art nurture asheville

june special: $20 off tuition for our "creative nurture" class if you refer a friend. class starts june 28th and is limited to 15, so hurry! www.artnurtureasheville.com

june studio stroll

photos from studio stroll in the river arts district this past weekend:

(all photos by chris yavelow.)

charles simic

"Clouds Gathering"

It seemed the kind of life we wanted.

Wild strawberries and cream in the morning.

Sunlight in every room.

The two of us walking by the sea naked.

Some evening, however, we found ourselves

Unsure of what comes next.

Like tragic actors in a theater on fire,

With birds circling over our heads,

The dark pines strangely still,

Each rock we stepped on bloodied by the sunset.

We were back on our terrace sipping wine.

Why always this hint of an unhappy ending?

Clouds of almost human appearance

Gathering on the horizon, but the rest lovely

With the air so mild and the sea untroubled.

The night suddenly upon us, a starless night.

You lighting a candle, carrying it naked

Into our bedroom and blowing it out quickly.

The dark pines and grasses strangely still.

Art Nurture Asheville and more

among other exciting projects, i have just launched a workshop series with my friend court mccracken under the name art nurture asheville. we will be teaching classes out of her studio in the river arts district's newly renovated hatchery building, and we will also be having some special events there: movie screenings, art lectures, happy hours. but we will be starting with two summer workshops: "creative nurture," a ten-week class (meets tuesdays) that will explore different creative practices and exercises to get your wheels turning. we will do some drawing, some writing, some more hands-on techniques, but our goal is to give you a good arsenal to draw from if you struggle with getting started, generating ideas, or maintaining momentum in your creative life.

the other workshop we'll be offering is a weekend-long exploration of the arts in asheville (called, as you would expect, "asheville art exploration.") we will visit some of the more innovative galleries downtown on friday for exhibit openings, and we have teamed up with the lazoom bus tours to offer access into a dozen artist studios on saturday morning. for the rest of the day we will have mini-workshops with artists in the river arts district where subjects will range from light sculptures to mural painting to toy-camera methods. on sunday, we will have a picnic at lake eden, the former grounds of the famous black mountain college, and talk about the history of the school, its key players, and the effects it has had on art in asheville and around the world.

for more info and to sign up for classes, visit our website: www.artnurtureasheville.com.

i'm putting the finishing touches on the gypsy queen cuisine lebanese food truck this week, pictures to come soon. and next week i leave to paint a wall in charleston as part of the chART outdoor intitative. painting + block party!

small drawings

new drawings from the past week: