|
You really forget so much of what you did 15 to 20 years ago, at least I
do. Raising a family, running the business, volunteering in non-profit
organizations. I was trying to date the original Jay Artisan's Studio Tour
so I took down the box on the top shelf which contains 15 pounds of scrap
clippings, brochures, etc....
I found so much more related to the eventual Studio Tour that I decided to
start in a chronological order from the time that we were married and our
business started.
We've always enjoyed talking and demonstrating our work, so people have
always come into our studios.
|
1987 - We started the
Participation Days with a screen print, (don't remember the image)
but people could come with a tee-shirt and print the image
themselves for free. People came with lots of shirts or just
fabric. Later on I received a gift of my screen image on a pillow.
It's been fun over the years to see people wearing
the tee-shirts that they printed here. My favorite hiking
tee-shirt is one of those images, "Adirondack Swirling".
Sue had mugs ready to be decorated with colored
slips, we clear glazed and fired the mugs for just $3, good
deal. It was fun to see the designs and hear the stories
about where the mugs were going.
The idea was to get people to see the handmade
nature of the work we were doing. To understand that it was
made here in the Adirondacks, by American Craftspeople, that it
was original and one of a kind. |
 |
 |
1988
We began our Holiday Card Printing. People
could print their own holiday cards with our screen image.
Standard size cards came with an envelope.
It was a big hit and I had to schedule some
people in for other times to accommodate everyone.
The map on the poster/mailer on the left shows
other businesses in town. We were also promoting how a
person could shop in Jay at the different businesses. One
business was the Sugar Bear who we created a special
relationship with and we would give fudge away to customers for
free, or once we arranged to have a free lunch for customers.
Those are stories reserved for another article
on all the Merchandizing trials we have over the years.
|
 |
 |
We began having other
Craftspeople
join us in the studios helping people
Participate in their crafts with them. |
Over the years Sue has
given many demonstrations in her studio, to home schooled groups,
girls scouts and many others. |
|
Over the years we've tried a lot of things to our
art out to the public. We've always felt a need for people
to understand the exciting techniques that we use to create our
hand made work.
We created an "Understand Raku"
presentation, complete with a video and examples.
We tried it in several venues around Plattsburgh. |
 |
 1990
The Studio Tour begins. It included the
large country block bounded by route 9n to the east, route 86 to
the north, Hardy Road to the west and Springfield Road on the
south.
It was in both Jay and Wilmington. We had
balloons to show where each studio was, it eventually became
pointing fingers and now it's "Artist At Work" signs
outside each studio.
We got some good press right off the spot.
We knew from doing press releases the papers liked black and white
photos, so we always would include images in our press releases. |
 |
 |
1991
I remember that we did it originally the weekend after the Kiwanis Craft Show.....we
eventually advertised it as a week of art and craft in the town of Jay,
beginning with the Craft Show and ending a week later with the
Studio Tour.
Many people had their hand in the making of the tour, but it
was still a lot of work getting the map together, dealing with
people and printers. All the little details it takes to get
something like this off the ground every year.
|
| 1992 |
1993 |
 |
 |
| Arto Monaco was on the tour this
year, having his old studio open to the
public. |
This map was designed by someone
else for this year, I didn't care much for it, but it was nice to
have someone else do the work. |
 |
1994 - I
couldn't nail down the date that this first morph of Studio Tour
ended.
But this is last year I have for the Wilmington/Jay Studio
Tour. By this time it was called the "Artisan Studio
Tour.
Its always been an effort getting a group of people together, organized, to
make something happen.
I've found it best to work with a firm deadline and
budget so that everyone involved knows exactly what to expect. When those
aspects of a plan aren't adhered to, disaster results. I
know. |
| The Studio Tour stopped at
some point, because I was hoping someone else would take it
over. True we made good money on that weekend, but for all
the time it was taking to put together it just didn't seem worth
it to me anymore.
So I stopped doing it, tried to get others involved, but the
Studio Tour stopped. |
|
We were doing two Participation Days during the
summer, one in July and one in August, we worked hard to drum up
business.
It was working, we got a lot of press and we had
advertising that included all the events we were having at the
gallery.
Up to this time we were still showcasing our work
in our old gallery space and all the Participation and
Demonstrations occurred in the studios. |
 |
 |
1995 |
 |
| By the 4th
annual card printing date we were getting quite a following.
I never kept track of how many cards we screen printed, but we
needed to make reservations.
Sue and I would work out new designs every year, one of my
favorites was the teapot pouring out ice skaters over a frozen
Adirondack Lake.
The Covered Bridge was a very popular card that year. |
 |
1996 |
  |
| This poster for a Raku
Demonstration from '95 included a small handout receipt for a
drawing for a piece of raku. |
By '96 I
think the Wilmington/Jay Studio Tour was over. Regardless of
whether a group was formed to make the Studio Tour happen Sue and
I continued to do our Participation Days, in July and
August. In place of the tour we had a Demonstration Day that
year.
Here I was offering a "Spontaneous Drypoint Etching
Workshop" among the other events that year. |
| 1999 |
2000 |
 |
 |
| I remember
Grace Potthast from Gallery in the Glen asked about starting up a
Studio Tour again and that is how the second incarnation of the
Tour began, this time as the Jay Artisan's Studio Tour.
By now there were more artists and craftspeople in Jay that
wanted to get involved in the Tour.
Sue created the Moose and Rider drawing and we were going in a
more whimsical direction this time.
As I remember there was certainly controversy almost every year
of the Tour. First the Ironman came to town and happened to
be on the date we traditionally was using for our Tour.....so we
had to move our date. It was annoying to be pushed aside by
the town and not having our businesses considered. In view of the
fact like many north country businesses we totally depend on
summer traffic and here was a weekend that they were taking away
from us. It continues to this day, the Ironman race that
comes through the town of Jay has been disastrous for small
businesses like ours.
There were other controversy's within the Tour group....who
should be on the tour, was it a tour for artists and craftspeople
or should other businesses be involved. It was always on
going and even Sue and I were on different sides of the
issue. I wasn't a purest, I was a realist. I was for
other businesses, I felt the more the merry as long as we were all
making money. |
 |
 |
 |
|
from the years 2001 -
2008 the Jay Artisan's Studio Tour got a lot of
excellent press in local papers, mostly the Lake Placid News was
very supportive. We also got North Country Public Radio from
Canton as a sponsor. In 2002 I got
the domain name, JayStudioTour.com and put our little tour on the
web, with an interactive map. Click on a number and you went
to one of our fourteen studios 
I had a woman from Washington State call me around 2003 and ask questions
about our studio tour. She had been to the studio tour website. She was writing an article about such tours and
after I filled her in on how ours was organized, she decided that we had the
best tour in the country for artisans, and she was going to write about
it. There was a link from the magazine article to our website.
What made it so good was the cost per artist and what they received from
it. That's because several of us did all the work, getting sponsors,
graphic design, dealing with printers, dealing with participants....etc. As I looked around the web at other studio tours, you could see that many of
them charged quite a bit more for participants on the tour, and very few equaled
the quality of our graphic brochures.
|
 |
|
Here's the
2003 brochure and map. Cherri
was able to get us sponsors as Patrons of the Arts
and I believe it was her who got us a grant from the Visitors
Bureau, and so we were able to
increase the amount we got printed. It was also around
this time we combined the brochure
with the JEMS brochure of summer events. |
 |
 |
| As the
years moved forward I continued to do the graphic design work,
deal with printing and around 2004
we began advertising other events that were going on in the town
of Jay. It seemed only natural to combine JEMS as I was
with the group since the beginning and it was an important part
of our town by now.
Probably 2005 was the peak year
for the Studio Tour in my mind. It was the last year I was
involved in the planning and graphic design for it. I was
getting burnt out from dealing with people both with the Studio
Tour and with JEMS, we were busy building a theater in Jay at
this time, and I was feeling unappreciated, as well as having a
daughter going overseas as an exchange student, business was
going sour and changing, friendships were deteriorating as
well.
I'm not sure if there was a Studio Tour in 2006
I think I decided too late for anyone else to take it
over and therefore it did not happen that year.
I bowed out and Joan took over the tour planning for the next
two years. I continued doing the website and I made the
posters for the tour. Graphic brochure was done by someone
else, and all we did was put our $50 in, sit back and get a
crowd on the Studio Tour day.
| 2007 |
2008 |
 |
 |
It was enjoyable having other people do the work, and I
really got a kick out of it. After all I was still quite
involved with the website and posters. BUT it wasn't
enough to keep the tour going and when Joan didn't want to do it
after two years, Jay Artisans Studio Tour was over.
Essentially, because I didn't want to do it anymore.
I say that because the first time it ended, it stopped
because no one picked up the ball from me, this time Joan
managed it for two great years. But being retired and with
grandchildren and other plans there was no one else to do
it. I felt that we could still generate Studio Tour
interest ourselves, like we did before with our Participation
and Demonstration days.
2009 - 2011
But our lives are changing too. Health concerns, taking
care of aging parents, it would be difficult to be involved in
the same endeavors these days. That's why we joined the
Studio Tour organized by the Adirondack Artists Guild in Saranac
Lake. They do a wonderful job as this tour has grown to
forty studios spread out from Jay to Tupper Lake. But we
just received word that the woman who was organizing the tour
has decided to bow out after five years. Bummer.
We're hoping someone will pick up the ball and run with it,
again.....
Looking back on my days of the tour I have this advice for anyone who was
as energetic as I was, and as passionate about showing your art/craft work and
demonstrations as I was. Do it yourself, get grants to pay yourself and
have people who do the tour pay you a proper amount for your work.
|
Return to Eating Art
Autumn 2011
|
