Due to the current pandemic, our studio doors closed in March for six months. We hear from Submit To Love artist Billy on how the Studio’s closure impacted him and how together, the artists and staff, worked to bring the studio magic to Zoom.

When Lockdown forced the studio to close, I mentally surrendered. Things would never be the same again. Nothing could replace the ease and comfort we all felt buried in that magical cave blanketed in visual and sensual excitement. That wasn’t something you could do on Zoom. 

We were wrong. At first I thought the Open Studio Zoom sessions were a product of careful thinking and planning, but as every week passes and more and more people arrive to join in, I’m convinced it’s just a stroke of good luck fuelled by a group of irrepressible characters in a place they all know is safe and happy, doing the thing they love doing without boundaries and without judgement.

Doing it via Zoom has changed very little. In some cases it has heightened the studio experience. We’ve all met Headway members we didn’t know, from different days of the week. We’ve all embraced the new way of working with relish, each of us finding our likes and dislikes, each pushed on by some unknown force of discovery. There are no limits to our ambitions, even in Lockdown. 

And that’s the feeling that first drew me into the studio when I arrived at Headway more than seven years ago. It was a place where I could be myself and conquer the world. The power comes from sharing. We work together. That’s what makes us strong, and that’s what makes us carry on creating when others might have given up.

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