2023 Fall Studio Tour
Three days. Sixty open art studios. A choose-your-own adventure for collectors and the curious.
The Ojai Studio Artists (OSA) tour, set for Oct 7-9, features a stunning array of art and the opportunity to explore the private spaces where it’s made. This year OSA is celebrating its 40th anniversary, making it the longest-running studio art tour in California.
A highpoint in the Southern California arts calendar, the OSA tour attracts collectors, designers and the curious to this creative haven known worldwide as the home of ceramicist/avant garde icon Beatrice Wood. The three-day tour includes paintings, sculptures, fiber arts, collage, jewelry, glass, prints, and mixed media created by members of a community-based nonprofit devoted to celebrating Ojai arts and offering scholarships to local students.
“We’re thrilled to open our doors this year,” says OSA President and printmaker Linda Taylor. “Ojai is home to so many singular talents, most of whom work year-round in relative seclusion. With this tour, we invite the world in to share our work and unique ways of seeing.”
Absolutely free, the tour only requires registration (link here). Once registered, visitors receive a guide and map to participating studios across the valley, from back yard wonderlands right in town to stone cabins nestled up Sulphur Mountain. Among the artists included this year are Spark Taylor, whose modern impressionist landscapes capture familiar local scenes and Lucinda Yates, wearable art entrepreneur turned fine artist who turned a pandemic Zoom portrait project into a hugely successful series capturing a multitude of distinct people and personalities.
Among the other notable artists participating this year:
James Robie – Ceramics, woodwork and sculpture combine in the elegant, geometrically extravagant creations of this master mixed-media artist who studied painting with Richard Diebenkorn and now explores exciting new realms of artistic expression. See his work here.
Pamela Grau – Abstract artist and active arts commissioner Pamela Grau creates tactile, dreamlike pictures, using an array of materials and techniques to express realities beyond the visible, working in the tradition of Ojai visionaries. (Her work is on prominent display in the lobby of the four-star Ojai Valley Inn and Spa). See her work here.
Susan Guy – This full-time psychiatrist and former Ventura County search and rescue team member is now Ojai’s own “adventure painter,” creating color-blasted landscapes on extreme backcountry trails with a lightweight art kit. See her work here.
Work by all participating artists is on view until October 9 at the Ojai Valley Museum in the show “Turning Corners,” offering visitors a chance to get a one-stop overview of the work featured on the tour and plan their personal itinerary.
The three-day 2023 OSA Tour experience runs from October 7 through 9, 2023.