Roadtripping Your Way Through the Southwest Iowa Art Tour (2026)
The Southwest Iowa Art Tour returns September 18–20, 2026, with artists, galleries and studios opening their doors throughout southwest Iowa.
Instead of taking place at one festival grounds, the event is spread across the region. Visitors choose which stops they want to see and build their own route between them.
This year’s tour includes 19 Gathering Places in 13 communities, making it easy to spend a few hours exploring one area or turn the weekend into a longer southwest Iowa road trip.
When is the 2026 Southwest Iowa Art Tour?
The main tour takes place Saturday and Sunday, with several locations opening early for a Friday evening Sneak Peek.
Friday, September 18: Sneak Peek from 4 to 7 p.m. at select locations
Saturday, September 19: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday, September 20: Noon to 4 p.m.
The event is celebrating its 13th year in 2026.
How does the Southwest Iowa Art Tour work?
The tour is self-guided, so there’s no required starting point or route.
Participating locations are called Gathering Places. Depending on the stop, you may find an individual artist’s studio, a gallery or a venue hosting several artists in one location.
Before leaving home, check the official tour map and decide which part of southwest Iowa you want to explore. With locations spread across a fairly large area, picking a cluster of nearby stops will give you more time with the artists and less time behind the wheel.
2026 Southwest Iowa Art Tour Gathering Places
Clarinda
Zanzibarn Creations
Corning
Corning Opera House
Council Bluffs
Martens Metal Design
Harvester Artist Lofts
Crescent
Jodi Mantich
Glenwood
Reinert Images
Studio 26 Gallery
Harlan
Coffee Girl
Christian’s Rise Donuts
Macedonia
The Painted Camel Gallery
Malvern
Art Church
Fine Arts on Fifth Gallery and Studio
Langille Studios
Neola
Penny’s Visions
Red Oak
Five One 8
Wilson Performing Arts Center
Sidney
Whip’s Mercantile
Stanton
The Studio
Thurman
Knox Art Studio
Get an early start Friday evening
Several Gathering Places are participating in the Friday Sneak Peek from 4 to 7 p.m.
The Friday locations include:
- Zanzibarn Creations in Clarinda
- Whip’s Mercantile in Sidney
- Knox Art Studio in Thurman
- Art Church in Malvern
- Fine Arts on Fifth Gallery and Studio in Malvern
- Langille Studios in Malvern
- The Painted Camel Gallery in Macedonia
- Penny’s Visions in Neola
- The Studio in Stanton
- Wilson Performing Arts Center in Red Oak
If you’re planning to spend most of the weekend on the tour, Friday evening is a good opportunity to knock out a few stops before Saturday.
Malvern
Malvern has three Gathering Places this year, making it one of the easiest towns to build into your route.
Stops include the Art Church, Fine Arts on Fifth Gallery and Studio and Langille Studios.
There’s plenty to see outside the galleries, too. Malvern has built a strong arts presence around town, including public art and sculptures. The Wabash Trace Nature Trail also passes through the community.
This is one of those places where it’s worth leaving a little extra time in the schedule rather than simply checking off the art stops and moving on.
Macedonia
The Painted Camel Gallery at 320 Main Street is another longtime stop on the Southwest Iowa Art Tour.
The gallery is participating Friday evening as well as Saturday and Sunday, which makes Macedonia easy to work into several different routes through the western portion of the tour.
Glenwood
Glenwood has two Gathering Places:
Reinert Images, 2 N. Walnut Street
Studio 26 Gallery, 26 N. Walnut Street
Since both are on Walnut Street, you can visit two tour locations without getting back in the car.
Glenwood also works well as a jumping-off point for other stops in the Loess Hills if you’re turning the art tour into a full-day trip.
Council Bluffs
Council Bluffs has two stops on the 2026 tour:
Martens Metal Design, 17867 Vista Lane
Harvester Artist Lofts, 1000 S. Main Street
Both feature multiple artists, so you can see quite a bit of work without traveling between a long list of individual studios.
If you have extra time in Council Bluffs, you could also add places such as the Squirrel Cage Jail, Union Pacific Railroad Museum or Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge to the day.
Harlan
Harlan may be one of the easiest stops to work into the tour.
Coffee Girl, 612 Market Street, and Christian’s Rise Donuts, 614 Market Street, are right next to each other.
Both are participating Saturday and Sunday, giving you two Gathering Places with almost no travel time between them.
Corning
The historic Corning Opera House serves as the Gathering Place in Corning.
Corning is also a good place to build a few additional stops into the day. Nearby attractions include the Johnny Carson Birthplace and the French Icarian Village, making it possible to combine the art tour with some southwest Iowa history.
Don’t try to see everything in one day
With 19 Gathering Places spread throughout southwest Iowa, trying to reach every stop in a single day would leave very little time to actually enjoy them.
Instead, concentrate on one part of the map.
One route could focus on Council Bluffs, Crescent, Neola, Macedonia, Malvern and Glenwood.
Another could take you through Red Oak, Stanton, Clarinda, Sidney and Thurman.
Or make a weekend of it and explore a different section each day.
The stops you make between the galleries are part of the fun. Small-town restaurants, historic downtowns, scenic roads and unexpected roadside finds can easily turn the Southwest Iowa Art Tour into a much bigger road trip.
About the Southwest Iowa Art Tour
The first Southwest Iowa Art Tour was held in 2014 as a way to connect artists, communities and visitors throughout the region.
More than a decade later, the basic idea remains the same. Artists open their studios and galleries, communities welcome visitors and everyone gets an excuse to explore a corner of Iowa they may not have spent much time in before.
The organization describes its mission as “Connecting rural communities through art.”
For this event, that description fits pretty well. Pick a few stops, map out a route and leave enough room in the schedule for whatever you discover along the way. Here are a few items to check out:
