Tools for Open Studio Patrons & Artists

In this ink-and-paper illustration, Leo Toye shares his impressions of the dynamism of Vashon’s Open Studio. And for the more linear, he explains below:

While one thinks easily of the many tools we artists use, it is less usual to note & celebrate the tools used by the visitors, our guests… who must follow their intuition & take the initiative to create a personally unique experience of the Vashon Art Studio Tour…

Getting your feet into our studios is absolutely important to this process!

Whether you consider yourselves adventurers, seekers or day-trippers, clients, customers or patrons… Welcome!

Now we invite your use of more subtle tools like observation, discernment & consideration… appreciation of our work, whether enthusiastic or questioning. Studio is about study; we all use the tools of eyes & minds as we make the engagement which is such an essential part of this rare sharing. By opening our studios we are inviting your skills to help us learn as well. We love talking & listening with you, seeing though your eyes!

Creative critique thus becomes inherent & welcome. Choices are inevitably made, with possibilities for sooner or later, but ultimately your energetic support is our goal, whether critical, emotional or as an actual sale.

The Vashon Art Studio Tour happens twice each year: always the first two full weekends in May & December, which means you should put May 5th & 6th plus May 12th & 13th on your calendars. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. You may find a brochure & map online at www.vashonislandartstudiotour.com/Spring2012/
or pick up a printed copy at many Island business & art venues.

Leo Toye is a doppelganger for Vashon Island jeweler and artist Gordon R Barnett, whose GRB Bells studio on Dilworth Point is a popular Open Studio stop.