Taking the grand tour of Camano Island art studios

The eighth annual Camano Island Studio Tour this week involves nearly 100 volunteers to get ready for the estimated 3,000 visitors who will travel to the area for the tour.

"It's an islandwide event," said glass artist Jack Archibald, who throws open his Revisionary Glassworks studio to visitors. " ... The whole island is buzzin'."

The self-guided tour will take place Friday through Sunday on the island and in the Stanwood area. A free guide provides directions to 29 studios and galleries featuring the work of more than 40 artists.

For people who are new to the tour, spokeswoman Rosanne Cohn emphasized: "It doesn't take a ferry to get to Camano Island. It's important for them to know it's a direct drive."

Studio No. 1 on the tour map is Rainchild Metal Works, featuring bronze sculptures as well as furniture and railings.

Ann Cory and her husband, Jack Dorsey, exhibit paintings at his studio (No. 7), as does their daughter April.

Jillian Mattison, Betty Frost, Karla Matzke and Jack Gunter are featured at History of the World Fine Arts Gallery (No. 8).

Painter John Ebner features his own work as well as steel and bronze sculptures by Bill Matheson (No. 20).

Sandwich boards will identify the studios and help people along the route. Artists will be on hand to answer questions and to explain and demonstrate techniques.

"Relationships have been established by the exposure," said Shannon Kirby, a Camano Island sculptor who shares space at Revisionary Glassworks (No. 10). "At Archibald's, I see people there, and they're there hours later," she said. "There's so much to look at."

Karen Prasse, Archibald's wife and a regional historian, has turned half of the couple's seven acres into an old-fashioned English ramble, with cultivated gardens as well as wood walks, including 20-year-old rhododendrons and old-growth nettle standing 7 feet tall. The couple encourage people to linger and picnic.

Because art is so visually stimulating, Kirby recommends quality over quantity, picking studios and art that personally appeal rather than trying to see everything.

"It's stimulating and a lot of fun, but it's also exhausting," Kirby said. "Every year, I meet incredible people that make it totally worthwhile to do."

Archibald has seen the growth of the tour over the years.

"We've got a lot more studios," he said.

Now, it's as much a lifestyle tour as a studio tour.

"You come to my place, you'll see an old hippie who became an artist," said Archibald, who moved to the Northwest from Wisconsin and whose in-state commissions include a mural and large clock at Everett Station, and windows and murals for the state Department of Transportation, Skagit Station in Mount Vernon, Edmonds City Hall and the Mukilteo Library. Archibald builds everything in his studio in modular panels no bigger than 3 feet by 6 feet, then transports the panels by truck for on-site assembly. Some works have been as large as 70 feet.

"You have a huge range of diversity in how we approach our art," he said. "And that's what we intended all along. You get a sense of how we live and work."

Jeanine Borree, who also shows work at Revisionary Glassworks, showed her painted canvases and cabinets, tables, desks and "story boxes" alone at her studio the first year of the tour, but she felt quite alone.

"When I showed with other people, I felt really complete in the experience. With the artists, we support each other, and it allows me to enjoy the people more."

Diane Wright: 425-745-7815