Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: Asheville, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 12 of 12
Blog: ACME AUTHORS LINK (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Asheville, Hilton Head, Biltmore, Add a tag
Blog: ACME AUTHORS LINK (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Asheville, North Carolina, Biltomore Estate, Add a tag
A photo taken by Lowell a while back of an old VA nurses dorm near our house. I read in the paper today that it’s going to be renovated.
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Asheville, Vicki Grant, Akira Studios, Akira Blount, Blue Spiral 1, Add a tag
During our second day in Asheville, hurrying by Blue Spiral 1, I saw work that I again could not live without. Was it living outside of corporate pressures that made me so open to art, so wanting? Was it just being happy, and a little carefree? Was it the half-dream I'd had of my mother as my husband drove the mountain hills, who seemed to be saying, Live now?
I don't know, but these wall sculptures by Vicki Grant, an architect-turned-artist, deeply appealed to me. They are clay based, with oil pigment sheens. They cradle fossils, shells, porcupine quills. They are perfectly square and impeccably unique, but together they tell stories. I bought four and will be hanging them today in our kitchen, just ahead of the rush of Christmas.
Two photos, then. One taken quickly in the gallery, and one snapped this morning with a macro lens.
To view the work well photographed, and to learn more of this artist's story, go here.
To get a glimpse of the other work I bought in Asheville (by Akira and Larry Blount), go here.
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Asheville, NC, Larry Blount, Ariel Gallery, mixed media figurative art, Akira Studios, Akira Blount, Add a tag
and had to bring one of these extraordinary mixed media sculptures home. Made of cloth, wood, metal, objects found and objects grown, these dolls (but they are so much more than dolls) spoke with fervent intensity to me. I am at work on a book whose main character is, in so many ways, this stunning creature above. I am, of course, obsessed with birds. I felt as if this artist had seen into my very soul and made generous room for my winged heart.
I saw the work in an Asheville art gallery (Ariel) in the afternoon. By some twist of fate I was able to meet Akira herself later that evening at a reception. I have since learned that she has been published more than 30 times in leading craft magazines, that she curated 500 Handmade Dolls: Modern Explorations of the Human Form (a book I now own), and that her work is on permanent display at the MUSEE des ARTS DECORATIF, Paris France, CLINTON LIBRARY, Little Rock, AR, SEKIGUCHI DOLL GARDEN, Izu, Shizuoka Japan, ROSALIE WHYEL MUSEUM, Bellevue, Washington, MUSEUM OF ARTS and SCIENCES, Macon, Georgia, and the TENNESSEE STATE MUSEUM, Nashville, Tennessee. In addition, her work has been exhibited all over the world, including the White House Collection of American Craft.
Her site, featuring far more of her work, is here.
I don't impulsively buy art; that isn't my nature. I didn't think twice about buying this. A Christmas present to myself, perhaps, for years and years to come.
Blog: Cinda Williams Chima (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Malaprops, Appalachia, Asheville, mountains, Add a tag
Blog: Laurasmagicday (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: 2009 road trip, road music, nc, asheville, nashville, mx, tn, Add a tag
We left Raleigh via Asheville on our way to Nashville. A day of 'villes. We were about to start our musical portion of the road trip. Music is so important when we travel. Whether it's taking turns being DJ to keep the drive interesting, or actually touring the iconic places I'd only dreamed of, music was what it was all about for the next three or four destinations.
Beautiful wildflowers of North Carolina on our drive to Asheville.
Mx and I stopped at The Biltmore Estate. Wonderful. For me, the most amazing part of the estate was the library. Ooodles and ooodles of leather bound books and Napoleonic memorabilia, including a desk that was rumored to have been used to display Napoleon's cremation urn. There was a lovely chess set too, made with a red marble. George Vanderbilt was a bachelor when he built The Biltmore, a fact that blew me away. Most bachelors I know are stuck in what I call the brown phase, usually involving lots of brown plaid furniture with brown-on-brown accents. George dodged disaster in 1912, when he booked passage on the S.S. Titanic, then canceled at the last minute. Dude, George rocks! Mx and I shared a wonderful lunch and basked in the beautiful sunshine.
I love Asheville.
We headed to Nashville after stopping at the winery on the estate [most of the grapes are imported from California's Russian River Valley] and set our sights on Nashville.
We stayed at the Best Western and loved it. Took a walk to Robert's Western World and danced to Phil Hummer & The White Falcons. They were awesome. A young guy asked Mx and I to dance and we had a lot of fun trying to keep up with Jim, who happened to be a dance instructor. He made us look good...Jim learned how to dance from his grandfather. His grandfather said that it was the only way to keep women happy. The other tip Jim had for keeping the conversations lively was reading "Uncle John's Bathroom Reader." Learn something new everyday.
I love Nashville.
Nashville at Night
The Robert's Western World, by the light of day.
Blog: Tingle Alley (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Schwarmerei, Asheville, Add a tag
This weekend I’m taking myself to see Terpiscorps’ production of The Many Deaths of Edward Gorey. It’s an original ballet and it looks odd & wonderful with dancers playing various Gorey characters while the performer playing Gorey swirls around the stage in a long faux-fur coat. See Alli Marshall’s spotlight of the show for Xpress, and Paul Clark’s profile in The Citizen-Times (which includes the great factoid that Gorey was a Buffy fan).
The reading at Malaprop’s was great fun. My workshop is an excellent, funny group, and it was gratifying & meaningful to read with them. Age range in our group goes from low 20s to high 70s, and everyone’s working on a different form of long-term project, including essays, memoirs, short stories and novels, so lots of variation & voices.
We had a packed house — one of the benefits of having 10 readers, I guess. My mom was in the audience, which added a recital-like patina to the proceedings for me. I think it was the first time she’s seen me perform since 9th-grade band. Back then, I played bass clarinet and my solitary goal for the final concert was to get through “Stars and Stripes Forever” without my lips falling off. For this reading, my goals were 1. to not trip over my purse on the way to the podium, and 2. in the event that I did trip over my purse, to not use that as an excuse to bolt from the bookstore, forcing our writing program’s director Tommy Hays to announce over the microphone, “It looks like we have a runner, y’all.”
Neither of those things happened, so I say: success!
Alas, Lowell was unwilling to wear the gold-spangled blazer, black knee socks, sunglasses and accordion I had laid out for him on the bed, so I had to nix my own planned outfit (see top — even if you’ve already looked once, it’s a picture that rewards repeated viewing).
Related Link: As an end-of-semester present, our instructor, Elizabeth Lutyens, gave us copies of her favorite short story of the year, Ian McEwan’s “On Chesil Beach.”
This Sunday, I’ll be reading with my writing-workshop classmates at Malaprop’s as part of the Writers at Home series. The reading starts at 3, and should last about an hour (additional details here). We’re reading firedrill style with everyone confined to 5 minutes or less, so there’ll be minimal deadly droning. It’s a great bunch of writers — and if you live in Asheville, I hope you’ll be able to join us.
I don’t know what I’m going to wear, although I’m leaning toward one of these outfits (especially the very, very top one).
Short notice but Malaprop’s is hosting some great readings this week:
• Tomorrow, Wednesday, March 11, 7 p.m.: Matt Lee and Ted Lee are here for The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, which, despite some deep reservations re: chow-chow, was Tingle Alley’s favorite gift to give over the last holiday. (Ted was a friend in college; of course back then he went by “Lucky,” spoke with a thick Jersey accent, and frequently ducked class to go to the dog races. Good old Lucky Lee, it’s nice to see he’s made something of himself.) Event details.
• Friday, April 13, at 7 p.m.: Gary Shteyngart reads from Absurdistan. Gary Shteyngart! In Asheville! It seems so unlikely, like we should present him with a ceremonial jar of chow-chow or something. Event details.
• Saturday, April 14, at 7 p.m.: Ron Rash reads from his new collection, Chemistry and Other Stories. I’ve heard Rash read before and he’s an unusually good & thoughtful reader. Recommended. Event details.
Blog: Tingle Alley (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Schwarmerei, Asheville, Add a tag
One reason for my prolonged absence: The discovery that the Asheville-Buncombe library system now allows you to request books online. O brave new world! It used to take a form and fifty cents (the last request I remember filling out this way was for a book on chicken composting*; it was about ten years ago, I’m not sure what exactly I had in mind) — and you had to pick up your book downtown. Now, you can direct the books be delivered to your local branch, in my case, the sweet little East Asheville branch just around the corner.
One of my favorite correspondents, Erik (also known as e — coiner of Penvy), described the joys and challenges of this arrangement in an email:
The first time I used the Los Angeles Public Library’s totally awesome online request system I enthusiastically requested about two dozen books, assuming they would trickle in over the coming months.
Most came in about two days. When I came in I was forced to pretend that, of course, I intended to read all 47,000 pages in the next couple of weeks. Why, was that a problem?
The librarian who had lugged all the titles out of the back–things like “The Heaviest Book You Will Only Pretend to Read” and “Mo’ Pages, Mo’ Problems”–said to me, “We’re thinking of naming a shelf after you.”
* A quick Google of chicken composting turns up this. Can this be true? Why hasn’t the liberal media been onto this threat? The mind reels. And then goes ka-boom.
This is so beautiful. I can see why you had to have it. I just went to her website and fell in love with every piece.
Amazing tale, Beth!!! My heart is soaring for you!!