Exhibition reception kicks off Norfolk Studio Tour
LISA TIMPF
Advocate Contributor
The annual Norfolk Studio Tour is eagerly awaited by artists and art fans alike. This year’s event is slated for Saturday, Sept. 26 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 27 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
On the weekend of the Studio Tour, members of the public are invited to drive across the county and visit participating artists at their homes and farms. Artists’ works will be available for purchase.
This year’s Studio Tour includes 26 artists at 20 sites and features stops in Delhi, Port Rowan, Waterford, Simcoe, and Port Dover. Lynnwood is one of the stops on the tour, and will offer extended hours for the Studio Tour weekend, opening one hour before the tour begins and one hour after it finishes.
An opening reception for the Norfolk Studio Tour Exhibition was held at the Lynnwood Arts Centre on Sept. 17. The exhibition, titled “Presence of Place: A Norfolk Studio Tour Exhibition,” includes 50 pieces, featuring at least one work from each artist on the tour.
Though originally organized by a group of artists, the Studio Tour has been run by the Lynnwood Arts Centre for the past three years. Chelsea Brant, curator of the Lynnwood Arts Centre, notes that some tweaks have been made for this year’s event.
After getting input, ideas, and suggestions from artists who have been involved in the event in the past, organizers decided to return to a juried format. In addition, an attempt was made to provide a “more focussed and navigable tour,” says Brant.
The event also includes several business partners, who will be offering specialty discounts during the Studio Tour hours. Rather than having the “High Tea” on the same weekend as the Studio Tour, this event will be held on a different date.
Visitors to each studio stop can also enter to win a draw. The prize is $200 in Norfolk Studio Tour Dollars, which are redeemable for any artwork of the winner’s choice purchased at upcoming Norfolk Studio Tours in 2027 and 2028.
Those not sure where to start their tour route for the Norfolk Studio Tour Weekend, or who might want to plan some stops for refreshments along the way, can drop in at Lynnwood on Friday, Sept. 25. Brochures with maps showing the location of each “stop” on the tour, as well as a brief description of each artist’s fields of work, are available, and staff would be happy to help would-be participants plan a route for the weekend’s event.
The artists featured on the tour offer a variety of artforms, including pottery, painting, glass, and metalwork. According to Lynnwood Director Carole Aeschelmann, “the tour celebrates creativity across disciplines and highlights the depth and diversity of artistic practice in our county.”
Well-known names such as sculptor Jonas Stonkus, multi-media artist Jen Lados (both near Langton), painter Garry Walker in Port Dover, potter Anneke Kazmierczak in Waterford, and Lynnwood’s founder Ellen McIntosh-Green in Simcoe are included on the tour.
Though artists’ works are available for sale at each stop, for many of the artists, the chance to meet and talk with members of the public is a highlight of the event. Ann Duwyn, whose Delhi studio is one of the stops on the tour, says she loves people coming to the studio.
Duwyn, who has been painting for over 40 years, says art is “my happy place.” She says for artists, the process of “explaining how you do the art” is one of the aspects she enjoys.
Pottery artist Rudi Atkinson welcomes some of the changes made to this year’s Studio Tour. She notes that having the High Tea on the same weekend ate into tour-goers’ travel time. One of the things she likes about the Studio Tour is that some people “come back year after year.”
She enjoys the Studio Tour exhibition because she loves “meeting the other artists and appreciating the incredible talent we have in Norfolk County.”
Melissa Stickl and Addi Lemmon are both in their second year with the Studio Tour. One important feature the tour offers, Lemmon says, is the opportunity to see the works in real time rather than on a web site. “Seeing the art in person has a different effect… than on the screen,” she notes.
Stickl agrees, adding that you can get a better sense of the scale, texture, and quality of the work by seeing it in person. This is particularly important for works like the mixed media and collages Stickl specializes in, which are “very tactile.”
Past and current participant Sue Hammond likes the event’s atmosphere. “The people who come are very friendly,” she says. “It’s not like a show, where people look and walk by. There’s an extra dimension where people are able to ask the artist, how did you do this? What method did you use? You can also see all the materials there where the person works.”
The studio tour exhibition opening was a bittersweet event for the Lynnwood Arts Centre. This exhibition will be the last hosted at Lynnwood before the Arts Center’s December move to the Norfolk Archives.
Paul Hammond, Chair of Lynnwood’s Board of Directors, says that though a lot of history and memories have built up at the Lynnwood building in the 52 years the Arts Centre has called it home, there are some positives about the move.
These positives include a “purpose-build work room” for training and education, and less pressure for fundraising just to keep the doors open. Making the move, he adds, was a “very difficult decision,” and one the Board “spent a lot of time considering.”
Maps and additional information about the Studio Tour are available online at norfolkstudiotour.ca.
Presence of Place: A Norfolk Studio Tour Exhibition will be on display at Lynnwood Arts until Dec. 5, 2026.
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