My 2023 Cambridge Open Studio

Well my Open Studio event has come and gone, but before I move on to other things, I thought it might be helpful to write a bit of a summary. For myself, but also for you guys - for those of you who blinked and missed it, or those of you thinking of doing it yourself one day.

Cambridge Open Studios

It’s fantastic in Cambridge to be part of this event that runs every year - there are usually over 350 artists who take part across the city over the month of July, and it’s great to get to join in with something bigger than little old me! A booklet is produced, local trails, promotion across the city and online, so you get to tap into a larger audience than just your own. You can choose to do one or all of the 4 weekends of July - this year I choose the middle 2. I am always a little limited due to having 3 daughters with July birthdays and usually end up clashing with Wimbledon.

Open Studio Online & Local

I did my first Open Studio in 2017 (you can read about it here if you like: https://kategreenart.com/blog/my-1st-cambridge-open-studio-part-one-preparation). This was my 6th one in total (not counting the ones I do at Christmas), I organised an altered version during Covid days which we called Open Windows, and displayed our art on windows for passers by, and I took a break last year as I was in the final throws of preparing for my Masters Degree final show.
The pandemic has spurred us all on to being more online savvy these days and so recently I have tried as much as possible to share my exhibition through social media and on my website - I have a larger audience for my art online than I do locally, and am keen for all my friends further afield to be able to engage as well.
The way that I do this is:
I create a Open Studios Event HUB on my website for people to easily find information
I discount my art for sale on my website as well as locally
I do a video tour each day of my exhibition weekends, sharing all the details and talking through my art and show.
I share all this on social media
Here is a link to this years Hub for you to take a look: https://kategreenart.com/open-studios-page.html and below are the video tours.

How did my Open Studio event go and what did I do?

I don’t know how my event compared with others, and it’s also hard to compare with other years as the event can be affected by all sorts of things like weather, clashes with sports events, the pandemic, cost of living crisis, one year the road was cordoned off by the police due to some incident the same weekend, I know that at least one artist friend of mine had limited visitors due to road works right outside their house this year.
But on the whole I feel it was a successful thing to do. I had over 100 visitors over the 2 weekends and many of those were people I’d not met before. There were lots of conversations with other artists interested in my workshops and mentoring, others wanting to ask about my Masters Degree, and other people wanting to ask about the meaning, method or inspiration of my artwork.
I displayed art in the downstairs of my home - the living room, hallway and kitchen. I had chalks for interactive art in the garden. And this year I used my garden studio to share my art installation - this was fun for me to create and visitors seemed to really enjoy it too.
Every year I put a lot of effort into displaying the work and making the space welcoming (and sharing it online) but I have also learnt over the years to simplify and stress less. I clear less of the clutter of ‘family life’ away than I used to, instead of taking months or even weeks to prepare, I make a plan a month beforehand and then I do all the work in the last week running up to opening. I also managed this year for the first time to include my daughter and dog in the mix, which was really nice and meant it impacted family life less. Another trick I’ve learnt is to have a little relaxing creative project on the go during the exhibition - this can provide a topic for conversation, helps quiet moments feel like I’m not waisting time and means people feel free to browse without feeling watched.
Anyway here are some pictures of how things looked this year.

What’s the best part of doing Open Studios?

Sales vary, numbers of visitors vary but my favourite thing about welcoming people into my home and sharing my art is that it genuinely seems to inspire people towards their own creativity, and I get to hear from people what they think and feel about the art that I make.
So I’ll end with some of the comments that were left in my visitors book.

“You make Jackson Pollock look positively lazy!!
Wonderful and vibrant; Joyful exciting art; Engrossed, such fun!
So colourful and bright. Love it! Really spectacular and inspiring.”