Textile artist Rachel Meginnes’ studio at Penland School of Craft © Mike Belleme The Blue Ridge mountains near Cherokee © Mike Belleme Known as Biltmore Industries, in its heyday it employed more than 100 workers, and sold fine wool to several presidents. Vanderbilt’s socially progressive wife, Edith, helped to subsidise a craft-education programme that trained locals in traditions of woodworking and weaving. The making of the estate not only brought innovative design talents such as the Spanish architect Rafael Guastavino to the area it also sparked the establishment of furniture and textile industries here. The construction of the Biltmore took six years for Vanderbilt, though, the estate was a never-ending passion project-in-progress, a gesamtkunstwerk of his treasures: thousands of leather-bound books, many first editions Renaissance-era Flemish tapestries an ivory and walnut chess set once owned by Napoleon and one of the greatest collections of John Singer Sargent portraits in the country. Ray Johnson at Black Mountain College © Hazel Larsen Archer, courtesy of Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center The sprawling estate became the site of his lifelong obsession: the Biltmore, a 250-room, four-storey French Renaissance-style castle, inspired by the châteaux of the Loire Valley, which he designed with the celebrated architect Richard Morris Hunt and the father of American landscape architecture, Frederick Law Olmsted. After visiting with his mother, the introverted, art-collecting George Vanderbilt started, in his 20s, buying up what would eventually total more than 100,000 acres of land. It drew socialites from New York, among them Maria Louisa Kissam Vanderbilt, who suffered from bouts of malaria. Explanations for the region’s magnetic appeal remain elusive those attempting to do so often invoke the sort of clichéd New Age jargon – ley lines, crystal energy – used to explain the attraction of creative seekers to places such as Tulum and Bali.Īsheville was known as a healing place as far back as the late 1800s, when the then-town flourished as a wellness destination. This is notable because the city, set deep in south-east Appalachia, is remote even today. Perched between the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains, the small city of Asheville has attracted artists, makers and independent thinkers for centuries.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |