Situated on a 98-acre farm that’s cradled by the Blue Ridge Mountains, just outside the small town of Hot Springs in Madison County, the Rare Bird Farm has become a haven for nature lovers, artists and music fans alike. 

“We’re way out here [in the countryside] — it’s not a place you’re going to just stumble into,” chuckled Mitchell Davis, RBF business development director. “And we think music is a great connector to get people to come and check the [property] out.” 

The annual QuickDraw art fundraiser will once again be held from 4:30-9 p.m. Saturday, June 20, at Laurel Ridge Country Club in Waynesville.

The cocktail social will include an hour-long QuickDraw Challenge, live/silent auction, refreshments and dinner. Live artists will be working in the public eye, creating timed pieces, which will then be auctioned off. 

Celebrating the beauty, creativity and versatility of fiber art, “Threads,” the latest exhibition at the Haywood County Arts Council, will be on display through Aug. 3 at HCAC’s Haywood Handmade Gallery on Main Street in downtown Waynesville. 

Charlotte Rollman swears she used to be shy.

“I did art so that people would like me,” she said, telling the story of how, as a fourth grader, she once drew money and passed it out to her classmates, who then “really liked me.”

But when John Adkins met the woman who would later become his business partner, shyness was nowhere to be found among his first impressions.

The Haywood County Arts Council (HCAC) latest exhibit “Inspired by a Song” is being showcased at Haywood Handmade Gallery in downtown Waynesville.

“Inspired by a Song” explores the powerful connection between music and visual art. In conjunction with HCAC and the Haywood Arts Regional Theatre’s recent “Cool Jazz” concert, artists were invited to create work inspired by a song of their choosing — any genre, any era — that moves or motivates them.

Embrace the spirit of the season with two festive events at Great Smoky Mountains National Park this December.

Visitors are invited to celebrate Appalachian holiday traditions and create new memories during the “Festival of Christmas Past, Present and Future” from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 13, and the Holiday Homecoming on Saturday, Dec. 20, at the Sugarlands Visitor Center and Oconaluftee Visitor Center, respectively. 

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.

Last Thursday afternoon, dark storm clouds overtook downtown Canton. Sitting on a couch in the Cold Mountain Art Collective on Adams Street, Hannah Burnisky gazes out at the raindrops sliding down the large front windows of the business. 

The George Masa Foundation announced that the winning photographs from the inaugural George Masa Foundation Youth Conservation Photography Prize are on display at The North Carolina Arboretum’s Baker Building through April 30.