Excuse our language, but 2024 was a whirlwind—literally. Our final episode of the year explores the sweeping impact of Hurricane Helene on the Asheville arts community. NOT REAL ART founder Scott “Sourdough” Power joins ArtsvilleUSA director Louise Glickman to discuss the challenges faced by local artists and art organizations, emphasizing the urgent need for support and funding to sustain their crafts in the aftermath of the disaster. They highlight the resilience and ingenuity of the community as locals adapt to new digital platforms and outreach strategies to promote their work. The episode also introduces new initiatives, like the Helene Stories Hotline (833-622-7871), where artists can share their stories and gain visibility. In this heartfelt conversation, Scott and Louise reaffirm their commitment to amplifying the voices of artists and keeping the spirit of creativity alive in Asheville and beyond.

The resilience of Asheville's artistic community shines through in this episode, which serves as a poignant recap of a year marked by both triumphs and tribulations. Louise and Scott delve into the aftermath of Hurricane Helene and outline the significant impact on local artists and arts organizations. The conversation reveals the harsh reality of financial instability faced by artists as tourism dwindled and disaster relief funds fell short. However, amidst the challenges, the hosts spotlight the unwavering spirit of the community, showcasing various initiatives launched to support artists and keep the arts alive in Asheville. They discuss specific programs aimed at helping artists tell their stories and promote their work, emphasizing the critical role of digital platforms in reaching broader audiences. This episode chronicles the struggles and celebrates the creativity and determination of artists who refuse to be silenced by adversity. Listeners are encouraged to support local artists by purchasing their work and ensuring the continuation of Asheville's rich artistic heritage.

Tune in and join us for this special year-end recap. For more information, visit some of the links referenced in this conversation below.

Arts Connection

ArtsvilleUSA

Craft Your Commerce

NOT REAL ART

For more information, please visit https://www.artsvilleusa.com/2024-review

Artsville, Artsville, the happening town where art abounds.

Hartsville, Hartsville.

From Asheville, Town where art abounds.

Hartsville, Hartsville.

Feeling mountain high and inspiring.

North Carolina.

That's where you'll find us amazing artists and designers.

Oh yeah.

Arts Film from Asheville.

Welcome all you artists and art lovers out there today.

You're listening to Artsville USA's podcast coming to you from Asheville, North Carolina, Carolina.

I'm your host, Louise Glickman and today we have something a little bit different.

Hi, it's Louise again, your podcast host.

Artsville USA is our baby.

It's where we celebrate American contemporary arts and crafts from Asheville and beyond.

We do this monthly and we introduce you to world class movers and makers, their art and craft and their unique careers.

We are coming to you direct from our website where you can link up there to this podcast or most podcast channels.

In addition to what we generally talk about today, we want to tell you a little bit about our future and particularly how we have repurposed and repositioned to serve our artists and our art organizations in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

Scott will be co hosting but leading off the conversation and I will be responding as requested.

So here we go.

Hey Louise, that was fantastic as always, thanks for that.

Well, I tell you Scott, it's been a full year and so much that we have planned and a lot of what we have gotten accomplished really came to a grinding halt on September 27th when Western North Carolina was hit by Hurricane Helene.

And who would have thunk it?

This is the largest land based fiasco in America by some accords we're talking about at this point at least 55, I don't know what is it?

Billion, Million.

I have to think of billion dollars.

It's a $55 billion that is needed and that's for the infrastructure.

Right.

But our role is in keeping the arts and culture alive and keeping that top of mind for people across the world to understand what has happened here and to help support our artists and frankly to support Artsville so we can support our artists as best we can to make sure that the culture and art is also funded.

Exactly.

I mean, to the extent that, you know, we exist to help artists tell their stories and promote their work, I mean, my God, you know, that's more important than ever.

Isn't it?

I mean, in terms of getting these stories out and helping drive traffic to artists websites and artists directly, because now more than ever, they need that extra boost, that extra support.

Well, I tell you, we have gotten some tremendous response.

I've been traveling around to the River Arts District, Daryl, my husband and I, once a week we have pledged to going downtown to have dinner in a restaurant.

We've had some great meals and we haven't had trouble getting reservations.

For a change, everybody here, it's not just that they're working hard.

Their spirit is incredibly positive about what the future holds.

So we have been able to sort of repurpose some of our newsletter content, our podcast, and access to our artists so they can sell.

We've been working very hard on that because everything, of course, is now digital.

We really.

That's how we're going to do everything going forward.

So we've got a lot of things planned and we've had reports back from a number of our artists and people in the community who have been interviewed for various podcasts and our artists themselves.

Yeah, well, you know, we provide, I hope, unique value for so many of these artists because as you've already alluded to, you know, we're not just digital first, but we're artists first.

We're artist centric, we're digital centric.

We live in a modern contemporary age and we try to be as positioned for success, future success as possible.

And, you know, and so digital technology obviously has democratized media and entertainment and so many ways.

And quite frankly, let's face it, I mean, at the end of the day, artists, they don't want to bother with being their own PR agent or their own publicity department.

And many artists on the money to hire a professional publicist or PR agency.

And so sometimes I like to think about us as, you know, as artists, personal PR agency or publicity department.

Right.

Because we want to get the news out into the world.

And when we do it, you know, whether it's on the podcast or whether it's on the blog or whether it's some other kind of format, I mean, we always use, you know, for example, best practices, SEO best practices, digital marketing, content marketing, best practices to ensure that, you know, our stories and our content end up on page one on a Google search, for example.

And so this is the value that we add.

So the artist, you know, the artist can focus on making the work and we can focus on helping them promote it.

Well, I tell you, you bring up some very good points.

And one of the people who has responded to us is Jamie Karolik from Craft yout Commerce.

She is both an artist who actually lives up in Spruce Pine around Peddling school.

Mitchell county was incredibly hard hit.

I mean we're doing a story coming up in our.

I don't know, it might be coming out this coming Monday in our news.

And the devastation there is horrific.

In spite of that, people are reopening even though, you know, it doesn't look like it did before.

They have to sell for Christmas.

We lost the peak tourism season here, which is the fall leaf season.

This has been the most beautiful, colorful, brilliant and spectacular leaf change that I have seen in the 20 years that I've been here.

And you couldn't even get on the Blue Ridge Parkway to see it.

I mean, literally even three to four weeks after Helene, the tourists aren't here.

And so we urge people to go to our website or look up Asheville artists wherever and buy, buy your gifts from Asheville Artists.

The most important thing is that they can feed their families and recover.

Otherwise they will leave for places where it might be easier.

Right now everybody wants to stay.

Everybody's pitching in, but Jamie, Jamie feels at her.

Craft your Commerce works with us so that we can sort of show artists how to market.

You know, we don't take commissions.

And they have an incredible menu each year of trainers in various aspects of arts marketing.

And now since Helene, they are, they're mobilized to offer free one on one support services.

So they actually will receive your call and if you want a grant writer, they'll give you suggestions if you need a new website or some sort of person who can handle your marketing as an artist.

You can't handle it right now or frankly, like you said, don't want to.

Accountants, all these things that artists are looking for right now.

So they're in a rebuilding, reengaging with the public so that they can save their art businesses.

And that's what Craft yout Commerce offers is free technical assistance.

Yeah, Craft yout Commerce is such an important organization.

We're so lucky to be partnered with them and try to, you know, help each other and connect artists with their great programming because that sort of career development, that professional development, that continuing education that they provide is so critical and there are experts at doing it and we're so grateful for our relationship with them.

We'll be reworking it a little bit so it's much easier to navigate and see their work.

And we, you know, we don't take commissions.

We just urge you to go buy from them directly.

And that is really great news.

I have to say, though, not all of the news is great news.

So we heard from Candace Riley, who is the head of the North Carolina Glass center.

And they have a location in the River Arts District, but they also this past year have been constructing a fabulous new location, additional location in Black Mountain, which is just outside of Asheville.

And most of you may have heard of Black Mountain College or Black Mountain Museum, which we also have done a podcast on in the past.

Well, they are really suffering.

I mean, they are right at the rat.

And while they did not suffer a tremendous amount of damage, that without tourism income, they've lost 80% of their annual revenue.

So they've had to start furloughing staff and, you know, changing schedules, minimizing hours, making all kinds of cuts to their budget.

But complicating that factor is that the relief that's coming is coming from bricks and mortar.

We have a specific niche which is keeping the arts and culture alive.

And we've had zero disaster relief funding going to organizations like North Carolina Glass Center.

And artists are.

Instead of building or cleaning or redoing work, some people have lost 30 years worth of work in these studios.

Instead of doing that, that they're home writing grants for very, very small amounts of money.

$500, 300, trying to just carved together an existence.

And then the North Carolina General assembly voted last month to cut arts nonprofits from any disaster funding.

And they are not eligible for funds set up for businesses per se.

Even though these are businesses, they contribute millions of dollars.

Actually, we've lost a billion dollars in tourism income here.

But they're not.

They don't consider what arts have done.

No matter how much we provide statistics showing what we contribute, they don't look at quite the same way as, say, somebody who provides arto parts or something like that.

So the organizations themselves who serve these artists, who find the grants, who give the grants, are having a hard time.

In addition to that, we are a craft center.

And interestingly enough, there are two funds that have been created.

One is called surf, which is for relief in the crafts community, direct to artists, I mean, to crafts people.

And another one, through the center for Craft, Stephanie Moore, our good friend, has raised over a million dollars to serve the craft artists through grants here.

But if you're a 2D artist, if you paint, you're not eligible for those craft funds.

Wow.

That's.

The criteria that they put in place sometimes is just, you know, dumbfounding.

But.

Yeah, well, I mean, that is where we are.

And for the first time ever, we are sending out a call for people to support us so that we can continue keeping the aftermath of Helene and the impact to the arts community in the public eye.

And, you know, we've not done that in the five years that we supported and built this organization, but here we are.

And we're not the only ones.

I mean, there is not a state in the southeastern part of the United States that hasn't had some kind of catastrophe like this.

And the minute a new catastrophe comes up, the old catastrophe loses public interest.

So we're battling that through Artsville.

Well, we're fighting disaster fatigue.

Right.

On some level, because the media is, you know, constantly chasing various disasters across the country, and so they quickly forget what happened to us in Asheville.

And we feel like we can hopefully continue to shine that light and tell that story that it's so important to tell.

Well, like I said, we are doing it at a number of levels.

And like I said, it's not all bad news.

It's a mix of bad news and some actually very good news.

In high spirits.

For example, we heard from Lauren Brunk, who did a podcast with us last year.

They had very little damage.

They're on higher ground.

What they had was technical issues, because whereas people used to come physically for the auctions, now most of those are done online.

So.

But they have the capacity to, you know, they are more business.

They're business, not nonprofit.

So they're an auction house.

They have a constant flow of funds coming in.

So they were able to secure use of a Starlink satellite system, and that allowed them to go ahead with the biggest auction in their history.

There was a copy of the US Constitution.

Very, very, very few.

Like, maybe something like five of these.

And they had one to auction off.

And it was huge.

It was the biggest sale that they've ever had in their entire history.

And that was all because of their digital capacity to do that and get eyes from all over the world.

And that's what we want to do.

We want to make that kind of splash.

And speaking of splash, we got potable water yesterday, so that was pretty exciting.

Oh, oh, oh.

The joy of basic necessities.

And essentials after not having them for six weeks.

Right, right.

I mean, we have been boiling water to just wash our faces and our bodies.

So this was great news.

So the other thing that really got me going this week is I went down to the River Arts District.

They have regular meetings where the whole community gets together.

And they had, several weeks back, a soft opening where anybody who had lost their studios were welcomed into a surviving studio.

And every space throughout where Pink Dog Collective is, which is on higher ground above where the most damage was done, there were tents, there were sharing, there were food trucks.

It felt like the Asheville that I came to 20 years ago.

And they will keep doing these kinds of things because they too, as our friends, want to keep this story alive.

They need to keep this story alive.

And the other thing is the community aspects of this, the building of the community.

So Phil D'Angelo and his buddies.

Phil is a fabulous artist with a beautiful studio that shares a lot of art with other Asheville artists.

Down as you enter the radio.

They recovered very quickly, cleaned up very quickly.

Phil also is a great Italian cook.

He learned all this fabulous recipes from his grandmother, Nona.

And day one, he started cooking these big batches of food.

Volunteers came and they rolled carts around the River Arts District and fed everyone who needed feeding in the recovery process.

And they are still doing that once a week.

And, you know, I'm from New Orleans, if there's food involved.

Exactly.

And so now every week, they do that at these gatherings where Jeffrey Burrows, who's the president of the River Arts District association, he gives every opportunity, whether it's for grants or where to get materials free.

They've built, they've got a warehouse there where artists can go and get supplies at no cost.

People from around the country who are known names in terms of art supply and including Cheap Joe's here, they are bringing boxes and vans full of tools, equipment.

People are cleaning out and bringing their own down there.

And it's become a gathering spot.

I don't want to say quite a.

Party, but hey, you need to party.

Listen, when the shit is hitting the fan and the world is melting down, I mean, what other choice you got?

You can cry or laugh.

I choose to laugh.

Let's dance.

Well, if we can.

If we're not swimming for our lives.

Well, I think it's amazing.

Everybody is volunteering.

Everybody is providing every single opportunity they can, but they cannot do it.

Unless this exposure stays active and alive.

So, you know, you're the marketing genius.

You know, talk to everybody about, you know, changes that we're making, you know, or accomplishments that we've done in the last year to sort of make arts feel stronger so we can deliver a stronger, broader audience.

Our messages.

Yeah, I mean, look, I mean we are a lean, mean, bootstrapped organization, right?

So we have to work as smart as we can.

We're hard workers.

We're not afraid of hard work.

We love what we do.

We're mission driven, we're, we're called to this.

So we, you know, it's hard to walk away for us.

We're a 24 7, 365 kind of mentality here.

But at the end of the day, you and I are just two people.

We can't do it alone, but at the same time we can't do it out.

We can't do it.

We're on a limited budget here, right?

So we have to crawl, walk, run.

We have to be as strategic and as resourceful as we can.

Our intentions are to put ten pounds in a five pound bag.

But at the end of the day, you know, we need to make sure that we're right sizing the business and.

Right.

Sizing the organization so that we can actually sustain the organization and the business and endure over time and endure through tragedy and endure through any number of obstacles.

Well, we have, you know, beefed up in terms of our support staff this year and you know, the work of Elise Wilson and Shout Out.

Elise, yes.

And Morgan Lawrence.

I mean these two ladies are essential.

Morgan and I of course have worked together for five years.

I mean she's been supporting other projects of ours such as not real art for five years now.

And she's absolutely a fantastic editor and she keeps the trains running on time.

Of course, she's a taskmaster and I'm always breaking the rules that she sits in place and you know, I'm the boss but apparently she runs the place.

So, you know, I love Morgan.

She, we can't do it without her.

Shout out to Morgan.

But now.

And she's been turning her attention to Artsville USA as well to support Artsville and on a part time basis, which is phenomenal.

And then of course her Elise is essential.

She's a boot on the ground there in Asheville.

Morgan works remotely out of Ohio.

So, you know, having a lease there to support, you know, the important work you're doing is essential too.

Well, it's more than essential.

It speaks to the two main programs that sort of have gotten us where we are these five years, One being our newsletter.

But we changed it this year so that content comes out weekly and it is archived so that when you go to our newsletter, you can look at stories throughout the year.

And if you have something particular looking for, there's a search bar at the top.

So some of our structure of how we get the news out, how we do our editing, and then we have a monthly roundup that is stronger, I think, this year.

And Elise also handles a lot of outreach into the community.

She also is a very good writer.

I mean, she's not the editor like Morgan is, but they work so well as a team together.

And she also is going to be beefing up our virtual gallery.

You know, more artists, more access to their websites, their links, and more social media.

Morgan has jumped into that social media role.

I must say, the coverage that has been provided on Helene is quite amazing.

And we have a new team member.

Let's talk a little bit about Michael.

Well, Michael was essential.

And by the way, before it is essential in terms of covering the story.

But before I comment on that, I want to quickly point out the fact that prior to Helene, one of the wonderful things that happened was a team building exercise where you and Elise and Morgan came together together there in Asheville.

And you and Elise gave Morgan a red carpet VIP tour of this incredible place.

And that was essential in terms of establishing morale and alignment around our mission and our shared cause.

And so that was a huge win, I think, for Artsville this year.

But Michael is going to be essential moving forward in terms of covering this story.

I mean, we knew instantly on September 27th that we wanted to keep telling this story and shining a light on this rebuild.

And Michael, who's a photographer, he's been through natural disasters previously in his life.

Unfortunately, he survived them thankfully.

But he's the perfect guy because he's out there in the community, he lives out there.

He's helping people, you know, restore and dig out and replace and recover.

But he's shooting photos along the way and he's talking to these people and he really has a finger on the pulse of what's happening out there on the kind of the front lines.

And so he's decided or agreed to work with us and help us through his photography and through his kind of frontlines intel, if you will, informing our stories and our editorial so that we can keep a finger on this story.

Well, we're very excited about the work Michael's done.

It shows up in our news and stories.

I mean, we're storytellers.

That's what we do.

But at the very beginning, first of all, what's very different about Helene is there are 23 counties that are impacted from this storm.

A lot of them still can't be reached because of mudslides.

They're slowly reopening parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Roads have been just crumbled, even into western Tennessee that had the tail end of this storm.

So Michael is an outdoors kind of guy.

He's not just your typical photojournalist.

He's been through five other hurricanes because he lived a large Florida and North Carolina.

That's crazy.

But also, he was camping out to get stories, and he was like.

He's been like the goodwill ambassador.

He lives in the River Arts District.

So his coverage on that, those stories have been fabulous.

But his family and he grew up closer to Boone, which is another very creative, wonderful town.

Boone and Blowing Rock up in that area.

And he was going up to take care of their farm.

So as he went along the way, he got some of the strongest visuals.

And now tomorrow.

So by the time this airs, we will have one of the first exhibits up showing what has actually happened in Helene.

And that will be going up right here in Candler, where we show actually at the local y, the 3,000 members there.

And it did not have any damage.

So we're really excited about his work.

And it definitely shows shows in the coverage.

Now, the other thing it does is it allows us to do something that's critically important, and that is that we need to document what's going on here.

So how are we going to do that?

So, Scott, you want to talk a little bit about the hotline?

That was your idea.

So, yes, I do want to talk about the hotline.

And of course, now I'm realizing that I don't have the phone number in front of me right now.

You have it.

Okay, good, good.

Thank God.

So you're always.

That's.

I love you.

You're always prepared.

I show.

I'm that guy.

I'm that guy in class that always forgets his paper and pencil.

And he looks at the cute girl and he says, hey, can I borrow a piece of paper and pencil?

Anyway, yeah, well, let me.

Let me set it up, and then we'll give the number.

So, yeah, so we knew instantly, right, that gathering stories, gathering, connecting with people to hear their stories was good.

It was going to be very difficult.

I mean, phone lines maybe were down or Internet was down or People were displaced or any number of things.

And we want to make it as easy for people to share their stories and share their plight with us as possible so that we can provide a role and do our part to amplify and boost these stories to the world at large.

And so obviously guys like Michael are boots on the ground out there in the field getting these stories one on one.

But we thought it would be important to set up a so called hotline, toll free phone number where people could call and leave us long messages, however, of any leave us messages of any length and they could tell us what's going on out there in the world, in the front lines, in the mountains, in the valleys there.

And we can use these stories and use our blog, use our platform, our podcast to amplify these stories.

And so we've set up this hotline.

It's free to anybody to call and use.

And please leave us your name, leave us your contact info.

Obviously we won't use it without your permission, but please call and leave us.

Tell us your story, leave us a message.

And Louise, what's that number for people?

I'm thinking you might have to put a one in front of it, I don't know.

And I'd like to talk a little bit about some of the benefits for the people who call in.

So it's your personal narrative, it's your chance to spill it out.

People here have been so brave and they might share this with their sister, their brother, their cousin, a friend.

But I think that the human side of this tragedy are stories that must be told as well as some of the positive stories we've talked about today.

So there's a tremendous feeling of sadness.

There have been a lot of changes in this country since September.

There needs to be a place to express it.

We don't pretend to be psychotherapists here, but this anxiety needs some kind of relief.

And we get post positive stories and these deep feelings that really art heals.

That's the basic thought behind some of this art heals.

We saw it through the pandemic that more people started taking art workshops and working as artists.

I mean, they might have dabbled in it.

Some have gone on now to show and sell work.

So here's an opportunity to really express yourself.

And then the other thing is, from our end, we like to give exposure to the people who belong to our community.

So this is yet another place that we turn when we do our editorial meetings to tell the stories and tell them in such a way that they're inspiring, that they bring more people into the arts audiences and communities as we highlight their journeys and as you say, we amplify their voices.

And lastly, this goes into this documentation vision that you and I have discussed.

Scott, As I said, Southeast United States has been hammered year after year, on and on with climate catastrophe.

This is a whole nother subject that needs to be addressed through our work in the media.

And, you know, we had a lot of coverage in the beginning.

Now we're having other cities that are reaching out to actually raise money for us.

Like, there's a group of cooks here that are.

This is a relationship with New Orleans, and they've invited them down to New Orleans, and the proceeds from those restaurant sales go right back to Asheville to help in our recovery.

Things like that.

Those are the stories that people want to hear about.

Not just the sad ones, but the positive ones about, you know, Phil D'Angelo serving meals down in the rad and stories that come from our hotline.

So it's the good, bad, and ugly.

But when it all comes together in a credible form, a library, if you will, an archive that people down the line can utilize, it will create a playbook for other communities to recover.

We're all doing this individually, state by state, county by county, and there needs to be a reference that shows the path for the progress to recovery.

I'm working on some of that.

We have been invited to do an exhibit down in New Orleans on the anniversary of Helene next September 27th.

And we are working on finding the talent, the funds, the visuals, the artists that can make something like that happen.

And the whole idea there is this.

How do we document processes of recovery?

Many of you know, I'm from New Orleans, so, you know, here I go again.

That's why you sound the way you sound now.

I get it.

People think I'm from.

They think I'm from southern New York City, but I am from New Orleans.

Love the.

Love the accent, by the way.

I love New Orleans.

I love that city.

I haven't been there enough.

I can't wait to go back.

But, yes, well, anyway, you're gonna come back because you're gonna come back with us in January when Michael Maines, one of our good friends, the show opening on Will Henry Stevens down there just at the very beginning of Mardi Gras, and his event is January 11th at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts.

But here's the deal.

Because I worked in New Orleans for 20 years before I worked here, 20 years on arts and cultural tourism development, we will be able to show the fabulous results in New Orleans.

The rebuilding of their arts communities, warehouse districts, and artist survival.

They're going to be 20 years since Katrina, and at the same time, you know, we'll just be one year out on our recovery.

So the New Orleans Academy has offered two large gallery spaces.

One will be for New Orleans artists expressing where they are now, and the other will be showing where we are now and what we can learn directly from them, from their community projects, from their, you know, working with to rebuild land use.

I mean, we're at that stage now, early, early stages, where we have to come together as a community to determine how to utilize the land, how to keep it for artists and not just serve developers.

That's going to keep our culture, that's going to keep our vibe.

What are some really truly creative things that we can do that get a lot of attention and a lot of the projects and people who are working with us are community leaders in developing creative projects like that.

We're going to be interviewing Jan Gilbert from New Orleans.

She's one of those.

And her podcast will be coming out in February.

And we're also doing a great upcoming podcast on the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area, which is more about the traditional arts and crafts of western North Carolina.

How do we keep our history alive through 2D and 3D art?

And that serves the 23 counties that Artsville serves.

We're the only arts organization that reaches out through the region, this region, and within that region, There have been 10 very specific communities full of artists that have been greatly impacted.

So it's not just Asheville.

Well, that's so exciting.

And how.

I mean, that obviously comes serendipitously in part because of your, obviously your connection, your history in that amazing city, New Orleans.

But, you know, but it's also just demonstrates and personifies the generosity, spirit of generosity that places like New Orleans has for other communities that have suffered also a grave catastrophe, because that's, you know, unfortunately, what we both have in common, among other things.

So that's my story.

What would you like to add?

Anything.

Oh, my God.

How do I top that?

I mean, you know, I'm just so grateful for that.

You're okay, relatively speaking.

You're.

You're safe, you're.

You're healthy.

You and your.

You and your man Darrell, who I also care for very much, and just so glad you guys okay.

Elise, and her family are safe and sound, which is critically, which is just wonderful to know and critically important.

And, you know, and obviously there was huge loss of life let in and we just.

Our hearts go out, you know, to all those families.

But, you know, this is a historic time.

You know, I don't know that so many artists have ever been displaced at once.

You know, 500 artists displaced out of the rad.

Just out of the rad.

And that's an historic event, I think, to have so many artists displaced at once.

And so we're just gonna keep doing what we're doing and what we've done and what we promised to be doing, which is to amplify artists stories and tell the story and commit to shining a light on this so that hopefully justice can be served and the culture come back and the vibe that makes Asheville so special is preserved.

So, Louise, thank you so much for being our partner in this and for all the important work that you've been doing, and I hope you're doing okay.

I want to say, actually, it's just now dawning on me that after the pandemic, we produced an event called Smart Talks here in Los Angeles.

And it was a series of panels.

And, you know, some of the one panel was about marketing, and one panel was about, you know, how to, you know, design your first art toy.

And another panel was about discussing the emergence of bipoc artists in the art world.

But one of the panels, the first panel in particular, because this was the first event we did after Covid, was a panel about trauma and how do we process trauma and how can we be prepared for the next disaster, so to speak, mentally and spiritually.

And so I would just invite our listeners to go to notrealart.com, click on the school tab and it's free.

You can watch the video.

When I interview a couple of therapists, trauma experts, and they gave some really excellent advice in terms of how to help us process this horrific.

Well, the horrific event of COVID but any horrific event.

And so I just invite people to check that out.

But in the meantime, Louise, this is fantastic.

Happy holidays.

What are you doing for Thanksgiving?

Oh, I am going with my family to Kiawah island off the coast of Charleston.

And we're going to have a time, a very special time together, because right now we need our family and we need our friends.

So we'll be on the beach.

I don't know how much, how beachy it'll be, but we'll see.

And then we're going to spend A little time in Charleston and lots of good art there and lots of good food, you know.

Excellent, excellent.

Well, that sounds incredibly cathartic.

So before we go, I just really want to give a shout out to all the people that are parts of our audience, parts of our really our global community because we have some of our programs and some of our artists also show up on the Not Real Art site.

So that's been an exciting addition this year.

But there are a number of people who have been especially supportive of us in all kinds of ways to build to where we are.

And you know, we've already talked a little bit about Elise Wilson and Morgan Lawrence and of course you, Scott, and crew West Studio.

But beyond that, there are a few individuals that stand by us thick and thin.

One is Sherry Masters with Arts Connection, which is an arts touring company.

The idea is we not only want to bring eyes to our artists, we want to bring feet to our studios.

So we will be publishing through our news and notes studios that are opening.

There's still events and festivals taking here and we want you to please come visit.

We want to thank Jamie Karolich at Mountain bizworks and Craft yout Commerce, who we will be continuing to talk about and to work with to educate artists on marketing opportunities.

We'll continue to show at the Ferguson Family YMCA and Candler and our friend Ken Katara, a wonderful artist here.

And Ken has even committed to coming back to us with us in New Orleans, Scott, where we're going to gather in January to see Michael Maine's opening show down there.

Michael has been an advisor, a friend, a consultant, an idea guy in every way possible.

And we are grateful for him.

And we're grateful to you, Scott and I just want to wish you and your family the very best.

Well, thank you for that, Louise, and we appreciate you so much.

You're so grateful.

And we love western North Carolina.

We love Asheville.

They love the not just the artists, but all the people there.

And it really is a special place that I've grown to love and we'll get through this.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, we are western North Carolina strong.

So thanks so much for everything.

And here's to another or even a better year ahead.

Indeed.

Happy holidays.

You too.

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Arts Full is produced by Crew West Studio In Los Angeles, Artsville's property of Arterial Incorporated, a 501c3 nonprofit arts organization on a mission to amplify art and artists in the world.

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We'll be back soon with another inspiring episode celebrating American contemporary arts and crafts from Asheville and beyond.

Artsville Artsville the Hatman Town where Art of Bounds Artsville Hartsville From Asheville, town where art abound.

Hartsville, Hartsville.

Feeling mountain high and inspiring.

North Carolina.

That's where you'll find us amazing artists and designers.

Oh yeah.