ArtsvilleUSA

Editor’s note: This episode contains discussion of a near-death experience and suicidal ideation. The views expressed by Jeffrey Burroughs are their own and do not reflect the positions of ArtsvilleUSA or its parent, Arterial Inc. This podcast is intended to highlight the artistic work and community impact of our guest. It does not reflect support or opposition for any political candidate, party, or ballot measure.

Jeffrey Burroughs doesn’t believe in luck. “There’s no such thing,” says the president of the River Arts District Artists Association (RADA), repeating a bit of wisdom they once received from a mentor during their days as a musical theater major. “It’s preparation met with opportunity.”

Those words became reality when, just three days after Hurricane Helene left Asheville’s low-lying arts district underwater, RADA was granted nonprofit status. Suddenly, all that paperwork became a lifeline for hundreds of artists, studios, and small creative businesses struggling to recover. According to Jeffrey, the funds raised in the storm’s aftermath remain the only significant financial investment in the district to date.

As an artist, an active community advocate, and now a candidate for city council, Jeffrey has seen firsthand how policy decisions impact working artists. Today, they join us to discuss how financial investment and community action have shaped the River Arts District’s recovery, the intersection of art and civic life in Asheville, and how themes from our fall exhibition—mortality, memory, and impact—resonate through their art, business, and advocacy.

Episode Credits

Host: Elise Wilson, ArtsvilleUSA Executive Director

Guest: Jeffrey Burroughs, President, RADA

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.

Yancey County, North Carolina, is home to one of the highest concentrations of artists in the country. In this rural community, traditional skills such as pottery, sewing, and carpentry have been handed down for generations, anchoring a local economy founded on creativity and resourcefulness. Today, Burnsville nonprofit THRIVE Appalachia is expanding this legacy by creating hands-on learning experiences for youth, helping the next generation find their footing in a digital age where many manufacturing and tobacco-based agricultural jobs have disappeared.

THRIVE Appalachia (Together Hope Rises with Innovation, Vision, and Education) works with teens ages 12–18 across six Western North Carolina counties. The program teaches marketable skills, pairs young people with accomplished local artisans, bakers, and craftspeople, and encourages them to take charge of their learning. So far, THRIVE Appalachia teens have created a thriving ice cream business, launched a fashion line and annual show that’s brought in over $17,000, built a timber-frame studio from reclaimed wood after Hurricane Helene, and completed apprenticeships with local masters.

At the helm is Executive Director Pana Columbus, who believes the region’s economic future depends on investing in its youth. In this episode, Pana sits down with ArtsvilleUSA’s Elise Wilson to discuss how THRIVE Appalachia is shaping the next generation of artists, entrepreneurs, and stewards of Appalachian craft.

Episode Credits

Host: Elise Wilson, ArtsvilleUSA Executive Director

Guest: Pana Columbus, Executive Director, THRIVE Appalachia

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.

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.

If you’ve ever rounded a corner in Asheville and come face-to-face with a monumental ripple of forged steel, chances are you’ve stumbled across the handiwork of Rachel David of RED Metal. In a city teeming with murals and microbreweries, her abstract public sculpture “Fluvial”—a centerpiece of ArtsvilleUSA’s Open // Air exhibition—refuses to be neatly filed away in the usual taxonomy of public art. Installed along the urban trail outside the old S&W Cafeteria and forged in the wake of Hurricane Helene, the piece is Rachel’s meditation on how water carves, erases, and remakes everything it touches.

In this episode, we explore what it takes to create art that belongs to everyone, from smashing through the old boys’ club of metalsmithing to designing with a community’s anxieties in mind. Along the way, Rachel recalls professors who nudged her off one path and onto another, wrestles with the realities of survival as a craftsperson, and muses on the power of public art in a city still haunted by the memory of a life-changing storm.

Get Involved / Where to Find More

Explore “Fluvial” in person in downtown Asheville or virtually in Open // Air.

See Rachel’s work at upcoming open studio tours: American Craft Council nationwide tour (July 18), the Haywood County Studio Tour (September, check the Haywood County Arts Council for details), and The Big Crafty (July 11 - 12).

Watch for new work in the Haywood Community College Sculpture Garden later this year.

Follow SIBS and SPARC to plug into inclusive metalsmithing.

Contact & Social

Website: www.redmetal.net

Instagram: @__redmetal__

Facebook: @redmetal1245

Episode Credits

Host: Elise Wilson, ArtsvilleUSA Executive Director

Guest: Rachel David, Red Metal

Produced by: ArtsvilleUSA / Arterial Inc.

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

This episode is a special rerun, originally published on May 16, 2024, in celebration of the Haywood Community College Professional Crafts Graduate Show. The show is hosted online at ArtsvilleUSA in collaboration with the Southern Highland Craft Guild, with the in-person exhibition on view at the Folk Art Center through September 16.

Ask any working artist what they wish they’d learned in art school, and you’ll likely hear the same answer: how to make a living doing what they love. For almost half a century, the Haywood Community College Professional Crafts Program—a beloved training ground for craft artists in the Blue Ridge Mountains—has been rewriting the rules around art school curriculum, blending hands-on mastery in wood, fiber, jewelry, and ceramics with essential business skills and a clear career roadmap that won’t leave them stranded post-graduation.

In this episode, ArtsvilleUSA founder Louise Glickman brings listeners inside the Haywood Community College Professional Crafts Program through a candid conversation with two of its most respected faculty members: Amy Putansu, who leads the fiber/textiles department and whose work earned national attention in ArtsvilleUSA’s A Tale of Two Cities exhibition, and Brian Wurst, wood instructor. Together, they explore the evolution of craft education, the economic roots of creativity in Appalachia, and what makes Haywood’s approach to teaching so distinctive—not just in the studio but in preparing students for real-world careers and lifelong success in craft.

Get Involved / Where to Find More

HCC Professional Crafts Program: Learn more about immersive, hands-on courses in wood, fiber, ceramics, and jewelry.

HCC Professional Crafts Grad Show: See the exhibition online at ArtsvilleUSA or at the Folk Art Center through September 16, 2026.

Graduating student roundtable: Read our conversation with recent graduates of the program, Allison Teeples, Esi Hutchinson, and Christine Savage-Mindel.

A Tale of Two Cities: Explore Amy Putansu’s work featured in ArtsvilleUSA’s commemorative exhibition reflecting on the 20-year milestone of Hurricane Katrina and the first-year milestone of Hurricane Helene.

Contact & Social

Website: haywood.edu

Instagram: @haywood.studios

Facebook: @haywoodcc

Episode Credits

Host: Louise Glickman, Artsville USA Founder

Co-host: Elise Wilson, ArtsvilleUSA Executive Director

Guests: Amy Putansu and Brian Wurst, Haywood Community College Professional Crafts Faculty

Produced by: ArtsvilleUSA /Crewest Studio / Arterial Inc.

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

What happens when you toss perfectionism out the window and invite adults to play with glue sticks and torn paper? You get ArtFolk, the Weaverville-based collective where “making art is the only qualification to become an artist.” In this episode, ArtsvilleUSA Executive Director Elise Wilson joins ArtFolk founders Kelly Reese and Jennifer Jacey in Jen’s delightfully chaotic studio to talk about reclaiming creativity, dissolving the myth of “not being creative,” and why ripping up junk mail might be the catharsis you never knew you needed. From tackling the intimidation factor of Instagram-perfect art to building a genuine community that welcomes total beginners and seasoned painters alike, these founders are on a mission to prove that making bad art is not just acceptable, but essential.

Episode Credits

Host: Elise Wilson, ArtsvilleUSA Executive Director

Guests: Kelly Reese, Jennifer Jacey

Recording location: Jennifer’s magical, slightly messy Weaverville studio

Produced by: ArtsvilleUSA

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

Are you sitting comfortably? Because this week, we’re taking a closer look at how the Hominy Creek Comfort Makers and their Enka-Candler Library partners are combining craft and community service. Host Elise Wilson cozies up with founder Pat White, along with local library legends Kate Spratt (branch manager) and Theresa Wallace (librarian and program master), for a conversation about how a group of crafters is comforting their community, one stitch at a time.

Why the Enka-Candler Library? The Comfort Makers needed a home base, a place to gather, create, and store their ever-growing stash of materials and handmade goods. Like most regional libraries, the Enka-Candler branch has become much more than a place to pick up books. Under the guidance of Kate and Theresa, the library now serves as a monthly meeting ground for this unstoppable volunteer group. It’s a creative hub where anyone can drop in, find connection, and take part, no sewing skills required.

Episode Credits

Host: Elise Wilson

Guests: Pat White, Kate Spratt, Theresa Wallace

Produced by: ArtsvilleUSA

Special Thanks: The Friends of the Enka-Candler Library, Buncombe County Public Libraries, and everyone who’s stuffed, stitched, or crocheted alongside this crew.

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

Just a year ago, fall festivals were disappearing right and left from event calendars in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Hurricane Helene may have thrown a wrench in Western North Carolina’s 2024 festival season, but 2025 is back and better than ever. This weekend marks the triumphant return of the LEAF Global Arts Festival for its 30th anniversary at Lake Eden in Black Mountain. Join host Elise Wilson and LEAF Marketing and Engagement Coordinator Natascha Van Aalst Leitner as they uncover how stories, songs, and dance connect Western North Carolina with the rest of the world—and why this year's theme, “Live Life Like a Festival,” is more relevant than ever. 

Together, Elise and Natascha unpack: 

• Why cultural preservation remains an integral part of LEAF’s mission after thirty years
• How LEAF's Artist ReLEAF Fund supports local artists affected by natural disasters
• How to Live Life Like a Festival: Pick up a copy of founder Jennifer Pickering’s new book, which celebrates 30 years of LEAF Global Arts.

How You Can Get Involved

• Purchase tickets for the 2025 LEAF Global Arts Festival, Oct. 16 - 19.
• Donate to LEAF's Artist ReLEAF Fund.
• Shop Live Life Like a Festival.
• Learn about global arts through LEAF’s Schools & Streets program. 
• Become a member of LEAF. 

About LEAF Global Arts

LEAF Global Arts is a non-profit organization that fosters community and cultural connections through world music, arts education, and global experiences. For nearly 30 years, it has worked to build relationships with communities, preserve cultural heritage, and provide arts education to thousands of youth, primarily through its festivals, the LEAF Retreat, and the Easel Rider Mobile Art Lab. Its mission is to connect cultures and create community through shared experiences with art, music, and dance. 

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Follow ArtsvilleUSA

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Episode artwork: Street Creature Puppet Collective.

In the wake of natural disasters, art can serve as a lifeline for communities in urgent need of healing. Today, we’re chatting with the curators behind A Tale of Two Cities, a cross-cultural exhibition commemorating the anniversaries of hurricanes Helene in Asheville and Katrina in New Orleans. Our guests include Kenn Kotara, an artist based in Asheville; Jan Gilbert, an artist from New Orleans; and Andrew Rogers, the executive director of the New Orleans Academy of Fine Art (NOAFA), where the exhibition will be held.

The discussion centers on the cultural impact and aftermath of both hurricanes on their respective cities. Each guest shares their experiences and insights regarding how art has played a critical role in recovery efforts. Ken Kotara reflects on the Asheville community’s resilience, highlighting how local artists have embraced collaboration and creativity to rebuild their cultural identity. Jan Gilbert adds to this narrative by discussing the unique challenges New Orleans artists face, emphasizing their commitment to using their work as a form of healing. Andrew Rogers emphasizes the importance of showcasing the interconnected stories of artists from both cities. He encourages listeners to engage with the arts and support local talent, underscoring the healing power of creativity in the aftermath of adversity.

Through a shared platform, A Tale of Two Cities invites artists to reflect on their experiences with climate-related disasters and engage the public in meaningful conversations about hope and recovery. The exhibition emphasizes the importance of protecting and representing vulnerable artists, affirming that art can catalyze healing in communities facing existential challenges. With both physical and virtual showcases, this exhibition aspires to inspire ongoing connections between the two cities, promoting cultural exchange and reinforcing the role of art in building resilient communities.

A Tale of Two Cities opens Sept. 13 and runs through Nov. 8, 2025, at NOAFA.

For more information, please visit https://www.artsvilleusa.com/a-tale-of-two-cities-curators-panel

Editor’s note: This episode was originally published in April 2024. We’re revisiting our conversation with Candace Reilly, founder and executive director of the North Carolina Glass Center, as part of our July 2025 coverage themed around the Blue Ridge Craft Trails. This episode is also part of our partnership with the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area.

North Carolina's crafts scene has long been celebrated, but its pivotal role in the history of America’s Studio Glass Movement often flies under the radar. Since Harvey Littleton's arrival in the late 1970s, Western North Carolina has flourished as a hub for glassmakers and enthusiasts alike. In today’s episode, we welcome Candace Reilly, executive director of Asheville's popular North Carolina Glass Center (NCGC), to discuss the contemporary studio glass scene in WNC. 

With nearly a decade of commitment to Asheville's arts community, Candace offers valuable insights into her role. As the leader at NCGC, she drives initiatives aimed at preserving traditional techniques while advancing the future of studio glass. At the heart of her vision is the belief in the transformative power of integrated arts education, which promotes not only creative expression but also social cohesion within the community.

In our conversation, Candace discusses the NCGC's mission and impact, tracing its journey from humble beginnings to Asheville's leading public-access glass studio and gallery. She highlights North Carolina's rich connection to glass artistry, fueled by the state’s resources and landscape that support artistic innovation and collaboration. Candace details the center's educational offerings, including workshops and residencies that foster inclusivity and creativity. 

Additionally, she shares news of the center's expansion to a second location in Black Mountain, reflecting its growth and the increased demand for glass experiences. Candace underscores the diverse revenue streams that support the center, inviting community involvement to sustain its mission. For those interested, she provides ways to engage with the center online and in person. This conversation on the Artsville Podcast offers insights into NCGC’s commitment to education and creativity, enriching Asheville’s cultural landscape.

For more information, please visit https://www.artsvilleusa.com/north-carolina-glass-center