OUR MISSION AND INSTRUCTORS
Our mission is to provide an university quality art education with flexible scheduling for the adult student. Our instructors are all active working artists who strive to provide a safe, inclusive, and supportive classroom environment where you can achieve your individual goals in art at a pace that suits your lifestyle.
We hope for you to embrace your inner creativity and have fun! We believe everyone has an artist inside.
Fleta Monaghan
Fleta Monaghan is a lifelong painter with a BFA from UNCA (Magna Cum Laude) and a MaEd from WNC in adult art higher level art education, curriculum development and studio art from WNC. She founded 310 ART School for Fine Art in 2006 which relocated in Oct 2024 to Re.Imagine Gallery. She works in oils, acrylics, mixed media and encaustic with a specialty in color and personal content. Her work is constantly evolving as are her use of new materials. Her school is the oldenst premier independently artist/woman led comprehensive art education venue in the southeast. She believes that lifelong learning is a key to a fulfilling life and everyone has an artist inside.
Lorelle Bacon
Lorelle Bacon has been nominated three times for “Arts Educator of the Year”. An art instructor for 30 years, she says “I love nothing better than to see when a student finds that they can do things they never thought they could.” She works in and teaches many mediums and all subjects. Including oils, acrylics, watercolor, silk painting, scratchboard, pastels, graphite, alcohol inks, pen and ink and metal clays and now special topics in wire wrapping. She teaches a variety of classes at 310 ART including beginning painting, portraiture, specialty mediums and as Studio class facilitator. She has won numerous awards for her art, including national and international competitions.
Julie Bagamary
Julie Bagamary is a Fabric Artist, Instructor, Speaker, and Author based in Asheville, NC. She draws inspiration from her surroundings to create art from vibrant batik and hand-dyed fabrics.
With a background in improvisational fiber arts and embroidery, Julie incorporates intricate stitching, embellishments, and mixed media to add depth and interest. Her colorful, whimsical pieces celebrate nature and humanity, blending artistry with playfulness.
Julie’s award-winning fiber art is featured in curated exhibits and galleries worldwide, making her a cherished instructor for textile enthusiasts.
Bridget Benton
Bridget Benton has a B.A. in Studio Arts and an M.S. in Creative Studies, always learning more about artmaking and how to teach and inspire creativity in others. Benton works and teachs in a variety of art media including fiber, text, jewelry-making, collage, acrylic, assemblage, printmaking, photography, and encaustic. Benton is the lead instructor in Encaustic Methods, Nature Print, ecoprint and collage methods at 310 ART. In 2022, Benton was invited to join the faculty of the international encaustic online encaustic masterclass, Painting with Fire. She is the author of “The Creative Conversation: ArtMaking as Playful Prayer”. which won multiple awards, including a Nautilus Book Awards Gold Medal in the Creative Process category and a Nautilus Book Awards Silver Medal in the Self-Help category. Teaching credentials include at the Creative Problem Solving Institute in Buffalo, NY; the Newport Visual Arts Center in Newport, OR; Art Unraveled in Phoenix, AZ; and Collage in Portland, OR. as well as the Nature Printing Society’s Annual Workshop where she served for several years as the event’s Educational Coordinator.
Diana Christopherson
As a sumi-e instructor, Diana has studied this ancient art for over 25 years under the tutelage of Reiko Ito Shellum, a Master Sumi-e teacher from the school of Nanga. She have taught previously in Minnesota and then moved to beautiful North Carolina, where she taught at the North Carolina Arboretum and now at the 310 Art.
When living at Long Island, NY, Diana noticed a six-week class for "Oriental Brush Painting" and enrolled. Later, at the Minneapolis Museum of Fine Art, she was able to further her interest in sumi-e when she enrolled in Reiko's class, not realizing how her skills would grow through the years.
Diana enjoys hearing the students express their joy when they stroke the brush on the rice paper and see the result for their efforts. One wish Reiko had was for her to continue teaching, and Diana is happy to be fulfilling her wish.
Heather Clements
Heather Clements combines realistic portraiture, expressive abstraction, and elements of flora and fauna to represent a symbiotic relationship with nature and an ever-evolving dive into the human psyche. After growing up in Northern Virginia, she earned her BFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2007. She began her art career in Panama City, Florida, where she owned an art gallery and alternative venue space for 2 years. After a short stint as curator of the Visual Arts Center of Northwest Florida, Heather decided to dive fully into being a full time artist in 2010, through paintings, drawings, murals, and teaching.
A 2-time major hurricane survivor, Heather uses art as a means for therapy and growth. Now residing in nature in Asheville, North Carolina, Heather is embracing creating the art her inner-most weirdo yearns to make. She has expanded into creating interactive art, through her new book “Pull Me Apart” with pull-tabs, spin wheels, and more, and numerous interactive murals.
Robyn Crawford
Robyn Crawford studied at Emerson College, Massachusetts College of Art, and Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of Photographic Arts and Sciences. She has been a mixed media artist, photographer, teacher, and creativity coach for over 30 years and has exhibited work throughout the Carolinas. She loves working with new materials and finds that it shakes things up and generates new ideas in other mediums as well. She uses her own images, clay, acrylics, mosaic, handmade papers,hot glass, metal, resin, crystals, and more to create fun, colorful pieces of work that connects her to spirit.
Heidi Hoffer
Heidi Hoffer’s charcoal portraits are inspired by live portrait sittings, Victorian daguerreotypes, and ancient ancestors. She loves the stories of people. She is well versed in visual storytelling and character development, and dramatic theatrical lighting. When recording reference images, Heidi uses her own Rembrandt-style lighting. Heidi’s weather portraits hail from her experiences with tornadoes as a young child. Being tossed around by a tornado leaves an impression. Her weather portraits are from her own photos or imagination, capturing the dynamic range of the beautiful and dangerous.
She is a signature member of NAWA (National Association of Women Artists.) and a general member of the Portrait Society of America. Her MFA is from Northwestern University, MA and BA from Northern Illinois University. Heidi has studied in China, Italy, and a wide variety of art schools in America.
Linda Krupp
Linda Krupp holds a Masters, PhD and specialist degrees in Educational Leadership from the University of Florida. She is a representational landscape oil painter who seeks to represent with her brush or palette knife the beauty of nature…to evoke from viewers that same awe she experiences while painting. Linda exhibits in galleries and shows and has won numerous local awards for her art. She teaches oil painting and specializes in color mixing, theory, traditional techniques, and palette knife. Her message to all students is for them to recognize that a completed painting is not a destination: it is all about the process. It is a journey to be savored.
Susan Sinyai
Susan Sinyai earned a BA in Sociology from UNC Chapel Hill and a BFA in painting at UNCA in 1994, graduating with the highest honors. Since graduation she has been a working artist and has won numerous awards regionally and nationally for her work in oils and pastels. She was awarded the Emerging Artist grant in 2000 by the Asheville Arts Alliance. In 1999 she was commissioned to paint the official portrait of former Chancellor of UNCA. She has taught at 310 ART since 2017 where she teaches subjects in oils and pastels and exhibits her work there and in numerous shows and museum exhibitions.
Cindy Walton
Cindy Walton is an Asheville-based painter who loves helping students discover their own creative voice. With degrees in Studio Art and Painting, Cindy has taught workshops across the country and enjoys making art approachable and fun.
She encourages students to experiment, trust the process, and find joy in color, texture, and personal expression.