Beginning with an opening reception for the public from 6–8 p.m. on Friday, September 10, the Black Mountain Center for the Arts will host a gallery show for mixed media artist Heather Allen-Swarttouw. The exhibit will continue through October 24.

Heather works in textiles, ceramics, wire and gut, and collage. “I draw my inspiration from my travels and the environment around me, the surfaces and architecture of the buildings in North Carolina and the surrounding natural beauty of western North Carolina.

For years the staircase has been my muse. Stairs that I encounter are sketched in my journals, and then a select few have a special resonance and inspire a piece. ...The stairs allude to a journey, becoming metaphors for express- ing various paths, transitions, and thresholds within life’s experiences.”

Her renderings of doorways and stair- cases in fiber, along with her expertise as a teacher, became known internationally as she both taught and exhibited throughout the United States and in Canada, Japan, Nepal, Thailand, and Singapore. She is a member of the Southern Highlands Crafts Guild.

Much of her three dimensional pieces depict boats and shuttles. She explains, “Similarly, a boat symbolizes a journey and a vessel can symbolize self. The vessel is a metaphor of interior and exterior, of containment, of transport and journey, and as a tool like the boat or tatting shuttle, with the ability to create. It is both universal and personal.”

The Black Mountain Center for the Arts is located at 225 W. State Street and may be reached at 828.669.0930, or at blackmountainarts.org. Artist information is at heatherallenswarttouw.com.