From the early 1930s up to the late 1950s, the Asheville Artists Guild, a local nonprofit, played a pivotal role in promoting area artists and bringing national exhibits to the city. In 1948, the organization was also responsible for creating the Asheville Art Museum.
A year before the museum’s formation, guild President Ralph Hollars outlined the organization’s future goals in a written statement published in the group’s winter exhibit program. In it, Hollars wrote:
“Making Asheville a nationally-known art center is a primary and necessary project of the Asheville Artists’ guild, which will benefit our city through greater national recognition, more visitors to this scenic wonderland and mountain vacationland, and attract well-known artists to this area to paint the natural beauty that we live in.”
The following year, in October 1948, the guild leased a small stone structure from the Grove Park Commission at the corner of Charlotte Street and Celia Place. According to the Oct. 31 Sunday edition of the Asheville Citizen-Times, the vacant site (“formerly used as an office by the E.W. Grove interests”), was being transformed into “a permanent art center and museum.”
Within two months, renovations for the new Asheville Art Museum were nearly complete. The first exhibit was scheduled for Dec. 26. “Hollars, in announcing the opening, said that the museum represents the fulfillment of a dream which members of the guild have been working on for several years,” The Asheville Citizen wrote on Dec. 22, 1948.
The following essay is an illuminating dig into Asheville’s tourism market, it’s origins and it’s culture
by Ami Worthen October 5, 2019
For nearly 40 years, the TDA has spent significant tax dollars to market Asheville to the wealthy and privileged — and done untold damage. It’s time to abolish them and chart a new course
My perspective is informed by having lived in and near Asheville since the 1980s, my connection to marginalized communities in Buncombe County, and research. This essay echoes insights from The tourism machine, an illuminating piece written by Matilda Bliss which was published by the Blade in April. That article thoroughly outlines the history of the TDA and the racism and classism found therein. It traces money and influence, and calls for us to shift our energy and resources towards cooperatives and mutual aid.
With a rotten foundation and an enormous budget to spend without recourse to expand a problematic industry, there is no reason for the TDA to continue.
Exploitation from inception
“The tourism machine” looks at local history related to tourism starting in the 1920s — let’s look further back as well.
The first non-native “tourists” to Buncombe County were led by wealthy Spanish conquistador Hernado de Soto, who passed through this area in 1540. As is well-documented, the “discovery” of what’s now WNC was tragic for the Indigenous tribes who were the original stewards of this land.
From that point on, waves of rich people have arrived and shaped things to their liking and profit. While we also had many working class settlers in this region, the wealthy have had held and exercised power out of proportion to their numbers, as they do everywhere. This country’s economy is built on the theft of land from Indigenous natives and the extraction of labor from enslaved and exploited people, and our local economy mirrors that fact.