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Visual Arts
Creative Makers and Galleries
Named one of America’s Small-Town Arts Places, Highlands attracts creatives year-round in every genre.
Unleash your creative genius on the mountain and visit the artists! Highlands has drawn “creative makers” to the mountains for inspiration for many years and it’s still true today. Multiple writers of varying genres, painters, sculptors, candlemakers, woodworkers, jewelry designers, and potters, just to name a few, all call Highlands home.
Visit our downtown shops and The Bascom to find Highlands creatives.
The Bascom: A Center for Visual Arts
The Bascom: A Center for the Visual Arts creates visual art experiences that inspire and empower individuals and communities through seeing, thinking and doing.
For over 30 years, The Bascom has been a vital cultural resource to the Western North Carolina region. What began in 1983 as a small exhibition space in one room of the Hudson Library now occupies a 6-acre former horse farm near downtown Highlands, NC.
The 28,000 square foot main building house exhibition and event spaces, classrooms, offices, and a retail outlet. The adjacent David Drake Studio contains studio space for pottery and three-dimensional arts instruction and additional retail space. Entrance to the campus is through an early 19th Century, 87-foot-long covered bridge. Along with sizeable terraces, our outdoor spaces include meadows and forest land, streams and trails, unblemished mountain views and sculpture installations.
Opening Hours
Exhibitions & Shop:
Tuesday - Saturday; 10am - 5pm
Ceramics Studio:
Monday - Saturday; 10am - 5pm
Sunday; 12pm/Noon - 5pm
Highlands Art & Craft Show
Founded in 2006 to bolster community support for regional artisans, these shows offer two days of art, folk art, crafts, rustic furniture, demonstrations, live music, food and fun--what’s not to love?
The two annual shows are held in beautiful Kelsey-Hutchinson “Founders” Park on Pine Street, a short walk from Main Street. Highlands Mountaintop Rotary sponsors the show, with proceeds going to local charitable causes.
