Labour Day Weekend Inroads Tour: tradition and change
This year’s Labour Day Inroads Studio Tour in Land O’ Lakes and
Lanark
Highlands
is a fascinating blend of tradition and change. Inroads itself has become a tradition in Eastern Ontario, and many people plan months ahead to visit on the tour weekend. For the artists, Labour Day weekend has become a major goal to work towards throughout the summer. Yet, each year the tour offers both the new and the familiar, as a study of brochures past and present will show.
For one thing, the arts that are exhibited on the tour include traditional skills like blacksmithing, weaving, or woodcarving as well as some of the latest computer printing technologies and contemporary design elements. While the artists talk about ageless sources of inspiration: lakes, woods, gardens, old stone carvings, spiritual principles, and raw emotion, they are constantly trying new materials, tackling new themes, and branching out into new media.
Exhibitors come and go over the years, also. The 1995 tour brochure had nine studios and sixteen participants. Of those sixteen, four women, Joanne Pickett, Sarah Hale, Lisa Moses, and Martina Field, are involved in this year’s 14th Inroads Tour. Of the other artists from the 1995 tour, some have left the area for other locations or moved on to other careers. Artist Jean Townsend, who was often a guest of her daughter, Martina Field, passed away during 2005, and we remember her with affection and gratitude.
This year’s brochure lists 19 studios and 32 individuals or couples showing their creations. Ellen Good, weaver, is returning to the tour after an absence of six years. Brian Graham, wood carver and pyrographer, is joining the tour for the first time at his studio south of Parham on
Elbow
Lake
. Six more new artists will be sharing their work as guests of established studio locations.
Studio 2 will be a particularly vibrant and exciting stop this year with lots of new features. Along with their old friends Bill Veale and Heather Sherratt, Bonnie and Dave Jehu will be hosting 3 new artisans. Mark Garvock, a blacksmith from Fallbrook, will be explaining his art and showing his fine hand wrought iron works. Photographer Mary Ferguson will be previewing a calendar featuring local historical sites as well as displaying her creative photographs exploring the wondrous world of fantasy and nature. Artist Claude Lemay will be exhibiting her intensely expressive abstract paintings. As well, host Dave Jehu will be launching his new children’s book, The Ice People, a story of fantasy and adventure drawn from Dave’s Arctic experiences.
As Studio 2 illustrates, the excitement of the tour includes seeing new artists and also revisiting old friends, perhaps to buy that special object you longed for last year and have been thinking about ever since. And what changes will there be in the work of familiar exhibitors? How will Ellen’s weaving be different after six years away from the tour? Has Sarah Hale’s spring trip to
Japan
influenced her batik style? What balance has Joanne Pickett achieved between her older glazes and the experiments of last year? Who will turn up as last minute mystery guests? Which gardens are particularly colourful this season, and who has expanded or renovated their homes and studios?
The Inroads artisans hope that you will join them on Labour Day Weekend -- September 2-4, 10am to 5 pm -- and enjoy the traditions and the innovations that make this tour worth taking year after year. Everyone is welcome, admission is free. Look for the distinctive yellow signs, pick up tour brochures with maps at gas stations or tourist booths along Highway #7, visit www.inroadstour.ca., or telephone 613-335-2073.
