Somerville Is Open And Ready To Justify Your Love

Whether you crave oil on canvas or innovative tissue box covers, all seven hills of Somerville are ready to meet your needs this weekend, when more than three hundred artists and craftspeople will throw open their doors to the public for the 9th annual Somerville Open Studios.

The venues are as eclectic as the media, techniques, and ideas on display, ranging from humble apartments in tripledeckers to St. Ann's Parish Hall (#6 on the Open Studios map) to densely-populated Vernon Street Studios (which is both #44 and #45, pictured above) to Union Square's darling Sherman Cafe (#26, and definitely try the scones). It's a chance to meet talented people (including Bostonist focuser-on Charles Bandes, at #78), have a glimpse into their unique workspaces, homes, and haunts, and snack your way through densely Madonna-filled neighborhoods. In addition to the traditional cheese & cracker spreads and plastic cups of Charles Shaw, Bostonist looks forward to tasting some stone-ground chocolate at #16, where Albertine Press has teamed up with their confectionary neighbors.

These and other worthwhile numbers on the map will take you pretty far from the T. Fortunately, there will be free zipcar shuttles and two free "trolleys"—we're guessing they mean buses— connecting proposed T stops "in the spirit of the expanded green line." Nonetheless, Bostonist recommends comfy shoes.

Downward spiral courtesy of flickr user jylcat.