Mountain Mural Tours Tells the History of Asheville through Local Art
By Meg Hale Brunton
Krista Stearns created Mountain Mural Tours as a means of sharing the singular and artistic nature of Asheville, North Carolina with tourists, as well as its residents. “I wanted to create a tourism experience that I felt was healthy for our town, that celebrated what the locals contributed to our town and made it really beautiful,” she says.
Krista moved to Asheville in 1996, long before it became a tourist destination. In 2001, she opened West End Bakery in West Asheville. “We got to be part of that West Asheville Renaissance, which was a super exciting time,” Krista explains, adding that young people began moving to that side of town in the late 1990’s because homes there were more affordable than in other parts of Asheville. “We got to help start the community there. It was just so fun to make it a neighborhood where people knew each other.”
After fifteen years running the bakery, Krista admits she was worn out by the food service industry and ready to move on. She became a business coach with Mountain BizWorks, which she found really gratifying, but still felt the pull to find her next business venture. “I’m really an entrepreneur in my soul,” she says. “Once you work for yourself, it’s difficult to work for other people.”
In 2017, Krista moved with her husband and their two small children to South America for eight months, thinking it was the ideal method of expanding their kids’ minds and simultaneously bonding the family. While in Colombia, the family took a graffiti tour in Bogota which forever changed their lives. “The country has had a really hard time historically, and you see the art that comes out of that suffering, and it’s just amazing. We were just blown away,” she explains. After returning to the United States, Krista recalls her oldest daughter asking why there wasn’t a tour like that in Asheville, with all the amazing murals in town.
In 2015, the City of Asheville began a taxpayer-funded anti-graffiti program called 1-2-3 Graffiti Free, which sought to remove the local graffiti by providing business owners with cleaning supplies to get rid of tags and illegal murals on their buildings. “The River Arts District really turned around street art in Asheville,” Krista explains, citing that the investors who bought the property on Foundy Street fought to make it ‘a designated street art gallery.’ “So all of a sudden, street art became an acceptable form of art. Then all these businesses started putting murals on their buildings.”
In late June 2022, Krista started Mountain Mural Tours, a business that takes people on walking or bus-tours to view and learn the history behind the wall art in Asheville. In preparation for her tours, Krista met and interviewed many of the local artists who created the murals, to discuss their artistic process. “I go out and meet as many artists as will talk to me to share the stories with me about their art, how they have learned to do art, and what motivated them to create the different pieces that they have created in Asheville,” she says.
Mountain Mural Tours has five different tour options (as well as private tours), including the Walking Foundy tour, the Street Art and Sips tour, and the Mountain Mural tour, which takes its guests around downtown Asheville and the River Arts District to see prime wall art, such as those in Chicken Alley and at Echo Mountain Studios. Krista says she loves telling her customers the history behind the murals in The Block in Triangle Park, and those painted by members of 500 Native American nations for the Indigenous Walls Project. The 1.5-hour tours also take people to see ‘The Saints of Asheville’ mural on the Lexington Gateway Bridge, created through a collaboration of fifteen local artists. “I give people a real view of Asheville and how it has evolved throughout history,” she says.
Krista takes pride in the fact that Asheville residents love her tours, adding that she gives tours to as many locals as she does tourists and even offers a monthly local discount. “Street art celebrates community. A lot of the street artists incorporate history into their murals around town, they incorporate Asheville culture into their murals,” she explains. “It’s a statement about your community that really benefits you, because you learn to appreciate it and enjoy it.” Krista has also had very positive experiences working with tourists, and says that those experiences have helped her overcome her own prejudices about tourism in Asheville.
Though it’s hard work, Krista says she loves running Mountain Mural Tours. “I love that I’m sharing with people what makes Asheville so unique and what sets it apart from other towns. We are an art destination and I really like celebrating the artists that have made it that way,” she says. “What’s cool about covering the art in Asheville is it’s ever-changing. There’s new pieces going up all the time, and it’s kind of exciting that way. Asheville is an art town.”
For more information on Mountain Mural Tours, or to book your tour today, visit their website: https://mountainmuraltours.com/