When North Asheville neighbors and artists Valerie Holstein and John Batovsky collaborated to create a 2023 Halloween skeleton stripper display on the latter’s front lawn, they weren’t envisioning a larger, multiyear art project. If anything, the two were worried about what their neighbors on Chestnut Street would think.
“We were concerned it was too iffy for the neighborhood, but everyone seemed to enjoy it,” Batovsky says. “It put a lot of smiles on people’s faces, so we ran with it the following Halloween.”
The second display — a skeleton wedding featuring a 12-foot bride — went up in September 2024. Soon thereafter, Tropical Storm Helene tore through Western North Carolina. On the day of the storm, the bride was toppled but later resurrected and given a raincoat…