Tickets are $25 for reserved seating, $15 general admission (standing room), and $7 for Asheville Art Museum or Local Cloth members and students. For additional ticket sales information, visit www.projecthandmade.org.

Project Handmade 2012 is a juried fashion show organized to promote and illustrate the innovative use of materials and resources available in the region. Participating artists were encouraged to incorporate fiber, yarns and/or cloth grown, produced, dyed, manipulated and/or embellished within a 100-mile radius of Asheville, and to collaborate with other regional artists. The work created for the fashion show will interpret Project Handmade's 2012 theme, "earthtone palette."

Jurors were Christine Zoller, associate professor and textile area coordinator at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC; Adrienne Antonson, a Brooklyn, NY-based visual artist working in sculpture and fashion; and Franzi Charen, co-owner of Asheville's Hip Replacements Clothing and director of the Asheville Grown Business Alliance. Entrants were judged on overall quality, craftsmanship, originality in design and use of materials, and marketability of their existing work.

Participating Artists

All artists selected for Project Handmade 2012 work in Western North Carolina, including Asheville, Hendersonville, Fairview, Waynesville, Cullowhee, Balsam, Penland and Marshall. They include six collaborative teams: Karen Donde and Susan Stowell, Barbara Zaretsky and Libby O'Bryan, Angela Kim and Barb Butler, Libby O'Bryan and Catharine Ellis, Angela Kane and Yvonne Engler, and Lisa Mandle and Selinde Lanier.

Individual artists selected for Project Handmade 2012 include: Vicki Bennett, Joan Berner, Elynn Bernstein, Toni Carroll, Moe Donnelly, Constance Ensner, Suzanne Gernandt, Neal Howard, Lisa Klakulak, Irene Munroe, Organic Armor, Liz Murray, Mary Nichols, Amy Putansu, Liz Spear, Teena Tuenge and Patte Vanden Berg.

Sponsoring Organizations

Project Handmade 2012 is produced by Local Cloth: Farm/Fiber/Fashion Network in partnership with the Asheville Art Museum. Local Cloth is a Western North Carolina-based organization, operating in cooperation with Handmade in America, which encourages and supports collaboration among textile artists, designers, fiber producers, suppliers and related small businesses. Its mission is to sustain a thriving regional fiber and textile arts economy and bring locally grown and made textile products to consumers within and beyond the Blue Ridge.

Founded by artists in 1948 in Asheville, NC, the Asheville Art Museum annually presents an exciting, inviting and active schedule of exhibitions and public programs based on its Permanent Collection of 20th and 21st century American art. Any visit will also include experiences with works of significance to Western North Carolina's cultural heritage including Studio Craft, Black Mountain College and Cherokee artists. Special exhibitions feature renowned regional and national artists and explore issues of enduring interest. The Museum also offers a wide array of innovative, inspiring and entertaining educational programs for people of all ages. More information is available at www.ashevilleart.org.

This project receives support from the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

For additional ticket sales information, visit www.projecthandmade.org. For other questions about Project Handmade, contact Barbara Zaretsky, 828-505-2958, or Kathie Roig, 828-399-1713.

(Image provided by Flickr user dog.happy.art.)

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