The founders of Creative Collab at their first pop-up event. (Submitted: Kim Jacobsen)
Local art group Creative Collab will be opening a pop-up gallery this Friday.
The show’s tagline is “quit hiding your magic,” and will feature local artists, many who have never shown their work for the public before.
Artist and organizer Tony Klipin says proceeds from the event will go MindCare, a funder for mental health initiatives, run by the Saint John Regional Hospital Foundation.
“Mental health has always been with me because of my own journey through my life. I just saw an opportunity to be able to give something back, that’s why we chose MindCare,” he said in an interview.
Klipin says everyone involved has been touched by mental health in some way, so working with MindCare was a great fit.
He says a big goal of the event is to decrease stigma.
“You know, you don’t have a stigma if you have a health problem, why should there be stigma attached if you’ve got a mental health problem? We want to get people talking about it,” he said.
This is the group’s sixth year running the pop-up. Last year, they raised over $1,500 for MindCare.
Organizer Kim Jacobsen says the event is also meant to be a creative collaboration between artists and community.
“Our artists have adopted ‘quit hiding your magic,’ they’ve never shown their work before, and its always been our mission right from the beginning to support community though charitable work or donations,” she said.
All the participating artists will donate 10 per cent of their sales to MindCare, a mental health group. They will also be selling merchandise at the event, and holding a raffle, with proceeds going to the fund.
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- Kim Jacobsen is urging artists to “quit hiding your magic” (Submitted: Kim Jacobsen)
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- Artist Tony Kilpin says mental health is a big part of his life. (Submitted: Kim Jacobsen)
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- The group has done various pop-up style events, including one in an alley Uptown. (Submitted: Kim Jacobsen)
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- $5 from each t-shirt sale will be donated to MindCare. (Submitted: Kim Jacobsen)
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- The founders of Creative Collab at their first pop-up event. (Submitted: Kim Jacobsen)
For many artists involved, the show is an opportunity to sell their work, or get noticed and picked up by a gallery. For others, this is the first time they are showing their art to the world.
Klipin says the feeling of selling your first piece of work is “thrilling,” and both agree that being a platform for new, undiscovered artists is part of their goal.
“We just get so much satisfaction by encouraging somebody to come to the group, come to the pop-up, and just see them sell that first piece of work,” said Klipin.
The name of this year’s show is She died doing, what she loved most; The Awakening. Jacobsen says they wanted to incorporate the change of the seasons, with reference to an awakening.
“It’s spring, and it’s been such a long winter,” she jokes.
As well, it brings into play the innate purpose of the artist, she explains: doing what they love, dying for their work
“It’s kind of the essence of what we do,” she said. “For me, I can’t help myself, I absolutely love taking photographs, and I sort of see the world in photographs, so for me it just comes kind of naturally.”
The pop-up will take place as an accompaniment to the Saint John Gallery Association’s Gallery Hop Friday evening. They will be located in the Jarvis Building at 118 Prince William Street from 4 PM to 8:30 PM, with food, drink, music, and most importantly, art.
Jacobsen and Kilpin are joined in Creative Collab by Joanie Wood and Fernanda Escobedo, who were there from the start, says Jacobsen.
