Rising Fawn Studio Tour Maintains New Salem’s Art Tradition
By LYDIA BERGLAR
News Editor
Courtesy of Rising Fawn Studio Tour – This photo from the 2022 Rising Fawn Studio Tour captures some of the event’s artists, with even more added this year.
This weekend, Dec. 7-8, is the seventh annual Rising Fawn Studio Tour in New Salem. The tour is one way Lookout Mountain artists keep a culture of local art alive in Dade County.
Sandy White (Alliance for Dade president and CEO) said, “It rounds out our three important art shows and festivals: Plum Nelly Art Depot, New Salem Mountain Festival, and Rising Fawn Studio Tour.”
The art depot is just three years old, the studio tour started in 2018, the mountain festival has a much longer history, but all three are rooted in the history of Fannie Mennen and the late 1940s Dade County art movement. Mennen helped foster a creative community on Lookout Mountain that included Virginia Dudley (enamel and ceramic jewelry artist), Frank Baisden, and Charles Counts (a potter who gained notoriety and promoted the preservation of Appalachian folk art).
Mennen started the Plum Nelly Clothesline Art Show, using a clothesline outdoors on her property to display the art. Artists came to the show from as far as New York and New Jersey and even the West Coast. The event continued for 26 years.
The show morphed into the New Salem Mountain Festival, an annual event that’s continued ever since and offers much more space for vendors than the original clothesline show, and Mennen founded the Plum Nelly Shop and Gallery that is now located on Frazier Avenue in Chattanooga.
Bonnie Cayce and Claire Vassort, two of the Rising Fawn Studio Tour founders, reported that a studio tour took place on the mountain for a few years in the early 2000s, and some artists occasionally opened their studios over the years. Then, the Rising Fawn Studio Tour kicked off in 2018.
The first tour featured three studios (Cayce’s, Vassort’s, and Nikki Oliver’s). This year, the tour features six studios all within three miles of each other. Guest artists rotate through each year, joining the studio hosts.
White reflected, “These are very talented artists who keep the art focus alive in the community. They’re a big asset because they keep the tradition of art going in Dade County.”
Many of the artists are inspired by nature—some specifically by Lookout Mountain, others by nature in general. Vassort said, “The place is attractive for artists because it’s beautiful, it’s quiet, it’s a great area to find inspiration.”
Courtesy of Rising Fawn Studio Tour – This year’s map shows guests where to go on the self-guided tour. It can be found on the “Rising Fawn Studio Tour” Facebook page.
She looks forward to the studio tour because “it’s an event that creates a lot of connections. You see people from the community who you wouldn’t otherwise see. I love that I can share what I do with people from all over and at the same time reach out to people who are not far from me, but I hardly ever see in person.”
Unlike many festivals and shows, the tour takes guests into artists’ spaces. Some artists have their studios in their houses, while others have separate buildings, and some welcome guests to see their studios. Vassort reflected, “It’s a different type of art show because each studio has its own personality. They’re quaint, they’re not huge spaces. It’s not like an art gallery.”
Last year, Vassort heard about one couple who has come to the mountain every year (even before the studio tour) for over 30 years to buy one of Oliver’s pieces. Selling under the name “St. Nick’s by Nick,” Oliver hand carves and paints Santas, angels, and other figurines, and the couple made a tradition of collecting a piece each year.
While Oliver’s work is mostly Christmas inspired, some of the other artists switch their focus leading up to the tour. Vassort said, “It makes you focus on your work in a different way, thinking about the variety of items you want to show.” She tries to create pieces that people with a variety of tastes might like. Selling under the name “Silk by Claire,” Vassort uses her hand-painted silks to make things like lanterns, wall hangings, and scarves, and she also makes prints and cards.
Cayce added that she thinks about what makes good Christmas gifts. Selling under the name “Cayce Creations,” she quilts textile art using a variety of fabrics and embellishments. For gifts, she works on purses, wine totes, ornaments, and cards in addition to her typical mandalas, Celtic crosses, log cabins, and other decorative pieces.
This year’s six studios (not including the guest artists) are Oliver’s, Vassort’s, Cayce’s, Beth Bradford’s (acrylic, pastel, and watercolor landscapes), Julie Clark’s (metal yard art, flower photography) and Mark Issenberg’s Lookout Mountain Pottery.
With guests coming from across the southeast, the studio tour helps put Dade on the map while keeping the legacy of Mennen and her community alive. As Cayce put it, “These events keep our name and our area in people’s minds. There are people who know about Plum Nelly from the late 1940s and still remember that. We’re just keeping that alive.”
With no need to sign up, the event is a self-guided tour; between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Dec. 7 and 8, show up at any of the stops on the tour and come and go as you please. The map can be found on the “Rising Fawn Studio Tour” Facebook page. Parking and refreshments are available at each stop.
