We recently connected with 7 Works Collective and have shared our conversation below.
7 Works, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
Our entire reason for existing as a collective is “The Project” or as we call it “Our Story”.
In 2018, two of the 7 Works Collective artists applied to the Gibraltar Point Artscape Artist Residency program and were accepted to the residency. Both artists were so inspired by the experience of immersing themselves in their art practices for a concentrated time, they applied again in 2019.
Both artists were again accepted and travelled to Toronto Island in May along with three other artist-friends from various art disciplines.
Then along came 2020 with great plans to add two additional artists to the group and again spend an awesome week on Toronto Island. BUT… the world changed in 2020 and the 7 Works Collective artists had to postpone our artist residency until 2021.
7 Works, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
The 7 Works Collective Artists had great plans in 2020 to travel as a group to Toronto Island for the Artists’ Residency. But, as often happened in 2020, our well laid plans were derailed due to the COVID pandemic.
Even though plans were upended the group committed themselves to creative activities during that week in May 2020 and furthered our hunt for inspiration by meeting on Zoom to see each other and talk about what we had done that week.
Unable to attend the Artists’ Residency in person, all seven artists did our best to adapt to the situation and made plans to regularly “meet” virtually to discuss what we were all working on. It was during one of these meetings the plan was hatched to challenge each other to biweekly art prompts. Each artist would show a work of art in their medium and the remaining 6 artists would create a piece in their own medium based on the visual prompt.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
Previous to forming the 7 Works Collective as a solid group of artists, we were all artist-friends who created in a diverse range of skill sets: abstract painting, collage, embroidery, mosaic, silk fibre drawing and lens-based art.
If there is anything we all agree upon is that we would have all benefited from knowing much earlier in our careers about artist residencies. We have repeatedly met up at Artscape Gibraltar Point annually for 1-2 weeks of concentrated creativity. We do not share identical creative practises and this makes the group an exciting mix where learning about each other’s medium, inspiration and project execution has inspired all of us to explore the boundaries or each of our practises and expand our creative journeys.
Just recently we have accepted an invitation to a 1 month artists’ residency for January 2025 in Newfoundland at Pouch Cove. This will be our longest artists residency to date. This month is guaranteed to spark a plethora of new art inspired by this incredible location. Stay tuned we will keep you up to date on our website’s Blog. https://7workscollective.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
“Resilience”, we are the embodiment of resilience. The entire world shut down but for this group of artists nothing was going to get in the way of our creative spirit. There simply had to be a way for us to connect regularly as we would have done at the artists’ residency and it had to be a visual way. Zoom saved us from disconnecting from creative spirits and has proven to be a way for us to continue to connect, share and plan.
We don’t live down the street from each other so continuing through Zoom meetings has allowed our challenges and collaborations to live on. We don’t meet quite as often on Zoom, we actually meet up in person now and again for special outings to galleries and when we have exhibitions.
It was at our very first group exhibition at the Arbor Gallery were we hung our challenges all in one gallery space that we all saw the work in person and it was exhilarating.
To date we have completed 21 Challenges and have an additional 4 Challenges that we are still working on. As well we have 3 Collaborative projects where we have worked together on a common image that gets assembled on site in exhibitions. We have exhibited in a number of locations and will be showing again in April 2024 in Etobicoke.
As we complete each challenge or collaboration, the works are posted on our website where we add information to describe what we created in response to each prompt but seeing the work live in a gallery setting is always inspirational to us and to our audience.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://7workscollective.weebly.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/7workscollective/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/7WorksCollective
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/22mosaics https://www.mariocerroni.com https://www.instagram.com/lynn_bradford_dubinsky https://www.catherinegutsche.com https://www.judimiller.ca https://www.karenwynnemackay.com http://www.joannzorzi.com
Image Credits
7 Works Collective