2026 Hidden Studios Art Tour returns October 2-4
Left: Sharon Fujimoto showcases her blown glass work at her studio. Right: Leatherwork by Sharon Cherney, including this custom handbag, will be at Paul Klein’s New Hope in Wood studio.
By Jim McKnight
From Friday through Sunday, October 2 to 4, 2026, the Hidden Studios Art Tour of Central Wisconsin will again give art lovers an opportunity to view an exceptional variety of fine art on a self-guided tour of working studios. The tour is free and open to the public. A full description of Tour details, including artist biographies, working media, images and in-studio demonstrations as well as maps to studio locations, is available at HiddenStudiosArtTour.com.
Twenty-seven different artists are featured at nine different studio locations, the most artists in the Tour’s 23-year history. Tour hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. Participants will have much to explore along roads ablaze with seasonal colors. Many guest artists are making first-time Tour appearances, and a long-time favorite studio returns after a hiatus of several years. And as always, regular studio hosts and returning guest artists will exhibit new work in their chosen media.
The studio returning to the Tour this year is Bill McKee’s Studio A, the former Lanark Town Hall repurposed into a work and exhibition space for McKee’s multimedia sculptural pieces. Joining him is Connie Greany, a ceramics artist who has exhibited throughout the Midwest in her nearly 50-year career fashioning unique display and functional pieces.
Also on the “southern leg” of the Tour is The Wood Plane, featuring fine woodworking by Mike Jagielo. Known for his fine furniture, cabinetry, and wood objects combining multiple species of woods, Jagielo has added figurative and sculptural elements to his oeuvre in stunning new ways. Joining him are ceramicist Kathy King and jewelry maker Kim Wilson. King creates distinctive pieces featuring figurative and bird images using a variety of firing methods, glazes, and carving techniques to work clay into beautiful objects. Wilson employs sterling silver, gold, and semi-precious stones to hand-fabricate jewelry that merges simple natural forms with a variety of surfacing techniques to form one-of-a-kind pieces.
Red Sky Studios features the work of hosts Mary Lee and Gene Reineking and guest artist woodworker Patrick Plautz. Reineking is an oil painter using a palette knife to create landscape canvases rich in texture and movement that reflect on his previous work in sculpture. Lee utilizes multimedia including acrylics, collage, printing, and cold wax to create pieces that incorporate natural objects in spontaneous, colorful, and uniquely stylized combinations. Plautz blends a wide variety of wood species to create objects that not only highlight the natural beauty and form of the wood but delight as distinctive functional furniture.
A Touch of Glass Studio, hosted by jeweler Tammy Rae Wolter, includes three guest artists this year in the repurposed church studio: oil painter Davette Leonard, fabric artist Barb Guernik, and mosaic artist Shelley Beaumont. Wolter’s work utilizes Borosilicate glass methodology, alternately melting and layering glass to create shapes with great depth of color and strength , which she combines with sterling silver, copper, and other materials in spectacular wearable art. Leonard creates exquisite still life oil paintings, using traditional multiple glazing techniques and exacting detail work to highlight the sensuality and mystery of everyday objects. Guernik hand weaves functional textiles for personal fashion and interiors, utilizing exciting color combinations, often embellished with beads, yarns, or other material to create unusual and distinctive art for everyday living. Beaumont’s national award-winning mosaic art celebrates the natural world, blending tactile materials with vibrant colors and reflective surfaces to create beautiful assemblages that also draw on the healing properties of sacred geometry for inspiration.
Jessie Fritsch is the host at Buzz In Art Studio in Arnott and works in the ancient technique of encaustic painting, using molten, pigmented beeswax. The difficult medium requires patience and spontaneity to produce the compositions of luminous color. Ceramic artist Carolina Niebres is her guest artist, fabricating pieces that reflect her love of beautiful, functional pottery decorated with patterns inspired by nature and tribal tattoos, and multiple glazes.
Atelier Vermeil, the Nelsonville studio of Mark Bruggeman, includes his prints, paintings, drawings, and collages on multiple grounds. He also combines imagery with poetry text as single page broadsides and bound books on handmade paper. Joining Mark is April Smithback, who combines her love of nature and wool to create landscape pieces using needle and wet felt fabric techniques.
Sharon Fujimoto Glass Studio houses the working kiln and glass blowing tools that she uses to transform molten glass into art and functional objects. Her one-of-a-kind pieces, based on a transcendent simplicity of form and color, connect directly with the viewer. Her guest artists are fiber artist Char TerBeest Kudla and jeweler Frank Kudla. Frank’s work is mostly in 14K gold and silver, often with stones, utilizing three methods: casting from molds, forged metal shaped by hammering, and assembled from sheet, rod, and metal wire. Char fashions distinctive, handsewn custom handbags in a range of styles and complexity, for everyday to special occasions.
The Brunett Thielking Art Studio showcases their collaborative and individual sculptural works in a restored barn. They utilize many materials, including iron, glass, and paper, for their small- and large-scale pieces. Guest artists include painter Ruth Fromstein and broom artist Susan Galkowski. Fromstein’s acrylic images, assembled in many layers with a plethora of materials, contain textures and depth of surprising inventiveness. Galkowski creates functional brooms of all sizes, employing skills and materials based on Appalachian traditions, that can be equally appreciated as beautiful display art pieces.
New Hope In Wood, the studio of Paul Klein, will again feature his structural lighting pieces and workspace in a restored barn. Paul fashions his distinctive lamps from wood, stone, metal, and handmade paper shades, combining fluid abstractions and figurative elements. Three guest artists will also exhibit; leatherworker Sharon Cherney, pastel artist Christina Karras, and mixed media artist Nancy Thorson. Cherney has been creating custom handbags for more than 40 years, utilizing natural and dyed leathers in striking design combinations. Karras works in soft pastels and produces mostly landscapes in what she calls “softened realism,” representing natural beauty in its truest form. Thorson uses mixed media, including acrylic, watercolor, and collage to create abstract, intuitive work.
Since its start in 2004, HST has not only become an optimal cultural and social event set in a vibrant, fall landscape but has also generated more than $1 million in direct purchases to local artists. With an average of more than 1,000 visitors each year, indirect spending by tour visitors has benefitted local economies and Tour business sponsors as well
In appreciation, every year Hidden Studio Tour artists donate a percentage of sales back to a chosen local, non-profit entity. This year, donations will be made to local school district art programs in the Tour area.