Requests such as that one from elementary school classmates back in the 1960s let Butch Holden know he had a talent for art. Even his teachers would ask.

“‘Butch, illustrate something on the chalkboard.’ A picture, an image. I guess I was good at it,” Holden recalls.

Good indeed.

Now 65 years old and in his 32nd and final year as a professor of visual arts at BSU, Holden smiles as he remembers those grade school requests that sent him on his way to a career in teaching and creating art. This humble Bemidji resident is known worldwide for his gorgeous pottery.

Art enthusiasts who attend the eighth annual Bemidji First City of Arts Studio Cruise on Friday through Sunday will be able to see Holden’s work while visiting his studio in Bensen Hall at BSU. They also can visit the visual arts studio of fellow BSU professor Natalia Himmirska in nearby Bridgeman Hall.

Holden and Himmirska are two of 30 artists who will take part in this year’s Studio Cruise.

“There’s this perception that art went away at BSU, and that’s not true at all,” said Dave Towley, chairman of the Studio Cruise steering committee. “I’ve been trying to get a presence at BSU on campus for the Studio Cruise for this very reason. To get people on campus, to appreciate the beautiful venue we have and the aesthetics and all that, but as important or perhaps more so that we have these internationally known talents who are sharing of themselves with their students.”

Holden has been doing that since 1983. He will retire from teaching in spring, but not from creating.

“It’s nice to be able to do both,” he said. “I’m trying to teach students how to be creative, and I think the best way to do that is by example. In the studio I can be making something and the students are watching, to me that’s golden. To be a good educator in the art field anyway, I like to gather some kindling together, some tinder, and put it in front of the students, and hope that they spark, and a fire starts. And they’ve got to tend to it. I’m not going to show them step by step how to do something; then it would be my work. It’s not an apprenticeship where they’re going to help me make my work.”

Holden says the Studio Cruise is important because it connects artists and their communities.

“A lot of people think (art) is not a useful thing,” he said. “I make pottery, and you can use it. But paintings, drawings, everything, it communicates. It’s useful. It builds community. It makes connections. I knew from very early that I like making stuff, whether it was a chalk drawing or a sculpture.”

Couldn’t stay away

But Holden did not discover his real passion—pottery—until college. He studied art at the University of Minnesota, focusing mainly on painting and drawing. He didn’t pay much attention to the ceramics department one floor below.

“I visited the ceramics area, where they were making dishes down there,” Holden said with a grin. “I was making art upstairs. It didn’t appeal to me. They were a dirty mess down there, they were like Pigpen. ‘I’ll do some real art’. That was my attitude.”

Later, while working on his teacher’s licensure at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, Butch found himself drawn to the art department again.

“I just couldn’t stay out of the studio,” he said. “I started taking studio courses. A lot of my friends were in the ceramics program, and they had potlucks all the time, and they talked shop. I’m thinking, ‘It’s a beanpot; it will hold two quarts’. They’re saying, ‘It’s a nice cup. Feel that handle’. And I’m thinking man this is an odd bunch, but they party a lot. And they cook well. It was a fun group to be with.”

That led him to enroll in his first ceramics class, a summer workshop. The instructor gave an assignment to the class: Make a container for an idea.

“I scratched my head … a container for an idea, making pots, a container for an idea,” Holden recalls. “I struggled with that. What kind of idea do I want to make a container for? I made some odd pots that I thought were great inventive ideas of some sort, but then it kind of hit me. I’m recording myself whenever I shape a pot. Making decisions, and they’re going to be frozen in clay. And when I’m making marks on the surface I’m making decisions. These are all ideas. You can’t help but make a pot that’s containing ideas, whether it’s on the surface, it’s in the shape, or in the form.

“Just the act of making this thing, you know the clay is formless, and the glazes are liquid in a bucket. You’re going to put these all together using your brain, again and again and again. That’s what clay is, containers for ideas. And when that hit me I couldn’t stop.”

He’ll show that passion next weekend during the Studio Cruise. Towley says attendees are in for a treat when they visit the BSU campus.

“Butch’s work is not only aesthetically beautiful, but it’s functional, which is not always the case with ceramics today,” said Towley, a talented woodturner whose studio also will be part of the event. “People have seen his work around town. You go to the government center, his work is on the wall. You go into the Watermark Art Center, they have his work on the walls in the offices. They’re going to meet a very down-to-earth, a very real person.”

If you go…

What: Bemidji First City of Arts Studio Cruise

When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 18

Where: Various studios in the Bemidji area

Cost: Free; however, art will be available for purchase

Details: visitbemidji.com/specialevents/studio-cruise.html