Toe River Arts launches a year of celebratory events on January 26, 2026, with a birthday party. On that date fifty years ago, the original board of directors gathered to sign the official papers incorporating the Toe River Arts Council, locally known as TRAC. To commemorate the date, the present board is throwing a birthday party at Toe River Arts in Spruce Pine on Monday, January 26, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Light hors d’oeuvres and refreshments will be served. The public is wholeheartedly invited to the 50th Anniversary reception celebrating five decades of art, artists, and community.
The gallery will be transformed, one wall featuring a history of the founding with photos of people, performances, publications and events from 1974 through 1976, TRAC’s first official year of operation. On two more walls a timeline will continue the story of TRAC’s development from an all-volunteer organization meeting at kitchen tables, artists’ studios, churches and schools to a staffed nonprofit with accessible galleries downtown in both Burnsville and Spruce Pine and offices and educational spaces in Spruce Pine. The two-county arts council, unique in North Carolina, counts 1,552 artists and performers. Visitors will be invited to check the wall listing these people by name. They’ve been key to making Toe River Arts a creative driver in the local economy and cultural and educational life. The exhibit and timeline will remain on view until early March.
Another significant launch will be of the new Toe River Arts website, set to go live in February. The website will highlight arts events in Mitchell and Yancey counties. Additional anniversary-related offerings will also be announced on the new site. Though not a public event, Toe River Arts is honored in April to host in Spruce Pine the spring meeting of the 24-member Board of Directors of the North Carolina Arts Council.
Throughout the year the regular activities in support of the organization’s mission will continue. For example, in February the annual show of schoolchildren’s artwork from both counties will be mounted in the second floor Owen gallery, highlighting arts education. And from June 4 to 6, the Studio Tour will draw collectors to the area, enhancing economic development. Started over 30 years ago, revenue from participation in the studio tours has become an important item in their annual budget for many local artists and craftspeople.
Summer 2026 will herald three days of major arts festivities of the 50th Anniversary Year: a Celebration Weekend July 24-26. Events of Friday, July 24, will honor the legacy. On Saturday, July 25, free arts events in both counties will entice and encourage children and adults to be their most creative selves at the same time showcasing local talent, professional and non. Culminating the weekend at a Visionary Brunch on Sunday, July 26, the newly minted Toe River Arts Strategic Plan will be unveiled.
In the second half of 2026, excitement will build as the old Burnsville library across from the NuWray Hotel is being renovated with the first floor designed to house Toe River Arts. Funding and contractors are in place and preliminary site work has begun. Who knows? It may be completed during 2026 which would cap off the 50th Anniversary Year gloriously.
Credit for planning the 50th Anniversary of Toe River Arts goes to a committee co-chaired by Olivier Calas, artist and current president of the Toe River Arts Board, and Denise Cook, past Executive Director as well as three committee members. They are Joyce Johnson who served in various leadership roles with TRAC and Music and the Mountains, Susan Larson, the founding board president of the Toe River Arts Council and its first Executive Director, and Nealy Andrews, current Executive Director of Toe River Arts.
