Calendar of Events

No Appointment Necessary – Pfizer, Moderna and J&J Vaccines Available

Mobile clinic located behind Sportsman’s Warehouse.

FEMA’s mobile vaccine center will be based at the Asheville Outlets at 800 Brevard Road. The stationary vaccine center can administer up to 250 vaccines each day. First and second doses, as well as booster vaccines will be provided. As the more contagious Delta variant drives increases in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, more help is on the way for Western North Carolina. FEMA is sending a mobile community vaccine center to Buncombe County this week in partnership with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), Local Health Departments, and the Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC). Residents do not need an appointment in advance, and all three approved vaccines will be available. All three have all proven safe and effective against COVID-19 illness and its complications. More than 335 million doses of Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson and Johnson vaccines have been administered across the U.S. since December 2020.

A new partnership from Buncombe County and the City of Asheville aims to help reduce greenhouse gases and organic matter in the landfill by offering residents a place to drop off compostable matter. Starting Oct. 4, County residents can drop off food scraps and other compostable materials at the Buncombe County Landfill Convenience Center to be recycled into compost. The City of Asheville is operating a drop-off location at Stephens-Lee Recreation Center that also opens to the public on Oct. 4. Read more about that initiative here.

Organic waste in landfills generates methane, a potent greenhouse gas. By composting wasted food and other organics, methane emissions may be significantly reduced. For residents who are interested in composting but worry about bears or finding the space for backyard composting Buncombe County is proud to partner with the City of Asheville and Food Waste Solutions to open two compost drop-off locations for County residents.

In alignment with the Buncombe County Strategic Plan goals, the Landfill compost drop-off center is part of a pilot program designed to assess interest and engagement for food waste diversion and composting in Buncombe County.

How the compost drop-off works

• Collect compostable materials at home and make sure to remove all produce stickers, rubber bands, wrappers, ties, bags, and plastics.
• To collect materials use a compost pail, bucket, paper bags, or other certified compostable bag.
• At the landfill scalehouse let us know you would like to drop off your compostable materials and staff will direct you to the drop-off location.
• Empty food scraps and compostable waste into the cart on-site.
• Close and secure lid when finished.
• Do not overfill.

The City of Asheville will accept proposals from government agencies and nonprofits for community projects funded through the American Rescue Plan. At their September 14 meeting, Asheville City Council voted to fund projects in the following categories: Affordable housing Care for aging residents City infrastructure Climate change Community communication Domestic violence prevention and assistance Food systems Homelessness services Small business recovery Workforce development Projects must serve City residents and fall under one of the categories above. For more information, including the timeline for the process

With the convenience of being open year-round, 7 days a week, the WNC Farmers Market offers a selection of farm-fresh produce at the lowest prices in Western N.C. Our popular retail buildings, providing a selection of non-perishables, fruits, vegetables, crafts and more, are open daily.

Artist Michael Fowler creates evocative abstract landscape paintings by incorporating vibrant colors with subtle, complex details. His semi-large-scale approach invites viewers to step into his work and build a sense of wonder and contemplation surrounding the natural world. Fowler’s artistic response in contemplating nature is to capture something of a landscape’s pleasantness, which is often unexpected harmonies of color and shape. In his latest exhibit, Arbor Huescapes, Fowler highlights the distinctive vegetation – primarily trees – and topography of North and South Carolina’s midlands and piedmont regions.

Fowler received his Bachelor of Arts from Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas with a focus in Advertising Design. He then attended the University of Nebraska where he received a Master’s degree in Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing with a minor in Art History. From there, he attended the University of Memphis where he earned a Doctorate in Higher Education. Based in North Augusta, South Carolina, Fowler is currently an associate professor of design and computer graphics and serves as the Mary Durban Toole Chair of Art at the University of South Carolina in Aiken. His paintings are in a number of public and private collections nationally, and he actively exhibits in regional and national shows.

Please note: Arbor Huescapes has been rescheduled due to the COVID-19 crisis and will now open in fall 2021. The exhibit is on display daily September 18, 2021 – January 9, 2022, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. inside the Baker Exhibit Center. All works are available for purchase and a portion of sales will be donated to The North Carolina Arboretum Society.

To answer your gardening questions, Extension Master Gardener Volunteers of Buncombe County are working from home to keep the Garden Helpline operational. For the month of October, they are available to respond to voicemails and emails on Fridays only. Send an email or leave a voice message at any time, and a Master Gardener will respond to you the following Friday. When emailing, please include a photo, it helps describe your garden question.

Today in Western North Carolina, 1 in 6 people and 1 in 4 children faces an empty bowl.
But you can help fill those bowls at MANNA FoodBank’s 20th Annual Empty Bowls. We invite you to join us for this remarkable milestone, where we will celebrate twenty years of community, art, and collaboration while bringing awareness to the very real problem of hunger in Western North Carolina. Read more about this historic milestone year HERE. 

Guests select a bowl handmade by local artisans and take with them (in a to-go format for 2021) a seasonal meal of delicious soups, breads, and dessert. The souvenir bowl guests take home reminds them of the many WNC families that are currently struggling to afford groceries. 

Almost every part of the event is donated, including the event space, food, and local pottery and art. This allows MANNA to use event proceeds for our food distribution and nutrition programs, which serve the more than 100,000 food insecure households across our 16-county service area. Every dollar raised can help provide food for 4 meals. Since 2002, the collection generosity of our Empty Bowls guests, potters, sponsors, culinary partners, and everyone who has ever had a hand in the event, has allowed MANNA to provide the equivalent of 2.8 MILLION MEALS across Western North Carolina. 

COLLECTOR’S CORNER 

In addition to the souvenir soup bowls that ticket-holders select, guests may purchase special works of high-end craft and art at the Collector’s Corner. Collector’s Corner items are gallery-quality pieces selected by the artists. 100% of the proceeds from Collector’s Corner sales go directly to supporting MANNA’s mission of ending hunger in WNC. 

TICKETS 

For 2021, MANNA will use a walk-through format for Empty Bowls. Guests choose a one-hour time window that best suits their schedule, then arrive at the DoubleTree during that time window to select their bowl, choose their soups, and pick up bread + dessert — all while masked and distanced when inside the DoubleTree. Guests can choose a one-hour time window any time between 10:00am and 6:00pm, and can arrive any time during their chosen one-hour window. (Limited curbside service will be available for those who wish to remain in their cars.) 

Adult Ticket: $40 (includes your choice of one souvenir pottery bowl handmade by a local artist, your choice of two soups packaged to go, and bread + dessert packaged to go) 

Human Kids Add-on: $10 (includes one souvenir kid’s bowl pre-selected by MANNA, a package of ABC noodles, and a specially-created MANNA recipe to make Alphabet Soup at home) 

Fur Kids Add-on: $30 (guests choose a dog or cat package; includes one souvenir pottery pet bowl handmade by a local artist pre-selected by MANNA, yummy treats for your furry friend, and a custom pet tag recognizing that MANNA strives to fill every bowl in the house) 

Empty Bowls at Home Add-on: $30 (includes one souvenir pottery bowl handmade by a local artist pre-selected by MANNA, one package of Roots & Branches dried soup mix to make at home, soup and stew recipes from seven of WNC’s most beloved chefs, all packaged to go in a MANNA tote bag) 

“Shine and Dine” on the railway! We cordially invite you to hop on board The Carolina Shine, GSMR’s All-Adult First Class Moonshine Car! We will be proudly serving hand crafted, triple-distilled, craft moonshine. Some of the smoothest tasting moonshine in the Carolinas!

Offered on the Nantahala Gorge excursion, this shine and dine experience begins in a renovated First Class train fleet car, The Carolina Shine. The interior features copper lined walls filled with the history of moonshining in North Carolina. Learn about the proud tradition that the Appalachians established when bootlegging was an acceptable way of life and local home brews were the best in town. Read about Swain County’s very own Major Redmond, the most famous mountain moonshine outlaw of the 19th century.

Nancy Graves, Parable of Nostalgia from the Tango portfolio, 1991, intaglio on cotton rag paper, edition 12/26, publisher: Iris Editions, New York, image: 26 × 17 5/8 inches, sheet: 35 3/4 × 26 inches. Asheville Art Museum. © Nancy Graves Foundation, Inc. / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

A Dance of Images and Words: The Nancy Graves/Pedro Cuperman Tango Portfolio features a series of eight intaglio prints that depict plants and animals alongside eleven sheets of prose that explore the steps of the Argentinian dance, the tango. Organized by the Asheville Art Museum from the Museum’s Collection and curated by Hilary Schroeder, assistant curator, this exhibition will be on view in The Van Winkle Law Firm Gallery at the Museum from September 29, 2021 through January 10, 2022.

The common idiom “it takes two to tango” is immediately called into question in both the imagery and words of the Tango portfolio. The portfolio is an expression of artist Nancy Graves (Pittsfield, MA 1939–1995 New York, NY) writer Pedro Cuperman’s (1936–2016 Buenos Aires, Argentina) meditations on the dance. Their imagery and words become paired in an illustrated book though their explorations take different formats and directions. Both Graves and Cuperman look towards humankind and nature as a place where beings come together in the experience of living. This exhibition presents Graves’s eight prints alongside the portfolio frontispiece and a page of Cuperman’s text to immerse visitors in the collaborative dance of the tango.

Contemporary art, interdisciplinary research communities, and the inspiration of Appalachia converge in Rural Avant-Garde: The Mountain Lake Experience. This exhibition showcases a selection of collaborative creative works that emerged from nearly four decades of the Mountain Lake Workshop series, a program sited in rural southwestern Virginia.

Founded by artist and scholar Ray Kass in 1980 and co-organized with influential art critics Dr. Donald B. Kuspit and Dr. Howard Risatti, as well as the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA), the Mountain Lake Workshops integrated the arts and sciences in a dynamic experimental creative process that pushed past the traditional boundaries of art, dance, and performance.

Community-centered from its inception, the Mountain Lake Workshop demonstrated the relevance of the arts across disciplines, as well as social and participatory learning. This exhibition offers a focused look at art that investigated new conceptual limits, born of the region in southwestern Virginia, just a few hundred miles north of Asheville, NC. Works range from large-scale watercolors and photographic installation to relics of performances and other experimentations in artmaking.

Highlights include composer and conceptual artist John Cage’s New River Rocks and Washes(1990). A significant late-career work by Cage, this rarely exhibited watercolor extends nearly 30 feet in length, produced using methods of chance to trace stones gathered from the workshop’s natural surroundings.

This exhibition was organized by the Longwood Center for the Visual Arts at Longwood University. Generous funding was provided in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Artist Walter B. Stephen (Clinton, IA 1875–1961 Asheville, NC) contributed to Western North Carolina’s identity as a flourishing site for pottery production and craftsmanship in the early 20th century. Walter B. Stephen Pottery: Cameo to Crystalline features art pottery and functional vessels from each stage of Stephen’s career, from his origins discovering the medium alongside his mother Nellie C. Randall Stephen in Shelby County, TN from 1901 through 1910 to his multi-decade production just outside of Asheville. This exhibition will be on view in the Asheville Art Museum’s Debra McClinton Gallery July 28, 2021 through January 17, 2022.

In 1926, Stephen founded his third and last pottery studio, Pisgah Forest, in Arden, NC, which he operated until his death in 1961. It was at this studio that the artist perfected the “cameo” decoration technique for which he became best known. His hand-painted images, achieved with layers of white translucent clay, often feature American folk imagery, from covered wagons and livestock to cabins and spinning wheels. A selection of works from the Museum’s Collection showcase his innovation in form and in decorative surface details, including experimentation with crystalline glazing.

Join us for Animoday! Every Monday all day. Listen to anime music, play anime games, watch anime, and talk anime!

OAKS Afterschool Program
Pre-registration required. FREE for the 2021-2022 school year
September 7-December 17, 2021 | Monday-Friday | 2:30-5:30pm
An inclusive recreation program designed to support rising 1st5th graders and their families. OAKS will provide homework
assistance and opportunities to play through a variety of activities
and field trips. Participants will benefit from lower child to
staff ratios, continuation of scholastic goals (as applicable),
and individualized treatment plans (facilitated by LRT/CTRS
and program staff). Participants who cannot meet eligibility
requirements may attend with a 1:1 worker.
Location: Oakley

Pre-registration required. FREE for the 2021-2022 school year
August 23, 2021-June 3, 2022 | Monday-Friday | 2:45-6pm
K-6th graders.
Does your child enjoy having fun and making new friends? Offering
arts, crafts, special events, homework assistance and more!
Families currently enrolled in the school system’s reduced or free
meal program, please contact your recreation center for discount
fee information.
Locations: Burton, Grant, Montford, Shiloh, Stephens-Lee

Montford Pre-Teen Afterschool Program
Pre-registration required. FREE for the 2021-2022 school year
August 23, 2021 – June 3, 2022 | Monday-Friday | 3:30-6pm
5th-6th graders.
New program designed to meet the needs of your pre-teen.
Providing time dedicated to school assignments, life skills, arts,
communication, leadership, fitness, nutrition, and loads of fun.
Location: Montford

Teen Leadership Program
Pre-registration required. FREE for the 2021-2022 school year
August 23, 2021-June 3, 2022 | Monday-Friday | 3:30-6pm
6th-9th graders.
Looking for a cool and enriching alternative for your Teen to attend
this school year? We offer creative activities, diverse projects,
field trips, and more.
Locations: Grant, Shiloh, Stephens-Lee