Country Roads Arts Tour: The entrepreneurs stay home
   
   

By William Lannon

Many artists take to the road in search of audiences and sales. They load their work into vans and trailers and travel to shows and exhibitions all over the country. Distribution is always a problem for the artistic entrepreneur. Finding galleries to display one’s art isn’t always the easiest thing in the world. Indeed, Carol Sebold of Camden’s Sebold Studio sometimes thinks that creating the art is the least of her hassles.

However, for the last two years in the Camden area, the journeys have been reversed as a group of just over 20 artists and artisans have banded together to attract potential customers to their studios. 
Two of Richard Dunham’s lamps, which he creates at Wood and Light on Magog Road in Appleton.
   

This year’s Country Roads Artists and Artisans Tour took place on the weekend of September 13 through 15. According to Lowrie Sargent of Rocky Coast Joinery, the tour’s guiding force, this second year’s event was even more of a success than last year’s inaugural outing.

The idea of creating a consortium of artists demonstrating their work in their studios for the curious, art lovers, and hopefully as well for potential buyers is not a new one, though it is a recent addition to the midcoast. Sargent says that he first ran into the tour concept in West Virginia where a program has been active for 22 years. A similar scheme was launched four years ago in Santa Cruz, California, where upwards of 100 artists invite folk in for three to four weekends in the fall.

The Camden tour is a modest effort compared to the Santa Cruz extravaganza, which is coordinated by an Arts Commission and financed by the sale of a handsome $20 calendar/brochure, which serves as a ticket to the various studios. Here, the artists and artisans contribute their own money to come up with the $4,000 budget. Most of the money goes to pay for publicity, primarily the one page brochure. Sargent emphasizes that the fact that it is their money keeps the group "thrifty and frugal."

Sargent explained that the local tour is limited to about 20 artists because that’s the most you can attractively fit on the single page brochure which is created for year-round use. He does expand on this practical point saying that a number of other reasons also enter into the decision to restrict the number of participants and keep it low. For one thing, he observes, there’s a limit on how many places people might want or be able to go to in the course of a weekend. "You don’t want to overwhelm them," he says.

Geography is also a contributing factor in the ultimate mix of studios on the tour. Stephen Gleasner’s Woodturning studio (S on the accompanying map) on Appleton Ridge Road is a fair trek from the center of Camden. Sargent points out that for those who prefer towns, Camden proper is host to a cluster of sites.

Finally, Sargent suggests that keeping the number of artists and artisans small with admission to the group only upon invitation ensures that the quality of work will be kept at a high level. "Top of the line," as he puts it.
   

 

Carol Sebold at work on a watercolor. "Sebold paints watercolors and oils of Maine coastal fishing villages and their boats as well as evocative landscapes of the New England countryside. Her brushwork, created through a delicate building of thin layers of paint on rag paper and canvas, suggests the impressionistic while subtly retaining the quality of nature."

(Quotation from her Web site: www.csebold.com)

   

Lowrie Sargent’s work at Rocky Coast Joinery is most certainly top of the line. Acknowledging that the Shakers and the Arts and Crafts movement of the late 1800s have influenced him, he fashions, among other things, tables, bookcases, beds, hutches, cabinets, taborets, mirrors and blanket chests.

Sargent has written of his craft, "Work starts by selecting the rough lumber from a wide variety of first-quality kiln-dried domestic hardwoods. This allows us to pay close attention to matching grain and tone so necessary to fine furniture. Our favorite woods include cherry, walnut, tiger maple and quarter-sawn white oak. We create each piece using traditional, time-tested methods and exceptional care in every detail." He uses "traditional joinery techniques such as mortise and tenons, hand-cut dovetails and hand planing" to create aesthetically pleasing and functional furnishings which will last for generations.

The same standard of excellence is matched by the other artists and artisans on the tour. They create remarkable work. Moreover, those interviewed for this story enjoyed being a part of the tour. The tourists and local people who visited them were fascinated. Carol Sebold estimated that about 75 people including some elementary school children who were intrigued by the demonstration of her technique visited her. A number of artists from away visited her as well and were extremely curious. Sebold did make a few sales, but also may teach a couple of classes for a group of artists from Northport who dropped by. She feels that the demonstration aspect of the tour is extremely important. People who generally see only finished works or products are delighted to peek behind the scenes. Her only disappointment was that more local people did not visit.

The lack of local attendance also disappointed Stephanie and John Clapp of Cellardoor Winery in Lincolnville. (See our feature article on them at www.midcoastreview.com/jul02.html.) They hosted some 150 people each day, but suspect that a good portion of them would probably have come anyway since their showroom is a popular draw. Perhaps needless to say, the wine tasting they hosted was a great success. The Clapps are enthusiastic about the tour because they maintain that tourists want to be sure to use their time well and "they like structure." Clearly, a brochure containing thumbnail descriptions of each studio or workshop, telephone numbers, email addresses, and an excellent map provides both structure and direction.

The brochure is distributed to midcoast Bed and Breakfasts, through the Camden/Lincolnville Chamber of Commerce, the participants’ mailing lists, press releases to local media, TV Channel 7, and at presentations made by the artists. Copies also went Tourist Information Centers at Kittery and Yarmouth. In addition to the 10,000 brochures, which were printed, 1,000 fliers were produced and distributed locally.

The group also used the Internet to create awareness of the tour. John Clapp designed a Web site for the tour www.artisanstour.com and each member linked that page to his or her own Web site. In addition, the site was linked to the Bed and Breakfast Association’s site. More links are planned for next year; and the Tour has joined the Chamber of Commerce.

Richard Dunham of Wood and Light in Appleton is enthusiastic about the project. He hosted about 75 people at his workshop and made some sales as well. His extraordinary lamps feature all manner of veneers through which light glows. A graduate of the University of New Hampshire’s theatre program, Dunham for many years worked for Rosco in Port Chester, NY, an innovator in show lighting technology. While with them he designed astonishing and innovative displays for Las Vegas casinos and Disneyland. Some of his projects involved making buildings glow as his lamps do, albeit on a smaller scale. He finds the exposure, which the tour affords, welcome indeed. He recalls that last year he was visited by a group of architects who were very interested in his work. He says he hasn’t heard from them yet, but at least now they know of him.

  

 

 

 

 

A hand-crafted Mission-style cabinet, one of Sargent’s specialties, greets visitors to his Camden workshop.

And that, of course, is one of the major hurdles for the artist or artisan as entrepreneur to overcome: getting known. Certainly the Internet helps, but it can be hit or miss. For artisans like Dunham or Benjamin Leavitt, a metalworker on the tour, or Lowrie Sargent himself whose workshops are off the beaten track and not on the Main Street of Camden, drop-ins are rare without the impetus provided by the tour.

The Country Roads Tour works well for all participants, creators and visitors alike. The artists and artisans get a chance to show what they do and how they do it while maintaining their autonomy. The visitors are offered a rare opportunity to watch the act of creation by a skilled artisan; to see them, as it were, in their native habitat.

In addition, the personal relationships that arise can generate a sense of identification for the visitors as well as a concomitant loyalty. Patrons of the arts enjoy knowing the artist or artisan responsible for the objects that grace their lives.

The dates for next year’s tour have already been established: September 12-14, 2003. The group has established an executive committee to look into the concerns of the members, particularly how to generate more local interest.

Still, the Country Roads Tour seems already to be an institution. Lowrie Sargent says that one of the comments he hears most often about the tour is, "It’s about time." And so it is. One of the surest ways to get people to be more aware of art and artifacts is to make the processes and the people more available to the general public. Stereotypes get shattered while the mysteries and magic of creation become enhanced.

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