The Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center will host its annual “Farm 2 Table” Fundraiser from 5 to 10 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 20. The event promises an evening of dining, dancing, local art, live music and community spirit.

The Haywood County Arts Council in Waynesville is now accepting applications for the 2025-2026 Grassroots Arts Program grants.

Applications are open through Sept. 5, 2025. Local nonprofit arts organizations and arts programs are encouraged to apply. This grant opportunity is not open to individuals. 

Richard Baker is in an interesting place, looking back at a prolific body of work while also staring down an uncertain future.  

Baker, who is sitting on the doorstep of 70, had his work featured at a retrospective last weekend at the Folkmoot Center in Waynesville. The event was well attended, largely by people familiar with the artist and his paintings, people who admire his unique style.   

Earlier this summer, two Western North Carolina artists completed and installed a new public sculpture at a park in Virginia.  

Metalsmith William Rogers designed the work and created steel elements that support hammered copper panels made by Nathan Bush.

For all of you ’70s and ’80s hipsters, I’ve got one for you. In his new book, acclaimed author Paul Elie (“The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex and Controversy in the 1980s,” Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025, 464 pages) takes a deep dive into the music and arts scene of the 1970s and 80s.

The Folkmoot Friendship Center in Waynesville will use its cafeteria to host a two-day show featuring the work of local painter Richard Baker.

Featuring over 200 works from Baker, the exhibition will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 8-9. In addition, there will be a reception from 5-7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 9. 

The Haywood County Arts Council’s latest exhibition “Chiaroscuro” will run through Sept. 1 at HCAC’s Handmade Gallery in downtown Waynesville.

“Chiaroscuro” highlights the bold use of light and shadow to create depth, mood and movement in art.

In a move that will raise some eyebrows and just as many questions, the decades-long dance festival put on by Folkmoot USA in Waynesville has quietly been eliminated. 

July 2012. When I was in the running for the open position of arts and entertainment editor here at The Smoky Mountain News, I had to drive from where I was living at the time (Plattsburgh, New York) to Waynesville (1,100 miles each way) for the final interview. 

When Claire Stovall applied to the Artist-in-Residence program at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, she hoped to use the time to work on the wildlife textile collages she had highlighted in her application. Then she told her family she’d been selected for the program — and that plan spun on a swivel.