November Issue 2000
Holiday Studio Tour 2000 Sponsored by the Toe River Arts Council
The mountains of Mitchell and Yancey Counties of Western North Carolina are home to some of the top artists and craftspeople in America. Whether you want contemporary or traditional, two- or three-dimensional, to look at or to use, you'll find a wide selection to select from as, map in hand, you follow the crafts trail set out for Holiday Studio Tour 2000 sponsored by the Toe River Arts Council. This annual event takes place, as always, on the first full weekend in December, which this year falls on the Dec. 2 & 3.
From 10am - 5pm both days, close to 90 artisans open their studio doors and welcome the public to see their workplaces. Some years the weather is mild, yet invigorating, other years, the skies fill with clouds and the rain is enough to make us grateful we aren't shoveling the precipitation. Either way, the studios are warm with welcome. Some even offer food and drink. The glass studios glisten with the shiny surfaces of ornaments, sculptures, and containers of every sort, from goblets to mezuzahs.
The potters may offer their wares from orderly racks or from homemade rustic benches and tables, but they have much to choose from: trays, jugs, mugs, tiles, baking pans, fountains, bird houses, sculptured forms, ceremonial pieces, sets of dishes, even bathroom sinks. They come in stoneware, raku, wood-fired, earthenware, Majolica, or porcelain.
Look for functional and sculptural work from basketmakers who work in traditional gathered materials or in the modern Asian reeds. If wood makes your nerve ends tingle, then you can select from carvings, furniture, turned wood combined with blown glass, or art made with materials gathered from the woods. People who look for 2-D art can chose from photographs, watercolors, oil, acrylics, silkscreen, and paintings on handmade paper. Textiles are well represented with handspun yarns, hand-woven flat goods, art quilts, sculptured dolls, knitwear, and garments pieced, painted, and quilted. Look for ironwork, handmade books, jewelry, soap and scents, beeswax candles, Native American Arts, stationery, and tree ornaments. If the studios don't have what you're looking for, step into any of the 15 or so galleries on the tour, where you'll find a wide range of handcrafted articles.
A map can be viewed at (http://main.nc.us/TRAC) or picked up on the day of the tour at any of the participating studios including Hayden, Zebulon or A Touch of Cass Galleries in Burnsville; in Spruce Pine at Twisted Laurel Gallery or Blue Moon Bookstore; Bakersville at Local Color or Two Trees Pottery; or at Pine Crossings Gallery close to the Blue Ridge Parkway on Hwy 226.
For further information contact the Toe River Arts Council, P0 Box 882, Burnsville, NC 28714 or call 828/682-7215 or (TRAC@yancey.main.nc.us).
Mailing Address: Carolina Arts, P.O. Drawer
427, Bonneau, SC 29431
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E-Mail: carolinart@aol.com
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Carolina Arts
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Copyright© 2000 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston
Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts
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