Now in year four, the San Marcos Studio Tour stretches over two weekends and includes art from over 80 local artists.
Arts Eclectic turns the spotlight on happenings in the arts and culture scene in and around the Austin area. Through interviews with local musicians, dancers, singers, and artists, Arts Eclectic aims to bring locals to the forefront and highlight community cultural events.
Support for Arts Eclectic comes from Broadway Bank and The Contemporary Austin.“Every year we feel like we hone it in and then the chaos of it comes and we all kind of lose our minds,” says Bekah Porter, the assistant director for the San Marcos Studio Tour, now in its fourth year. “But it feels really nice to lose our minds collectively, especially the payoff… when we have hundreds of people enjoying themselves. And we have 86 tour stops this year. I think it grows every year. So it's just really fun to see.” Porter says that now, several years in, the San Marcos Studio Tour feels like it’s come into its own as a cultural force in town. “You really can see that the tour has solidified itself culturally in town. You don't really have to kind of explain what it is anymore – people know and they're interested and they're excited about it,” Porter says. Even as it grows, the tour, created by San Marcos’ Mothership Studios, works to maintain its smaller-town feel, Porter says. “San Marcos much, much smaller… than Austin,” she says. “It takes, you know, ten minutes to drive from one side of town to the other. So when you're driving around or even walking around, it's very, very accessible. I just love that we kind of have a limit of our ZIP code. You know, we do do some stuff with Lockhart, with Spellerberg Galleries. They're amazing and essential in our production, but we try to really hone it into the 78666, which is smaller, a little bit more intimate for sure. We have a really beautiful historic downtown district. San Marcos is a very bikeable town and we actually have, every year, a good friend of mine, Naomi, does a bike tour. I send her the spots and she will make a bike route. You can hop on a bike and follow along with them, and in an hour, you've hit like 20 different stops, you've met 20 different artists, and you've got a nice workout.” As the tour grows, its organizers have worked to include more and more different kinds of art into the event. “ such a range,” says Shelby Sult, the tour’s assistant manager. “I mean, I love seeing what people bring in terms of like sculptures, soft sculpture, installation, painting, photography… We have a tattoo artist on a stop on the tour this year, which I think is awesome because that hasn't happened for our tour yet.”tattoo shops this year!” Porter points out. “And a big goal of mine this year was bringing in more of the performance art side. What I really love about the San Marcos studio tour is I really try to get people involved outside the word, you know, cause what is a studio? You know, like I could go outside, open up my sketchbook, and that's my studio. I'm trying to show people that you wanna, you wanna meet artists where they're at. I just really wanted to kind of expand people's idea on what a studio could be. It's not just visual art. It's, you know, all of it.” “I feel like it just kind of happens naturally,” says Sult, “like the more artists sign up for the tour, the more different mediums and practices are represented, so we just see it grow more and more. I feel like we're also creating a way for people to cross-pollinate ideas.” Sult was an exhibiting artist in year one before becoming more involved in planning the event. “Since then I've just been volunteering a bit more… because every time I went to help out, it was just so fun and I love the people that we work with and so I love doing it for the artists and every year we just keep growing the event more and more.” “My plan this year is to hit all 86 tour stops,” says Porter. “Wish me luck! I'm really excited because I just feel I'm gonna be overwhelmed with inspiration and excitement. It's just so special. Like our town. San Marcos just has this cultural heartbeat right now and I think the tour really does a good way of getting to explore that.” The San Marcos Studio tour kicks off with a party at Mothership Studios and continues through the weekends of April 4-5 and 11-12.Mike is the production director at KUT, where he’s been working since his days as an English major at the University of Texas. He produces and hosts This Is My Thing and Arts Eclectic, and also produces Get Involved and the Sonic ID project. When pressed to do so, he’ll write short paragraphs about himself in the third person, but usually prefers not to.
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