Artists open their homes during annual studio tour started in 2012

A home’s interior can often say something about the people who live there.

And how it’s decorated is likely indicative of their style if they’re an artist.

This was a sentiment shared by artist Stacey Camp, one of six creative minds from Greater Fort Erie who opened their residences Saturday and Sunday to the public as part of the annual South Niagara Artists tour, an event started in 2012.

There were 18 artists who hosted open houses across 15 home studios throughout the weekend.

The majority of the artists who participated in the two-day event were from Port Colborne and Wainfleet.

“It has a lot to do with the art you make, the space that you live in,” said Camp in her Crescent Park living room when Fort Erie Radio stopped by on Sunday.

“Your work is who you are,” she added.

Camp has been painting for 20 years and uses acrylic paint.

“I like working as large as possible in layers,” she explained, showing some of her pieces, such as one of a crowded Bay Beach derived from a photo she took at the popular Lake Erie tourist spot this summer.

She had 28 people visit her home and studio on Saturday, the first time she has participated in the tour.

“People are very interested in my work and they’re asking a lot of questions,” she said.

Visitors had a passport stamped at each location on the tour within the three South Niagara municipalities.

After the release of an arts and culture route map created and funded by the City of Port Colborne and provincial government in 2011, a group of artists met to pursue the idea of offering a studio tour along the shores of Lake Erie.

The South Niagara Artists tour launched the following year.

Carol Cloet, a painter from Fort Erie, said she had more than two dozen guests on Saturday, showing her mixture of artwork, a lot of it also in acrylic.

“What’s the meaning of your art?”

“How did you come up with the concept?”

These are questions she was pleased to answer over the weekend, she explained from her Graham Avenue basement studio on Sunday.

Previously living in the Hamilton area, Cloet said there were similar art tours held there she opened her space for.

But she loves the “small town vibe” of Fort Erie, said Cloet, a retired palliative care nurse.

“Art has always been my outlet,” she said.

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