Tennessee Craft-Southeast Presents 20th Annual Holiday Studio Tour

Tennessee Craft- Southeast is having its 20th annual Holiday Studio Tour on the Mountain 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 5, and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 6. Tennessee Craft-Southeast is the regional branch of Tennessee Craft, the statewide organization that supports and promotes all handmade crafts in Tennessee.

At its inception, the local studio tour ranged from Chattanooga to Tullahoma, but gradually, the tour focused increasingly on the Sewanee area because of the concentration of artists and exhibition spaces on the mountain. 

Thirty local and regional artists will show their work, ranging from textiles, sculpture, jewelry, pottery and glass to paintings, cast bronze, metal work and wood work. 

Sewanee artists who will open their studios to the public during the tour include Bob Askew, Claire Reishman, Archie Stapleton and Merissa Tobler. 

Other Sewanee locations displaying work are the Potter home, the Greenspace Art Collective, the American Legion Hall, Locals Gallery, Claiborne House (Otey’s parish hall), Shenanigans and the Spencer Room at St. Andrew’s-Sewanee School. 

Additionally, there is a group exhibition of all artists’ work in the St. Andrew’s-Sewanee Art Gallery, located in the center of the Simmonds Building at SAS. Most sites host several different artists showing their work, while the SAS Art Gallery presents an exhibition from all members of the group, in addition to SAS faculty and students. Most works featured in the Studio Tour Exhibition are for sale at the Gallery. 

There are six sponsors for the Holiday Studio Tour this year: Monteagle Inn, Mooney’s, Shenanigans, Locals, Sewanee Inn and the Blue Chair. Studio Tour brochures are available at each of these local businesses.

Bright yellow signs mark the tour route, and maps are available at all locations on the tour, as well as at all sponsors’ locations and on the Tennessee Craft-Southeast website,
<tennesseecraft.org/members/chap​ters/southeast>. 

Tennessee Craft–Southeast Holiday Tour Dec. 6–7

The annual 2014 Holiday Tour of Fine Craft will be 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 6, and 11 a.m.–4 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 7. The studio tour features art by members of the Tennessee Craft–Southeast (formerly CAST-TACA) and members of the St. Andrew’s-Sewanee faculty.

As in past years, the St. Andrew’s-Sewanee Art Gallery will host a full exhibit featuring the work of artists in the Tennessee Craft-Southeast through Thursday, Dec. 11. Most works featured in the exhibit, as well as SAS student-designed holiday cards, are for sale. Art will also be for sale in the Spencer Room, located on the SAS campus, and in the SAS art studios.

Also participating in the tour are numerous local artists including Bob Askew, oils and watercolors; Anne Griffin, fiber arts; Jasper King, chain saw-carved wooden bowls; Bill Mauzy, wood; Mary McElwain, silverplate flatware jewelry; G. Sanford McGee, metal/mixed media; 

Christi Ormsby, clay; Ben Potter, cut metal figures; Claire Reishman, clay; Archie Stapleton, clay; Jeanie Stephenson, bronze; and Merissa Tobler, pottery.

Maps for the studio tour are available in the SAS Art Gallery, as well as at other stops along the tour. Follow the bright yellow signs across the Mountain and beyond to see the unique variety of artist and artwork on the tour, including works in pottery, jewelry, glass, wood, textiles, paintings, prints and much more.

The SAS Art Gallery is located in the center of Simmonds Hall. Gallery hours are Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.–3 p.m., and by appointment. For more information about the holiday tour go to <www.tennesseecraft.org/southeast>.

Tour Artists’ Studios on Saturday & Sunday Across the Mountain

The 2013 annual Holiday Tour of Artists’ Studios and Galleries, sponsored by the Craft Artists of Southern Tennessee and Tennessee Arts and Crafts Association, will be Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 7–8, at locations across the Mountain. Thirty-five artists will show work for sale at 13 locations around Sewanee and Monteagle. The tour includes clay, metal, fiber, jewelry, painting, wood and soap. 

The tour is open 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 7, and noon–5 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 8. Student-designed art, cards and gift items (some of which benefit outreach efforts), will be for sale in the St. Andrew’s-Sewanee School art studio, adjacent to the Gallery. 

As part of the event, the St. Andrew’s-Sewanee Gallery’s “Full CAST” exhibit features the work of artists on tour, as well as SAS faculty and staff. 

Greg Pond was the juror for the exhibit. Winners of the Merit Awards ($100 each) were Archie Stapleton, Merissa Tobler and Susan Church. Honorable Mention was awarded to Ollie Durant, Claire Reishman and Sanford McGee.

In reviewing the works, Pond said, “This year’s Full CAST exhibition showcases a diverse range of techniques, media and ideas. It contains many impressive works of very high quality. After surveying the exhibition, I determined that the merit awards would go to the artists who matched high levels of technical skill and design with equal measures of ingenuity and experimentation. Each artist seemed to be pushing their own work forward while maintaining high standards for quality in both the craftsmanship and design.”

About the winners, Pond said, “I found remarkable clarity in the formal relationships within each piece. Through their work, each artist displays a certain insight that allows them to exploit the potential of both form and material without the sort of effusive embellishment that often distracts from the essential qualities of both. A successful balance of mastery of technique and material/formal speculation is evidence of sustained and thoughtful attention with the hand and the eye. These works conveyed that their creators were continuing to experiment, and in doing so, contributing to their field.

“Creativity and innovation are born through a rigorous and sustained process of making. Getting your hands dirty breeds artistic invention if you are open to the possibilities your practice reveals and ambitious enough to pursue them. Each of these three artists seems to be sufficiently aware of his or her processes to be responsive to lessons learned while the work is being made. My hunch is that they allowed their intuition to guide them as much as their prior knowledge and experience.” 

The works that received honorable mentions possessed either exceptional formal qualities or novel approaches to working with the given media. 

Follow the bright yellow signs across the Mountain to see the unique variety of artists and artwork on the tour, including works in pottery, jewelry, glass, wood, textiles, paintings, prints and much more. The following artists are part of the tour: 

Bob Askew, watercolor and oil; Becky Braddock, pottery; Tom and Susan Church, wood; Lisa Dorney, fused glass; Olive B. “Lolly” Durant, marbling on paper and fabric; Anne Griffin, knitting; Shore Griffin, jewelry; Barbara Hughes, sculpture and painting; Sherri Warner Hunter, concrete and mosaic sculptures; Carol Kimmons, ceramics;Jasper King, chainsaw-carved wooden bowls;Marjorie Langston, glass; Cheryl Lankhaar, oil on canvas;

Mary L. Lynch, hand-built functional clay; Bill Mauzy, wood; Mary Beth McClure, glass; Mary McElwain, concrete and silver-plate flatware; G. Sanford McGee, etched copper and mixed media; Denise Miller, pastels, collage, watercolor; June B. Miller, lapidary, jewelry; Sherry Nickell, glass; Dan Pate, oil paintings; Ben Potter, cut copper figures; Jan Quarles, textiles and natural dyes; Claire D. Reishman, clay; Thomas Spake, blown glass; Archie Stapleton, ceramics; Jeanie Stephenson, bronze sculpture; Merissa Tobler, pottery; Connie Ulrich, jewelry; Sarah Vance, goat milk soaps; Ursula Vann, clay; Lynne Vogel, textiles; and Linda White, fiber.