Island Art Studio Tour

The Holiday 2012 Vashon Island Art Studio Tour will be held on two weekends, December 1st and 2nd and 8th and 9th, 10-4 each day. It’s a free, self-guided event with 38 participating studios, shops and galleries. Follow the numbers designated on the Studio Tour map which is available online at www.VashonIslandArtStudioTour.com, and at most island businesses.
Fashion designer Azula of Azula By Design (Stop #12 on the tour) will entice you with her fantasy collection of colorful Fascinators and Headdresses. The multitalented mononymous designer and singer says her childhood inspiration was her great aunt Mary Phillips who "would visit wearing high-heeled patent leather red shoes and a hot pink coat with big buttons and lots of sparkly jewelry and a red beehive hairdo and really pretty earrings and long red fingernails." Azula says that everyone in her family sewed and had a sense of style. "I was always counseling people on their wardrobes and I started making things for my friends, and I started making things for myself. I was always doing it to make someone happy and they felt good with what they were wearing and how they were wearing it. Now, when women put my creations on and look in the mirror they don’t see themselves the same way. They are transformed. It’s kind of humbling."
Artist-Blacksmith Shannon Buckner is the fire part of Fire Fiber Flower (Stop #10 on the tour). She will showcase hand-forged one-of-a-kind garden sculptures of fictitious flora along with home décor items such as candlesticks and decorative hooks of the same organic aesthetic. Shannon has a design degree and before working with metal was a pastel artist/textile print designer which influences her lovely flowery creations. She has developed her own multi-layer oil paint finishing technique to beautify her imaginative shapes with subtle variegated hues. It’s exciting to visit the forge and watch the blacksmith at work, and quite a thrill to see supposedly immutable metal glow red-hot and become malleable to take on fanciful shapes in her skilled hands. Shannon is a full-time artist who sells her work direct to the public at art shows in addition to custom work such as gates and railings. This is a great chance to see her unique creations. Fire Fiber Flower is one of the studio groups on the tour hosted at Shannon’s blacksmith shop. The group includes Maria Ruano who makes hats from recycled sweaters (some with Vashon-grown goat hair) and Mike Urban who creates flower sculptures from vintage glass. They invite you to enjoy their artist-crafted items, sip hot cider and perhaps try your hand at bending hot metal.
Larry Muir and Penny Grist of the Grist & Muir Studio (Stop #20 on the tour) are two very different artists. Larry is a silversmith who works with glass, enamel and semi-precious stones. Climbing the steep, narrow stairs to the former physicist’s small attic studio is a little adventure which is rewarded by the chance to watch the master’s hands turn silver plate or wire into beautiful jewelry. Larry explains how he discovered the secrets of silver chain-making by studying chains crafted by ancient silversmiths. He talks about why sterling is a better choice than pure silver for jewelry. Penny is a mosaic artist who came to the art from quilting, woodworking, painting and jewelry making. She makes three-dimensional sculpture mosaics as well as more traditional two-dimensional ones. Many of her colorful glass mosaics are designed for a garden setting where they will reflect the sun and shine perpetually with beautiful color.
The Vashon Woodworks (Stop #6 on the tour) is a diverse group of wood artists who create useful or fanciful articles from turned bowls to toys to furniture. David Earle is a professional woodturner who specializes in tops: kid- (or adult-) powered toys that never lose their fascination. John Moore makes beautiful, sensuously-formed treen such as spoons and scoops from fancy, silky-feeling woods. Paula Allegrini is a furniture maker who also crafts letter-openers and jewelry from exotic materials. Jim Coulson, whose large, well-equipped shop hosts the group, is a bowl turner and makes beautiful art bowls as well as kitchenware on his massive lathe. The shop also hosts several other artists including one who makes stained glass windows. It’s great fun to visit this extraordinary group and to see the artists in action as they turn trees into art.
Quartermaster Press (Stop #28 on the tour – at the Beall Greenhouses) is a group of ten artists who use various print techniques to create one-of-a-kind and very-limited-edition art. One technique is the "monoprint," in which inks are rolled or painted on an acrylic or metal plate, often with stencil effects, to create a single printed image. Another technique is the "collagraph" where a plate is made from applying textured surfaces to a base which is then inked to make a limited number of prints. The artists use these techniques as well as others to create artwork ranging from cards to large 2-dimensional pieces and some décor items like printed shades and night lamps.
You are sure to enjoy your visit to these artists as well as the others on the tour.