Though she eventually produced tens of thousands of photographs — some legendary — Gertrude Blom never sought the spotlight as an artist. The Swiss journalist simply didn’t have the time. Instead, it was the lives of the Lacandon people and the plight of their rain forest (in Mexico’s mountainous Chiapas region, near the Guatemalan border) […]

Healing can be an elusive art. Just ask Lake Eden Arts Festival coordinator Jennifer Pickering, who admits that past attendees have experienced difficulty locating the dozens of healing-arts workshops that the festival offers each year. She says that’s the way it’s supposed to be. “The tents are a little bit hidden, not quite in the […]

The evidence was clear but grim: As the cop approached the mangled remains of the car, one look inside told him that none of the teenagers had survived the crash. And yet, on the car’s radio, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” groaned on with an insidious life of its own, chillingly resistant to death and destruction. […]

What would make a devotee of punk rock (not to mention some absorbingly bizarre branches of metal music) tune into a bone-bleak country outfit like Freakwater? Stir-the-dead harmonies, for starters. The music fan in question — a former record-store employee who recently left Asheville for more urban digs — once confessed to me a strong […]

British fingerstyle-guitar master Adrian Legg’s newest instrumental work — Fingers and Thumbs (Red House Records, 1999) — is more like an audible picture book than an album. Though no lyrics spell out the songs’ themes, the musician’s bedazzling artistry provides more narrative than a sheaf of lyric sheets. Not surprisingly, the musician — whom Music […]

One of the most crucial problems facing American Indian tribes today is the loss of their native languages, says Fred Bushyhead, hereditary chief of the Southern Cheyenne nation. “Some of the tribes have tried to keep the language, preserve their heritage for the younger people — [but] many of the younger people really don’t seem […]

Terry Galloway’s mold-breaking solo rave “Out All Night and Lost My Shoes” has been hailed by one critic as a “comic, poignant narrative.” Another writer was riveted by a section he termed a “ventriloquist’s act of frenetic lunacy.” The performance artist herself was once described (by London’s Time Out magazine) as “a likeable version of […]

Like an eager beer novice who feels compelled to slurp fruity lambics and cough down bitter porters while secretly thirsting for a crisp and friendly lager, bluegrass chart-topper Valerie Smith did a fair amount of musical dabbling before deciding just to trust her instincts. The Holt, Mo. ,native grew up listening to The Carter Family, […]

The country’s appetite for Southern mountain culture remains forever keen, it seems: Charles Frazier’s Pulitzer Prize-winning work, Cold Mountain (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997) proved itself a golden anomaly by becoming a stunning commercial success — a rare feat for a literary novel. And yet, when Tim O’Brien and Dirk Powell — themselves highly respected emissaries […]

“A thief wanders into an Amazon jungle. … It’s pretty easy to imagine what might happen [to him],” chuckles Atlanta Ballet Artistic Director John McFall, describing the plot of Lou Christiansen’s 1950-era ballet Con Amore. Well, not that easy: For those of us who cling to quaint, outdated notions of what ballet should be (namely, […]

Nurturing the growth of a community event while preserving its local flavor is never easy — but the YMI Cultural Center has managed this feat with distinct harmony: Goombay, a late-summertime staple on “the Block” in downtown Asheville for the better part of two decades, is now the city’s second-largest street festival. (The Block, a […]

When professional baritone (and former Brevard Music Center student) David Craig Starkey first moved to Asheville a few years ago, he was astounded by the gorgeousness of the mountains, the friendliness of the people, and the city’s strong emphasis on the arts. One deficiency, however, swiftly caught his attention: the city’s lack of an opera […]

Whatever your view of communal living, it’s hard to dismiss the unique pressure that the psychedelic rock band Zendik Farm cheerfully (and rigorously) imposes on itself: This group, which features members of a 20-year-old artists’ community newly relocated to Western North Carolina, plays totally improvisational music. Although the band practices together in their home studio […]

Which cultural phenomenon, in the end, will serve to symbolize this rapidly closing century? Will it be air travel? Elvis? The Internet? Beanie babies? All have their place — but if an interstellar space traveler were to crack open a time capsule some thousand years hence, the furrowed-brow brooding of an improvisational jazz piece might […]

The seven-person energy wall that is Mandorico has been urgently praised for its shimmeringly sensual, unique-to-this-country combo of traditional Latin music and frenetic ska. And while the sexiness quotient in any music resides most definitely in the ear of the beholder, it’s worthy to reveal that lead singer Jesse Lauricello manages to make even music […]