How did Asheville become Artsville? A new podcast series attempts to answer that question.
“ARTSVILLE” launched last month on major podcast platforms with six episodes featuring interviews of area artists and community leaders. The show is hosted by veteran podcaster and producer Scott Power of Crewest Studio, a Los Angeles-based production company, along with local Asheville artists Louise Glickman and Daryl Slaton of Sand Hill Artists Collective.
Glickman says in partnering with Crewest Studio, the Sand Hill Artists Collective is expanding its audience both nationally and internationally. “We have become their East Coast studio,” she explains.
Early episodes of “ARTSVILLE” include Mia Hall and Robin Dreyer discussing the Penland School of Craft, Kate Averett Anderson talking about Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and Tom Anders giving his thoughts on Grovewood Village and the Vanderbilts. Other topics include the Broadway arts corridor in downtown Asheville, the River Arts District and Blue Spiral 1 art gallery.
“The podcasts work with our new gallery space and our blogs to provide opportunities for new audiences to learn about our many featured artists,” Slaton says.
The “ARTSVILLE” podcast is available on Apple, Google, Android, Spotify and other podcast platforms. The series is also available at avl.mx/b61.
The sound of San Francisco
In the early 1980s, bands such as Romeo Void, Red Rockers and Translator helped define the emerging sound of new wave music. And they all recorded for a modest indie label most people have probably never heard of.
Local music journalist and Xpress contributor Bill Kopp hopes to bring that label’s story to a wider audience with his new book, Disturbing the Peace: 415 Records and the Rise of New Wave.
“415 Records was groundbreaking in capturing the zeitgeist of one particular city — San Francisco — and then bringing that music to a wider audience,” Kopp says. “The story of 415 is both an inspiration and a cautionary tale in what can happen when DIY/punk ideals come face to face with the overwhelming machinery of the music industry.”
Kopp interviewed nearly 100 artists, executives, producers, fans and others for the project. He also got access to previously unseen photos, contracts, set lists, buttons and flyers, many of which are featured. The author will discuss the book at an event at Citizen Vinyl, 14 O. Henry Ave., on Sunday, Feb. 13, 4-6 p.m.
The 415 roster of artists may not be well known today, but each was groundbreaking, Kopp says. Roky Erickson, for instance, was recently the subject of a tribute album featuring such artists as Billy F Gibbons of ZZ Top and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.
“Their success in the music marketplace — however limited — helped pave the way for independent record labels to gain a foothold in the mainstream of the music industry, creating what we know to day as ‘alternative’ music,” he says.
For more information or to order the book, visit avl.mx/b63.
A family affair
The Asheville Art Museum will present The Wyeths: Three Generations from Saturday, Feb. 12, through Monday, May 30 in the Explore Asheville Exhibition Hall.
The ticketed show will feature more than 60 paintings by N.C. Wyeth, one of America’s finest illustrators; his son, Andrew, and daughter, Henriette, accomplished realist painters; and Andrew’s son, Jamie, a popular portraitist.
“Bringing together these three generations of Wyeth painters allows visitors to get a sense of the artistic heritage of this famous American arts dynasty,” Whitney Richardson, associate curator at the museum, says in a press release. “The book illustrations and paintings of N.C. Wyeth had a profound effect on his children Andrew and Henriette, as well as on the next generation with Jamie. Each artist in the family held true to N.C.’s realistic style and interest in American history and their family.”
The Asheville Art Museum is at 2 S. Pack Square. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit avl.mx/b66.
Unhappily ever after
The Magnetic Theatre will present The Shorthand Job: A Short Play on Words, Friday, Feb. 18, and Saturday, Feb. 19, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, Feb. 20, at 4 p.m.
The ensemble comedy stars Jamie Knox, George Awad, Christine Caldemayer and Delina Hensley, and the show is directed by Katie Jones. Co-authored by Knox and Awad, the play tells the story of a successful, middle-aged couple who have been married for years — but not happily.
The Magnetic Theatre is at 375 Depot St. For more information to buy tickets, go to avl.mx/b64.
Flights of fancy
The Asheville Regional Airport annual Student Artwork Showcase will be on display through Friday, March 18. This year’s exhibit features work by students of the Master of Fine Arts program at Western Carolina University .
“The artwork in this exhibition surveys a range of themes and creative approaches in contemporary art practice by current MFA graduate students at Western Carolina University,” says Tom Ashcraft, MFA director and distinguished professor of visual art.
The students selected for the showcase are Eli Blasko, Kate Chassner, Colin Dawson, Seth Echlin, Jen Gordon, Kyle Kelsey, Lori Park and Shannon Swenton.
Call for submissions
Local photographer Starr Sariego is seeking submissions for an upcoming photography exhibit, This Skin I’m In: A Visual Narrative. The show will run at the REVOLVE Gallery in July and August.
“This juried photography exhibition is an opportunity for the LGBTQIA+ community to express their personal experiences of queerness through a series of images,” Sariego says. “Embracing the becoming of one’s own self and the definition one chooses is an often complicated, deeply personal, and at times an invisible journey.”
All image makers who identify as LGBTQIA+ and/or are a part of the LGBTQIA+ community are invited to submit. Narratives are encouraged along with the images, both of which will be featured in the exhibition as well as in a specially produced zine.
Images should be 72 pixels per inch at 1,000 pixels. Narratives submissions should not exceed 500 words; writers are invited to submit these as personal essays, poems or more informal musings on one’s self and/or their community.
All submissions should include the entrant’s name, email, image title, website address and Instagram handle. Submit entries to thisskiniminavl@gmail.com and check out the Instagram page at avl.mx/b6z.
Waxing poetic
The annual N.C. State Poetry Contest is accepting submissions through March 1. The free literary competition is open to all North Carolina residents, including out-of-state and international students who are enrolled in North Carolina universities.
This year’s guest judge is award-winning poet Michael Prior and features a grand prize of $500.
All entries should be postmarked by Tuesday, March 1 and submitted to: N.C. State Poetry Contest, Department of English, N.C. State University, Campus Box 8105, Raleigh, NC 27695-8105.
For contest rules and more information, go to avl.mx/6vw.
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