80 Artists, Five Towns, Two Days – Riverarts Studio Tour

On Saturday and Sunday April 22nd and 23rd from 11:00 to 5:00 PM both days, RiverArts will hold its 24th annual Studio Tour. This is a huge celebration of the artistic community, a multi-village adventure, where the public has an opportunity to meet artists in their homes, studios, and other venues, view art up close, and learn about the creative process. More than 80 artists are participating this year in a great variety of mediums and styles.

The tour spans the villages and towns of Hastings-on Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, Ardsley, Irvington, and Tarrytown. To facilitate a self-guided tour, a large brochure and map are available at various public locations throughout the towns or from participating artists. They will also be inserted into the April 14th issue of the Rivertowns Enterprise and Scarsdale Inquirer, and direct mailed to the RiverArts mailing list. The brochure can also be downloaded from the RiverArts website. In addition to the hard copy brochure there is also a website, studiotour.riverarts.org, in which all participating artists have a page with a map to their studio. This website can be used on a mobile device to navigate from place to place throughout the tour.

To decide where to begin, there are two preview shows: one at the Hastings-on-Hudson Municipal Building, 7 Maple Avenue, [through April 30] and the other at the Irvington Public Library, 12 S Astor St [through April 29, closed Sundays]. Both shows are open throughout the month of April. Participating artist hang a work at one of these shows. The public is encouraged to sample artists’ work here and decide which artists’ studios they want to see in more depth during the Studio Tour.

There are 18 artists new to this year’s Tour. There will be a group show for these artists at the RiverArts office at 414 Warburton Avenue in Hastings-on-Hudson. The office is usually open from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM, and will be open during the tour.

For the first time, the Studio Tour is extending its reach into Tarrytown. Two venues are included this year, which both will have group shows: Jazz Forum Arts at 1 Dixon Lane and Brieff Studios, on the 2nd floor of the Tarrytown Music Hall, 13 Main Street.

Each year RiverArts awards an Art Scholarship to four graduating seniors, one each from Ardsley, Dobbs Ferry, Hastings-on-Hudson, and Irvington. This year there will be a group show featuring these four developing artists at Curious on Hudson, 145 Palisade Street, Studio 25, in Dobbs Ferry.

In association with the Dobbs Ferry Chamber of Commerce, there will be a new ArtWalk in downtown Dobbs Ferry leading up to the tour. Several businesses will participate and display artwork in their windows for two weeks from April 17th to April 28th.

Oil, acrylic, watercolor, sculpture, drawing photography, pastels, mosaics, printmaking, collage, and fiber arts are some of the mediums represented. A great range of styles include realistic, abstract, folk, illustration, landscape, portrait, minimal, and expressionist, among others. These mediums and styles are all searchable on the website, studiotour.riverarts.org.
New this year were several events for participating artists, including an artist’s breakfast and a workshop on the use of social media for artists. Luke Joerger, of Hastings Digital, taught this workshop.