Why Asheville?

Ian & Sam during our visit in June, 2008. Our house ended up being right up the street from where this was taken.

We (my husband, 1 year-old son & I) picked up and left Los Angeles in August of last year. We moved to Asheville, NC. It happened very quickly and a lot of people wanted to know "why Asheville?" which is on a different coast and with only 69,000 people VERY different from L.A. Our answers usually seemed to focus more on why we wanted to move out of L.A...paying too much rent to a crazy landlady, didn't want to raise Sam there, etc. We would also mention that Asheville was always mentioned on the "best places to live" and "most liberal" lists in various magazines. All good reasons but...

This weekend I was reading the Mountain XPress which is the free paper here and read an interview with a local metalsmith/artist named Alex Austin. She studied in Australia and 8 years ago brought her business to Asheville.

She says she moved to Asheville “because it’s one of the only places I know where museum-quality artists and craftspeople live as a respected part of the community.”

And there you have it. I couldn't quite put it into words but that's it exactly. It just feels like home. We have met the most amazing people here already and know that Sam will be surrounded by tolerant and creative people growing up here. Oh yea, and it's gorgeous here too.

Thanks Alex!