Over three dozen Iowa artists will open their workspaces to visitors in a couple of weeks. Glen Ellickson and his wife Darla, who’s a silversmith and a goldsmith, are the founders of the Northeast Iowa Artists’ Studio Tour.
“There was a group in Wisconsin that started a Studio Tour and they said it’s great, we get to stay home. Rather than us going to the people, the people come to us and we knew that the Decorah area had a very large concentration of very artists, so we thought this would just be a natural fit,” Glen Ellickson says.
Sixteen artists signed up for the first tour 26 years ago. This year’s tour will feature 38 artists, who work out of 28 different studios — all within a 40 mile radius of Decorah. “Decorah’s kind of the hub,” Ellickson says. “We have quite a few artists right in town there, then it gets over to Lansing, Clermont — northeast Iowa.”
Ellickson says you can see where artists create everything from paintings to pottery to kalidoscopes. “You’re able to see how the stuff is made, you’re able to see where it’s made,” Ellickson says. “You see the process that goes on in the making of it and, of course, you’re able to buy art from the artists at their studios.”
Having groups of high school art classes drive from studio to studio is a key part of the event, according to Ellickson. “A lot of the artists that are on the tour are full time artists. That’s their job,” Ellickson says. “…It really gives the art students a chance that yes, you can making a living following your dream with art, so we’ve been really proud of the educational aspect of it over the
years.”
Studios in Decorah sometimes get about a thousand visitors a day during the three-day tour event. The Ellicksons live about 10 miles outside of Decorah and average about 500 daily visitors at Darla Ellickson’s studio. That’s the beauty of the tour, according to Glen Ellickson, because it can be a bit of an adventure. “We’re getting people on some of the tiniest little gravel roads in some of the hilliest areas you’ve ever seen and really gets people off the beaten path, shall we say, to find these little gems of studios,” Ellickson says.
The annual tour is held in the fall. This year’s tour is on Friday, September 29th; Saturday, September 30th and Sunday, October 1st. Find more information here.