Southwest Florida art enthusiasts will have a chance to get up close and personal with area artists on Saturday, April 28, during the Alliance for the Arts’ 1st Annual Artists’ Studio Tour. The daylong, self-guided tour of more than nine studios and homes in the Fort Myers area will be a fun, educational and inspirational way to help support cultural and educational programming at the Alliance, Lee County’s designated arts agency.
The day will begin at the Alliance’s 10-acre campus on the corner of McGregor and Colonial in Fort Myers, where ticket holders can enjoy a complimentary breakfast from 9:00–11:00 a.m. and receive a map to the studios, which will remain open until 4:00 p.m. Participants will decide the order and the amount of time they spend at each stop.
The artists who have opened their studios to the public for this novel art event include Chris Catti, Pat Dunn, Katie Gardenia, David Hammel, Marcus Jansen, Valerie Jewell, Leo and Krista Johnson, Steve Kalb, Myra Roberts, Byron M. Wood and Barbara Yeomans. Together, they cover a wide spectrum of media including painting, pottery and metal sculpture.
Kalb is a sculptor proficient in the millenia-old art of repoussage and Myra Roberts is in the news for her Project Tolerance: The Faces of Anne Frank exhibit that opens at the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center on March 2.
In 2011, Jansen was invited by international distiller Absolut Vodka to join 17 other highly-regarded artists in ABSOLUT BLANK, a creative initiative that launched last year around the world. Designed to further Absolut's desire to serve as a catalyst for cutting edge creativity, the global marketing campaign has previously attracted such icons as Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Damien Hirst, Douglas Gordon and Louise Bourgeois.
Jansen will be hosting a wine tasting with hors d'oeuvres for participants in the Artists' Studio Tour from 3:00-4:00 p.m. at his brand new downtown Unit A Contemporary Art Space, where participants can “WineD Down” and reflect on what they’ve experienced during the day’s tour.
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to watch local artists work in their own spaces, and talk with them about their creative processes—the how and why they do what they do. Tickets are $45 and are available now.
The Artists’ Studio Tour sponsorship is being provided by Finemark National Bank & Trust, Total Wine & More, Whitten Technical LTD and Leigh Frizzell Hayes.
The Lee County Alliance for the Arts proudly supports artists and arts organizations in our area as the state-designated Local Arts Agency for Lee County. The Alliance campus and galleries are open to the public from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 9:00
a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Saturdays. The Alliance's 10-acre campus and galleries are located at 10091 McGregor Boulevard, just south of Colonial Boulevard in Fort Myers.
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