With two artists and one author on hand, the Marion Art Center bustled Saturday afternoon while visitors arrived for holiday shopping.

The works of more than 30 artists from the tri-town and South Coast were on display and are on sale until Dec. 20. The center was a featured stop on the Sippican Woman's Club annual Holiday House Tour.

Inside the art center, visitors could purchase signed copies of “Cecil Clark Davis ­– Self Portrait Biography” from its author Wendy Todd Bidstrup.

The biography depicts the life of Marion’s most famous artist whose work earned international acclaim at the turn of the 20th century.

Bidstrup, who is a retired former long-time executive director of the center, described the work as a labor of love that took more than two decades to research and write.

“I’ve been working on this book for twenty-five years,” Bidstrup said.

Written in first person narrative, Bidstrup used Davis’s own words from her personal diaries and letters. Accompanying the words are illustrations by Charles Gibson.

A graphic artist, Gibson is best known for creating the “Gibson Girl” style. His drawings depicted American women as independent and beautiful.

“Cecil Clark Davis was very much a Gibson Girl,” Bidstrup said.

She noted that her circle of friends included prominent artists, statesmen, authors and explorers.

Roald Amundsen was among them. The Norwegian explorer reached the North Pole in 1911 and was the first person recognized to have reached the pole without dispute.

“Her conversations with Amundsen are documented in her diaries,” Bidstrup said.

“Cecil Clark Davis ­– Self Portrait Biography” is on sale at the Art Center, the Marion Bookstall and the Sippican Historical Society.

Outside the center, Marion resident Timothy Wade carved small ice sculptures of stars, snowmen and other festive shapes to hand out. He first joined the Art Center five years ago as part of Marion’s early holiday celebrations, including the House Tour and Sunday’s Holiday Stroll around the village.

Wade, who also paints, began carving ice sculptures eight years ago after graduating from college.

Also, Mattapoisett’s Mike McCarthy demonstrated his craft of hand carving shorebirds. Since 1980, he’s been attending art and trade shows and showing the pieces he’s created in his workshop, Mattapoisett Bird Works. Several of McCarthy’s pieces were on sale Saturday.