Inside Arts

• Where were you two weekends ago? Well, clearly everybody who was anybody was out on the East Austin Studio Tour. Now in its fourth iteration in three years, EAST this year boasted a whopping 76 studios and galleries that opened their doors to the public. The brainchild of Joseph Phillips, Jana Swec and Shea Little — the artistic collaborative trio also known as Sodalitas — EAST is a cooperative endeavor with artists chipping in $85 to be included. That also buys them space in the beautiful full-color catalog produced by Sodalitas. This year the $18,000 budget included $7,000 from the City of Austin's cultural contracts. And if you print it, they will come: Sodalitas printed 6,000 of the 72-page catalogs and when those got snatched up, they made up an additional 2,000 oversized postcards and 4,000 brochures. At Sodalitas' home base, Bolm Studios, about 1,500 people stopped by during the tour. Over at Shady Tree Studios, a multiartist space in a cool old woodbeamed warehouse that's the latest addition to the burgeoning East Austin art scene, glass artist Sean Gaulager reports that 800 would be a conservative estimate of how many folks stopped by. Stay tuned to www.eastaustinstudiotour.com for info on next year's tour, which will most likely again be held the weekend before Thanksgiving. — Jeanne Claire van Ryzin

• The inaugural Starling Distinguished Violinist Series kicks off tonight with a concert by violinist Stephanie Chase. Supported by part of a $300,000 grant from the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation, the University of Texas School of Music series will bring four top-notch violinists to campus for master classes and a public performance each year for the next three years. Three additional performances will be held throughout the spring 2006 semester. Chase, who is artistic director and cofounder of the New York nonprofit organization the Music of the Spheres Society, will perform Brahms' Sonata No. 1 in G Major among pieces tonight at 8 p.m. in Bates Recital Hall, 23rd Street and Robert Dedman Drive. Tickets are $10-$17. Call 471-5401. — J.C.v.R.

• A shout out goes to Eva Buttacavoli, director of exhibitions and education at the Austin Museum of Art and Michaela Black, associate director of education. The two were just named Outstanding Art Educators by the Texas Art Education Association. Under Buttacavoli's watch, AMOA has significantly ramped up its family education offerings, transforming the often passive art museum experience into one filled with interactive opportunities such as music listening stations, book browsing tables or actual cut-and-paste projects. That's edu-tainment. — J.C.v.R.