Gallery gossip

Santa Claus is coming to town! What do our area artists want for Christmas? When asked what would be an ideal gift for the arts community, they provided some interesting answers.

• Ursula Gullow, painter and host of Art Seen Asheville on URTV, asks for funding for a contemporary art center and wishes commercial galleries would take more risks.

• Rick Melby, glass and mixed media artist, would like a fully-staffed artists’ resource center where materials could be recycled, reused and exchanged.

• Ann Vasilic, watercolorist, thinks there should be more cohesiveness in the artists’ community. “There are so many artists moving here — in the old days the Art League brought some of us together, but it’s gone. There are many professional artists who don’t give their time to be part of an organization. Part of me wishes to know every artist in town!”

• DeWayne Barton, poet and installation artist, would like to see more diversity in the local scene, “and some pay!”

• Constance Humphries, painter, wishes for a cutting-edge downtown gallery and health care.

• Linda Larson, painter and sculptor, wants “a coterie of people engaged in serious issues, not taking themselves too seriously, actually making work. A scintillating scene: quiet work, love of the good, quotidian corridors outside the marketplace. Having fun approaching invisibleness. Maybe that means no “art” scene at all.”

• Ron Platt, curator, is grateful that Santa came early and the Collectors Circle bought some new works for the museum.

• John Payne, sculptor, thinks Santa should leave an artist endowment in his will.

• Craig Hobbes, DJ and video artist, wants a state-of-the-art art center with a focus on multimedia performance and other interdisciplinary work.

• Peter Lower, artist and writer, laments the disappearance of the Arts Journal. “You could find all the listings for all the galleries without scrambling around through half a dozen publications. Everything for the month was right there in one place. We need that back.”

• Bill Clements, printmaker, wants his own print shop.

• Skip Rhode, painter, thinks that the greatest need is for a contemporary arts center for cutting-edge work and performance in the River District.

• Ann Rawson, arts administrator, says it would be great if all the Western North Carolina government officials could understand the value of the arts to our region.

• David Hopes, writer, singer and painter, says “I wish for a spell of forgetfulness so that the downtown planners would forget that the River District exists and let it work out its own destiny.”

• Joyce Blunk, mixed media artist, would like an incredibly creative year, but, she says “I’ll settle for a good fantasy!”

• Gwyn Dehn, print maker and book artist, just wants to see a bunch of money for artists grants.

• Ben Long, painter and teacher, longs for a public/private arts complex with studios, class rooms, galleries, a sculpture garden and a performing arts space. • Dan Millspaugh, sculptor, dreams of more cooperation between the city and county governments to give support to the arts.

• Dustin Spangola, painter, wishes for lots of people interested in purchasing art and for a community space for exhibitions.

• Robert Godfrey, painter, thinks we just need a playpen.

• Jon Jicha,painter and graphics designer, wishes for a fine new permanent home for the Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center.