Should I Visit the Asheville Art Museum?

The other day, because I can’t make decisions myself (and truly, know no one who’s ever been), I Googled, “Should I visit the Asheville Art Museum?” 

The Asheville Art Museum is an impressive building dominating downtown Asheville’s Pack Square. It takes up a lot of visual real estate, and I’ve walked by it often. When I first moved to Asheville, it was on my “List of Things to Do to Explore the City,” but truly, less than two months after I moved to Asheville, COVID hit, and so most of the exploring I did for those first few months was relegated to outdoor areas (aka hiking and breweries with yards), and then truthfully, it just kind of fell off my radar. 

I’m someone who likes and appreciates art, but doesn’t necessarily get it, if that makes sense. As in, I love looking at it, but my tastes run very…”here’s a bear wearing human glasses” or “here’s another WNC mountainscape,” and I tend to find the exorbitant prices of some of it a bit ridiculous (I also find the preciousness of a lot of artists annoying in the same way I find the preciousness of many writers annoying). That’s to say that, historically, I usually get more out of galleries like The Marquee, built for folks with pedestrian tastes, than from capital A Art Museums. 

The Asheville Art Museum, however, has been back on my radar because my new job is located in an office that’s two buildings down from it. Now, instead of walking by it often, I walk or drive by it daily, Monday-Friday. And after walking by it recently, when I returned to my desk, I thought to myself, I should visit it sometime! 

I was about to turn to the people of—where else?—the Asheville Reddit, and pose “Is the Asheville Art Museum Worth Visiting?” but then figured someone would probably just answer with, “Did you Google this first?” (a common critique lobbed by Asheville Redditors), so I did, though I Googled the aforementioned “Should I visit the Asheville Art Museum?” rather than “Is the Asheville Art Museum Worth Visiting?” for reasons I can’t explain. 

Unsurprisingly, on top of the Google results were a bevy of Reddit threads. While several seemed to be commentary on the nature of the art or tales of visits, obviously, I ignored those and beelined directly to the thread titled, The exec director of Asheville Art Museum, Pam Meyers, was recently honored for 30 years of “service”. Here’s a reminder of the recent investigations into her toxic behavior and treatment of employees.

There, before even getting into the comments, I was greeted by two links. 

1. A piece by The Asheville Watchdog (who truly does tremendous work): Not a pretty picture at the Asheville Art Museum. 
2. A piece by Hyperallergic (cannot comment on the quality of their work; new to this outlet): Ousted trustee describes culture of fear at Asheville Art Museum. 

I didn’t have to read any of the Reddit thread, nor either of the linked pieces, to know that I believed that the Asheville Art Museum is probably a professional hellscape—I’ve been doing the corporate hellscape thing myself long enough to know that while there are absolutely decent companies and great managers, if a workplace’s misdeeds are making negative headlines, than it’s probably much worse than’s reported. 

According to the two articles, the Reddit thread I started on (as well as some other threads my journey took me to), and a 2023 Instagram account @ashevilleartmuseum exposed, which consists of 54 posts alleging everything from a secret trove of “intimate” KKK photos to awful holiday gifts, the woman at the heart of the toxicity is the longtime museum director Pam Meyers, who, if the articles and social chatter are to be believed, is a toxic nut on a powertrip (which again I chose to believe, only because…like, we’ve all had at least 1-4 bosses and/or managers who were toxic nuts on power trips, yes?). 

There’s a lot of content to read—and if you, like me, love an online rabbit hole, workplace drama, and internet vengeance, dive in—but what stood out to me, not because it’s one of the wilder accusations (there’s a whole alleged thread on Meyers’s ex-husband that’s…yikes), but because it’s a tale as old as time. A former board member told AVL Watchdog that controversy over Meyers has been “brewing for decades,” which like…isn’t that always the case? People are whispering about these awful people at the top who have years of treating people like shit for whatever reason (I tend to think the culprit is more often than not to feed their own crippling insecurity) and then…nothing is done. 

I think the other big takeaway is that in many ways, a lot of the misdeeds in these articles and threads, particularly those brimming with classist, racist, homophobic allegations, could be a bit of a microcosm for Asheville itself. 

I’ve said this multiple times—and I feel the need every time I say this to caveat that I legitimately love living in Asheville and have felt more myself here than anywhere else I’ve ever resided—that Asheville has done a really good job of marketing itself as a bastion of acceptance and weirdos and support for the little guys. And in many ways—especially culturally—it lives up to that premise (and yes, I’m deliberately choosing “premise” over “reality” here…), but it’s also very much a wealthy city that courts money and makes choices that proliferate that money, and thus, often elevates and rewards those who value appearing to be good, culturally-interesting people vs. actually living that…reality (we’re kind of seeing that play out with this current mayoral race as well). 

Oh, and I’ll absolutely be visiting the Asheville Art Museum now. I’ll check out the art, obviously, but I really want to do more of a temperature check—Pam’s like a minor celebrity to me, now.