Part of the magic of the South End Art Hop is that it offers a rare window into the everyday occurrence of art making. Open studios throughout the arts district give a glimpse into the creative process — visitors can step inside to witness metalworkers crafting intricate jewelry, graphic artists designing witty prints, oil painters capturing evocative New England landscapes and sculptors shaping whimsical papier-mâché pieces. Of course, that’s just a tiny sample of the art that’s born in the nearly 100 participating studios. Read on for insights into seven studios, then head out and meet some makers this weekend. Light Show Eighteen-wheelers once fit into Bruce MacDonald’s HAVOC Gallery, which is apropos because the abraded-metal artist tends to think big. His latest, “Gloria Mundi,” is an 8-by-12-foot triptych on sheet metal. Though flat, its swirls of mandalas, chevrons, rays and curved coffers appear layered, almost 3D. MacDonald can create any illusion on steel surfaces with his grinders, polishers, sanders and even a handheld Brillo pad-like material. The trick is that he understands how his abrasions engage the light. The eye’s ability to process reflected and refracted light is something of an obsession for him. In fact, “The Eye,” depicting a giant human eye, pays homage to what he calls “the best eye we’ve ever made” — the James Webb Space Telescope. (He’s also a bit of a space nut.) Aside from a woodcut of an orange dot signed by Damien Hirst (price available upon request), MacDonald provides the gallery’s color himself. Large acrylic canvases explore how two opposite hues — green/red, yellow/purple — interact with each other. And if you want color with your metal surfaces, just ask: The artist custom installs modified landscape spotlights that can cycle through the rainbow. — A.L. HAVOC Gallery, 27 Sears Lane, havocgallery.com Master of Arts On the far southwest end of the Art Hop, Longina Smolinski works upstairs in the Green House, an artists’ hub, in a 10-by-13-foot room. The small studio feeds rather than limits her creative explorations, which include abstract paintings in acrylic or cold wax, collages, jewelry, and works in clay. “I do a lot of different things,” admits Smolinski, who moved from Poland to the U.S. in 1988. She points to “Curtain,” an installation lining one wall: three large-format photographs mounted on aluminum that she took of curtains of porcelain leaves hanging in nature, with…