It’s never a bad idea to keep a frog or two on file. Just ask local artist Robert Johnson, who entered North Carolina biological preserves last year to observe and record the delicate sites. The resulting paintings are quixotically colored, yet finickly detailed — one man’s indelible, highly personal panorama of these vulnerable mini-worlds, which […]

Who says there’s no such thing as an attack dachshund? A certain Yankee editor, that’s who, Weaverville-based mystery novelist Elizabeth Daniels Squire revealed in a recent phone interview. “She had less of a sense of humor than some,” relates the writer delicately (Outcome: The tragically misunderstood wiener dog stayed in the story). Irony, says Squire, […]

A while back, local sculptor Clara Rountree Couch decided to redecorate her home. Her furniture, she felt, was wearing out … wearing out its function in her life, that is. “I got rid of my furniture because [although] my house is glass on three sides, I wanted to really be aware of the outside [world], […]

A long-time guard at Louisiana’s infamous Angola State Prison confesses what it’s like to be the “man with the keys,” noting dolefully: “I’ve been called everything from Satan to Jesus.” A woman obsesses about winning the lottery, shrugging off her overdue rent because she’s sure the jackpot is “as good as hers.” A little dog […]

Boone’s Appalachian Summer Festival, now in its 15th year, has definitely changed with the times, though not in the way you might think: Instead of starting with a local audience and gradually gaining wider popularity, this month-long cultural mecca began by attracting mainly tourists, reveals Denise Ringler, the public-relations director at Appalachian State University. Today, […]

“We spend the first portion of our lives learning things — and the rest of our lives learning to forget them,” Gary Byrd observed recently over a beer in Semi-Public, the small Hillside Street contemporary-art gallery he co-runs with printshop owner Tony Bradley. The painter, who’s been part of the local art scene for many […]

As a name, “MacKeel” doesn’t really mean anything, admits bass player Dave Hoare, with no qualms. “A lot of people have asked us about it; they think it might have some sort of [historical] significance,” he relates via the group’s car phone, en route to a gig. Not so: The name was simply chosen for […]

Despite the oddly lulling, hedonistic vibe that instrumental surf rock has historically ridden, today’s ambitious version of the cultish genre seems to attracts few slackers. Just consider Man or Astro-man?, those furiously talented extraterrestrials who survived a spaceship crash in Alabama to become the decade’s showiest indie-rock band. (Of late, of course, they’ve veered significantly […]

If ever there was a singer’s singer, it’s much-copied Athens tunesmith Vic Chesnutt. One of the few contemporary songwriters who can wear the loaded badge “poet” without it sounding squirmily naive (or just plain irresponsible), Chesnutt has fashioned a career crafting wonder-nuggets of verse. Whether presented in their raw state — as on About to […]

The YWCA’s continuing quest is to empower women and families and eliminate racism — a monumental undertaking, no matter how you look at it. But if any of the century-old organization’s national offshoots can localize this vision, it may very well be Asheville’s progressive branch (headquartered at 185 South French Broad Ave.), which has toiled […]

Blue Spiral 1 management is rightfully proud of its Will Henry Stevens exhibit. The paintings in this bountiful retrospective — which spans the period from the ’20s to the ’40s and includes three separate stages of the late artist’s work — have never before been served up to the public. Stevens was an extremely prolific […]

Lest you mistake 1999’s first City Center Arts Walk for a traditional “gallery crawl,” event spokesman Clayton Wefel offers this startling statement: “We wanted it to be something where people would feel comfortable bringing their kids” — apparently unfazed by the specter of tiny fingerprints smudging the works currently on view at Art International Asheville […]

Asheville’s westernmost artists’ quarter whirs with a distinct and peculiar life: Ugly, sun-showered warehouses — some restored and thriving, others crumbled to their foundations — sit perched between a morose parade of freight trains and the city’s changeable river. And yet, almost deviously, this would-be ghost town has amassed a formidable crowd of artists and […]

As we rediscover each year at Bele Chere, blues chords and rock beats have been known to rouse summertime crowds (abundant, cheap beer doesn’t hurt too much either). But five years ago, Rick Ramsey parted the swamp grasses of destiny when he hit upon a sure-fire way to lure people downtown: transport them to Cajun […]

“I always tell members, ‘Songs are like medicine for your soul,’” says Womansong director Debbie Nordeen. For her, this is significantly more than a charming adage. While hospitalized some years back, Nordeen drew great comfort from a certain traditional ballad, titled “How Can I Keep From Singing?” Written in 1864 by Anne Warner, the song […]

John Gernandt sings songs resurrected from the Middle Ages. But to hear him tell it, the demise of these ancient Celtic ballads (as well as the early Appalachian songs they bred) is a thoroughly modern phenomenon. “It’s something that was lost in our lifetime,” the Burnsville native declares with some bitterness. “I blame it on […]