The Art of Staying Inside the Box
Jackson Martin is a contrarian: He believes rules beget innovation rather than stifle it. “Parameters are something I give my students all the time,”…
Helping Local Artists Make Sense of the Shadows
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, wife and muse of Jazz Age writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, lived as if she were weightless. In a high-school journal, she…
How to Ollie Into the Fine-Art World
The year 1989 was a kickflip to the ankle for lifelong skateboarder George Peterson. Stuck in his sleepy hometown of Bishop, California (population 3,747),…
How a Loose Collection of Artists Found Community
For the most part, the fabric of Asheville’s arts scene is tight-knit. Creatives find camaraderie in reimagined industrial areas like the River Arts District…
When the Mailbox Holds Epiphanies Instead of Flyers
Highway 64 is the primary artery connecting Hendersonville to Brevard. It intersects Etowah’s few stoplights, patters past Transylvania County farmland, and finally empties near…
There’s No Time Like the Present to Carve the Look of Millennia
For decades, painter and television host Bob Ross reworked what he called “happy accidents” — harsh brushstrokes, paint drips, botched blending — into clouds…
The Meaning of Life Might be Written in a Produce Sign
Chelsea Ragan applauds the everyday. “Domestic life is not thought of in an artistic way,” says the illustrator, mother of a 2- and 5-year-old….
How One Woman’s Spiritual Epiphanies Bear Fruit
“When they think of us, I hope they smile,” says Karen Zimmerman, who recently moved from Haywood County to another rural locale: Limestone, Tenn….
Her Future as an Artist was Lurking in the Cards
Cathy Nichols knows pigs can’t fly. But when confronted with a life-sized sow doused in a glitter veneer and suspended by a bright red…
Slow Craft Equaled Big Change For Late-Career Woodworker
Flanked by close mountains and the French Broad River, Marshall is memorably described by locals as “a block wide, a mile long, sky high,…