Why Studio Friday might be the best £5 you spend this week

Art community Southampton.

Every Friday morning between 10 and 11.30, something happens at Studio 4B that I didn't entirely plan.

People arrive with their own work. A sketchbook, a half-finished watercolour, a knitting project, something they've been meaning to get back to. They sit down. They get on with it. And then, gradually, conversations start.

I set up Studio Friday because I wanted to create company. Not a class, not a lesson — just a room full of people being creative together. The space is here, the light is good (it's south-facing, so on sunny days the door is open and it feels wonderful), and I know how much easier it is to make things when you're not doing it alone.

What I didn't expect was quite how much happens in that room.

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Studio 4b, Kemps Quay Southampton, Jo Morleys Art Studio

What actually happens on a Studio Friday

There's something about sitting alongside other people who are making things that makes your own work flow differently. You're accountable, in the gentlest possible way. You're also inspired — by what other people are doing, by the conversations that come up, by the fact that someone else across the table is also figuring something out.

I find myself saying I’m amazed all the time. And I am. By who walks through the door. By what people are working on. By the connections that form between people who might never have met otherwise. These are the synchronicities you can’t manufacture — people who know people, common ground that appears out of nowhere, conversations that go somewhere neither person expected. You genuinely cannot plan it. It just happens, in a room where people are making things together.

It really is a hive of creativity in here on a Friday morning, and I mean that genuinely.

You don't need to be 'an artist'

Studio Friday isn't a workshop. There's no set project, no level of experience required, nothing you need to know before you arrive.

People come with all sorts of things. Painting, drawing, printing, sewing, writing. Some people are working on something specific; others are just trying to get back into a creative habit after a long break. Both are completely fine.

If you've been meaning to make more time for creativity and keep putting it off — this is the gentlest possible way to start. For a lot of people, it's simply an outlet. A couple of hours that belong entirely to them, away from whatever the week is throwing at them. That's enough of a reason.

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Jo Morley, Artist and printmaker

A safe space to retreat into creativity.

What you get:

The space. The company. The atmosphere of a working studio, with all the art and equipment and lovely mess that involves.

You bring your own materials and your own project. I provide the room, the welcome, and the company.

£5 per session. No booking needed — just turn up.

Someone said to me recently that Jo Morley Studio is a destination. I have been sitting with that word ever since. I think they meant it as a compliment about the space, but what I keep coming back to is the community. The fact that people choose to come here, week after week, and bring their work and themselves. That feels like something worth building.

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And if you'd like to take something home…

If you find yourself spending time in the studio and wanting to carry a little bit of it home with you, I have prints available. Many of them were made right here, on the press you can see from where you sit on a Friday morning.

Browse the print store:

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Browse paintings for sale…

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