Local Artists Opening Their Studios to the Public

Central Oregonians will have a chance to peek behind the veil of artistic process on Saturday, Sept. 26 and Sunday, Sept. 27 at the third annual Bend Artists’ Studio Tour. It’s a free, family-friendly, self-guided event, running from 11am-4pm both days, put on by SageBrushers Art Society.

At each studio on the tour, the artists will be available to talk about their art and process, and most will have pieces for sale. There are tour stops in all four quadrants of Bend and range from garden studios to a garage workbench to a spare bedroom.

Denise Rich is a Bend artist who specializes in acrylic, watercolor, pastel and mixed media. Credit: Denise Rich

“This is an opportunity get inside peoples’ studios, which is a pretty intimate experience,” said Melissa McGlenn, the tour’s team lead and one of the 13 artists opening their studios for the event. “There are artists that have beautiful studios, in commercial areas. This is not that. This is your neighborhood artist who has their own little studio. Some are in their bedrooms. I have a little she-shed in my backyard. There’s quite a variety.”

SageBrushers has a community studio artists can use, and free and paid classes, so artists have “lots of social creation time,” McGlenn said. However, the tour provides artists with an outlet to discuss their works and the lengthy, typically solitary process of creating art.

“I have an oil painting that I’ve been working on for years. It’s a piece that is really meaningful to me, ‘Tre of my soul.’ It’s a lone tree with Bedouin dancers beneath it, a desert scene, from when I spent a year living on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. I don’t know if I’ll ever finish it, so having visitors to my studio gives me the opportunity to share that special moment and reason for wanting to create that piece,” McGlenn said.

Participating artists include Barbara Alford, Jesica Carleton, Scott Dyer, Steve Gevurtz, Susan Hood, Elizabeth Kolstad, Sally MacAllister, Judi McAlpin, Kenneth E. Meyer, Denise Rich, Laura Jo Sherman and Deborah Stevens. A variety of artistic pursuits will be on display, including bronze and ceramic figurative sculpture, fused glass and mosaic, pastel, oil, watercolor and acrylic painting, photography and handmade drums. In fact, no two stops on the tour will be the same, said McGlenn, who specializes in mixed media and handmade drums.

A special stop on the tour is at the SageBrushers Gallery and Studio, located in the Southwest Crossing neighborhood. The nonprofit arts organization’s home is in a 1940s cottage that’s been converted to a gallery, library and studio. During the tour, there’ll be member artists working in the studio at SageBrushers, which McGlenn said is the longest-standing organization of artists in Bend. It was founded in 1952 by five art enthusiasts to promote the arts across Central Oregon and now has more than 250 members and reflects the varied and rich artistic feel of the area.

“Bend has a beautiful, cultural, artistic flair to it,” McGlenn said. “There are always new artists popping up. There’s all these new restaurants popping up. There’s always new creative opportunities popping up. It’s just such an alive and vivacious community and art scene.”

3rd Annual Bend Artists’ Studio Tour 

Sat., Sept. 26 and Sun., Sept. 27, 11am-4pm 

Various artist studios around Bend 

Free, family-friendly, open to the public