While standing beside a "Fox Side-bender," local luthier Howard Replogle holds the unfinished body to a ukulele that he is working on at his shop behind his Ryderwood home on Wednesday afternoon. The "Fox Side-bender" is a tool used to bend the wood to form the shape of the body of the instrument.
Betty Jurey shows off her favorite decorated egg, inspired by Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
Howard Replogle wears magnified glasses while painstakingly fitting an end graft — a custom-fit inlaid piece of wood — on the tail end of one of his custom-crafted EBI ukuleles.
In the past four years, Replogle has built 20 ukuleles of various shapes, sizes and sounds. Right now, he’s working on numbers 21 and 22.
“I like making something pretty (that) can also make art,” he said. “It’s art making art.”
Museums and galleries showcase works of art, but the ARTrails Studio Tour gives curious travelers a chance to meet artists in their studios and watch them work. Replogle is one of 51 artists participating in the annual event this month.
ARTrails of Southwest Washington president Richard Roth said he and a few other area artists decided to start the studio tour 13 years ago on a “shoestring budget,” but the first event was successful.
“Then it’s just grown since then,” he said. “It goes between 50 and 60 (artists) now.”
The organization sends out a call to artists each fall for the following year’s studio tour. Artists are selected by a jury in March.
Seventeen of this year’s artists, including Replogle, are in their first year of the tour.
“I’m a trained guitar-builder. They’re just little guitars,” said Replogle, who has been making things with wood since he was a child. He said he makes ukuleles partly because their size allows him to use a wider variety of wood than guitars, which require larger amounts of stronger wood.
The 2015 studio tour is scheduled to begin with a gala reception from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Centralia’s Historic Train Depot at 210 Railroad Ave. The event include also includes live music and finger food.
After 23 years of making Faberge eggs and other egg art, Glenoma artist Betty Jurey said one of her most recent creations is one of her favorites. This is Jurey’s first year participating in ARTrails.
“I think probably the most favorite one I’ve done is for the train station for ARTrails,” she said.
The embellished emu egg is inspired by the Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood and will be showcased at the ARTrails gala.
The tour continues from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 19 and 20, and the following weekend — Sept. 26 and 27.
The online studio tour guide is available at http://issuu.com/debibodett/docs/2015_artrails_catalog. Paper copies are available by contacting any ARTrails artist or by emailing info@artrailsofsww.org.
“People keep these guides and they come back other times of the year,” Roth said. “Some people come from all over the country, but a lot of them, possibly they’re friends of artists or friends of friends who decide to come here during ARTrails.”
