French Broad Island (Before the Storm). Mark Henry, artist
The fifth annual Appalachian Barn Alliance (ABA) art gala and benefit, A Pastoral Palette, will take place on Friday and Saturday, May 30 and 31, at Ivy Hall on the AB-Tech campus in Asheville. The event, a partnership between ABA and The Saints of Paint, celebrates the art of preserving rural landscapes while raising support for the ABA’s conservation efforts.
The ticketed event from 5:30 to 8 p.m. on Friday is an opportunity to enjoy complimentary hors d’oeuvres and beverages while mingling with the artists whose work is being featured. The event opens to the public on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. All artwork is for sale and the proceeds are split evenly between ABA and the artist.
A Pastoral Palette will showcase works from more than a dozen artists, including landscapes and still-life paintings that reflect the region’s natural beauty. Work by artists from Asheville’s River Arts District and Madison County’s Marshall High Studios, many of whom have lost studios and livelihoods as a result of the flooding, will be featured. Some pieces will commemorate places altered by the recent floods, offering a unique opportunity to honor and remember these spaces through art.
Swannanoa Valley. John Mac Kah, artist
Mark Harmon, one of the artists featured in the gala, says the event will be an opportunity to celebrate shared values with others who appreciate the importance of preserving the land and its history. “At the Gala, I expect to relish in the company of others that know that our lives are richer when we preserve the land and our traces of life and labor upon it,” he says. “My work is a very personal response to the landscape which always asks about humanity’s relationship to the environment from which we spring and without which we cannot survive. Take out a brush or pencil and start sketching and you will find that your attention span expands almost infinitely.”
Artist Jim Ostlund, of Mitchell & Ostlund Fine Art, will also have works featured in the event. “I was schooled in the academics of drawing and shape relationship as well as learning to see impressionistically,” Ostlund says. “I look to preserve on canvas paintings that may one day be a record of a people that embraced a more uncomplicated life surrounded by beauty.”
The Ivy Building is located at 10 Genevieve Circle, just off of Victoria Road on the A-B Tech campus. Learn more and purchase tickets at AppalachianBarns.org/pastoral-palette-art-show-gala.
