The Best Part of the Tour

The studio tour starts tomorrow.  I am very impressed with the artists on the tour this year and how this tour is organized.

I have attended other tours, but I think ours is the best for a specific reason.  Our tour focuses on education, not sales.  From the very beginning, the requirements to participate included the fact that you must have a working studio and be a working artist.  You could only show your work in your studio…no sharing space with another artist… and you must demonstrate an aspect of how you create.  Of course, you can sell your work, but sales usually follow when people are involved in your process and understand your personal techniques.

Other tours I have attended focus on sales, not on the personal space of the artist.  How can it be a studio tour if you are not in the artist’s studio?  Sometimes two or three artists set up tables with their creations, price tags and receipt book.  The visitor is not in their studio, nor do they see the creative process, and blunders, that produce the finished work.

The comments received from the public last year were all positive.  The artists had a good time and the tour has expanded from 16 studios to 24.

I know I’m going to have fun this weekend…from the studio

The painting above, FIELDS, is at a downtown gallery for the Gallery Walk which is also this weekend.