New blood revives Open Studios

Annual event wraps up today

Hilary Scott, among the artists taking part in this weekend's Somerville Open Studios event, settles alongside some of his sculptures, inspired by a gift of speakers left to him on a dare. (Joanne Rathe/Globe Staff)

It's a Somerville institution, but it almost didn't happen this year.

Since Somerville Open Studios began in 1999, when about six dozen artists opened up their homes and studios to visitors, it has morphed into what's believed to be the largest event of its kind in New England. More than 350 artists in 123 locations across the city have been displaying their works, putting out food and drinks, interacting with visitors, and selling their work this weekend. The free displays are open from noon to 6 p.m. today.

It has become a sophisticated operation: Artists register online; an intricate website presentation categorizes exhibitions by medium, artist, and location; and trolleys cart visitors from studio to studio. Somerville Open Studios - now a registered nonprofit organization - also hosts an educational outreach program in the city's schools.

But all this takes a lot of work. And after running the event for a decade, the original organizers were ready to move on. It seemed to them that Somerville artists took for granted that Open Studios happened every year, and not enough new volunteers were stepping forward.

"We reached sort of a critical point," said Matt Carrano, who served as the event's director for three years and is president of its board of directors. "A bunch of us who were on the board and had been involved for a while said something has to change if this event's going to carry on."

Last fall, they hosted a "Sink Or Swim" call-for-action pancake breakfast to recruit volunteers and promote a change in leadership that they hoped would inject new life into the event.

Carrano said he and other longtime leaders laid out the situation for the 75 people who attended the October breakfast. "We want to be able to continue to do Open Studios, but it's really contingent on a group of people from the artist community coming forward, saying we're going to do what it takes to make this happen," he told them, adding there's nothing that says "that we are all entitled to an Open Studios."

He was pleasantly surprised by the response. A dozen people volunteered or stepped up to take leadership roles, among them a new director, membership coordinator, and webmaster.

Nicholas Shectman said he was pushed to step in and direct the event, a role that gives him a chance to work on the project with his wife, Rachel Mello, an exhibiting artist who is in charge of volunteers.

When Shectman took the reins, "it was barely enough time to make the event happen," he said. "Had we waited another month, it would have been too late."

He said he's already discovering ways that Open Studios could run more smoothly in the future. "Many of us are doing this for the first time and learning on the job," Shectman said. "We're definitely looking forward to how to make it better for next year."

One of the event's founders and a board member, Hilary Scott, said Somerville Open Studios gave him his start as an artist. He previously had simply made sculptures for his children.

"It gives you a public window for people to see your things, things that have been sitting in your living room or in your hallway," he said. "Suddenly, you can invite people in and not be self-conscious about it."

After exhibiting a few years, he left his job as a political science professor at Tufts University to become a full-time artist. Since the first Open Studios, he has opened up his entire house to visitors. In the early days, his kids ran a lemonade stand. Now they bake cookies for guests, who this year will see dragons he made for a museum show.

"It is a very intimate experience," he said. "I've always thought it was great fun. Some people will come in, they'll look - OK, large dragon heads are not for them. Some just jump up and down."

He has stayed involved with Open Studios, he said, because it has always been an organization interested in innovation.

"Being artists, they are willing to try new things. As a young, amateur artist, it was wonderful to have an audience that would say, 'That's an interesting idea,' " he said. "If you have an idea to help the organization, to get the word out, they'll say if you want to own the idea, you can do it."

Carrano, a painter, pointed out that by definition the event is open to anybody who identifies himself or herself as an artist living or working in Somerville and signs up to participate. That means it features people from all strata of the art world, he said.

"There's no judgment about whether this person is really an artist, or just dabbles," he said. "If people just paint in their kitchen on the weekends and they want to open up their home, that's just great."

For more information, visit somervilleopenstudios.org.