This year’s Fall Foliage Art Studio Tour, which was founded in 2008, features 25 artists in 16 studios in the southern half of the Monadnock region, including Temple, New Ipswich and Rindge.
The tour also includes studios in Keene, Marlborough, Swanzey, Nelson and Munsonville.
“It is really wonderful for people to get out meet the artists, to see all the different studios, to see all the supplies and how the artists make their art,” said tour organizer Marylise Reilly-Fajal. “Some of our artists will be doing demonstrations. I’ll be doing a watercolor demonstration at my studio in Keene.”
Studios will be open Saturday, Oct. 11 and Sunday, Oct. 12, with some studios also open on Monday, Oct. 13. For a map of the free, self-driving tour and a complete list of studios and times, visit fallfoliageartstudiotour.com/.
In Temple, ceramicist Pamella Nowell will have her studio, “Mudworks,” open to visitors at 22 Cutter Road. Nowell, who has been a potter for more than 30 years, creates wood, electric, and raku-fired ceramics, including cups, bowls, vases and pitchers.
Participating artists in Rindge include painter Susan Wadsworth, ceramicist Shana Brautigam and mixed media artist Sharon DiGennaro.
Wadsworth, whose studio is at 22 Mountain Road in Rindge, creates layered pastel landscapes inspired by her travels around the U.S. and around the globe. Ceramicist Shana Brautigam, who has been working out of Rooted in Clay studio at 28 Middle Winchendon Road since 2003, creates wood-fired pottery with imprints of leaves and other natural textures. Sharon DiGennaro creates different forms of art with pottery, dyed silk, glass and mixed-media at her studio at 99 Main St. in Rindge.
In New Ipswich, artist Danielle LeBris creates many-layered paintings using encaustic and cold wax techniques. LeBris’s studio is at 239 Main St., Studio 1A. Right next door, in studio 1B, metal sculptor Gerry Friedman uses steel and found objects to “represent the world we live in.”
At 6 Upper Pratt Pond Road in New Ipswich, mixed media artist Lisa Derby Oden creates cards, “altered books,” handmade books, mosaics and more. Just down the way at 88 Pratt Pond Road, artist Judith Prager creates landscapes, abstract paintings, floral, sketches, and animal and nature scenes, working in pen and ink and acrylics.
The Fall Foliage Studio tour runs concurrently with the Monadnock Art Tour, which includes only artists in towns bordering Dublin, plus Sharon.
Reilly-Fajal, a former instructor at the Sharon Arts Center, said the organizers of the two art tours work together and have ” a lot of overlap.”
“We all work together, a lot of us paint together. It is wonderful that the Monadnock Tour is thriving and supporting so many artists. We all support one another; it can be a little lonely being an artist,” Reilly-Fajal said.
Reilly-Fajal said the region has an unusually high concentration of artists and creative people.
“There is a reason there are so many artists here. They have been drawn by Monadnock for hundreds of years,” Reilly-Fajal said. “It’s the history of the region; there have always been artists here—since the 19th century, people have come here to paint the mountain.”
Reilly-Fajal said many members of the Fall Foliage Tour gather for plein-air painting, often within sight of Monadnock.
“We all paint together—everybody has their own path and makes their own choices, we don’t do everything together, but some of us really like to go and paint outside and be inspired by the light and the colors, especially in the fall,” Reilly-Fajal said.
Reilly-Fajal said some favorite spots for local painters are Monadnock Berries in Troy, Cathedral of the Pines in Rindge, Alyson’s Orchard in Walpole and Rosaly’s Farmstead in Peterborough.
“These are wonderful artists, and we hope everyone will get out to see them, learn more about them, and see their art and the way they work. It’s a very special opportunity to see beautiful work and some beautiful studios,” Reilly-Fajal said.