On April 27th and 28th, I joined about 40 other Bloomington artists in opening my studio to the public. We all invited visitors to see our work spaces and showed them the various ways we get from a pile of materials to a finished piece. The two days were full of excited art enthusiasts making the event just as fun for me as it must have been for them. I met some fantastic people that are a part of our community that I would have otherwise never had a chance to talk to. A huge Thank You to everyone who came by to chat and look around!

One of the down sides of participating in the event as an artist is that you don’t get to see other spaces. I was lucky in that I shared an auxiliary space, the Fell Building, with nine other artists. For those of us who don’t rent the studio spaces within the building, it meant that we needed to set up a space that mimicked the one we work in at home. Having the other artists in the same building meant that we could see what each person was up to and share some wonderful discussions of our work in the little downtime that was available to us. It is a great byproduct of an event of this size and I was able to really take advantage. Below are a few images I was able to snap at various points in the weekend.

Doug Sanders, Netsuke Carvings (miniature carvings)

Emily Bogard, Made from Ties

Lori McDonald, CharmHouse

Mary Hambly, Paper Art Quilts

Due to a conjoining event on Saturday, we even had a parade come through the studios!