By Dennis Ryan
Special to the Weekly
Labor Day weekend on Lopez? It is always about art! Lopez Island will find 42 artists in 28 studios greeting visitors from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday.
The Studio Tour is far more than what the title suggests. Visitors go to see art and studios, but in the process of talking with artists about creative work they may begin to reflect on their own life and activities too. The tour is an invitation to consider the world anew. It’s entirely free! And you decide where to go and how long to stay.
Who are these artists? Try matching the following selected tidbits from their profiles with the artist on tour: specializes in photographing birds in flight … work is featured at the Seattle Museum of Flight this summer.
• Works have been shown in galleries in Los Angeles, Carmel, Alaska, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington, and are enjoyed in private collections throughout Canada and the U.S.
• Recipient of numerous awards including Whitney Museum of American Art Fellowship … has exhibited with Foster/White since 1982.
• Has exhibited nationally for over 35 years … work has been reviewed in Art in America and Artweek.
• My Monticello, Iowa, grandmother introduced me to woolen quilts in 1968 when she presented me with a stack of wool squares and a button bag and requested a quilt.
• I am showing artifacts of an imaginary world, which is the one I prefer to live in.
• I love to convey a sense of place and a time in a person’s life. I respect the way pictures can serve as fragments of memory, identity and belonging.
• We call it the Slow Fiber Movement, or another way of finding beauty in simplicity.
Answers: Peter R. Cavanagh, Robert Proctor, Allison Collins, Jean C. Behnke, Mary Bywater Cross, Stephen Nicolas Carter, Steve Horn, Debbie Hayward.
All of the artists are experienced professionals who have exhibited, often on Lopez and the other islands but also at galleries on the main land including Seattle, Bellingham and beyond.
Lopez affords many opportunities to experience fine arts and crafts – including the Lopez Artist Guild shows at the Lopez Center and the Hamlet House, and at stunning shows at the Chimera and Colin Goode galleries – but the studio tour is something different. Visitors go directly to the studio to meet the artist, ask questions, see techniques and materials and gain insight into why artists make their art.
For an inspiring three-minute video of the Lopez Tour experience go to youtu.be/IrpQxAAVefI or the tour’s website at www.lopezstudiotour.com under Visit Lopez. Karen Woldtvedt produced one for the Orcas and San Juan Island Tours as well, and a short, combined piece is showing on the ferry and Anacortes Terminal. These were supported by the county’s lodging tax program in a grant to the San Juan County Arts Council.
Artists have something to say through their art. The tour gives them a chance to extend this communication in person in a give and take. “It’s about telling your story,” says one of the artists. While visitors are often interested in where the artists get their inspirations or the processes they use, the artists are interested in how visitors are receiving their work – reading, interpreting, questioning, evaluating and appreciating it. As one artist puts it, “Being on the tour is a gift that lets me see myself through other people’s eyes. They help me remember why I’m doing this!”
The tour enables an artist to meet new contacts who in turn may then follow the artist’s work online or through local shows. Tour sales have the advantage of being directly between artist and buyer; there is no gallery expense.
The Lopez Artist Guild Lopez Artist Guild organizes the tour to support Lopez Island artists – those who work full- or part-time on the island. Artists on the tour are all members of the Lopez Artist Guild.
Lopez Island is an extraordinary environment of working artists. They make Lopez a better, richer, more beautiful place to live. Yes, they fill the art galleries and people’s homes with their work. But they also teach, inspire, enrich, and model the values of the community.
Take the tour to explore the landscape of Lopez with family and friends. It’s likely you will discover some new places and rediscover familiar ones. Use the map in the colorful 12-page tour brochure (available at the Chamber lopezisland.com, Chimera Gallery chimeragallery.com and other places of business) to navigate or go to lopezstudiotour.com and use your GPS system.
Visit the Preview Gallery at the Lopez Center for the Community and the Arts lopezcenter.org to see works from artists on the tour. The Gallery show opens Aug. 26 and runs until Oct. 19.
Come to the tour’s opening reception at the center on Friday, Sept. 4, from 5-7 p.m. Meet the artists, enjoy some Lopez wines and nibbles including food-art items from Vortex, Vita’s and the Southend. Special box lunches from these three are featured during the weekend.
Early September, Lopez: a magical moment with the arts. Start your Labor Day holiday in style and make it an art weekend.
For more info, call 468-4330 or email studiotour@lopezartistguild.org.
