Art on the Riverfront in Asheville; Studio Stroll 2008
by Susan Le Pord, Photo by Oliver Le Pord

For those who are in search of creative local talent, the bi-annual River Arts district studios open their doors free to the public for two days during the Studio Stroll 2008 on June 14 and 15 and again on November 8 and 9. The River Arts district is close to downtown Asheville, with abundant parking in the immediate area. The district is an assemblage of attractively distressed buildings from the city’s industrial age, such as an old cotton mill and ice factory, and now consists of lofts and art studios in various states of rehabilitation. The buildings are close to the banks of the French Broad River, providing lush greenery and a chance to see where people used to travel by pontoon boat. The studios are open year-round, but the Studio Stroll provides an opportunity to walk from building to building, most of which are in close proximity to one another. You’ll have a chance to mingle with other art lovers, grab a bite to eat in the area’s eateries, and often see the artists themselves at work. Bring your walking shoes and be prepared for a variety of interesting and often profound collection of works by over 80 artists in more than 15 different studios.

Matthew Waldrop, Steelworker/Blacksmith
For anyone who’s been in a steelworker’s studio, one of the first things you’ll notice is that they are not cozy or welcoming. It’s all about heavy machinery, big tools and scraps of metal strewn about. At least that’s the case for Matt’s studio, located in the Phil Mechanic building in the River Arts district. But when you visit his studio and see the magnificently complex, often large works-in-progress you understand. He needs every inch his floor space for his materials and tools, so that means if you want to watch him at work, you’ll most likely have to stand. There is a lot of action in here—most notably hammering and welding.

Matt hails from Detroit, and since the age of sixteen he has been working with metals. One of his mentors made body armor, which got Matt interested in creating knives made out of coil springs which he heated, straightened out and hand-forged. He eventually made a living by making “chain mail,” or accoutrements and body jewelry out of coat hangers and steel for the local punk rock scene. On his journey to Asheville, Matt has picked up skills along the way; without “formal” training in school to learn his art, he has worked with a few people whom he largely credits for what he can do today.

A friend’s father owned land in eastern Tennessee, and being an adventurous soul, Matt traveled there to live in a school bus and learn how to weld at Tennessee Tech in Morristown, TN. Because he knew that Asheville was an artist’s community, he made his way to the North Carolina mountains, got married, had a baby, and now calls the area his home.

There were many fascinating things in his studio, but a steel mask caught my eye. It looked like the face of an ancient warrior, but he says it wasn’t a deliberate undertaking. “I hammered random pieces separately and then it looked like a face to me, so I went with it.” Comprised of scraps of thin metal sheets with slightly different hues, he texturized the pieces by hammering them while cold over various “dies”—steel blocks that can shape or warp metals.

He said he gets most of his materials from various junkyards around town and pays for it only when he needs a specific size or thickness. “Steel isn’t too expensive,” he tells me while showing me the tools with which he works. Also noteworthy is that he has built all of his tools to his specifications, which is no small feat. In one corner of his studio is an ominous-looking treadle hammer. “I use this on pieces that need constant, forceful impact,” he explains. Not far from the treadle hammer is another large device that applies steady pressure to materials that need an evenly distributed amount of force. He also showed me a variety of dies; one bends metal in one direction, others create angles and yet others can smooth or mold pieces as the artist directs. Matt also has a sizeable collection of hammers with different shapes and purposes. He also hammers and melds on a variety of anvils.

One of his commissioned pieces is an impressive, large Japanese maple tree. He was asked by a couple to recreate one of their trees that had died, with the intention of putting the new piece in its place. Entirely forged by hand, Matt made the tree’s branches by hammering steel tubes flat. He then welded intricate thin leaves with veins and pointed edges onto the branches. The project, Matt says, spanned a period of three or four months. He still has the original Japanese maple tree in one of his closets.

Matt’s studio is open “by appointment or by chance,” and on the second and last Saturdays of each month, and for the Studio Strolls in June and November.

The Phil Mechanic building is located on West Haywood Rd. on the corner of Clingman Avenue. For more information about Matthew Waldrop, visit www.northerncrescentiron.com or www.myspace.com/matt_blacksmith.

Ginger Huebner, Collage & Chalk Pastel
Originally from Florida, Ginger Huebner attended Virginia Tech to study architecture for 5 years, though she wasn’t sure she made the right choice. “During architecture school, I always felt a different calling, but I didn’t know what that was,” Ginger explained. At architecture school, she credits one of her professors for encouraging her to explore the use of chalk. Unlike blueprints—those precise, calculated plans drawn by architects—she started exploring her feelings and life experiences through the use of chalk, and later, through collage.

During her requisite 5th year project Ginger wanted to work on an urban project in Alexandria, VA, which involved a building site next to Rock Creek Park and the Potomac River. Inspired by her surroundings, she wanted to integrate the knowledge she had attained at school with her own artwork, and to emphasize the relationship between them. In her project, Ginger visualized a cross-section of the building that would go on the site. She wanted to blend the interior space, which would be level with the river, with its surroundings in order to create a symbiosis between an urban and natural setting.

Today, she is frequently commissioned by people to create art based upon the feelings or message a client wishes to convey. “I love to work collaboratively with my clients. They may not be able to describe what they want, so they’ll use me to translate their thoughts into a creative force.”

For the holiday season, Ginger was commissioned by an architectural firm to create a card with a message to indicate the firm’s dedication and respect for the Earth. They want to be responsible for what they build, as stewards of the land, and to create a good representation of love, sacrifice and honoring the land. Ginger had a brilliant idea.

“I was searching for an image or idea that was one type of representation of a simple, pure, honest relationship with the Earth.  I found an image of a Masai village in the Rift Valley of Kenya. [These inhabitants] believe that God has made them masters of all the cattle in the world—and live by this belief—living off the Earth completely, each one dependent on the other with simplicity and respect. I felt that this was a great parallel for [the firm’s] effort to symbolize architecture that respects the Earth and its inhabitants.”  

Entitled “Peace on Earth,” the red image shown is actually a sectional representation of an aerial shot of the Kenyan village. Ginger explains that in the piece, the two halves (top and bottom) are each the love and sacrifice “intertwined” by the horizontal lines running between them. The point at which these lines intersect are the collage elements from that Masai village image (the walls and roofs of the huts).  She also explains that a second layer of white chalk represents the confluence of the love and sacrifice—which ultimately keeps us together—and has reference to the heavens as well as the Earth (lines ascending toward the top and descending toward the bottom).

In addition to collage and chalk pastel, Ginger is beginning to explore her creative abilities with wax. She showed me one of her more recent collage pieces which had a thin layer of clear wax on the surface and was texturized by running the teeth of a comb over the top. Not only does the wax keep the chalk from smudging, but it can also be used to create texture and an additional dimension.

For the Studio Stroll, Ginger said that she hopes to have more of her smaller pieces on display, including ones with wax, collage and chalk pastel. In the meantime, she will continue to teach mixed media workshops each month.
Her studio is located at the Riverview Station Art Studios, Studio #250, 191 Lyman Street. For more information about Ginger Huebner, visit www.gingerhuebner.com or e-mail info@gingerhuebner.com.

Meagan Chaney, Mixed Media Sculptor
When one thinks of sculpture, one might automatically think of statues made of steel or bronze or stone. This isn’t the case for sculptor, Meagan Chaney. With nature as her primary source of inspiration, Meagan combines materials such as glass, steel, clay, and found objects to explore relationships between form, space, texture and color.

Originally from Raleigh, Meagan got her undergraduate degree at Meredith College and through a grant from the college, attended Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN where she was an artist-in-residence. During her year at Arrowmont, she was inspired by artists from all over the world who came to host weekly workshops.

At the school, she developed an interest in glass; not glass blowing, but rather using it as a material with which to sculpt. “It’s not to say that I’m not a team player, but glass blowing involves a few people and I like to work individually.” Inspired by her natural surroundings, Meagan often incorporates pieces of nature that she finds, while hiking for example, into her artwork. One of her signature pieces is what she calls an “evergreen” box; approximately four inches, these glass squares are made from a steel and copper infrastructure fused with glass on each side leaving a one-inch space in between. “In the space, I’ll put twigs, feathers, acorns and other things I find in nature.” This method of “glass fusion” is created by cutting the glass into layers and melding them together with the natural materials “sandwiched” in the center. She uses an electric kiln for this process and also for melting the recycled window glass used in her other projects. She has made hundreds of these boxes, each one by hand.

She continues to teach her techniques on occasion, and has instructed workshops at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, N.C. and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.

Although she now lives in Florida, she maintains a shared artists’ space in Curve Studios. Since she moved in January, she has already made four or five trips back to Asheville delivering new pieces to her studio, which her studio-mate sells for her, and to galleries where she displays her work. Currently, you can find her “evergreen” boxes and glass pendant necklaces at the Grove Arcade Arts & Heritage Gallery in downtown Asheville. “The pendants do really well,” she adds. She creates these small, polished glass pieces by using a process known as “kiln casting,” which refers to ladling molten glass into clay molds. When the glass cools, the molds are smoothed out with sandpaper of varying grits.

She is also frequently commissioned by individual homeowners to design installations for hard-to-decorate spaces, such as stairwells. Her themed constructions are made up of a number of individual pieces, all put together on a wall to create what appears to be a single piece. An example of one of her larger installations was a commissioned project she worked on with a couple from South Carolina who discovered Meagan’s art during the summer 2007 Studio Stroll. She visited their home once, determined their sense of style, and constructed a collection of ethereal, free-flowing “flames” to put on a 7-foot by 12-foot wall, which created the illusion of one big piece. “I like working large,” she said, “and I especially liked this commission because they gave me creative license.” And since her clients live all over the country, she sends them exact installation directions so they can put it up themselves.

In addition to glass and steel, Meagan is increasingly exploring her creativity with the use of clay. She and her husband are building a new studio in their home in Ocala, FL. When asked about her plans for this summer’s Studio Stroll she replied “I’ll have to see what my new studio inspires me to do. Florida is very different from Western North Carolina, and I am deeply influenced by my surroundings.” Whatever those influences may be in the new setting, Meagan’s impressive talent will surely lead her in interesting directions.

Her studio is located at Curve Studios located at 6 Riverside Drive.
For more information about Meagan Chaney, visit www.meaganchaney.com.

Pattiy Torno, Textiles/Quilting
As a young girl, Pattiy made her own clothing, and by the age of 21 she was running her own business by making knits—clothes, scarves, throws, and other items. That business lasted a few years before she shifted her focus to quilt making. “Quilts are timeless and there is no pressure to keep up with fashion,” Pattiy says. After visiting a shop with fine fabrics, she was inspired to spend more time ironing fabric, specifically dress-weight cotton. “There is something very calming about [ironing], and the smell of hot cotton is very soothing to me. It reminds me of when I was young,” she explains. Ironing is a large component of creating quilts because each piece and each seam needs to be flattened. Pattiy creates her quilts for comfort, even though many are hung on walls.

The construction of her quilts is quite unique: she uses separate triangles of cloth from different patterns, “I like to use triangles as opposed to squares because they provide movement which, for me, is only possible with diagonals.” She then hand-pieces “dead stock” fabric, which is a term used to describe material that has been commercially produced for other products such as dresses or boxer shorts. Often she finds old swaths of fabric that have already been cut. Estate sales and flea markets are the types of places that will usually have what she’s looking for. She prefers older fabric primarily because today’s cotton has a petroleum base which keeps it from shrinking and she doesn’t like working with it. She says her fabric needs a “dry hand” texture. She does not explain the criteria she uses in choosing her materials, except to say “It’s got to have the right feel.” When asked if she buys online, she replies “If I can’t touch it, I won’t buy it.”

Every four or five years, she will make a trip to Japan to pick up inexpensive, quality “grige” goods which is a trade term used to describe fabric before any color is applied. She explains that there are generally two ways in which color is applied: if there is a pattern, it usually means the color has been printed. If the color is solid, it has been hand-dyed. Some of her quilts have as many as 500 different color patterns.

“During one Studio Stroll, a man who had served in the Peace Corps in Ghana told me that he had been carrying around a box of mud cloth for years and was ready to let it go. He said to me ‘Would you like to have a look at it?,’ and I was like, ‘Absolutely!’” Pattiy does not work with rayon or any other synthetic material, and usually not silks because they are slippery and they don’t have the “feel” that is so important to what she makes.

The process of creating a quilt involves three layers, much like a sandwich: the top layer has all of the patterned triangles hand-sewn row by row; the middle layer contains wool batting, which is lighter and airier than felt; and the quilt backing is usually made of 3 large chunks of fabric. The reason for this is twofold: triangles on both sides would create too many seams which are not comfortable on the skin; and the backs give Pattiy the opportunity to create another whole design. “I tend to give the backs their own personality; something a little quieter, with the fronts being more vibrant,” she adds. To affix all of the pieces together, she thread-bastes the quilt with embroidery floss and then binds the finished work. Since the Studio Stroll is still a few months away, Pattiy has no immediate plans for what she will show. Some of her recent commissions have been making baby quilts and full wall pieces measuring up to 7 feet by 10 feet, but surprisingly only weighing five or six pounds.

Pattiy Torno’s studio is located at Curve Studios at 6 Riverview Drive.
She is also a member of the Southern Highland Craft Guild. For more information about Pattiy Torno and her quilt making process, visit www.pattiytorno.com.

With so many artists and studios to visit, you may even pick up a few treasures of your own. For more information about the 2008 Studio Strolls visit www.riverdistrictartists.com. From there you can print out the River District Artists Studio Guide, which includes a map of the participating studios.