Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Asheville for the Arts

A few weeks ago, three of my girlfriends and and I travelled to Asheville, NC for a little artistic getaway. We're all artists ourselves and needed a little recharge and a kick of inspiration. I heard where every person out of three is some sort of artist in Asheville. And I believe it! We visited so many studios, boutiques, galleries, all full of wonderful, original arts and crafts. This is a glass blowing studio, open air, where the fires were glowing and folks were blowing away.

We walked and walked all through the downtown area and got peeks into interesting alleys.

Annie, myself and Seal taking a colorful break. The weather was divine, after all the brutally cold weather we've had. It felt so good to soak up some sunshine!

'Chirpy' art.

There are many artisan run boutiques in the area and this was one of the more interesting ones. A tailor was working away on what was to become a corset.

He practiced in France as a corsetier, bringing his expertise to the States. The corset he was just starting was for a full figured woman who would be wearing this day and night for up to year to transform her body to an hour glass figure. It's a type of training one's body has to go through to achieve this look.

This is a finished one, priced at $190. My body shied away from that tight lacing. Oof!

Here was the darling corsetier helper.

This adorable young woman was trying on dresses for prom. 

She looks like a princess. I thought she'd be the hit of the ball!

Girls ready for shopping!

A galleria filled with awesome shops, including a great knitting store.

I like old rusty stuff so this fence really got my attention.




and to top it all off, a spine from something HUGE….like a mastodon or something!

Loved this sign. 

Asheville has it's own pub cycle. Yep, you sit on these stools while pedaling through the busy streets downtown while drinking beer from many of the city's local micro breweries.

They make you sign a waiver first. duh! I wonder how many people have fallen off the seats.

The River Arts District is in an old warehouse area where artists are now creating, painting, building, blowing and making art.

Everywhere one looks there's sculpture, color, jewelry... eye candy for sure.

and of course, wine. good wine, good times.

and in case you need to stop the wine, plenty of wine stoppers to choose from.

We scored this great little Arts and Crafts cottage on Airbnb. It was in a very quiet neighborhood and was absolutely perfect for us. The entire house was just $125 a night! So darn cute! The owner had even left a bottle of wine, cookies and chocolate for us. I highly recommend it and will rent it again when visiting Asheville. After just a few days in this beautiful town in the mountains, we all felt relaxed, recharged and ready to go home and create.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Love Asheville! We were just there in February and visited many of the places on your post. Thanks for the heads up about Airbnb - never heard of it but will check it out.