If ever there was a time for creative escapism, that time is now.
Between Saturday, August 29, and Sunday, September 6, more than 240 artists, designers and makers will share their studio spaces, their stories and omnipresent originality in a safe and socially-distanced celebration of artistic practice.
From Marazion to St Minver, St Ives to Saltash and Penzance to Penwithick, in leafy villages, seaside settlements and wooded valleys, painters, printmakers and potters; textile designers, sculptors and illustrators will guide you between granite gateposts, down driveways and along ancient footpaths – and to the Open Studios Cornwall website, enhanced with video tours and additional digital content by participants who are not able to throw open their doors for reasons of limited space or personal vulnerability – to discover, discuss and purchase their work.
Whether inspired by hedgerow habitats or roaring tide; the megalithic or the maritime; folklore and festival, or what makes us human, artists’ studios in converted chapels and country cottages, shipyards and salt cellars, historic harbours – and even a horsebox – will be a blaze of colour, texture and form as participants transform pigment, weave and stitch; clay, charcoal and copper into a counterpoint of creativity.
Open Studios Cornwall champions the confluence of art and science too with collagraphs and oxides, slips and glazes, the kiln-fused and the electromagnetic. Work is scratched and burnished; enriched with ground sea-glass or gorse-smoked in homage to the natural world.
Emerging themes of environmentalism and wellbeing, recycling and repurposing capture the zeitgeist in the 16th year of the initiative.
Hooked wool rugs and wall-hangings made from local fleece; hand-spun, hand-dyed skeins of wool and handmade inks combine with the found and the foraged, reclaimed joists and rusty nails, mindful drawing and wild swimming in pursuit of the ethical, the sustainable and mental wealth.
“Whether you are drawn to saturated colour or atmospheric monochromes, modern processes or ancient traditions, the seen or the unseen, Open Studios Cornwall opens our eyes to other worlds, both physically and mentally,” said project coordinator, Karen Raymond.
“Supporting and investing in Cornwall’s creative community not only provides artists, designers and makers with a vital lifeline but also enables us to focus on the positive power of creativity in these challenging times.”
Curate your own art trail by following those distinctive orange ‘O’s across the Duchy’s creeks, coves and coastlines – or take the virtual route from the comfort of your own home – the very thing to banish those Covid-19 blues away.
For all the latest information about the artists, their work, which of them are opening their studios and who is exhibiting virtually, visit openstudioscornwall.co.uk
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