Ever wondered where paintings are born? Does your favorite abstract artist have a neat-as-a-pin studio? Does the landscape painter surround herself with photographs, or work with windows open to the sky?

Next month the Bay Area Artists’ Association invites the curious to the group’s first Open Studio Tour. On June 21, half a dozen artists will welcome visitors into their working spaces, where they’ve agreed to display their art, answer questions, host refreshments and even donate a piece for the Open Studio Tour door prize.

BAAA President Janne La Valle sees the tour as an exciting way to introduce the public to the high quality of art found in South Coast communities.

“We really want to welcome the public into our world,” declares La Valle. She recalls the first studio tour she experienced 20 years ago, when she saw an artist working out of a garage and realized that all she really needed was “a corner with enough room to sling a little paint.”

This summer-theme Studio Tour will feature locales as disparate as the host artists. Jerry Baron will open the doors to his studio, located on the second floor of a one hundred year old brick building in North Bend. His color drenched, acerbic paintings in oil bar on paper have found favor with collectors across the nation.

The varied subjects and prolific output of oil painter Spencer Billington will be on display at his studio, and Curt Hitch (creator of the atmospheric watercolor “Lady Washington”) promises to show 100 paintings in both his studio and his yard. According to La Valle, the studios on tour range from a garage to very elaborate spaces. She reports that artist Josie Reid has painted her studio to resemble one of Claude Monet’s famous gardens, while the artists Donna and Ron Wright (she works with watercolors, jewelry, and gourds, while he is a nationally renowned carver) will open their extensive gardens and koi pond for the tour.

Pat Snyder will also welcome visitors. Snyder’s meticulous oils and inventive collages have been consistently juried into shows, granted awards, and purchased for collections since 1967. His garage studio is favored by La Valle not only because it is presided over by a large, cardboard cut-out of Marilyn Monroe, but because Snyder features a blank, canvas-sized white space on one wall, surrounded by vivid spatters of paint.

The Bay Area Artists’ Association will ask $10 for each tour ticket. “It’s self-guided,” says La Valle. “Put yourselves and your buddies in the car and make a day of it. The ticket comes with map and directions, refreshments at two of the stops, and a door prize.”

BAAA has dreams and aspirations. Dues from the group’s 100 members support existing projects, but they’d like to expand: add an audio component to the existing Coos Art Museum “artist of the month” program; and launch and maintain their Web site.

They want the community to view artists as one of our area’s economic strengths. “Arts can help,” says La Valle. “Art tourism can be conducive to a healthy economy.”

Teri Albert reviews art and artists for The World. Comments on or story ideas for this column can be e-mailed to malbert@uci.net.