Other stories in "Art fairs & studio tours"

• Mining for art in Mineral Point
  In southwest Wisconsin, artists and shoppers alike are drawn to a lovely village.
• Art al fresco
  When warm weather arrives, art fairs start to pop up everywhere.

Autumn in the studios

On fall art tours, treasure hunters find vivid colors everywhere they look.

When country artists hang an "Open'' sign on their studios, it's time for seasoned shoppers to hit the road.

Around the region, art-studio tours have been springing up, beckoning art patrons into the countryside just as fall leaves change color.

It's the perfect meeting of minds and pocketbooks — shoppers get to chat with the artists, and artists get to sell right out of their studios.

"For us, it's kind of like doing an art fair without having to schlep things hundreds of miles,'' says painter Jean Accola, who organizes the Fresh Art Tour in the ridges and valleys around Pepin, Wis. "And it's more interesting for people to see where the artists live and do their thing, rather than meeting them in some anonymous setting.''

Artists in such tourist spots as Door County, Bayfield and the Amana Colonies have held gallery walks for decades. But in southwest Wisconsin, artists realized that patrons also would venture out to more isolated studios — and consider the trip to be part of the fun.

Their Fall Art Tour in October, showcasing artists in and around Mineral Point, Spring Green and Baraboo, now is so popular that nearby inns book up a year in advance. Artists in other scenic areas noticed its success and organized their own studio tours — in northeast Iowa, along Lake Pepin, in southeast Minnesota and Red Wing.

Shopping on a studio tour isn't like shopping at the mall, though shoppers may find a pottery barn — or, in the case of the Northeast Iowa Artists' Studio Tour, a pottery schoolhouse.

Patrons find favorites

Just across the Minnesota border in Burr Oak, Iowa, a century-old schoolhouse sits on a hillock, just up the street from the Laura Ingalls Wilder Park and Museum. The schoolhouse is where Tim Langholz throws and paints his pots, most recently in geometric patterns inspired by a trip to Morocco. When I was there for the  October tour, an art teacher from Cedar Rapids picked out one of his Moroccan-style bowls, and Langholz’ dimpled face lit up.

“Oh, you can’t do much better than that one,’’ he told her. “I just made it, so that’s kind of nice — it’s better than people saying, ‘Oh, we like what you used to make.’ ’’

I, on the other hand, wanted to buy a yellow vase with fuzzy green polka dots, a goofy orphan among the Moroccan pots and sophisticated pieces influenced by Picasso, Klee and Kandinsky. Surprised at its low price, I ended up bargaining it up.

“I told you, $10,’’ Langholz said. “Oh, how about $15 — is that better? I have so many pots around; everything doesn’t have to be $100.’’

Minutes later, I heard Pat Johnson of Decorah trying to bargain up her price, too.

“Wow, is that good enough for you?’’ she asked Langholz, after he’d offered to sell her three intricately etched pots for $90.

In the hour I was there, everyone who came in bought something from Langholz.

“I try to be easy on prices, if people have taken the trouble to come,’’ he said. He grinned mischievously. “But then last night I was thinking, but if people have taken the trouble to come here . . .’’

From Burr Oak, I drove through farm fields to Darla Ellickson’s rambling old farmhouse, which was packed with people ogling her silver and gold jewelry, plus other artists’ wavy glass vases, fanciful pottery bowls and parquet wood slates. As I went in, three women were getting into a van, and I heard one say, “I didn’t see anything in there I didn’t like.’’

'A fun chick thing'

At a modern home down the road, I went in to see Martha Monson Lowe’s rattan baskets, accompanied by photos showing Lowe and her sister collecting driftwood for the handles along Lake Chelan in Washington state. Like the other artists, Lowe had put out treats for her guests — cookies, grapes, cheese, peanuts.

In the pottery shed next door, where her husband, George Lowe, works, I was surveying a table of stoneware when I heard a familiar voice say, “I don’t see anything here I don’t like.’’

I’d been dogging the steps of Mary Olson of West Union, Iowa, who said she was attending the tour for the fourth time, this year with her daughter-in-law and mother-in-law.

"It's a fun chick thing,’’ she said. “I've done it with different people, and it's always fun.'' At the pottery shed, she’d bought a pitcher, a trivet and a vase, all for gifts, and Lowe had given her a discount “because you’re a nice person.’’

"I love deals,’’ Olson said sheepishly. “My problem is, I've found too many deals today.''

My last stop was Jean Murray’s quilting studio, an adorable timber-frame cottage with hollyhocks growing alongside it. She’d built it on a hillock behind her home, a painted-lady Victorian farmhouse shaded by two enormous spruces.

"It was a very foolish thing,’’ Murray said with a smile. “Probably I should be working out of a cubbyhole in the house, but it's really great to work here.''

Mineral Point discoveries

Later that month, I was in Mineral Point during the big Fall Art Tour, and I saw some serious shoppers at work. Carole Spelic’s Green Lantern Studios had been open barely five minutes before Linda Friedman came in and scooped up a $200 papier-mache vessel. She and her mother, Joan, had just driven in from Spring Green and Lone Rock, where Friedman had bought the pendant featured in the tour guide. A busy civil-rights lawyer in Chicago, she described the tour as her “once-a-year splurge.’’

“When the car’s full, we’ll go home,’’ she said before hurrying on to her next stop.

One of the best parts of the tours, however, is talking with the artists, each of whom has a story. Friedman’s striped vessel, Spelic said, was patterned on traditional Tibetan tiger rugs, and others have a Gregg shorthand motif.

“People who come in and know Gregg can read my work,’’ Spelic said. “This one is called ‘The Tyranny of Distance’ — it’s actually made out of a book about Australia.’’

It all started, said the New York City native, with a library book called “Weekend Fun With Children,’’ which suggested boiling shredded newspaper and shaping it with glue, linseed oil and plaster.

“It evolved into this,’’ said Spelic, hoisting one of the lightweight paper vessels she now shapes and finishes with perlite, Mylar, polyurethane and floor wax. “It turned out to be 12 years, a real long weekend.’’

Like nearly every other artist in Mineral Point, Spelic works out of a historic stone building, in her case a laundry built in 1864 for the U.S. Hotel. On the outskirts of town, potters Tom and Diana Johnson live and work in a huge stone brewery built in 1860, which still has a spring flowing under the kitchen and a ventilation shaft through which brewers could flee during Prohibition if federal agents approached.

Diana Johnson was throwing a pot when a woman on the tour asked if she’d always wanted to be a potter.

“I went to a raku party in California, and I thought, ‘I want to do this, it’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever done,’ ’’ said Johnson, who was teaching nursery school at the time. “It’s funny, how things happen. I just happened to go to that party, and it changed my whole life.’’

New life for a garage

Back in town, Sandra Scott and Judith Sutcliffe had just opened Longbranch Gallery. Scott, a former television producer in San Francisco, and Sutcliffe, a tile muralist in Santa Barbara, had already developed an interest in rustic furniture when they were waylaid in Mineral Point.

“We came to Mineral Point and stopped at the pipe shop, not knowing the owner was the director of the chamber of commerce,’’ Scott said. “He gave us a wonderful pitch on what a wonderful place Mineral Point was, how the art colony had developed, and how ‘only’ two buildings were for sale.’’

Inspired, they bought “the ugliest building in town,’’ a former truck-repair shop, and renovated it, opening on the first day of the studio tour.

“I’m still somewhat dazed,’’ Scott said ruefully.

One of her artists, John Schakel, had just sold a bent-willow rocker to an ecstatic woman who said she'd looked two years for just the right one.

"I think this tour is the greatest thing, in this time when people run to the mall to buy things made in China,'' Schakel said.

The mall will seem dull and distant to those who explore the countryside on studio tours. Each piece of art, each scenic vista is one of a kind — and don't forget the stories.

Trip Tips: 2008 fall studio tours

Sept. 5-14, Autumn Winds Studio Tour in eastern Minnesota, along the Willard Munger State Trail, with 14 artists in 12 studios in Kettle River, Moose Lake, Willow River, Askov, Sturgeon Lake and Carlton.

Sept. 19-21, Amana Artisans Studio Tour in eastern Iowa's Amana Colonies.

Sept. 19-21, Dunn County Artist Tour in and around Menomonie, Wis., with artists at nine studios.

Sept. 20-21, Studio Ramble in and around Red Wing, Minn., with more than 25 artists at 14 sites.

Sept. 25-Oct. 5, Crossing Borders Studio Tour on Lake Superior's North Shore, with 19 artists at 10 studios between Duluth and Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Sept. 27-28, Art Leap in northern Minnesota, with artists at 14 studios and cultural sites in and around Park Rapids.

Oct. 3-5, Meander, the Upper Minnesota River Art Crawl, with 45 artists at 33 sites in and around Ortonville, Appleton, Madison, Milan, Dawson, Montevideo and Granite Falls in western Minnesota.

Oct. 3-5, Hidden Studios Art Tour along the Ice Age Trail in central Wisconsin, with 21 artists in 10 studios in  Almond, Amherst Junction, Iola and Waupaca.

Oct. 3-5, Fall Fresh Art Tour, with artists at 16 studios along the Wisconsin side of Lake Pepin, from Bay City to Durand and Pepin.

Oct. 3-5, Northwoods Art Tour in northeast Wisconsin, with artists at 23 studios in and around Manitowish Waters, Boulder Junction, Minocqua and Eagle River.

Oct. 4-5, River Crossings Art Fair in Motion along the Minnesota River in St. Peter and Mankato, with artists at 16 studios and music, dance, poetry and improv at 11 restaurants and galleries.

Oct. 10-12, St. Paul Art Crawl, with artists at 25 sites in downtown St. Paul and the Raymond-University area.

Oct. 10-12, Northeast Iowa Artists' Studio Tour, with 56 artists at 43 sites around Decorah, Burr Oak, St. Lucas, Waukon, West Union, Cresco, New Albin, Lansing, Elgin and Clermont.

Oct. 10-12, Art Studio Tour of Northeast Wisconsin, with 20 artists at 19 studios in and around Green Bay, Kewaunee and Algoma.

Oct. 17-19, First City of Arts Studio Cruise in Bemidji, Minn., with artists in a 40-mile radius around this northern-Minnesota college town.

Oct. 17-19, Southwest Wisconsin Fall Art Tour, with artists at 40 studios between Mineral Point, Spring Green, Dodgeville and Baraboo. This tour, started in 1994, is very popular; reserve lodgings early.

Oct. 24-26, South Central Minnesota Studio Art Tour, with 32 artists at 15 studios and galleries in and around Northfield, Faribault and Owatonna.

Last updated on September 30, 2008