AshevilleBliss.com:
Revealing and Celebrating the
Unique Blissfulness of Asheville...

"The New Culture of Bliss"

In addition to Asheville's abundant natural beauty and resources, there is a special mix and convergence of resources and attractions whose unique synergy continues to draw new residents and visitors to this unique and special area, turning Asheville into one of the pre-eminent destinations in the world... a prototype for what some people are calling "The New Culture of Bliss".

-- a growing cultural center with many venues for theatre, live music, dance, art, crafts, film and more.-- a hub of 'green' consciousness ... with a focus on recycling, restaurants which feature local organic produce, wildcrafted healing herbs, and so much more.

-- a mecca for individuals interested in the health and well being of body, mind, and spirit as a whole ... through a variety of alternative holistic health disciplines and spiritual practices.

It is the goal of AshevilleBliss.com to make it easy for both newcomer and long-time citizen alike to discover the many wonderful aspects that together make Asheville the exciting mecca for art, crafts, music, cinema, fine dining, alternative healing, and green consciousness it is continuing to become.

Jacqueline Corbett,
Publisher and Editor-In-Chief, and Assistant Photographer

My name is Jacqueline Corbett. I've had a lifelong love affair with the Blue Ridge Mountains. When I was 20 or so, I drove the entire length of the Blue Ridge Parkway, camping out at several locations along the way, including Mill River near Asheville. A dozen years later, my daughter Ana and I drove the same route again, round trip from Miami, on a wonderful summer vacation.

All those delightful memories of the misty rainy mornings along the Parkway ... the grazing horses, old split rail fences, old mills, rusty tin roofed weathered barns amid meadows of wildflowers must have seeped deeply into my consciousness, as one cold February in 1988. I found myself inexplicably drawn to back to the mountains of North Carolina.

Over the past twenty years I've come to appreciate and enjoy the company of the many highly creative men and women who have traveled to Asheville from all over the world... drawn, perhaps, by the same unspoken magic and inexplicable power that brought me here... and despite several attempts to do so, hasn't let me leave. Take a look at the Toe River Valley... and click on all of the towns links to take a virtual 'studio tour' to meet the artists and see their wonderful works of art. Then come with me on the mini-magical that has comprised my life-to-date... illustrated with random images that just happened to wind up on my digital camera. (The others are still undeveloped in long-forgotten rolls of 35mm film. Thank god for digital media!)

I've attended many a gala opening at John Cram's wonderful Blue Spiral gallery and even splurged on a couple of Robert Johnson's (he and his wife are Celo area artists) surreal paintings. I've attended many an opening celebration on the steps of Penland's Gallery, enjoying the music of the live bands floating on the sweet summer breeze. I've gone on countless Toe River Arts Council studio tours and gallery openings, and over the years watched the number of artists and artisans and art galleries double, then triple, then explode!

LEFT: Artist Jim Meyer caught in act of shape-shifting during the Spruce Pine TRAC gallery opening of an exhibit of his paintings in (apparent) response to a gallery goer seeming to wield a very large weapon... while Jim's portrait of Meher Baba looks on with great amusement. Jim also owns and presides over Wildflowers, a Spruce Pine 'health foods, used books and random objects of art emporium' where he can sometime be heard strumming one of his many guitars or banjoes or other string instruments he avidly collects.

I've celebrated Easter at the annual community Penland School of Craft's community potluck ... finding amazing handblown glass Easter eggs donated by the local artists (before they gave young children and their parents a 5 minute head start!). I've also hunted eggs at the Celo Community's Arthur Morgan School annual event back when my son Jay was 7 or 8 and we lived down the road.

I love rocks and minerals... and have dug up giant garnets in the creek beds of Madison Country NC... and gathered booklets of mica at the old Ray Mine near Burnesville. Every year I try to make it to the annual Spruce Pine Mineral and Gem Festival. I especially love the amazing irridescent hematite and quartz crystals that Charlie always brings up from the Graves Mountain mine in South Carolina. That's Charlie above... and here's a huge and magnifent specimen (it weighs about 5-6 lbs.) of the irridescent hematite covering a misshapen quartz crysta that I acquired from Charlie.

On and off and on over the years I've rummaged through most of the thrift stores and attended most of the country auctions within a 75 mile radius for the 'thrill of the chase' and for my ability to find amazing and valuable items like a Charles Eames chair for $5... and auctions where you could buy a pair Arie Meaders pottery doves for $15... doves which today command $7500 to $20,000 depending on condition... or a box full of 16th and 17th century turquoise Persian bottles for $10 and $15!

I love scavenging and recycling 'found objects'. One of my favorite 'possessions' didn't cost a cent! It's a wonderful primitive jar with a lead-type glaze and a manufacturing 'flaw' that I found after a flood in Philadelphia had caused a homeowner to toss most of the contents of a flooded basement onto the curb. The vintage Christmas ornaments came from the same 'dig'.

Years ago I bought and sold at the now-defunct Dreamland Flea Market which was located where the Tunnel Road Lowes now stands -- where I once bought a flawed but gorgeous Beatrice Wood bowl for $1 (I had no idea of it's value at the time) I later sold my flawed BEATO on eBay for a $300 when I needed the cash to travel to Chicago. I'm blessed with having a wonderful 'karmic' connection with 'stuff... and the ability to recognize something good... even if it's being sold for $1... or is totally free and sitting under a foot of mud!

I still sell on eBay as MariahClouddance where I currently am specializing in buying old leather-bound 18th and 19th century medical books on eBay... and then re-listing them and selling them on eBay... often at a nice profit... to support my passion for collecting old 19th and early 20th Japanese teapots!

I'm a avid arm chair traveler and art aficionado. I've read and collected many hundreds of books and magazines on every aspect of art and architecture and interior design, with particular emphasis on Japanese ceramics. I love surrounding myself with beauty, even vicariously. I also love drawing and painting and creating.

In recent years my house has become my 'work of art' with its juxtapositioning of all of the found and collected items. Occasionally I'll 'montage' some objects like the feathers I 'rescued' from a dead bird, a rusty old bee smoker and an Indonesian mask.... or assemble some old candlesticks, glass insulators and glass balls into some impromptu 'objets d'art'.

I love travelling in real life as well, and in the past several years, have travelled to Hawaii, Chicago, parts of Canada, the Boston area, Philadelphia (where I lived for five years), Baltimore,Newport News... as well as California, Denver, and points in between.
Left: a photo of a lunch basket my daughter Ana found at a flea market, decorated with my small collection of mandrills.

Health is another of my passions. I temporariliy embraced macrobiotics 25 years ago as a way to heal from malignant melanoma. Since then, I've explored all types of diets, and am presently enjoying the benefits of raw and living foods when possible. I've helped raise the world-consciousness in regard to raw and alkaline diets via RawFoodNetwork.com. I appreciate all of the wonderful locally-grown organic foods that are available in the Asheville area, and the health-consciousness of its residents. Even though I eat quite widely at times, I always return to the 'basics"... green smoothies, salads, lots of avocados... to help me keep up my energy and feelings of happiness and joy. I also started a MySpace Page to help promote healthy, joyous, peaceful living. I've also just begun creating AlkalineMiracleDiet.com as a way to get the word out about how important eating alkaline-rich fruits and veggies is to both prevent and heal ALL DISEASE. While it's still 'under construction' there are some concepts and links worth checking out.

I've visited Earthaven Ecovillage and taken part a Corinna Woods' of Red Moon Herbs (to the right is a photo Jay took of Corrina)special foraging class she conducted for the Asheville Rawfoods Meetup group -- and observed how a group of like-minded individuals have been able to build and sustain an eco-community that seeks to be self-sustaining.

Now that Eric Weiner has put Asheville solidly on the map as one of the ten most 'blissful' spots on earth in his Geography of Bliss, I figured it was about time that I took all that I knew of this amazing area and 'networked' it in such a way that ANYONE who wanted to explore the often-hidden blissful aspects of Asheville and Western North Carolina could follow the path of virtual breadcrumbs that I and the soon to be myriad of editors will have strewn.

AshevilleBliss.com has been a long time in coming... and will always be a work in progress... just as my life... and Asheville itself has always been.

I am looking forward to the new adventures and the new places developing AshevilleBliss.com will take me... and especially the new people I wil meet along the way. For as much as I enjoy beauty of objects and places, the connections I've made over the years with so many genuine people are what I truly treasure.

With love,

Jacqueline Corbett
Editor and Publisher, AshevilleBliss.com

P.S. Photography, and love of visual beauty is apparently genetic. Not only is my son Jay (see below) an amazing photographer in his own right... but his sister Ana Foy graduated with a master's degree in cinematography and film production from FSU ... and is currently out in Los Angeles 'paying her dues'. Our cousin Coles Hairston (son of my mother's sister Maxine) is an award-winning location photographer who works out of Austin TX. Check out his spectacular portfolio!

Jay Corbett: Web Designer, Tech Guru, Chief Photographer and more! Until Jay puts in his 'about me' in his OWN words this will have to suffice.

Jay has more talents and interests than could be possibly crammed into one lifetime, and I'm lucky to not only be his mother, but to be able to now and then pry him away from his insatiable quest for fun and knowledge via the Internet. When I do, he does a superb job of everything from taking the BEST photos of people (he took the photo of me on this page... and those of our friend True Kelly in right column) ... as well as most of the backgrounds, headers, etc which you will soon be seeing on this site), puttytats, rainbows, sunsets, lightening, wonderful textures and more.

Jay claims not to be a web designer, but over time he's developed quite a portfolio of websites that he's either designed or significantly contributed to and/or immensely improved.

Jay can typically be found hanging out at one of his several 'command centers' ... playing video games (he has quite a collection of role-playing games including some rare Japanese issues), chatting with his dozens of 'virtual buddies' around the world, or hanging out with one of his two beloved puttytats (shown here and above with Nino).

Jay loves going on the road and traveling. To Chicago and Baltimore for ASIN conferences where he catches up with some of those 'virtual friends'.

He also likes going to Philly where he and I lived for five years (and where he would probably live if he had his druthers), and where he likes to go for New Years and/or Fourth of July fireworks, food at Chinatown's Penang and to hang out (and get silly!) with his good friend Ada and her family.

Jay and I loved our trip to Ottawa ... for a wedding of his good friends Geoff and Clara (and to meetup with his virtual buddy and their best man, Tom)... with side trips to J-Town in Toronto (he's been eating sushi since he was less than a year old!), Niagara Falls, and the Boston area.

One of our best trips was to Hawaii ... which he won by entering a local WLOS"Lost" contest... and having his name drawn.

Jason also likes cooking... and eating... and experimenting with hotdogs. Here's one of his hotdog dishes.

Jay's also the best 'wildlife' rescuer around. Here's one of the mice he's rescued using the 'glass' method of capture and release.... a praying mantis with which he used the "coax onto a piece of cardboard" technique.... and a leaf bug which hitched on ride on his arm.

Asheville... and indeed all of Western North Carolina IS truly a magical, blissful place -- and we would love to share it with the world.... through words, links to websites, photos, video, links to music, blogs, and the contributions of dozens of passionate editors.

We've been privileged to live in so many beautiful parts of Western North Carolina since arriving from Miami in 1988... each contributing its own unique memories and experiences which are now helping influence and shape AshevilleBliss.com

-- a handbuilt home in Sapphire NC

-- a room in beautifully-restored old rock home on Chestnut Hill Road near the Light Center in BIack Mountain.

-- a tiny dome tent in a fierce March snowstorm on that same property, with the wind blowing so hard on top of the ridge that it sounded like a locomotive..and then in the same tent by a swollen springtime trout streas dotted with slippery mossy covered boulders and pink blossomed rhododendron at Billy Graham's Montreat campground while frugally dining on canned sardines and creasy greens.

-- a home-made south-facing passive solar house which I rented from Patricia Derrough (the sister of Roger Derrough who started Dinner for the Earth which became Earth Fare) located at the very top of a private 70 acre cove in Avery's Creek at the end of Sleep Gap Road. To get to it you had to either drive up a steep winding dirt road through a dense woods whose floors, on warm summer nights, were blanketed with a magical sea of flickering fireflies and bright-colored mushrooms, past an occasional deer... or take a cobble-stone and brick driveway through a complex of houses and beautiful organic gardens maintained by children's author and illustrator and master gardener Treska Lindsey and her husband Bob, whose children Kerry and Larc and ??? invented and later sold Arden Rice Cakes to Quaker Oats and then so wisely invested the proceeds in a wonderful property they turned into the still-wonderful Highland Lake Inn and Conference Center in Flat Rock where Treska lovingly started and wisely tended the organic gardens until the Inn was sold in 1999 so that the Lindsey's could focus their attention on developing nearby Highland Lake: the Lake House Lodge and Spa as well as the adjacent Highland Lake Village. These properties are located a quick drive from Asheville... see Flat Rock NC for more details.

-- an old Chinook camper we parked in various campgrounds and motel parking lots (this was before Wal-Mart!) in the Asheville area... . with the three of us packed in like sardines.... sometimes supplementing our food with slightly broken chocolate truffles and slightly out of date boxes of herbed cheese salvaged from the once open dumpster behind the Fresh Market on North Merrimon. (What a treasure trove of everything from flowers to breads to yogurts and flowers that once was in the 'good old days'!) During that magical summer we also travelled the country... the coast of California from San Simeon to San Francisco to Marin County (we camped out on Point Reyes National Seashore) and on to wonderful seaside spots northward along the Coastal Highway through Oregon and Seattle up to Vancouver, BC. Then back to North Carolina through Denver and Santa Fe (we took a day trip to see Chris Griscom's place in Galisteo). Then some brief trips... to Patch Adam's Gezundheidt in West Virginia, and to meetup with Virato in Philadelphia a few years before he moved to Asheville and we moved to Philly for a 5 year or so sojourn. All the time thinking we'd find 'something better' than the mountains of North Carolina. But we never did.

-- On Hall's Chapel Road (near Celo's Arthur Morgan School) in large but crazy 3 story 4 bedroom 3 bath home with a deck overlooking a waterfall. This was yet another 'hand-built' house (I'm clearly drawn to habitats that are rustic and full of what the Japanese call 'wabi sabi' character!) ... a house that was so 'crooked' in it's construction (we had heard our landlord that its builder had built it with a beer in one hand and a joint in the other) that several inches of space existed between the joist and the pilings supposed to be holding it up.

-- In 2 story + belevedere concrete block and stucco house with a rusty tin roof (more wabi sabi) in what was once "Johnson's General Store" in Loafers Glory (a suburb of Bakersville). It's a great location. An hour from Asheville, an hour from Boone, 45 minutes from Johnson City, TN, and less than 10 minutes from Penland School of Arts and Crafts. Master potter Ken Sedberry and his wife Connie are my wonderful neighbors... but we're all so busy with our separate projects that the only time we see one another is if I'm on the porch when either of them are on their daily run down to Toecane and back... or during the semi-annual TRAC tour.

In about 15 minutes I can be in Spruce Pine where I can pickup a Mountain Xpress and some art supplies at Sharon's Blue Moon Bookstore (and get a great hug and smile from Sharon as well). Perhaps I'll run into my friend True Kelly... photographer, artist, lover of things native American, amazing teacher of children, collector of folk and outsider art.... who is liable to popup just about anywhere. That's one of Jay's beautiful 'people' photos. He somehow manages to capture people's true spirits!

Perhaps I"ll drop into Jim Meyer's Wildflowers Vitamins and Health Foods shop for a Reed's gingerbeer, a Panda licorice and to see what his latest finds are. Jim's a fellow 'hunter/gather'. I collect old Japanese teapots. He collects guitars and antique Hindu carvings. We understand and respect each other's obsessions.

As for the house? Well, it can use some work. It's a great summer home, but sucks in winter. Because it's bermed into a hill and shaded by a grove of black walnuts and porches, the downstairs never gets above 75 degrees in the summer. However, there is no foundation so the stone floor sits right on the ground. The wavy single-glazed front windows, still the original store windows, are charming, but drafty. One is filled with vintage Mexican glassware that glows intense amethyst and indigo in the late afternoon sun. So we tolerate the draft and the cold that seeps up from the frozen ground.

But winters are short, and already the days are growing longer. Soon the birds, bees and butterflies -- and the occasional deer (the one to the left was outside my bedroom door) -- will love the spring and summer flowers in a yard that has gone totally wild. Easter, then summer will be here soon, and winter will be forgotten.

So that gives you an idea of where I sit, here in my lofty second-floor bedroom perch. Me and my trusty laptop, and a puttytat or two, keeping one eye on the world political scene via satellite and the other eye via the Internet with what's happening in Western North Carolina... and feeling enormously grateful for being in one of the most blissful places to live on earth.

I'm pretty much of a 'hermit'. Occasionally a friend will stop by, and I love the 'time out' to catch up on the local news as well and maybe share a bit of soup or a salad or green smoothie. Here's my friend True again, during one of her 'drop ins'. (Jason took this photo too!) I thought the red hat would look great with her turquoise Mexican wedding dress... I guess she did too!

I have bit more work to get this site ready to launch. And once it does, I'm looking forward to working with all sorts of wonderful 'segment editors' to keep it constantly alive and fresh.

Looking forward to hearing from YOU... with YOUR contributions.

With love, from Loafers Glory... where only the deer and the wild turkeys do any real 'loafing'!

Jacqueline

Click on MISSION and on BE AN EDITIOR to get an idea of our vision and and our goals for AshevilleBliss.com... and if you resonate with that vision and those goals, how you can help us.