Asheville Where Weird Is Normal!

That is the saying on an Asheville T-Shirt that is for sale in the stores downtown. Asheville is a mix of different kinds of people. It is musicians, artists, writers and craftsmen, it is free thinkers, it is ecologists and naturalists, it is retiree's from all over the United States, and it is also a city where youth spend time looking for their direction in life. It is a city of new age philosophy and good old boy mountain folk wisdom. It is a city that encompasses a dichotomy of people. Here people have unique social communal living, and come play on the streets as a group. One hardly walks anywhere in Asheville there is not music being played..the sounds of the mountains waft in to the valleys and beyond.

Blue Spiral/Asheville

Blue Spiral Gallery/Asheville, North Carolina

Asheville is a center of fine crafts in the South Eastern United States. It is the host to the Highlands Crafts Fair which will be held starting October 20th. If you love arts and crafts this is a wonderful show with fine artist of great talent.

The Blue Spiral carries find crafts, but also supports painting, sculpture, printing and many other areas of art. There is always a discussion of where craft leaves off and fine art begins. It would be interesting to hear every one's opinion. I think carrying all arts makes the city stronger and attracts a wider audience of viewers.

Asheville Textures

The tobacco farms in the Western North Carolina

are an example of an old and dying art: the art of tobacco farming. There is skill and craftsmanship handed down from one generation to the next when tobacco was a big money market. So many arts are lost as we move into the internet age. These are some of the arts that are quickly being lost from one generation to the next: knitting, quilting, crocheting, tatting, wood handcrafting, pottery, and endless others. I was talking to friends on the mountains tonight about this, after a wonderful supper of home made dinner of pot roast with vegetables. We talked of lost skills and

what would happen now if we had to depend on ourselves in a catastrophic event. What skills would we still have? My Mother knitted, my Grandmother quilted, my Aunt tatted. And that was just a few of their skills. I am a fine artist, that is my training. I am not a practical craftsman, but I admire people who are. I admire the tobacco farmers who still practice this ancient art of hand picking and drying tobacco.