It’s time for our last article on Asheville. We’ve covered some serious ground in this city, and have already had a few surprises, but to me, there were none more pleasant than the ones I’m about to share with you in this article. This is Asheville’s “Street Art” installment; a segment that I am becoming quite fond of. Not every city has a visual arts scene that will support these kinds of public works… but those that do, typically don’t look much like Asheville. I tend to associate street art with giant urban areas like New York, San Francisco, or Toronto.
But Asheville threw down the gauntlet!
The street art in this town is some of the coolest that I have ever seen! I was already impressed, especially after my visit to the River Arts District… but then we took a drive through West Asheville. This is a neighborhood that I had heard about prior to my arrival here. It was said to be a cool place, and we did spend some earnest time exploring the area, but those explorations quickly devolved into a street art scavenger hunt. At least half the pieces in the gallery below came out of that neighborhood. Here’s West Asheville on the map for your reference. Most of the these shots are centered around Haywood Rd., which is the main artery running the length of the neighborhood.
It seemed like a really cool neighborhood, but today, all I’m going to be showcasing is the street art. I’ve done my best to track down the artists responsible for the following murals. If I was able to find them, they are credited below. If you know of somebody that I left out, reach out and let me know so I can update this article!
Now check these out…
Aren’t these freaking AMAZING?
The artists responsible for these murals, as best as I have been able to track down, are mostly Jordan Atkinson, Gus Cutty, Dustin Spagnola, Lara Nguyen, and Kathryn Crawford, among others. If you know any of the other artists that are responsible for these murals, let me know! I’d love to be able to give credit where credit is due.
In the meantime, it’s time for us to move forward, out of Asheville. I will give you one spoiler for what is in the queue: the next street art installment is already locked and loaded, and will take place in a very special neighborhood of the Bay Area. If you thought West Asheville had some cool stuff, just wait! These articles are definitely escalating, and I love that. But we’ve got a few other articles in other places to get through before then. For now, we’ll close with something sufficiently crunchy to do Asheville justice.
Are you a "glass half full" or a "glass half empty" kind of person?
I think that your opinion on Sicily will pretty much answer that question for you. I like to think of myself as somebody who is able to look on the bright side of things, and to me, Sicily was beautiful. However, it was definitely also quite gritty. Today, we’re going to take a deep dive into all that garbage and graffiti and browse though some of my favorite examples of Sicilian street art.