Here are the four corners of Clark County’s artistic world:
• In the northwest, Patricia Thompson makes elaborate art quilts starring the colorful birds that hang out in her large backyard, the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge.
• In the northeast beyond Battle Ground, tile artist Julie Kock makes intricate, gleaming glass and tile mosaics.
• In the southeast, a Camas studio called Clear Skies hosts several artists — among them Barbara Kay Bureker, Leslie McMillan and Lena Piersol — who produce handmade jewelry and metalwork.
• In the southwest, downtown Vancouver mixed-media artist Sharon Svec creates enigmatic tapestries that combine photography and painting.
Those are merely the four farthest-flung local artists out of a whopping 50 whose doors — and smiles — will be wide open and welcoming visitors during this weekend’s fourth annual Clark County Open Studios Tour. Consider this your invitation to get up close and personal over the next two days with your most creative neighbors.
Some are full-time, professional artists. Others are talented amateurs and hobbyists who exercise their creativity for personal satisfaction more than for income. Some rent a workspace in nodes such as the North Bank Artists Gallery in downtown Vancouver or Clear Skies Studios in Camas. Others have transformed outbuildings or carports, or use that spare basement bedroom or leftover space in the attic, and some shoehorn a “studio” into one corner of a little apartment in the city.
Whatever their spaces are like, artists have been scrambling to get them ready for guests. That means “clean but not pristine,” Open Studios director Jennifer Williams advises, because the whole point of this event is exposing the genuinely curious to the working realities of painting, printmaking, sculpture, glass and tile art, ceramics, jewelry, fiber arts, photography and much more.
“People love to get a look behind the scenes of the creative process,” Williams said. “And if you plan on shopping for art, there is nothing more gratifying than knowing the artist.”
That could mean observing techniques and practices in action. Or it could mean shooting the breeze about artistic subjects and themes — or whatever else strikes your fancy. The kids? The dog? The weather? Even when they lean toward the eccentric, artists are usually capable of normal, friendly conversation. Most are actual human beings. You read that here first.
“It’s amazing” just how many artists are eager to participate every year, said Karen Madsen of sponsoring organization Arts of Clark County. There’s a ceiling of 50 participants and roughly half are new every year. As always, this year’s Open Studios Tour was curated by two nonlocal, independent artists: Ruth Offen, owner of the Waterworks Gallery in Friday Harbor, and Mark Smith, an artist and professor at Portland Community College.
The Open Studios Tour is free and self-guided. Unless you are highly motivated — and speedy indeed — visiting all 50 artists just won’t be possible. That’s why a handy and thorough guide has been distributed to many sponsoring establishments, and also is available online at ccopenstudios.org/.
The guide includes a glimpse of each artist’s work, along with a website where you can see more, and the street address you’re headed for. It also groups all 50 addresses into four suggested regional routes: the south zone, including downtown Vancouver, is blue; the central zone, including Hazel Dell and Salmon Creek, is purple; the vast north zone, from Ridgefield to Brush Prairie, is green; and the east zone, running from east Vancouver through Camas, Washougal and all the way up to Livingston Mountain, is red.
“No matter which stops you choose, the tour is guaranteed to inspire,” Williams said.
Because the map in the printed guide is not a detailed road map, save yourself some confusion by bringing along a road map — or your GPS.
Purchasing some art along the tour also could help you get ahead on your holiday shopping.
