Indianola sculptor Brian Berman is looking forward to the Art in the Woods tour coming up this weekend. It is much easier when the audience comes to him, rather than the other way around.

Berman works in stone, not the easiest medium to lug around to arts and craft shows and galleries.

Instead, Berman will welcome visitors into his home in Indianola, where his archetypal stone sculptures will be on display and for sale.

While Berman creates his sculptures in a noisy, dusty studio in Suquamish, for the tour his elegant pieces sit in graceful repose in his tranquil home overlooking the water, which he shares with his wife Lisa.

Berman is an artist who works from the heart, creating abstract sculptures with clean lines that connect to his inner self and transmit a message to the world.

He was in Germany recently, where he and his wife, a native German, work with the Jewish-German Project, mending the psychic wounds left on Germans and Jews by WWII. After visiting the Holocaust Museum in Berlin Berman sculpted two powerful pieces out of alabaster, part of his own healing process. The pieces have a sinuous human form, with a small head and large flowing body. One has dark veining on the front, what Berman saw as a shield.

“I felt like it was a sentry,” he said, “a guardian of sorts. This piece brought clarity to the process I was going through.”

Many of Berman’s pieces are working meditations, but he has found they also resonate with others as well. He has seen people find meaning in a simple soapstone carving, or in his larger sculptures.

“Sometimes people really see something — I don’t know why,” he said.

He expects to have 50 to 60 small pieces and 40 larger pieces in the studio tour.

“I hope when people come into our house they are enriched by being here,” he said.

Berman has shown his work regularly in Kitsap County since he began sculpting in 1991, and he is now branching out to shows and galleries in other states. That means the studio tour will be the last time this body of work is in one place. And a very cozy place it is.

The free, self-guided tour includes stops at 17 studios in North Kitsap, from Pam Tempelmayr’s Whalebone Studio on Viking Way to Wendy Hampton’s pottery studio on Pioneer Way, Sedara Studio in Hansville, and Mud Club Pottery in Kingston.

More than 30 artists will be showing their works, and a few will be demonstrating their art as well. Studios on the tour feature artists working in a wide range of media, from fiber, pottery and glass to oil, pastels and jewelry.

Studios on the tour are:

Jensen Art Glass, Poulsbo: David Jensen.

Whalebone Studio, Poulsbo: Pam Tempelmayr.

Kingsley Gallery and Custom Framing, Poulsbo: Jo Kingsley, JoAnn Sullivan and Cheryl Kurman.

Reitan Farm, Poulsbo: Jan Hurd, Bridget Feighan, Gail Coupal, Annette Wright and Tina Reaume.

Hampton Studios, Poulsbo: Wendy Hampton, Wally Hampton, Phyllis Evans, Linda Janachek and Joan Wells.

Lari Ward Studio D, Poulsbo: Lari Ward, Tristan Limpo, Becky Marshall, Cenise Johnson and Barbara Schultz.

Knowles Studio, Poulsbo: Leigh Knowles Metteer.

Elizabeth Smith Studio, Indianola: Elizabeth Smith.

Sydni Sterling Studios, Indianola: Sydni Sterling and Melinda West.

Berman Healing Arts, Indianola: Brian Berman.

Mud Club Pottery, Kingston: Sherri Grossbauer.

Kojima Oil & Watercolors, Kingston: Shigeko Kojima.

Earth Dance Pottery, Kingston: Betty Claire and Patricia Fellers.

Designs by Loyes, Kingston: Loyes Drury, Maxine Hennigsgaard.

Shabala Studio, Kingston: Marcia Randall-Debard.

Sedara Studio, Kingston: Suzanne Cheryl Gardner.

Cliffside Studios, Kingston: Jerome Zygar, Darcy Herrett and Kristi Hansen.

Art in the Woods runs for three days this year, noon to 8 p.m. Nov. 11, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 12 and 13, sponsored by the Cultural Arts Foundation NW. A map with addresses of studios can be found on the arts foundation Web site at www.cafn.org and maps will be available at each studio. wu