Long before I started this Asheville bed and breakfast, I lived in New York City’s Greenwich Village from 1964 to 1976. It was a well-spring of artists, writers and musicians…and it already had been so for decades. Not only were Miles Davis and Bob Dylan around, but you could count on the galleries to be filled with “traditional” as well as “avant-garde” works of sculptors and artists. And twice a year you could also count on having the Washington Square Outdoor Art Show fill the area around Washington Square Park with a broad-spectrum of artists, both with and without talent. Both “tacky” and fantastic were often side-by-side in that show.

During that time, many women were also attempting to exhibit their work. But even the most respected galleries and museums in New York and elsewhere were regularly excluding women artists from their shows. A response to this resulted in the 1971 founding of “Women in the Arts”. whose founders included the likes of Lee Krasner, an abstract expressionist, and figurative and abstract expressionst painter Elaine de Kooning.

What did people do in the 70s, having learned from the 60s? They protested! As a group, “Women in the Arts” protested at New York’s Whitney Museum in 1971…(You may recall that one of the Whitney’s most visible supporters during that time was Jackie Kennedy.) The group moved on to protest at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in 1972. They were back at the Whitney in protest in 1977 and a second time at the MOMA in 1984.

The pattern here: historically women have had to push and work hard to make strides toward equality in voting rights, in workers rights… and also in the arts! And it’s never quite over.

So the 20+ of the 75 Asheville NC artists who are currently members of the “Women in the Arts Foundation” are proud to bring you an exhibition, “River of Art, From New York to Asheville”. It starts this Saturday, April 16th with a reception from 5:30-8pm. The exhibit runs through May 15th at “310 Art” located at Riverview Station, 191 Lyman Street in Asheville NC River Arts District.

We hope you’ll take advantage of this important exhibition while staying at our Asheville bed and breakfast here in the Montford Historic District… We are just minutes from the River Arts District and “River of Art, From New York to Asheville”, through May 15th. Visit www.310art.com for more information about the show.