THIS year's Art Studio Trail, part of the Southern Highlands Arts Festival that ends this weekend, has been deemed the best so far.
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Wingecarribee Shire Council's Cultural Development Officer Celeste Coucke said that some of the studios experienced very high sales.
"Martial Cosyn and George Thirlwall - both emerging artists and new to the trail - clocked up very descent sales, with Martial selling 22 paintings and George selling 71 drawings and 46 t-shirts," she said.
"All the studios made sales, most made better sales than previous years, and many expect ongoing sales, commissions as well as interest in art workshops."
Ms Couke said it was hard to tell how many visitors there were overall, although one studio welcomed more than 800 visitors over the first two weekends in November, with the average between 160 - 200 for the four days. Some artists said they could not have accommodated any more visitors than they received.
"The ongoing good-will generated by the generosity of local artists sharing their time, knowledge and unique working environments with the community is impossible to quantify, but adds enormous credibility to the authenticity of this event as well as the accessibility of the Highlands as an attractive venue for arts tourism," Ms Coucke said.
One measure of the trail's success was its ability to engage a wide cross section of people living in the shire, according to Ms Coucke.
"The success of our emerging artists, for example George Thirlwall, who at 18 helped extend a more youthful voice to the festival conversation, as well as this year's involvement by the Aboriginal Cultural Centre which increased the awareness of some of our local Aboriginal artists, are great examples of this inclusive philosophy at work. The Artsfeast event at Berrima Public School and Sculpture at Hillview are examples of this."
See Monday's paper for photos of Artsfeast.