True Blue Art Supply

Water Dance – Watercolors by Suzanne Shaffer
Friday May 4, 5-8 pm
The Asheville Gallery of Art presents a water-themed show by local artist Suzanne Shaffer. A portion of the proceeds from sales will go to The Rotary Water Project, a non-profit organization that builds wells for impoverished communities.

Courtyard Gallery Grand Re-opening
Saturday May 5, 6-9 pm
Grand re-opening of the newly expanded Courtyard Gallery, with simultaneous openings at the Pump and Flood galleries. Located in the Phil Mechanic Studio in the River Arts District.

True Blue is proud to present Bob Martin, an artist who merges East and West aesthetics through his sumi-e works and other art. The influences of Japanese techniques and sensibilities can be seen woven throughout much of his work. 

In addition to his sumi-e works and landscape paintings, Bob has done frescoes and illustrated books.  He teaches palette knife techniques and sumi-e painting and participates in “quick draw” and “plein air” painting demonstrations. Bob is also a retired kilt maker, a historian of the kilt, and a member of the Scottish Tartan Society and the Guild of Tartan Scholars.

Asked about his art, Bob says, ”I paint to please myself.  I have nothing to prove with my painting, no theory to expound, no revolutionary ideas to give to the world.  I give myself, using my talents to the best of my ability.”

Downtown Asheville Gallery Walk
Friday April 5, 5-8pm
Asheville Downtown Gallery Association Invites you to visit the downtown galleries to enjoy the fine art and craft that they have to offer.

Absolute Uncertainty: Paintings by Barbara Fisher
Opening Reception Friday April 6
Barbara’s work has been exhibited in the Asheville Art Museum, the Chicago Cultural Center, and the Bank of America World Headquarters. Her serene and dreamy abstracts and landscapes will be shown at Urban Dharma in downtown Asheville April 6th through May 20th.

Mira Gerard Singh – River of Forgetting
Opening Reception Friday April 6
Paintings by artist Mira Gerard Singh will be on display at Jonas Gerard Fine Art in Asheville from April 6th through 29th.

Paintings by Leif Erik Johansen
Friday April 6
Izzy’s Coffee Den, 74 Lexington Avenue, Downtown Asheville.

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.