ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — The River Arts District is a beloved part of Asheville. The riverside region of artists creating, selling from and thriving in their studios is a vital part of the local cultural scene.
The RAD is the city’s “renaissance man,” juggling art galleries, breweries, restaurants, coffee shops, antique stores, greenway space and even more esoteric ventures with symbiotic ease.
However, the RAD stands next to the French Broad River. Many of its buildings, businesses and bustling commerce are a stone’s throw from the river it’s named for. When Hurricane Helene swept through Asheville, the French Broad came with it. The damage was catastrophic.
Many artists lost their work. Other RAD staples were destroyed entirely. Without its art, the RAD was reduced to a plain river district, littered with water and waste.
That is, it may have been, if not for the tight network of RAD artists and the safe haven they had at Philip DeAngelo Studio.
Angels in the RAD
The RAD board was used to having monthly meetings to check up on upcoming events and sort through the bureaucratic, organizational end of the art world. Philip DeAngelo, RAD artist and owner of the DeAngelo Studio gallery, met with the president of the River Arts District Artists board, Jeffrey Burroughs, and volunteered his studio as a meeting place.
“After the flood, we had just decided to step that up,” DeAngelo said. “More so there was a real community event. So that all the artists could get together and figure out how to especially help the artists who had lost everything. Which is a pretty considerable amount of artists now here.”
The meetings began the week after the flood on Mondays and Fridays. Over a month on, the meetings have pared back to every Friday, but remain just as populated and popular.
Perhaps artists are guided there by their noses as much as friendship and community.
“I’m Italian and I cook. We just started making food,” DeAngelo said. “The only thing really I know how to do is paint and cook.”
DeAngelo and his wife, Tina DeAngelo, started out delivering food to their friends and neighbors in the RAD, as well as first responders.
“First it was just sandwiches. We were making sandwiches and then running around delivering to artists who were working in their buildings, who really had a lot of things other than food to think about,” DeAngelo said. “It grew from there to where we started making hot meals as well.”
DeAngelo says this is a natural part of the Italian culture he grew up with. He believes food brings together friends and community like nothing else. Their meals are a staple of Fridays in the RAD.
The DeAngelos aren’t just hosting meetings, either.
“We’ve adopted a few artists ourselves. Artists that have lost their space, so we’ve taken them into our space,” DeAngelo said.
DeAngelo was modest about this. It was a common practice for all of the studios that remained standing after the storm, he said.
“Again, most studios that are okay have gone out and adopted other artists, bringing them into their spaces like that,” DeAngelo said. “So that they would have a place and wouldn’t lose their spot in the River Arts District.”
One of the artists that lost their space is Robert Nicholas. Nicholas is the founder of Marquee, an art and antiques exhibition space for over 300 vendors located on Foundy St. in the RAD.
Marquee was founded by Nicholas with the intention of fostering community in the RAD. He had previously run his own RAD gallery, Splurge, for 10 years.
“The whole time I was there, I kept thinking ‘there’s gotta be a better place,'” Nicholas said. “A place of community, where I wasn’t just isolated to my own brick-and-mortar. I want to be around people. I wanted to be around a community that was lively and inspirational.”
Marquee had been open for nearly three years when Helene hit. The space had seen around 500 vendors in its three year history and served as exactly what Nicholas wanted: “An environment where they would feel a sense of community, and a place of belonging and a place to sell,” he described.
The scale of Helene took them all by surprise. Marquee had invited vendors to come and remove whatever they wanted from their stalls on Wednesday and Thursday as the storm loomed, placing the rest on top of tables where they hoped the art would be safe.
“That was futile when you end up getting 15 feet of water thinking you might get two or three,” Nicholas said.
Marquee was gutted, its vendor walls disintegrated and items covered in mud. At Nicholas’ own station, 2000 items were mired in the muck. Only 20 were salvageable.
Despite the destruction Marquee faced, Nicholas is determined to bring it back. “I don’t really like to talk about the past,” he said. “I’m more like looking towards the future and rebounding.”
For Nicholas, that means rebuilding.
“The building is structurally good and the building owners are working really hard to repair it so we can get in and start, you know, getting our walls rebuilt,” Nicholas said. “Our infrastructure. Everything.”
In the absence of Marquee, founded to be a community space for RAD artists, DeAngelo Studio was exactly what Nicholas needed after the flood.
“I’ve come here just to see something that didn’t have mud on it,” Nicholas said. “Something that’s clean. Smiling faces were just really beautiful.”
For both artists and the community that had been gathering at DeAngelo Studio, the next big thing has been growing right across the street.
After over a month of hardship the RAD is proudly celebrating its soft reopening.
The River Arts District reopens with a “rad” festival
RADfest 1.0 is a two-day art market and RAD revitalization event planned to announce the RAD’s reopening after Helene.
The festival will run from noon to 6 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 8 and Sunday, Nov. 9 at every open art gallery in the RAD.
The focal point of the event is directly across the street from DeAngelo Studio in the parking lot of Pine Gate Renewables, 130 Roberts St., where displaced RAD artists will set up tents with their work.
RADfest comes at a crucial moment for RAD artists. Besides the vitality of storm relief, the autumn months are the busiest time of the year for many creatives.
“Between October and December is when most artists make 70% of their sales or more,” said Kim Hundertmark, director of River Arts District Artists Foundation. “I think it’s very important to the community, the entire community, the Asheville community to be able to come to the River Arts District again.”
RADfest also serves as a public statement that the artists of the RAD are still there and still creating.
“We also just want the larger audience, whether it be Western North Carolina or nationally, to know we are making a comeback. It’s gonna come in phases and it’s gonna take awhile, but we’re rebuilding the River Arts District,” Hundertmark said. “This is a super important community for 500+ artists, so we want to make sure everyone feels the momentum to rebuild.”
That momentum is expressed in the sheer scope of the event.
The festival will feature 115 participating artists in the booths alone. Transportation between the festival’s tents, galleries, food trucks and live music will be aided by tuk tuk shuttles. Cards with QR code links to a map of the RAD and a donation portal will be available. Volunteering opportunities begin as early as 9:30 a.m.
RADA president Jeffrey Burroughs acknowledged the community’s gratitude toward the resilience of displaced RAD artists during the DeAngelo Studio meeting.
“There’s so many of us that are so lucky,” Burroughs said. “I just want to say thank you to everyone who lost everything and is still finding themselves to come to these meetings and to be a part of our community. I just want you to know we are doing everything we can to help and support you.”
It was an emotional moment for the dozens of gathered artists. Burroughs themself spoke through tears.
“I’m so sorry that this weekend you may not be able to show, but I want you to know that we’re going to be here for you,” Burroughs promised. “We’re going to do everything that we can to create every opportunity we can so that way you get to come back too.”
The RADA Foundation has already raised over $500,000 for RAD artists. Every single RAD artist can apply for a stipend if they held space in the district when the flood hit at the end of September. The foundation will have a booth at RADfest where they will be selling RAD t-shirts and other merchandise as well as providing more information about ways to donate.
RADA hopes that RADfest will reunite the district into something even stronger than before.
“I think one of the most incredible things about artists that we do is that we are uniquely skilled to take pieces and fragments of things and craft something beautiful,” Burroughs said. “I think people are going to be able to witness that.”
For more information about RADfest, RADA or RADA Foundation, visit www.riverartsdistrict.com. To make an art supplies donation, email distribution@riverartsdistrict.com.
