The Morning Ride. Trés Taylor, artist
By Gina Malone
On Friday, June 5, from 5–8 p.m., join American Folk Art & Framing (AFA) in welcoming Alabama artist Trés Taylor to the gallery. Refreshments will be available at the meet-and-greet which coincides with the Downtown Arts District’s First Friday. This newly relaunched initiative, which will run monthly through December, has broadened beyond a gallery-centered event, calling itself a “unified cultural experience” that celebrates the visual and performing arts as well as food and drink in downtown Asheville.
Taylor worked as a biochemist before becoming a full-time artist more than 20 years ago. Although he is a long-time artist with AFA, he says he doesn’t get to Asheville nearly enough. “There’s something that makes Asheville special that’s hard to name exactly,” he says. “Santa Fe has that same quality. For me, both are lands of enchantment.”
Journey Home. Trés Taylor, artist
Taylor views his own art and art in general as a source of connection, and he looks forward to being able to be present in the gallery while visitors view his work. “With music you listen, with a story you read—but with visual art, you can have a conversation while you’re both standing in front of the same piece,” he says. “That’s something different. The work opens you up, and when the artist is right there, that experience becomes a shared one. Something passes between people in those moments that doesn’t happen any other way.”
His mediums include tar paper, paint and wood putty, and he finds inspiration for his narrative works all around him. “I’m deeply influenced by southern folk art, primitive art and the magical realist writers of South America,” he says. “Art’s purpose, as I understand it, is to knock the cataracts off in order to see that everything is illuminated. Alan Watts used to say the universe is wiggling. Everything is wiggling. Nothing is static. Everything is moving even when it appears not to be. That is magic.”
Taylor’s newest work is a series of small (six-inch square) tarpaper paintings called Joy Byrds. “The larger project underneath all of it,” he says, “is the restoration of a 32,000-square-foot historic school in Selma that I’m calling Byrdland—an art destination, a residency, a gathering place. The Joy Byrds are the first chapter of that story.”
American Folk Art & Framing is located at 64 Biltmore Avenue in Asheville. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, visit AmeriFolk.com or call 828.281.2134. Learn more about First Friday on Facebook at First Friday Art Walk – Downtown Asheville.
