By ANNA GILGOFF

Special to The Press

The event has become a tradition.

Local artists mark the first week of June with a self-guided art tour that invites neighbors from far and near to follow a 25-mile route that wends through Albany Township just as spring wraps up and summer begins to surface.

This year, dozens of local artists and artisans will be participating by opening their studios to the public or gathering in groups to display their work.

At the Albany Township Historical Society on 404 Old Philly Pike, six artists will be displaying their work in watercolor, wood, pine needles, gourds, stones and shells.

The six include Ron Imboden, Jennifer Nailor, Joe Walker, Rose Fitch, Scott Ferguson and David Fegley.

At the Hamburg Area Arts Alliance at Etchberger Memorial Park in Hamburg, artists will present a variety of media. They include Becky Bond Kunkleman, Bill Rhodes, Pirjo L’Esperance, Martafact Studio, Martha Ressler, Jay Ressler and Susan Boyer.

Many other artists on the tour will be showing their work in studios that dot the route.

Jeanne Stock, who works in pastels, will be joining Gene Allen, an acrylic landscape artist, in his studio on Golden Key Road, Kempton.

All the works are available for purchase.

“It’s cool to see somebody come in and find something you didn’t even know would have meaning,” said Stock.

“It’s going to a new home, a good home. What else could you want?”

The benefits of creating art works have long been touted.

“Solving something in a painting, gives you an inner calm,” said Allen. “It takes you to a different place. It’s a release for many people.”

“It releases the pressure valve.” agreed Stock. “When you involve yourself in your work, you’re no longer thinking about the serious side of life.”

Art is often therapeutic, especially for kids.

“Where else can kids express themselves?” said Stock.

“When you get a piece of artwork and hang it in your house, that can be an escape for you,” Allen added.

Art can also be revealing.

“Sometimes when kids draw something, it sends up a red flag,” said Allen, a retired art teacher.

Visitors will be able to continue conversations like these with the artists and gain insight into how the works were created on the art tour.

Inspiration comes from a variety of sources.

“I just see things and somehow I know,” said Stock. “Sometimes I’m driving around, and I just see something that gets me thinking, ‘How would I represent that in color on paper?’

“It’s really about what catches your eye and speaks to you.

“Once you have an idea or theme, it bubbles around in your head. It’s about awareness and then intention.”

None of this is lost on Allen.

“As I’m walking around, I just see something,” he said, capturing the image with a camera before translating it to canvas. “You have to think about the subject, even after the work is done. I once did a painting and in it was a little house. Two years afterward, I looked at and just had to paint the house out.”

“I still remember the best Christmas of my life when I got a Jon Gnagy art set,” said Stock, who worked as a graphic designer. “I loved the smell of those art supplies.”

Both Stock and Allen look forward to meeting and speaking with visitors to the studio.

“When I was young, I always wanted to be in art or music,” said Allen. All these years later, he thinks he made the right choice.

“I think the arts are very important because when you’re 70 you can still do something,” he said.

The Hawk Mountain Arts Tour is from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 1. A map for the tour is available for download.