Hurricane Helene Volume 45.2
Background, from left to right, top to bottom: BAKERSVILLE CREEK WALK before and after the hurricane. LOWER STREET IN SPRUCE PINE before. BAKERSVILLE WOODS after and before the hurricane. LOWER STREET IN SPRUCE PINE after. SPRUCE PINE after the flooding. SPRUCE PINE GROCERY STORE LOT, flooded. AFTER-HELENE SCENE where the photographer takes their evening walk. BAKERSVILLE COURTHOUSE PARKING LOT before and after the hurricane, hosting rescue workers. Photographs by Lori Brook Johnson
Asheville and its surrounding area in Western North Carolina boast a strong history with the arts. Penland School of Craft was founded in 1929, the Southern Highland Craft Guild started in 1930, Black Mountain College thrived from 1933 to 1957, and the Asheville Art Museum opened in 1948. More recently, Asheville’s River Arts District (RAD) began to develop in the 1990s, growing dramatically in the 2010s. Until late September 2024, it comprised more than two dozen old brick buildings and warehouses—mostly remnants of its time as an industrial hub—painted with bright murals and filled with vibrant studios, galleries, restaurants, and bars. With this rich artistic presence (which had a $3 billion economic contribution to Buncombe County in 2023), it is not surprising that, even amidst the shocking destruction and loss of life caused by Hurricane Helene, the impact on the arts community is keenly felt and widely acknowledged, even by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
“I think the artists will suffer a lot of economic uncertainty. But on the other side of that I think a lot of art inspiration will come out of something so deeply felt by the artists.” —Jessica Blissett
JESSICA BLISSETT, owner of Ignite Jewelry Studios Gallery. BLUEBIRD PENDANT by Jessica Blissett (Bluebird Designs) of sterling silver, enamel and pearls. Photographs by Studio Misha Photography.
Several RAD buildings flooded to the roof, including the Marquee, a 50,000-square-foot marketplace with 240 artists and creative vendors, and Foundation Studios, an 8,000-square-foot community art center. Jessica Blissett, who opened a gallery and workshop called Ignite Jewelry Studios in the nearby Riverview Station in 2019, was able to retrieve work and equipment on the second floor, which only flooded a little, after the water receded. When asked about her experience of Helene, she explained how hard she worked to open Ignite and make it thrive, overcoming the challenges of a growing family and Covid-19. “I thought I had made it through the hardest part,” but “overnight that changed.”
Laura Wood, another local jewelry artist and shop owner (her gallery was spared), described her slow realization of the extent of the devastation: “Nobody had cell service or access to the internet (for several days) and so we were all learning the tragic details piece by piece through word of mouth and what we could see around our homes.”
“I feel like a small river pebble being worn round by a constant current of change. And I’m so beyond grateful for all the hugs, and prayers and folks putting in orders on my shop even though I don’t have a studio right now.” —Alice Scott
CURVE STUDIOS, with Alice Scott’s studio totally submerged, 2024. ALICE SCOTT’S STUDIO after the water receded. Photographs by Alice Scott.
Farther north along the French Broad River (which peaked at 24.67 feet—15.17 feet above flood stage), Curve Studios & Garden (one of the earliest RAD venues) was home to eleven artist studios. Stephanie Ellis, who lost her studio at Curve, posted online, “The flood waters reached three feet into the second story of my building destroying tools, equipment, inventory, and much more.” Ellis’s studio mate Alice Scott described walking near the area after Helene and seeing buildings ruined and tractor-trailers floating down the river; she and other artists just stood together and cried. She is trying to locate a new space, but is finding that the rents in RAD post-Helene are going to be more expensive.
The cancellation of events—including the Craft Fair of the Southern Highlands—and lack of visitors in Western North Carolina will continue to affect artists for a long time. Joanna Gollberg explained that Mora, a studio jewelry gallery in downtown Asheville, is her primary representation, and she is uncertain what the future will hold without the important sales made there. Tiffany Payne, whose jewelry business is called Young Crone, wrote on Instagram, “People come here to visit our thriving Art community and the season most of us make [the] majority of our sales for the year is during leaf peeping season through the holidays….For most of us, this lifestyle is feast or famine in good times and the majority of our income came from tourism.”
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The destruction extended well beyond Asheville’s RAD. In the historic Biltmore Village, where the Swannanoa River crested at 26.1 feet (flood stage is 10 feet), the shop of the Southern Highlands Craft Guild flooded and filled with mud, and according to the local paper, “New Morning Gallery sustained extreme damage, and Bellagio Art to Wear has been completely destroyed.” Penland School of Craft (about fifty miles northeast of Asheville) sustained less extreme damage, but is in a remote area where basic services, roads and bridges have been severely affected. The two closest towns, Bakersville and Spruce Pine, experienced terrible flooding. Penland canceled all workshops through the end of 2024, and in the aftermath of the storm is functioning as a community hub, checking on its neighboring community of artists and friends—often by hiking through the mountains to distant homes—and providing support as needed to workers and local schoolchildren.
Bryan Parnham, who was house/cat-sitting nearby for fellow jewelry artist Morgan Hill when the storm hit, volunteered around Penland for the first week and is now working for a local contractor on a tree removal crew. He explained that many artists normally would be spending this time of year preparing for winter holiday sales, but that “everyone is rattled. Being in the studio requires consistency and discipline of mind-—I don’t know when that will come back. Even when there’s time to get back to the studio it will take much longer to get the brains and bodies of these artists ready to make again.” Hill, since she was out of town, was one of the few Asheville area artists with consistent internet access, so she quickly helped people connect and disseminate information online.
While the waters and winds of Hurricane Helene ravaged studios and stalled practices that artists have spent their entire careers building, the tight social networks and a sense of hope remain. Artists have set up online fundraisers and raffles for friends, served meals through the World Central Kitchen (Deb Karash has helped serve tens of thousands of hot meals in downtown Asheville), and shoveled a lot of dirt and debris out of art spaces. Many are expressing optimism and sharing heart-warming experiences of fellow artists supporting one another. Blissett, for example, observed, “Those less affected at their homes donned hazmat suits and threw themselves into the cleanup. Those who lost so much still kept at the tasks at hand.” Foundation Studios conveyed the pervasive feeling of loss mixed with promise, posting on social media, “In the grand scheme of things we are lucky. This is an art gallery & studios, not a home (though it felt like it). These are things, not lives (though souls were put into them). If there’s one thing artists will do, it’s make more art!”
How You Can Help:
CERF+ (Craft Emergency Relief Fund): www.cerfplus.org
RADA Foundation (River Arts District Artists Foundation): www.riverartsdistrict.com (app.thefield.org/home/donation/general/638093/0)
Curve Studios: www.gofundme.com/f/curvestudios
Craft Futures Fund from the Center for Craft: www.centerforcraft.org/grants-and-fellowships/craft-futures-fund
ArtsAVL, aid for artists in Buncombe County: artsavl.org/aid
Lamplight AVL, working to secure space for artists: lamplightavl.org
Toe River Arts, for artists in the Toe River Valley, in both Mitchell and Yancey Counties: toeriverarts.org (secure.givelively.org/donate/toe-river-arts-council-inc/toe-river-arts-disaster-recovery-fund-for-mitchell-and-yancey-artists)
Treats Studios in Spruce Pine provides a list of artists affected with links to make direct donations or support through direct sales: www.treatsstudios.org/artist-support-helene
Ashley Callahan is an independent scholar and curator in Athens, Georgia, with a specialty in modern and contemporary American decorative arts. She appreciates the generosity and openness of the artists she spoke with from Western North Carolina, and marvels at how they are maintaining optimism and helping each other in so many ways. She also communicated with Kat Cole, a jewelry artist based in Georgia, who helped with a fundraising raffle. Cole wrote, “My heart aches for everyone there, many who spent decades building what they lost in a day,” adding, “I would encourage everyone when they begin to holiday shop to seek out the online stores of galleries and artists in the area. They are going to need our financial support long after the news cycle moves on and the donations slow.”
