By Julie Ann Bell
The rain started Wednesday, September 25, as a heavy system sat over the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. Flash flood warnings were issued and a Category 1 hurricane was developing in the Gulf of Mexico with a projected path toward the Carolinas. With the hurricane season of 2004 in mind, eight artists of Curve Studios and Gardens rented two 17-foot U-Haul trailers. They had experienced their building flooding to a height of 6 feet in 2004 when the remnants of three hurricanes caused widespread flooding in the River Arts District (RAD).
Angelique Tassistro, a ceramic artist at Curve Studios for 14 years, says the artists “moved everything into the trailers except things like her heavy table that would have to be disassembled.” Anything they could not get into the trailers was piled on top of tables and shelves to get above 6 feet. By the time the French Broad River crested in the RAD, water was 18 feet higher than the worst-case scenario artists had prepared for.
On Thursday morning, Annie Kyla Bennett, artist and co-owner of ArtGarden Asheville in Riverview Station, posted a video on Instagram of pouring rain as she drove away from her studio. The building’s owner had sent out an alert to artists to move items that were below 6 feet.
Riverview Station is a two-story building that was once part of the extensive tannery operations along the river. On the other side of the railroad tracks at 375 Depot Street, artists were moving frames and supplies from the basement to the main floor, expecting that to be sufficient. Water had not breached buildings on the eastern side of the tracks since the Great Flood of 1916.
On Friday, Helene made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in the Big Bend area of Florida. Already her outer bands were mixing with the stalled cold front and swelling both the Swannanoa and French Broad rivers, which meet just downriver from the RAD.
Spenser Beals, a painter and leader of the highly popular Sketch Book Club at Foundation Studios, went to his studio Friday night to do preventive measures, expecting a flood of 2-3 feet. He had a shop vac and broom and tried to save as much art as he could, but the river kept rising. Even as he was evacuating, water was rising so quickly that it was soon chest high. He, along with all the artists in that area of the RAD, lost everything. The Foundy Street area includes Foundation Studios, Foundation Woodworks, Marquee, Studio 42 and other buildings housing a brewery, coffee shop, restaurants, a movie theater and a skate park.
Mixed media artist and art instructor Bridget Benton creates at 310 Art at Riverview Station. “We only thought the water would get a foot or two deep into the gallery, similar to the 2004 flood,” she says. “Art was stacked on tables, or left hanging high on the walls. By Thursday morning at 10 a.m., the building owners evacuated Riverview Station and turned off power. By then, roads to the building were already blocked off due to flooding. This was still almost 24 hours before the full force of the storm hit on Friday morning. I was unable to go back and get my work.”
Also situated on the ground floor of Riverview Station, potter Reiko Miyagi shares a studio space with four painters. “We were expecting the water could reach to 6 feet deep,” Miyagi says, “but it unbelievably reached 2 feet into the second floor. So, unfortunately, even the items that were moved to 8 feet high were submerged.”
Fiber artist Amy Reader had creations at both Trackside Studios on Depot Street in the RAD and at Atomic Furnishings along the Swannanoa River just a few miles away. “I am deeply, deeply grateful that my family and I are safe,” she says. “However, it is so hard to put into words what it has been like to lose nearly my entire body of work. We were prepared for a foot or two of flooding. Not 20 feet. I never thought my work could just float away and these spaces that I love so much would be destroyed.”
At Warehouse Studios, a white mark on the brick at the corner of Artists Way and Lyman Street shows the high-water mark from the 1916 flood. Jenny Ellis, an upholsterer who creates artful chairs in an upstairs studio, reported that the building was “still standing but submerged in about 12 feet of water. Now becoming a stinky, muddy mess. We must move out while repairs are being made.”
Over that weekend, people ventured to the Haywood Street bridge to capture surreal images of only rooftops or upper stories showing along Riverside Drive, home to Riverview Studios and Cotton Mill Studios. Views extended along the river to Curve Studios, Warehouse Studios, Riverview Station and the Foundy area. Across the tracks, water rose to the lowest levels of the Wedge and the Phil Mechanic building. The Wedge at the Roberts Street level and above and studios across the street, including Joseph Ransmeier, the North Carolina Glass Center and 20 Artful Way, remained unscathed.
Odyssey Gallery of Ceramic Arts, businesses on Clingman Avenue Extension and down Depot Street could not be seen from the bridge, but drone footage posted online showed a flooded Depot Street with water deepening as the road dipped toward the raging Nasty Branch Creek. At slightly higher elevations, Pink Dog Creative, 362 Depot Street and NorthLight reported minimal flooding. Daniel McClendon’s studio, The Lift, a restored former biscuit factory, sustained lower-level flooding. Further down the hill, ArtPlay, Local Cloth and the Aura Arts Building sustained destructive flooding on their main levels.
The new week brought dropping water levels, but the damage to buildings and roads limited access. Artists and building owners awaited clearance to enter to determine what could be salvaged. Despairingly, when finally able to access buildings, the sights were unimaginable. Benton entered 310 Art on Wednesday, October 2. “The floor was covered with 2-4 inches of sludge…,” she says, “[and] most of the work was in strange eddies on the floor.”
She joined building artists and volunteers for a workday on Friday, October 4, at Riverview Station. She “spent hours pulling chairs, tables, art, shelving units that fell apart in my hands, tubes of paint and more out of the building. I was dripping with mud. None of it [was] really salvageable because of the toxic sludge and the difficulty in safely storing and cleaning those few metal and plastic things that might have been reusable. So many volunteers; so many donations of water, food, equipment; so much hope, and yet it felt like moving deck chairs on the Titanic.”
Behind the scenes, the River Arts District Artists (RADA) association board of directors was meeting virtually, as best it could with limited connectivity in the entire region. Board members who were out of town before the flood helped launch a donation site on the RADA website and relayed information. RADA board president Jeffrey Burroughs met with staff from ArtsAVL and the City of Asheville to strategize about obtaining grants and other support for artists and building owners. Artist Phil DeAngelo and helpers delivered supplies and food to volunteers throughout the district and subsequently coordinated with World Central Kitchen to become a designated emergency food site, dubbed “Nonna DeAngelo’s Kitchen.”
At press time, uncertainty still exists about the future of the most severely damaged buildings in the RAD, and artists express mixed feelings about the future. “This is such a special thing we’ve had that was working for so many people,” says Tassistro. “I hope over time the RAD can rebuild.”
This sentiment is echoed by Miyagi who wonders if small businesses who lost everything will be able to rebuild and come back. She says she has no idea about the future of her building, but would like to return. Until then, she plans to work at home and run online sales.
The flood impacted everyone in the RAD: artists, residents and other businesses. For an unforeseen time, travel will remain problematic throughout WNC and tourism will decrease significantly. “I am so blessed that our building only flooded in the basement,” painter Angela Alexander of NorthLight Studios says. “I feel guilty to even complain. However, my income will be greatly impacted from all of this… We all need support.”
Support is essential at this time. Many artists and studio groups have begun crowd-sourced fundraising appeals and special sales. As brushes, canvases, tools, easels, paints and more arrive from donors, Julieta Fumberg at Pink Dog Creative is collecting and organizing donations. Art organizations around the country are holding auctions, galas and sales in support.
Often after a fire, flood or other loss of property, people will say, “It’s just things.” Saying that about a toaster makes sense. But there is no comparison between a toaster and an artist’s original creation. Art displayed and sold in the RAD by more than 300 artists represents their dreams, ideas and values shared on paper, canvas, clay, glass, cloth and more. Art is not “just a thing.” It is an expression of one’s soul. Art is heart.
Heartbroken is a word that has been spoken innumerable times in the past weeks. It is necessary to grieve the losses—of creations, a lifetime of work and an income. Many are also grieving the loss of loved ones or homes or the sanctuary of their art studio. “Through every difficult thing in my life, I’ve had art,” says Reader. “It is how I make sense of my world around me. It has kept me safe and sane through my most difficult seasons of life. And it feels like it has been stolen from me. I will make more art; it’s in my DNA. But not yet.”
At this same gut-wrenching time, there is the shared humanity of shoveling mud together, the communion of a meal and the collective joy of finding a piece of art that survived. “I know these experiences, over time, will turn into creative fuel,” says Benton, who says her connections with other artists in the RAD are deepening. “But here’s the thing,” she concludes, “Artists make meaning out of tragedy—and turn it into hope.”
Reader’s fiber art collection was titled Beneath the Surface. “We have moved into the dark-humor phase about my work wanting to truly be ‘beneath the surface’ (of flood waters),” she says. “The jokes help a little. Distractions help a little. And a lot of things that help a little has to be good enough for now.”
Beals speaks optimistically about the future. “As we go forward, we cannot only focus on the flood,” he says. “There is still a strong part of the RAD that is intact and is, like a phoenix, ready to rise and reopen when the infrastructure is ready.”
Editor’s Note: We are grateful to Julie Ann Bell, artist and co-owner of Trackside Studios, for communicating with her fellow artists at a time of disconnectedness, anguish and uncertainty to write this moving account. To donate to RAD artists, visit RiverArtsDistrict.com. If you’re able, support online shops of those impacted by the storm, and, when they reopen, visit and support those artists who still have studios.