Rising Fawn Studio Tour Returns December 12-13 on Lookout Mountain

Six studios and more than 16 artists will open their doors on December 12-13 for the Rising Fawn Studio Tour in New Salem, on Lookout Mountain, Georgia. The tour runs from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. both days, with all stops within three miles of one another, many along Plum Nelly Road in the historic artist community known as Rising Fawn.

The event traces its roots to 1947, when printmaker Fannie Mennen founded it as the "Clothesline Art Show." Mennen belonged to a cluster of creative residents that included enamel and ceramic jewelry artist Virginia Dudley, artist and educator Frank Baisden, and potter Charles Counts, who promoted the preservation of Appalachian folk art. Nearly eight decades later, the tour still gathers painters, jewelers, silk artists and felters in the same mountain neighborhood.

What will visitors see this year?

Beth Bradford, a Lookout Mountain native, will show landscape paintings in acrylic and watercolor. She studied art at the Atlanta College of Art, UNC, the School of the Museum of Fine Art in Boston and UTK, and taught elementary art for 19 years. Her subjects come from Rising Fawn and Lookout Mountain scenery as well as her travels and camping trips.

"When you're growing up and you say you want to be an artist, most people ask, 'What are you really going to do?'" Bradford said. "I was an English major."

She found her career regardless. "I feel that one of the ways God expresses His love for us is through nature," Bradford said. "I hope my paintings reflect that."

Her guest artists are Chelsea Johnson and Connie Ward. Johnson, a former dental hygienist, took up handmade jewelry as a hobby when COVID hit in 2020. The self-taught artist makes pendants, bracelets and other pieces, sometimes painting details with a toothpick. "I guess my dental background came in handy," she said. She works while her homeschooled son sleeps; he follows each piece's progress. "He might be a future art critic," Johnson said. "I call him my little supervisor."

Ward, a former schoolteacher and accomplished violinist, has made things since her Girl Scout childhood. "I know any child that's been in my class knows how to papier-mâché because it's just an easy, fun thing for them to make models," she said. "And my artwork developed from there." Her collages combine photography, papier-mâché and fabric featuring pets and farm animals. She sold out of her papier-mâché bowls at last year's show. "Right now, my basement is filled with empty frames," she said. "I'm picking pictures to go behind them and then I'll start to think about what I could add."

Who else is on the route?

Silk artist Claire Vassort, originally from France, moved to Rising Fawn to be near the hang-gliding site of her former athletic career on the U.S. Women's Hang-Gliding Team. This year she is working on a new point of view, interpreting land topography. "To honor the land as a bird would see it," she said. The tour itself drives her production: "The Rising Fawn Studio Tour has been a motivator for me to come up with new work for the local audience," Vassort said. She is midway through a series of 13 pieces, including scarves, framed originals and lanterns.

Her guest, England native Ruth Pearl, paints portraits — some completed in minutes. "It may not look like you and it may not be flattering, but I try for both," she said. "So, I've only got five minutes, in the case of my quick portraits, to do the task." Pearl also makes Art-O-Mat pieces, small original artworks sold through restored vintage cigarette vending machines. "It allows my work to be all around the world," she said, noting her art reached a machine at the Smithsonian outside the National Portrait Gallery.

The final stop is Wool Whimsy Creations by Donna Parrish, a needle felter from Bradenton, Florida. "I bought a little kit off Amazon during COVID," she said. "I've been hooked ever since!" She sculpts fairies, trolls, bunnies, foxes and Santa figurines from sheep's wool, using a barbed needle to tangle and compact the fibers. Her studio, a wooden barn shed on her fiancé Alan's family farm, is insulated and equipped with electricity and A/C. No two figures are alike.

The artists say creating gives them joy, peace and a "voice" without a word. Visitors can judge for themselves over one December weekend — and, if Ward's bowls are any guide, arrive early.