Both artistry and autumn leaves filled the air over the weekend.

The 2024 Art Leap driving tour is sponsored by Heartland Arts, an umbrella organization for more than dozen arts and cultural organizations in the greater Park Rapids area. It was held both Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 28 and 29.

More than 100 artists opened their studios, welcoming art lovers and featuring potters, painters, woodworkers, sculpturists and more.

Twenty-eight Art Leap sites were dispersed across Hubbard, Becker and Wadena counties.

Brian Dow was the featured artist at Giiwedinong Treaty Rights and Culture Museum. He lives in Ponemah on the Red Lake Reservation.

“I’ve been a visual artist for the past 10 years,” he said. “For the past seven, I’ve been full time.”

Focusing on “different styles of cultural painting,” Dow’s work is vibrant. It incorporates floral and wildlife elements. “The animals represent our clan system,” he explained.

He points to one acrylic painting inspired by a ribbon skirt.

It took about six months for him to perfect a silhouette on a blended sunrise. He handpaints them on canvas.

Prints of his work “sell pretty fast,” Dow said.

He began dabbling in nature photography in 2021, winning a “Best of Show” a couple months ago at the Red Lake Nation Fair with a photo of two black bear cubs.

Dow painted the exterior panels on the museum, which feature wild rice, blueberries, lady’s slippers and maple leaves.

Across the street, at the Armory Arts and Events Center, a pop-up exhibition was organized by the Animikii Print Club. It’s a collective of Indigenous artists based in Mahnomen.

Among them was Thomas Gamache, a White Earth enrollee. He lives in Walker.

He said he’s been painting “all my life, but I took quite a few years off to make a living, so maybe I’d do one painting a year.”

Gamache is retired now. This is his second year at Art Leap. “We have a good time. We meet a lot of interesting people,” he said.

He composed 12 acrylic paintings, each depicting Indigenous life before colonialism.

The scenes emerged from his imagination, “but I do know what is represented in each one. You know, the time of year and what they do,” Gamache explained. There is a storytelling month in the winter, for example. Maple syrup is gathered in the spring. Wild ricing happens in the fall.

“I grew up with it kinda, being a White Earth member,” he said.

Prints of this series were for sale at the Armory.

Elisa Boushee’s work greeted visitors at one of the Hubbard County Developmental Achievement Center’s (DAC) art spaces.

At the Northern Hearts Studio, located on Park Avenue S. in Park Rapids, artists with disabilities or pervasive mental illness can learn and create with local artists and the DAC’s teaching artists.

Boushee is one of those teachers.

“This is the creative space where the magic happens and workshops, then we send the finished product over to The Tin Ceiling for opportunities for our clients to make money on their work,” she explained.

A welding shop is by Bearly Used Thrift Store, while woodworking happens at The Depot. Printmaking, painting and ceramics are taught at the Northern Hearts Studio.

Boushee has worked for the DAC for just over two years. She is currently the art director.

“I absolutely love it,” she said. “I feel so fortunate I can be creative every day and then help other people be creative.”

Boushee personally enjoys landscape and abstract art. She shared her most recent pieces at Art Leap.

She starts with a blank canvas and an open mind. “I have no idea what I’m going to paint. I just put paint onto the palette and I go for it.”

Dan and Mary O’Brien create pottery, ceramic sculptures and acrylic painting together at their Sixth Crow Wing lake home, near Nevis.

Dan demonstrated wheel throwing for Art Leap guests. He made a miniature 1.5-ounce cup.

“I call them my little sippers,” said the retired architect, 74. “I do it for fun.”

The couple met at the Eagan Art House. Dan was learning pottery on a kickwheel and noticed “a cute girl” on an electronic wheel. They‘ve been married for 18 years.

Mary loves to hand build with clay. Angels and gnomes are her specialties.

She has given away angels to friends who lost family members.

“Fun to make though, too,” Mary said.

The gnomes are popular with shoppers, she added.

Mary recalled crafting some gnomes when she was cranky. “By the time I was done, I was giggling. They make me happy.”

This was their first year participating in Art Leap. “We’ve always attended Art Leap,” Mary said.

While they hadn’t sold their work locally, until now, they have done so at art fairs in Arizona.

Cedar Swan Woodshop opened in May. Owned by Shawn Anderson, it highlights the work of about 15 local artists.

“We’re obviously all about wood here,” said Jamie Krautkremer. “I just happen to be one of them.”

Krautkremer owns Drak Guitars. He crafts customized guitars. One for sale, for instance, used black limba native to West Africa. “It’s kind of soft, but it’s got a really cool variation between the hardwood and sapwood,” he explained. “The fret board is ziricote, which is out of Central America. … It’s something different. It’s something you don’t see very often.”

He and wife Holly also make charcuterie boards, 3D wall art, laser-engraved signs and custom wooden products, like a guest book for Cedar Swan.

The shop hosts carving classes by Paul Albright as well as children’s woodworking classes.

Anderson said the goal of the shop “is to find memorable gifts that will last through generations. We’re trying to find things that will last and people will cherish for years.”