Wesserunsett Arts Council received grant for annual event

The Rural Open Studios Tour event is an opportunity to travel from Skowhegan to Wellington to Mercer to Athens, and back for a peek into how local artists live and work. Art studios of more than 20 artists will be open for exploring from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29. The Wesserunsett Arts Council received a grant from the Maine Community Foundation to make the event a unique and fun look at the homes and studios of artists in central Maine.

There will be something for every artistic taste along the back roads and highways. Try out a trip to Wellington and Ripley to visit Wally Warren who takes many kinds of computers, washing machines, and old satellite dishes apart to create incredible, vibrant and colorful artwork. His neighbor Joe Kennedy is just down the road with beautiful sculptures from plumbing parts of brushed copper and steel. Steve Cayard, Richard Garrett, Martha Young and Bernie Beckman are all in the neighborhood. Participants can look at traditional birch bark canoes, photographs of Helen and Scott Nearing, plumbing sculptures, woodcuts and recycled art in one very small town.

Each town offers great creative expression after another. In Solon, woodworkers Michael Hoy and Perky Alsop will show their furniture artistry. Around the corner, Abby Shahn and James Fangbone work with different art expressions through paint, sculpture and a shrine in the woods. In Skowhegan, Canaan, Norridgewock, East Madison, Athens, Cornville and Mercer participants can find pottery (Yvonne Bollenbacher and David Ellis), felt work (Heather Kerner), pastels (Kathleen Perelka), woodworking that incorporates some elegantly twisted and found parts (both Randy Holden and Doug Malloy), acrylic and oils, (John Alsop and Kevin James) and watercolors (Susan Fowler and Mary Burr). Yvonne’s studio in Skowhegan offers participants to make their own pottery from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The cost is $10.

Each studio offers a unique look into the creations of Maine. Art will be for sale.

For more information, visit www.wes arts.org.


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