FREE! Sunday, September 9th www.arts2people.org www.myspace.com/lexfestasheville 11am to 10pm All Local All Original presented by LAAFF is in its 6th year of filling up Lexington Ave in downtown Asheville for one fabulously freaky day of all local, all original entertainment, arts, and food showcasing the diverse and amazing talents of WNC artists. öõ LAAFF 2007 will take place on Sunday, September 9th, the week AFTER Labor Day Weekend. From 11am- 10pm. LAAFF is a FREE event is fun for all ages and encourages costumes. öõ There are multiple performance areas featuring fire dancing, breakdancing, flamenco, salsa, belly dancing, reggae, bluegrass, rock, funk, world rhythms, jazz, trance, african drumming and dance, punk, opera, blues and the beat goes on ... öõ Street performances and interactive art areas are scattered up and down the street in between art and craft venders, local breweries, local foods, the underground art show, stuff for kids, bicycle jousting, puppetry, a record-breaking 40ft. tall bike, arts cars, dancing and LAAFFing and More! We need volunteers! Help make the fun happen! Rapid River ® ARTS & CULTURE MAGAZINE Volume Ten, Number Eleven Established in 1997 Distributed at over 390 locations throughout eight counties in WNC and South Carolina Publisher/Editor: Dennis Ray AUGUST Associate Publisher: Byron Belzak www.rapidrivermagazine.com Managing Editor: Beth Gossett Art Director: Dennis Ray Print Production: Simone Bouyer IInsidenside Marketing: Dennis Ray, Byron Belzak Staff Photographer: Dennis Ray 5 Cover Asheville Lyric Opera's 9th Season Accounting: Sharon Cole Book Editor: Beth Gossett 7 Columns Distribution: Dennis Ray Mountains of Art . 7 Poetry Editor: Jeff Davis World of Quam . 16 Bill Walz . 26 CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Michael Clark . 27 Byron Belzak, Sierra Bicking, Jenny Bunn, Ingrid Carson, 8 ART James Cassara, Michael Clark, Personal Icons . 8 Jeff Davis, Amy Downs, Beth Penland School Auction . 9 Gossett, Dr. Max Hammonds, MD., Jewelry . 11 Lindsay Hearn, Andrea Helm, A Good LAAFF. 12 Chip Kaufmann, Sarah Mead, New Exhibits . 18 Marcianne Miller, Manny Moss, Vintage Inspired Quilts . 19 UNCA Mural . 30 Michael F. Parker, Bill Quam, Bonnie Rash, Dennis Ray, M.C. Smith, Bill Walz, Elly Wells. 10 Asheville's Biltmore Village . 10 Festivals . 23 INFO Rapid River Art Magazine is a free monthly publication. 13 Music Green Mountain Grass . 13 Address correspondence to: CD Reviews . 14 [email protected] or Rasputina . 15 write to: Steep Canyon Rangers . 17 Rapid River Art Magazine, 85 N. Main St.., 16 Books Canton, NC 28716. Phone: (828) 646-0071 22 Dine Sangria for Summer. 22 www.rapidrivermagazine.com All materials contained herein are Art of Living™ owned and copyrighted by Rapid 26 River Art Magazine and the individual contributors unless otherwise stated. 28 What to Do Guide Opinions expressed in this magazine Callie and Cats . 29 do not necessarily correspond with the Corgi Tales . 29 opinions of Rapid River Art Magazine or the advertisers found herein. Movie Reviews © Rapid River Magazine, August, 2007. 31 Vol. 10., No. 12 Mediabear, a local Asheville firm, 34 Stage Preview provides original and local writing services to Rapid River Magazine. 36 The Greener Home Cover Design: John Dietz, Dietz Design, Asheville, NC www.dietzdesigns.com 4 August 2007 — RAPID RIVER ARTS & CULTURE MAGAZINE — Vol. 10, No. 12 R A PID RIVER A RTS & C ULTURE MAGAZINE COVER STORY The Asheville Lyric Opera’s 9th Season Romance, Madness & Comedy BY ANDREA HELM ometimes when you’re music production or some aspect of trying to figure out where in Indiana and I was higher education in the you’re going, it helps to able to successfully area. consider where you’ve get into production ✔ in the Northeast. There had to been. be a community of The Asheville Lyric I worked with the Yale University giving and a spirit of Opera company will philanthropy. be entering its tenth opera, the Manhattan performing season next School of Music, ✔ There had year with the theme “Let’s the University of to be a desire for Celebrate!” The last nine Connecticut, and entertainment. I performed and Syears have changed lives in ways that no ✔ There had to be a produced opera with one could have envisioned, especially “center of energy,” or not artistic director David Starkey. He the New York City Opera. I met a lot localized focus in the first learned of the Asheville area from city. his parents. His mother’s family were of amazing people, missionaries, and his father’s family had a lot of support, The next step was members were also in the ministry. They and doors opened for to find the place that knew missionaries in the Black Mountain me.” most closely matched and Montreat communities who had come It was when their needs. “I became back to the states after serving abroad. At Starkey met Paul this grunt who traveled the time, Starkey didn’t realize how much Kellogg of the New the country digging in the Asheville area would ultimately shape York City opera that the mud to find this his destiny and musical career. the idea of starting special place,” Starkey After graduating from Indiana as a his own company master vocal performer, Starkey spent his first occurred to him. “We started talking ‘Opera’ continued on pg 24 first summer at the Brevard Music Center and developing this idea: what if we in 1994 and spent three more years there, had the chance to change the world?” traveling back and forth to New York City Starkey said. “What if we started an opera and making the transition from graduate company based on all the ideal scenarios school to a professional singing career. of performance? Both of us had a running It was his dad – himself a singer -- who list in our head of how it should be. So we showed Starkey the Diana Wortham talked to these veterans of the opera world Theater during a visit home. “The lights and asked them what they would do. Paul were barely on, but it was perfect,” Starkey and I worked on setting up criteria on how recalls. we could best identify the most perfect and He was living in New York City, best scenario in which to start a successful but he was still coming back to Brevard. opera company.” “I was immersed in the singing world These were the five most important and was on the road eight to ten months ones they came up with: out of the year. But in order to make it ✔ There had to be an artistic community. as a performer, I still needed to make money. I started working in theater and ✔ There had to be academic institutions, Vol. 10, No. 12 — RAPID RIVER ARTS & CULTURE MAGAZINE — August 2007 5 Say hello to 35,000 of our closest friends! Advertise with 'Rapid River Magazine' IT WORKS JUST LIKE THAT (828) 646-0071 www.rapidrivermagazine.com THE FINE ARTS LEAGUE OF THE CAROLINAS “committed to teaching the realist traditions of the old masters” Announces Open Registration for the Fall Session September 17th - December 14th For an Application & Portfolio Review call 828.252.5050 or visit www.fineartsleague.org 6 August 2007 — RAPID RIVER ARTS & CULTURE MAGAZINE — Vol. 10, No. 12 R A PID RIVER A RTS MOUNTAINS OF ART The ABCs of Asheville’s Art Scene BY BYRON BELZAK f course I’m going to leave and rock-n-roll, as well a film festival that out many who deserve to be is struggling to be noticed nationally. mentioned in this primer of today’s vibrant art scene in the G ... Grovewood Gallery near the Grove Asheville area. But given that this Park Inn, located in north Asheville, is a column - not a book - who is fabulous with its quality selection of could expect anything more? So here it unique handmade crafts. And downtown Ogoes with a quick look at the must-sees off of Church Street is Gallery Minerva, and people to know in and around artful known for its fine art and increasingly for Asheville, the unofficial capital of Western its photography. North Carolina. H ... The Haen Gallery (just down A ... Ariel Gallery, downtown Asheville’s the street from Blue Spiral 1) is one only contemporary craft cooperative, has of Asheville’s newest fine art galleries, come into its own as one of the region’s specializing in both flat art and sculpture. powerhouse galleries. Twenty co-op I ... “I” is for independent street artists members create and sell handmade crafts who perform music and mime on the that are nothing short of exquisite. And streets of Asheville. They can be found just down the street facing Pritchard virtually on every downtown corner on Park (home to panhandlers, drummers weekend evenings. “I” is also for all the and afternoon lunchers) is Asheville independent photographers who enjoy the Gallery of Art, Asheville’s oldest and thrill of the hunt locating every facet of largest fine art cooperative, with its 30 Asheville’s popular art deco architecture, (plus or minus) member artists. “A” from the Flat Iron building on Battery is also for the Asheville Art Museum, Park to Asheville City Hall. located in Pack Square. And if you have access to a computer, visit www. J ... Jewels That Dance, owner by ashevilledowntowngalleries.org for a gang designer Paula Dawkins is one of of other art and craft galleries. Asheville’s finest and oldest jewelry stores of distinction. Another jeweler, J. Kimmel, B ... Blue Spiral 1, founded by art mogul a couple of blocks away, is renowned for and community activist John Cram, is its quality as well. the fine art gallery that every local gallery aspires to be - or at least compete against K ..