No GPS necessary to find LUMIN Art Studios. It's nestled into the only distinctly non-rural-looking brick building on Fourth Street in Tumalo (the street numbers only go up to Eight). It's next to Tumalo Coffeehouse. If you see the fire station, you're close. Hit the elementary school, and you've gone too far.
While artist collective studios like The Workhouse and Armature serve as large collaborative art studio spaces in Bend—places for working artists to rent that are also open to the public during events—LUMIN is the first studio of its kind in Tumalo.
The studio is the brainchild of acrylic painter Alisha Vernon, who lives in Bend, and on the hunt for an affordable open space with lots of natural light, stumbled upon the hardwood floors and vaulted ceilings in one of Tumalo's two small business parks.
"Tumalo is practically Bend," said Vernon. "It's basically the north end."
Vernon has her own corner of the studio—filled with brightly colored abstracts and figure paintings—and she subleases the other three corners to artists she met through the meetup.com "Young Women's Artist Group of Bend." The ladies of LUMIN each bring a different craft and aesthetic to the space. Lisa Marie Sipe is an acrylic painter and mixed media artist whose three dimensional displays explore man's relationship to the environment. On the other side of a waist-high desk is Natalie Gshwandtner, a fabrics artist and the owner of Tangled Path, her own hand-sewn accessory website. Cattycorner is Mckenzie Mendel, a mixed metal jewelry artist, sharing her workspace with her trusty greyhound, Hotwire.
LUMIN will host its grand opening celebration this weekend, featuring art from Bend's Taylor Rose and the works of the four women who spend their days getting creative in the studio.
"Working by yourself is really isolating," explained Sipe. "I wanted the experience of being able to get feedback and bounce ideas off other people."
LUMIN hopes to host monthly events, each with a different theme, and featuring work of other artists on the second Saturday of the month.
"We picked the second Saturday because it's not first Friday, and it's not last Saturday," said Vernon. "We don't want to compete at all. We want to add something that was missing."
Grand Opening
Sat., April 12 | 1-4 pm.
LUMIN Art Studios,
19855 4th St., Ste. 103, Tumalo
