Muddy Prints, Healing Hearts: Stories of Art After Helene
It’s been eight months since Hurricane Helene swept through Asheville, including the beloved River Arts District.
Today, the neighborhood is buzzing with creativity once again. Studios have reopened, galleries are welcoming visitors, and more than 350 artists continue to call the creative neighborhood home.
Helene may have staggered the artists' community, but their creative spirit overcame their losses, turning misfortune into opportunity and awe-inspiring, lasting art.
These are a few of their stories, and the art and artists inspired by a storm that has become part of our ever-evolving legacy.
Brushstrokes and Beaver Tracks
Near the banks of the ancient French Broad River, creativity and nature tend to meet in unexpected ways in the River Arts District. But even artist Jaime Byrd couldn’t have predicted this symbolic collaboration.
As Hurricane Helene passed through the mountains, over 80 percent of the RAD took on water. Byrd’s gallery was among the many spaces touched by the storm. Yet in the stillness that followed, something remarkable happened.
Two beavers, seeking higher ground, found refuge inside her studio. When Byrd returned, she discovered one of her watercolor paintings — already a moody, misty tribute to mountain streams — now bore a set of muddy paw prints.
Instead of painting over them, she left them.
“Beavers represent, supposedly, regrowth and perseverance,” she said. “That’s what I felt like the River Arts District was in that moment. That’s what we needed. And I feel like this was just completely symbolic for that — one hundred percent.”
She turned the moment into art. The original painting still carries the footprints. Copies are now available in her reopened gallery (375 Depot Street, Suite 105) and online — a tribute to resilience, to wild visitors, and to the quiet, muddy ways healing begins.
Healing Art
Like many artists in the River Arts District, painter Elizabeth Porritt Carrington lost irreplaceable work in the storm. The water reached the second story of the woman-owned Tyger Tyger Gallery, where many of her stunning oil paintings were created and displayed.
“I thought I would be safe,” she said. “But it was like a swimming pool in there. We all saved what we could.”
Amidst the damage, Carrington salvaged a half-finished oil painting she had been working on for a family in Swannanoa. The painting is titled “Persephone,” after the Greek goddess of spring and nature. A noticeable water stain was left on the canvas, but that became an indelible part of the piece.
Dangerous flooding had forced the family to abandon their home during Hurricane Helene. When they returned, they found it in disrepair. But as they began to rebuild, they implored Carrington to finish “Persephone.” The work would be the artistic anchor of their new home.
“It felt so strange to go back and work on something I had started before the storm,” Carrington said. “It was like going back in time. It was cathartic to dive back into my work and create something meaningful for someone else. When I finished, they sent me a picture of their daughter hugging the painting. There’s no better feeling.”
Since completing “Persephone,” Carrington has begun working on a series of drawings and paintings inspired by Asheville’s relationship with the French Broad River and the delicate ecosystem around us after Hurricane Helene. Her work can be found exclusively at Bender Gallery in Downtown Asheville.
“I think we’re all trying to make sense of what happened,” she said. “And creating art is always a great place to start.”
From Wood to Leather: A Revival
On the second floor of the Resurrection Studios Collective, you can hear Stefan Daiberl's quiet and persistent work as he stitches and cuts through smooth leather to create lasting items for those who visit his new studio.
A year ago, Resurrection Studios Collective—located just north of Downtown Asheville—didn’t exist, and Daiberl spent most of his time in his woodworking studio in the River Arts District. Then, after the storm, Daiberl found himself without a place to work, searching for inspiration outside his normal artistic realms.
“After Helene, I wanted to work with something that lasts,” he said. “I wanted to create real companions for people, something they could have forever and that will age well and become more beautiful over time.”
The lesson from Helene? Create art that can be carried and loved; art that can endure. That led him to leatherwork, a passion the German-born artist cultivated in a previous life at the Chicago School of Shoemaking and Leather Arts before moving to the Asheville area and pursuing woodworking.
Under the company name "Hirondine", Daiberl now creates handmade leather goods such as wallets, bags, keychains, and journals. During the week, you can visit Daiberl at Resurrection Studios.
“I feel so fortunate to have landed on my feet and to have an incredible place like Resurrection Studios to call home,” he said. “There is so much talent in this building and I’m glad we can share it with everyone again.”
