The Kissing Bridge Art Tour is a self guided art tour that focuses on artists living and working in Woolwich Township. It includes studio locations vary from personal home studios to commercial spaces and venues located mainly in St Jacobs, Elmira, and Winterbourne. Waterloo Regional artists participate by sharing space or joining the tour in a venue organized by the tour.
The original Kissing Bridge Trail Studio Tour was founded by Natalie Prevost aka The Barefoot Potter. A former Elmira resident Natalie now lives in Paris Ontario and has her studio in Kitchener. When Natalie moved into the community, she quickly recognized the area lacked an ongoing artist collaborative to showcase all the wonderful local talent. She contacted a few artists she had met and the word spread. The interested artists held a few meetings, set a date. They opened their doors to engage with the community by giving them the opportunity to take a scenic drive through an historic part of this region, stopping to visit painters, sculptors, photographers, potters, fibre artists, woodcrafters and jewellers.
Over the past 20 years the tour has changed and evolved. The attraction is kept fresh with artists joining in as life’s circumstances allow and as the creativity of the artists is expressed new every year!
The latest change is the collaboration the tour has crafted with the Three Sisters Cultural Centre and the name change to the Kissing Bridge Art Tour.