The Other Side of Asheville

The Other Side of Asheville

Every small Southern town in the United States has its other side...where the nice houses and well tended lawns transition to crumbling buildings and less tended homes and businesses. Being a new person to Asheville I wondered where the African American population was.

I am used to a large community of many different ethnic groups in Tampa, Florida. I was so puzzled I looked up the demographics of the area my home in Leicester, a suburb of Asheville. It is a part of Buncombe County, North Carolina. I found in a community of 3,000 that there were only 65 African Americans. In the city of Asheville I am not sure what the demographics are, but I see few African Americans and wonder why.

When I was visiting the Blue Spiral gallery I couldn't find parking close by and had to park on a back street that is when I discovered this building with these wonderful paintings of African American Historic heroes and legends.

I will need to do research to identify them all. Maybe you can help me and I will post each person. I need to identify the artist. I thought the paintings were quite nice and I love the monotone technique almost like old photo's.

We hit 3,000 Today! Celebrate!!

We reached our 3,000 mark today! Thank you readers worldwide!!!! Just over a month and you have made us a successful world wide blog. RabbitsMoon Studio is very appreciative.

JOIN NOW AND RECEIVE AN E-MAIL DAILY. In the future if you have signed up as a follower of the site, they will be discounts and advantages added that I can not offer subscribe by email only. So make sure you go to the join site and register. Thank you, Betsy

Welcome Latvia!

Welcome Latvia!! It is so nice to have you join us!

Fall in the Blue Ridge/Smokey Mountains

The leaves turning, the first hint of crisp cool air and the pumpkin patches are all exciting parts of a change of season. It is not something I grew up with in Florida. Fall was when the rainy season stopped and the dry season began. Fall is now one of my favorite times of year. I have experience a few nice falls and hope to add many more. One of the things about season change is people have always celebrated it in some way. Ancient rituals become new holidays. Seasons changes are a visual cornucopia of images and awakening of the senses. It may be some ancestral tribal wakening in our souls that we experience these events, but for an artist it offers a new array of sights, colors, images, sounds, smells and more. And with that comes creativity. Here are a few images of fall from my trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina.

Asheville Dog

I think there should be a magazine called Asheville dog, because everywhere I went there were dogs. Many of the shop owners had dogs in their galleries or shops and many of the restaurants have outdoor tables where dogs are welcome to be with their owners as they dine.

This handsome German Shepard was laying in the noon day sun while his owner and maker of artist original clothing sewed away in the back of the shop. He hardly moved when I stepped over him to go in and look at the wonderful creations. Every block in Asheville is has a gallery or art shop of some kind. If you love art, unique crafts, and nature...this is the place to come.

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.

More of the Blue Spiral Gallery/Asheville

Square footage wise, one of the largest galleries in the South East. A wide variety of fine crafts and art is represented in this gallery. While many galleries have struggled through these touch economic times this gallery seems to thrive.

I apologize that I do not have the names of the artist work you are seeing, but if you go to the websites of interest, click on the Blue Spiral it will take you directly to their site and you may ask further information.

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.

Blue Spiral/Asheville

Blue Spiral Gallery is one of the largest in the South East. It three full floors of art. The gallery carries sculpture, paintings, mixed media, glass and pottery. The gallery carries a body of artist they represent and then integrate new artist and special shows. It is refreshing in a town of craft galleries and nature painting to find something different. It is one of my favorite stops when I am in Asheville. Here are some photo's to give you an idea of the huge amount of gallery space they have and the range of art they carry.

The mountains are a bit hard on internet connections and uploading. When I get to the low country, I will post more of the Blue Spiral Gallery and its current collection. Today is a leaving and driving day. Closing up, packing the car, getting Da Vinci set for the trip, and driving. I wish you all a good day and I will update more of the Asheville trip when I have better internet connections.

Transition

Transition between two Worlds

Today I near the end of my stay in Asheville for now, hopefully to be back in October or November. As I sit by the fire with Da Vinci snuggled up I think of all the art I didn't get done this trip, but I know I took time to fill the bank of experiences and images that will come out later when I do art. I think it is so important for artist to realize sometimes they need to not do anything, to be quite, to reflect. For me as an artist there is a deep reservoir that I must stay in touch with and replenish. I can only do that in quite times by myself. I know families and partners my not always understand us, but it is essential to our creative being. I have not relaxed as much as I would have liked, there was much to do with the house and studio that dealt with repairs after a rental period. But my drives to Potato Branch road, looking at the family farms(that remind me so of England and Wales), visiting with my mountain friends who fed me well, and experience the culture and art of this area of the world has been renewing to my creative self. When I head back to the Florida palms, the warmer more humid weather, I will leave behind the blue mountains with turning falls leaves. I will leave behind the chill of fall coming and the pumpkin patches and scarecrow decorations. I will leave behind a culture that is so different from my Tampa/Cuban/Italian/Greek community I love equally as well. It is like having two lovers both with wonderful exciting possibilities. I am fortunate I can go between both.

Welocme South Africa

A nod to my new friends in South Africa.

Check out the new South African Artist link in the website of interest column! If you would like me to add others just email me or go to comment and put your information and I will.

Farms and mountains of Western North Carolina

This is down the mountain from my house and Asheville studio in North Carolina. A drive down Potato Branch road and the pastoral view always renew my spirit and creativity.

Tomorrow we will visit to one of my favorite galleries int the South East, the Blue Spiral.

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.

Textures of Asheville

Asheville sits in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was once part of the Cherokee nation, a native American Indian group of people who had a written language and a system of justice and law. Settlers arrived from Europe and moved Westward from the coast ever deeper into the continent.

The Cherokee's were displaced to the West if they were not killed to make way for the ever growing population of Colonials. There is a story called, "The Trail of Tears" that documents the mass forced evacuation of these native peoples.

The pictures here are of tobacco barns that are used for drying and storage. Cherokee people grew tobacco, as well, as the early settlers that were coming form England and Scotland. They found the Blue Ridge and Smokey Mountains similar to environment they were leaving.

The sepia tones and pattern of the drying tobacco is so beautiful to me. The lines and colors of the worn barn and evidence of an earlier time. People living in nature and close to the land.

For an artist, whether realist or not, there is so much visual variety in this area for the impetus to do art. I will post a link in the websites of interest about the Cherokee People for your interest. There crafts are remarkable as well.

I am part Cherokee. I enjoyed finding out that part of my heritage when my Mother and Aunt were doing genealogy.

Welcome Denmark and Finland!

Welcome Denmark and Finland! It is nice to have you aboard.

Lines, Colors and Shapes/Asehville, North Carolina, Blue Ridge Mountains

These photo's remind me a great deal of some early paintings Georgia O'Keefe did with she first lived in New York City. She had a way of abstracting the obvious to the point you did not always realize what you were looking at. The contrast of light and shadow is so dramatic this time of year. The angle of the suns light is perfect.

Textures and colors of Asheville, North Carolina

I noticed once in New Orleans how different grates and storm drains can be. New Orleans puts a moon and start design on their man whole covers. Each area is different and each country more so. But you just look closely, you see diamonds, chains of diamonds. Look closer you see rectangles, squares, circles and half ovals. The colors ar blues, blue grey, silver, brown, rusty orange, while speckles and black. If you look longer you may see green or other colors I missed. If you are a painter you will name the colors better than me, a non painter.

Textures of Asheville

Textures of Ashville

Every city has its uniqueness in texture, color and sound. It takes looking past the big picture and looking like an artist. Look for the shape, the colors, the shadows, lines and textures of a place. It speaks its own language. We are so programed to look at things we are trained to know to move through a day and a our world...words, signs, print, video...and just the mass naming of objects our brains go through minute by minute. We see a car, our mind registers car. We see a stop sign our mind registers, pay attention, stop! The mind is a far more complex mechanism than any of us realize. We take most of this amazing organ we have for granted.

But now I want you to put all that aside and just look at your world a bit differently like an artist. Look at colors, the shapes and textures. Try to let your brain go and not name what you see, only see the object for the shape or color it is. Artists see that way, and many other ways. Take a mini texture trip to Asheville and then think of your world.

Welcome all Artist and Art Appreciaters of the World.

WELCOME LATVIA!!!

Mountain Morning Log

It is early morning in the mountains of Leicester/Asheville mountains. From my loft bedroom I can see the leaves dancing in the wind. The light is peaking through branches like a child playing hide and seek. I love this tree house loft, you really feel as if you are up among the trees. A cold front came through last night and it will much cooler today and tonight. For someone who hasn't been in lower than 80 degrees all summer it feels quite chilly! Vinci is asleep. He is enjoying the mountain smells, the mountain dogs that visit, and hanging out the window on our afternoon drives. He is not quite sure about the cows and horses, for a city dog they seem all very strange. But he hangs his head out the window and sniffs in the cool mountain air, it seems to refresh him as it does me. A drive down Potato Creek road seems to do us both good. Watching the farmers harvest crops and plant new ones is a revival of the earth so basic and ancient it is affirming to watch. The tobacco leaves are ready for picking and some are drying in sepia tones in old wood barnes with rough hewn siding. The world is different here, no sirens, no traffic, no airplanes, less rush, more simple. I can feel the layers of tension rolling off, and a settling in of my self, a centering of myself. I sleep better in this cool mountain air and for right now most worries are far far away. It is a good place within me and within this place of natures beauty to do art. I think it is hard not to do art when surrounded by nature's beauty.

Ebru, The Turkish Art of Marbling Paper

Here is another site you will enjoy on the Turkish Art of Ebru(water technique) of Marbling Paper. This is also listed in the column on the right of websites of interest in clickable form.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQSWmkt6-Hk&feature=related

Giverny and Money

This was a video sent by an artist friend that a is quite nice and I thought I would share it with you. It is a visit to Monet's garden at Giverny.

Enjoy! If it is not clickable go to my websites column on the right and it will be clickable there.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QdjMt7_fUo&feature=fvsr