We hear a lot about pervasive social issues in our community—homelessness, addiction, racial inequities, affordable housing, liveable wages. All of those play roles in one particular need we rarely hear about—diapers.

My guests today are Alicia Heacock and Meagan Lyon Leimena, co-executive directors of Babies Need Bottoms, an Asheville nonprofit diaper bank that distributes about 40,000 diapers every month to partner organizations across 16 Western North Carolinas counties.

Alicia and Meagan say diaper need, as it’s called, multiplied fivefold during the pandemic. They talk about the daisy chain of circumstances, from transportation challenges to state sales taxes, that make it more difficult to afford diapers. They also detail the social and economic impacts, such as being closed off from childcare, when parents can’t afford diapers. 

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The Overlook theme song, "Maker's Song," comes courtesy of the Asheville band The Resonant Rogues.

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It’s a female-powered, multi-generational, one-of-a-kind lineup for the next Hear Here—Tuesday, May 28, featuring the Asheville-area bands Detective Blind and O•VAD•YA.

Listen here for clips of their music. Advance tickets are just $12.

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The Overlook theme song, "Maker's Song," comes courtesy of the Asheville band The Resonant Rogues.

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April 27 marked the debut of "Hear Here," a series presented in tandem with Citizen Vinyl to elevate conversation around local rock and indie music. The premiere featured talk and performances with the bands Pink Beds and Caged Affair.

This episode is all about Pink Beds, a quartet shaped by disco, old-school pop and contemporary rock. You’ll hear the episode with Caged Affair next Friday, May 17. 

The next "Hear Here" evening is an all-female lineup Tuesday, May 28, at Citizen Vinyl, featuring the bands Detective Blind and OVADYA. Detective Blind is a trio of sisters, the oldest of whom is still in her teens. OVADYA has at least a couple members who would qualify for their AARP cards. 

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The Overlook theme song, "Maker's Song," comes courtesy of the Asheville band The Resonant Rogues.

Podcast Asheville © 2023

Asheville artists Heather Hietala and Nava Lubelski have already tasted success commercial success. Now, their new work in separate exhibitions marks new ground in their personal and artistic evolutions.

In the first half, I talk with Hietala, whose response to her mother's death takes shape in the two- and three-dimensional canoes and boats that are metaphors for personal journeys. After the break, we meet Lubelski, who was an emerging success in New York City’s gallery scene before she to Asheville. Her newest works are abstracted, chaotic collages of stitching, painting, scraps of fabric and other found material.

A reception for Hietala's new exhibition at Momentum Gallery is May 9. Lubelski's solo show is on view through June 8 at Tracey Morgan Gallery.

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The Overlook theme song, "Maker's Song," comes courtesy of the Asheville band The Resonant Rogues.

Podcast Asheville © 2023

Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen have spent many years building lives for themselves in contemporary dance. Not long ago, they believed they largely had to perform and teach around the country to make it sustainable. Now, fueled by artistic residencies in Western North Carolina and the embrace of the Wortham Center for the Performing Arts, the couple hopes Stewart-Owen Dance can become a fixture for Asheville dancers and audiences.

This conversation happened just after a rehearsal inside the Wortham's Tina McGuire Theatre, where the company performs a string of performances there, May 9-19. We dissect their artistic process, how they translate concepts into movement and what sustainability looks like in today’s ecosystem of contemporary dance.

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The Overlook theme song, "Maker's Song," comes courtesy of the Asheville band The Resonant Rogues.

Podcast Asheville © 2023

David Brendan Hopes has written more novels, poems and plays than he can count. The river of writing hasn’t slowed at all since his retirement from UNC-Asheville, where Hopes taught English and creative writing for more than three decades.

Hopes’ newest play is titled “A God in the Waters.” The Sublime Theater in Asheville is premiering it May 9-18 at the Bebe Theater. We’ll talk about the play in the second half as part of a larger conversation on answering the call of creativity. But first, we take an unplanned dive into the financial troubles at UNC-Asheville and what Hopes views as the root causes.

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The Overlook theme song, "Maker's Song," comes courtesy of the Asheville band The Resonant Rogues.

Podcast Asheville © 2023

Help "The Overlook with Matt Peiken" podcast reach its very reachable goal: Just $1,000 in monthly contributions by Election Day. Membership at our Patreon campaign starts at just $5/month. 

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The Overlook theme song, "Maker's Song," comes courtesy of the Asheville band The Resonant Rogues.

Podcast Asheville © 2023

There’s seemingly a full-court press from certain civic leaders to push Asheville City Council to approve a business improvement district for downtown. This BID would tax property owners, and by extension downtown commercial and residential tenants, to pay for a supplemental workforce to help the city’s efforts to clean up downtown and make it safer for the people who live, work and visit downtown.

Amid this push, a pushback is developing steam from people with deep histories and stakes in the city. They smell vague details, a lack of accountability and oversight and a process they say has been anything but thorough and inclusive.

A couple weeks ago, I produced an episode featuring the voices of advocates for the downtown BID. Today, in the first half of a two-part conversation, I talk with people with many concerns about the proposal on the table: Rebecca Hecht, owner of Shining Rock Goods; Susan Griffin, a 20-year downtown resident who co-chaired a previous effort to pass a BID; Karen Ramshaw of Public Interest Projects and Patrick Conant, founder of Sunshine Labs, a relatively new Asheville organization pushing for greater accountability and transparency in local government.

Our talk dissects some of the details, or lack thereof, of the proposed BID, including the subjective discretion of people hired to patrol the streets on behalf of the BID. We also talk about the potential economic impacts for residential renters and small business, the proposed power structure of the BID’s governing board and criticisms of a process led by the Chamber of Commerce and Asheville Downtown Association.

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The Overlook theme song, "Maker's Song," comes courtesy of the Asheville band The Resonant Rogues.

Podcast Asheville © 2023

Choral groups were among the hardest-hit and slowest to rebound from the pandemic. Two of the region’s enduring choirs are still finding their footing both artistically and in the wider public.

Today, we hear from the choirs’ two artistic directors—Kyle Ritter of Asheville Symphony Chorus and Emily Floyd of Asheville Youth Choirs. They’re performing together April 27 at First Baptist Church. 

We talk with the choral directors about the challenges of surviving and rebounding from the pandemic. Kyle goes into detail about his choir’s relationship to the Asheville Symphony Orchestra and building an identity of its own. Emily talks about balancing the sacred and the secular. Both weigh in on marketing choral music to today’s distracted public, adapting pop music into choral music and the future of the world’s oldest art form. 

Help "The Overlook with Matt Peiken" podcast reach its very reachable goal: Just $1,000 in monthly contributions by Election Day. Membership at our Patreon campaign starts at just $5/month. 

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The Overlook theme song, "Maker's Song," comes courtesy of the Asheville band The Resonant Rogues.

Podcast Asheville © 2023

Just as Asheville’s arts community has evolved, so too has ArtsAVL. It changed its name just a year and a half ago from the Asheville Area Arts Council and, even before the pandemic, refocused its mission from service to advocacy.

My guest today is Katie Cornell, executive director now in her fifth year with ArtsAVL. We talk about that mission shift and the work that goes into gathering the data to inform her advocacy with elected officials at the city, county and state.

We also talk about where arts tourism fits into the city’s marketing efforts and how rising real estate costs are potentially pushing artists’ workspaces and arts organizations out of Asheville.

01:32 Shifting Focus: From Small Town Model to Community Support
02:36 Data-Driven Decisions: Navigating Through the Pandemic
07:08 Advocacy and Funding: Transforming Arts Support in Asheville
11:02 Creative Economy Insights: Jobs, Impact, and Future Challenges
16:20 Arts and Tourism: Navigating New Challenges
23:40 Affordable Spaces for Artists: A Growing Crisis
29:15 Looking Ahead: Solutions and Strategies for Asheville's Arts Community

Help "The Overlook with Matt Peiken" podcast reach its very reachable goal: Just $1,000 in monthly contributions by Election Day. Membership at our Patreon campaign starts at just $5/month. 

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The Overlook theme song, "Maker's Song," comes courtesy of the Asheville band The Resonant Rogues.

Podcast Asheville © 2023