a mountain getaway

Happy Monday! I'm back to the blog after a trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. We enjoyed some wonderful mountain walks and great food--I'm still dreaming about the pear and blue cheese pizza and ginger cheesecake from Fresh in Black Mountain. We also hit a few antiques stores. I was tempted by a lot of things but only bought one: an old, blue Ball jar. I've been placing it in different spots, admiring the tint of the glass; it will probably end up in the basement as a container for nails, screws, and hooks (bottom photo: embroidered napkins by Ellen Baker). You see these everywhere now, but I still like it for its nice blue color.

Tip: Find mason jars in bulk (at a great price) here.

We stayed in a c. 1944 house built, with local, found materials by students of Black Mountain College, a remarkable and experimental art school that thrived from 1933 to 1957. Below is an old blueprint of the house (courtesy Lake Eden Events).  

Black Mountain College alums of note include Robert DeNiro, Sr. (father of the actor); Gwendolyn Knight; Cy Twombly; film director Arthur Penn (known for Alice's Restaurant and Bonnie and Clyde); Buckminster Fuller; and Robert Rauschenberg. Faculty and lecturers included Jacob Lawrence, Willem de Kooning, Albert Einstein, and William Carlos Williams. Below: An architecture class (courtesy North Carolina State Archives).

I highly recommend "Black Mountain College: Experiment in Art" (Vincent Katz) for a fascinating peek inside the personal and academic world of artists collaborating, in a small, southern mountain town, to create groundbreaking works and ideas. The stories and photos in the book also dash many popular ideas about the way people interacted in the 1940s and 50s. Since it's now out of print (and pricey where still sold) you might look for a copy at your local library. Also check out "The Arts at Black Mountain College".

{More}

Click here to watch the trailer for a documentary about the school called Fully Awake.

Click here for lots of fascinating Black Mountain College photos on Tumblr.

Click here to see photos from a recent exhibit about the school at the Loretta Howard Gallery in New York.