Community Calendar

The word craft-itarianism was coined by 2026 Center for Craft Curatorial Fellow Alyssa Velazquez to name artistic projects that generate employment, raise awareness, or offer therapeutic support through craft. These programs provide a space where people affected by addiction, incarceration, and gun violence can find solidarity while learning a skill.

Craft-itarianism: Community Action Through Craft celebrates nonprofits and artists who believe in—and actively practice—the power of craft to support and empower individuals and communities.

This exhibition was curated by 2026 Center for Craft Curatorial Fellow Alyssa Velazquez. Launched in 2017, the Curatorial Fellowship supports emerging curators exploring new ideas about craft with mentorship, professional development, and a $5,000 honorarium to realize an exhibition.

On view February 27, 2026–September 27, 2026.

This is an exhibition of multiple artists works as they pertain to the interpretation of relationships between color and mood. Consider the emotional power of color and the way it evokes story, atmosphere and meaning. This exhibition hopes to reveal a playful and experimental interaction through color's ability to shape perceptions and influence emotions. 

THE CHAIN pays homage to all the greatest hits of Fleetwood Mac, featuring the talents of Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie and John McVie. The Chain is comprised of five seasoned, talented musicians who have been performing in many musical projects over the years both local and national.

APLR Presents: Natalie Jane Hill - Album Release -

with Sham

Friday, April 17th, 2026

AyurPrana Listening Room - 312 Haywood Rd, Asheville, NC 28806

Doors 6PM || Event 7PM

Natalie Jane Hill

Natalie Jane Hill’s new record, Hopeful Woman, is composed of slender songs, life-sized, in which humans endeavor to reconcile themselves to wildernesses and cities; rearrange their rooms and open windows to be closer to the world outside and its choruses of frogs and crickets; attempt and fail to reach one another across a kitchen table; weather natural disaster. If something we might deign to call self-discovery emerges over the course of these narratives, it owes in no small part to the scale of their scenes, to the modesty of their ambitions, in which tumult and adaptation and growth are metabolized through a body’s gentle actions and reactions, its moments of quietude and observation and reflection. “Into the current of life I will fly,” Hill sings on Oranges, a song that would serve her well as a mission statement. “Changing and loving and growing and trying.”

Hopeful Woman was recorded live in two parts: first in Lockhart, Texas—she’s a native of the state—and then in Western North Carolina, where she now makes her home. She enlisted a small ensemble of collaborators whose spacious but focused arrangements hum with the nuance and delicacy that has attended the recordings of another thoughtful Texas songwriter, the great Edith Frost. Hill’s crackerjack multi-instrumentalist partner Mat Davidson in particular appears throughout with preternatural grace: attend to his aching pedal steel on “Never Left Me,” or demurely pastoral-psychedelic flute that weaves through “Lucky to Be,” or the stacked fiddles on “Blue is the Color of My Sun.” All is in deft service to Hill’s magnificent voice, redolent of Hope Sandoval or Karen Dalton but more humane, more sturdy, closer to the earth.

It’s only close to the earth where hope takes root and, we can only hope, grows—not in reckless, wild fecundity but in measured steps, one at a time, while the storm gathers, rips through, passes. “And I know through time we’ll give and we’ll let go,” Hill sings. “And I know this time I’ll give and I’ll let go.” Hers is a wise and humane hopefulness, built exquisitely to human scale. The same can be said of this record.

Billie Holiday's unique vocal approach and advanced sense of rhythm made her one of the most important and influential vocalists in American History. Her relentless fight to be treated as an equal - as a musician, a female, and an African-American - made her one of the most important American figures in the 20th century. Join us as we detail how she developed her unique vocal style and how she blazed a trail for women and African-Americans that would pave the way for future generations.

Billie Holiday's unique vocal approach and advanced sense of rhythm made her one of the most important and influential vocalists in American History. Her relentless fight to be treated as an equal - as a musician, a female, and an African-American - made her one of the most important American figures in the 20th century. Join us as we detail how she developed her unique vocal style and how she blazed a trail for women and African-Americans that would pave the way for future generations.

Whenever Oliver Wood isn't touring with The Wood Brothers — the Grammy-nominated roots trio that he co-founded in 2006 — he typically begins his mornings the same way: in Nashville, at home, with a coffee cup in his hand and a notebook in his lap.

"There's a chair in my living room, right in front of a window," he says. "Every morning, I go down there to drink my coffee, meditate, and write. It's like a therapy session for me, because I can write without any specific goal in mind. I can be creative without being self-judgmental.”

Many of the songs from Fat Cat Silhouette, Wood's second solo record, began taking shape in that chair. Produced by his Wood Brothers’ bandmate Jano Rix, it's an album of unexpected twists and turns. Longtime fans will recognize the earnest, elastic voice that has always anchored the Wood Brothers' mix of forward-looking folk and southern country-funk, but Fat Cat Silhouette doesn't spend much time looking backward. Instead, it abandons convention, breaks a few rules, and positions Oliver Wood as a roots-music innovator who's every bit as interested in the process as the product.

"I wanted to get outside my box and embrace the uncertainty of what's out there," he explains. "I wanted weird guitar tones. The song 'Yo I Surrender' has the worst guitar sound I've ever heard in my life, and I just love it. I wanted more percussion and less drums. Once we began experimenting and doing whatever we wanted, the pressure melted away and I felt liberated.”

On the album's opener, "Light and Sweet," Wood matches an imaginative storyline with a melody that leaps from ground level into the stratosphere. Eight songs later, he brings things to a close with "Fortune Drives the Bus," which he recorded on an iPhone in his own backyard. While tracking the rest of Fat Cat Silhouette to analog tape, Wood pushed himself to keep things weird. This is an album that finds the art in the unexpected, and Oliver Wood — whose songwriting and vocal chops remain as sharp as ever — at his most adventurous.

https://www.blueridge.edu/programs-courses/horticulture/plant-sale/

Want to learn to make jewelry? This beginner friendly metalsmithing course teaches the basic skills involved in making your own jewelry. Learn to use a variety of tools and equipment common in a jewelry studio.
This 2 Day Intensive will teach many techniques including sawing, filing, polishing, soldering, textures, and more!
Included is 10 hours of access to Open Studio sessions (Wed/Thurs 11-4) valid for 2 months from class.

Class Times 9am-5pm
Materials Fee: $55 -due at class

Happens on the following Dates:
Apr 18, 2026, 9:00am to 5:00pm Timezone: Eastern Time (US & Canada)
Apr 19, 2026, 9:00am to 5:00pm Timezone: Eastern Time (US & Canada)

The word craft-itarianism was coined by 2026 Center for Craft Curatorial Fellow Alyssa Velazquez to name artistic projects that generate employment, raise awareness, or offer therapeutic support through craft. These programs provide a space where people affected by addiction, incarceration, and gun violence can find solidarity while learning a skill.

Craft-itarianism: Community Action Through Craft celebrates nonprofits and artists who believe in—and actively practice—the power of craft to support and empower individuals and communities.

This exhibition was curated by 2026 Center for Craft Curatorial Fellow Alyssa Velazquez. Launched in 2017, the Curatorial Fellowship supports emerging curators exploring new ideas about craft with mentorship, professional development, and a $5,000 honorarium to realize an exhibition.

On view February 27, 2026–September 27, 2026.