{"id":130634,"date":"2025-09-03T21:23:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T21:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/130634\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T21:23:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T21:23:08","slug":"asheville-artist-finds-hope-nearly-a-year-post-helene-at-the-pink-dog-creative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/130634\/","title":{"rendered":"Asheville artist finds hope nearly a year post-Helene at the Pink Dog Creative"},"content":{"rendered":"

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) \u2014 An Asheville artist who lost his studio space and 10s of thousands of dollars\u2019 worth of watercolor paintings was left to live in his van reflecting on life nearly a year since Hurricane Helene took nearly everything from him.<\/p>\n

Spencer Beals said after the storm last September, he went in a kayak to Foundation Studios in the River Arts District (RAD) to recover some of his pieces.<\/p>\n

Something few artists in RAD were fortunate enough to do.<\/p>\n

MARQUEE TO REOPEN IN RIVER ARTS DISTRICT AFTER YEAR-LONG RECOVERY FROM HELENE<\/a><\/p>\n

Beals was willing to risk his life to save his livelihood.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kayak was a bad idea in hindsight. I saw the roof collapse, and I was like oh my god, it was, that\u2019s like my whole livelihood. I live in my van that was my home, all my art supplies, painting supplies, laptop, all that,\u201d Beals said. \u201cIt was like the moment I saw I could physically enter the space, I was like, oh my gosh. You\u2019re talking about 10s of thousands of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beals was able to recover several damaged pieces and clean them up.<\/p>\n

Those pieces are now for sale at Pink Dog Creative on Depot Street with special markings documenting their journey.<\/p>\n

Reflecting nearly a year later, Beals is hopeful.<\/p>\n

POST-HELENE RECOVERY CONTINUES IN RIVER ARTS DISTRICT WITH NEW ARTIST SPACE OPENING SOON<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like 40 years and a month at the same time, you know it\u2019s a milestone and it\u2019s great to see the River Arts District bouncing back the way that it has,\u201d Beals said. \u201cWhen I think about everything, I\u2019m left with an overwhelming sense of optimism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beals said he\u2019s getting good traffic and can be an artist full-time.<\/p>\n

Pink Dog Creative houses more than a dozen displaced artists, giving them a fresh start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) \u2014 An Asheville artist who lost his studio space and 10s of thousands of dollars\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[82684,228,226,227,17383,229,88,47095,82681,82683,82679,82680,82682],"class_list":["post-130634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-artist-livelihood","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-asheville","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-hurricane-helene","tag-pink-dog-creative","tag-post-helene-recovery","tag-river-arts-district","tag-spencer-beals","tag-watercolor-paintings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}