BEST OF SHOW AND ASHEVILLE'S RIVER ARTS DISTRICT

I had, unfortunately, missed the opening of "The Cutting Edge" show at Desert Moon Designs Gallery in Asheville due to finishing up a class at Penland. The good news was a phone call received letting me know my work, above left in the photo, had won Best of Show.  It was well displayed against the beautiful orange and yellows in the wearable art and handbag pieces.  As I am taking a new direction in my work, mixing metal and other media with rug hooking, this was great news. It is always exciting to see rug hooking receive recognition as an art form.

A wonderful display of fiber art.

Great texture seen in a wearable art piece by Karen Donde.  Amazing use of fabric manipulation.

Fiber jewelry pieces by Paisley Holloway.  I love the way the metal was stranded through the fiber in the piece on the left. 

This is a close-up of a weaving by Jean McGrew.  The random threads brought through add great texture.

After visiting Desert Moon, my husband and I spent the afternoon browsing around the rest of the River Arts District of Asheville. What a wonderful place! I love old industrial buildings, and to see them turned into artist studios is even better. The artists we spoke to were warm and welcoming. We stopped by award-winning photographer David Simchock's studio where we viewed a variety of amazing photographs and David was kind enough to explain some of his photography methods.

Our next stop was for lunch at The Junction, where we had a great brunch of arugula salad, open face short rib sandwich and pale ale with lemon-lime soda. Relaxing and extremely friendly service.

After lunch we headed to The Cotton Mill, above, to visit two textile studios. Cloth Fiber Workshop is run by Barbara Zaretsky. She uses natural dyes and had some phenomenal colors in her sophisticated designs. There were scarves, wall hangings and pillows. A plus was being able to see her work tables and dye kitchen, all open to the public. Also in the building was weaver Karen Donde's Sutherland Handweaving studio. The looms are all on view along with a wall of scarves and baskets of hand-spun and hand-dyed yarns. Here is a photo of some yarn I could just not resist. I have plans to use it in a hooked piece soon alongside my own hand-dyed wool.

We had a wonderful day out and I would encourage anyone visiting the Asheville area to take the time to visit the River Arts District. The talent is amazing and we will have to make another trip soon as we only caught a small glimpse of the more than 150 artists that have studios in this area. Enjoy your own explorations and have a great day.