The Needle and the Drama
There’s so much fanfare around glass this season, thanks to the Dale Chihuly exhibit at Biltmore Estate and six months of companion events around…
Strip Poker is Just One Way to Radicalize the Womanly Arts
Angie Lamoree, a long-time member of Asheville Quilt Guild, holds first-place awards in local and national quilting competitions. “I learned to crochet at 7,…
Their Romantic Summer Session Blended into a Lifetime of Artmaking
As a child, Jim Ostlund loved illustrations by 19th-century artists and would spend hours copying their work. “I remember feeling frustrated because … without…
Making Thousands of Itty-Bitty Sculptures, She Broke the Mold of Outsized Assumptions
Cynthia Thornton of Green Girl Studios went to school to learn how to make large-scale bronze sculptures. But once she was out in the…
Dryadic Figures Are the Ones that Transform Themselves
At a glance, it’s a statue of a woman. Her face is turned to the side as though she’s peering off into an unknown…
For the Sake of Drama, She Sets Fashion on Fire (or Puts it in a Blender)
Betsy Puckett has been an eclectic stage performer since age 8. Last decade, she gained regional fame as the bawdy belle Augusta Wind —…
Jewelry Designer’s Pioneer Story is a Limited-Edition Gem
Paula Dawkins does 99 percent of her jewelry-design work on a computer. But the first idea is always a drawing, to be found somewhere…
Skin-care Entrepreneur Sticks to Chemistry, Finds a Winning Formula
Wander into C&Co. and your blood pressure drops. In the softly lit, lavender-scented space, music purrs in the background, rows of brown glass jars…
It’s Not Sew Easy to Make Porcelain Perform Like this
Her painted vessels are functional, but so expressively detailed they look like they’ve been cozied up in a protective layer of felt or wool….
Painter’s Dream Re-emerged After Brushes With Death
“I remember waking up in ICU in an Atlanta hospital and being truly amazed I was still alive.” It was 1998. For years, Wendy…
It Takes Two to Tango, But only a Single Epiphany to Dip out of Functional Ceramics
When he took an Argentine tango class, Eric Knoche says he felt as though he was seeing the true nature of the world for…
When it Comes to Woodworking, What Doesn’t Kill You Gives You Great Pleasure
Dana Smith has always had a penchant for woodworking. He loves the natural beauty of the grain and the story it tells about how…
Decades of Study and Thousands of Miles in, Blower is Still Hot for Glass
John Almaguer’s artistic epiphany wasn’t reverent or momentous. It just made him giddy — “like a kid in a candy shop,” he says. “No…
the Ceiling of Traditional Glasswork
Being the first executive director of the two-year-old North Carolina Glass Center, Kari Rinn has found a labor of love. The facility in the…
“If You Don’t Feel it, it’s Not Doing You Any Good”
Steve Mann is a commercial photographer and the co-owner of West Asheville’s Double Crown, the atmospheric pocket bar where he shelters his other passion:…