Appalachian Living: Bele Chere: An Artsy Festival

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Bele Chere: An Artsy Festival

Bele Chere is a yearly festival in Asheville, the last weekend of July. Vendors apply from all over the country to display their works, music, food and sights.

My daughter, Lydia, and I decided to take a little tour and share what we saw in case you couldn't go. The first artist we saw was "Statue Lady", who is completely painted silver. She is still until you put money in her dish and then she does a short song with drums and is still again until you put more money in. You can see the streets are lined with people and vendors you can hear and see different types of music, such as the trumpet player, the funky band, or staged bands at every turn.

The food area is alive with delicious, mouth watering smells, of greek gyro's, asian sis-kabobs, funnel cake and fresh squeezed lemonade. It was so hot we opted for a sit down in the A/C @ Carmels Restaurant. for pepperoni pizza and a sweet tea.

Later we browsed among some of the delightful vendors and admired all the quality work they had from glass jewelry, modern skirts, and tees and more. One of our favorites was The Bag Girl who had made bags of all kinds from recycled clothes. Another was the Groovy Girl with adorable kids clothes.