Potential Three Rivers Artist Guild Open Studios

By Tamara Scott and Jeanne Kelley-Brown, Open Studios Coordinators

At our member meetings on November 14 (2022) and January 9th, the idea of having a TRAG-run Open Studios was proposed by some members. Jeanne Kelley-Brown and Tamara Scott are spearheading the beginnings of this project and want to assess member interest as well as member participation—we can’t do this alone!

In case you are not familiar with the Open Studios concept, here is a little explanation. Local artists open their home studio spaces for participants to come visit, view and purchase their art. If participating artists have room, they may also host 1-3 other artists who can set up in the house, the garage, or on the driveway, depending on what space is available. Portland Open Studios is HUGE, runs over two weekends, and had over 115 artists participate in 2022.

Damascus Open Studios usually has about 6 studio stops with around 21 artists. Open Studios of Beavercreek used to host two events per year (Spring and Fall) with an average of up to 26 individual artists displaying their works at as many as 14 different studio locations. Sadly, Beavercreek is no longer hosting these events after shutting down during the pandemic. Open Studios is really fun and gives people a chance to see artists in their work environments, have more personal conversations with the artists, and get to see our beautiful surroundings as they travel between studios. Usually there is a drawing for a gift certificate to the studio of the winner’s choice if they visit all of the studios and turn in a card (with signatures from each studio stop) at the end of their studio visit.

Please fill out a brief survey, as soon as possible, to indicate your interest and your level of anticipated participation if this project were to get off the ground. If there is a lot of interest and willing participants, we may be able to have our first Open Studios in the Fall. We could have studios in Oregon City, Milwaukie, West Linn, and perhaps, even Canby.

Here is a list of what would be needed (that we can think of right now!) in order for TRAG to do
this:

1. Call for Artists (application should include photos of work, questions on if artist is willing to
   have their space be a stop, how many artists can they host).
2. Jury potential artists
3. Go to artist studio, etc., to see if the accommodations will work for the show.
4. We need signs with numbers–4 for each spot
5. Postcards with a map included
6. Flyers with a map and list of artists and medium at each stop
7. Social Media
8. Meeting with artists (probably 2)
9. Fee for artist

We would probably need a committee of at least 6-8 people to do this.

Are you in??!!