WILLIAMSVILLE-Rock River Artists (RRA) hosts its annual open studio tour this weekend in studios as varied as the artists themselves.
At sites from Newfane to Marlboro, the public is welcome to visit, to engage with artists, and, of course, to make a purchase.
While one could expect to see a dozen and more artists on this summer mainstay, this year only seven studios will be open: those of potters Richard Foye and Mucuy Bolles and of visual artists Deidre Scherer, Gianna Robinson, Lily Lyons, and Georgie, as well as the Olallie Daylily Gardens.
In addition to being the starting-off point where visitors can grab a map for a self-guided tour, Olallie this year will also host a sampling of each tour artist's work, as well as "Ellen Darrow/Aho," a retrospective of the works of potter Darrow (1933–2023).
The tour also features works by RRA's Roger Sandes, painter, and his late wife, Mary Walsh, collage artist.
Works of other past RRA tour artists - woodworker Dan DeWalt, potter Matt Tell, painter Steven Meyer, inlay artist T. Breeze Verdant - will be on display, along with those of newcomer Ayars Hemphill. Information about the work of RRA's Chris Triebert and Carol Ross will be available, as well.
Of his hosting, Olallie third-generation owner Chris Darrow says, "I want to facilitate art and have people here. That adds to the power of this place and what people experience here."
The field of Olallie daylilies "is a work of art - that's true - but this is a kind of stewardship, so the beauty that's created is what I simply allow to happen," Darrow says. "It grows and grows; [it's] a continually evolving piece, and you never know how it'll end up year to year."
He called the daylily field "a reflection of my mother [Ellen Darrow] and the way she created," he says, noting that she let her art happen not only in her pottery, but on any surface at hand that struck her as apt for her doodles and finished pieces.
While some fine artists and craftspeople have decided for a variety of reasons to bow out of the RRA tour, Lyons and Bolles have joined to open studios to visitors - a sign of regeneration.
'Coming home'
For painter/fused glass artist Lily Lyons, participating in the Rock River tour is "like coming home," she says.
The daughter of potter Jenifer Morier of Newfane, Lyons says she "grew up on this tour helping with the mailings back in the 1990s, when we used to mail things."
After taking a workshop to learn to work with fused glass, Moirer introduced Lyons to the technique.
"She had the tools, and I fell in love with it," she says. "Shiny stuff is one of my favorite things."
A painter for the last 25 years, Lyons has worked with fused glass for 18 years, a medium that seems to tickle her happy bones.
The painting, though, comes from a different place.
"I saw a therapist when I was living in Colorado; she got me to create art to express what was going on in my mind," Lyons says.
The painting started as therapy and turned into a daily exercise for her to figure out "what maze [
The glass art, though, was paying the bills.
Starting with sheets of glass, Lyons cuts and layers both cathedral and acrylic glasses, melting, mixing, fusing, and grinding them into shape as earrings, pendants, and tiles of various sizes.
Lyons's path has led from bowing out of high school as soon as she could to coaching snowboarding to stunt driving professionally - for about 10 years.
"It was really fun, but my body was worn out," she says.
Her art eventually led her to Key West, "where everything clicked for me; the art finally had a home; I had a street vendor's license, so I could go out every day on the sidewalk to represent my art to a bunch of tourists."
"I made a living, but it's really a hard place to live," she says.
She then followed the band Phish and sold in venue parking lots, "which kept me busy all summer selling glass jewelry and smaller stuff," Lyons says. "I did pretty well, but the traveling was exhausting."
Now, she says, "It's nice being stationary in such a beautiful spot."
She and her fiancé came to settle in 2022 and now live in a small cape perched high on a hill overlooking lush
Flying solo
Mucuy Bolles's work has been seen in the last couple years on the RRA tour at the site of Richard Foye's studio in South Newfane. This year, she's eager to show off her new studio in Marlboro designed and built by her husband, Chris Makay.
Born in a Mayan village, Komchén, Mexico, to a Mayan mother (Alejandra Bolles) and an American father (archeologist, historian, and
Bolles's heritage came to light at Three Stones; now it does so in her ceramics, which she pit fires more than ever before.
"It fits the aesthetics of my work because it's inspired by primitive Mayan archaeology. The raku brings mystery to the work," she says.
Many of her pieces are etched with Mayan hieroglyphs which, early on, she did not know how to read.
"Now I know how to create my own sentences and actually know how to say them," she says.
Bolles is happy to translate any messages embedded in her work - and to talk in depth about her pottery's nuances and relevance.
She exhibits at Mitchell-Giddings Gallery in Brattleboro and is a juried member of the Rock River Artists, Paradise City Arts, the Putney Craft Tour, and the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen (LNHC), at whose major annual crafts fair she shows her work.
Raku artist Richard Foye, a perennial highlight of the RRA tour, will show old works and new this year - many with innovative colors and glazes.
On the LNHC website, Foye says "I began making pottery as stoneware at University of Vermont. Museum visits induced me to try porcelain, a translucent clay body which is almost glass. During the '70s, raku became very popular, so I evolved into this method as it gave my forms more elegant shapes and spectacular colors."
Foye and Bolles are connected.
"I'd been picking his brains, trying to learn from him for years," when the LNHC honored the pair's relationship and talents with a grant through which Foye mentored Bolles for eight months.
They worked toward specific goals involving glazes and their chemistry, firing methods and processes, and kiln building, says Bolles, who calls Foye "an amazing mentor."
"I feel so fortunate to be part of such a welcoming and supportive group of artists," she says. "I admire how they have carved a way of existing and thriving in this idyllic countryside of Vermont. It is this artful way of living that I aspire to as well."
Artists return to the tour
Georgie Runkle, preferring simply "Georgie," who had a studio in Marlboro until a few years ago, will be set up at Olallie for plein air painting, which she's been doing for 30 years.
That means she goes outside and paints "whatever I can; it doesn't really matter where I am."
"During the pandemic I'd been traveling the New England coast, painting lighthouses because it seemed to be a safe thing to do [then]: to be outside on a cliff," Georgie says.
"When I decided to paint in Vermont, I wanted to paint everything because everything in Vermont is beautiful. Traditionally I have painted barns, sugar houses, and covered bridges. In Vermont there are only 90 covered bridges left," she says. "I can't do anything really to save them except paint them."
Georgie's vibrant palette of oils suits her intentions.
"People tell me they like my work because it makes them happy when they look at it," she says.
"And my response to that is that I only paint on days when I feel happy. I guess that translates into happy paintings."
In fact, she moved from the house she'd built on Auger Hole Road because, she says, "painting makes me happier than yard work."
Among other venues, Vermont Welcome Center shows Georgie's work every October.
Deidre Scherer said of the tour, of which she's been a member for decades, that last year was a rough one, noting the impact of the floods that hit just before the RRA's weekend.
"Gov. Scott told out-of-staters to 'stay away from Vermont,'" hampering the tour's success, she said.
"This year," she says, "I'm just going to be at work," as she welcomes visitors, resisting the perennial urge to gussy up the studio.
Known well for her thread-on-fabric renditions of people - often elderly subjects - and a still life here and there, Scherer now incorporates drawing, collage materials, and woven prints of her own originals into her work.
Visitors will see new works, among them, "Life of Painters," a rendition of her parents - artist, diorama painter, and inventor Fred Scherer, and painter Cicely Aikman - at their home bordering a tidal cove in Friendship, Maine.
Scherer's work is seen across the country in museums and galleries and in a range of books and magazines.
Gianna Robinson works by day for the Windham County State's Attorney's office. And then, "I come home and go right to my studio, put music on, and decompress. It's the feeling I want all day," she says.
Of her work, she writes, "Painting keeps me connected to myself and to the grounding that nature gifts me," and this reflects in her all her work, especially in landscapes of sometimes ordinary scenes others might rush by.
Robinson, Scherer's daughter, who's shown recently at Brattleboro's Centre Congregational Church and Newfane's Crowell Gallery, shows annually with the RRA and hears often from collectors out of state.
"I've been using less pointillism and trying larger pieces," she says.
One, "Sunset Over Snow," is painted atop a canvas of her grandmother Cicely's. "She didn't like it; she painted an X over the whole canvas," she says.
Coming from a family of artists - her sister Corinna as well as her grandparents and mother - "it was at first intimidating" to try her hand.
But "there's a lot of support among all of us - always," she says.
The Rock River Artists tour starts at Olallie Daylily Gardens, 129 Auger Hole Rd., South Newfane, and runs Saturday and Sunday, July 20 and 21, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, visit rockriverartists.com.
This Arts item by Annie Landenberger was written for The Commons.