[In world arts organizations/events for developing artists]

I'm a rank newbie, but I would be SO interested in this kind of thing!  I have no technical skills and so wouldn't be of much help but I sure would join!  I'm an artist IRL (was full-time for a few years, now PT d/t the plague) and would love to have a "studio" in SL where we could hang, take classes, share prompts, etc.

 

[How to make friends and join groups.]

I've also had the same question, and while I have lots of interests, I'd also like to see if there's a list of public groups or topics/categories so I could join something that piques my interest.  Is there anything like that available?  I understand there's probably gazillions of groups, but is there any category structure to them?