Summertime, and many head down the shore to the barrier island and summer colony known acronymically as LBI. Surfing, sailing, cycling, or swimming may be on the agenda, along with snorkeling and summer concerts, but on the weekend of Aug. 12 and 13, the LBI Artist Open Studio Tour will add to Long Beach Island’s cultural amenities.

Now in its 17th year, the free, self-guided tour takes visitors inside the homes, studios, and galleries of the many professional artists working on the island. Artists will demonstrate their processes, display artwork and offer it for sale.

Forty years – it can seem like a very long time if, say, you’re waiting for a bus or Uber Eats delivery. On the other hand, if you’re watching something grow – like the Ellarslie Open, the annual signature event at the Trenton City Museum that draws accomplished artists from the greater New Jersey region, you may be wondering: where did the time go? 

Artist David Orban has been around for those years – in fact, his wife, the artist Mary Yess, organized the very first Ellarslie Open. Orban has been submitting his work to the exhibition – its jurors are known for having rigorous standards – with hits and misses. This year, his hit included the top prize – his painting, “The Work Party: Biplane and Blue Truck in Green,” earned Best in Show. To put that in perspective, there are 150 works of art, selected from a total of 600 submitted. 

Though taking up less than 3 square miles in the heart of central New Jersey, the borough of Metuchen boasts a robust public art program. Among painted storefronts, sculptures both historic and contemporary, hanging banners, and artfully painted pianos and Adirondack chairs, a new mural is about to be unveiled. 

On June 24, from 1-4 p.m., a Community Celebration for Peace will take place at Earthsongs Ceramic Studio, 242 Amboy Avenue, Metuchen. The peace mural unveiling will be part of a special benefit for Ukraine. 

The mural was begun last year during Clay Days in Metuchen, under the leadership of ceramic artist and Earthsongs proprietor Linda Vonderschmidt-LaStella. “Clay artists came from New York and New Jersey for a full weekend,” she says.

“Clay is a healing and inviting material,” says V.-LaStella, who has taught workshops to seniors and in her basement studio, where she works off a repurposed Ping-Pong table. “My work, whatever the imagery, is really about connecting with the earth. I believe the medium of clay by its very nature does that.” 

“I have always loved work that was abundant, filled with stuff,” says Cowan, whose glass assemblages are on view in “Alchemy of Adornment” at the Museum of American Glass at WheatonArts through Dec. 31.

Cowan's glass sculptures use recycled, upcycled and second-life American pressed glass. She employs the processes of flameworking, hot-sculpting and glassblowing to create large-scale sculptures that are ornate and have a quality she calls “viral accrual.” 

“It refers to a kind of lushness that will keep growing and building,” Cowan says. Another term she uses is “horror vacui,” which is defined as a fear or dislike of leaving empty spaces in an artistic composition; the entire surface of the artwork is filled with detail and content. 

“My studio keeps getting smaller and smaller,” says Autin Wright, of the space where he makes and stores his sculpture, located on the Grounds For Sculpture campus in Hamilton. 

Now that he is officially retired as the atelier’s technical supervisor for paint and patina, and devoting himself full-time to his own art – he shows up at 6 a.m. most days – the already stacked studio is piling up with even more works in stone and wood. A cast of one of his more well-known works “The Sleep” – a four-panel relief that shows a set of lips and an eye, progressing from fully awake to sleepy, sleepier and asleep – is spilling outside into the hallway. 

“I don’t want to stop working,” he says of his retirement. “What could be more important than making art?”

New Jersey often gets a bad rap, but those of us who live and work here know that among its many assets is the presence of some of the finest artists. 

A visit to the New Jersey Arts Annual at the Noyes Museum will dispel any doubt about that. In fact there’s such an explosion of impressive works that the museum has opened both its locations — the Arts Garage in Atlantic City and Kramer Hall Galleries in Hammonton — to showcase through June 24 the New Jersey State Council on the Arts annual presentation of the best of our state. 

The theme for the 2023 Annual is “Mother Nature vs. Human Nature: The Inequity of Climate Resilience.” Winnowing the more than 800 submissions to 105 included in the show was a daunting task for the jurors. They write in the catalog, “We are impressed by the skill and creativity of the works submitted and by the innovation in techniques and technology used by many of the artists that might not have been available a few decades ago.”