CreativeMornings Asheville

THIS FRIDAY ! Always free to attend and we always love the lovely gifts from and ❤️ Doors open at 8:30am and the talk starts at 9! Big thanks to for all that you do for us and the community!

is a visual artist and creative life coach. Her paintings, made from found and deconstructed textiles, are artifacts of intention, acceptance, and time. As a trusted mentor attuned to the difficulties of being an artist and feeling that call, she has guided artists through growth and challenge, offering them insight, clarity, and the momentum they need to move forward. Rachel lives and works from her home in Bakersville, North Carolina where she first arrived for a three-year residency at Penland School of Craft in 2012 and where she remains part of an interdependent community of artists, connected by craft and the natural surrounds of the Blue Ridge mountains.

is a poet and writer living in Hot Springs, North Carolina. Her book of poems,Take the Exit Then Exit, is new from Understory Books and was a National Poetry Series finalist. Elaine’s previous books include For Another Writing Back, an avant-memoir in lyric prose (Sidebrow Books, 2014) and the chapbook 20 Paintings by Laura Owens, an ekphrastic conversation (Poor Claudia, 2013). Her writing has appeared in the Kenyon Review, the Believer, the Yale Review, Literary Hub, and other publications. She has been a resident at the Vermont Studio Center and the Little Brown Mushroom Camp for Socially Awkward Visual Storytellers. Elaine has taught writing to artists as a guest at Penland School of Craft, Warren Wilson College, the University of North Carolina in Asheville, and elsewhere.

We’re back THIS FRIDAY 🎉 Doors open at 8:30am / talk starts at 9am. Bring a mug for and enjoy bites by ❤️ We are so excited to see you!!!

is an Emmy-winning filmmaker, photographer, story producer and co-founder of This Land Films, based in Asheville, NC. Her work explores people’s rhythms and changes over time- ranging from climate change and motherhood to life after incarceration- and has been featured in The New Yorker, The California Sunday Magazine and The New York Times Magazine. She co-directed Last Men Standing, the San Francisco Chronicle’s first feature-length documentary, which premiered at major LGBTQ+ festivals worldwide. Brethauer is currently co-directing and producing her second feature film, STRAY EMBERS, which follows a family’s life over five years after the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California. She was a 2020 SFFILM FilmHouse Resident and is a Miller/Packan Film Fund recipient. After living through Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina in September 2024 with her partner, Tim Hussin, and their three month-old son, they are developing a film about the flood, incorporating themes from what they learned from her time in Paradise. Brethauer is also working on a short film about the project, Photos From Helene.

is an Emmy-winning filmmaker and photographer based in Asheville, NC. His first film, America Recycled, documenting a two-year, 5,000-mile bicycle journey through alternative communities in the South, won Best Documentary at the American Documentary Film Festival. As a filmmaker at the San Francisco Chronicle, he co-directed Last Men Standing, the newspaper’s first feature film, which screened at major LGBTQ+ festivals. He was a 2020 SFFILM FilmHouse Resident and Miller/Packan Film Fund recipient for his current feature film, STRAY EMBERS. His work explores unconventional communities and the quiet, resilient ways people adapt to a changing world.

is a veteran professional drummer, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, engineer producer, teacher, web and graphic designer, carpenter-builder and business owner. He is familiarly known as versatile drummer for the group Ween. His thirty – plus year tenure of dexterous and dynamic drumming with the group has helped elevate the group to a place of legendary status. His work outside of Ween ranges wildly and eclectically across a large discography and live performance history.

A near-fatal car accident survivor, Claude underwent extensive cognitive and physical therapies, doubling up his rehabilitation efforts to perform a miraculous recovery and turnaround back to the stage that was featured by NPR and New York Times. Living with brain injuries, he performs with paralysis, sensation loss and chronic pain - unknown to mostly everyone - a testament to his musicianship.

Claude has resided in Asheville since 2013, embedded in the scene as a player, and in service of its creative community and industry. In 2020, Claude opened , a music rehearsal and artist’s studio facility inside of a 1947 Black owned tourist court and soul-food restaurant known as Rabbit’s Motel. Along with this critically needed arts resource of creative workspace, the project is to include a new soul-food café and murals project, reconnecting us to the rich and overshadowed Black Asheville history.

SoundSpace@Rabbit’s has a multi-dimensional mission and purpose: to support our arts culture and its recovery post-Helene; to create Black entrepreneurship, opportunity and equity; to create a cultural and community hub, bonded by food, arts and history.

We hope to see you THIS Friday ♥️ Doors at 8:30am and talk starts at 9:00am. Free bites by and amazing coffee by ❤️ Bring your own mug for a chance to win Mug of the Month!!!!

PLEASE check out the GoFundMe on the page/site.

We can’t wait to see you!

has provided our Creative Mornings community with a sweet discount code for the November 18th Ballad Swap at !!! CREATIVITY is the code 😘

THIS FRIDAY! ❤️ Colby Sexton is a local filmmaker and the founder of Creative, a small production company in WNC that specializes in short-form documentaries and video content for businesses. After almost 23 years in various aspects of the industry, his work now explores authentic human stories with a focus on artists, creativity, and the outdoors. In 2016 Colby joined a small team of creatives to help create the Asheville CreativeMornings chapter and helped produce the event for almost 5 years.

We are beyond thrilled to share a stage with this community legend at THIS Friday!!!

Doors at 8:30am, November 21, with Colby’s talk starting at 9am.

Coffee provided by the fine folks at and deelish bites by

Bring your own mug for a chance to win Mug of the Month while reducing waste.

Free registration opens this Monday at 11am. Bring a friend! ❤️

THIS Friday morning at ❤️🎉 Coffee provided by ☕️ Bring your mug for a chance to win Mug of the Month!!! Amazing bites by

is a studio artist, metalsmith, and educator based in Bakersville, North Carolina. She is currently a three-year resident artist at Penland School of Craft (2025–2028). Rooted in metalsmithing and jewelry design, her practice explores the intricate relationships within the natural world and our place within it. Drawing from found botanicals and animal remains, Johnson transforms organic forms into cast and fabricated works that blur the boundaries between adornment and sculpture. Anna’s work transforms the soft stuff of life into enduring art. Her work examines ideas of value, preservation, and interconnectedness—inviting reflection on humanity’s complex relationship with nature.

Free registration in bio ❤️

Show off your mug when you join us on Friday! Whether you bring a travel mug or a favorite from home, we love to see both your smiling mugs and your drinking mugs! Doors open for coffee and breakfasty bites at 8:30AM on Friday!

This Friday !

Coming right up on a year from the devastation that Helene brought, will share some beauty. The theme this month is “blossom” and it feels very meant to be. Legendary ballad singer, will open things up. Registration is open! ❤️♥️

Josh Copus is the Founder of the Clayspace Collective in the River Arts District in Asheville, which is a studio and gallery space that has been supporting artists for over 20 years.
In 2007 Josh established his woodfired pottery compound in Marshall. He bought two acres of land, burned an old house down, built a 27-foot long woodburning kiln and a studio. His pottery compound is an ever-evolving art installation which continues to be his base of operations to this day.
Josh is the owner of Zadie’s Market and the Old Marshall Jail Hotel, which are both housed in the Old Marshall Jail, a building that he spearheaded the renovation of and he co-owns. The Old Marshall Jail is an adaptive reuse project that functions as a home to two of his businesses and is also a social practice art project, music venue and a living history museum.
He is also the founder of the Building Community Project, which uses the mediums of clay and bricks to create folk monuments that honor the people of this world.
His latest project is revitalizing a trailer park in his native Appalachia to create affordable work force housing and community while redefining the negative stigmas that people maintain about trailer parks. He also lives there, which is
important.
He is known for his infectious enthusiasm, ability to connect people for a common cause and his passion for the Arts.
Josh’s hobbies include welding, building rock walls, doing firewood and historical research on the Old Marshall Jail. When he is not sleeping, he is constantly searching for interesting materials to build and make things with.

Donna Ray Norton is an eighth-generation ballad singer from Madison County, NC, who loves nothing more than carrying on her family’s deep Appalachian musical traditions.

Registration link in bio