chriswoodartist

 

THE NEW PROJECT

above is a quick photo of the first couple of metres of the left-hand party wall. On it hangs a few linocuts that were displayed for Art Space Open Studios in July 2025. In the foreground are 2 life drawings made on my experimental life drawing workshop at the Omega Centre Portsmouth

I consider myself very fortunate – I rent a fabulous studio at Art Space Portsmouth. It is about 20 x 10 feet with a very high ceiling. I also have a room in our house that is a dedicated studio. What’s more, during the Covid lock down I designed and built a small workshop / garden studio.

All three spaces are crammed full and I find it difficult to work in any of them.
This weekend (24th-26th Oct 25) there is an open studio event across the City but sadly I am not opening my studio. POSE or Portsmouth Open Studio Event as it’s called, promises to be a fantastic experience and it got me thinking. . .

Every June or July ArtSpace has its own open studio event. This is not only good for the members of the public who view the studios but as artists we frantically prepare and make our spaces habitable, by tidying, organising and hanging work !

This brings me to my master plan, which is to radically reorganise my practice and the spaces that I work within. The intention is to tidy and complete all 3 studios. I will not be throwing open the doors of the studios but I’ll share the progress online. Virtual open studios will slowly come to fruition – I deliberately haven’t set myself a timescale. Wish me luck – I am going to need it !

I will begin with my ArtSpace studio, which is a multi purpose space. Just what it evolves into remains to be seen ! I shall name my next post “Finding the floor”.

NB : Writing blogs is a good delaying tactic – I should be tidying up !

Returning to ArtSpace I would like to add that as part of the open studios event ArtSpace are holding an exhibition of our members work and I highly recommend it ! It’s open from 10.30 – 5.30 daily and (said he shamelessly), I have three watercolours on display !

ArtSpace 27, Brougham Rd Southsea, PO5 4PA