Tucked quietly into Pack Square, this sculpture is easy to miss if you're not looking is James…read moreBarnhill's bronze sculpture "Past and Promise." It captures a moment of quiet grace: a young girl drinking from a fountain. Barnhill, a North Carolina sculptor known for his figurative public works, affectionately refers to the piece as Childhood. His intent was to evoke timelessness - "The freedom of discovery and the promise of accomplishment comfortably bound together." The sculpture speaks softly but powerfully, symbolizing the innocence of youth and the enduring hope carried forward by future generations. In this work, Barnhill channels Asheville's layered spirit - memory, imagination, and the quiet resilience of those who pass through its square. [Review 1237 of 2025 - 4422 in North Carolina - 24789 overall]

Get Woke! This Wake sculpture was commissioned as part of…read morethe Mel Chin: All Over the Place exhibition that led to this artwork being displayed in Times Square. It's supposed to be animatronic and move or something, but I didn't see it doing any moving. Maybe Wake was sleeping? It kinda looks like the person at the helm of a ship, with the parts of the helm behind them. When we came, during Pandemic, the Wake person was wearing a mask, which was most appreciated. This giant work of public art is nestled in a triangular lot right next to Burial Brewery on the South Slope of Asheville's brewing district. It fits right in with all the cool, unique weird stuff going on in this neighborhood!

This amazing sculpture was engineered and sculpted by a team of UNC Asheville students and staff…read moreand community artists. It was displayed in Times Square and has since been brought home and is on display in Asheville's South Slope. It's a beautiful piece designed to make a statement about climate change. It's 40 feet tall and the coolest part? It's animatronic! I highly recommend stopping by, visiting her and then hitting one (or three) of the brewers that are in the area. Have fun!!

The Roberta Flack mural on the side of Black Mountain Brewing. There is a parking lot right there…read moretoo, so that made viewing the mural easier.. This mural is part of the North Carolina Musician Mural Trail and was painted by the talented Scott Nurkin. This mural was the fourth in the series. The image for this mural was a 1969 photo taken by Jack Robinson. Flack got her start in gospel music but went on to embrace jazz, R&B, the blues, and pop. She graduated from high school at 15 years old and then attended Howard University before her debut album in 1969. She won four Grammy Awards. Besides being a great singer, she was a humanitarian as well and created the Roberta Flack School of Music for underprivileged students and the Roberta Flack Foundation for music education and protecting animals. If you are in Black Mountain, make sure to make a stop at the mural.

Great Main Street. All quaint town outside of Asheville. Worth a visit. They are making it good…read more Cool place is Blue Mountain pizza, the bakery, Jack of Hearts. A lot of bluegrass/Americana music to be found here...and a few galleries.

Stayed in an Air BnB here while visiting Asheville. What a cute town! We felt very safe and the…read morepeople were so friendly! I would return any time and much preferred Weaverville over Asheville.

River Art District is a nice block to stroll but weather in summer could damper your mood so best…read moreto enjoy early evening hours. Lots of independent artists studios, many walks painted with "stories", and some local eatery -- seems like oven fresh pizza is a hit here! The road leading to the Art District is beautiful and yet to walk across the bridge.

City landscapes across the country are changing. Urban renewal projects have brought a new era and…read morevibe to most major metropolitans. Asheville is no exception! While much of the Street Art is concentrated in the River Arts District, it is not difficult to find sculptures and murals throughout the entire city. Being an artist myself, I am thrilled with the trend of public displays and only wish I were an art student growing up in this era of opportunity. Asheville has long been one of my favorite little cities because it, more than any other small city I've every visited, is an artist haven. Maybe that has something to do with the Black Mountain College art program that was widely successful in the mid 1950's and produced a laundry list of artists that would go on the become highly influential. THE EXPERIENCE My search for street art began at the viaduct on Merrimon Avenue below I-240. Here you can bear witness to just how paint, a brush and an idea can transform the ordinary into the extraordinary! This could have been like every other dreary inner city interstate underpass, but instead it feels like a hug and a "Hello, glad you could come!" You can keep south to see a few more displays around the downtown area or turn right on Patton Avenue and left on Clingman Avenue to find your way over to the River Arts District. The art here is currently and mostly graffiti style (which isn't exactly my favorite). However, more and more illustrative artist are making their mark and if you look carefully, you will find some amazingly detailed pieces of work amongst all the graffiti-like scribble. I hear there are also great pieces on the west side of town, but I will have to explore that on another visit as I was running out of daylight and allotted time to see all I could. FINAL THOUGHTS Asheville is rich in this Bohemian vibe, a vibe that seems full of life, creativity, acceptance and optimism. A place to experience a wide range of different tastes in music, fashion, art, and literature. I can't wait to see how the Street Art catches fire here in the future. I suspect of all the cities in America, Asheville may become one of the greatest places to view dazzling public displays! Since it is fairly close to Atlanta, I will continue to visit an update more in the future. Maybe soon they will attract internationally renowned commissioned street artists such as Natalia Rak, Etam Cru, INTI, Eduardo KOBRA, Bordallo II and Fin DAC with the most unique of these artists being Bordallo II (Google his work). Fingers crossed! 2018/70

Drove to Old Fort to get access to the Point Lookout trail on old highway 70. The town is mostly…read morehome to the Ethan Allen furniture factory... Really strong odor of varnish and adhesives near there. Honestly not much more to the town. There was a Hardee's and there were a couple other fast food places and gas stations. They do have some nice old brick buildings as you enter town coming from Asheville. The freight train tracks run right through the middle of town. It would probably be nice to visit on a Friday when the town hosts a weekly music festival that draws performers from the local area. It was a several mile long winding mountain road drive to get to the trail head. The trail is a nice hike or bike ride on paved road, about 3.5 mi long one-way.

I don't really know how to rate Biltmore Forest Profile of…read morethe Town of Biltmore Forest Biltmore Forest is a planned residential community with a rich cultural history. The Town was planned by the best professional planners of their day. Mr. C.D. Beadle who had been associated with the firm of Frederick Law Olmsted of Boston, planned the protection, preservation, and perfection of the natural beauty of the area that is now known as Biltmore Forest. Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, the Father of Landscape Architecture, planned his landscape to preserve the beauty of the natural environment and attempted to create a rural atmosphere although his designs were often located in cities. He was involved in the design of New York's Central Park, the U.S. Capitol grounds in Washington, and the grounds of the Biltmore Estate. Since Mr. Beadle had been associated with Mr. Olmsted, it is fair to say that the layout of Biltmore Forest and subsequent development is also a living example of more famous pioneering efforts in landscape architecture. Those ideas of 1920 are committed to paper in plans of the Town that existed in 1924 that have been followed and are still being followed today. The Town of Biltmore Forest was incorporated in 1923, and was determined eligible for Determination as a Historic District by the U.S. Department of Interior in March 1990. The idea of preserving and enhancing nature is at the core of the beauty of Biltmore Forest and helps guide the ordinance makers, administrators, developers, and residents of the Town. It is for this reason that ordinances guide the removal of trees, that structures and buildings are forbidden in front yards, and why fences have always been discouraged, to name a few of the rules that have made our Town unlike any elsewhere. This is what Wikipedia has to say but I m not sure if I agree. I live in south Asheville and take walks in Biltmore Forest a lot. There are huge villas/houses/estates it's utterly amazing everything is in a nice Forest setting around a beautiful golf course with an impressive club house. That being said the rules that are mentioned above seam to be old rules, fences might have been discouraged at one point but now they are for sure there, also the no structures in the front yard rule is not applied anymore! Fact is that there are only residential areas, maybe a playground or two but nothing else. Biltmore Forest Center has nothing to offer but a storage of the company that does the landscaping . All the things you need for daily life are across Hendersonville rd (RT 25) Ingles, postoffice and everything else. When you drive towards Asheville you come through Biltmore Village with lots of restaurants and a couple of nice stores.

Beware Veterans, Disabled Veterans, and anyone who relies on a medical Service Dog: The way I have…read morebeen mistreated by the City of Asheville and its public infrastructure is beyond words. I am a permanently disabled Veteran and a 34-year Veteran Advocate whose work has been featured in the Huffington Post and Stars and Stripes (a simple search for "Lisa Groves Veterans" will show my life's dedication). Yet, Asheville has treated me with utter cruelty and zero empathy. I flew in on Delta from Atlanta on June 15th with my two service dogs (one I've had for 7 years, and one in training, after recently losing my dedicated dog Koko of 10 years). Both dogs were fully cleared by the TSA. Because I am in a mobility wheelchair with a complete loss of my lower extremities, I cannot drive and rely entirely on accessible transit. Before arriving, I reached out to Loyalty Transportation via emails and voicemails to arrange rides to this day, they have completely ignored me. But my experience with Asheville Rides Transit (ART) has been a living nightmare that has now left me broke and facing homelessness. An ART supervisor left me hanging at a bus stop, demanding that I put my service dog in a crate and requiring paperwork. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), both of these demands are completely illegal. When I explained that I was having a severe panic attack, the supervisor did not care. My 7-year PTSD Service Dog did exactly what he is medically trained to do: he barked to alert and signal that I was in medical distress, continuing to bark until I received assistance. The ART supervisor used his life-saving medical alert behavior to penalize him, claiming he "isn't a real service dog." I would love to know what federal training this local transit supervisor has to override the TSA and the federal government. When I tried to tell her that I regularly access MARTA buses, trains, and Paratransit in Atlanta with this exact mobility wheelchair and service dog profile, she completely snubbed and ignored me. To make matters worse, ART employees complained about my three bags. I am paralyzed; I carry life-essential medical equipment when I travel. I cannot "travel light," especially when a city's infrastructure leaves me stranded. What makes this discrimination so blatant is that my dogs and I had already ridden four ART buses for over an hour and waited at the Transit Center twice before this with absolutely no issues. Suddenly, I was targeted, wrongly judged, and punished. Because of ART's refusal to provide legal accommodation, I have been forced to burn through my limited disability money just to pay for a hotel room. Tomorrow, I will be completely out of funds and facing homelessness in the grass of a city in a country I honorably served, all because I cannot get transportation back to Georgia. What this supervisor and bus driver do not know is that two separate federal government entities overheard their entire unprofessional, illegal exchange. I was on the phone with a VA Nurse who was calling to give me medical results, as well as a US Department of Transportation (DOT) Supervisor. The DOT Supervisor heard everything, confirmed the violations, and explicitly instructed me to file a formal complaint against them. Additionally he will add to my complaint what he overheard unprofessionally saying. I will absolutely be filing an official ADA complaint with the Federal Transit Administration, the US Department of Transportation, and the Department of Justice. Furthermore, I will be filing a lawsuit soon against the City of Asheville and ART. To Mayor Esther Manheimer and the leadership of Asheville Rides Transit / RATP Dev Management: Your total lack of professionalism, empathy, and basic adherence to federal ADA laws is disgusting. You have discriminated against and stranded a disabled veteran.

Cue the Hallmark Channel film crew... I swear I was on the set of a Hallmark movie. I was in…read moreAsheville for a family wedding, and the entire trip was five stars from start to finish. We were having breakfast outside at Tupelo Honey when we started noticing a lot of commotion, people gathering, and everyone trying to grab seats. All of a sudden, we were completely enveloped by the town's Holiday Parade. It was absolutely magical. After we finished eating, we walked over to the town square to watch the rest of the parade, and it made for the perfect day with family and friends. The whole experience felt warm, festive, and full of small-town charm. This is an amazing community, and I am so glad I got to be there to enjoy it. I hope to visit Asheville again soon!