Local art studio tour returns for 11th year

By Sam Harvey
Staff Reporter

This year’s class of 16 artists is scattered between Dagsboro and Bethany/South Bethany — all a stone’s throw from Route 26.

Some will be easy to spot, such as Tara Funk Grim’s business on Route 1, near Happy Harry’s — Tara’s Studio Art Gallery (www.tarasstudio.com). Ellen Rice has a gallery near the beach, too (on Route 26 in Ocean View, www.ellenrice.com) — but again, this is a studio tour, so SEDAST participants won’t find her there on Nov. 24 and 25. She’ll be at home in The Reservation (north of Ocean View).

SEDAST isn’t just an opportunity to view local artwork, it’s an opportunity to visit with the artists in their creative environments (although most of them will probably have things tidied up a bit).

Jennifer Carter (on Collins Street, in Bethany proper), Laura Hickman (Salt Pond), Judie Campanelli (Campanelli Clayworks, Middlesex Beach) and newcomer Damon Pla (Bethany Meadows) will round out the artists setting out the welcome mats in the beach and near-beach area.

But the countryside of Clarksville and westward is especially well-represented on this year’s SEDAST. Grant Massey will once again present his metals and mixed media workshop on Route 17, south of Clarksville. And then there’s Barbara Deitrick’s home studio (north of the Route 26/Route 17 intersection), Sabie Carey’s Sabieware Pottery (next to the Good Earth Market on Route 26) and Allene Martinez, back in Blackwater Village (a couple miles east of Vine’s Creek).

Straddling Vine’s Creek, Amy Kaufman’s studio will showcase hand-woven textile arts (Wingate Road) and Anne Hanna will have her watercolors on display at her studio in the Point Farm.

Woodturner Tom Frey returns to the SEDAST this year — his shop’s located near the end of Piney Neck Road (which joins Main Street in Dagsboro toward the north side of town). And the Melting Pot (www.themeltingpot.com), also at the north end of town, will showcase three artists this year. Phil Adkins, Justin Cavagnaro and Kim Doughty will have their ceramics and glassware on display at that location.

SEDAST organizers first started pointing the way to artistic abodes 11 years ago, and quite a few new studios have sprouted up since then, according to SEDAST organizer Lynn Massey.

“We never thought the tour would go on this long — we thought maybe a year or two,” she said. “But it just keeps growing and growing, with the success of our artists.”

She said it had started out as “people you knew — whomever we managed to round up.”

There are guidelines, and SEDAST has added jury selection in recent years, but Massey suggested things hadn’t changed much. “Basically, you have to have a studio in this area,” she said.

As always, the goal is to enlighten area residents — or, if they’ve forgotten, to remind them — that there is a local art scene. It may not have the high visibility one finds in Rehoboth or Lewes, where art leagues keep their own permanent quarters, but it’s out there.

Massey said it had always been a long-term goal for many SEDAST participants to see the annual tour mature into some kind of more permanent venue. And she expects such a place would add a lot to the community’s perception of its own culture.

That remains a goal, she said. While older communities like Lewes have had a long head start on the lower Sussex shore, she said she suspects some kind of humanities-oriented venue will arise some day.

“I think it’s inevitable, really,” Massey said. “And the thought has occurred to some of us that we might have some future collaboration, with groups like the Bethany Beach Watercolor Society, or the Village Players (Bear Trap), or even some of the local historical societies.”

A southeastern Sussex center for the arts might lie out there somewhere in the misty future. Until then, local art lovers will be able to get their dose of culture on the SEDAST.

Again, the free, self-guided tour will be held Friday, Nov. 25, and Saturday, Nov. 26, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on both days. For more information, visit the Web site at www.artstudiotour.com, or call (302) 539-4092.