The mission of the Annual Gowanus Artists Studio Tour is to provide the public a unique opportunity to visit and engage one-on-one with working artists for the purpose of gaining a broader appreciation of the various types of visual art media. The intimacy of the in-studio experience encourages an educational dialogue between the visitor and the artist. The visitor is able to see the process and methods of making art in the environment in which the art is created. We believe the artists and their work constitute a vital piece of the fabric of urban life by linking community together through the arts. By opening his/ her studio free to the public, an artist affords a community member a chance to encounter a new stimulating artistic environment, ask questions, and expand his/ her appreciation of visual arts as they are being created in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn.

The Annual Gowanus Artists Studio Tour is open to any visual artist with a studio in the Gowanus area bounded by 10th Street, Court Street, Baltic Street and Fifth Avenue. The studio tour is attended and appreciated by people of all ages and from all walks of life.

The South Brooklyn marshes once teemed with wildlife. Early settlers named the "Gowanes Creek" after chief Gowanes, leader of the local tribe of Native American Canarsees, who lived along the bountiful shorelines.

In 1636 the Dutch purchased land near Gowanus Bay and sold it to farmers for tobacco growing. Close to sea level, this modest two-mile creek took in salt water tides creating a brackish mix of water that was ideal for the bivalves. In the 1600s, many farmers who settled along the banks fished for large, succulent oysters and shipped them by the barrel to Europe.

As industry grew, the New York State Legislature authorized the construction of the Gowanus Canal in 1849 (completed in the 1860s). This area quickly became a hub of Brooklyn's maritime and commercial activity. Factories and residential communities sprang up as a result of its construction. Much of "Brownstone Brooklyn" was quarried in New Jersey and the upper Hudson, placed on barges and shipped through the canal.

The Gowanus Canal became a key location for heavy industries such as coal gas manufacturing, oil refining and sulfur production. But by the turn of the century it was dubbed "Lavender Lake" for it's malodorous fumes and blue-grey color.

In 1911, a brick-lined tunnel was built connecting the head of the Canal at Butler Street east to the relatively clean water from the Buttermilk Channel. It was 12 feet in diameter and stretched 6,280 feet long. The new pump flushed between 200 and 300 million gallons of oxygenated water through the Canal daily. Over time this helped to ease its noxious condition. Soon after, water fowl, crabs, baby flounder, shrimp, and mussels returned until the pump broke during the 1960s. Repairs were postponed for decades and the canal reclaimed its notoriety.

The Gowanus Flushing Tunnel was refurbished in the late 1990s. Today, conditions in the canal have improved but the underlying sediment remains contaminated. Although the maritime industry in Brooklyn waned during the 1960s, it has since become a vibrant hub for many artists.