Tour de Art

By Heidi Kurpiela
| 4:00 a.m. March 17, 2010

Arts + Culture

To really know an artist, you should see his workspace; peek inside his home; observe the magnets littering his fridge and the polka dot potholders hanging from his oven. For fervent art collectors, it’s like peeling back a canvas and stepping into a portal filled with bits of ordinary domesticity and extraordinary inspiration, like stepping onto the set of your favorite movie.

For 39 years, the Fine Arts Society of Sarasota’s Creators and Collectors Tour has remained quietly popular despite scarce publicity. The self-guided driving tour, which spans two days and includes several stops at the homes and studios of Sarasota County artists, is the organization’s largest fundraiser and plenty affordable — each ticket is $20.

The tour, which ran Friday, March 12 and Saturday, March 13, had art-lovers trolling North to South Sarasota, from the Indian Beach bungalow of painter and gilder David Piurek to the quaint Vamo Road hideaway of landscape painter Susan Klein.

Slightly different than previous tours, this year’s bill included four Ringling College of Art Design graduates — Piurek, sculptor Scott Moore and s/ART/q founders and painters Joseph Patrick Arnegger and Tim Jaeger.

“I think this is wonderful,” said Marjorie Hallett, who spent Friday bouncing from house to house with friend Cheryl Rudin. “The images are totally unexpected. Nothing is cliché.”

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Did You Know?
• Susan Klein uses a Sharpie marker to outline her landscape paintings.
• David Piurek works at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art as a conservation technician. He’s currently working on John Ringling’s Wisconsin railcar.
• Joseph Patrick Arnegger’s grandfather flew a Cessna Skyhawk, which is why you see so many references to planes in the artist’s work.
• When “Dreamcatcher” author Stephen King spoke last year at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, sculptor Scott Moore displayed his bronze dreamcatcher in the lobby.
• Tim Jaeger’s rooster paintings were inspired by his grandmother’s Paducah, Ky., kitchen.