Always on
This project successfully funded on 11th February 2022, you can still support them with a donation.
This project successfully funded on 11th February 2022, you can still support them with a donation.
Aim: To raise money to help staff the project, help to pay over heads and make much needed improvements to the building and internal spaces.
Calling all associates, participants, lovers of Studio 18, the community at large, dog walkers and cultural seekers alike.
We’ve had a real run at the Studios and continue to do so, producing some incredible moments, flying by the seat of our pants and bringing everyone along who dared to come on board. Studio 18 has proved to be a truly versatile, inclusive and creative hotbed of happenings. No one that has entered through the Lock Stock-esque gates has left disappointed.
Through Lockdown, we kept the creative spirit that flows through each one of us alive, spring boarding young creatives and eager minds. Encouraging the artistic self within those people and hopefully passing on the sense that all is possible with a paint brush, an idea and a whole lot of tenacity. We’ve magicked-up inclusive exhibitions, awesome projects and even outdoor interactive installations, bringing joy and colour to the otherwise dreary and industrial London Road through the regeneration of its rundown bus stops. Our latest show ‘Spaces Places Faces’ proved once again, there is an Artist in all of us, if we so choose.
On another tack, Studio 18 is evolving into a kind of alternative art school with mentors and mentees working closely with groups to facilitate projects like the ‘Art Camp’. Designed and run by artist Alice Sheppard Fiddler, funded by Stroud District Council, it provides creative experiences for our young people. Life drawing sessions have been led by the beloved master of the arts Jake Pond and photographer extraordinaire Nikoletta Monyok, rewiring synapses on the way and Anarchy Arts have discovered and unravelled your creative meanderings.
We've created employment opportunities through the Kickstarter fund, giving invaluable work experience to under 25s and are currently in development with Stroud College to provide essential, real time work experience to their students.
All this has been achieved through the strangest of times. It's almost comical the adversity that so many have faced in order to keep our small businesses alive and it’s no less true for Studio 18, a truly independent space with no real product to sell except that which probably counts most; the potential to make and to inspire, to teach and to learn.
However, due to the last couple of years, the Studios has not been able to operate at full potential but have continued, still having to pay the hilly bills.
To keep this lofty cathedral of the Arts providing the sanctuary for the pervasive and undulating creative Anthropos that is us, we have developed a wide variety of incentives in order for you to invest in your rag tag, delightful and hardworking creative institute. In doing so, you are playing an absolutely crucial role in helping to realize what the studio is fast becoming. You will be securing the many wonderful projects and mind-bending experiences we have in store.
To mention just a few, the long established Band Camp is coming to Studio 18 in April, the third year of the Under 25s open, Studio 18 open call out, the ongoing Film Project, Art Camp and the upcoming film festival which, oh my!, do we have a treat in store for that.
New groups like the Horsebox and Radio Groogdok have recently come on board as well as long term studio residents, Lensmen, who have some big surprises planned for next year's horizon.
None of this will happen though, without the support of the community that Studio 18 supports so diligently. Every penny counts. I never really planned for this journey, but I did follow a clear and heartfelt creative intention. Seeing the joy, the happy faces, the opening of communications, the spark of ideas and the general connectivity that has come through the doors, it's hard not to go that extra mile and overly commit, regardless. It's too late now, the dragon has a hold, and rightly so. We need spaces like this that traverse the differences that delude us, spaces that hold fast in times of worry and just simply give, connect, and bring happiness. Get on board, let's cultivate and see how far this ship sails. Studio 18 not only wants you but needs you. You are very, very welcome.
Things that we will put the money towards include: