 HOME | BLOG | ABOUT US | CONTACT US | PAST ISSUES | ADVERTISING RATES | RACK LOCATIONS Art in the Heart of North Carolina by Forrest C. Greenslade The Chatham and Orange County Studio Tours are now a holiday tradition all over our region. Each year, more than 100 regionally and nationally known artists open their personal studios for visitors to experience the creative process, and purchase original works of art. 
The Chatham Studio Tour, founded in 1992 to promote artists living in Pittsboro, Siler City and throughout scenic rural Chatham County, is one of the oldest in North Carolina and a prototype for other area studio tours. Inspired by the success of the Chatham County tour, the Orange County Artists Guild Open Studio Tour was instituted in 1995 by Monnda Welch, an enterprising jewelry maker living in Orange County, NC, just north of Chatham County. (Monnda has since relocated to Chatham.) In 2000, the Orange County Arts Commission initiated the creation of the Orange County Artists Guild to continue hosting the Tour, as well as to become a resource for artists and the community. Today, more than 70 artists who reside in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough, Mebane, and rural Orange County, present their artwork work each year. Anita Mills, President of the Orange County Artists Guild explains, "In our Guild we try to connect artists with one another for professional support and development, as well as to help our artists find and nurture their audiences. The studio tour format is perfect for forging relationships between artists and the public. There are very few other opportunities for art-interested folks to see the inner workings of studios, meet artists, and learn about the creative process first-hand. Each November, our invitation to the public is... 'Take the chance, take the drive, be inspired!' We hope people will come out and visit—we'll be ready and waiting."Mark Hewitt, master potter and author, is one of the featured artists of the Chatham Studio Tour. Born in Stoke-on-Trent, England, Mark is the son and grandson of directors of Spode, the fine china manufacturers. “As a student at Bristol University in the early 1970's, I read Bernard Leach's "A Potter's Book," and decided to become a studio potter rather than an industrial manager,” says Hewitt. This decision led to a three-year apprenticeship with Michael Cardew, and later another with Todd Piker in Connecticut, where Mark met his wife, Carol. "In 1983, we moved to Pittsboro NC to set up our pottery," Mark said. Mark built a very large wood kiln and began making the distinctive functional pots for which he is known, specializing in very large planters and jars, along with finely made smaller items. He uses local clays and blends the different North Carolinian folk traditions together into a contemporary style that has attracted a sizeable following. He has recently made and fired two huge “Obelisks”, measuring 62” in height and weighing about 250 pounds. His work has been featured in the Smithsonian magazine and on the cover of American Craft magazine, he has written extensively in the ceramic press, and he has exhibited in London, New York and Tokyo, as well as throughout the US. He is well-represented in museum and private collections. In 2006 Hewitt co-curated a major exhibition with Nancy Sweezy entitled "The Potter’s Eye: Art and Tradition in North Carolina Pottery," at the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC. The exhibition juxtaposed traditional pottery from around the world with the work of six contemporary potters and ran from October 30, 2005 – March 19, 2006. UNC Press published an exquisitely illustrated catalogue/book by Hewitt and Sweezy of the same title. Mark's work was featured in the PBS series, "Craft in America," and in the accompanying book and travelling exhibition. The show was aired nationally in May 2007. 
Painter Gordon Jameson is the Artists’ Liaison for OCAG, and one of the featured artists of the Orange Open Studio Tour. "We had been here a couple of years prior and fell in love with North Carolina and thought we might live there someday. When we had the opportunity to move out of LA we came directly here."Jameson’s work deals with ideas of connectedness or the interconnectedness of all things to each other and to time. It’s also a way to think about memory. He explores these ideas through landscape as well as the figure in landscape. Landscapes begin as sketches taken from life and brought back to the studio where eventually they are transformed into intensely colored organic abstractions. When he introduces human figures, he uses very specific photographs of family members and builds composite compositions using the same intense colors of the landscapes and employing a language of organic shapes with the figures. His current series of work, including the figure, is loosely concerned with the theme of the Madonna or Mother and Child coupled with memory and landscape. "I’ve been an artist for a long time and found artists have the same problems no matter where they live so one might as well live in place that that one loves and is conducive to creating art," Jameson concludes. "With the universities, active and cosmopolitan small towns, great restaurants, interesting people and beautiful surroundings, for me, that place is Orange County, North Carolina." Visitors to the Chatham and Orange Studio Tours can choose from a wide variety of art media including paintings, photography, sculpture, ceramics, glass work, jewelry and textile art. Studio Tour brochures with photos of the artists’ work, descriptions of the work, and maps are available at a number of locations throughout the Triangle area to help tour goers decide which studios to visit during these art filled weekends in November and December. This information along with additional photos and details about the artists and their work can also be found on the Orange and Chatham Guild websites at: http://www.orangecountyartistsguild.com and http://www.chathamartistsguild.org. In these days of vast shopping malls that look the same from city to city, these Studio Tours offer the chance to “buy local” and enrich your life with objects of integrity and beauty. Forrest Greenslade, PhD, is an artist and President of the Chatham Artists Guild, the professional organization that produces the Chatham Tour. |