50 years of Cambridge Open Studios

13 Jun

The love of a good studio space.

2024 marks the 50th anniversary of Cambridge Open Studios. It has served me well over the decades and I’m grateful to everyone who keeps the organisation going behind the scenes.

Cambridge Open Studios (COS) brings artists, designer-makers and audience together without the need of expensive, often elitist gallery space. It’s been an friendly, easy and inexpensive way to show my jewellery.

A good studio space offers a glimpse into the artist’s mind, some perfectly orderly, minimal and calming, others an explosion of tools and materials, with decades of gathered gubbins, intriguing thingamajigs, drawers full of tiny treasures.

I grew up in a house with a pottery run by my stepdad and a studio where my mum made her landscape paintings. I took the creative chaos around me completely for granted.

It wasn’t until I was a teenager when I saw other studio spaces, that I started to appreciate them as magical places of potential. Portals to other realms!

These are the places that the makers get lost in the flow of creating, transported somewhere that time is distorted, discoveries are made and (hopefully) the occasional treasure is brought back to mesmerize others.

Christine Fox Sculpture Studios Coton c2007

Within the Salted Ocean, Cast Bronze 2007, Christine Fox

As a child I remember exploring the home studio of my grandmother’s friend Christine Fox. Her earthy metal and wood sculptures were scattered around her beautiful Coton garden, like ancient relics.

It was Christine along with painter Julia Ball, who started COS in 1974.

Another memorable visit to an Open Studio was to Julia’s, a beautiful well lived in space. Collections of pebbles and shells on the windowsills, colourful drips and splatters beside her paintings, built up over years were incidental artworks in their own right, complementing her abstracted landscapes in their dreamy colours.

Julia Ball is opening her studio for the last time on 20-21st & 27-28th July. Don’t miss it! See the COS website for details.

Elspeth Owen’s studio was (and still is) always a treat to visit - an enchanting, balanced medley of collected oddments with her elegantly arranged exquisite ceramics. She first opened her studio in the 1970s.

Elspeth Owen Studio Granchester Pavillion

Elspeth Owen is opening her studio on 13-14th & 20-21st July. See the COS website for details.

My grandmother Casty joined COS in the 1980s with her group of favourite students when she was well into her 80s!

Her Trumpington workshop is remembered fondly by many as an Aladdin’s cave of tools and treasures collected on her travels.

I spent many a content afternoon learning from her and her students there. Most of her students hadn’t shown their work in public before, so were excited to have a platform to get feedback and encouragement on their designs.

Catherine 'Casty' Cobb at her workbench 1980s

I first took part in COS when I was 20 years old (27 years ago!) in my mum Clarissa Cochran’s Open Studio. It was the first time I had shown my silverwork to the public.

Mum’s space, full of indigo textiles, silk paintings and abstracted landscapes became home to my small collection of jewellery for a couple of weekends in 1997.

My mum has obviously been a huge influence on me and my work, we share the same love of organic, fluid shapes and fine details.

I’d been making occasional bits of jewellery for friends and family for many years already, but it was at Open Studios that I made my first real sales, took on custom work, and saw strangers appreciate my designs. It was a big motivation to continue making!

Open Studios has connected me to a strong, encouraging network of local designer makers and allowed me to meet an appreciative local audience.

Those weekends in July serve as a firm deadline to get myself together, finish that pile of half completed works, polish things up and price them.

Over the decades I’ve met hundreds of people, made good friends and loyal customers. I’ve shared studio space with many wonderful designer makers.

My own workshop space is overdue expansion and upgrade (watch this space for progress on that front), so instead of showing in my own workshop as I used to, in recent years I’ve been exhibiting in the studio spaces of friends.

Bags made from reclaimed materials by Loukas Morley

This year I’m excited to be showing in Loukas Morley’s wonderful space. Loukas is a talented designer-maker with a great studio space just a mile south of Fulbourn. Please come and visit us if you can!

Event details Here

Read more about the beginning of Cambridge Open Studios - BBC Open studio art event celebrates 50 years
& Celebrating-50-years-of-cambridge-open-studios

Abi Cochran