Blue Spiral 1

Blue Spiral 1 Fine Art + Craft
(319)

OPENING FRIDAY 9/4!HOT POTS: Contemporary ClayFeaturing both functional and sculptural works, HOT POTS: Contemporary Cla...
08/28/2026

OPENING FRIDAY 9/4!

HOT POTS: Contemporary Clay

Featuring both functional and sculptural works, HOT POTS: Contemporary Clay brings together artists exploring the expansive possibilities of clay. From vessels grounded in traditional techniques to experimental forms that challenge expectations of the medium, the exhibition highlights clay as a dynamic and expressive material. Across a wide range of approaches, the featured artists reveal how contemporary ceramic practice continues to evolve through innovation, craft, and conceptual inquiry.
This exhibit showcases select represented artists alongside invited artists.

Artists: Josh Copus, David Eichelberger, Lynne Hobaica, Diana Hoover, Maggie Jaszczak, Ben Owen, Naomi Peterson, Heidi Tarver, Iren Tete, Mat Wheeler, and Kari Woolsey

We’re getting ready for you!Every two months, we transform our 15,000-square-foot space. Three exhibitions come down, th...
08/27/2026

We’re getting ready for you!

Every two months, we transform our 15,000-square-foot space. Three exhibitions come down, three new exhibitions go up, and work by more than 100 represented artists is thoughtfully redistributed throughout the gallery.

We make it a priority to keep things fresh, changing up the displays and creating new conversations between works throughout the building. Even if you visit us regularly, there is always something new to discover.

It’s an all-hands-on-deck effort. Our Director makes the curatorial choices, while our enthusiastic team of gallery associates and professional installers works together to make the building look and feel its best.

And we do it all while we’re open! Visitors get a rare behind-the-scenes look as artwork moves, walls are patched and painted, and each new exhibition begins to take shape.

Through it all, our goal remains the same: to make every person who walks through our doors feel welcomed and inspired.

We can’t wait to share the finished transformation with you at our next opening reception, celebrating three new exhibitions, on Friday, September 4 from 5–7 p.m.

Stay tuned! We’ll be sharing more about the upcoming shows very soon.

We are so honored to share that Blue Spiral 1 has been voted Best Art Gallery in the Mountain XPress Mountain Xpress Bes...
08/19/2026

We are so honored to share that Blue Spiral 1 has been voted Best Art Gallery in the Mountain XPress Mountain Xpress Best of WNC awards!

More than anything, we are grateful. Grateful for the artists who fill this gallery with extraordinary work and ideas. Grateful for the visitors who walk through our doors with such wide eyed wonder and appreciation for our efforts. Grateful for the collectors who bring this work into their homes and lives. And grateful for the many friends, advocates, and members of this community who continue to champion what we do.

For those outside Western North Carolina, or those who are new to the region, the Best of WNC awards are decided entirely by votes from within our community. That makes this recognition feel especially meaningful. After a period of so much change, your support in this way means more than we can adequately say.

Every day, we work to make Blue Spiral 1 a place where people feel warmly welcomed, where stepping through the door can offer a moment of respite, discovery, and inspiration. We strive to create meaningful opportunities for artists and to connect their work with the people who find beauty, curiosity, joy, and something of themselves within it.

As we move toward fall and the second anniversary of Hurricane Helene, we are especially aware of what it means to be part of this place and this community. Your continued support of artists, galleries, and creative businesses across our region matters enormously.

Thank you for voting for us, for visiting us, for collecting the work of our artists, for telling others about the gallery, and for continuing to show up.

We are so excited for everything ahead.

We’d love to hear something you love about the gallery in the comments.

We finish this round of our Ask the Artist series with painter Isaac Payne. Isaac combines painting, drawing, and collag...
08/18/2026

We finish this round of our Ask the Artist series with painter Isaac Payne. Isaac combines painting, drawing, and collage to explore changing urban landscapes, layering and reconstructing architectural imagery to evoke places caught between memory, loss, and transformation.

IF YOUR ART HAD A SOUNDTRACK, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

Drawing and drumming are not easily separable in my mind or art since childhood. The works are all music, rhythm and colors to me. The pieces in the show make a kind of mixed tape, more than a cohesive album, so here you go! Heaven, by Ebo Taylor; Cat Power’s cover of Rihanna’s Stay; Head Hunters’ Chameleon, Got me Wrong by Alice in Chains followed by the Brad Mehldau Trio cover of the same; Sčičudᶻ (a narrow place) by Black Belt Eagle Scout; Dreamer by Nabiha Iqbal; the live version of Tiago Pass by Yussef Dayes (featuring Rocco Palladino); finishing with the never ending Chameleon by the Herbie Hancock who gradually transforms his synth into a flock of seagulls.

WHAT’S THE MOST REWARDING PART OF BEING AN ARTIST?

To be disappointed in interesting ways.

WHAT’S ONE THING YOU WISH MORE PEOPLE KNEW ABOUT YOUR WORK?

How the mimetic parts of the layered oil painting process not only presents and renders imagery of landscapes, figures and architectural spaces, but often mimics the fluid textures and organic patchwork of colored ink on patterned papers like a small cuttlefish or giant octopus mimics it’s environments underwater.

IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE ONE THING IN YOUR STUDIO TO NEVER BE WITHOUT, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

A big roll of unsized rag cotton paper. Where we go from there has many possibilities.

WHO OR WHAT ARE YOUR BIGGEST INSPIRATIONS AS AN ARTIST?

Walking in green spaces (urban or natural).

WHAT’S THE BEST PIECE OF ART ADVICE YOU’VE RECEIVED?

It was life advice from Rick Muto, a landscape and decorative painter who hired and employed a very young me and first introduced me to paint. “…one foot in front of the other.”

FEATURED WORK:
Temple II
Painting
43 x 48 inches

We love the reactions we get to Robert Burch’s work. There is an element of surprise, brought by juxtapositions of mater...
08/15/2026

We love the reactions we get to Robert Burch’s work. There is an element of surprise, brought by juxtapositions of materials and forms. Come see his work in person in our group exhibition, Reflections, and throughout the gallery space.

IF YOUR ART HAD A SOUNDTRACK, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

Yeasayer - All Hour Cymbals

IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE ONE THING IN YOUR STUDIO TO NEVER BE WITHOUT WHAT WOULD IT BE?

Music. Big Thief, Angel Olsen, and Wet Leg.

WHAT’S THE BEST PIECE OF ART ADVICE YOU’VE RECEIVED?

A guy on the ferry sat down and told me that inner peace comes from within. It’s true though. Another show of accomplishment is never going to fill the meaning shaped hole within us.

FEATURED WORK:
Yellow Ochre Vase with Barbed Wire
Glass - Blown glass and found objects
16-1/2 x 10 x 8 inches

There are some artists whose work becomes interwoven to the identity of a gallery. For us, Scott Upton is one of those a...
08/14/2026

There are some artists whose work becomes interwoven to the identity of a gallery. For us, Scott Upton is one of those artists.

Scott has been part of Blue Spiral 1 for decades, and his paintings have become a familiar and powerful presence within our walls. At a large scale, especially, they create an immediate visual and emotional presence. Color expands. Texture comes forward. The longer you look, the more the surface seems to reveal.

Scott understands the emotional power of color and the way unexpected juxtapositions can shift the feeling of an entire composition. There is depth within his surfaces, but also movement and atmosphere. A vivid field gives way to a subtle mark. What initially feels purely abstract begins to suggest landscape, light, memory, or simply the experience of looking.

In a home, a large Scott Upton can become the piece that defines a room. In a public space, it can create an immediate sense of energy and place. And perhaps that is part of what makes these works so enduring: they make a statement, but they continue to give something back long after that first impact.

Scott’s work has been part of Blue Spiral 1 for many years, and we’re proud of the lasting presence his paintings continue to have within the gallery.

FEATURED WORK:

Tranquil Oasis
Painting
72 x 60 inches

Today we share insights from invited artist Matthew Szösz. His “inflatable” glass sculptures in our group exhibition, Re...
08/13/2026

Today we share insights from invited artist Matthew Szösz. His “inflatable” glass sculptures in our group exhibition, Reflections, have been getting a lot of attention. Have you come by to see the show? Come on in soon or check it out on our site.

WHAT’S THE MOST REWARDING PART OF BEING AN ARTIST?

Art is incredibly hard work. For the most part, it’s incredibly hard work without external reward. You don’t get paid for it, you don’t get respected for it often, but it’s personally very rewarding and… actually, culturally essential … How much any culture listens to its artists and and its philosophers and its writers, is really an indicator of the success of that particular culture … That is a really lucky spot to be in, to be able to do that.

WHAT’S ONE THING YOU WISH MORE PEOPLE KNEW ABOUT YOUR WORK?

The way I work in general requires problems, requires obstacles, and kind of requires things to overcome in order to either go in different directions or kind of parameterize the thing that you’re making ... In a lot of things that I do, there’s an enormous amount of failure and experimentation involved. Failure is a fantastic friend … If you’re failing at things you’re learning. If you’re succeeding, then you’re kind of just proving what you already knew.

FEATURED WORK:
untitled (inflatable) no. 104
Glass - Fused and inflated glass
10 x 17 x 10 inches

At first glance, Lisa Belsky’s porcelain vessels seem almost impossible. They sag, fold, stretch, and gather with the un...
08/12/2026

At first glance, Lisa Belsky’s porcelain vessels seem almost impossible. They sag, fold, stretch, and gather with the unmistakable softness of cloth, yet what remains is porcelain.

Each piece begins with fabric that Belsky knits or crochets by hand, continuing techniques that have been passed through generations of women in her family. She shapes the textile, dips it into porcelain slip, and fires it in the kiln. The original fiber burns away in the process, leaving behind its form, texture, and every intricate stitch translated into ceramic.

There is something deeply moving about that transformation. A material associated with warmth, touch, and domestic tradition becomes something permanent and fragile at once. The vessel holds no fabric at all, yet it preserves the evidence of every loop and gesture that created it.

Belsky’s work beautifully considers what we carry forward: family traditions, learned movements, memories, and the traces people leave with us over time.

FEATURED WORK:

Rope Basket #3
Porcelain
7-1/2 x 6 x 6 inches

Today we turn our lens on invited artist Kazuki Takizawa. His masterful sculptural vessel forms are standout features of...
08/11/2026

Today we turn our lens on invited artist Kazuki Takizawa. His masterful sculptural vessel forms are standout features of our current group glass exhibition, Reflections. Come see the show in person!

WHAT’S THE MOST REWARDING PART OF BEING AN ARTIST?

Connecting with someone in a meaningful way. Sparking up conversations and the ability to keep learning about how people live and react is the most valuable part of my life at the moment.

I also enjoy being able to create my own path and seeing my visions come to fruition. Although I would like to make a note that a lot of ideas don’t end up being part of a final decision. But I enjoy the process of crafting and creating as a whole.

WHAT’S ONE THING YOU WISH MORE PEOPLE KNEW ABOUT YOUR WORK?

I wish more people could see my work and see that it is about creating mental freedom and stability. While my everyday life doesn’t revolve around these particularly difficult and heavy subjects, I want to tell people that even when you live with bipolar disorder, that does not mean that that person is suffering. I enjoy focusing on happy moments like picking up a feather with a beautiful color or seeing a colorful flower that had just bloomed. And these moments are my main source of inspiration for the works that are currently being shown in this exhibition.

IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE ONE THING IN YOUR STUDIO TO NEVER BE WITHOUT, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

This year we’ve worked on getting a large wood slab to make a table for our communal area in my studio. With the help of a handful of generous friends, this gorgeous wood slab table has been getting used during many lunches, a couple of parties, and in our everyday production schedule. I think it is my favorite object in my studio as of recently and would love to continue to have more good memories using this table.

FEATURED WORK:
Spiral Handles
Glass - Glass
18 x 7-1/2 x 7-1/2 inches

There are landscapes you look at, and then there are landscapes you feel as though you could enter.Luke Allsbrook’s pain...
08/10/2026

There are landscapes you look at, and then there are landscapes you feel as though you could enter.

Luke Allsbrook’s paintings have that remarkable quality. Rendered with extraordinary realism, his fields, waterways, trees, distant hills, and changing skies seem to extend beyond the canvas. You can almost feel the air, sense the dampness along the water’s edge, or imagine what might be waiting just beyond the bend.

A contemporary realist based in Western North Carolina, Allsbrook often begins with plein-air studies, observing the landscape directly before developing his paintings further in the studio. His work brings together careful observation and a more romantic response to place, capturing not only what a landscape looks like, but something of how it feels to stand within it.

Light plays an especially powerful role. It filters through trees, glances across water, settles over fields, and gives even the quietest scenes a sense of presence. The familiar becomes heightened, almost dreamlike, without ever losing its connection to the real world.

FEATURED WORK:

After the Flood
Painting
12 x 9 inches

Address

38 Biltmore Avenue
Asheville, NC
28801

Opening Hours

Monday 11am - 5pm
Tuesday 11am - 5pm
Wednesday 11am - 6pm
Thursday 11am - 6pm
Friday 11am - 6pm
Saturday 11am - 6pm
Sunday 11am - 5pm

Telephone

+18282510202

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