Asheville Music Tours offers a stroll through downtown, highlighting the city’s rich musical past, as well as celebrating its present day achievements. Meanwhile, in the River Arts District, Asheville Art Studio Tours leads guests through a series of workspaces and galleries while sharing tales of the area’s former industrial days.
Every year, several of Asheville’s local artists pack their suitcases and catch flights to teach their crafts abroad. From basketry to pottery and painting to fiber arts, these forms are discussed in seminars and taught in workshops all over the world.
Rob Sebrell views Foundation as more than just a skatepark. “It’s a sculpture garden of sorts,” he says. “A public, creative space.”
The latest art exhibit at the Pink Dog Creative in the River Arts District seems, in part, a response to all this talking at, rather than conversing with, or, better yet, thinking through.
“I thought of myself as the adventuring painter on the beach, you know, but I could have just been some dead guy.”
“Eminent domain as a legal concept is one of the last remaining vestiges of European feudal societies. Despite its popularity with the likes of Donald Trump, it has no place in the 21st century.”
“There’s no ego battles,” muralist Ian Wilkinson says. “Everybody leaves it on the wall.”
After years of anticipation, New Belgium Brewing welcomed the public to its Asheville taproom on Monday, May 2.
Each week, Xpress highlights notable WNC crowdsourcing initiatives that may inspire readers to become new faces in the crowd. This week features the collaborative project more than 50 mural artists have planned for the River Arts District plus a Burnsville-based family farm’s business expansion.
Representatives from the city of Asheville, in collaboration with the Asheville Design Center, brainstormed with residents about how to incorporate public art in the River Arts District Transportation Improvement Project.
In her 2015 book The Rise of Asheville: An Exceptional History of Community Building, author Marilyn Ball looks at an often-ignored historical period: the recent past.
Clingman Café’s new mother and daughter owners will feature more homemade baked goods while keeping customer favorites.
On Friday, January 22, the Phil Mechanic Building changed hands. The longtime owners, Mitch and Jolene Mechanic sold the building to James Lifshutz, a real estate investor and developer from San Antonio, Texas.
“Asheville, like Boulder, like Ashland, like Aspen, is already nicely Boulderified and it might be literally too late to do anything about it. “
Transportation concerns and maintaining a balance between the old and new were the highlights of the latest round of discussions on the River Arts District form-based coding project, with plenty of unanswered questions left on the table.
PennyCup Coffee Co. opened the doors to its brand-new Depot Street café and tasting room on Monday, June 29, providing the River Arts District with another community hangout space.
The Merchant of Asheville launches — after more than years of looking for a home — the grand opening production of The magnetic Theatre’s new space at 375 Depot Street (strangely enough, just across the street from its original building). The play’s first lines also sum up the theater’s mission statement.
The design for a key link that will help create the longest continuous stretch of greenway in Asheville has been finalized. The roughly 1-mile section will run through the New Belgium Brewing Co. site in the River Arts District and connect with existing greenway segments.
REVOLVE, a new theory-minded artist collective and think space in the River Arts District, offers a venue for artists and craftspeople to share ideas and develop concepts.
In her landmark 1955 book, The French Broad, Asheville author Wilma Dykeman said the river was “above all, a region of life, with all the richness and paradox of life.” She described a watershed rich in flora and fauna, ranging from the “fertile fields and gentle fall” through Transylvania and Henderson counties to the sudden “plunge between steep mountains” around Asheville, “strewn with jagged boulders.”
City plans to improve infrastructure, expand public space, increase access and encourage private development in the River Arts District have triggered considerable controversy. Xpress reached out to the city, RAD business and property owners, and organizations involved in the now flourishing area’s revitalization to try to answer some key questions.
