This weekend, Saturday and Sunday, July 30 – 31, from 11 am to 5 pm over twenty artists in Roxbury, Halcottsville, Margaretville, Fleischmanns, Halcott Center, Arkville, and Andes will open their studios to the public, and show their working spaces.

A good place to start the tour is the Wawaka (Halcottsville) Grange, which is true to its original function as a Grange and General Store. Refreshments, bathrooms, and handicap access are available at this location. Several artists will be showing at the Grange, including painters Sophia Maduri and Oneida Hammond.

Alix Travis, one of the founding members of the tour, will once again open her studio located at 103 Bragg Hollow Road in Halcottsville. An established plein air painter, Alix has received several awards and recognitions, including signature status in the Pennsylvania Watercolor Society and the NY Plein Air Painters. In 2014 she published The Catskill Coloring Book, which includes twenty-six of her plein air watercolor paintings. This weekend, during the open studios tour, Alix will paint en plein air, and will demonstrate some of her techniques.

Urban realist painter Lisbeth Firmin will be showing her oil paintings and monotype prints at her studio located in the Commons Building in Margaretville. Lisbeth is known for works such as Fifth Avenue (1995), and Woman on a Train (2014). Just recently she opened a new show at Rice – Polak Gallery in Provincetown, MA where she has been exhibiting for many years. Lisbeth asserts that her work is really not about the colors, but about the light and shadow in the composition.

Multi-media artist Alan Powell and painter Lesley Powell will be showing their work at 993 Main Street in Fleischmanns, and painter Anthony Margiotta will open his studio located at 355 Route 3 in Halcott Center. Margiotta, who does not have formal training as an artist, draws inspiration from his surroundings, whether be the woods of the Catskill Mountains or the urban scenes of New York City.

In Arkville, painter and printmaker Amy Masters, and architect and printmaker Ted Sheridan will be opening their studios located at 222 Chris Long Road. Over the past year or so Amy has been working on a series of monotype prints inspired by feathers. The fragility and the uniqueness of this object has captivated her, and she has decided to set and explore various shapes and tones that come with the printmaking process. Her husband Ted Sheridan will be showing a series of metallic prints capturing the oxidation process, and in so doing, retaining the most spectacular shapes and forms on paper.

Poet and furniture designer Gary Mead will be showing his gallery at 1289 South Side Road in Margaretville, and sculptor Ken Hiratsuka will be opening his barn at 34325 State Hwy 28 in Andes.

Heading back over to Roxbury, you’ll have the opportunity to stop by weaver Tabitha Gilmore-Barnes, whose studio is located at 424 Carr George Road in Denver. Tabitha has in her studio a professional loom, and happily demonstrates how to work the weft and create the density that is desired for a new piece. Weaving is one of the oldest forms of a blend of art and function,” she explains. “And it’s gratifying that it isn’t forgotten.”

In Roxbury painters Ellen Wong and Helene Manzo, photographer Frank Manzo, ceramicists and printmakers Peter Yamaoka and Gerda Van Leeuwen, and sculptor John Sanders will all show new works produced over the past year. Studio visits trigger questions that aren’t often asked in formal settings such as galleries and museums, and provide access to an intimate space that the artist doesn’t often share with others.

To learn more about the tour, read our feature story at https://artinthecatskills.com/2016/07/19/featured-destination-amr-open-studios-tour-2016/.

For maps and more information, visit http://www.amropenstudios.org. As you drive around this weekend, look for the “OPEN STUDIO” signs and brochures with maps available for pick up at various business sponsors and community supporters.

The AMR Open Studio Tour 2016 is funded by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts Decentralization Grant Program, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the NYS Legislature, and is administered in Delaware County by The Roxbury Arts Group, and with fiscal support from The MARK Project and participating artists.

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© 2016 Simona David