Dazzle of Light: John Phillips’ new Fire and Light Glass Studio and Gallery in Otto offers artwork, classes and glass art supplies

By Michael Beadle

There’s a dance of light in a work of glass. Move around the piece and it changes color as if it were alive.

Carving his niche: Dennis Ruane’s career flows like his artwork

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Sitting at a workbench in the back of his gallery on Main Street in Waynesville, wood worker Dennis Ruane meticulously carves a tiny bearded man into the handle of a spoon. The spoon is a replica of one of his early pieces, being made for a collector up North who saw the work on the cover of Ruane’s novel Wooden Spoons.

Figuratively speaking

By Sarah Kucharski

Entering figurative sculptor Wesley Wofford’s studio one is struck by the sheer size of his works.

Franklin carver hatches a unique idea

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

The duck egg is just slightly larger than the chicken egg, its shell a little harder, making it the perfect egg for Rebekah Joy Brown to turn into a Christmas tree ornament.

The world according to glass

By Michael Beadle

Glass dazzles. It bears no secrets.

It illuminates the world around itself.

Green gas heavy metal: Jackson’s County’s Green Energy Park offers methane-fired blacksmith forge

By Anna Fariello • Guest Writer

William Rogers has been a professional metalsmith for more than 25 years, but nothing could have prepared him for the work he is doing at the Jackson County Green Energy Park.

Listening to the stone

By Michael Beadle

A goddess rises through ribbons of translucent alabaster. A pair of doves flutters from bronzed hands. An old, wizen-faced Native American man bandages the head of a wounded pioneer.

Then & Now: Project catalogs the ongoing artistic value of what was once mere necessity

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

The Craft Revival: Shaping Western North Carolina Past and Present Web site is located at http://craftrevival.wcu.edu.

Much of what is considered to be historic Appalachian art work began as anything but. The quilts and clay bowls, hand-wrought iron and homemade dresses were items made for their function.

The landscapes of our lives

By Michael Beadle

Shafts of sun pierce through a misty forest. A thick river of fog rolls through ancient mountains. Plump sparrows perch on a bare branch thin as tin foil.

Giving art to a community: Elementary, college students collaborate to create a mural for the Webster Family Resource Center

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

A warm mid-morning sun beats down on the back parking lot of the Family Resource Center in Webster where cups of color and paintbrushes await hands eager to put the finishing touches on a small mural that now graces a concrete, stairway wall.

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