Asheville’s art galleries nurture the town’s creative spirit

For nearly as long as Asheville has been a destination, it’s been a destination for the arts. As early as 1908, mountain craftspeople were selling handmade baskets, quilts, and furniture through the Allenstand Craft Shop on what is now Haywood Street in downtown Asheville.

Fast forward to today, and visitors still peruse the offerings at Allenstand’s current location in the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

But dozens of other galleries now also feature the fruits of Asheville’s creativity, from cozy studios in the River Arts District to chic multilevel showrooms in the Downtown Asheville Arts District.

All those galleries play an indispensable part in the cultural life of the city, says Katie Cornell, executive director of ArtsAVL. According to a report her organization published in October, creative trade businesses such as art galleries made up 8 percent of Buncombe County’s creative economy in 2022, or more than $77.5 million in total sales.

That topline economic number alone doesn’t do justice to what galleries contribute, suggests Michael Manes, who’s directed downtown’s Blue Spiral 1 since 2017. One of the city’s oldest fine arts spaces — it was founded in 1990 by the late John Cram, a legend of the local scene, to exhibit the Southern Modernist Will Henry Stevens — Blue Spiral supports six employees and over 100 artists. 

But Manes explains that galleries like Blue Spiral offer artists much more than just a storefront. He describes his role as a combination of life coach, business advisor, and artistic consultant, working constantly with creatives to help them grow and succeed.

“They are family for us, so we’re talking to them about not only professional but personal needs and goals for their life,” Manes says. “We mentor them on new bodies of work, help them secure museum exhibitions, write letters of recommendation for residencies or grants they’re looking to obtain — the list goes on. There’s almost nothing that I wouldn’t do for one of our artists.”

Galleries in Asheville, Manes continues, are uniquely suited to help local creatives achieve higher profiles. He estimates that as much as 70% of Blue Spiral’s business comes from the more than 12 million tourists who pass through the city each year. Visitors who buy art on a trip often become regular clients of Asheville galleries, giving Western North Carolina’s artists a foothold into new markets. 

Since he first started working with the gallery in 2010, Manes says he’s seen ever more Asheville visitors come from farther afield and spend longer in the area, often specifically to check out the city’s art scene. “It’s been really exciting to see that growth in the maturity of the taste levels of visitors and what they’re bringing to us,” he says.

The city’s newer galleries also work to attract broad attention. Mira Gerard started Tyger Tyger Gallery in 2022, taking over a River Arts District location previously leased by her late father, Asheville painter Jonas Gerard. The space specializes in “visionary and sublime landscape, figurative and abstract work” from both regional creatives and international artists.  

Gerard points to online sales as an expanding frontier for Asheville’s gallerists. Tyger Tyger had the fastest-growing follower count of any gallery last year on the popular platform Artsy; online sales represent about 15% of her current total, showing potential to reach people well beyond WNC. 

“I’ve had collectors from the other side of the world reach out and buy a painting, even though they’d never set foot in the gallery,” Gerard says. She suspects that online reach also helped artists Tyger Tyger exhibits, like Nancy Friedland and Autumn Nelson, get featured in the national publication Harper’s Magazine. 

But local support is still critical to the gallery’s mission. Gerard says some of Tyger Tyger’s most loyal collectors live within a 50-mile radius. The space hosts show openings and special events like the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival, building the area’s artistic community. 

“For a city of our size to have as many galleries, with as many offerings, is pretty remarkable,” says Manes with Blue Spiral 1. “We’re very much an art-centric city — we live in a big city in a small town.”