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If you have ever wanted to peek inside of the studios of some of your favorite local artists, such as Molly Murphy, Celia Smith and Maria Martin, this is your chance.
The Lawrence Art Guild’s Art Spaces – Studio Tours event is a free, self-guided tour of artists’ studios and creative spaces, Saturday and Sunday, May 2 and 3.
The appeal of this self-guided tour is that you can take your time, pick and choose which artists to visit, or visit them all over the course of a weekend. It gives guests a chance to talk directly with the artists, to see what goes into creating their art, to learn about the process and the artist’s creative influence, and to see studies, unfinished works and unframed pieces.
Visitors to the Missouri Street home and studio of this year’s featured artist, Nick Schmiedeler, will enter a rustic folk art world.
Schmiedeler’s entire yard has been transformed into a work of art created from repurposed materials. Searching local salvage and metal scrapyards, along alleys and riverbanks, Schmiedeler finds natural, discarded and reusable materials and creates indoor and outdoor sculptures that are textural and visual wonders. Each element is carefully curated, embracing its individual history while becoming a full story in Schmiedeler’s hands.
At Art Emergency, 721 E. Ninth St., visitors will be surrounded by art. Nineteen artists including both artists within their Art Emergency studios and members of the Lawrence Art Guild, who will be set up in the open central room, are participating in this year’s event.
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There will be works in fiber, paper, wood, jewelry, painting, mosaics, mixed media and more. Each Art Emergency studio contains unique colors, materials and supplies, from the rainbow colors of Brandt Minden’s space to the fascinating paper selection of Liza MacKinnon, to the multitude of types of glass in the Mosaics Studio.
In addition to the Art Emergency studios, 20 other Lawrence studios will be open across town. To see all of the artists participating and to see examples of their artwork, you can go to Lawrence Art Guild website, lawrenceartguild.org, to find the map and images on the gallery page.
Printed maps will also be available at our sponsor locations — Tom Harper with Stephens Real Estate, Phoenix Gallery, Wink Eyewear and at all artist locations — so no matter where you start the tour, you will be ready to go.
Art Spaces is a unique event and each of these locations is a unique stop. At Susan Theroff’s rural home studio, you can visit with her chickens and see her beautifully sensitive watercolors in person, and you can see where Dave Loewenstein creates using spray paint, stencils and murals in his Old West Lawrence alley workshop.
Art Spaces – Studio Tours focuses on both the finished creations of local artists and on allowing the artist to explain the process, methods and inspirations of their work.
Connie Ehrlich can show you the tiny brushes she uses in her work and can explain the meticulous process of using egg tempera on panel to create her deeply complex iconographic art. Justin Marable creates his artwork in his unique straw bail studio using laborious printmaking processes, and at Robbin Loomas’ studio, she can explain the method of turning a photograph into something more, using digital painting.
This year, the Phoenix Gallery is hosting an Art Spaces – Studio Tours Preview show. Participating artists have been invited to display their work beginning on April’s Final Friday. Patrons can visit the gallery and see the work of some of the Art Spaces – Studio Tours artists before the event begins. The Phoenix Gallery show will be up through mid-May.
Art Spaces gives the public a chance to connect with the artists of their community, and hopefully you will have a unique experience and come back with more knowledge and insight. Studios will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, May 2, and from noon to 6 p.m. Sunday, May 3.
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