The 5th Annual Muddy Creek Artists Guild Open Studio Tour was a fantastic success last weekend. Over two crisp and sunny autumn days, 143 visitors came to our 8 locations, logging close to 400 individual studio visits! Positive comments were received from artists and visitors alike, with many emphasizing how much fun it was for the opportunity to talk about art. Demonstrations and hands-on activities were popular, including felting flowers and paperweights, and making envelope books.
It was exciting to see so many people visit multiple tour stops. Others concentrated on the artists they already knew or a medium that attracted them. Local South County folks made up the largest numbers, while some came from further distances, like Kent Island, southern Maryland, the DC and Baltimore suburbs, and even western Virginia. One visitor was heard to say, “It’s worth the drive to feel SO welcomed into artists’ studios!” Indeed, the participating artists, to a person, created a warm and friendly experience demonstrative of their joy in sharing art with the public. (Rumor has it that one stop even served wine!)
Behind the scenes, the Guild events take a lot of planning—as studio tour co-captains Mike Dennis and Kendra Smith will tell you! Yet, with a team of members cooperating to pull all the parts together, events like this tour look seamless. Shout outs to Jan Willem Van der Vossen and Lisa Fairbank for subcommittee support, participating artists for opening their studios, The Twisted Bead and Rock Shop for sponsoring the tour, and the many business sponsors whose donations funded the raffle.
The studio tour is one of several events each year that serve as the foundation of what the Guild is all about. In our next post, we’ll be sharing more about the history and mission of the Guild. Hope to see you here again for that one!
What were some of your favorite highlights of the studio tour? Post a comment below to let us know.
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