The Asheville Art Museum offers a wide range of creative and educational programs for youth and adults throughout the year. Programs and events invite visitors to explore artworks featured in exhibitions and the Museum’s Collection, to discuss current topics as they relate to art, to get creative with hands-on projects, and more.

Sunday Live: Steve Lapointe

Sunday, February 26 • 2–4pm

Sunday, March 12 • 2–4pm

Sunday, March 26 • 2–4pm
Free for Members or included with Museum admission.
Steve Lapointe’s nine years of classical piano as a youth grounded him in music theory. Jazz studies while in Ithaca, NY opened his ears to extemporaneous improvisation and the music of Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Bill Evans, Michel Petrucciani, and the American songbook. Steve served as musical director of the Unitarian Universalist (UU) Fellowship of Vero Beach, Florida, and occasionally performed for the UU Asheville congregation.

Sunday Traditional Game Day: Perspective Café
Every Sunday, 2–5pm

Free for Members or included with Museum admission.

Grab your friends and join us each Sunday in the rooftop Perspective Café and Sculpture Terrace to play an assortment of board and card games. You can even bring your own favorite games to share with new friends. The Café will be offering special snacks and cocktails for Game Day, including $6 local craft beers and ciders and freshly popped, old-fashioned popcorn to enjoy while you play and create a memorable afternoon. Enjoy the galleries and then head up to the rooftop!

Public Tour: Too Much Is Just Right
Thursday, February 23 • 6–7pm
Free for Members or included with Museum admission. Registration is not required.
Join us for a guided tour of this exhibition featuring more than 70 artworks in an array of media from both the original time frame of the Pattern and Decoration movement from 1972 to 1985, as well as contemporary artworks created between 1985 and the present. Artworks from the 21st century elucidate contemporary perspectives on the employment of pattern to inform visual vocabularies and investigations of diverse themes in the present day.

Discussion Bound: Prosperity Gospel: Portraits of the Great Recession Featuring Guest Speaker Keith Flynn and Book Signing
Thursday, February 23 • 6–8pm
Free for Members or included with Museum admission. Registration is not required.
Join us for the Museum’s book club! With photography by Charter Weeks and text by Keith Flynn, this book documents the effect of The Great Recession of 2008 on the lives of many working Americans and has been compared to Walker Evans and James Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which chronicled the Great Depression of the 1930s. Flynn and Weeks interviewed and photographed more than 100 people in homeless camps, dirt racetracks, gold stores, homes, churches, and other environments within a 200-mile radius of Asheville. Despite the government’s claim that the recession was over in 2009, it was far from over for millions of American workers. This is an important historical document raising the issues of social collapse, economic inequality, and the disintegration of the financial security that was once the foundation of the American economy.

Keith Flynn is the award-winning author of six books of poetry, most recently The Skin of Meaning, and two books of prose, including The Rhythm Method, Razzmatazz, and Memory. Flynn is also the founder and managing editor of The Asheville Poetry Review.

Charter Weeks has been a documentary photographer for more than 50 years with projects in Asia, Europe, Africa, and the United States. Weeks’ work has been exhibited in museums and galleries across the country and published in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Photographers Forum, South Loop Review, and Guernica Magazine, among others.

The Museum’s book club is a place to exchange ideas about readings that relate to artworks and the art world, and to learn from and about each other. Books are available at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café for a 10 percent discount. To add your name to our Discussion Bound mailing list, click here or call 828.253.3227 x133.

Educator's Night Out
Thursday, March 2 • 5–9pm
Free for K-12 and college educators. Registration is encouraged.
Join us to unwind, socialize, and explore the Museum. Teachers of all grade levels and subject areas are invited to view the Museum’s current exhibitions, attend gallery talks, enjoy live music, create art in the studio, and learn more about the Asheville Art Museum’s resources for teachers. Snacks and non-alcoholic beverages will be provided. The rooftop Perspective Café will be open until 9pm, where you may purchase a variety of sandwiches, local snacks, and beverages, including Poppy’s Popcorn, French Broad Chocolates, Asheville beers, organic coffee, wine, and cocktails. Register now for your chance to win free door prizes and educator memberships! Advanced online registration is encouraged. Register here.

Yoga for All Bodies | Yoga for Mental Health
Saturday, March 4 • 9–10:30am

Saturday, March 11 • 9–10:30am

Saturday, March 18 • 9–10:30am

Saturday, March 25 • 9–10:30am

Saturday, April 1 • 9–10:30am

Saturday, April 8 • 9–10:30am
$15 for Members; $25 for nonmembers; 10 percent discount for all six sessions.

Registration is required.
Join us in the Museum’s Windgate Foundation Atrium for a gentle flow yoga class, followed by a social time with free coffee or tea and a fresh-baked pastry at the Perspective Café on the Museum’s rooftop. This 60-minute class features gentle stretching and strengthening aimed to restore the body and mind, with a special focus on breathing, body awareness, and mindset care. All-levels are welcome. Please bring your own mat. Reserve your spot soon; there’s only capacity for 20 participants per class. Register here.

Public Tour: Sherrill Roland: Sugar, Water, Lemon Squeeze
Sunday, March 5 • 1–2pm
Free for Members or included with Museum admission. Registration is not required.
Join us for a guided tour of this solo exhibition featuring the artworks of Asheville-born interdisciplinary artist Sherrill Roland. Roland’s socially driven practice draws upon his experience with wrongful incarceration for a crime he didn't commit and seeks to open conversations about how we care for our communities and one another with compassion and understanding.

Through sculpture, installation, and conceptual art, Roland engages visitors in dialogues around community, social contract, identity, biases, and other deeply human experiences. Comprised of artwork created from 2016 to the present, Sherrill Roland: Sugar, Water, Lemon Squeeze reflects on making something from nothing, lemonade from lemons, the best of a situation. A reference to a simple recipe from the artist’s childhood, the title also speaks to Roland’s employment of materials available to him while incarcerated, such as Kool-Aid and mail from family members.

Open Studio at Different Wrld
Offsite • 701 Haywood Road, Suite 101, Asheville

Thursday, March 9 • 6–9pm
Free
Come have a drink and experiment with art materials while connecting with your community! Asheville Art Museum hosts this Open Studio at Different Wrld. This program is free to the public and includes art supplies provided at Different Wrld.

Makerspace: Second Saturday
Thursday, March 11 • 11am–2pm
Free for Members or included with Museum admission. Registration is not required.
Drop into the John & Robyn Horn Education Center to experiment freely and collaborate using different materials, tools, and techniques! Visit a chosen artwork in the galleries for inspiration, then head to the studio to create. All ages and abilities are welcome (children must be accompanied by an adult). Please note: to ensure all participants have time and space to create, we may ask you to limit your time.

Makerspace: Third Thursday
Thursday, March 16 • 5–8pm
Free for Members or included with Museum admission. Registration is not required.
Drop into John & Robyn Horn Education Center to experiment freely and collaborate using different materials, tools, and techniques! Visit a chosen artwork in the galleries for inspiration, then head to the studio to create. All ages and abilities are welcome. Children must be accompanied by an adult. Please note: to ensure all participants have time and space to create, we may ask you to limit your time.

Hood Huggers Walking Tour
Sunday, March 19 • 1–2:30pm

$30 adult; $27 youth ages 4-17 and senior ages 60-plus.
This guided walking tour explores East End Valley Street in Downtown Asheville, home to shops and galleries featuring merchandise and art from African American artisans and artists, YMI Cultural Center, Stephens Lee Community Center, The Block, and significant African American architecture. This program is offered in conjunction with our special exhibition, Sherrill Roland: Sugar, Water, Lemon Squeeze.

Register Here.

Public Tour: Too Much Is Just Right
Thursday, March 23 • 6–7pm
Free for Members or included with Museum admission. Registration is not required.
Join us for a guided tour of Too Much Is Just Right: The Legacy of Pattern and Decoration and discover more than 70 artworks in an array of media from both the original time frame of the Pattern and Decoration movement from 1972 to 1985, as well as contemporary artworks created between 1985 and the present. The artworks in this exhibition demonstrate the vibrant and varied approaches to pattern and decoration in art. Sections explore the history of pattern and decoration’s use in American art during and after the now formally recognized movement was established. Artworks from the 21st century elucidate contemporary perspectives on the employment of pattern to inform visual vocabularies and investigations of diverse themes in the present day.

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