In Asheville, a battle is playing out over a 45-acre forest bordering UNC Asheville and the Five Points neighborhood, a haven for tricolored bats, box turtles, bobcats, and great horned owls, less than a mile from downtown. The controversy reached a turning point when, as recently reported by Asheville Watchdog, a university-appointed advisory committee recommended against building a large-scale stadium on the site, calling the project “misaligned with UNCA’s identity” and urging the school to prioritize student housing, retail, open community space, and the preservation of green areas. Still, new development proposals continue to threaten this patch of urban wilderness, keeping it at the center of one of Asheville’s most heated land use debates.

At the heart of the fight to protect the woods is Spencer Beals, a local artist with a background in ecosystem sustainability and a lifelong passion for nature. Last December, he gathered more than 30 local artists for “Batland,” a guerrilla installation of over 40 painted wooden bats, placed secretly by night on branches throughout the woods. Spencer and his collaborators created detailed, hand-drawn maps—now on view in full at the ArtsvilleUSA gallery wall at the Ferguson Family YMCA—and stashed them in a homemade outdoor library, transforming the forest into a massive scavenger hunt for families, students, and neighbors.

Spencer leads nature journaling clubs along these trails, helps organize rallies, and works closely with Save the UNCA Woods, a community group that’s collected over 17,000 petition signatures and flooded city boards with letters. He consults with wildlife biologists and listens to longtime residents who say they’ve never seen so many people in the woods.

Now, Spencer is speaking with Elise Wilson, executive director of ArtsvilleUSA, about the intersection of art, advocacy, and community building in Asheville. Their conversation explores how artists can shape public discourse, mobilize communities, and influence the fate of the city’s remaining green spaces.

Episode Credits

Host: Elise Wilson, ArtsvilleUSA Executive Director

Guest: Spencer Beals, artist and environmental advocate

Produced by: ArtsvilleUSA / Arterial Inc.

Audio editing: Maggi Van Dorn

Newsletter: Subscribe to the ArtsvilleUSA Newsletter for more stories and updates on the arts and crafts scene in Western North Carolina.

Our guest today is someone with a lot of ideas about how art can change the way we experience and protect wild places.

He makes a strong case that artists are perfectly poised to be stewards of place, community and wildlife.

I'm Elise Wilson, executive director of Artsville.

USA, where we celebrate the fine art and contemporary craft from across western North Carolina.

Please join me in welcoming Spencer Beals from Asheville's River Arts District,.

Mountain High and Inspire, North Carolina.

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

All right, so to start, can you give your name, your studio name and your medium?

Yeah, my name's Spencer Beals.

I am a full time artist at Rad Rendezvous, which is a newer art gallery right next to the Radical Hotel in the River Arts District.

And I work with watercolor, colored pencil and marker on paper.

So can you describe your work for someone who's never seen it?

Yeah, yeah.

They're amazingly detailed and colorful.

Off the rip, it's usually a lot of animals and sort of underwater, above water transitions of creatures climbing in and out of situations, situations.

And a lot of it's inspired by nature, journaling and storytelling.

So all that's brought into it.

It's really neat too.

I love that many of your bigger works have like a very large animal at the top, sort of like residing over the kingdom of the rest of the artwork.

They're really powerful.

Oh, thank you.

I'm wondering, were you like an artsy kid?

Yeah, yeah.

I've been making art since I was 4, so I've always just loved it and I'm gonna do it until I die.

I can't help myself.

That's awesome.

What about nature?

When did that become like an interest of yours?

Yeah, I was like a kid, you know, like wrangling salamanders and making little houses for them with my cousins.

Then we'd like run off into the woods to find pine cones and weird objects to bling out our little salamander houses and have a trading post for or salamander merchandise.

Yeah, I, I, my dad took me camping when I was little, which was sweet.

And I had a bunch of older cousins who weren't scared of snakes and would grab them.

So like ever since I was a kid, I was like wide eyed because my older cousin Ian was like grabbing a crawdad and like showing me how to hold them so they don't like.

Pinch you or whatever.

So, yeah, all that was super lucky.

And then I ended up doing a wilderness therapy as I got older, as a facilitator for about two years in southern Utah.

And that was camping for two weeks at a time.

And now I, you know, I moved to the Southern Appalachians in large part due to the ecology of the region and a desire to get back into doing wilderness therapy.

And ultimately how it all played out was I've found a studio for $440 a month at Foundation Studios down in the River Arts District.

And I was like, oh my gosh, like, I might as well just try and do this until I run out of cash.

And if I run out of cash, I'll just go retrain, do wilderness therapy again.

But ever since that, I just dove in and did a bunch of like, pet portraits just to get like my career going.

And then from there I've just been able to make it work.

I'm living in a van, which keeps expenses down.

And then I just spend over 60 hours a week making art.

So I'm obsessed.

Yeah, I think your pieces show that you have a lot of focus.

Before we get into that, though, where did you grow up?

Yeah, that was like a whole hodgepodge of place.

I was tech.

I was born in Washington state and then, you know, Connecticut, New Jersey, California, Utah, Baltimore.

It's been a lot of places, but I love it here.

And I'm just gonna hold it down in Asheville.

Yeah, I can see that this would be a good place for you.

I mean, you've really put down roots and made some community here.

And I saw that you also went to school in Maryland, right?

Yeah, in Baltimore.

With a minor in ecosystem sustainability and justice.

And that flows through your work, I feel like too.

Yeah, absolutely.

So tell me about van life.

How did you make that choice?

Yeah, I've been doing that for.

For four years.

It's.

Yeah, it's always made sense because if you're selling art at a market, you pretty much need a big car any.

So it just partners well with everything else I do.

I just.

We were driving back from Northern Michigan.

We were selling our electric forest, which was absolutely surreal.

But yeah, living in the van has just aged tremendously.

As I travel more for these pop up art shows, I have a place just to stash a ton of boxes and whatnot.

Does it give you the opportunity to be in nature more?

Do you feel like it deepens your connection at all or are you sort of planted in the city?

Most of the time I get out in the woods A lot?

Yeah, like just dispersed camping.

Pisgah.

I've been to like every single site there is to be to be parked.

And it definitely has a lower barrier to entry to just getting out into the woods.

But I've never been nomadic in any way, shape or form.

Like the average amount of time somebody does van life after converting a vehicle is like 11 months.

Because it's like chaotically never.

It's like too much freedom, realistically.

Like you kind of need like the structure.

So I'm very much in Asheville and just using it as affordable housing.

So are you making art exclusively at your studio or are you out and about?

Yeah, I do.

A lot of it stems out of nature journaling.

So I host a nature journaling club where we go out into Pisgah all the time and do art.

And I'm working on a picture book which is a road trip around the American South.

Nature journaling.

But the.

I mean, even the people who are quote unquote plein air painting, like so many of those people are bringing that thing back into the studio where it's.

There's less bugs and you could sit more comfortably and.

Yeah, so it's usually a balance where like a lot of the idea generation is out in the woods and then coming back into the laboratory and sort of synthesizing stuff.

Can you tell me a little bit more about your experience in the River Arts District?

I mean, Asheville has some of the most full time artists of any city I've ever been to.

Just because it's like totally fueled by a, you know, tourist scene of people who want like, they know western North Carolina has creatives.

It's got deep folk culture.

It's got so many artists, artisans and glass blowers and ceramicists and painters.

And you walk through the River Arts District.

I mean, it's realistic that you could, you know, meet a hundred artists and see a hundred different ways of making.

And it's like super kid friendly.

And it invites in folks who wouldn't necessarily go to some art museum in quotation marks, but they would just, you know, they're traveling around, they're soaking in the city and that's a way to meet creatives and have an interesting day and get lost and yeah, I love the River Arts District and it supports a lot of people.

So I'm very grateful for it.

Well, I wonder what you've seen the difference before and after Helene.

Being in the River Arts District, being a working artist in an open studio, harder pricing's up.

I mean, any building owner is putting, I don't know, $100,000 plus into a renovation is just going to pass that on to an artist.

And it's not.

There's no disrespect there.

It's, like, understandable.

Like, your building collapsed, and then you made it available, and we need more studios.

So I see these people, like, taking on, you know, buildings and, like, the same pressures that impact every art scene in the world are gonna happen here.

We'd be naive to think that the, like, artists create gentrification.

You see nice apartments go up.

It's, like a nice place to live.

It has a nice attraction.

There's nice restaurants there.

There's, you know, dentists moving in.

We're, like, pretty far along an arc, and we've got decisions to make, because at some point, you will just push the artists out, even if you don't want to, and it'll rebuild somewhere else.

But there's a lot of beauty there and desire.

And a lot of the building owners are art lovers, and that's clear.

And a lot of the tourist industry is dependent on a thriving art scene in Asheville.

So there's, like, the powers that be that have way more money in hotel money also want the artist to not get completely screwed.

So there.

There's, like, a lot of opportunity and.

Reasons to be more hopeful than a classic city where it's like, okay, we're just gonna rent this building to whoever can pay it.

And, of course, that pressure is both there and, I mean, yeah, I was paying 440 when I got here.

After I found a new spot, I was paying 660.

Now I'm moving into a spot that's a thousand 100amonth.

So it's, like, more than doubled.

Yeah, no, without a doubt.

And, I mean, I see that pressure everywhere.

I think it's bad.

It's bad.

And I, like, thank God I was able to get in at that low price point to figure out certain things and to see, like, what pieces people.

Connected with and how to scale to work and how to, like, have conversations about my art that were connective and all these things that, like.

Well, you're like, if you have to.

Figure that out at $1,000 a month,.

You're just not going to figure it out.

And, you know, they'll.

You'll just work service work.

You'll work whatever it takes just to pay rent.

And then a lot of that, like, creative potential that really could have, like, fueled a city and fueled somebody's life is just, like, more or less just.

Yeah.

It's exhausting.

It's exhausting to work, so.

Yeah, but that's.

Yeah, it's hard to have a creative art career.

But I do see a lot of potential in Asheville and a lot of people are finding ways to make it work.

It seems like you see a lot of potential in everything.

I mean, something that you're known for and something we really want to talk about today is your advocacy work.

Being able to see the situation as it is and what it could or should be is something that not everybody has the vision for.

So let's start by talking about maybe really broadly, what is the role of activism as an artist and vice versa.

Totally.

Yeah.

I mean, artists are visionary.

So it's like we're pretty close to losing, you know, a 45 acre urban forest that's within a mile of downtown Asheville, which is like, said like, that is like insane.

Like, you're telling me there's an interconnected greenway via Reed Creek that you can walk from downtown Asheville into one of the largest intact urban forests.

And we're willing to say, I don't know what about.

So.

So the project you're talking about is Save the Woods, which you have been organizing.

Save the woods is technically its own group.

I mean, there's tons of people who are involved with it and I've partnered with them as an artist and I remain separate, so I can do things that they can't do and be personally.

Held responsible and not.

I have not saved the woods.

Yeah, no, but we're.

I mean, it's a.

It's a group of people who are trying to protect this awesome urban forest in Asheville.

But yeah, advocacy, I think is inherent to the artist because you're a culture creator and artists are, you know, usually informed in their communities and have like, an important role to play in.

Yeah, I just, I view everything that's happened there as like an extension of.

Of my work.

And I'm so grateful for it and like, because my work is like, whatever I need it to be.

I'm like, in a perfect position to like, take on projects that are super interesting, but it's not like anybody's job.

And that's why, like, nobody's responsible for it, which is why it's like, easy to lose these sorts of places.

So you are in a position where you can choose to be a champion of this green space.

Urban green space.

Yeah.

We certainly chose to install without permission, like, over 40 large wooden bat installations in the middle of the night going up on, you know, Ladders and whatnot, and creating this, like, epic free scavenger hunt to try and bring as many people into this forest as possible.

And it's funny to imagine that as part of, like, my job description, but it is like, the artist has the, like, superpowers to like, like, do whatever fuels them.

It was a really amazing installation.

It's called Batland.

And you made several different pieces that were live in the woods for folks to go and find.

And a map in your traditional style on paper, which is also super cool to see.

Yo, thanks.

Yeah, I mean, it's a.

It's an epic Asheville wide collaboration.

I mean, there's over 30 artists who hand painted a bat.

They kind of gave me a design after I was like, yo, I need.

You to log in on this project there.

Everybody was so open to it.

You have Solstice Handmade, who's an amazing artist, Edwin Solace, who's a terrific puppeteer in the region.

Like, you have all these people who.

I've really looked up to who were like, when I came to them with the project, they were super excited about it.

So they gave me sort of a sketch of some, like, bat in their style.

And then we cut out a bunch of plywood, we primed it, and then we had a day where folks came into.

At that point, my studio was at Pink Dog Creative, and we were painting them and they came out incredible.

And yeah, it was like this epic scavenger hunt in the woods and you could track them down.

We had a little library full of the maps where, you know, kids would grab them, they'd run around the trails, Talked to so many neighbors of the.

Area who said, man, I've lived here my whole life.

I've never seen like this many people in the woods.

Like, which was super, like, amazing because it's like, man, like, if you don't, like, use these places and you don't know about these places, like, you'll lose every single last one.

Why did you choose bats to focus the issue?

Yeah, well, they found the tri colored bat, which is an endangered species, uses those woods.

Yeah, it's summertime, so bats are out of their caves and they're using that as places to, you know, get food.

Will Harlan had the insight to install a bunch of bat detection and he found over six species in that, including this endangered species.

So then we just sort of worked off of that.

And I thought it was so cool that there's like all these bats that live in those woods.

So it's pretty special.

Do you feel like, it changed anybody's mind?

Oh, without a doubt.

I mean, there's.

There's thousands of people who know about that forest as a result of this.

How many days was it up?

It was up for a decent amount of time.

It was probably up for, loosely, two weeks or something like that, when it.

Was fully expanded across, like, the woods.

And I'm.

I'm quite optimistic.

I think, like, something that is 10x better than that, like, will ultimately fill.

That forest, and it will be viewed as, like, this, like, enchanted urban forest.

I mean, there's such a hunger for a little bit of whimsy in the woods.

And, I mean, Asheville is that it's like its identity is built on that.

Its tourism is built on that.

Realistically, like, you come here for the Blue Ridge Mountains and for the creative scene.

Like, it makes absolute sense to invest in that as this, like, epic playground that's so close to the downtown.

Because, I mean, like, I hate to.

Keep harping on tourism because obviously there's values beyond that.

But I recognize that, like, almost every small business downtown is tourism dependent.

Almost every business and river arts district, realistically, is tourist dependent, even if you don't like it.

Like, West Asheville is probably sustained by.

Ashevillians, but the vast majority of these small businesses are so tied to it.

And, like, if you just.

If you're here for a weekend and then realistically, you're driving 45 minutes up.

The Blue Ridge Parkway to do a.

Hike, dude, we need great spots in town.

We need them without a doubt.

And the best time to set that up was 300 years ago.

But we're working with what we're working with.

And when you have, like, an intact urban forest within a mile of downtown Asheville connected by the Reed Creek Greenway, it would be insane to, like, lose that and to not celebrate it.

And then I'll have, like, entryways that are archways that are filled with art that says, come on in.

Because as it currently stands, it's like the Five Points neighborhood knows what they have to lose, which is why Save the Woods is massive, which is why there's over 17,000 petitions trying to save the woods, which is why, you know, they just sent hundreds and hundreds of emails to these boards and that there's been this ongoing pressure, but outside of that area, the.

The forest has not done a good enough job promoting itself and making itself known to the general public.

That.

That's why Batland, I think, was effective, because it introduced this area that the people who live right there always knew Was.

But a lot of people, it just wasn't on their map.

Can you explain the other side of the coin?

What were they trying to do to develop this area that Batland and Save the woods are trying to promote against?

I'll be very curious to see the recommendation they put out.

But at some point, they were trying to put a massive soccer stadium, a bunch of retail space, and then there is a stretch of the forest on the north side that you could accommodate some more student housing, which is something that's really important.

In between the Vivian lot in the.

Forest Service building, there's this narrow stretch of forest that I think if you had to create more housing, that would be an amazing portal because it would.

Essentially open up this space that would.

Be like, this funneling into the urban forest.

But at some point, you have to, like, believe that this is a valuable asset that people want.

And I've got a chance to talk to so many of the UNCA students, and it's so clear that they're.

They're craving, like, I mean, high levels.

Of anxiety, high levels of depression.

Like, the idea that I. Oh, I went to UNCA because I wanted to.

Be in the mountains of Asheville, and.

My dormitory was actually right next to these amazing looping trails.

So every morning before class, like, I looped through the urban forest, and I got to watch these great horned owls come back and nest every day, like, through the winter.

I spent 18 days in a row watching this mother sit and incubate what would become triplets.

And as spring has come, I've, like, watched them grow up.

And, you know, one of them fell out of the nest, and we rushed it up, like, an hour north where.

Yeah, baby Fraggle, have you heard this story?

No, tell me.

Hundreds of people this year got to.

Witness, like, this great horned owl family raised a family.

And at one point, one of the babies was knocked out of the nest, and we raced it up north, and it received a blood transfusion from a barred owl, which is insane.

Yeah.

And it lived.

And then the fire department came out, and they put a fire truck right by the forest service building, and there was, like, a crowd of people, because we've been bird watching this great Lord Owl family for so long.

Yeah, Sprocket and Fraggle, they're out there in the woods right now just chomping on squirrels, living the dream.

Shout out to Sprocket and Fraggle.

Yeah, true.

So how do you feel like, your wilderness therapy background plays into the.

The community work that you're doing now to get people Connected to the woods?

Yeah.

I mean, it's medicine.

It's well known to be medicine.

I mean, the urban forest is so.

Unique, in a sense, because it's, like,.

It's not going to be wilderness.

Like, the idea that this is an area that is, like, purely pristine is.

Unrealistic, which is why it's the perfect place for, like, art installation.

Because, like, the urban forest is this.

Interaction between, like, the larger Pisgah area around us.

But you have, you know, we.

I put trail cameras up in the forest, and we had, like, we've captured coyotes in there.

We've captured gray foxes.

We've captured bobcats on two separate occasions.

So middle of the day, bobcats walking less than a mile from downtown Asheville.

Like, you have these bears all the time.

Always and forever bears.

Like, you've got box turtles and squirrels and, like, different species of owls.

Like, it's a.

It would shock a lot of people, the actual biodiversity in there, because you're.

Like, how is this possible?

We're right by the city.

But it's like this awesome interaction point.

And unlike a.

Unlike a hike that you drive 45 minutes to, like, someplace you can come.

Back to in different seasons and, like, notice the seasonal happenings one week compared to the last week, compared to the.

Week before that, like, it gets a level of intimacy that's so required because.

The obvious question is, like, where are you hiking in, like, downtown Asheville?

And the answer to that is, like, more and more.

So we're driving pretty far outside of the city to, like, get that fix, but it's like, man, dude, you.

We got bobcats right here.

Did you know these bobcats?

I'm always telling somebody about the bobcats because it's like, that's so cool.

There's also the forever question of cougars.

Are they still here?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'll let you know when we.

When we get one on video.

But I like to believe.

I'm a believer as well.

Yeah.

What about your other conservation advocacy work?

Because this is not the first cause that you've put your time and energy into as an artist.

Yeah, yeah.

And we've won a bunch of them.

That's what I love that, like, you can win these things.

Like, a lot of times the ones.

That lose are the ones where people don't speak up for them.

But, yeah, I partnered with Defenders of Wildlife for the Okefenokee Swamp, which is the largest blackwater swamp in America and which is an amazing spot to canoe camp if you ever get the champ.

South Southern Georgia, you Could drive out there for a crazy weekend of camping on a floating platform with sandhill cranes and just teeming to the brim with alligators.

It's amazing.

But there was a proposed titanium mine and we did a lot of work bringing people together, doing public comments.

Yeah.

Just talking to the state of Georgia and then ultimately that land was just bought outright and protected and will not be a titanium mine, which was going to take a million acres of groundwater a day just to like spray into this, like very water intensive practice.

And your work specifically highlighted, like Florida's natural springs, the endangered red wolf and other endangered species.

Yeah, well, so Defenders of Wildlife Southeast Branch is based in Asheville, North Carolina.

So I mean, Asheville has this amazing.

Outsized influence as an environmental stewardship.

It's the same for center for Biological Diversity.

And all these nonprofits have huge hubs.

Here because a the southern Appalachians, you know, mo salamander diversity of anywhere in the world.

There's more tree species in the Smokies than in all of Europe five times over.

Like, it really is amazing.

You take folks in to see the wildlife as well.

You've got a sketchbook club and a birding club.

Talk about that.

How does that influence the connection that you feel and the connection that people from the community get to feel with the space?

Yeah, I mean, I'll.

You take somebody on a walk in that forest one time, they'll want to protect it.

It's like self obvious upon going there.

Like go there, go to drive to.

42 Dorch and park on the side of the road and then go try.

And find Batland because it's a. Batland is still alive.

Mind you, I need to double back on this point because people are so sad.

I missed battling.

Guess what?

You didn't miss Batland.

Yeah, no, there's like a tiny parcel of the land that is technically private property that Save the Woods got permission to use.

So the chancellor took down all the bats because way too many people were having a great time in the forest.

We shifted it to somewhere where they.

Do not have jurisdiction.

And it's amazing place to go visit this summer.

Yeah, we've been having tons of musical.

Events there, but yeah, the in person thing, you can't beat it.

You can describe like what it's like to, you know, watch a baby great horned owl do its little bop dance as it's like strengthening its wings doing this funny little left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot.

But you see it and you're like, oh my gosh, what the heck that's crazy right here.

It's magic.

So you got to go into the woods.

You gotta.

Have you found a lot of community with other artists doing that?

Yeah, totally.

I mean, yeah.

Solstice handmade.

She's got a whole apparel design, so inspired by, like, Pink Lady Slipper.

And I'm.

I'm not wearing a shirt right now.

I look down because 80% of the time I'm wearing Solstice say I made.

But, yeah, she's done, like, slime molds of the area.

I mean, there's tons of artists who've been inspired by the Blue Ridge Mountains.

It's like a huge connection point for so much of the creative community, which I'm super grateful for.

You're actually wearing a 12Baskets shirt right now, which is one that you made.

Yeah.

Because you're a champion of a lot of different causes, I think that your story is one that supports that you can throw yourself as an artist behind any cause that you feel is worthy.

And so 12Baskets is a local.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're.

They're in West Asheville.

It's part of the Asheville Poverty Initiative, who just celebrated 10 years, and they have 12 baskets, which is this free restaurant.

So Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday from 11 to 1, people can come in for a free meal.

And if you've got a lot of food that you're worried is going to.

Go bad, you can bring it there, and it.

It will be enjoyed by many.

So that's where I've been hosting Sketchbook Club ever since.

I mean, I used to host it in the River Arts District, and then once that was flooded, Shelly Baker at 12 Baskets was like, you can totally do it here.

And it was such a blessing because, you know, we meet the first and third Monday of the month from 6 to 8pm so it's twice a month.

And we've been doing it for over three years straight without missing a single one, even through Helene.

So we've.

We flooded out, and then the next third one, we were open at 12 baskets.

So for like a year and a half, we've been.

We've been doing that.

And that's.

Yeah, that's a magical spot.

And it's always good to partner with other people doing, like, awesome community work.

It's an amazing feat in and of itself to get artists on a regular schedule.

So I commend you for that.

Yeah.

And you've also done work for NAMI's mental health art Shell.

Yeah.

The national alliance for Mental Health.

We had this awesome mental health Art show where folks brought in work, and then we had this opening where they were giving kind of artist talk, giving a little bit more influence into what inspired the work and what they were sort of processing through or moving through that sort of brought the work forward.

And it's really powerful event.

Yeah, I was super grateful to be a part of that.

Do you have any personal connection to these folks besides you met them in the community and you liked what they were doing?

That's usually what it takes.

Yeah.

I mean, I think part of it, truthfully, is the fact that there's not massive industry here.

So I meet so many people who.

Are entrepreneurial in some way or finding.

Some way to make it work in.

A way that's, on average, far more creative.

Like, there's no large financial banker.

Like, there's no, like, spot downtown where all the lawyers are.

Maybe there are, but, like, there's not, like, those classic industries.

So there's, like, a lot of small businesses who are creatively hustling.

And anytime I can find a way to collaborate creatively, I. I'm.

I get.

I get excited.

Would you have something to say to other artists who aren't sure about how to get connected or who have causes that they like, but they don't know how to advocate for them with their art?

Yeah.

Something that I've always found to be incredibly successful is if I go up to, like, say, Defenders of Wildlife.

It's a massive organization, and, like, instead.

Of being like, hey, I hope there's,.

Like, a way to do something together,.

You're like, this is exactly what I'm.

Gonna do, and this is the budget for it.

Hey, no worries if it's a yes or no.

But, like, this is when I'll have this.

This is when I'll have this done.

And then we'll do this awesome event.

At the end where we can bring.

A bunch of fol around the topic.

Because it's like, you do all the.

Thinking for them, and you just think, man, like, what would be amazing right now?

Like, what would really, like, energize me?

Be awesome for them?

You write it out in great detail, and then, you know, if there's things that they need to edit, it's way easier to be like, hey, I love this.

I love this.

I love this.

This timeline.

We just got to switch it smallly and, yeah, let's do it.

I'm good to go.

I mean, to speak more broadly, I mean, it is the age the independent artist.

Like, historically, artists have always been a dependent on a gallery for some sort of representation.

And the strategy has always been like, hey, like try and find a gallery who can represent you.

They have an audience.

And more and more with social media, you can build your own audience.

So like you can have a bigger.

Audience than a gallery can.

And you can put out work that more people see than if somebody else was putting it forward.

And I think that's an amazing thing.

And it's like.

But also, yeah, as, as for specifics, just.

I'll talk to any artist.

Just swing by my studio at Rendezvous.

If you have like specific ideas.

I'm happy to like think through ideas for sure.

You're also working in an election cycle right now.

Yeah, I was, I'm super grateful I.

Was able to do Kim Roney's mayoral campaign poster.

So yeah, you walk all over west Asheville, you'll see it up in different restaurants.

And it's like her with two hell.

Benders climbing up her, the bears like.

Eating the sandwich, gazing longingly at her, thinking about how she could be the mayor.

But she's.

Yeah, she's come to almost every event for Save the Woods.

She is everywhere for Asheville.

I think she would make an incredible mayor and I think she's an incredible person.

There's a lot of great ideas out there, so I hope we're just able to just keep doing them.

Finding the right ideas and the right folks to advocate for them.

Totally.

Yeah.

Just bringing creativity and environmental stewardship into the front of ideas and just really being visionary with what's possible.

Your work is all about animals in nature.

Even work that's not in conjunction with an organization or something cause that you're advocating for.

Do you feel like the animals and scenes that you're drawing are pushing a specific message or is it just you like drawing them?

That's a good question.

Most of the world is non human.

Like humans like really create everything in.

Their own best interest, God bless them.

But everybody else is still here.

So definitely if I'm geeked out in nature just thinking about what it is to swim through the soil as a mycelium and smell the sort of rotting bug.

That is my sort of rotting bug.

And then subjective experience of like humming my way into it and like explaining expanding into its body, like that's always like just imagining what it's like to be other creatures is just so curious to me.

So that's where a lot of, a lot of it goes naturally.

I've got this five part mushroom series I'm working on where I was thinking about how Cordyceps existed where they have the ability to sort of take over the mind of a species that isn't them.

And I was envisioning like decomposing an ant.

And as you're like inside of its body with your root mycelium, like you feel like some sort of death twitch in the ant.

And there's something about it that like a little piece of information is like uploaded into this mushroom mind and eventually it has like such a complete enough imagination of what this creature is that a spore is capable of causing this ant, against its own better judgment, to climb 20ft up a tree in the middle of the day and climb clunch down on a tree and have a spore explode out of its brain like it's insane psychedelia all around us.

It's crazier than you could ever imagine.

And art is just a great way to tap into all that magic to.

Bring attention to things that folks aren't thinking about because they're thinking about themselves.

Yeah, yeah.

I can't imagine anybody's going to come away from this not understanding your passion for this project.

Where do you feel like it comes from in general?

I just highly have a lot of.

Energy and anytime I get excited about something, I can tunnel vision pretty hard.

But yeah, just community and like, we'll,.

We'll win or lose, you know, like,.

We'll either have that 45 acre urban forest or we won't for the rest of my life.

And I'm gonna know.

And like, like, like, no matter all the successes that Batland had, if there's not a forest there, then we didn't do enough.

Enough.

Do you feel like causes choose you or you choose causes?

I'm pretty interested in protecting areas that are amazing in the American south.

So I'm like connected enough with.

The non profits who are doing the work day in and day out.

There's a lot of people who are just straight up lawyers who are grinding because most like these problems just end up being like in litigation and whatnot.

And that's how they're won and lost over the course of like four years, which sounds insanely annoying.

And I feel like the role of the artist is like, hype up that lawyer to be like, yo, keep going, keep going.

Bring some public awareness.

Yeah.

And some public support so that they have more of a case, more of a tool.

Another tool in the toolbox.

Totally.

Like, people love this place, yo.

And it's true.

Well, so are there any other projects that you're working on right now or are you really zoned in and focused on Save the Woods.

As for Save the Woods, I'm very curious what a bulldozer salesman, a Wells Fargo executive, and other real estate developers talk about behind closed doors.

And because they say they're going to come up with their idea in July, I'm laser focused.

We had this conversation at the right time.

I think everybody should be extremely curious about what that happens.

And I think even if they put forward one of the most bogus ideas I've ever heard, we're gonna throw one of the biggest parties in that forest.

We're gonna have glowing acrobatics coming off like, you know what I'm saying?

We'll have jugglers, we'll have DJ Little Meow Meow.

Like we had DJ Lil Meow Meow.

We live stream the old like the animated version of the Lorax because it.

Was clear some people hadn't watched it yet.

That was so fun.

We had a dance party with a dj middle of the night watching the Lorax and like those types of like creative energy to be like, nah, dude, like, you can't tell me this is a lot.

I don't believe you, dude.

I've partied there.

That is not like a lot.

It is not a dead place.

It is like an alive forest that.

Could be so much more than it is.

And that.

And you could invest in its opening so more people could enjoy it and you could elevate it as a forest and you could manage it better and you could bring in all these people who are obviously coming because they're interested in forestry and teach them about how to like get rid of non natives and how to plant like a permaculture garden within the forest.

And like it's so infinite, but it's like right now is like where those decisions are happening.

So as it stands, I'm very focused on Save the Woods and, and making sure that we do not lose, like take our eye off the ball.

If someone wants to get involved, what's the best way for them to find you and find more?

Yeah, you can connect on Instagram.

My handle is Beals Art.

B E A L S dot art.

You can join the monthly Save the Woods meetings or follow Save.

Is it Save the Unca Woods?

Yeah, it's Save Unca Woods.

Yep, yep, yep.

You should check them out.

You should.

They do sign waving rallies.

They do all sorts of amazing events.

And it's, it's nobody like, we need you.

Like, everybody's like thinking that these things.

Are created by people who are far.

More qualified and intelligent and have like a deep background in environmentalism.

It's like most of the people who are passionate about it just hike their dog there and want to be involved.

And like you could too.

And like it's going to take all of us.

And if we are come together and say, man, we people are saying we could have an enchanted psychedelic forest walk.

Like I keep hearing about a 30.

Foot Hellbender sculpture that you guys are considering.

Like just keep asking them about.

Would be cool.

I heard on this podcast that you have this exhibit coming up.

Tell me more.

Can you tell me, is there one thing?

If folks are going out to hike or they're going out to do sketchbook club or they're going to enjoy nature or creating art about nature, is there one thing this summer that you hope they're paying attention to specifically?

Not in terms of advocacy, but just in terms of soaking it in.

Oh man, just be the person who invites your friends to go out there.

Because everybody's dying to go out there.

But literally pick a day on your.

Damn calendar, figure out where you're gonna drive.

Be like, okay, all carpool and be the person who actually makes it happen.

Well, Spencer, it's been a joy to talk with you.

Thanks for sharing more with us about advocating through art and with art and for the idea that art and nature can be so connected and should be so connected.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

I really appreciate it.

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