Teaching in North Carolina

Friday, I flew to North Carolina to teach a Tsukineko Inks workshop on Saturday, to a group of wonderful textile artists. Karen Newman Fridy, my host and organizer for this leg of the trip, have talked about doing a class since we met on a trip I took to Winston-Salem 2 years ago. It was fun coming back and spending time with Karen and her art quilt group. There were a lot of great painters in this class, don't you think?

On Sunday, I arrived in beautiful Asheville NC. In the evening, I met with Amy Harry and her friend Nancy.

Amy was in one of the first online Color Theory classes I taught four years ago and when she became program chair for the Asheville quilt guild she booked me to come teach. So it was great fun to meet her in person after all this time.

We had a fantastic dinner at Salsa's, Mexican-Carribean cuisine, that we followed up with chocolate decadence at French Broad Chocolate Lounge.

We split a divine chocolate layer cake and a pots de creme and I had a pot of tea made in a french press with a hand made pottery mug to drink it in. Now that is my kind of bar!

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Asheville, North Carolina

We drove up to Asheville again on the weekend. I had to get in a few of the requisite stops suggested to me, I wish I had time to see them all and sample more of the fabulous restaurants.

In downtown Asheville there is a beautiful historic building with restaurants and artisan shops called The Grove Arcade. Down the street we went into a wonderful craft supply store called Earth Guild, there was an excellent selection of textile paints and dyes, looms, leather working tools, etc. Next door we went into a fun clothing store with lots of things I would love to buy.

A little further down the sidewalk is Woolworth Walk, a renovated Woolworth's store, now home to 150 exhibiting artists and artisans making and selling jewelery, fine art, decorative art and crafts.

All around Asheville there is a lovely backdrop of mountains surrounding buildings from the 1920's and 30's. It is a very picturesque town with such friendly people, we felt so welcome there.The drive east going back down the mountain.

North Carolina

I have been checking out the sites of Western North Carolina for the last week, staying in Winston Salem and taking day trips to Charlotte, Greensboro and Asheville.

Across the street from where I am staying is a gallery space for The Associated Artists of Winston Salem. Last night I went to an opening for their latest juried show called Exposures. The prospectus for the show states:

Works entered should in some way incorporate photography. Mixed-media is strongly encouraged, though any artistic medium may be entered (photographs, painting, collage, mixed media, sculpture, etc.) as long as the finished artwork incorporates at least one photograph or photographic image.

There was a lot of really nice work including a few textile pieces and I had the pleasure to meet blogger friend Karen Newman Fridy who lives in the Winston Salem area and had two pieces in the show.
The first day I was in Winston Salem and walked around the corner of the gallery and recognized Karen's vessel in the window. I sent her an email and Karen told me about the opening.

I love blogs, they are such a wonderful way for us to meet friends from all over the world.

On Tuesday, my kids and I drove up to Asheville, it is about 2 1/2 hours west of Winston-Salem. We parked downtown and the first store we saw outside of the parking garage was a wonderful bead shop, Beads and Beyond my daughter immediately had a few purchases to make.
I have always heard such great things about Asheville and was so excited to finally have the opportunity to visit. When I saw the yarn shop right down the street I new this city was a great place to be.
How cool is this sculpture a little further down the street for all of us textile lovers. North Carolina was a huge textile industry state, sadly most of our fabric is now made overseas. Don't you think the Chicago School of Fusing needs to have one of these on their campus?

Such a fun place with a lot to explore and so beautiful. I can only imagine how breathtaking it must be in spring and fall. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to see what that is like one day.