By Sara Atencio-Gonzales, The Paper. – For one weekend in September, homes throughout Sandia Heights will open their doors to art lovers as 40 local artists share everything from oil paintings and pottery to jewelry, woodworking and mixed-media pieces.
The annual Sandia Heights Artists Studio Tour brings artists together across 13 stops in the neighborhood, giving visitors a self-guided opportunity to see their work and meet the people who created it. The free tour includes artists from Sandia Heights as well as a limited number of guest artists from elsewhere in the Albuquerque area.
Rebecca Whitecotton, publicity coordinator for Sandia Heights Artists, emphasizes that interaction is an important part of what separates a studio tour from viewing artwork in a gallery.
“At the studio tour, I’m there and I see people come in and sometimes immediately connect with a piece that I’ve made, and that’s just very meaningful for me as an artist, because I can see how connected people are to the work that I’ve done,” says Whitecotton.
Sandia Heights Artists President Claudia Mitchell explains that the tour began 23 years ago and has grown into a regular part of Albuquerque’s art community. Its relatively small geographic area also allows visitors to see numerous artists without traveling long distances between stops…