Calgary artists open their studios to the public for 2025 event

The fourth annual Calgary Artists Studio Tour will kick off Friday, with more than 100 artists taking part at 79 locations around the city.

Dozens of Calgary artists will be opening their studios to the public this weekend as part of the 2025 Calgary Artists Studio Tour event.

It’s a chance for local artists to showcase their work and discuss what inspires them.

This year marks the fourth time the event has been held.

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Officials say more than 100 artists have signed up to participate at 79 locations across the city.

Jean Parker, who organized this year’s event, says the first year there were only 12 artists who participated.

“You could see anything from the most abstract to the most realistic art,” Parker said. “We have sculptures involved as well and I think I have a couple photography buffs so it’s this mix.”

Parker is also an artist and is excited to showcase so much of Calgary’s artistic talent.

“It’s getting the public to see the artists in your backyard and to really get Calgary to be aware of all the art that’s here,” she said.

Parker says artists on the tour not only show their work, but many also sell some of it.

“There’s two parts to being an artist: one is where we create and the other one is where we share,” she said. “This is the sharing, to be able to tell the story about a painting and to hear people’s perspective when they walk in and see the painting.”

Eleanor Boyden is making her debut on the tour this year. She’s an abstract artist who uses a lot of vibrant colors in her work.

“I went to ACAD (now the Alberta University of the Arts) in 2012, and I graduated in 2017 with distinction in painting,” she said. “It was really funny working with 17, 18, 19-year-olds there. (I’m a) 58-year-old woman, I was old enough to be some of their grandmothers.”

Boyden created a collection during the pandemic called The Oracles of Time.

“I don’t like to use paint right out of the tube,” she explained. “I’m a girl that likes to mix my colors up and stuff, and if I have any colors left over from one painting, I’ll mix two together.”

“They all kind of go cohesively together, and then when you look at them, they’re all different but there’s an underlying connection there with them.”

Sally Macgregor is taking part in her third tour.

“Ever since I was a little girl, I painted, I drew – it was just part of who I am,” she said.

Macgregor takes photos of the landscape any time she’s out driving and create paintings from those images. Her work has been purchased by customers from all over the world and she’s always excited to open her studio.

“It just helps to give exposure to meet people,” she said. “To allow people to come and talk to me about what inspires me and to see my work.”

Deb Nicolaisen paints images of wildlife found in southern Alberta.

“I am a realist painter,” she said. “Although I do like to abstract a little bit, and I like to see the abstraction in nature and play with the colors.”

She’s opened her home to visitors since the tour started four years ago, and says it’s a lot of work to get everything ready for the event.

“First cleaning up, we’ve got a household of five people, so it gets kind of cluttered,” she said. “So, get rid of the clutter, get all the artwork out, make sure everything’s exactly the way I want it to be.”

The highlight of the tour for Nicolaisen is to have visitors come into her home and ask questions about the process of creating art.

“It’s almost like we (artists) live in a different kind of world to everybody else, because we see the world differently,” she said. “And then when (the public) come here, they get to see through our eyes, and they get to have an idea of what our lives are like.”

Organizers say the event is about building a relationship with people so that when the moment comes when they want to buy a piece, they know what they like and who to contact.

The 2025 Calgary Artists Studio Tour runs from 2 to 8 p.m. on Friday, May 2, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 3, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, May 4.