Open studios attract out-of-town artists

WINSTED —  Artist studios at the Whiting Mills building at 100 Whiting St. held their semi-annual open studios event on Saturday, June 11, and Sunday, June 12.

The event included live music and food outdoors along with dozens of vendors displaying and selling artwork inside the building, including both residents and guest artists of Whiting Mills Studios.

Sunny weather on June 12 was perfect for shoppers, artists, and art enthusiasts to mingle and enjoy the eclectic spread of offerings and activities.

Kerrie Ogren of Simsbury was present on June 12, selling a wide range of “living” jewelery — encapsulated nature scenes on earrings, rings and necklaces.

“I go on hikes and I pick out all the mosses and lichens, and I have some with natural found objects,” Ogren said. “I have robin’s eggs, a bumble bee, and some flowers in the jewelry.”

Ogren, who just started creating living jewelery this past March, said she will be selling at a lot of upcoming events, including the Rise Up Yoga Festival in Simsbury, and has been foraging often to prepare.

Outside the studio building, carpenter Tony Indino was giving tours of a portable tiny house he built. The tiny house was for sale, and Indino is available to create other custom tiny houses.

There were several artists showcasing photography on Sunday, among them Debbie Smith of Paier College of Art in Hamden. 

“My work reflects a mix of everything,” Smith said. “I love architecture, buildings and macronature-based photography. I also like doing fine arts stuff based off of emotional states.“

Husband and wife, Ray Currier and Anna Murfin had their tables set up next to each other during the weekend’s activities.

Currier, a musician and art photographer, sold his abstract photography originals and also showcased his business composing music for weddings.

“As I’ve gotten older, I used to be very much a nature photographer,” Currier said. “Now I’m heading more towards abstraction, nature speaks for herself a lot. I work with things that I find, and take them and abstract and change them, reduce them to lines and blocks.” 

Currier also writes custom music for couples to define exactly what they would like at their wedding. “I write a piece for them, get it back to them to make sure I’m on track, and then work with the musicians  to make sure it gets performed as well as it can be,” Currier said. “The key point to this, is I transfer the rights over to the people in the commission so that it is truly their piece.”

Alongside Currier’s table were the ceramics and fine art pieces of his wife, Anna Murfin. Currier and Murphin met five years ago after Murphin received her degree in ceramics in England, and came to America as part of her student exchange degree program. 

“I make ceramics and jewelry, so a lot of my artwork is very tactile, and use my hands a lot,” Murfin said. “I make what I call sculptural-functional  artwork in ceramics. It’s functional pieces that you can use every day in your life, but pushing more toward the fine arts end, so each piece is unique and individual.” 

Murfin said she creates fine arts and jewelry out of the basement in their New Hartford home, but has a studio in Bethlehem where she creates her ceramics pieces. 

“Whiting Mills is an amazing building,” Murfin said. “I met so many artists in the studios here, it’s just a fantastic community of creatives. I love the fact that they have open studios so it’s not just artists hidden away, it gives people a chance to meet the artist, to talk to artists and find out what they’re about, and it’s kind of cool that they invite outside artists who do not have studios here to come in.”

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