one can obfuscate, surprise and entice. Found imagery is from geography and history textbooks from the early 1900’s and before. Dimensional objects are from her family or found in junk shops over time. Much of her material may be deconstructed, obscured, scrambled or carefully embellished.
Jean Hess’ multi-variant creative output segues with an equally unpredictable life. She has lived in Washington, DC, Baltimore, Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Abiquiu, New Mexico as well as Atlanta, Dallas and now Knoxville, Tennessee. Her work-for-pay background includes stints as a computer programmer, Montessori teacher, museum registrar, writer and research consultant for government and private industry. With degrees [BA, MA] in cultural anthropology she tends to draw inspiration from wide-ranging interests, and not always according to established rules.

Hess is well-known for experimental mixed-media collage paintings and assemblages that combine the skillful use of layered paint and resins, light refraction and found materials such as antique ephemera and pressed plants. Because her palette, surface and touch are consistent, one can always tell a work of art is hers. And yet Hess likes surprises, plays with materials that are sometimes unfamiliar, operates in a controlled-experiment spirit and likes accidental detours that energize her work. While she took some undergraduate art courses she is largely self-taught.

Public collections include: Huntsville Museum of Art; Evansville Museum of Art, History and Science; Knoxville Museum of Art; University of Virginia; Farm Credit Administration; Knoxville Convention Center; City of Chattanooga; St. Mary’s Hospital Heart Institute [IN]; Canon USA.

Jean Hess is proud that much of her work is in private collections, cared for by sympathetic individuals.

Capacity is limited.
Tasting room by reservation only. Make reservations in-person on the day of your Winery visit.

To participate in this activity, guest must have a daytime ticket, a Biltmore Annual Pass, or a stay at one of the estate’s splendid overnight properties.

Reservations are required for all wine tastings and must be made on the day of your visit. Because our complimentary wine tastings fill up quickly, we recommend you reserve your tasting when you arrive for your visit.

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

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

Stop by to enjoy a meal and watch the premiere screening of the documentary “Stewards of Sky Island” with producer Caleb Owolabi! A portion of proceeds from the weekend sales will be donated to Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy.

Earlier this year, Caleb and his crew joined SAHC’s Roan Stewardship team in the Highlands of Roan to learn about biodiversity in these globally important ecosystems, and how overuse in some areas is jeopardizing this special place. Education can help reduce recreational use impacts in fragile ecosystems. Explore the world of these unique ‘sky islands’ and be part of the effort to “Enjoy Don’t Destroy.”

This 45-minute documentary will show on repeat throughout the weekend fundraiser, with members of the production team visiting intermittently and additional info about SAHC available.

In order for your purchase to count towards the fundraiser, download or print a copy of the poster below from Blaze Pizza and show it when you order. For phone or online orders, be sure to INCLUDE CODE 1351A.

Wednesday through Monday from 11am to 6pm

Rebel/Re-Belle: Exploring Gender, Agency, and Identity | Selections from the Asheville Art Museum and Rubell Museum combines works, primarily created by women, from two significant collections of contemporary art to explore how artists have innovated, influenced, interrogated, and inspired visual culture in the past 100 years.

ASAP (Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project) has been creating connections between our region’s farmers, restaurants, and community for more than 20 years. We are celebrating the milestone anniversary of the organization and the end of the harvest season by coming together at the table to share an Appalachian Grown dinner. Join us for a one-of-a-kind meal prepared by some of the area’s best chefs, all sourced from local farms!

5 p.m. – cocktail hour and farmer chat
6:30-8:30 p.m. – dinner

Featuring chefs Melinda Aponte (YWCA), Kelsianne Bebout (BeeBowBakes), Matt Caudle (Cúrate), William Dissen (The Market Place), Luis Martinez (Tequio Foods), Eric Morris (Cultura), and Jen Pearson (Guadalupe Cafe)

.

– ALL AGES
– PATIO SEATING IS FIRST COME FIRST SERVED

THE BLACK TWIG PICKERS
The Black Twig Pickers are a group defined by their forward thinking approach to a type of music most often associated with times gone by. Over the course of eight full-length records, including collaborative releases with Jack Rose and Charlie Parr, a split LP with Glenn Jones, and numerous EPs and singles, the group has established itself as a collection of dedicated practioners of old time music re-cast and shaped by their appreciation of modern improvisation, drone, and punk. While not at odds with the experimental scene that has fostered them or the old time circles they travel in, The Black Twig Pickers thrive in the in-betweenness of those two worlds, proving that the exploration of the outmost bounds of sound and the exploration of decades old tradition and community aren’t as different as one might think.

Rough Carpenters, which was recorded in the same two-day session as 2012’s Whompyjawed EP, can be seen as an inward-gazing foil to that EP’s long-form hoedown epics. With the addition of Sally Anne Morgan on fiddle to the trio of Mike Gangloff, Isak Howell, and Nathan Bowles, dance has become a more prominent part of the group’s formula. It wasn’t until Morgan joined the band that the band actually began to dance onstage. Also, on this album the group strays a bit farther outside their intensely local Southwest Virginia tradition than earlier records, incorporating a few more tunes with origins in Kentucky (“Banks of the Arkansas”) and West Virginia (“Little Rose”). The group’s repertoire is constantly growing as they turn to first-person sources, older musicians that were brought up in the old time scene and in some cases the children and families of deceased respected practitioners, and unreleased archival recordings passed among musicians. And while local and regional history is ever present in the music The Black Twig Pickers play, they turn songs that are many decades old into living artifacts, released from the restrictions of era by the personal convictions of the musicians.

This spirit of ecstatic abandon is conveyed through the percussive elements of The Black Twig Pickers’ music and more importantly, through a spontaneity and an unrehearsedness the band wears as a badge of pride. As Gangloff explains, “It’s not the melody, it’s the moss.” The sharp twang of the banjo, a spontaneous holler, a foot stomping along in time, and other seemingly incidental sounds become all important. Like the band’s previous Thrill Jockey full-length Ironto Special, Rough Carpenters was recorded with absolutely no overdubs and in as few takes as possible. The Black Twig Pickers are indeed rough carpenters, building unpolished but finely crafted records that embody the spirit of a timeless old-time scene.

Isak Howell — guitar, mouth harp, vocals Mike Gangloff — fiddle, banjo, vocals Nathan Bowles — banjo, washboard, bones, fiddlesticks, banjosticks, vocals Sally Anne Morgan — fiddle, hambone, vocals With Joseph Dejarnette — bass and vocals

Join artists, staff, and the volunteers who make the tour the best and one of the longest continually running self-guided tours in the country, as we toast the completion of another great year in the Toe River Arts Region of Western North Carolina.

John Bullard uses the metaphor of the hero’s journey to tell his own story and to introduce a captivating program of classical music on the banjo. In this interactive program John engages the audience and invites them to reflect on their own hero’s journey in life and in music.

Come enjoy an evening of live music, food and drinks at Isis Music Hall.  Advanced Reservations are highly recommended.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor released a string of albums from 1997-2002 widely recognized as redefining what protest music can be, where longform instrumental chamber rock compositions of immense feeling and power serve as soundtracks to late capitalist alienation and resistance. The band’s first four releases—especially  F#A#∞ (1997) and Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven (2000)—are variously regarded as classics of the era and genre. Godspeed’s legendary live performances, featuring multiple 16mm projectors beaming a collage of overlapping analog film loops and reels—along with the distinctive iconography, imagery and tactility of the band’s album artwork and physical LP packages— further defines the sui generis aesthetic substance, ethos and mythos of this group. GY!BE has issued two official band photos in its 25-year existence (the second, left, a 2010 recreation of the first from 1997) and has done a half-dozen collectively-answered written interviews over that same span. The band has never had a website or social media accounts. It has never made a video. Few rock bands in our 21st century have been as steadfast in trying to let the work speak for itself and maintaining simple rules about minimising participation in cultures of personality, exposure, access, commodification or co-optation.

Following a seven-year hiatus that began in 2003, Godspeed returned to the stage in December 2010 (curating the UK festival All Tomorrow’s Parties) and the band’s post-reunion period has now lasted over a decade, marked by hundreds of sold-out live shows and three additional albums, all of which have been met with high acclaim.

Led by songwriters Isaac Horn and Lincoln Mick, Nashville-based acoustic quartet The Arcadian Wild confidently inhabits and explores an intersection of genre, blending the traditional with the contemporary in order to create a unique acoustic sound that is simultaneously unified and diverse. Combining elements of progressive bluegrass, folk, and formal vocal music, The Arcadian Wild offer up songs of invitation; calls to come
and see, to find refuge and rest, or to journey and wonder.

OH JEREMIAH

Mississippi and Alabama got married and moved to Georgia to make music. Husband and wife team, Jeremiah and Erin Stricklin go by the moniker Oh Jeremiah to help them turn their talent and formal training into timeless stories set to the tune of life. The couple blends their folk and acoustic roots with indie-pop and americana threads that have led to several eye-catching and quirky music videos. Oh Jeremiah travels the country in the footsteps of greats like Paul Simon and Bob Dylan, adding their voices and melodies to the American tradition of musical storytelling. Their sophomore album Joymonger is available now

Reserved Seat Tickets are available with Dinner reservations – You must call the venue at 828-575-2737 to make dinner reservations and secure those tickets.

General Admission Tickets are available for the main stage balcony only. Seating in the balcony is first come, first serve. Dinner service is NOT currently being offered for general admission tickets.; drink service is available at the downstairs bar on the main floor.

You must call the venue at 828-575-2737 for Reserve Seat Tickets and to make dinner reservations.
Pease Leave us a message with your daytime phone number and the # in your party, your call will be returned in the order it was received.

All ticket sales are final.

Reserved Seat Tickets are available with Dinner reservations – You must call the venue at 828-575-2737 to make dinner reservations and secure those tickets.

General Admission Tickets are available for the main stage balcony only. Seating in the balcony is first come, first serve. Dinner service is NOT currently being offered for general admission tickets.; drink service is available at the downstairs bar on the main floor.

You must call the venue at 828-575-2737 for Reserve Seat Tickets and to make dinner reservations.
Pease Leave us a message with your daytime phone number and the # in your party, your call will be returned in the order it was received.

All ticket sales are final.

Join us for the closing reception of The Sun Touches Everything, a collection of 18 artists from around the United States and Canada.

Ext The market will be open to the public from 10
am – 4 pm each day with no cost for attendance. The employees’ work, as well as Rite of Passage
garments, will be available for purchase.
The Sew Co. team is made up of talented makers across a multitude of creative disciplines. In
celebration of this talent and the fast-approaching holiday season, the Makers Market will feature
the work of 10+ team members with varying products including hand-knit hats, paintings +
prints, vintage upcycling, home goods, leather bags + wallets, and much more.
Rite of Passage’s newly released Fall Collection will also be on display. Come try on clothes and
enjoy hot apple cider and light refreshments in the open-air gallery while browsing handmade
goods and chatting with the Sew Co. team!

———-
Sew Co is a full-service cut and sew manufacturer of sewn objects with socially responsible and
unconventional business concepts. In the midst of thousands of textile jobs moving overseas,
Sew Co. was founded in 2010 as an effort to preserve the skill of sewing and our domestic
manufacturing economy.
RITE OF PASSAGE is a slow fashion label inspired by the darker, delicate details found in
nature. Designer Giovanni Daina-Palermo and entrepreneur Libby O’Bryan, two friends,
professional pattern makers, and conceptual artists founded the brand in 2018.

We’re very excited to be presenting our fall line-up of area artists for the
FALL TOE RIVER ARTS STUDIO TOUR!!
We’ve almost finalized all the details and think this will be the best tour ever!  So, get ready to:

TFAC invites all artists: painters, sculptors, writers, performers & more — to a casual weekly drop-in gathering on Saturday mornings at 9 AM to share your works in progress, alert others, and chat about art and what’s happening in your community. The first weekly Coffee is Saturday, August 20 at 9 am. No RSVP needed, just drop by! Free parking available on Melrose Avenue, behind and alongside TFAC.

The Fall Studio Tour Preview Exhibition opens in the Kokol Gallery, in Toe River Arts’ Spruce Pine location at 269 Oak Ave, October 29 and runs through the end December 2022.  This exhibition gives visitors an opportunity to have a glimpse into each studio and plan their route. It’s also a great place to begin the tour or take a break from a day of non-stop art and artists.

There’s something breathtaking and awe-inspiring about driving through the mountains of western North Carolina in the Fall.  The way the trees show off by turning vibrant shades of red, yellow, and orange before leaving bare branches to the crisp winds and snowy days of winter, reminds us that nature herself is the original artist.

For more than a quarter century, the Toe River Arts Studio Tour has intrigued those who make the journey to visit places of inspiration and creation. Situated between Roan Mountain which boasts the world’s largest rhododendron garden and Mt. Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi, the Toe River Arts Studio Tour is a free, self-guided journey of the arts. This arts adventure through Mitchell and Yancey Counties will take visitors along the meandering Toe River, across its many bridges, around barns, acres of fields and miles of forests all while visiting the 83 talented studio artists who often take inspiration from the mountains they call home and 8 galleries featuring local and international art.

It doesn’t matter if you live up the hill or across the state. The Studio Tour provides an adventure for the intrepid seeker of the art experience. Artist studios come in many iterations—the building off to the side of the house, or across the field or down the road or right off the main road or down a gravel one-lane. Two-stories with a gallery space or small and cozy with a table set up or cleared off for display. Still there are others that devote a corner to each artist sharing the space. Wherever and however they are set up, the studios are exciting places to visit because they demonstrate the dynamic process used to create a finished piece. Every artist has their own way of telling a story, inviting visitors to ask questions, hold their work, and share a moment.

The art is as diverse as the artists who create it and features the work of glassblowers, jewelers, printmakers, potters, fiber artists, ironworkers, painters, sculptors, and woodworkers.

Collage paintings, assemblages, textiles, & faux artifacts designed by Jean Hess to explore the 1920 WV mining labor dispute as metaphor for the human condition.

Three rooms are filled with an eclectic mix of collage paintings ranging in scale from 6×6” to 50×70”; 3-D assemblages and faux artifacts; hand-stitched textiles; documentation in the form of historic notes, catalog entries for a collection of ephemera, photographs.
Call 828-273-3332 for weekend hours or to make an appointment. Exhibits through November 30, 2022.
Flood Gallery Fine Art Center is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization, and educates, encourages, challenges and inspires the community through music, film, literary, and contemporary art.

“Matewan as Metaphor” is an experiment in artistic license. Mixed-media artist Jean Hess creates a personal story by combining real and imagined resources with the intention of healing her own memory and transcending limits on what is possible and allowed in creative and scholarly endeavors as well as in visual art. The 1920 mining labor dispute in Matewan, West Virginia, which involved her own family, stands for a full life and its adversities.

Matewan was, in 1920, the scene of an armed skirmish between coal miners, mining companies, local union officials and hired strike-breakers. Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency thugs hired by the coal operators traveled by train to cast striking miners and their families out of their homes. The local mayor and several Baldwin-Felts agents were killed. The chief of police, the Matewan mayor, and several other locals gathered at the train station to confront the hired guns about the unlawful evictions. The Baldwin-Felts agents refused to recognize the local authority, and a shootout ensued. The mayor, some miners, and several detectives were killed. This was one of many violent conflicts that took place in Southern WV between pro-union miners and men hired by coal companies to use force and intimidation to prevent miners from unionizing.

Jean Hess takes serious training in cultural anthropology and visual art to playful levels. Her mixed-media paintings and constructions come from personal memory and nostalgia, ancestral ties and historical fact. Mining illustrations and maps signify coal mining in early twentieth century Appalachia, as well as issues concerning extractive industries, population displacement, exploitative labor practices, suffering and loss. Using collage, paint, layered resins and found ephemera Hess experiments with myriad ways one can obfuscate, surprise and entice. Found imagery is from geography and history textbooks from the early 1900’s and before. Dimensional objects are from her family or found in junk shops over time. Much of her material may be deconstructed, obscured, scrambled or carefully embellished.
Jean Hess’ multi-variant creative output segues with an equally unpredictable life. She has lived in Washington, DC, Baltimore, Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Abiquiu, New Mexico as well as Atlanta, Dallas and now Knoxville, Tennessee. Her work-for-pay background includes stints as a computer programmer, Montessori teacher, museum registrar, writer and research consultant for government and private industry. With degrees [BA, MA] in cultural anthropology she tends to draw inspiration from wide-ranging interests, and not always according to established rules.

Hess is well-known for experimental mixed-media collage paintings and assemblages that combine the skillful use of layered paint and resins, light refraction and found materials such as antique ephemera and pressed plants. Because her palette, surface and touch are consistent, one can always tell a work of art is hers. And yet Hess likes surprises, plays with materials that are sometimes unfamiliar, operates in a controlled-experiment spirit and likes accidental detours that energize her work. While she took some undergraduate art courses she is largely self-taught.

Public collections include: Huntsville Museum of Art; Evansville Museum of Art, History and Science; Knoxville Museum of Art; University of Virginia; Farm Credit Administration; Knoxville Convention Center; City of Chattanooga; St. Mary’s Hospital Heart Institute [IN]; Canon USA.

Jean Hess is proud that much of her work is in private collections, cared for by sympathetic individuals.

Why should October have all the fun? It’s time to usher out the last of Autumn at our long-awaited 4th Annual Sausage Festival! A celebration of all thing’s sausage- sausage sales, sausage samples, sausage for sale off the grill, as well as hog butchery and sausage making demos brought to you by our butchery team.

WNC’s own Mountain Top Polka Band will be playing some high-octane Polka music to get your toes tapping! Since 2009, MTP has performed hundreds of events in six states around the south and southeast US, these guys are as entertaining as they are musically talented.

Family friendly games for fun and prizes, our now traditional Adults-Only-Musical Chairs Competition and both a kids and adults Costume Contest (think dirndl, lederhosen, Weiner-suit, get creative) with grand prizes of local food and activities! Local artist @FacePaintingAsheville will be there to paint faces and spread joy.

Food will be available for purchase during the event. Our crew will fire up the grill to serve up Pasture Raised Pork Sausages and Grassfed Beef Hot Dogs. Our favorite Kraut and Pickles repped by Fermenti Foods, a variety of mustards by Asheville’s own Lusty Monk Mustard, and of course Blunt Pretzels.

Can’t have sausages and pretzels without beer! We’ll be serving local beers, ciders, seltzers and non-alcoholic beverages to slake your thirst between Polkas, with a local brewery helping pour some serious pitcher specials of local suds.

A NOTE ABOUT SEATING: Our Big Barn has an official capacity of over 200- we do not have a seat for every single attendee but there will be picnic tables, cafe tables and benches available first come first serve. With this in mind, please feel free to bring picnic blankets or camp chairs. Tag!

PET POLICY: While we normally allow leashed pets on the grounds, we ask you leave your furry friends at home for this event.

Capacity is limited.
Tasting room by reservation only. Make reservations in-person on the day of your Winery visit.

To participate in this activity, guest must have a daytime ticket, a Biltmore Annual Pass, or a stay at one of the estate’s splendid overnight properties.

Reservations are required for all wine tastings and must be made on the day of your visit. Because our complimentary wine tastings fill up quickly, we recommend you reserve your tasting when you arrive for your visit.

Ruth Asawa, Untitled (S.372), circa 1954, iron wire, 34 ½ × 24 × 24 inches. Black Mountain College Collection, gift of Lorna Blaine Halper, 2007.27.09.33. © Estate of Ruth Asawa / Artist Rights Society (ARS), NY, image David Dietrich.

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

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