Little Journeys
Making Lemonade
February 1, 2021I’m writing this week’s column on Monday morning, the first day of our 28-day virtual 34th annual National Arts and Crafts Conference and Shows. As of right now the shows are both open, as we have nearly 100 exhibitors, equally divided between antiques dealers and contemporary craftsfirms, exhibiting in …
Read More...Looking Back – and Forward
January 27, 2021Even though we won’t be meeting in February at the historic 1913 Grove Park Inn for the 34th National Arts and Crafts Conference, I could not resist the opportunity to make another trip back up Sunset Mountain last week to the iconic resort hotel. I don’t think …
Read More...Growing Stronger
January 18, 2021This year’s virtual 34th National Arts and Crafts Conference is a far cry from what our conference and show looked like in 1988, or what any conference or show looked like three decades ago. Long after vaccines, face masks, and stringent sanitary measures will have enabled us to move …
Read More...A Milestone Birthday
January 12, 2021Last week, in the midst of the political firestorm fueled by the terrorists’ attack on our nation’s capital, my father quietly turned 95. Because of our Covid concerns and precautions, I wasn’t there this year to celebrate it with him, but standing outside his assisted living facility in Illinois …
Read More...Finding Comfort Amid Confinement
January 6, 2021I don’t know what it is like to not be a collector, but I do know that during these times of self-imposed restrictions and confinement, my collection gives me comfort. My Arts and Crafts collection has never been of museum quality. Raising two sons and countless pets always meant …
Read More...Changing Times
December 29, 2020What a difference a few decades can make. Soon after the Grove Park Inn opened on July 12, 1913, general manager Frederick L. Seely printed a string-bound, informational brochure intended to entice people across the country to come to what he touted as “the finest resort hotel in …
Read More...Sharing Our Passions
December 23, 2020Please see the bottom of the page for a link to the event schedule for the National Arts and Crafts Conference Regardless whether it was after the fifth, the fifteenth, or the twenty-fifth annual National Arts and Crafts Conference, one question remained the same: how has it lasted this …
Read More...Changing Traditions
December 15, 2020One of the behind-the-scenes traditions we honor each year at the National Arts and Crafts Conference are the two exhibitor meetings I hold late on Thursday afternoon prior to the opening of the shows on Friday. By that time nearly all of the exhibitors, both antiques dealers and contemporary …
Read More...A Fortunate Find
December 7, 2020It has often been laughed that no good deed goes unpunished. Fortunately, enough good deeds do go as planned to keep us helping others. Our Asheville Preservation Society has its office in a small Arts and Crafts building which Edwin Wiley Grove, the pharmaceutical millionaire who constructed …
Read More...Grizzled Old Men
December 1, 2020It has often been said we learn best that which we teach. I have been reminded of that in recent days as I have been preparing two Power Point seminars we will release in February in conjunction with our virtual 34th National Arts and Crafts Conference and Shows. The …
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Bruce Johnson
Author, Columnist and Director of the National Arts & Crafts Conference at The Grove Park Inn since 1988
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