Exactly one week following my return home from a month-long artist residency in Paducah, Kentucky, I am reacquainting myself with the artists who reside in Greenville, South Carolina. And meeting new ones. During most First Fridays I have the option of visiting two dozen artists: painters, photographers, sculptors, printmakers, ceramists (also called ceramicists), jewelers, glass, metal, wood, textile and encaustic artists. 

November 7, however, is an unusual night because a number of the artists who regularly participate in First Friday are also active in this year's Open Studios. The events' rules, entry, and fees vary from each other; with the West End of Greenville,Taylors Mill, and Augusta Road as three of the liveliest arts districts. Within each of these you can traverse as a pedestrian, but you need to drive between the areas.

My first stop is a renovated gas station, with a floral designer and fine artist sharing the former auto bays. Sunny Mullarkey McGowan is painter and printmaker, whose enthusiasm and energy seem boundless. I'll put in a plug for her Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a printing press.

Next stop, across Pendleton Street and a half block away on Aiken Street, is Art & Light Studios with Teresa Roche at the helm. Studios in the West End (also referred to as the Arts District or Village of West Greenville) are housed in renovated two-story frame residential structures, flatiron buildings, and former commercial storefronts, including a bank.

Neighbors sit on front porches, dogs bark, and on Sunday I understand that the church just opposite Art & Light fills the air with exuberant hymns. Tonight, the moon is full, the temperatures are dropping, and First Friday is bustling. With anticipation, I reserve my energy for the weekend's art outings that comprise Open Studios. See you tomorrow.

If there are any complaints about Open Studios, it will not be the weather. Full moon on Friday night followed by sunshine on Saturday. It does require stamina, though, to participate in Open Studios: hosting, meeting and greeting, explaining and demonstrating, fielding queries, marketing, and more. Not to mention potentially standing for a total of 17 hours over three days. Then there are the pre- and post- activities: cleaning and organizing the studio. But it is juicy and the energy flows both ways, all ways, in the best-case scenario. I can speak on this topic, as I was an Open Studios artist in 2013.

Now, to narrow my choice of studios from among the 129 participating artists! I content myself with 18 studio visits, complete with artist conversations, and poke my head into countless others.

It's 10:30am and relatively quiet in the Taylors Mill studio of Bryan Hiott, which allows an informative conversation on how he arrived at recreating 19th-century photographic processes like tintypes and ambrotypes. It was a "time travel" experience to which I cannot do justice, but I can tell you that his portraits are timeless and his creative mind fertile.

The parking lot at Taylors Mill is temporarily inhabited by statewide vendors in the "Savvy Restyle Market," perhaps a symbiotic relationship drawing consumers for both the market and Open Studios.

I once heard the behemoth Taylors Mill described as "that place that looks like Chernobyl." It is not pretty but it is transforming into a creative hub well worth seeking. On the younger side of the talent pool is sculptor Allison Anne Brown whose work displays a maturity beyond her years. I'm featuring Allison in a blog hop later this week. How many visual artists do you know who blog? Allison does and it's an interesting read.

There are two more artists on my list for Taylors Mill, including Shane Bryant, founder of The William Felton School of Crafts. It takes a moment until Shane and I realize that we were co-workers years ago at Kinko's. I remember his art dreams; it is a treat to see them in fruition. Clay is everywhere, invitingly everywhere.

Before leaving Taylors Mill which houses a hopping coffeehouse, entrepreneurial ventures, and increasingly more artists, I return to the studio of Bob Ripley. I say "return" because at last year's Open Studios, Bob invited me to learn about shoji paper - a material he uses in crafting custom shoji screens. It is now a medium in my ouevre of papers, and I want to thank Bob. Due to dealing with building code issues in a number of the studios, Bob is sharing his space with neighboring potter and Open Studio artist Mike Vatalaro. 

Artists I know are generous and collaborative, and usually multitalented. Yes, this is Bob Ripley playing a guitar he built, alongside John Brookshire on bass and Jeff Gadd on keyboard. As I exit through his hand-carved studio door, out of the corner of my eye I catch Bob playing the saxophone. Can it get much better than this?

My next posting is about Open Studios, Saturday afternoon. And then there will be a posting on Open Studios, Sunday. Come join me!

Open Studios on Saturday afternoon is even more enjoyable with artist Kathryn Schnabel. And encountering artistic friends along the way, like Michael Zeimer, a former co-worker at Kinko's. And now Kathryn and Michael are acquainted. It sounds cliché, but "it's all good."

Kathryn and I focus on the West End (also known as the Arts District or Village of West Greenville) discovering and rediscovering. In "the flatiron" - those ingeniously designed pieces of architecture that defy the box and embrace the triangle - are a series of studios that flow into one another through sets of doorways, yet remain separate. Joseph Bradley's painting studio anchors the building's apex, followed by Patricia Kilburg's encaustic studio, Janina Tukarski Ellis's painting studio, and finally the painting studio of husband/wife duo Signe & Genna Grushovenko. Of particular delight is watching the wide-eyed children, perhaps budding artists already.

Strolling down the street, stopping along the way in a vanity gallery, another space more rental-venue than gallery, and then a sit-down restaurant that began as a food truck, alongside a blues café, Kathryn and I make our way to the next destination: the new studio of painters Dabney Mahanes and Denise Waldrep. Dabney shares a highlight of her day: a visit by a former resident of this house-turned-studio. In fact, the space Denise now occupies was once his bedroom as a 10-year old.

Onward to Artbomb! Fourteen years ago, Artbomb was the only art venue in the neighborhood but appropriately named as its artists intended to spark a movement. Today is testimony to the explosive impact.

One last stop: tucked in the neighborhood behind the Greenville County Art Museum is 10 Central Studios. A visit to jeweler and mosaic artist Laura Kennedy Aiken in her business-office-turned-studio highlights the stark contrast, in terms of light (no windows in the studios at 10 Central) and scale (low ceilings and small) to Artbomb. Nonetheless, creativity is not bound by the inches or feet of a wall or ceiling.

Last year I participated in Open Studios, but I missed the touring. It's a sentiment I hear the OS artists expressing today. Hmmm, how to be in two places at once? This will require lots of creative problem solving!

While the Open Studios' "12x12" exhibition awaits like a visual smorgasbord at the Metropolitan Arts Council gallery, my visit needs to be another day. It's time for tea and coffee, and digesting the experience.

It is the Metropolitan Arts Council, along with various sponsors, that makes Open Studios possible for the juried-in artists - 129 this year, and that entices thousands of visitors to embark on the tour - now in its 13th year. To say that Open Studios is a massive endeavor is a bit of an understatement. Although Greenville's is among the many models of annual self-guided studio tours taking place in towns and cities, from Hawaii to the mainland, it is impressive and successful.

I am still wrapping my mind around the unique experience that comprised my October artist residency in Paducah, Kentucky. Due to a civic-funded Artist Relocation Project in 2001, targeted to upgrade the Lowertown neighborhood, the arts community is now congregated within an eight-block area. The artists live, work, and exhibit in their home/studio/gallery spaces. In Greenville, in areas such as the West End, the arts thrive but minus the "residential living" element. For a number of artists, studio is integrated into the home or tangential to it.

Ah, I have another glorious Sunday for visiting Greenville and Travelers Rest. Let the day begin in the residential studio of Garland Mattox, tucked into her Parkins Mill/Cleveland Street neighborhood. The size of Garland's studio belies the size of her large-scale oil paintings - a scale she prefers. For many artists, it is an effort to constrain the natural impulse to "go big" when creating a 12x12-inch showcase piece for the Open Studios exhibition at the MAC. I will count Garland and myself among these.

A short distance away is a former teacher of sculptor Allison Anne Brown, when Allison attended the South Carolina Governors School for the Arts. The home studio and garden of ceramic sculptor Alice Ballard reflect her respect for the natural botanical form. And who do I encounter assisting Alice with Open Studios? Michael Ziemer! 

On the way to Travelers Rest, I am joined by my spouse, Joseph. A curvy-road drive through TR's countryside brings us to the metal-clad studio of a family of artists (recommended by Michael): Jim Campbell, Sharon Campbell, and Jamie Campbell. With Jamie's Dark Corner Glasswork pieces firing at 1,000 degrees and higher, and with Sharon's kilns firing her ceramics, the Campbell studios should be toasty this winter. Jim's paintings provide a visual backdrop for the 3-D work of wife Sharon and son Jamie, but Jim has crafted a 3-D piece of his own - a stringed instrument akin to a slide guitar but tuned to produce a Hawaiian sound. Once again, the multi-talented nature of artists surfaces. 

I feel the need to return to my own studio, but I so want to share this with you that I'm sitting here writing instead. And sitting is not my usual stance in the studio! Welcome to "Glimpses of Greenville."

First Friday in the Far West End, January 4, is far from freezing, although by South Carolina standards it is cold...in the 40s. I am refraining a chuckle, having just relocated to Greenville from Rochester, New York, where a 40-degree day midwinter would be considered balmy. But enough about the weather. Other than a racial shout from a passing car, the experience is pleasant, and downright encouraging about the art scene in the Upstate. First and foremost, the artists I visit are welcoming and engaging, and professional. I did not make it to every studio, but I'll mention a few that struck a chord with me: Crave, Knack, Patricia Kilburg, Glen Miller (his building is for sale), Julie Hughes Shabkie, and Dabney Mahanes. The caliber of work - from encaustics, oils, acrylics, graphite, clay - is first rate. The range of work - from realism to abstract to conceptual - is broad enough to capture most viewers. In addition to working studios, there are venues that offer an eclectic array of furniture, interior and personal accessories, displayed in settings that are intimate as well as spacious. To a degree, this is similar to the home base I just left. Artists are the harbingers of cultural change in transitional neighborhoods, whether it is the Neighborhood of the Arts in Rochester or the Arts District in the west end of Greenville. There is a duality of emotion that accompanies growth however: let it continue but not overwhelm us. As one artist commented, he used to have a studio in the West End but can no longer afford to park there. With the number of available storefronts in the Far West End, I don't believe parking will be an issue for awhile. I envision a coffee shop or a music venue (is busking allowed here?) to provide a greater draw to the area. It is enlivening to have the Asada food truck stationed at the hub, with its resultant enticing aromas wafting through many a studio. But I just arrived, following an 8-year hiatus in the part of New York that is also called the Upstate, so it is easy for me to offer "helpful" suggestions. What I do remember about this section of the city from almost a decade ago is that the ArtBomb was much more a solitary entity. It is, to be redundant, a welcoming sight to see the artistic family grow. And yes, there are many additional locales throughout Greenville and its suburbs that offer a slice of art on First Friday - and at other times - but the Far West End has that vibe of "happening."