South Central Minnesota Studio Art Tour and Sale
When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Oct. 27-28.
Where: Northfield, Faribault and Owatonna.
More information: Go to Postbulletin.com/weblinks.
WEBLINKS: http://www.southcentralartour.com/
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By Heather Carlile
hcarlile@agrinews.com
NORTHFIELD — Jennifer Wolcott of Northfield is an artist who has her own ideas for the metal garden structures, furniture and architectural details she creates, but she also invites customers to come up with their own designs.
"Actually, that’s the fun part," she said.
She is one of the artists who will welcome the public into their studios for the third South Central Minnesota Studio Art Tour and Sale from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Oct. 27-28.
The tour brings together 20 artists in 12 studios around Northfield, Faribault and Owatonna. The artists will be selling and discussing their work, which ranges from soda-fired porcelain and stoneware to hand-bound books and paintings inspired by the Minnesota outdoors.
People who stop at Wolcott’s studio can get some help coming up with their own table design. She’s created a form to guide people through choosing the style, table top, finish, size and color of wheels.
That’s right, color of wheels.
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Customers can choose from red, yellow, green, amber and aqua stripe. Tabletop options include thick colored glass, blackboard, sand-blasted glass or diamond plate.
Most of her pieces are edgy and industrial, but she also likes it when soft, feminine lines come through. She’s a full-time artist who is always experimenting, always trying to see what the tools and materials can do.
Perhaps that comes from her 25 years of working in a factory as a process engineer, where her job was to continually come up with a better way to do things.
With the help of a metal bender, Wolcott can twist steel, bend it into sharp angles or loop the metal around to create a swirl. She can cut a pipe to get a perfect circle.
She has a collection of frames, tables, garden towers and other outdoor pieces. An 8-foot-tall structure that reminds her of grain in a field will be for sale during the studio tour as well as architectural details such as brackets used to support shelves or decorative panels for a wall.
Wolcott hopes the tour grows. "The more the merrier," she said.
Leanne Stremcha, an artist of contemporary silver jewelry, will be joining Wolcott in her studio during this year’s tour.
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