News & Events
The event calendar for the West Virginia Highlands lists festivals, workshops, concerts, and cultural celebrations. Many of these sessions are free and open to the public, and are often shared online as well.
- December 15, 2020 West Virginia Mumming Traditions — Wintertime Cultural Celebrations
- March 9, 2021 Women in Old-Time Music
- September 8, 2020 Augusta Announces Fall Events Schedule
The Mountain Arts District serves as a directory and news hub for the creative life of the West Virginia Highlands, gathering artists, venues, shops, and events into one place. Galleries, studios, performance spaces, and independent stores appear alongside individual makers whose work spans fine art, photography, illustration, and decorative crafts. Rather than a single organization, the district is a broader designation that highlights arts-related groups and creators across the region, offering visitors an easy way to understand where culture is being produced and shown.
Browsing the directory is organized by location or by category, which makes it straightforward to find pottery studios, jewelers, woodworkers, basket makers, and instrument builders in and around places such as Elkins, Davis, and Thomas. Categories also cover painters, sculptors, printmakers, ceramic artists, photographers, and mixed-media creators, along with writers, poets, and storytellers. Search and filtering tools let visitors narrow results until they land on the makers whose specialties match their interests.
Live programming forms an equally important half of the district's identity. Performances, musical events, and seasonal gatherings reflect the strong tradition of folk and acoustic music in the Highlands, with banjo, guitar, mandolin, and fiddle work appearing repeatedly in the listings. Concerts and community gatherings sit alongside gallery openings and studio visits, showing how performance venues, shops, and makers interlock into a shared cultural calendar for visitors and residents alike.
Craft traditions receive particular attention throughout the directory. Functional stoneware and porcelain, fretted instruments, basketry, brooms, carved and painted gourds, stained glass, and cut-paper work are all represented, pointing to a region where functional objects carry strong decorative character. Restoration and conservation services appear as well, and several makers are described as specializing in particular materials or techniques, giving visitors a sense of the depth of skill present in the Highlands.
News and announcements move through the site as readers and followers might expect, covering event schedules, exhibitions, contest entries, and seasonal features such as holiday-themed shows. Feature stories spotlight artists, students, and school programs, highlighting the perspective and energy that emerging creators bring to the district. A monthly movie night and a Christmas event illustrate how the calendar extends beyond openings and concerts into shared community experiences.
About and sponsorship pages explain the district's purpose more fully, including its role in supporting local galleries, stores, and performance venues and its emphasis on encouraging people to visit and follow the work being created. Sponsors and partners help sustain the listings and the events calendar, while contact and submission options make it possible for makers, venues, and organizers to add their own information. In this way the Mountain Arts District functions both as a map of the region's arts and as an active network connecting them.
