Artist Lynn Smith will participate in the seventh annual self-guided Sunnyslope Studio tour, which will take place Oct. 26-27 and feature 26 local artists. (photo courtesy of the artist).
The self-guided Sunnyslope Studio Tour returns for its seventh year Oct. 26-27 and residents are invited to meet 26 local artists where they work, learn about the tools they use and talk to them about the inspiration behind their art – and, of course, support the local art scene by purchasing some amazing art.
The artists on the tour work in various mediums, from ceramics, to oil painting, to print making, to mixed-media and more. They also come from varied backgrounds and experiences, but they all share a common bond through their art. And three of the artists we spoke to share another bond as educators.
Lynn Smith works primarily as a painter. She received her Master of Fine Arts degree in ceramics and painting from the Ohio State University and Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drawing and printmaking from the Arizona State University. She has taught art at a private school, at high schools and at universities in an education career that spanned decades. She retired in 2015 and now focuses on her own art, but that investment in art education was a crucial aspect of her career as an artist.
“I think it’s necessary,” Smith said. “It really develops both sides of your brain. It creates critical thinking skills. You have to problem solve. It isn’t just written in the book – you have to make a lot of decisions on your own. You develop a lot of visual skills as well. I think it’s ridiculously important.”
And sometimes, the students can educate the teachers, Smith said.
“I’ve learned to be more patient with myself. I’ve learned to be positive and look for the good and everything, even when I’m painting. I can’t say, ‘oh, that’s horrible.’ I can’t because I would never talk to my students like that.”
The skills learned through art in a classroom translate beyond the lessons and into real life she adds. Something that Laura Cohen-Hogan and Elissa Nowacki fully agree with.
Speaking together from Nowacki’s colorful and eclectic home studio, the artists talked about their connection not only as educators, but as women who drew their artistic inspiration from their respective mothers.
Cohen-Hogan received her BFA in painting and drawing with a Masters of Art Education from Arizona State University and University of Hawaii. She taught in the Cartwright School District beginning in 1974. One of her most prized possessions is a plaque that her junior high gifted art students made for her in 1974 – it is a reminder to her of how art connects people and how all students, regardless of the challenges they are facing, have an untapped potential to flourish.
Art became a way to connect her students with emotional disabilities to the broader school community, she recalled.
Elissa Nowacki (left, with her art in the background) and Laura Cohen-Hogan will each open their home studios during the Sunnyslope Studio Tour (photo by Kathryn M. Miller).
“I got my masters at ASU creating a behavior modification model in art education at the junior high school level,” Cohen-Hogan said. “I created an art classroom that was based on getting the kids to feel part of a community and also where the school was open to the idea of all of the students as having the potential. My goal was to create an environment that kids love to come to.”
She credits her mother with lessons in how to see color and how to interpret her world. Also, that people need the opportunities to learn how to do art, whether talented or not, it’s not something that they are going to be able develop without opportunities.
Nowacki began teaching in 1996. She spent 20 years at John F. Long, also in the Cartwright district, teaching grades three to six, but spent the most time with fifth-grade students. Nowacki, now semi-retired, has always had an artistic side – from making elaborate Halloween costumes for her kids to making jewelry to creating an artful living space. But she didn’t start painting regularly until about eight years ago – primarily as a way to de-stress from the school administration job that came after her years as an educator.
“I had taught arts and crafts at summer camps in the Poconos and things like that. And I’d always been involved in art,” Nowacki said. “My mother taught me everything. I’m not a schooled artist, so everything that I know about art probably came from my mother and her eclectic group of friends.
“But in the classroom, I figured out pretty quickly that you could take anything that was boring and you could make it significantly less boring by adding some sort of art project to it. It just becomes something that they’re engaged in but it’s also something they can see, ‘Oh, I really do use technical text in real life.’”
The art helps facilitate that, she says. And the Sunnyslope Studio Tour facilitates not only an opportunity for art lovers to explore the work of local artist, but a chance for others to learn about art. It is also an engaging way to build community and showcase the cultural and artistic diversity that thrives in the area.
“It gives the community more dimension,” Smith said. “Especially in Sunnyslope. It doesn’t always have the best reputation, so it gets people out and educates them as well. It pulls the community together.”
Nowacki agrees, and the reach goes beyond their neighborhood, “It brings people into our community and gives them a different vision of Sunnyslope.”
“It’s an opportunity to focus on real art and real artists,” Cohen-Hogan added, “and really important for the community because it’s a point of pride.”
The Sunnyslope Studio Tour will feature 12 studios from Northern to Peoria and 19th Avenue to 18th Street, showcasing the work of 26 area artists. During the tour, which takes place Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 26-27, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, artwork will be available from $50 to $5,000. Attendees will find a studio map and additional information about all of the artists on the tour at www.sunnyslopestudiotour.com.
