wisconsin art tour

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October 18, 19 & 20, 2024 • 10am - 6pm

Mineral point • spring green/dodgeville • baraboo.

The Fall Art Tour reveals one of the dairyland's richest harvests — a veritable bumper crop of galleries and studios sandwiched between the family farms or just off small-town main streets in southern Wisconsin.

— Wisconsin Trails Magazine

• 608-987-3669
• info@fallarttour.com

©2024 Fall Art Tour

October 4-6, 2024 | Fri. & Sat. 10am-5pm | Sun. 10am-4pm | Free Admission

October 4-6, 2024

Hidden Studios Art Tour

Explore winding roads, quaint communities, and fine art hidden studios during the peak fall foliage weekend in Central WI!

View our 2024 Digital Brochure!

Talk to the artists.

Shop for Fine Art & Crafts

25 Artists ▪ 9 Working Studios

Head over to YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram

Fine Art Demos

Learn about different art mediums.

Take the Tour from Home!

 Take a virtual tour using our Google Map and viewing the YouTube links attached to each location. 

Keep the Tour Thriving

 Every dollar helps tremendously to sustain the tour. We deeply appreciate any support at this time. 

Thank You Sponsors- Restaurants & Eateries

Thank you sponsors- area lodging, additional support provided by, digital downloads.

2024 HSAT brochure (pdf)

Join our Mailing List!

Copyright © 2023 Hidden Studios Art Tour - All Rights Reserved.

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What is an art environment?

Discover amazing art, stories, and adventure

Summer and fall contribute rich seasonal backdrops to the perfect road trip through the rolling hills of southwestern Wisconsin, up into the Northwoods, and along the shores of Lake Michigan.

Aside from encountering the astonishing creations of artist-environment builders, you will experience the wealth of originality Wisconsin has to offer, from breweries, wineries, and exceptional lodging and restaurants—all offering the unique character for which Wisconsin is known.

Although every effort has been made to provide up-to-date information about all member sites and partner businesses, we recommend calling ahead and/or making reservations in advance of your arrival.

Art Preserve

Rudolph Grotto Gardens and Wonder Cave

Paul and Matilda Wegner Grotto

Nick Engelbert’s Grandview

Ernest Hüpeden’s Painted Forest

James Tellen Woodland Sculpture Garden

Herman Rusch’s Prairie Moon Sculpture Garden and Museum

Wisconsin concrete park.

The Dickeyville Grotto

Carl Peterson Garden

Whether it’s a weekend getaway or just a few stops along your trip, explore a series of environments that suit your interests. Feeling adventurous? Take a grand tour of them all! Pick a route and plan your trip today!

• Food & Lodging

Stockholm to Maiden Rock 6 Miles

Maiden Rock to Bay City 8 Miles

Maiden Rock to Plum City 9 Miles

Plum City to Durand 12 Miles

Stockholm to Pepin 6 Miles

Pepin to Nelson 7 Miles

Nelson to Durand 15 Miles

Plum City to Ellsworth 17 Miles

Mark your calendar for Covered Bridge Art Studio 2024 

O ctober 11, 12 & 13 10am - 5pm.

Save the date for our Fall event, Covered Bridge Art Studio Tour . It‘ s the way to catch a glimpse of the enchanting studios and workspaces of some of Southeastern Wisconsin’s finest artists. Visiting our artists' studios  on tour  is the chance  to  see what inspires them and gain insight into their process.  Click to see video clips of the artists from 2023 .

Registration for the Covered Bridge Art Studio Tour has closed.

This year's brochure has been designed and sent to the printers and will be in distribution around communities this summer.

Check out this year’s  map and list of artists on tour.

Every year, art enthusiasts enjoy the splendor of an autumn drive in rural Wisconsin and experience the scenic beauty of farm fields, pumpkin patches, and Lake Michigan‘s shoreline. The small towns in Ozaukee and Washington counties are picturesque. And don’t miss the historic wooden covered bridge!  E ach stop is marked with the signature red arrow signs.  Detailed maps can be found throughout the Cedarburg community and with our sponsors. Or simply click the buttons about and download your map and list of studios now.  

Try our interactive map at the bottom of this page.

A Sneak Peek of the Tour

Checkout videos of some of this year’s participating artists (2023).

Get an upclose and personal view of spaces and faces behind the work.

For questions or more information about this event, please contact the Covered Bridge Art Studio Tour Committee by clicking the button.

THANK YOU TO OUR

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

—Lau Tuz

Falling Leaves Art Tour

Want to be a part of the tour?

A free, self-guided tour of ar t studios in beautiful northwestern wisconsin..

Saturday, October 12

Sunday, October 13

the  Map→

More Information →

A free, self-guided tour of art studios in beautiful Northwestern Wisconsin.

See the Artists →

North Woods Art Tour

Vilas, oneida, iron, langlade and lincoln counties – wisconsin, artists by medium.

• Artists by Name
• Colored Pencil
• Mixed Media
• Alcohol Ink
• Photography
• Printmaking
• Woodworking
• Arbor Vitae
• Boulder Junction
• Eagle River
• Lac du Flambeau
• Lake Tomahawk
• Land O’ Lakes
• Manitowish Waters
• Rhinelander
• Three Lakes
• Our Sponsors

National Endowment for the Arts

• Grants for Arts Projects
• Challenge America
• Research Awards
• Partnership Agreement Grants
• Creative Writing
• Translation Projects
• Volunteer to be an NEA Panelist
• Manage Your Award
• Recent Grants
• Arts & Human Development Task Force
• Arts Education Partnership
• Blue Star Museums
• Citizens' Institute on Rural Design
• Creative Forces: NEA Military Healing Arts Network
• GSA's Art in Architecture
• Independent Film & Media Arts Field-Building Initiative
• Interagency Working Group on Arts, Health, & Civic Infrastructure
• International
• Mayors' Institute on City Design
• Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge
• National Folklife Network
• NEA Big Read
• NEA Research Labs
• Poetry Out Loud
• Save America's Treasures
• Shakespeare in American Communities
• Sound Health Network
• United We Stand
• American Artscape Magazine
• NEA Art Works Podcast
• National Endowment for the Arts Blog
• States and Regions
• Accessibility
• Arts & Artifacts Indemnity Program
• Arts and Health
• Arts Education
• Creative Placemaking
• Equity Action Plan
• Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
• Literary Arts
• Native Arts and Culture
• NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships
• National Heritage Fellowships
• National Medal of Arts
• Press Releases
• Upcoming Events
• NEA Chair's Page
• Leadership and Staff
• What Is the NEA
• Publications
• National Endowment for the Arts on COVID-19
• Open Government
• Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
• Office of the Inspector General
• Civil Rights Office
• Appropriations History
• Make a Donation

Reedsburg, WI: The Farm/Art DTour

How do you encourage conversations between rural farmers and visitors from the city?

Farm/Art DTour is a ten-day self-guided driving tour through scenic working farm land of Sauk County, Wisconsin punctuated with Art Works (temporary art installations), Field Notes (educational signs), Roadside Culture Stands (artist-built mobile farm stands), Farm Forms (creative participation by landowners), Pasture Performances and Roadside Poetry. In 2011, the Farm/Art DTour was part of the Annual Fermentation Fest – A Live Culture Convergence that included a wide variety of classes, workshops, demonstrations, dinners, and performances – highlighting live culture in all its forms. The 50 mile DTour route had twenty- seven stops, representing agreements with many landowners.

Reedsburg, Wisconsin, and the surrounding area, is a landscape of rolling hills and working farm lands in northern Sauk County. It is a place where small family farms can thrive, because the topography does not allow for the corporate scale agriculture that is common in the flatter portions of the state. Over the years the town has developed a strong economic base that supports both agriculture and commercial industries. It is a diversified base that sustains a growing population and the beginnings of a seasonal tourism industry with visitors that are drawn to the area’s scenic beauty and regional reputation for arts and sustainable agriculture. This growing cultural community benefits from the support of the county government (Sauk County is one of three county governments - and the only rural one - in Wisconsin that directly supports the arts). County officials here understand the direct quality of life benefit that the arts bring to the region and how the arts can help retain the area’s youth who tend to migrate to larger nearby cities. “We don’t have the amenities of Madison”, said one county official. “By attracting artists to the region, the DTour gave Reedsburg a reason to strategically invest in order to retain young people and attract live/work professionals.”

Today the town of Reedsburg has approximately 9,000 residents. Settlers were attracted to the area’s iron, copper, and timber and established the town in the mid-1800s. What began as a sawmill and 5 small wooden workmen houses, today is a thriving downtown that serves residents, area farmers, and a growing number of visitors. Though the Farm/Art DTour project’s local constituents comprised both area residents and downtown business owners that support local tourism, such as the town’s restaurants and bed and breakfasts, the project’s larger targeted community included a much wider geographic reach. The DTour aimed to attract visitors from cities as near as Madison or as far as Chicago, who have a growing interest in reconnecting to the source of their food, yet who rarely see farms. This audience, along with those interested in public art, craft brewing, artisanal food, and conservation, created a large and diverse set of visitors to the area.

LOCAL NEEDS:

Often a disconnect exists between farm families trying to maintain their agricultural businesses in a hypercompetitive farming economy, and visitors who appreciate family scale farming as a source of artisanal products. The farmers who hosted art installations on the DTour typically find themselves in the middle, trying to balance the needs of both markets. It is within this tension that the project’s director and Wormfarm’s co- founder, Donna Neuwirth, found opportunity. Donna is a pragmatist about the issues at hand. She recognizes that, “People have a sincere and earnest interest in connecting more deeply to their food, but may have no understanding at all of the commodity markets most farmers are part of.” It is precisely this reality that needed to become a starting point for dialogue between the farmers and the urban tourists that came to see the art. “Twenty years ago this wouldn’t have been that interesting,” Donna said, recognizing the fact that today a greater divide stands between our rural and urban lifestyles than was there decades ago; at the same time, an energized local food economy has revalued the vital role farmers play in all our lives.

With an understanding that farmers and artists have creation in common, Wormfarm formed a vision for farm-based ephemeral art installations and roadside Culture Stands (artist designed/built mobile farm stands). This began an exploration of the ever-evolving connections between people and the land. Originally, the Farm/Art DTour served as a “fringe festival” to a long-standing traditional Art Tour featuring studio visits. Working at the intersection of community development and festival production, Donna was passionate about the potential of art to “ferment” relationships and form personal connections between people that would normally never meet. “Fermentation is about abundance and transformation – from grain to beer, from milk to cheese, from cabbage to kimchee. It’s also the perfect metaphor for community transformation." She and her team held a deep respect for this moment of reciprocity between farmers and urban residents and worked hard, “not to have urban ideas privileged over rural ideas.” They constantly asked the question “How can rural life revitalize the arts?” Kominy-Tractor, Artist Heath Matysek Snyder

PARTNERSHIPS:

Along with the project’s primary leads Donna Neuwirth and Jay Salinas, there were many voices around the table directing and guiding it along. Both Neuwirth and Salinas saw their work as one of creating a larger “social sculpture” of project team members and advisors that could help build bridges and support connections between participating artists, farmers, brewers, cheesemakers, and local businesses. Within their own central project management team, they brought in artists, curators, Chamber of Commerce, county extension agents, and County staff. This diversity of professional experience and viewpoints was pragmatic and helped the project to address the complex and continuous issues associated building an agri/cultural tourism event. But bringing in a diverse set of voices to help guide the project was more than a pragmatic consideration, as Neuwirth and Salinas also recognized that they needed, “different kinds of people at the helm in order to build a strong infrastructure for the future.”

The larger team readily admits that pulling the project together was a greater challenge than they thought it would be. Though the Our Town grant supported the commissioning of nine ephemeral art installations in farm fields in collaboration with private land owners, the artist selection was only the first piece in a larger choreography of branding, marketing, community outreach, and negotiating the larger regulatory issues that needed to be addressed. Strategically in the project’s first year, the project team worked with carefully selected artists and farmers that they knew had the capacity to work together. Sauk County, as Wormfarm’s government partner, provided staff through the County Extension office who served as a link with the farm community and helped the project team to navigate the regulatory issues of signage permits, trespassing ordinances, and the myriad of other details that had to be in place to run a successful festival. Neuwirth and Salinas knew from the beginning that they, “didn’t have the all skills necessary to be community facilitators and festival administrators,” but they made sure that there were people around them that could deftly handle the different issues that arose.

ANTICIPATED IMPACTS:

The Farm/Art DTour project was able to achieve its primary goal of increasing dialogue and cooperation among a wide range of partners including the public and private sectors, nonprofits, farmers, artists, and local government staff. Locating sites for the installations was itself an interdisciplinary collaboration, as landowners and artists worked together to address issues ranging from accessibility to safety to visual impact. In some cases farmers even provided equipment and technical assistance to artists. The project also was able to create tourism in the area with an estimated 4,200 DTour visitors, over 65% of whom traveled over 50 miles to see the installations. Through the use of surveys, the project team was also able to capture how these visits helped to increase the revenue of many local businesses– some of whom saw revenue increases of as much as 300%.

UNEXPECTED IMPACTS:

One of the surprises that came about through the project was the level of impact it had on both a local and a state level. Locally, farmers talked about the deep pride they felt in showing off their land. As Kristine Koenecke, the Chamber Director explained, “farmers love to showcase their land and what they do. Most times farmers aren’t prideful people, but the tour gave them a chance to show off.” A number of farmers were so inspired by what happened on their farms that they themselves became the artists the following year, creating their own contributions to the DTour. On a state level, the project has caught the interest of the USDA Director of Rural Development who is excited about the interdisciplinary potential the project holds. State Senator Dale Schultz has noted, “This is a really, really great way to showcase our part of the state. This is exactly the kind of imaginative approach our rural communities need if we’re going to get the word out to the rest of the world. Now I just want to know how I can get my farm on the tour.”

ADDITIONAL PROJECT PARTNERS

• Village Artworks
• Dietz Designs
• Reedsburg Area Chamber of Commerce Director Kristine Koenecke
• Sauk County Planning and Zoning Department
• K Clark Pickles and Preserves
• Carr Vallet Carr Valley Cheese
• Cedar Grove Cheese

ADDITIONAL PROJECT SUPPORT

• ArtPlace America
• Wisconsin Arts Board
• Sauk County Arts and Culture Committee
• Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board (major sponsor)

PROJECT TEAM MEMBERS

• Sauk County (Land Conservation, Planning and Zoning Department) – helped secured land use approvals, traffic issues and signage, educational content for Field Notes.
• Home & Community Educators – provided valuable regional connections
• Sauk County UW Extension, Community Development Specialist Jenny Erickson – involved with everything from planning meetings to evaluation.  

PROJECT ARTISTS

• Katie Schofield
• Randy Walker
• David Wells
• Cathi Schwalbe
• Chris Lutter-Gardella
• Terrence Campagna
• Laura Annis and Alexis Ortiz (team)

Stay Connected to the National Endowment for the Arts

• Driftless Wisconsin – Official Guide to Driftless Tourism
• Our Businesses

Winding Roads Art Tour 2024

https://www.windingroadsart.com/

The Winding Roads Art Tour, with headquarters in Viroqua, Wisconsin, is an invitation to meet with artists in their studios.​ Treat yourself to a weekend of creativity and inspiration on this self-guided tour through the beauty of the Driftless landscape. As you wind your way through the springtime rolling hills you will discover a diversity of artistic expression, meeting artists in their homes and creative workplaces along the way. Take this opportunity to view and purchase artwork with an understanding of the people, process and story behind its creation.

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• Fiber/Feather/Botanicals
• Galleries/Organizations
• Graphic Design and Web Dev
• Health/Body Arts
• Mixed Media
• Painting/Drawing
• Photography
• Pottery/Glass
• Sculpture/Metal
• Woodworking
• All Members
• Platinum Level Sponsors
• Gold Level Tour Sponsors
• Silver Level Tour Sponsors
• Bronze Level Sponsors
• Advertisers
• Tour Oasis Spot

Spring Art Tour

• Fall Art Salon
• Arts Organizations

We look forward to seeing you May 3-5, 2024!

Driving around you’re bound to see these simple, distinctive Art Tour signs directing you to the various studios and galleries hosting our Earth Arts members. We hope you enjoy this fun event and the wonderful art that will be on display.

Hard copies of the tour brochures will be available at a variety of stops on the tour including at the Polk County Information Center (Off of Hwy. 8, just up the hill from downtown St. Croix Falls, WI).

Remember to Support our sponsors!

Artists that do not have a space to show should contact  Sally Klevgard for information on sites with available space.

2024 Spring Tour Brochure and Map

Archive of past tour brochures.

Thanks to member Sally Klevgard for her work creating the designs of the brochures!

2023 Brochure

2022 Brochure

2021 Brochure

Boo COVID, no Tour 2020!

2019 Brochure

© All images Earth Arts and/or Member Artists www.earthartswi.org   Webmaster: John Bailey