True Blue Art Supply

Asheville Art Museum
Thru Feb 26
The Museum annually partners with the Asheville Area Section of the American Institute of Architects each year to sponsor the Western North Carolina Regional Scholastic Art Awards. Students in grades 7 – 12 from across the 24 county region of WNC submit work for this special juried competition. The artwork of all 2012 award recipients will be on display in a special group exhibition on view in the Holden Community Gallery.

The Artery
Thru Feb 25
Asheville Area Arts Council Presents “Twenties: Decade in Polaroid, 1999-2008″ work by Erin Fussell” In 1999, the year Erin Fussell turned twenty, she bought a Polaroid camera second-hand. Polaroid stopped making the instant film in 2008, the same year she turned twenty-nine. These images, taken in several states, both physical and mental, pay tribute to the Polaroid and the fabulous, rollercoaster time of young adulthood.

True Blue was proud to present Brent Martin as our January Local Artist of the Month.  Brent lives in the Cowee community of western North Carolina, in what is known locally as the “Doc Clark house”. He paints Mason jars and related esoterica on pressed tin that he is removing from the ceilings of this old farm house.   Brent also writes poetry and essays, and has published three chapbook collections - Poems from Snow Hill Road; A Shout in the Woods; and Every Breath Sings Mountains, with writers Thomas Rain Crowe and Barbara Duncan.

Brent’s essays and columns have been published in Wildbranch: An Anthology of Environmental and Place Based Writing, North Carolina Literary Review, Pisgah Review, New Southerner, Mountain Express, Smoky Mountain News, and elsewhere. Brent first got hooked on blue ball Mason jars while watching his grandmother can Brunswick Stew each summer, after their annual July 4th family reunion. He also spent a lot of his childhood digging through trash piles behind old abandoned houses looking for them and other interesting glassware.  Brent currently serves as the Southern Appalachian Regional Director for The Wilderness Society in Sylva, NC.

The Artist’s Way 12 Week Course
For anyone who wants to live a more dynamic, creative, exciting and productive life.  Next course begins January 23rd 2012. It will meet Mondays from 5:30-7:30 for 12 weeks. For more information call Anna at 828-273-6617

The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition, Pat Passlof: Selections 1948-2011; focusing on the work of painter Pat Passlof, an accomplished Black Mountain College alumna, member of the New York School and under-recognized figure in the development of Abstract Expressionism. The exhibition will open at the museum in downtown Asheville on January 27, 2012 with a reception from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Court McCracken, of Hatchery Studios, will be the featured artist for Third Thursday ART @ The Junction. Please join her for complimentary wine and light fare @ 6:30pm, January 19, 2012.

Pipe’s Dreams is artwork created by John Pipes that is light- reactive. Images look different in white light, black light, colored light and no light. DeSoto Lounge, Feb 2 at 6:00pm

The Artery
Third Nature, works by Virginia Derrberry.
On display through November 30.
346 Depot Street, River Arts District, Asheville

Atelier Gallery
Horse & Barn: Recent paintings by Brian Hibbard.
On display through November 30.
24 North Lexington Avenue, Downtown Asheville

Blue Spiral 1
Counterparts: Complementary works by seven regional artists exploring non-objective subjects via metallic finishes and saturated colors.  Showing through December 31.

Flood Gallery
Uncharted: Works by nine local artists.
On display through November 30.  Hosted by Flood Gallery and Bold Life Magazine
Phil Mechanic Building, 109 Roberts Street, Asheville

True Blue is proud to welcome Taylor Cort as our local artist of the month for October, 2011.  

Taylor is best-known as a tattoo artist, having originally apprenticed in Boone before making his way to Asheville.  His artist statement is short and sweet – “I like to paint skulls.”

Taylor will have several pieces available for purchase through the end of the month – oils, acrylics, colored pencil, and even small polymer clay figurines. Taylor’s horror-themed imagery makes an eerie backdrop for your October visits to True Blue.

Come by and see for yourself! Can’t make it by this month? – See more of Taylor’s artwork here.

Atelier Gallery presents drawings by William Asman. Opening reception on Saturday October 8.

City of 1,000 Easels is a large-scale immersive arts event canvassing all of downtown Asheville, and featuring a self-guided walking tour among countless working artists showcasing their creative process for the public to witness in real time. Sunday, October 16 in downtown Asheville: roughly 3-6 pm.

Signature Studio @ Gallery 86: 86 North Main Street, Waynesville. October 19-November 24, 2011. Artist Reception: Friday, November 4, 2011, 6-9pm, FREE and open to the public. Artists from The Enola Group’s Signature Studio.The Enola Group provides people with disabilities the opportunity to make life choices.

Art at UNC-A
UNC Asheville’s 2nd Annual Invitational Art Exhibition, featuring 18 artists invited to exhibit by the Art Department faculty, opens with a reception from 6-8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23 at the S. Tucker Cooke Gallery on the campus. The show will remain on display through October 25 and includes works in the six concentrations offered in the Art Department: ceramics, drawing, painting, photography, printmaking and sculpture.

Exhibiting artists are: Bette Bates, Dusty Benedict, Betty Clark, Christopher Curtin, Dave Detrich, Dustin Farnsworth, Larkin Ford, Brian Glaze, Constance Humphries, Debra McClinton, Monty McCutchen, Mark Nystrom, Jo Pumphrey, Tom Shields, Courtney Starrett, Jean-Paul Tousignant, Denise C. Woodward-Detrich and Valerie Zimany.

310 Art Gallery presents Play with Perception, an interactive art show by Julie Robinson.  Riverview Station, 191 Lyman Street through October 6th. Opening reception Saturday, September 10, 5-7pm.

Asheville Art Museum presents Color Study in the Appleby Foundation Gallery. Through November 6th.

Atelier Gallery presents Workshopauchery, works by Martin A. B. Guenette. Opening reception Saturday,  September 10, 6-8 pm.

Art at UNC-A
Works by 11 UNC Asheville Art Department faculty members will be featured in a wide-ranging exhibition thru Sep 16 at UNC Asheville’s  S. Tucker Cooke Gallery.

Participating studio art faculty are Tamie Beldue, Virginia Derryberry, Robert Dunning, Mark Koven, Scott Lowrey, Brent Skidmore, Carrie Tomberlin, Eric Tomberlin, Robert Tynes, Matt West and Megan Wolfe. Works in drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, mixed media, multi-media installation, and ceramics will be on view. Located on the first floor of Owen Hall, the S. Tucker Cooke Gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays.

True Blue is proud to feature the work of our staff for our Local Artists of the Month for July, 2011.

Gavin Post has recently returned from a stint as a studio assistant at Penland School of Crafts, where he continued his painting studies. Skilled in watercolors, acrylics, and oils, Gavin’s most recent work explores surreal subterranean landscapes.

Joshua Spiceland’s work is becoming more and more a part of the downtown Asheville experience, as evidenced by recent murals near Izzy’s on Lexington Avenue and paintings for The Watchmaker’s Shop inside the Haywood Park Hotel Atrium – in addition to his work on the I-240 bridge murals and numerous shows around town. Josh’s vibrant multimedia works explore archetypes and symbols and evoke the old masters through his exquisite renderings of the human form.

Faith Callaway may be best known around town as the mercurial keyboard and banjo player from indie-folk group The Neopolitan Children, and her starring role in the award winning video for “Skeleton Crew” by Kovacs and the Polar Bear. But her paintings reveal yet another facet of her artistic personality. Faith’s paintings are sometimes purely abstract, while others depict delicate, contemplative female images.

Chris Ortega, our newest staff member, studied studio art at UNC-Pembroke, where he explored painting and illustration techniques. His work ranges from cartoons to politically-charged paintings, combining abstract color patterns with elements of realism.

Jason Ross Martin has been involved in the music scene in Asheville for more than a decade, including his current role as co-host of Blend, Hookah Lounge and Gallery’s Wednesday Acoustic Night. His watercolors and acrylics focus on these musical themes, as he infuses portraits of music icons with visual representations of the sounds they produced.

Please stop by the store this month and take this opportunity to get to know our team from a different perspective!

New Work by Dustin Spagnola
Harvest Records, West Asheville
This show features a variety of mixed media works depicting influential punk rock musicians.
Opens July 1st.

LaZoom Tours presents Asheville Art Tour
Saturdays at 11 am
This new 2.5 hour tour takes you to the neighborhoods and studios of numerous working artists in Dowtown, The River Arts District, and West Asheville, through the lens of a local artist. Each tour includes a live musician, bottled water, and snack. Adults $35, ages 13-17 $15, kids 12 and under free. Ticket booth on corner of Haywood and Battery Park downtown.

New Gallery Seeks Artists
ZaPow, a new artist and writer promotions company and unique illustration, comic and pop art gallery and workspace, will be opening this Fall in downtown Asheville. The 3,000 square foot location at 21 Battery Park near the Grove Arcade will be the only one of its kind in the region.

ZaPow is currently accepting applications from National and Regional artists. The ideal artists will have an eye towards visual narrative, illustrative; pop aesthetic.

True Blue is proud to welcome “AFTP” as our local artist of the month for June. “AFTP” is the alter-ego of one of our regular customers, who wished to remain anonymous during this show and let the pieces speak for themselves.

The following artist’s statement/origin myth was sent to us by “AFTP” as an introduction to this month’s exhibit:

“Once upon a little while ago a lonesome idea was born in the rusty, corrugated tin shack margins between a dead end and a bottle neck. Stray dogs barked at its scrap-metal body and alley cats sharpened their claws on its wounded pride until there was barely a twittering stump of its former self left. But nothing lasts forever and one fine day before the idea had disappeared completely, a big clumsy itinerant troll with a soft spot for wounded birds, tripped over this shrinking violet, picked it up, opened up his skull cap and put that little bee in his bonnet like it was meant to be. From that day forth, the big nobody felt like a somebody, the little idea flourished and the two spoke as one.  And the many words that were spoken became the images you now see in the four walls that make up the somewhere in the middle of the nowhere we are all going.” – AFTP