When Jim Click and Fletcher McCusker want to change things, they take action.
Less than a week after the Star reported that Tucson Pima Arts Council had canceled this yearβs Open Studio Tour because of funds, the two Tucson businessmen came forward with the necessary $21,000 so that it can go on.
Click said he read the article, picked up the phone, called TPAC and asked how much.
βA lot of people put a lot of energy and effort into it, and artists are important to us.β
Click told TPAC if he couldnβt raise the money, he would give it. He made one phone call to McCusker, and the two of them made the donation.
βIβm glad I could do it,β said Click.
The Studio Tour has been rescheduled for Nov. 14 and 15, and registration for the countywide event is slated to begin Sept. 8 and end Oct. 14.
Last year, about 200 artists opened their studio doors and invited the public to wander through, look at the work, and talk to the creators. It is estimated that about 7,000 people took them up on the invitation.
TPACβs Roberto Bedoya pointed to a consistently falling budget as the reason the tour was originally canceled. βItβs very simple,β he told the Star two weeks ago. βWe have been cut more than 50 percent by the city (and county) since the recession began.β
Artist C.J. Shane is one of those who was vocal with her disappointment, but quickly tried to rally city artists to plan their own tours. At this point, two are scheduled, Art Trails on Oct. 24-25, which will include artists studios in west and northwest Tucson, and Heart of Tucson Art Oct. 31-Nov. 1. Shane, who is lead organizer for the Heart of Tucson tour, which currently has 14 studios and 33 artists who plan to participate, says that tour will still go on.
βIβm glad (TPAC) has connections where they can find such big donations,β said Shane.
But she maintains that one weekend for a studio tour is not enough.
βA crucial issue that TPAC is not addressing is the need for more than one tour on different weekends for different parts of the city,β she said. βOne weekend for over 200 artists is not enough for a city this big.β
Shaneβs Sonoran Arts Network Web page (sonoranartsnetwork.net) lists a number of cities that have open studio tours over two or three weekends.
A quick call to several of them showed that an open studio tour organized and paid for by a government arts council is not the norm.
Of those contacted, the Arts Council Santa Cruz County (Calif.) was the only one to take on such a tour: it has a full-time person and a $100,000 budget to organize and oversee the event over three weekends each year.
In Santa Fe, however, the two-weekend tour is run by an independent group called Santa Fe Studio tour and is paid for with artistsβ fees and ads in brochures.
In Boulder, OpenArts, a visual arts organization, arranges the tour and in Portland, itβs the Portland Open Studios, which has formed as a nonprofit. Representatives from the arts councils in those cities say though they love the tours, they are not affiliated with them.
