The Asheville Art Museum invites you to visit for free on Saturday, September 28 between noon–5pm! Come celebrate our exhibition Ginny Ruffner: Reforestation of the Imagination with an afternoon of creativity and community engagement.

Community Day Schedule

Noon-5pm

• Free admission

Noon-4pm

• Makerspace: Join artist Amanda Simons to explore the art of flower hammering using locally sourced flowers. Create a unique design inspired by Ginny Ruffner’s botanical drawings, and don’t miss Amanda’s special installation Forest Feels in the Museum’s Art PLAYce. This program is open to all ages and skill levels. (Children must be accompanied by an adult.)

1-3pm

• Live Music: Enjoy an afternoon of live music in the Museum’s Plaza featuring Thom Nguyen. Nguyen’s approach to music elegantly bridges the work of sonic sculpture with a punk aesthetic of immediacy, aggression, and playfulness. He produces energetic bursts and invokes a sensitivity to space that one often associates with Free-Jazz and New Music percussion.
• Plant Pop-Up: Support a local business and join downtown Asheville’s local plant shop, The Green Room, for a plant pop-up.

1–1:30 & 3-30pm

• Express tours: Discover new artworks on view in the Ginny Ruffner exhibition during these 30-minute Express Tours led by Museum Volunteer Educators

1:45-2pm & 3:45-4pm

• Spotlight Talks: Learn more about an artwork featured in the Ginny Ruffner exhibition during these bite-sized conversations with Museum Volunteer Educators.

2-5pm

• Simulated Sustainability: Gallery Interpretation: Join us on a conversation with students from the UNCA New Media department and the chair of the department Victoria Bradbury as they discuss the connection between Virtual Reality and art and the process of creating VR environments. Following the conversation, engage with the students and their Virtual Reality projects “Simulated Sustainability” all inspired by the Ginny Ruffner exhibition. We also encourage you to visit the Special Installation The Last Chair of the Forest and the Plastic Bottle made by Edwin Salas Acosta a McCullough Research Fellow at UNC Asheville