Last weekend, Liz Rolfsmeier wrote an article for the Star Tribune featuring the Studio ArTour.  Read the full article HERE

By Patsy Dew

October has long been my favorite month of the year, and for the past three years I have spent one October weekend (the ArTour weekend) “behind door #7” as one of the seven artists hosted by Tom and Judy Saye-Willis. I look forward to spending this weekend again in Judy’s studio in the woods, watching the changing light as it filters through the golds, greens and reds.  Last year Judy did a demonstration of the Shibori dyeing process, and I marveled at the beauty of these scarves blowing in the wind. 

I anticipate another fun weekend showing and selling my photographic works, and sharing time with this great group of fellow-artists – Judy Saye-Willis, Tom Willis, Kathy Anderson, Sue Peoples, Joan Herzog  and DeAnn Egvall (she made this dragon)

Studio ArTour Artist Julie Fakler is painting a new series of portraits of the SAFE Sanctuary animals. SAFE (*Saving Animals From Euthanasia) Sanctuary is a non-profit volunteer organization that fosters animals in the Faribault area.

This project is helping artist Julie Fakler refine and improve her painting style, focus on composition, and the study of color. SAFE Sanctuary has provided Julie with a variety of models that have challenged her ability to paint different breeds of cats and dogs.

This new body of work will be exhibited at the Owatonna Art Center November 2-23. The opening reception will be on Sunday, November 9th from 1 to 4pm with a demonstration at 2:00pm.

The portraits will also be exhibited at SAFE Sanctuary’s annual fundraiser in the beginning of February. Then they will be in the Vranesh Boardroom Gallery at the Paradise Center for the Arts February17 through April 7, with an opening reception February 20^th from 5-7pm.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

More information can be found at the links below:

http://test.oacarts.org/

http://www.paradisecenterforthearts.org/

http://safesanctuary.org/

Many of our artists are letting us know what they are up to in order to get ready for the tour.

Cindy Robinson checks in:

I bought a dozen scarves in a variety of fibers at the beginning of the summer, intending to dye and paint them in preparation for this year’s Studio Art Tour. Life got busy, however, and I couldn’t make up my mind what processes I wanted to utilize on them.

I finally got inspired a week or two ago, deciding that I wanted to use the same shibori style, multiple dye bath approach on the scarves that I use on the fabrics I create for my quilts. I dyed each scarf first in a scrunch (mottled) dye-bath of a bright color: golden yellow, turquoise, or magenta. Then came the fun part of deciding how to manipulate the scarf and bind it before over-dyeing once, twice, and sometimes three times in different colors to get rich, beautiful and interesting final results.

The rayon scarves take the dye really well, and the cotton scarves are so soft and comfortable to wear. I still have some silk ones to experiment on . . .

We are just over 3 weeks out from the 10th annual Artour (October 18 & 19)and our artists are hard at work making art and getting their studios ready.

Some, like Glynnis Lessing, have just returned from art fairs and must create more work.
Others are excitedly preparing for their first Tour, like the guest artists at her studio.
Glynnis has a busy art fair schedule all summer and has had to make enough work between each event for the next fair. Usually there are about 3 weeks between events.

This means throwing and trimming her porcelain pottery on the wheel,

waiting for it to dry to leather-hard, putting black slip on the surface and free-hand drawing images on them

and then carving away the negative spaces,

much like a woodcut- but each pot is a unique work!

She then bisk-fires those pieces in an electric kiln for about 5 hours and after unloading the cooled kiln, glazes them with a clear glaze, packs them up and takes them to a gas kiln where they are fired for about 12 hours to a temperature of around 2350° farenheit!

After 2+ days, the kiln is cool enough to unload and once again, the pots are packed up, brought back to the studio and photographed and priced. Often they must be packed up again for an art fair.
Of course this is all the fun part of being an artist.

Glynnis also must mix glazes and slips, manage her business, go up to the city to buy supplies, spend 2 days selling in her booth- rain or shine- at art fairs,

and, most important of all, make sure her studio cats are fed and cared for!

Most recently, Glynnis is back from a successful fair at the Plaza in Kansas City and now she is gearing up for the Artour where she hopes many people will visit and see her studio
 

and enjoy the cats and chickens

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By all accounts we had a great turn out for this year’s tour!  Thank you so much to all the folks who traveled the back roads and stopped in to chat, have a bite to eat and take home some beautiful, local, hand-made art.

It was so nice to meet the people (face to face) who want to have our artwork in their homes to use and appreciate.  We hope you had as good a time as we did.

One such visitor even wrote about our artists and their passion in Her blog. You can read her thoughts on our ArTour here.

http://mnprairieroots.com/2013/10/21/on-artour-the-passion-of-southern-minnesota-artists/

So thank you all for coming out in all kinds of weather (and that was just in one day!) and making this a successful and exciting Studio Artour.

*If you missed the tour, you can find many of our Artists’ work at the Fine Craft Collective in Northfield during November and December.

By all accounts the first day of the tour was a great success! Many folks came out and met artists, watched demonstrations and purchased beautiful works of art.

For those of you coming out today, Sunday, to enjoy the fall colors as you travel from one studio to another, here is a downloadable map  that you can print out if you need to.map_2013

and here is a list of our artists and studios:artists_list

And to everyone who came out yesterday, a big thank you!! We will be in our Open Studios again today, all day until 5 pm!

Judy Saye-Willis will be doing indigo vat dying demonstrations during the Artour at her studio- Sunset Studio #7
Here is an image of a pale indigo and a clay resist.

Many other artists will be doing demonstrations at their studios too!

Jennifer Wolcott will be doing something with metal at her studio #2

The Trinket Foundry is a fascinating place where they make several types of  very unique  of beads, they will be demonstrating- stop #6

In Studio 18 Mary Beth Coyle shows jewelry and paper monoprints

J.M. Johnson is a painter demonstrating at stop # 19.

Diane Lockerby will be out at studio 10 making pottery

as will Dawn Makarios at studio #13

and also at Prairie Creek Pottery, stop  #9, where Barbara Zaveruha will be doing wheel throwing demonstrations with tools she has made herself.

So if you want to see an artist at work, Please stop by these studios and don’t be afraid to ask questions!

It’s a an exciting time here in Northfield as all our artists are preparing for the Studio Tour.

Up at the Halling Kiln, Juliane Shibata (studio 12) loads a kiln with Glynnis Lessing (studio 3 )and Barabara Zaveruha (studio 9) That kiln will be fired tomorrow to be ready in time for our studio visitors!

Just down the road at the Sunshine Studio (studio number 7) Both Tom and Judy  are readying their fascinating studios- Tom says make sure to come by for the After  because this is Before! He was just finishing up a firing today when this photo was taken.

Judy has beautiful scarves up drying after she has just dyed them.

Her work will be in the house as she makes room for 2 artists to show their work in her studio.

North of town, at Eureka pots, Donovan Palmquist and Colleen Riley had a wood firing AND a soda firing last week.

Several artists also gathered at Jennifer Wolcott’s metal studio in Waterford  to assemble our beautiful new (and highly visible) signs!  

Lastly, have you seen our sign on Highway 3? We want everyone to remember to come out; now that you’ve seen the “Before”, make sure you visit us for the “After”!

We were able to get these because of a grant from the  state of Minnesota.