COLLABORATIONS GALORE! HEART FROM THE STREETS 2024
written in 2025
In 2023, the project formerly known as Colors of Resilience garnered a lot of attention from the media, from clients accessing shelter services, and from other artists, and art appreciators around Windsor, ON. A project that went from 5 volunteers, 30 artists, and 65 pieces of work suddenly broke through the mold and was now a team of 10+ volunteers, 40 artists, and get this…250 pieces of artwork. It was insane to say the least, to see this project grow so large in such a short amount of time (literally…less than one year).
With growth comes new partnerships, and opportunities to expose our participants to, and that is what this section is about: the collaboration projects of 2024. Most notably, as a project we collaborated with local artist Andrea Niven, of bearfootstudios, an independent artist who brought forth the idea to collaborate on a mural with the project, and Jake of madeinyqg, a social media page dedicated to showcasing the happenings of Windsor, ON.
In 2023, Joelle Brassard of St.Clair College’s Mediaplex covered my artistic track record, and this project’s first iteration, Colors of Resilience. This caught the attention of Jake, who runs the social media page madeinyqg, who then reached out to work with the project in any capacity. He explained that he’s been trying to, for lack of a better word, “call out” a local social media professional at exploitative content (freeman shanks - name changed for legal purposes), who hands food out to people on the streets in Windsor, ON, and record them without their consent, or their knowledge, and suggested this project as the perfect avenue to call out this type of content creator. At the time, this social media so-called “do-gooder” was caught in a scandal where his audience had called him out for lying to them - he claimed to have purchased 1000 burgers from a shop, and recorded himself handing them out. He didn’t. What he really did was purchase 40 burgers, and hand them out to people experiencing homelessness on the streets, and from this exaggeration the 1000 Burger Project was born. You can read more about the project here.
This collaboration provided an opportunity for this project to gain focus on one issue at a time - I bought supplies for painting, and set up shop at our shelter partners, and coordinated efforts with Art Windsor Essex (AWE) to be featured in their community display room for some weeks in May 2024! What was to be displayed? Well, our participating artists, or heArtists as we refer to them, were prompted with the word “burger” and the images that were produced were amazing to say the least. Altogether, we had some odd 40 burger paintings, drawings, sketches, displayed at AWE for a series of weeks, and eventually at our show in August at Artspeak Gallery, amongst the art submitted for the show. The collaboration comes in with Jake getting some of the tshirt designs, specifically mine, Robber Mac’s, and Ann Reno, made into t-shirts for folks to wear and represent the project with. That was seen as a great opportunity for our heArtists to make some passive income while the show went on. a collaborative effort was event made by local designer designs by sav, who created their rendition of a burger - the “jurger” (jean burger). we sold out of our 5 merch designs during the silent auction in august 2024! IT WAS GREAT - our heartists made commission off of the sales, and some money went towards funding the project for the next year!
our next collaboration was with Andrea niven of bearfootstudios, who approached the project when she was assigned with the task to create art in the community for one of her classes of her bfa (bachelor of fine arts). her idea was to combine the mural on the side of new song church - 999 Drouillard, windsor - with this project; it was perfect - new song church is the grounds for one of feeding windsor-essex’s chapters, and acts as a food bank, and uniquely, a pet food bank for people experiencing housing insecurity in the area. this project combined Andrea’s artistic vision with the artistic merit of some of our heartists. during the summer, they host barbecues where folks are invited to share in a hot meal with members of the chapter/church, and were very gracious hosts to the four of us working on the mural.
that’s right, 4 of us. this invitation to paint a mural was also an invitation to extend to two of our participants/heartists of the last iteration of the project, to paint their first mural! so with the financial assistance of Windsor’s arts, cultural, and heritage fund, we were able to provide 2 of our heartists the opportunity to get the experience of painting large to add to their artistic resume. the mural includes images of one of our heartists' two cats, and was completed in roughly 4 weeks. the mural sits at 999 Drouillard, on the side of new song church, and is an invitation for folks to reminisce and think of their own pets, as it works as an ode to the pet food bank of new song.
Of course this project couldn’t have been made possible without our shelter partners who trust the group with serving their respective populations, and who have invited us back to assist with the creation of artwork for 2 years so far. Very special thank you to:
Women’s Welcome Centre Shelter - where we were able to spend international women’s day, and work with the heartists there to showcase their works! their drop-in program made this partnership possible, and their volunteers provided us with the support we needed to make it happen! check out their work here
The Windsor Youth Centre - who provided us with participants who are so talented and willing to share their craft, or experiment with new artistic experiences! support them and learn more about the program here
the Homelessness Housing Help Hub - the place that started it all! Folks from all walks of life are welcome to access services here, and provided us with weekend opportunities to plant our art supplies and encourage participation from the artists who access the program. keep up to date with program changes here!
the project graciously thanks the Wity of Windsor’s Arts, Cultural, and Heritage Fund for making these last two iterations possible! We look forward to being able to showcase more heartists!
