The Octagon House in Carolina Village |
By Will Collette
The 6th Annual "HopArts Studio Trail" runs for one more day on Sunday. I spent most of today on the HopArts trail and strongly recommend that you check it out - and bring your checkbook, because there is a lot of choice material still available for sale.
We've done the HopArts trail before, and always enjoyed them, but this year is great. We started in Carolina, where there are four stops on the map. This includes the wonderful Octagon House, now the site of the Carolina Fiber and Fiction Center. I've been curious about the Octagon House for years and finally got to see the inside. And the weaving and fabric art are fantastic.And nearby is the Green Gallery which was a must-do stop for us because we're big fans of Daniel Read's art glass.
Example of Daniel Read's art glass |
Many of the stops are clustered, like the four in Carolina and nine along a short stretch of Route 3 in Hope Valley. The Hope Valley artists include one of my favorites, Rick Devlin's studio. I love his outrageous and wickedly creative figurines especially.
The Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum up in Arcadia is the most remote of the stops, but it's great. The museum is open and the admission is free. In the gallery, there are several artists - we especially love the work of Narragansett Indian Allen Hazard using traditional quahog shell wampum. They also feature the beautiful pottery of Brenda Hill that combines traditional Indian pottery, wampum inlay and a modern flair.
Example of Brenda Hill's wampum inlay |
All the stops were fun. The artists are friendly and love to talk about their work. At most of the stops, you'll be offered cider, cookies or muffins. Today was gorgeous and Sunday should be pretty nice too.
Enjoy!