We are all trying to figure out how to do things differently, how to stay healthy and make the world as safe as possible for others without becoming completely neurotic hermits. I have been a part of the September Uxbridge Studio Tour for 30 years and we had to decide: should we cancel the tour this year? make the tour online only? should we be open by appointment? We decided to leave it up to individual artists to a certain degree. Nobody will be open in the normal drop-in kind of way. Some have decided to show only online on our website, many others, such as myself, have decided to be open by appointment, whether inside or outside their studios. I am excited about this because appointments worked very well for me in my “Easter in July” studio show. In fact, I preferred them! I had more opportunity to give people individual attention; I could pull work out I knew visitors were interested in; students could ask all sorts of questions; people were diligent about wearing masks. It was fun! I think this can work for the studio tour too. The thing is, it all depends on you wonderful people who actually go on the tour. This is going to take more organizing on your part but I think you will find it a much richer experience than the ordinary way of doing things. I would advise you to see which artists are open by appointment. See the Uxbridge Studio Tour website for that. Then figure out who you really want to visit. I would start making appointments as soon as possible because inevitably people will have to be turned down since the studio tour is only 2 days long: September 19-20. So start with who you would most want to see, contact those artists in whatever way they want to be contacted (see info on wesite) and work around those appointments. Make sure you know how long the artists expect you to stay and know the distance between your appointments since that can vary between 5 and 40 minutes! (consult google maps or ask the artist the distance between their studio and the previous artist on your appointment list.) Whether or not this works will in part hinge on visitors being on time–and on artists letting them leave. We are in this adventure together! I am attempting to write a daily post on facebook about all the Studio Tour artists this year. Join me there!
Lynne.Mcilvride.Art 
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