Larry Spears
6th Annual
Brown County
Studio and Garden Tour
by Martha Tedrowe
Throughout Brown County, during the last weekend of June, art and garden lovers have a rare opportunity to glimpse the lifestyles of working artisans.
The sixth annual Brown County Studio and Garden Tour will be June 26th and 27th, giving visitors a chance to watch artists at work in their studios and tour the lovingly crafted gardens that give them inspiration.
Fifteen artists’ studios and galleries will be open for this free, self-guided tour and the T. C. Steele Historic Site serves as headquarters for the event.
The distinctive work designed and created by the artists on this juried tour will give visitors an opportunity to ask and decide for themselves “What is art?” How did they choose their art form? What is their inspiration? Why do these artists create labor-intensive pieces in a time-is-money culture?
All artists will be demonstrating an aspect of the creative process of their work during the tour. Visit the studio tour website at <www.browncountystudiotour.com> for a vignette of each artist and a list of the ongoing demonstrations.
There are five new (indicated by *) studios on this year’s tour. Participants are:
Jennifer and Michael Burt* have been professional artists for nine years and recently moved to Brown County. The Burts design and create contemporary stained glass, jewelry, hanging candle and flower holders at Burt Studios.
Chris Gustin is a fiber artist and weaver. Chris designs and creates functional rugs, placemats, runners and wearable art on her many looms at Homestead Weaving Studio. Chris focuses on recycling, using unique new material that is waste from textile mills. Stop and see what is on the looms.
Lynn Lynch Hughes* does pen and ink drawings of historic sites and homes at her Memories to Keep, Ink studio. She can work from photographs and accepts private commissions.
Mindy Knapik* makes hand-thrown stoneware pottery at Carmel Ridge Clayworks. Her work is mostly wood-fired but Mindy is in the process of building a gas/salt kiln.
Charlene Marsh creates tufted fiber art and sacred-space rugs at Marsh Studio incorporating hand-dyed wool and metallic yarn, using rich patterns and multiple layers that add depth to each piece. Charlene also paints in the “en plein aire” (out-of-doors) tradition.
R. Thomas Tedrowe
Amanda Wallace Mathis paints in the primitive style, using her imagination to incorporate images of the past and present.
Anne Ryan Miller designs stained glass with intricate, highly detailed metal overlay, using landscape and wildlife motifs. At Ryan Miller Glass Studio, she applies metal overlays to the front and back of opalescent glass objects thus creating a strong silhouette and adding depth in her objects as natural light diffuses around the metal.
Cheri Platter makes wheel-thrown and hand-built porcelain pottery with original painted floral designs at Faerie Hollow Pottery Studio. She also makes ceramic garden sculptures.
Brenda Roberts uses landscapes and flowers as the subject for her paintings. Brenda is also a portrait painter. She allows the subject to determine which media she will employ to create the piece—either drawing, watercolor or oil paint.
Greg Schatz makes wood-fired stoneware with a unique surface of natural ash glaze and flashing from the direct contact with the flame at Schatz Studio and Gallery.
Larry Spears’ stoneware and reduction fired pottery feature ever-changing forms and rich colors. His work encompasses a variety of functional forms, textures, hand-mixed glazes and various firing methods. Spears Gallery is in a lovely valley setting.
Sandy Taylor combines calligraphy with stained glass to create unique boxes and hanging pieces at Godly Glass.
R. Thomas Tedrowe is a furniture maker who just completed Tedrowe Furniture Studio, where he makes wood furniture and decorative objects, including boxes. Tom is a traditionally-trained furniture maker whose designs incorporate an expert knowledge of wood and emphasize the wood’s natural characteristics of grain and color with a strong historical sense of world art and architecture.
Sheryl VanVleck* is a trained painter and potter. At VanVleck Studio, you will see sculptural clay work, paintings in oil, pencil drawings and wheel-thrown pottery.
George and Phyllis Zajicek* both design and create glass objects at their Tippers Willow Art Glass Studio. Phyllis makes three-dimensional pieces using a kiln-fired glass technique that consists of multiple firings, which fuse glass of different colors and shapes to create decorative pieces. George, continuing a long family tradition of Czech glass artisans, designs and builds glass lamps and does antique glass restoration.
The tour planned to include the works of nationally acclaimed porcelain painter Harry Hugar. However, Harry passed away this April.
Brochure/map pickup sites include the Brown County Inn, Crouch’s Market, area hotels, restaurants, businesses, and each artist’s studio. This year the tour has received support from many fine Brown County businesses and receives continuing support from the Brown County Convention and Visitors Bureau (812-988-7303 and 800-753-3255) and the Brown County Chamber of Commerce (812-988-6647).
For further information and to view images of each artist’s work, visit the tour’s website: <www.browncountystudiotour.com>.