Donia Lilly – Kauai Art Tour founder & producer – with some of her oceans series
Some of you may be aware of the project I have been working day & night for over a year to facilitate: Kauai’s first, island wide open studio tour. The inaugural event happened in April 2015 with 39 artists participating from Waimea all the way to Hanalei over the course of 2 weekends. A Preview Exhibit with examples of each artist’s work was held the entire month of April at the Kauai Society of Artists Gallery in Lihue, Hawaii.
The very first year was a huge success with over 1700 individual studio visits and more than $36,000 in direct art sales over the course of 4 days!
My goal is to expand next year’s event to include even more artists and artisans around Kauai and entice art lovers (and open studio event lovers) to Kauai during the event.
I have been participating in & facilitating Open Studio Tour events since seeing my first Tour in 2000 in Santa Cruz, California. Later, I was a part of the Monterey County Open Studios, & a guided Art Tour in Reno, Nevada after that.
When I moved to Kauai in 2011 and saw there was nothing like it here, I launched a smaller Open Studio Tour for the Women Artists of Kauai and produced/marketed that event in 2012 and 2013, as well as organizing a coordinating Preview Exhibit for the Tour at the Kauai Museum in 2013.
Donia Lilly at Kauai Art Tour 2015 Preview Exhibit Opening with her “Pisces Moon” painting
Throughout 2014 I worked towards securing funding to launch an island-wide art event that everyone could participate in, regardless of medium or gender, and was awarded a grant from the Hawaii Tourism Authority to help move forward with the 2015 Inaugural Kauai Art Tour ~ Artists Open Studios.
To learn more about the Tour and see more pics, please visit KauaiArtTour.com and share this post with anyone you think might be interested in participating in the event or visiting Kauai for the Open Studios!