This weekend, artists who live along the Harte Trail will be opening their home studios for visitors to explore. With 20 studios stretching from Tuxedo to Headingley, the Harte Trail Studio Art Tour will allow Winnipeggers to meet local artists and even watch them create pieces in real time.
Chris Foster, the current chair of the program, spoke on the Harte Trail tour. “Some of them will be actually painting or sculpting, right there and then. And you’re either there to admire their work, or you maybe want to purchase something, or maybe you just want to get some ideas for creativity […] We’re all about instilling creativity and a life of art in others.”
The tour will feature a variety of artists, from painters and sculptors to fine art photographers and jewellers. For example, Joanne Harris is an artist who paints impressionistic landscapes. Greg Fritz, on the other hand, creates soapstone carvings using traditional Inuit methods.
“We’ve got a wide gamut, a little bit of everything for everyone,” Foster commented.
Visitors can also get passports to collect stamps from each studio. Upon finishing the tour, they can turn them in for a chance to win $400 to spend on a piece of art of their choosing.
Foster has helped run the tour for the past five years, and she is also one of the artists who will be opening her home to visitors. She did not start making art until she retired and started taking classes at a local gallery. Foster hopes her art can inspire people to create their own works.
“I love it. It’s my passion. I started off with nothing, never having done anything […] Now I could probably consider myself maybe an intermediate artist,” she said.
“With my art, it’s an inspiration to [those who] have any idea or any inkling of thinking, ‘Oh, I could never do that.’ I’d like them to come away with, ‘Yes, you can.’ Because if I can do it, you can do it.”
Lastly, the Harte Trail Studio Art Tour could be an excellent opportunity to collect an original piece of local art.
“I think everybody should own a piece of original art, doesn’t matter how big or small,” Foster said.
“[There’s] just something very personal about owning a piece of original art rather than something from HomeSense or IKEA, and it means something. It’s something that you can have for the rest of your life.”
The Harte Trail Studio Art Tour will take place from Sept. 20 to 21 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Visit hartetrailstudiotour.net for more information.
