5th Annual Brown County
Studio & Garden Tour
June 28 & 29
by Martha Tedrowe
courtesy photos
Have you ever wondered where the artists in Brown County live and work? The Brown County Studio and Garden Tour, Saturday and Sunday, June 28 and 29, presents an opportunity to meet some of Brown County artists and to see them at work. The free self-guided tour takes you through beautiful scenery along the back roads of the county.
Participating artists will demonstrate their skills during the tour. The experience is both fun and educational. The artists’ wares will be available for purchase. Take home some of these unique art objects created in Brown County.
The tour brochure, available at most local businesses and hotels, contains a list of participating artists and a detailed locator map. The self-guided tour directions and stops along the way are well marked. For more information, visit the tour’s website <www.browncountystudiotour.com>.
Many of the tour’s gardens reflect the creative skills of the artists with some unusual and surprising designs. Each year, artists and their evolving gardens offer something new to the touring visitors. Cheri Platter, president of this year’s tour, commented, “So many visitors during previous tours have told me that it is fascinating to watch these artists create their work.”
The artists you will meet:
Chris Gustin is a skilled weaver and fiber artist with over 30 years of experience. She makes rugs and wearable art in her studio. Visit Chris and her many looms at her lovely location. She will demonstrate how she makes her work, in many cases using unique new fabric that has been cast off by textile mills.
Helein Raines Hart paints with watercolor. Her dramatic landscape and flower paintings are inspired by nature. To enhance her paintings Helein often incorporates calligraphy, using familiar sayings or famous quotes.
Dick Hartung is a watercolorist. A practicing architect with long experience in artistic pursuits, Dick creates watercolor landscapes inspired by his travels.
Peggy and Joe Henderson combine her basket weaving skills and his wood working skills to create unique baskets and decorative objects. Joe is a self-taught woodworker who also hand carves wooden bowls, ladles, benches, and clocks.
Andrew Huddleston creates expressive glazed porcelain and stoneware pottery vessels, both functional and decorative. Andrew also makes hand-forged ironwork in his studio.
Harry Hugar hand paints china to create complete sets of dinnerware and one-of-a-kind decorative pieces. Additionally, Harry uses gold and silver wire to create wire wrap jewelry.
Darrin Kean has been making furniture for over 15 years. Sensitive to preserving nature’s resources, Darrin often uses recycled old growth timber in his furniture. He is particularly inclined to make Early American reproduction pieces and many kinds of chairs.
Charlene Marsh creates fiber artwork and plein air painting. Charlene’s most recent fiber work has been devoted to sacred ritual rugs made from hand dyed and metallic yarns tufted into cotton backing. This work is rich in color, design and texture. Her plein air paintings of nature are completed on location, many in Brown County.
Amanda Wallace Mathis creates primitive acrylic paintings incorporating whimsy and imagination.
Anne Ryan Miller is a stained glass artist. Anne creates unique highly detailed glass pieces that include an unusual metal overlay technique she developed over the 20 years she has been doing this work. Her appreciation of her natural surroundings is clear in her work.
Cheri Platter, a ceramist, is well known throughout the Midwest for her functional wheel-thrown and hand built pottery with original floral designs. Recently Cheri has begun producing unique garden art sculptures.
Brenda Roberts is a painter who uses oil and watercolor. Her subjects, painted on location, are most often landscapes and flowers.
Greg Schatz produces wood-fired stoneware pottery created with a unique surface of natural ash glaze. His vessels are various in size and many are suitable for a garden setting, as you will see when you visit his studio.
Larry Spears creates functional and reduction-fired porcelain and stoneware pottery in his studio located in a beautiful valley setting. Larry employs a rich color palate in his work, encompassing a variety of forms, glazes and textures.
Sandy Taylor combines stained glass and calligraphy to create her pieces, often using biblical references.
R. Thomas Tedrowe, Jr. is new to Brown County and the tour. Tom designs and builds meticulously crafted wood furniture and decorative objects. A traditionally trained furniture maker, Tom has an MFA in furniture design from the Rhode Island School of Design and has been creating beautiful furniture for 30 years. His designs draw from a diverse influence of classical and modern art forms and balance an expert knowledge of woodworking with the material’s natural characteristics of grain and color.
These artists and their media welcome you—many with gardens. Light refreshments will be served at each location.
Don’t miss this tour. These artists represent the meaning of Brown County, the true “Art Colony of the Midwest.”