![]() ![]() ![]() The opportunity to wow collectors, many of whom spend the weekend roaming the neighborhood, is another welcome aspect of showing work at JP Open Studios. It’s the same gang, and so it’s really convivial.” JP Open Studios is the fourth oldest open studio event in Boston. “This site has a a lot of people who were previously board members or who were active within the Jamaica Plains Arts Council, so there are a lot of people who have worked together in other ways. Although Goren is based in Hyde Park, she calls the artists in Jamaica Plain - especially those who have been showing their work at The Footlight Club group site year after year - her true community. “I’ve shown in Brookline, Dedham, Newton and the South End, and this is the one I come home to,” she said. Lisa Goren, a renowned watercolor artist whose paintings depicting Arctic landscapes has been featured in The New York Times and in the Paula Estey Gallery in Newburyport, has been showing her work at JP Open Studios for 13 years. More than 200 artists will show their work across 47 spaces, which include group exhibitions at community spaces like churches, schools, a brewery and restaurants, as well as in individual artists’ studios. We receive so much support from local businesses, too, which I just think is such a message to the artists about how much they’re valued in this community.” “We have a couple of positions that we stipend, but the organization and event literally couldn’t afford to pay for the amount of work that goes into it. She described the JP Open Studios as an all volunteer organization of boots on the ground. (Courtesy Susan Deprey)Īccording to Cochran, Jamaica Plain is the fourth oldest open studio event in Boston, preceded by Fenway, Fort Point and the South End. The Jamaica Plain Open Studios marks 25 years in existence this weekend. ![]() Now, the neighborhood is not unlike an art exhibit for one weekend each fall. A few years later, in 1993, those artists coordinated with the Jamaica Plain Arts Council to turn Jamaica Plain Open Studios into the community-wide exhibit of photographers, painters, ceramicists and makers that is today. JP Open Studios started with a group of local artists who, during the planning stages for the Jamaica Plain Multicultural Arts Center (which shuttered in the mid-1990s) wished to invite the public into their studio spaces once a year to see their work. He had his equipment in the trunk of his car, and called me and asked if there was somewhere he could do set up - so, he did,” said Cochran, president of the Jamaica Plain Arts Council, which organizes the event. “One year we had a guy who made enormous bubbles visit one of our artists. In essence, it’s still a place for chance encounters. ![]() 22 and 23, remains a completely analog experience in a virtual world: It’s a place for new face-to-face friendships, to get to know neighboring businesses, to be welcomed into a stranger’s intimate arts studio, to buy an artwork that you stumble on by chance rather than sleuth the internet for. The Jamaica Plain Open Studios, celebrating 25 years of existence on Sept. Joy Cochran, who helps organize the Jamaica Plain Open Studios, says the long-running community event that opens up her neighborhood to the rest of the city is filled with “moments of serendipity.” ![]()
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