‘Uplifting’ Cambridge Open Studios celebrates milestone
This July, Cambridge Open Studios (COS) is celebrating its 50th anniversary and, to mark the occasion, a special launch party was held at the Graduate Hotel – and quite a few of those attending seemed to have got the memo about wearing the art festival’s yellow colours.
A free exhibition showcasing the work of some of the artists who will open up their studios over four weekends was on offer, along with drinks, canapes and demonstrations of painting and basket weaving.
Present at the launch last Wednesday (12 June) were artists, members of the COS management team and some of its volunteers, as well as the mayor and deputy mayor of Cambridge and a Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire.
Addressing those gathered, Gabriella del Valle, COS chair and a jeweller, noted the milestone – and pointed out that to promote the first festival half a century ago, hand-drawn posters were distributed.
She also praised one of the founders, Julia Ball, adding that this year will be her last year participating.
Mark Alvarez, a member of the COS committee as treasurer and PR lead – he is also a photographer – called the 50 years an “amazing achievement”, adding: “We’re very proud to be showcasing a lot of the fabulous work that our artists have achieved.”
On what makes COS such a beloved event, even after all these years, Mark, who has been involved with it for five years, suggested: “I think it’s the emphasis on the ‘open’.
“These aren’t galleries; you come into our homes and our studios and you can talk to us, you can see how we work.
“You can watch ceramicists working, you can watch painters working, and you can have that immediate connection with the artist.
“If you’re an artist yourself and you’re thinking about doing something in the future, we’ll give you advice and show you how we do it and make suggestions – so I think it’s that personal touch, and that’s what it’s about.”
Jewellery designer/maker Abi Cochran has been participating in COS for 27 years.
“I joined with my mum, Clarissa Cochran, who is a textile artist,” she explained. “She was doing Open Studios, so I joined her – I think for a few years we did it together, and I was just doing jewellery part time...
“But yes, it worked really well; it was quite encouraging to get good feedback from people and it’s quite an easy way to get yourself out there, without having to go through expensive galleries.
“It’s just a nice way to meet people, meet customers, and some of the customers that I met 20 years ago are still coming back and buying from me now.
“I’ve made lots of friends, other artists and designers, over the years, so it’s been really good.”
Abi’s grandmother, who was known as ‘Casty’, was also a jewellery-maker and taught Abi the art of jewellery-making when she was a child.
She revealed that lots of other jewellery-makers in Cambridge also learned their trade from her grandmother.
“My style seems to evolve; over the years it’s changed a lot,” said Abi, “but they’re mostly quite organic forms, lots of texture, a mixture of gold and silver.”
Abi concluded: “I think people really appreciate seeing a studio space, seeing the tools that that person’s using and their natural habitat, their surroundings and things that they’ve collected, things that inspire them.
“I think they appreciate the work that much more if they see the actual studio. So I think the customer feels a stronger connection to the artist that way and you can build up a trust and a relationship that much better.”
Nadine Anderson is a basket maker from just outside Ely who has done COS “about four times over the last decade”.
She said: “I like to focus on particular baskets that are part of Cambridgeshire’s agricultural history.”
Showing me one of her potato harvesting baskets and a ‘docky’ bag she’d made, Nadine brought out an old black and white photograph of a couple of 19th-century peat cutters from Burwell that she used as guidance when weaving the latter.
“They’re called docky bags because they had their wages docked if they stopped to eat their lunch,” she explained, “and the bag is what they carried their lunch in.
“So they’d make them out of plaited rushes or iris leaves, and it’s important for me to know how to make it.
“I did quite a bit of research to get specific sizes, and also the pattern of the plait – and there’s quite a few of these dotted around the country; different parts have different patterns, different plaits.
“So I grow my own willow and harvest the rush in waterways around Ely, and all my willow is organically-grown; it’s spray-free so if a pest drops by and starts to have a nibble, then I’m afraid I’ll just have to put up with that.”
Nadine, who in 2017 was invited to become a Yeoman Maker to the Worshipful Company of Basketmakers, one of the City of London livery companies, noted that COS is “very good for networking”.
“I’ve had some really lovely customers – repeat customers as well,” she said, “and actually a very long time ago, I used to do a market stall in Cambridge and customers found me again from there.
“It’s a lovely, supportive community network of artists and makers.”
Artist Rosemary Dodgson, who paints lovely pictures of flowers, was previously on the COS committee, for five years. She has been displaying her work as part of COS since 2015.
“I do a variety of media,” she told the Cambridge Independent. “I do coloured pencils, ordinary pencils, watercolours, pastels and acrylics; my main focus is on botanicals, but I also do some fairly large, abstract fluid acrylics – I have quite a diverse range of painting.”
Rosemary’s work will be on display at The Woodyard, 38 Cheddars Lane, Cambridge, along with 10 other artists. The studio is owned by furniture-maker Peter Harrison.
Rosemary hails Cambridge Open Studios as “a very special thing” – “because it makes you focus on what you’re doing, you create more work, and it’s so lovely because 99 per cent of the people coming are really interested in the thing that you are interested in, which is the art.
“And they want to talk about it, why did you paint it? How did you paint it? Could you do something for them, or someone else or whatever… and it really is very uplifting, as far as I’m concerned.”
For five decades, Cambridge Open Studios artists have opened their studios to the public for free over four weekends in July, in order to remove the barriers that might prevent people from accessing art and creativity in the county.
The 50th anniversary year is sponsored by Aston Shaw, Babouris, Flawless UK Group, and Mills & Reeve, and is supported by the Cambridge Independent as media partner.
Artists will open their studios over four weekends in July. For details on them and the venues, visit camopenstudios.org.
