Collegiate Times

“Buy local. Be local. Eat local.” Blacksburg’s local initiative has found its way onto bumper stickers, storefront windows and advertisements. But this weekend, it will expand to embrace a different concept: local art.

The New River Valley’s 3rd Annual Art Tour 10 takes the idea of purchasing goods from local merchants or farmers to the art world. It invites artists, students and community members alike to tour area galleries and studios while learning about the artists. The tour will feature the work of 11 local artists at 10 different locations in Floyd, Radford and Blacksburg.

The works featured on the tour will include stone carvings, photography, jewelry, paintings and pottery. The artists have found inspiration for their work from their own experiences and memories from travels, as well as the perpetual search to find beauty and meaning in their own surroundings.

Local sculptor Charlie Brouwer will be one of the artists featured on the tour. Though he has been a full-time artist for over 30 years, this is only his second year on the Art Tour 10. As an artist, Brouwer visits galleries and museums often to admire the work of others and found the idea of an art tour that lets viewers into the actual studio  refreshing.

“It gives people access to artists in a way that’s different than viewing art in a gallery,” Brouwer said. “You get to meet the artists, see them work, talk to them. It’s an educational way to view art.”

Brouwer’s work will be displayed at his house in Floyd County, where viewers will have the chance to walk the grounds of his 9-acre backyard, exploring trails and paths lined with 20 of the artist’s sculptures. Brouwer’s wooden designs have an abstract, cubist feel, which emerges prominently from the familiar landscape of the New River Valley.

Brouwer will also display some of his work produced in collaboration with Jennifer Collins, another featured artist on the tour. Collins’ work features oil paintings of natural settings and has been combined with Brouwer’s sculptures to create unique pieces with a touch of surrealism. The artists have been a collaborative team since 1998, adding a professional aspect to their more personal, lifelong relationship as father and daughter.

Collins’s solo work as an artist features natural landscapes highlighted with an abstract feel. In her more recent work Collins has begun to incorporate human forms, partially from her teaching position in figure drawing classes at Tech. Collins also teaches principles of design through the School of Visual Arts and has encouraged her students to participate in the tour this weekend.

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