Mountain Made
Standout artisans, galleries, and more in Asheville, North Carolina
ASHEVILLE IS AN ARTS MECCA, bursting with galleries, shops, and studios. We’ve condensed our list to places that offer a varied experience of exceptional craft, either in Asheville proper or within an hour’s drive.
ARTISANS
The expressive work of potter Akira Satake evokes a quiet energy, celebrating the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, one of impermanence and imperfection. I’m drawn to the naturalistic and inelegant aspects of Satake’s pieces, a true balance of rawness and refinement. Satake’s is one of many studios in the city’s River Arts District, dotted with restaurants and breweries along the French Broad River. For excellent cocktails, oysters, and côte d’boeuf, head to the nearby Bull & Beggar restaurant.
Artist Barbara Zaretsky’s bold prints give life to textiles and other home goods (open by appointment only), while Lexington Glassworks is an expansive garage filled with modern light fixtures and colorful glass-blowing on-site.
GALLERIES
Craft meets fine art at Momentum Gallery, a two-level, light-soaked space in the heart of downtown Asheville. The contemporary art here is mind-bending in detail and execution—think wax-crayon portraits, trompe-l’oeil wooden sculptures that appear to move like fabric, and ethereal textiles.
Equally compelling is Blue Spiral 1. This longstanding downtown gallery represents regional fine artists and artisans working in a variety of 2D and 3D media, with a robust exhibition schedule of more than 25 shows per year. After time here, I cannot resist La Bodega by Cúrate, Chef Katie Button’s stellar tapas restaurant, for pintxos and the gorgeous gin-tonic aromático.
For a scenic field trip, I like to head northeast of Asheville to Penland Gallery to shop the stunning work by students of the famed Penland School of Craft. The picturesque drive alone is worth the trip.
MUSEUMS
While the renovated Asheville Art Museum is worth a visit, Black Mountain College Museum & Art Center is perhaps less known but more regionally compelling. It documents and honors the legacy of Black Mountain College, an experimental arts school founded in 1933, in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Internationally significant artists, including Josef and Anni Albers, Merce Cunningham, Willem and Elaine de Kooning, and Robert Rauschenberg, lived and made art together here until 1957.
SHOPS
Alex Matisse, the great grandson of esteemed French painter Henri Matisse, channels his artistic DNA into clay at East Fork, which he founded in 2009. East Fork has become a global brand of colorful, everyday pottery and home wares, available at its downtown store.
The Grove Arcade, in a historic Venetian Gothic building in downtown Asheville, houses eclectic shops, galleries, and restaurants, and features an outdoor makers market. I never miss the Battery Park Book Exchange for Champagne and jazz to go along with my vintage book browsing.
North of downtown, Grovewood Village next to the historic Omni Grove Park Inn began in 1901 as a hub for woodworking and weaving. Now, its Grovewood Gallery is a faceted showroom of regional crafts, including textiles, furniture, ceramics, and jewelry. The nonprofit Local Cloth advances a regional tradition of fiber craft, with its Blue Ridge Blankets Project. The blankets are made of fiber sourced from 14 regional farms, including its Blue Ridge Blend of fine wool, alpaca, and mohair. The original blanket designs will be for sale at Grovewood Gallery and other retailers in late 2023.
