Community

In revitalizing this historic place between the River Arts District and the Southside neighborhood, MHO seeks to create opportunities for social connection. Overlapping both the River Arts District and the Southside neighborhoods, the Glen Rock Depot works to be a place of community collaboration and to create opportunities for neighborhood interaction.

Glen Rock Depot Call to Artists

The architectural and design elements requested by the Call to Artists will be placed on and around the new mixed use building, 372 Depot, which includes 60 workforce apartments and 9,000 sf of commercial and retail space.  Two of the selected artists have studios in the River Arts District.

Apartment Numbers and Directional Tiles
Angelique Tassistro (ceramic artist)
Angelique Tassistro is the founder of Dog Door Studio and is launching Fly Coop Studios, introducing a new line of clay work, photography and recycled furniture. Her studio is open to the public and is located in the Asheville’s River Arts District at 375 Depot, across the street from the Glen Rock Depot.

Outdoor Benches
Gail Fredell (woodworker/furniture artist)
Gail Fredell’s work is in the permanent collection of SF MOMA, the Oakland Museum, Stanford Universtiy Memorial Chapel and the AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park. She has taught extensively at the college level nationwide and in summer workshop programs at Penland, Haystack and Anderson Ranch, and has served as director of furniture programs and The Furniture Society. Her current projects range in scale and context from residential, functional furniture to public sculpture, both for interior spaces and landscape settings.

Wall of Gratitude
Jen Swearington (fiber artist)
A future businessresident of the Glen Rock Depot, Jen Swearington is known primarily for her dreamy, narrative art quilts and Jennythreads, her line of handmade clothing and accessories. Previous projects include constructing a peepshow circus tent for the Savannah College of Art and Design’s thirtieth anniversary and illustrating the 2005 to 2007 Studio Stroll posters depicting landmarks of the River Arts District. She will open her new studio and boutique in the Glen Rock Depot this fall.

Glen Rock Depot CommUNITY Fund

The CommUNITY Fund supports connection among neighbors in the River Arts District and Southside areas of Asheville through neighborhood investment projects around the arts, environment and history.

The concept for the CommUNITY program at the Glen Rock Depot evolved from MHO's study of the history of the neighborhood over the past 40 years. 

These enrichment projects could be anything from a participatory mural on the side of one of the Glen Rock Depot buildings, to break dancing workshops held in a River Arts District studio, to a story corps-type program where neighbors share stories and history of the River District area. The CommUNITY Fund has been generously seeded by: Rosalind Gregory Willis, Bill Drew & Julie Chapman, The Enigma Fund at the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, and the Janirve Foundation.

Community