April 20, 2006

Last weekend Donna Lynn Johnson opened Main Squeeze, a juice bar and home-brewing supply store located in Kieth’s Alley in the former Organic Grocery space.

By Diane Chiddister

When the first Yellow Springs Artist Studio Tour took place in the fall of 2004, organizers hoped that the event would draw out-of-towners to the village.

Gearing up for the fourth studio tour this weekend, organizers say the event has exceeded their expectations and shows that Yellow Springs can be successfully marketed as an arts destination.

“From the beginning more visitors have come than we anticipated,” said ceramic artist Lisa Goldberg. “I feel strongly that this is one answer to some of the problems that Yellow Springs is facing. We need to look at the arts community and figure out how to grow it and make it a destination spot.”

The Spring Artist Studio Tour will take place this Saturday, April 22, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., when visitors may visit the studios of 10 local artists, who will open their work places for public viewing. Many of the artists will give demonstrations, and some locations will offer refreshments.

Maps of the tour, which is free and self-guided, may be downloaded from www.ysarts.org and will also be available the day of the tour at the Winds, the Springs Motel and Young’s Jersey Dairy.

Several local businesses and the Winds have reported that they have noticed an influx of customers on Studio Tour days, according to Goldberg. For instance, she said, at least 200 visitors have come to her work space at each event. Out of that number, about half are from out of town, including visitors from Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky who said they came to Yellow Springs specifically for the tour, Goldberg said.

Artwork by Kaethi Seidl, one of the artists featured on the Artist Studio Tour.

And this weekend, the event is drawing a busload of about 25 members of the Toledo Art Museum, who are incorporating the tour in a day trip that also includes a visit to the Westcott House in Springfield.

None of the success has come without effort, said Goldberg, who described the Studio Tour as “a huge undertaking” that includes a mailing of 5,000 brochures and press releases to newspapers in all major Ohio cities, along with Indianapolis, Bloomington and Richmond, Ind., and Kalamazoo, Mich.

While she initiated the event, Goldberg receives significant support from the participating artists, who volunteer their time for publicity, sponsorship, mailing or brochure committees.

Potter David Hergesheimer, who with his wife, Keiko, has participated in several tours, said he is glad to help promote the event. With gas prices rising, many artists would love to be able to sell their wares out of their studios rather than having to drive to art fairs, he said. While he would like to see the Studio Tour grow a little faster than it has, Hergesheimer said he is hopeful that organizers’ sustained efforts will pay off.

“It is growing,” he said. “That’s what we’re looking forward to.”

According to Hergesheimer, many art enthusiasts attend the tour because, in our global economy, they get satisfaction from actually meeting artists and getting to know them.

“With so many of our products coming from overseas, more and more people want to meet local people who make things,” he said.

While all of the artists get involved in the tour in hopes of selling their work, they also gain something from working together, Goldberg said.

In Yellow Springs, she said, “potters tend to know potters and painters know painters, but this is a great way to work with other artists in the community who you might not otherwise know and to learn about each others’ worlds.”

The opportunity to meet other artists in Yellow Springs motivated Ellen Barry, who is fairly new to town, to join this spring’s Studio Tour, she said. She will open her Collier Road home, several miles north of Yellow Springs, to show her work space and her gallery, which includes mainly portraits and figure drawings done in pastels, graphite or silverpoint.

She draws her inspiration from the human face and figure, she said, and she especially seeks to convey the similarity of the human condition regardless of culture or country. Many of her models she found in her travels or from photographs taken by others, she said.

“People are the same all over,” she said. “We all have the same feelings and it shows on our faces.”

Also new to the Studio Tour this spring is photographer Martha Mendelsohn, who will exhibit her eclectic collection of landscapes, interiors, portraits and self-portraits. Her goal, she said, is to experiment with perspective and to “offer a fresh perspective by rediscovering the extraordinary in the world around her.”

Through her photographs she wants viewers to consider “what you look at and how everyone sees it differently,” she said. “This is how I see.”

The third new participant in the tour is clay artist Kaethi Seidl, who specializes in handmade ceramic tiles, custom murals and one-of-a-kind mosaic installations for both indoor and outdoor applications.

A ceramic artist for 10 years, Seidl began by working on the wheel in pottery, and then found herself drawn more to the two-dimensional forms of mosaics and tiles, she said. She said she draws her inspirations from her garden and the natural world as well as from her native Europe, especially the ancient mosaics and frescoes of Italy.

Other artists participating in the Studio Tour include Goldberg, who creates “handbuilt, everyday objects” that are decorated with textures and hand-mixed glazes, according to the tour’s press release; Grimes, who creates “functional stoneware pottery that emphasizes form and color,” including decorative raku ceramics; and the Hergesheimers, whose ceramic work is influenced by Japanese art, natural forms and architectural elements.

In addition, the tour will feature the work of Michael Jones, who makes “high-fire stoneware ceramics inspired by many trips to Japan”; Naysan and Jalana McIlhargey, who create wood-fired ceramics that are “both practical and useful in nature”; Alice Robrish, whose new sculpture series -“combines the female figure with driftwood, exploring the concepts of continuity and change”; and textile artist Corinne Whitesell, who weaves, spins and dyes wool, mohair and cotton.

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com