FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. When are the Studios/Galleries open during the June Suffolk Open Studios event?

A. Studios and Galleries are open to the public at the weekends during June, from 11am until 5pm. Not all studios are open every weekend so remember to check the printed Art Directory, digital app, studio/gallery map or artists pages for details.

Some artists are willing to open their studios at other times of the year by appointment, you can see which members offer this in their listing.

Q. Who can join Suffolk Open Studios?

A. All artists, creative makers and artisans living or working in Suffolk are eligible to become members of Suffolk Open Studios.  We also welcome galleries and art groups.

If you live outside the county you may still join SOS as a Full member BUT to participate in the June Open Studios event you would need to hire/share a space within Suffolk. Associate members must reside within the Suffolk county boundary.

 

You may also join if you do not have a studio but wish to be part of the community.

There is no selection process for membership as we are an inclusive organisation.

 

Q. Do members have to live in Suffolk?

A. A studio/gallery that is opening during the June Suffolk Open Studios event has to be in Suffolk although there is no residence requirement. Full members living outside the county would need to share a studio with a Suffolk-based artist or hire a space in the county.

For Associate members, there is a residence requirement, and they do need to live in Suffolk to be eligible for membership.

So you become a member if you live outside Suffolk but you may only show your work with as part of our events within the county.

Q. I only live just outside the county, very close to the border, can I still join? Could you be a bit flexible with the ‘within Suffolk’ requirement as I’m only just over the border?

As stated above, if you reside outside the county of Suffolk you may join SOS as a Full (or ‘Opening’) member but not as an Associate. However, the space in which you display your work during our Open Studios events MUST be in Suffolk, so your home studio, if outside the county, could not be included.

We understand that this is frustrating to artists who live ‘just the other side’ of the border, and the matter has been discussed within the membership on numerous occasions. The decision to make the county boundary a ‘hard’ cut-off is because a line has to be drawn somewhere – e.g. if we said ‘within a mile of the county boundary’ we could have artists that are within 1.1 miles asking if they could be included too, and so on. Also, the admin time it would take to check distances for each individual application is more than we can ask our volunteers to spare. So, as a ‘hard’ boundary has to be drawn somewhere, it seems sensible to use the one drawn by an impartial third party, and so the Suffolk County boundary was chosen.

That said, we are always happy to put out appeals to the membership for studio/venue-sharing requests. While we won’t arrange a shared space for you, we can certainly help you make some contacts and get conversations going.

Q. When can I join Suffolk Open Studios?

A. Membership applications for those wishing to participate in the Open Studios event are open from 1st November to 31st January the following year. Non-opening members, i.e.

Associates, may join at any time of the year. While the link to the application form is removed from the website at the end of January, we can send it out by email on request.

ALL memberships expire on 31st December each year, so late-joining Associates will benefit less from their membership fee than those who joined by 31st January e.g. they won’t appear in the printed SOS Art Directory.  There is no pro-rata membership fee for late joiners.

Q. How do I apply?

A. Application is made using our online form, the link to which will appear on the Membership page of this website from 1st November to the following 31st January. This helps us to collect all of the information needed to go to into the printed directory, app and website at the same time.  However, you only need to complete the required sections of the form (marked with an asterisk *) when you first sign up, and you can upload your images and add further information, including changing your June opening weekends until the 2nd week in February.  Changes made to your listing after the 2nd week in February will only be visible on your website listing page.

Q. How much does membership cost?

A. Membership fees are subject to change from year to year.  The current fees can be found on the Membership page.

Q. Why do membership applications close so early?

A. The reason for this is so that we can get the directory ready for printing. We need at least 2 weeks after membership closes for members to coordinate their opening dates, arrange art trails and for us to chase them for missing information before collating and modifying the data into the correct format to go in the Directory and off to the app developers. Proofs then need to be checked before the Directory is finally signed off for printing. We try to get the directories to members around Easter so that they have plenty of time to distribute them before the June Open Studios event. The app should available at around the same time.

Q. I am a member – how do I find out more information about opening my studio or about the directory?

A. We sometimes hold a Zoom meeting to discuss how you can make the most of your Open Studios event, but you can view the recording of a previous meetings HERE. 

We also send out PDF guidance via our member newsletters and you can join our members only WhatsApp and Facebook groups to share ideas with other members.

Q. Do I have to open between 11am and 5pm?

A. Yes. We ask members to be open between these hours so that visitors get a consistent message about when they can visit. If visitors are trying to fit in many studios in one day, they don’t want to be confronted by a closed studio at 4.30pm that they have been looking forward to visiting. Of course you can be open for longer – quite a few members do open at 10am. We provide posters with blank areas where members can advertise their own opening times but the core requirement is 11am-5pm Saturday AND Sunday.

Q. What is an Artist Hub?

A. Artist Hubs have historically been run during June as part of the Open Studio Event. Hubs involve member artists getting together at one location, either at the studio of one participant or a hired venue. Sometimes the group of artists will share common interests, such as a group of textile artists. Sometimes the artist’s own studios are in remote locations and it reduces visitor travel time if they collaborate in this way. All participants in a Hub must be Full SOS members as they benefit from the marketing effort paid for by their membership.

Q. What is an Artist Trail?

A. Artist Trails also run during June as part of the Open Studio Event. Member artists in a particular locality co-ordinate themselves to open their studios on the same weekend(s) and produce their own map or leaflet to hand out to visitors/insert into their Art Directory allocation.

We have found this a very useful way to increase the number of visitors to studios. It is logical that the Trail members should all be open on the same day and during the same times, as to not do so is likely to cause confusion and create a negative impression of SOS as a whole.

If you are not all opening on the same weekends then you can create separate trails, perhaps with slightly different names but making it obvious which weekends the trails are operating on. Participants will often have their studios open on other weekends as well as being part of a Trail. Artist Trails are listed on the Artist Trails page of this website.

All participants in a Trail must be full SOS members as they benefit from the marketing effort paid for by their membership.