5 Westside locations on Artists’ Studio Tour
Five Westside locations are on the third annual Artists' Studio Tour and Sale this year.
In all, 8 stops with 16 artists will be available in the juried junket, in which people are welcome to visit any or all of the artists and (in many cases) see them at work. Refreshments will be served. The free event will be Saturday, Nov. 12 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday, Nov. 13, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. In addition to the Westside, there are two Manitou Springs locations and one downtown. (A full list appears on this page.) The Westside Pioneer met with three of the artists who will be at Westside studios: Martha Mans, Jane Roberts and Jeannie Breeding. The former two are Studio Tour veterans, while this is the first year for Breeding. Roberts, who specializes in jewelry, said she thinks the event is good for both artists and art-lovers. “People get to see where artists work,” she said. “It's much more personal.” Mans, who paints a wide variety of subject matter, has her work at the Hayden Hays Gallery at the Broadmoor, but many local people don't get out there, she observed. “With the tour, more people get to look at my work.” Breeding, a landscape artist, is looking forward to her first tour. She is no stranger to meeting the public, recently retired after working as a school teacher in District 11 for 28 years and then showing at several art fairs this summer. “A lot of people ask interesting questions,” she said. “And they like to buy from the artist.” All three artists expressed pride in their work, as well as a continuing drive to keep expanding and improving. Roberts started studying enamel this year and how that can be used instead of stones within a metal setting. Another aspect she's trying out is weaving in metal - similar to what Karen Pierce does at the Westside's Willow Bend Studios. Mans paints big or small, people or places, oil or watercolor, and experiments with different angles. An aspect in painting people, which she teaches in her classes, is striving to get at the heart of the subject matter: “It's who they are, not just objects,” she said. Breeding, similar to Roberts, has tried out various media over the years. During a joint interview, they laughed at how they've actually moved in opposite directions, with Breeding starting in jewelry (when she was in college) and Roberts in painting. Breeding specializes in fog-oriented landscapes, and even recently went to China, in part at least, to look at and photograph areas there that are known for being foggy. Roberts says she hopes a lot of people take in the tour, if for nothing else than to see the “amount of tremendous talent in Colorado Springs.” It's a little ironic, she said, that many people here don't realize the quality of artists in the area, but “when we're selling far away, people say, 'Oh, you're a Colorado artist.' ” Westside Pioneer article |