A good year

Rounded out with an art show in my Kenilworth neighborhood. Small sketches.

Mail series for a bank's female clientele

One of a string of mailers--this one falling at Thanksgiving--that reminds women customers that Carolina Alliance Bank holds them in "high consciousness" and wants, sincerely, to maintain both rapport and dialogue. Thanks to partner Connie Aridas for bringing me into this ongoing project.

A new site for a Knoxville fulfillment house that, among other things, handled over a hundred million sweepstakes entries this year alone.

I appreciate the chance to work with Mark Bastin of JDM Strategies (Asheville) and Wade Ewers, president of Ritway (Knoxville). It's a rare opportunity to work on a site this complex (about 40 main sections) and with a group of people of such genuine integrity, good spirit and warmth.

The Crossnore School: Weaving a tale of lives changed and miracles in the offing.

A wonderful opportunity to re-position this historical and profoundly successful place as both an esteemed boarding school and a healing, caring environment for children in need. I am in deep gratitude to Dr. Phyllis Crain for the amazing chance to tell this story well and my very aware, very conscious partner, Connie Aridas, who brings a sensitive hand to the design of pieces aimed at donors and stakeholders as well as parents and educational consultants.

An illustrated history of HandMade in America's artfully collaborative Small Town Program

A composite of 15 years of impassioned work, often triggered and inspired by HandMade leadership, brought to life by countless volunteers in some of Western North Carolina's smallest places. An essay (falling across twenty pages) that practically unfolds on its own because of the tremendous energy and devotion of participants, many of whom I interviewed over a two-month period to form the nucleus of this textured story. Connie Aridas orchestrated the design, as she said, "keeping the flavor of small towns" visually throughout, and Judi Jetson at HandMade provided the initiative and support. Many thanks to everyone who read this piece, spoke with me in person or by phone, and helped render a process and a history that I believe can and will be helpful to small towns basically anywhere in the world.

A new mark for Western North Carolina Alliance, the grand pere of conservancy organizations in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains

Many thanks to Julie Mayfield, executive director, for the opportunity, and to partner Connie Aridas for her great perseverance over the nine months it took to give birth. There is an official birthing document, a stylebook, which we put together to help the organization in spot color applications and in usage contexts from newsletters to web postings to signage to stationery.

In-process design: First in a series of posters.

Each drawing attention to a program of employee recognition requiring the nomination of peers. Thanks to Robin Easter for a wonderful chance to collaborate.

Helping crew a petite art tour in Kenilworth.

With gratitude to Connie Aridas, my design partner, who poured her time and talent into this at no charge. Also thanks to Michael Robinson, Kathie Kline, Christine Riley and Diana Gillispie for suggestions on mapping the tour.

For UNCA, a world of orchids, blow guns, and jaguars.

Many thanks to Debbie Griffith and Jill Yarnall for pulling me into the jungles of Guyana with Dr. Clarke and the Amerindians. Still recovering from drinking cassava with the Wai Wais.

Full blown portraits of very small places

For HandMade in America, illustrated narratives of Crossnore and Hayesville revitalization work, prototypes for a series of pieces on small town initiatives in western North Carolina. So thin in population they don't qualify for
Main Street funding, these small places have, nevertheless, succeeded in pulling off remarkable physical and cultural changes, accomplished through persistence, good will, and the generous spirits of many folks. Thanks to Judi Jetson of HandMade for her trust and determination and to Sharon Harms, designer, who rode these to the ground and brought a lot to the party. Also many thanks to Rob Tiger of Hayesville and Ann Baker of Crossnore for their great help with content and alterations.

Reflections on Pack Square Park

Written for Laurel Magazine, October, 2010 Edition

It’s almost 7 p.m.

Issuing forth from the microphone at the front of the Lunsford stage in Pack Square Park, as the evening sun rakes the county and city buildings in yellow gold: “All humans in the trees—please come down.”

And, with this pronouncement, and with the passing of day into night and summer into early fall, all the hopes and dreams, squabbles and resolves, landscape reshapings and art installations—all the everything that has gone into five years of creating a central park for Asheville—all of it suddenly pours and crystallizes into a timeless moment.

By way of a pops concert, four or five thousand of us are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Asheville Symphony Orchestra. More than that, we are part of an official salute to Pack Square Park, acknowledging the sheer august pleasure of it--maybe for the first time.

“It took me a while,” says park designer Fred Bonci, speaking from his office in Pittsburgh, “but I really felt like we were there, like we really had it, when someone told me after the second Shindig performance that the people in charge completely loved their new space.”


“For Pack Square Park, just like for Central Park, there are principles that Frederick Law Olmsted brought to life that hold sway. A park should be democratic. It should be for everyone. It should be diverse. It should have wide open fields and intimate, small spaces. It should be sunlit and shaded. It should have a certain quality of design, a quality that engenders pride. It should connect man with nature and nature with man.

“Well, there you are,” Fred says, “there you are with the mountains and the sky that come down to greet you. So we created these very definite borders so no matter what happens with the buildings around the park, you have this beautiful, defined space. And it will just get better as the trees grow—the rows of London planes, for example. It will mature. And it will always be this central place—this central park—for everyone to enjoy.”

It’s almost 8.

Sitting here in this natural amphitheater in front of the two courthouses as Daniel Meyer conducts Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty and the stars pop out, it seems crazy that this lush 6.5 acre lawn with its water features, garden areas, new trees and public art was once a “spaghetti bowl” of streets so confusing it was hard to negotiate even on foot.

Even crazier is the will and the outpouring of ideas and energy—some 27 public charettes—that helped shape the space, bring form and native design to it, and, against all odds, birth something inter-generational, timeless and consequential.

“It was easy to take the plunge into a park of national significance,” Fred says. “Why? Because the people behind it, the people of Asheville, had a vision in the very beginning and they wouldn’t let go of it. They wanted a great park. Nothing short of that would do.”

Asheville, a short history and bird's eye view, as written for a colleague's web site

A storied history.


There are bigger cities. But there are few places that knit together so beautifully the life and culture of a city of the world with the freshening wildness of nearby national parks, preserves, rivers and forests.

And whether you call it Asheville, “Land of the Sky,” “Paris of the South,” or “Sante Fe of the East,” one thing’s clear: it’s been a destination of the heart for a long, long time now.

Thomas Wolfe wrote about the the city in Look Homeward Angel, forging a new kind of modernist literature that changed the dimensions of fiction. And, during the same time his mother ran her boarding house on Spruce Street, a young man from New York came here to create an estate that would change the dimensions of a lot of other things: architecture, forestry, the art of the planned landscape and the self-sufficient farm. His name was George Vanderbilt and his artistic sensibilities, his longing for the exquisitely planned and well-made, still directly influences the way in which people from Asheville regard art, architecture, music, dance, theater, even conversation. These are parts of life, especially in this sacred and beautiful country, to honor, celebrate, embrace and savor.

The fanciful architecture of Wolfe’s time in Asheville, characterized by Douglas Ellington’s City Building and E.W. Grove’s Grove Arcade and Grove Park Inn actually benefited from a particularly bitter Depression in the mountains in which the great building stock of Asheville literally went into a deep freeze, only to thaw out, years later, into the stunning city scape of an art deco city. Asheville honored its debts from the Roosevelt years, paying them off in 1976, and setting the stage for infrastructure growth and city planning that heralded a renaissance of city life that’s still unfolding--in coffee shops, in sidewalk cafés, in jazz and music clubs, in galleries and studios, and across performance stages, both petite and grand.

In its lush and varied neighborhoods, where conversations from front porches once drifted into the streets in places like Montford and Kenilworth during Wolfe’s time, what you’ll find today is an eclectic residential architecture from well-preserved original arts and crafts cottages to Asheville’s own brand of contemporary mountain style home--beautiful, accommodating and energy efficient. “Rooms with a view” is a descriptor that practically goes without saying, with Mount Pisgah a point of reckoning for pilots, residents and visitors alike, proof that you are once again in the lap of the French Broad River Valley and home.

A Global City of the Arts

In 1980, Asheville’s downtown and river front studios and galleries were tougher to find than ceramic hen’s teeth. In 2010, it’s hard to go a city block without feeling, from a gallery window, the beckoning call of painting, sculpture or piece of high craft; maybe it’s a teapot that looks like Mae West, fabric art that dazzles with texture or blown glass so rich in color it makes your head swim.

There are studio strolls in the spring, summer and fall, farmers’ markets with artful, local produce on Saturdays, and a continuous run of festivals and events that leave no weekend unclothed and no week day without choices of sublime and ridiculous proportions.


It is totally within reason to suggest that, within a few weeks, you could go to a film debut, witness an originally choreographed dance performance staged for the first time, see a Jazz Hall of Fame recording artist at Diana Wortham, knock out three plays at three venues, drop into the Orange Peel for an evening of folk, rock or rap, catch a symphony, sit on the grounds of Biltmore Estate as the moon rises for an exquisite concert by an international talent. In the end, you may be a bit wrung out but you’d have entered a realm of happiness few have known.

Festival-wise, to mention only a handful: Bele Chere, the largest free outdoor street festival in the Southeast (July 23-25, 2010); the Asheville Film Festival (late May); Goombay! An African-Caribbean street festival with plenty of dance and good food (August 27-29, 2010); WordFest, four days of poetry readings, slams and live performances (early May of each year); the Asheville FringeArts Festival, serving up avant garde work that might otherwise not have a venue (January of each year); and the Lake Eden Arts Festival (LEAF), with diverse world music, poetry and great relaxation at a graceful setting near Asheville (in spring and fall).

Betwixt and between, anyone is welcome at the Asheville Drummer’s Circle, from 7 to 10 p.m. when the weather’s good Fridays in Pritchard Park, and at Shindig on the Green, a long-standing traditional gathering of mountain music pickers, singers and dancers, now on Roger McGuire Green every Saturday night from early July to early September.

It’s a staggering mix of creative work and creative expression and it would have never happened were it not for so many inspired people and organizations pitching in, wrangling ideas and funds, networking, bringing good planning and good strategy to the city’s calendar.

For example, hundreds of citizens were involved in shaping the city’s 2010 plan, written in 1985, which outlined where the cultural neighborhoods would be best established and gardened. There were hundreds of creators, too, of HandMade in America, a grassroots non-profit in support of those who make original crafts and one-of-a-kind furnishings. And dozens of other organizations, all intricately involved, overlapping, authors of a new city, built, in large part, around the simple idea of artfulness.

A Landscape of Wonder

From most anywhere in Asheville, in about ten minutes, you can drive to an entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway, then thread through forests and mountains for mile after mile in either direction. It’s called “America’s favorite drive” and its very existence has caused people to move here, to be close by it, to use it for motoring, for cycling, for photography, for getting to a trail head.

Going north, you will climb to Craggy Gardens, so named for catawba rhododendron that come into bloom there in June, and further into the highest mountains in the East. At Mount Mitchell, named for Elisha Mitchell, a professor who died during his explorations of the peak, you can see the great Roan Massif and look across the Blacks to Grandfather Mountain and Hawksbill. You can breathe in the air at over 6,500 feet and realize what a blessing this region is, around Asheville, where you can see and experience the roll and pitch of protected lands, mountains and high meadows.


And if you think it’s a major deal to gear up and find time to be at one with the environment, here are some indicators of true travel time:

• In about 15 minutes from town, you can be hiking the trails of the North Carolina Arboretum, curling up Hardtimes Trail and back across Owl Ridge, for a lush and beautiful hour’s stroll that finishes along the banks of Bent Creek.

• In about 20 minutes from town, you can off-load your kayak in the French Broad River and, when the river’s up, run the gates just off Ledges Park.

• There’s also class-act mountain biking in the Bent Creek area and beautiful stretches to cycle along the Parkway.

• And, all within an hour of the city: horseback riding, rock climbing, waterfall hunting, skiing on groomed winter slopes, fishing for native trout, hiking mile after mile of inspirational trails and discovering some of the best places in the world to stop, to rest, and to enjoy the view.

No stranger to the region, naturalist John Muir once wrote, “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energies, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”

In the high places around Asheville, it’s easy to wonder why something seemed so pressing, so important, before you got there and came fully to your senses.


Many thanks to Bob Boettcher and Carolyn Knight who commissioned this project as part of the rollout of their new firm, Diamond Real Estate Group.

Asheville On Bikes: A story and sketch for The Laurel Magazine

A child of the fifties, I grew up on the back of a three-speed “racing” Schwinn I’d often rifle between two trees, touching bark with both hands. In my thirties and forties, I mostly ran; but once fifty, I started riding the big bumps of the Parkway and the back trails of Bent Creek. Then, the streets and bike paths of Carrboro and Charleston; small towns in Colorado and Florida. Around here, I love the river road out to Marshall, but navigating a path from A to B in Asheville has always been a challenge at best, a conundrum at worst. How do you avoid Hendersonville Highway, for example, or Tunnel or West Patton? Better to snake through quiet neighborhoods, along a natural valley or through a park, even if an enclosed climb feels like Stage Five of the Tour “day” France.

Regardless, getting there on a bike has always been way more than half the fun; it is, after all, a conversation with the world at large. You feel the place up through your feet, you smell the air, you blend into the moment, you hail someone or stop to jawbone. One ride is never like any other—and especially in Asheville, when the wind boots up, mists settle in, or slanting light brushes in golds and blacks at the beginnings and ends of days. Sorry, not nearly as available in a car.

As a teacher at Evergreen Community Charter School, Mike Sule doesn’t own a car. Rather, he owns a bike, which he uses to travel to his job in Haw Creek from his home in the center of town. Years ago, he sold his car and used the savings from not owning it (which he figures amounted to $10,000 a year) to buy a city-centric condo.

“I absolutely love the commute,” he says. “I love the experience of traveling on a bike, even in the dead of winter. Plus, it just feels like a responsible thing to do. My students ask me, ‘How can you do this in February with snow on the ground?’ I just say, ‘Same reason you guys go snowboarding.’ It’s fun.”

People who use bicycles as their primary means of getting around tend to boost the economy of their surrounding neighborhoods—it’s just easier and more convenient to “buy local.” In towns where parking spaces have been taken up for bike racks, merchants generally move from apoplexy to happiness: the number of people (and potential shoppers) represented by that space drastically multiplies. Morover, a recent economic impact study in the Outer Banks shows that a public funds investment of $6.7 million for bike paths and paved shoulders has directly contributed to bicycling activity that yields $60 million in annual economic benefits.

All of which begs the question: Where will we be in five years as a bike friendly community? Claudia Nix, very active at both state and city levels as a bike path and local transportation advocate, won’t go so far as to say we will be like a city in Holland, as much as I’ve tried to draw that conclusion out of her.

“We’ll be a lot more connected,” she says, meaning that the 181 mile network of bicycle lanes and paths and shared roadways and greenway routes outlined in the city’s 2008 Comprehensive Bicycle Plan will be a lot closer to being real and part of city life.

In the meantime, at a recent “Downtown after 5” on North Lexington, 130 people dropped by riding a bike, and stayed to enjoy the evening. And, chances are, somewhere on their ride back home, they took a street with a “Sharrow” painted on it, passed a sign that says “Share the Road” or climbed a hill inscribed with a bike lane.

And getting there, coming or going, was way more than half the fun.



For more information on the city’s plan and biking, in general: ashevilleonbikes.com

Asheville, June, Friday After Five, A Stroll With Camera, Smile and Gracefully Sinking Sun

A story about two jewelers (and two long-time friends of the writer) for pages of The Laurel

Divergent in styles, equally focused on beauty, and savvy about the "individualistic" compunctions of their customer base. A lot of fun to write and photograph. Many thanks to Michele and Bill and to Paul Howie, editor at The Laurel, who chose to run the article.

Rhododendron as mark: Choosing a natural form for a fresh logo for Blowing Rock Country Club

I'm especially grateful for the collaboration of Ralph Patterson, of Little Rock and Blowing Rock, and for the persistent explorations of designer Connie Aridas. It was a pleasure working with this team over the four months of development to arrive at this mark.

A name change as the doorway to positioning this small company in a breathtakingly tough market

John Thorsland may be the most meticulous foundations man in the world of poured concrete. No rounded corners or uneven rebarb; his work is geometric, Pythagorean, by the numbers. And it's a good thing to lay out there for friends, builders, architects and other contractors as he changes his company name from "Specialty Foundations" to "Thorsland Concrete + Construction."

Many thanks to Connie Aridas for John's new logo design and direction of this piece.

Early sketches for the Western North Carolina Alliance. The re-imagining of an identity for this well-rooted grassroots environmental group.

First thumbs: A storied golf club in Blowing Rock

A collection of sheets that would describe the different amenities of the club and the delights of enjoying them among friends and family.

Collene Karcher: (Somewhat) alone in the garden of her delight.

Now and then, full of good stories and good humor, Collene Karcher can describe herself not only as an artist but as a reclusive artist—off to herself, chisel in hand, absorbed in detail.

There’s truth to it, for sure, but it’s also fair to say that this stone carver, letter cutter and sculptor plays host to an extraordinary procession of friends and visitors who are constantly ducking in and out of her world or who charmingly emerge at the tips of her own fingers.

For the record, Collene lives and works in a fit of hardwoods on a curving ridge north of Bakersville where she and her husband John recently finished both a new home and a studio, each designed and hand-built by the two of them, piece by piece, board by board.

Living in a tent for months while they raised their house brought them in touch with a stream of area inhabitants, including a building inspector who gave them both codes and encouragements, and some hyper-curious neighbors who felt comfortable showing up most any time of the day or night.

“The racoons just mosied right in,” Collene says, “and birds came down to visit. One black-hooded warbler sat at the dinner table with us or hitched a ride on John’s head. At night, the lunas showed up—bigger than your hand—making shadows on the tent.”

And there are other visitors, too, sometimes lots of them.

“It can be corny and romantic how people find me sometimes,” Collene says. “But it’s always great when they come to the studio. It’s very tactile here. I say, sure, everything is meant to be touched. And I learn so much from one-on-one conversations that you can’t have when your work is off in a gallery and you’re some place else. Here I can talk about how I saw something or made something. What happened along the way. Why I used a certain technique or a certain quarry. All in person. And people who visit educate me about what they do.

“I just believe it makes for a better experience to sell work directly out of the studio. I get to spend more time working. And people enjoy being here. In times gone by, book clubs have met in my garden and families have held get-togethers. This is art that’s meant to be lived with.”

In Collene’s artistic vernacular, her pieces oftentimes combine classical sculpture of the human form using marble, limestone or alabaster with Trajan or Roman letter cutting. Practically a lost art in this country, the hand painting, then chiseling of letters on slate blocks and shards has a look and a feel to it—a soulfulness—that sand-blasted letters can never achieve.

Collene’s hand-cut letters, phrases and expressions often turn up as part of her work for the garden, whether as part of a bench or outdoor stone sink or classical torso ingeniously married to a birdhouse. Or they could just as easily flavor an environment where Collene’s frogs, luna moths, bees, roosters and mythological sirens hang out, whimsically and gorgeously entrapped in medallions, triangles and other shapes, awaiting the first sprigs of spring.

“The medium takes time,” says Collene. “It can take me a month to do a single lettered piece.”

And a lifetime of being a happy, cordial, inspired, and socially astute reclusive artist.

Excerpted from the first edition of The Toe River Journal, to appear on regional newsstands in April.