Inside Blackberry Mountain’s Art-Centered Approach to Wellness | Condé Nast Traveler

"Immersed in mist-shrouded Smoky Mountain vistas, I set up behind a table of easels, paintbrushes, water-filled mason jars, and professional acrylics as local artist Miranda Hill—who also runs the resort’s wellness and adventure activities center—guided us to partition our canvases into sky, mountains, and valley. When the shifting light sent me into a panic about technical perfection, Hill reassured us we could add details later, and I remembered I was on vacation in the Great Smoky Mountains; I breathed, mixed colors for my wildflowers, and let go. To Hill, art is the ultimate wellness activity in nature: over her two-hour outdoor painting class, she watches guests ease into an almost meditative state, experience a shift away from perfectionism, and leave feeling lighter, more connected, and surprised by what they create when fully present. Her basket-weaving sessions echo that release, imagining worries and stresses threaded into the piece and left contained there. At the end, I couldn’t capture the landscape’s magic perfectly—but I felt happy." - Maria Yagoda