ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) –– A renewal of Asheville art supply is on its way, and it looks like a long fabric snake. ReMix It is a creative reuse store slithering soon to a storefront near you.
ReMix It will open later this spring on Haywood Road. First, however, comes a blockbuster fundraiser for the forthcoming nonprofit. On Saturday, Feb. 7, ReMix It will host a community art project at The River Arts District Brewing Company.
“The idea is that you buy a ticket and then when you get there, you get a fabric square and you’re able to decorate it. We’ll have supplies and everything out for people to decorate,” said Amanda Wilde, Remix It founder and executive director. “Then, they’ll bring it to our quilting experts that are going to be sewing the snake together. Mostly, we just wanted something a little bit fun and I want to make sure, you know, with this type of business, we have the opportunity to keep Asheville weird.”
The snake project is the perfect example of what ReMix It aims to do: take the old and fashion it anew, creating community in the process.
“We accept donated arts and craft supplies and things you can make art with, and then we resell them to the community at an affordable price in a retail store setting,” Wilde explained. “So, we organize and sort through everything and put it all out there so it’s easy for customers to find it, and then we’ll also have a workshop in a community room. We’re planning on being active in the community and having opportunities to engage with us at events and stuff as we grow.”
Art supplies you might find at ReMix It could be anything from corks to canvases.
“It really runs the arts and crafts gamut. Fabric, yarn, painting, drawing,” Wilde said. “Like, we’ll take canvases are already painted on that people can use again. We’ll take any high quality, ready-to-use-again art supplies. We’ll also take kind of your odds and ends, things like wine corks and other things like that, that you might not be able to recycle very easily, but you can use them in lots of other kinds of arts and crafts.”
Wilde developed the idea for ReMix It after she realized Asheville, for all of its arts, was “kind of like a desert of arts and crafts stores.”
“Now, we have Asheville Art Supply, which is amazing, but once, Joanne’s closed, it kind of felt like, what are we going to do?” Wilde said. “We can’t buy everything online, that’s not sustainable for our community and doesn’t support what we need. So, I just decided to take a leap and make it happen.”
As far as the snake goes, Wilde said that he or she is poised to lead an exciting life before finding a home at the eventual ReMix It brick-and-mortar store. After the event this weekend, the snake will walk in the Mardi Gras parade with Street Creature Puppet Collective and hang on the gallery wall of the Ferguson Family YMCA in Candler, N.C.
The snake will have a name soon, too, chosen in the ReMix It community spirit.
“We’re going to have a Name the Snake bin at the event,” Wilde said. “We’re going to have people to write their suggestions and then we’ll pick our, the RemixIt board and myself, we’ll pick the top 5 that we like and then we’ll send it out to the community to vote.”
For more information about ReMix It, visit www.remixitavl.org.
