One of the simple pleasures of the Great Falls Studios art tour is its easy accessibility. With 50 professional artists situated within an 18 mile radius offering access to their personal working space, all a motivated art tourist needs is the map to head to their destination of choice between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. from Friday, Oct. 17 to Sunday, Oct. 19.
Participating artists have arranged an open house for the weekend at each stop and relish the opportunity to show recent work. Disciplines range from traditional painting and photography to layered paper, fiber art, pottery, and jewelry making. An impressive diversity of style and vision blossoms in all directions.
Overall, the consortium represents 113 artists. Many have plied their craft for decades, and some have received national honors. For the art lover, though, it’s that moment of encountering something personal, fine, and beautiful that an artist has mysteriously captured that really justifies the search. The discovery and exploration of rich inner life drives a dialogue one seldom encounters in any other way.
Laura Nichols, a potter who initiated the group’s outreach in 2003, says the tour advances art appreciation and practice in Great Falls, a historic setting where 1 percent of the locals claim to have a working artist in the household.
“Certainly we are a town where people gravitate towards art as fundamental to personal expression,” said Nichols. “A naturally beautiful setting like Great Falls inevitably inspires homes that explore compelling indoor-outdoor relationships, and art that uniquely differentiates an interior or highlights an outdoor focal point. In that sense, it’s not surprising that a community of working artists has thrived here.”
Nichols notes that work presented in its studio setting is free from the commercial context you sometimes find in galleries, so attention is focused on the art — not the price nor how one artist’s prices compare to another.
It’s an arrangement that, according to Nichols, encourages visitors “to plumb the depths” of an artist’s creative process, “something that’s almost impossible in any other situation.”
The tour is sponsored by Sun Design Remodeling, Inc., a design-build remodeling firm that has renovated homes in Great Falls for over 25 years. Several artists in the consortium live in homes that the firm has remodeled. In some cases, a home makeover may have appreciably been inspired by the owner’s interest in displaying a particular art acquisition or collection.
“This is a naturally occurring partnership,” said Sun Design founder and chairman, Craig Durosko. “Art and architecture have always been sympathetic disciplines. The aesthetic improvement of the home is one of our clients’ core interests.”
As a tour option, Sun Design will be showcasing the recently remodeled residence of artist and author Lesley Hackman, which now includes working studio space. (See story on page 126.) Hackman is the co-author (with Lin Story) of a children’s book, Bearabesque and the Humility Slippers, and also designs quilts.
While the tour is free, and all are welcome to any of the participating studios, Nichols said that many visitors develop a practical trip plan by following a particular theme. Studios that are geographically convenient to one another, for instance, offer an easy day trip of wandering through some of country’s prettiest homes.
On the other hand, because studios are color coded on the tour map by artists’ medium, it’s just as easy to concentrate on a preferred discipline such as painting or photography.
Then, too, some visitors pick the artists they especially want to see from the tour directory and plot a course.
“It all depends on how much time a visitor wants to devote to taking it all in,” said Nichols. “You can see a lot in a day, but some do the entire weekend.”
Background information on each artist and their work can be found online at www.GreatFallsStudios.com. Many artists also provide links to their own sites. For the art aficionado, the tour can be an annual refresher course in how a favored artist is evolving.
While the atmosphere is always relaxed, the studio setting offers a powerful and memorable learning experience. Younger people may gain a first real exposure to how artists work. But the tour inevitably satisfies the discriminating patron or collector, many of whom drive in from the District, suburban Maryland, or still more distant departure points.
Those who want to extend their involvement after the tour will find many accommodating options, including ongoing exhibits scheduled throughout the year, a Holiday Show (Dec. 13 and 14), and an online gallery, which presents a new themed exhibit every month.
Finally, Great Falls Studios released their first book last year, Creative Spaces: Inside Great Falls Studios. The publication features 16 artists candidly discussing their work, influences, motivations and process. The book will be launched at Great Falls library and at many of the studios during the tour.
