Orange is the new blue

Look out for an Orange O near you and banish the lockdown blues with the 2020 Cornwall Open Studios

I fever there was a time for creative escapism, that time is now. Between 29 August and 6 September, more than 250 artists, designers and makers will share their studio spaces, their stories and originality in a safe and socially-distanced celebration of art.

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 gravelled driveways and along ancient footpaths. And this year you can head to the Open Studios Cornwall website for video tours from the comfort of your sofa.

Whether inspired by hedgerow habitats or roaring tide; the megalithic or the maritime; folklore and festival, or what makes us human, artists occupying converted chapels and country cottages, shipyards and salt cellars, historic harbours – and even a horsebox – will show off their work in a blaze of colour, texture and form as participants transform pigment, weave and stitch, clay, charcoal and copper into art.

Now in its 16th year, 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. There are emerging themes of environmentalism and wellbeing, recycling and repurposing capture the zeitgeist of 2020.