The Hendersonville Triathlon presented by Hunter Subaru will take place at Patton Park in Hendersonville, NC! Patton Pool is operated by the YMCA of WNC in Hendersonville and Patton Park is operated by the City of Hendersonville. run5kThe bike and run will use portions of the Oklawaha Greenway.

Swim

The 400 meter pool swim takes place at Patton Pool in Hendersonville. The pool is an Olympic size, 50 meter lap pool with 8 lanes. Participants will have a time trial start with plenty of time between each swimmer and will be organized in wave starts according to their estimated 100 yard swim time. Swimmers will flow in one direction in the lane.

Bike

The 12.5 mile bike route rolls through the quiet and beautiful Oklahawa Greenway in the City of Hendersonville, exits the Greenway and flows along a ‘rolling’ course through Henderson County’s country roads. Cyclists will return to the park by way of the Greenway.

Run

The 5k run is FAST and for the most part-flat! The entire run is on the quiet, shaded and beautiful Oklahawa Greenway in the City of Hendersonville. The route is an out-and-back style course.

Not Enough O Negative Blood Available to Sustain Local Hospitals, Program to Help Victims of Uvalde Shooting Also Announced

The Blood Connection’s O negative blood supply has now reached a critical level. Because The Blood Connection (TBC) is the primary blood provider for hospitals in this region, the need for O negative blood donations is dire. The combination of already low supply, the approaching summer season, and sustained low donor turnout could result in an O negative blood shortage soon, which could disrupt patient care.

Last week, TBC was activated through the Blood Emergency Readiness Corps (BERC), to send O negative blood to South Texas after the devastating school shooting. The need for O negative blood has since been highlighted by that tragedy but has unfortunately not resulted in an increase in O negative donations. Adding to the issue, the summer months are usually the hardest season to collect enough, exacerbated by an increase in travel and traumas. It is estimated that summer travel will increase by 16% and 75% of Americans are expected to take a summer vacation, indicating this travel season is set to be the busiest since the pandemic – a sign that people are returning to normal. As that happens, the fear is that patients like Kristen Odom will continue to be overlooked.

“During my labor, unbeknownst to anyone…I was bleeding internally but no one knew it and it was not discovered until immediately after our daughter was born,” says Odom. “I will never forget one anesthesiologist yelling over the team, referring to blood, ‘I don’t care where you get it, but I need it, and I need it now.’ After I came out of ICU, my husband and I realized how much blood I needed, and the fact that donated blood was the key factor that turned everything around.”

O negative blood is the most transfused blood type for traumas and emergencies, so the demand never wavers. O negative blood donors are often referred to as the “universal donor” since everyone, no matter their blood type, can receive O negative blood. TBC aims to have a 5-7 day supply of O negative blood but has recently had a one day supply. In some instances, one trauma case alone can use up that supply.

TBC has also announced a program that uses blood donations to help victims of the Uvalde shooting. TBC blood donors now have the option to convert their reward points into a monetary donation to the Robb School Memorial Fund (One Star Foundation) through the TBC online store. These funds will be used locally to support the families and community affected in Uvalde, Texas.

Blood donors of all types are urgently needed through the summer. Community members are urged to roll up their sleeves and donate blood. One donation can help up to three people. ‘Freedom Week’ at TBC was formed many years ago to anticipate and prepare for the decrease of blood donors in the summer months. This year, Freedom Week is June 26 through July 10. TBC will be thanking blood donors who give from June 26^th – July 10^th with a commemorative t-shirt and an eGift card valued at $20. The blood donation is priceless.

The WNC Farmers Market is the premier destination for buying and selling the region’s best agriculture products directly from farmers & food producers to household & wholesale customers in an environment that celebrates the region’s diverse culture, food & heritage.

House of Operation:

WNC Farmers Market: 24/7, 361 days a year market access for farmers
Office: Monday- Friday, 8am-5pm
Market Shops: 7 days a week, 8 am-5 pm
Wholesale and Truck Sheds: 7 days a week

Sometimes called “Cherokee Artisanal Tacos”, Fry Bread is both at once nothing more than fried dough, and also the representation of decades of perseverance against oppression. Fry Bread rose out of internment camps of forcibly displaced tribes in the mid-1800s. Removed from their lands and their food resources, tribes subsisted on government issued rations, including flour, salt and oil. In this hands-on workshop, Tyson Sampson & Charles Taylor of the Bigwitch Indian Wisdom Initiative and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, will share the complicated history of a food that is both delicious and comforting, while also holding within its golden exterior 150+ years of the complex narrative of indigenous tribes across the country. Attendees will learn how to make Fry Bread, and enjoy sampling this tasty dish & toppings – which can be sweet or savory (think fresh fruit or a rich stew) using fresh and foraged ingredients from the Qualla Boundary.

South Asheville’s best yoga option! Dosha based yoga from an Ayurveda Health Counselor and Ayurveda Yoga Specialist!

Come as you are and bring a mat and a mask

About Kristin:

Kristin received her first 200-hour from Bodhi Yoga in Long Island, NY, and her second 200-hour from Yoga Madre in Sierra Madre, CA. She is currently working on her 300-hour program with Yoga Madre and also studying ParaYoga.

Kristin also runs a marketing and design studio that specializing in helping yoga teachers, coaches, healers, and solopreneurs create personal brands and websites that stand out in the crowd.

Off the mat you can find Kristin hiking with her husband, cooking amazing plant-based meals, and spending time with friends and family.

Featured Artists: Jude Stuecker (fiber) Erica Bailey (jewelry) Mary Dashiell (clay) Steve Miller (wood) Rex Redd (clay)

Did you know that Buncombe County Special Collections collects, preserves, and provides access not only to photos, documents, books, and letters but also to audiovisual materials such as event recordings and oral history interviews? In order to increase access to these materials, BCSC has been hard at work digitizing audiocassettes, migrating CDs/DVDs, and uploading digitized or born-digital recordings to a dedicated page on the Internet Archive.

Volunteers are needed to make sure that these resources are transcribed so that researchers can more easily find and search for the topics they need. Contact BCSC to learn how you can help by transcribing interviews from home!

RiverLink is honored to be the beneficiary of the community giving program at High Five Coffee in June and July! Stop by for a beverage and add a $5 donation at the register—100% of your gift goes to RiverLink! In addition, 10% of branded merchandise sales will support our efforts to restore the French Broad. Three locations to serve you: 13 Rankin Ave., 190 Broadway St., or (our favorite) the 2000 Riverside Drive location in Woodfin, offering coffee drinks, pastries and smoothies plus outdoor seating and walking trails on the bank of the river. Now that’s a coffee stop!

Of course, you can always donate directly from this newsletter. Thank you for considering a gift today!

Jessie B. Telfair, Freedom Quilt, 1983, cotton with pencil, 74 × 68 inches. Collection American Folk Art Museum, NY, gift of Judith Alexander in loving memory of her sister, Rebecca Alexander, 2004.9.1. © Estate of Jessie. B. Telfair, image Gavin Ashworth.

American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection showcases over 80 stellar works of folk and self-taught art including assemblages, needlework, paintings, pottery, quilts, and sculpture. Organized by the American Folk Art Museum in New York, this exhibition will be on view in the Explore Asheville Exhibition Hall at the Asheville Art Museum from June 18 through September 5, 2022. Everyone has stories to tell from both the private and mutual experiences encountered throughout their lifetime. American folk and self-taught artists capture these stories in powerful visual narratives that offer firsthand testimonies to chapters in the unfolding story of America from its inception to the present. Beautiful, diverse, and truthful; the art illuminates the thoughts and experiences of individuals with an immediacy that is palpable and unique to these expressions. These artworks held meaning in the makers’ worlds filtered through their own perceptions. The artworks are organized into four sections—Founders, Travelers, Philosophers, and Seekers—that respond to such themes as nationhood, freedom, community, imagination, opportunity, and legacy. Evocative visual juxtapositions and accessible contextual information further reveal the vital role that folk art plays as a witness to history, carrier of cultural heritage, and a reflection of the world at large through the eyes, heart, and mind of the artist. “While the Asheville Art Museum exhibits many folk and self-taught artists, most are local to the Southeast,” says Whitney Richardson, associate curator. “American Perspectives adds a national voice to the conversation by adding New England, Midwestern, Southwestern, and West Coast artworks that the Museum could never achieve alone. The amount of creative output from folk and self-taught artists was (and still is) on a national level and this exhibition helps to put that into a clear context. Traveling to Asheville from the collection of the American Folk Art Museum in New York, this exhibition will complement and expand the Museum’s ongoing conversations around American history and storytelling through works of art.” This exhibition has been organized by the American Folk Art Museum, NY, with support provided by Art Bridges. Originally curated for installation at the American Folk Art Museum February 11, 2020–January 3, 2021 by Stacy C. Hollander, independent curator. Tour coordinated by Emelie Gevalt, Curator of Folk Art and Curatorial Chair for Collections, the American Folk Art Museum.

Gillian Laub, Amber and Reggie, Mount Vernon, Georgia, 2011, inkjet print, 40 × 50 inches. © Gillian Laub, courtesy of Benrubi Gallery.

American photographer Gillian Laub (born New York, 1975) has spent the last two decades investigating political conflicts, exploring family relationships, and challenging assumptions about cultural identity. In Southern Rites, Laub engages her skills as a photographer, filmmaker, and visual activist to examine the realities of racism and raise questions that are simultaneously painful and essential to understanding the American consciousness.

In 2002, Laub was sent on a magazine assignment to Mount Vernon, GA, to document the lives of teenagers in the American South. The town, nestled among fields of Vidalia onions, symbolized the archetype of pastoral, small town American life. The Montgomery County residents Laub encountered were warm, polite, protective of their neighbors, and proud of their history. Yet Laub learned that the joyful adolescent rites of passage celebrated in this rural countryside—high school homecomings and proms—were still racially segregated.

Laub continued to photograph Montgomery County over the following decade, returning even in the face of growing—and eventually violent—resistance from community members and local law enforcement. She documented a town held hostage by the racial tensions and inequities that scar much of the nation’s history. In 2009, a few months after Barack Obama’s first inauguration, Laub’s photographs of segregated proms were published in the New York Times Magazine. The story brought national attention to the town and the following year the proms were finally integrated. The power of her photographic images served as the catalyst and, for a moment, progress seemed inevitable.

Then, in early 2011, tragedy struck the town. Justin Patterson, a twenty-two-year-old unarmed African American man—whose segregated high school homecoming Laub had photographed—was shot and killed by a sixty-two-year-old white man. Laub’s project, which began as an exploration of segregated high school rituals, evolved into an urgent mandate to confront the painful realities of discrimination and structural racism. Laub continued to document the town over the following decade, during which the country re-elected its first African American president and the ubiquity of camera phones gave rise to citizen journalism exposing racially motivated violence. As the Black Lives Matter movement and national protests proliferated, Laub uncovered a complex story about adolescence, race, the legacy of slavery, and the deeply rooted practice of segregation in the American South.

Southern Rites is a specific story about 21st century young people in the American South, yet it poses a universal question about human experience: can a new generation liberate itself from a harrowing and traumatic past to create a different future?

Southern Rites is curated by Maya Benton and organized by the International Center of Photography.

Brighten your walls with with works from Artsville Collective’s upcoming exhibition, “In Living Color: At Home with Paint, Paper and Thread.”  Allow these abstract pieces, in varying sizes and mediums, to light up your life. Collectively, the artwork’s tonal range is of blended neutrals and ventures into spring and fall palettes. Suit your design pleasures with pure color or wabi-sabi textural designs in a range of perspectives from three uniquely talented artists: Betsy Meyer, fibers; Karen Stastny, painting, and Michelle Wise, mixed media. Also showing: the Retro pop art of Daryl Slaton, which can be activated on your phone to reveal an animated story. For a softer approach, consider the mixed media art of Louise Glickman using paint, textiles, and natural plant materials.

Expect longer warm ups and cool downs in the summer and fall and more vigor in the winter and spring. Instructor Jamie Knox. July 4th sub Tara Eschenroeder. August 1 sub Kari Parker