Calendar of Events

Give us 2-4 hours. Enjoy a day of music and memories — and the knowledge that you helped to bring a community together! You’ll also get a little swag: a 11th Annual Festival Tee Shirt, snacks, a drink ticket, and our new Blue Ridge Pride Center buttons and stickers. Volunteer roles include: setup and breakdown, selling wristbands, beverages or merchandise, and assisting with volunteer check-in or VIP. Learn more and sign up here.

We’re offering three progressive levels of classes, Basic Improv, Beyond Basic, and The Performance Lab. There’s room for everyone in these classes, no matter your experience level!

DISOUNT TICKET DEADLINE EXTENDED *
Now Closing September 2nd @ 11:59 PM EST*
*Or until the number of tickets at this tier is reached, whichever comes first.

Visit Web Site for details.

Buncombe County is excited to announce applications are open for nonprofits looking for a cash infusion. For the fourth year, Tipping Point Grants are seeking proposals from nonprofit organizations working to help support County Commissioners’ six strategic priorities:

• Affordable housing
• Clean, renewable energy
• Diverse community workforce
• Early childhood education
• Justice resource support
• Opioid awareness

All projects must be a part of a Buncombe County-based nonprofit with 501c3 or a similar charitable IRS tax exempt designation. All individual innovators must be in partnership with a nonprofit agency.

Ready to apply for a Tipping Point Grant?

Official Tipping Point Grant applications are required. You may apply online here, or you can pick up hard copy applications at the Community Engagement office at 199 College St., right next door to the Register of Deeds’ office from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Please contact the office to make sure someone is there to provide you with an application. The deadline for submitting a grant is on Friday, Aug. 30, 2019 by 5 p.m.

Optional grant writing workshops will be hosted by Buncombe County on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2019, 3-5 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 15 and Friday, Aug. 16 from 5-7:30 p.m. Workshops will be held on the ground floor of 200 College St.

These are free sessions and open to anyone. Applicants will be able to get support on proposal writing and will be able to leave the workshop with an application ready to go and/or submitted. If you have any questions, contact Rasheeda McDaniels at (828) 250-4102.

For complete information about Tipping Point Grants, visit BuncombeCounty.org/Grants.

Homework Diners take place weekly (except on school holidays or early release days). Families are invited to the cafeteria of the middle school during the scheduled time each week. No pre-registration is required to attend. Homework Diners currently take place at four area middle schools: Asheville, Enka, Erwin and Owen Middle. All are open to any family with a K-12 student in the surrounding school district with an adult family member in attendance with the participating student.

The 2019-20 Homework Diner schedule:

• Erwin Middle on Monday nights starting September 23, 2019 from 5:30-7:00 p.m.
• Asheville Middle on Tuesday nights starting September 24, 2019 from 5-7:00 p.m.
• Enka Middle on Tuesday nights starting September 24, 2019 from 5:30-7:00 p.m.
• Owen Middle on Thursday nights starting September 26, 2019 from 5:30-7:00 p.m.

The first 25 to register receive 10% off! Use code: EarlyBird

Momentum Gallery in downtown Asheville hosts new summer exhibitions – Mariella Bisson, Setting Shapes; Oil paintings by two new painters: Samantha Keely Smith and Paul Sattler; and a group invitational called Give Me Wood. These exhibitions continue at 24 N Lexington Avenue through the end of August.

Mariella Bisson deftly delineates the sculptural planes of regional waterfalls and sylvan scenes creating refreshingly contemporary landscape paintings. Her oil-over-collage paintings feature built-up texture, suggesting the complex surface of stone and tree bark, lichen, and moss. Bisson’s paintings demonstrate a strong understanding of formal composition and reflect a sensibility honed from time she’s spent immersed in the outdoors. Of note, Bisson is a two-time recipient of the Pollock-Krasner grant and was awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in painting.

Samantha Keely Smith creates inspired and stirring abstract paintings in oil. The Brooklyn-based artist sees her paintings “as an expression of our internal turbulence. They reflect the overwhelming reality of being constantly aware of what is happening in the wider world – Change is the only constant.” Smith’s nebulous compositions are evocative of luminous cloudscapes and primordial oceans. Brilliant areas of stained pigment collide with waves of painterly brush strokes ultimately conjuring imagined environments with a timeless quality. “These paintings are about the essence of who we all are, as human beings… We all want love and connection.” Smith’s works give form to fluctuations between turbulence and calm present in everything from our emotions to the temporal world. Overall, Smith’s focus is on the underlying psychological impact of the dawning awareness of our shifting reality.

An accomplished oil painter, Paul Sattler was the recipient of the John R. Solomon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. In 2004, he was selected to exhibit at the 179th Annual Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary Art at the National Academy of Design in New York, where he received the Wallace Truman Prize. Dramatic narratives unfold in his charged and enigmatic oil paintings which reference historic and literary sources. Sattler comments, “A diverse population of animals are enmeshed in my works’ human-inhabited environments, theatrical locales, and domestic dramas.”

Give Me Wood is an imaginative and evocative collection of contemporary painting and wood sculpture. Central to the identity and creation of all the extraordinary two- and three-dimensional works in the exhibition is the common material of wood. The participating artists defy logic, explore space (both real and imagined), carve, bend, turn, and otherwise construct some truly amazing and innovative work! Featuring Michael Alm, Garry Knox Bennett, Gil Bruvel, Christian Burchard, Tom Eckert, David Ellsworth, Ron Layport, Wendy Maruyama, and Sylvie Rosenthal.

This urban scavenger hunt will take teams of four around the downtown area via a series of clues to sixteen different locations where they will be required to complete a task before receiving their next clue.  Two volunteers will staff each secret location, checking teams in and out, throughout the day. Contact [email protected] directly if you are interested in assisting with this event or sign up by CLICKING HERE.

In this class, students will learn a variety of acting techniques with a focus on character development and relationships, deciding what your character wants and how you are going to achieve it, and making choices in scenes to fully develop the scene with specific blocking and movement. Students will work on scenes and monologues from a variety of popular youth plays and musicals, including Charlotte’s Web, Peter Pan, Into the Woods, The Secret Garden, and Beauty and the Beast, taking them from auditions to performance. They will also write their own original, creative scenes to perform in a final showcase during the last class.

Class Schedule:

Classes: September 7​ –​November 9, 2019: Saturdays from 1​1​:00 am-1​2​:00 ​pm
Final Showcase: Saturday, ​November 16, 2019 at 11:​0​0 am (combined with improv)
Cost: $150

Hot Works 4^th Asheville Fine Art Show, October 26 & 27, 2019 takes place in Pack Square Park, downtown Asheville. This art show is juried by art professionals and brings artists to sell his/her art in all discipline including paintings, sculpture, clay, glass, fiber, jewelry, wood and more. All art is original and personally handmade by the artist who is present at the show. There is something for everyone, in all price ranges. You will see many artists at this show who do not attend other shows in North Carolina or South Carolina.

As part of our commitment to bring art education into the community, a Youth Art Competition for grades K-8 or ages 5-13 is integrated within a 10×20 space at the Asheville Fine Art Show. Sponsored by Institute for the Arts & Education, the associated 501c3 non-profit organization, all students in grades K-8 or ages 5-13 are encouraged to enter his/her original and personally handmade art that will be publicly displayed in the art show the entire weekend. On Sunday, October 27 at 3pm, there is $250 in youth art awards presented. Students are exposed to the rules and entrepreneurship opportunity of doing art shows for a living. The program brings families to the art show and exposes them to great art.

This class will include instruction on improv skills, including character development, connecting in scenes, “Yes and…” acceptance technique, and building the beginning, middle, and end of a scene. We will play a variety of fun and interactive improv games, including Freeze, Murder Mystery, Props, Styles, ABC game, Changing Channels, Survivor, and Slide Show. Some of the games will be similar to the show, Whose Line it Anyway? The last class will be open for parents to watch a mini improv show to demonstrate the games and skills learned during each class. This class is open to all levels of improv from beginning to advanced.

Class Schedule:

Classes: September 7​ –​November 9, 2019: Saturdays from 10:00-11:00 am
Final Showcase: Saturday, ​November 16, 2019 at 11:​0​0 am (combined with acting)
Cost: $150

Registration is now open for the next session of indoor youth tennis classes starting September 3rd at Hendersonville Racquet Club.  Kids are put in groups based on age and ability with seven levels available.  The session is six weeks long and is $79 for members or $99 for non-members for one class a week or $129/$149 for two classes a week plus a play day at the end of the session.  Each player also gets a half hour one-on-one session with one of our certified pros.

The format for this session is having classes once or twice a week for six weeks. Then the session concludes with a fun L6 Play Day where they can get match experience.  All classes are taught by certified tennis professionals and will be held on HRC’s outdoor or indoor courts.