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ABOUT

OUR STORY

The Gathered Gallery (now Studio Mates) has three main goals: to give artists connections and opportunities to be seen and heard, to build a community with our peers, and to help artists gain practical skills and knowledge to navigate the art world.

 

When it began in early 2016, as art students and studio mates at the University of Guelph, we pooled together our overflowing lists of inspirational artists and recorded them in a more tangible way. We wanted to cultivate an online space where we could share art writing and curation while building a creative community.

 

We started The Gathered Gallery, which continued our disciplinary practice of engaging with contemporary art after graduating from art school and has flourished into what it is today. Beginning with only one webpage, we now have grown to support artists we love in many incredible ways, including artist features, interviews, digital residencies, and workshops with the list growing each year. 

 

We now live in separate locations, with Emily in St. John's, NL and Natalie in Toronto, ON. This business keeps our inspiration high and our friendship strong. It makes our day when we can support the career of another artist and we are proud to have the opportunity to foster kindness, curiosity and commitment through the platform we created.

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“THANK YOU for creating this platform, providing opportunities and supporting artists - it has such a powerful and positive impact on our careers and lives in general - so thank you!”
 
- Nate Nettleton (artist)

OUR MISSION

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When building our arts careers, we have experienced the fear that comes with believing the amount of opportunities, support, and validation is scarce, with everyone reaching for a piece of the same pie. When faced with this limiting belief, we asked ourselves:

 

 "Why not make a bigger pie?"

 

Through The Gathered Gallery, we make opportunities for ourselves and other artists, ensuring that there is enough pie to go around. While considering what an artist needs to succeed, we created "The Pie of Success".

 

Through the intentional practice of:

 

  • validating an artist's value, effort and perspective

  • sharing knowledge that will empower and inspire

  • building a community of awareness and connection

  • creating opportunities for artists to have their voices heard

  • offering arts writing and supportive feedback

  • giving financial, critical, and practical support

 

We strive to build a gathering of artists that are consistently hitting the sweet spot of creative success through kindness, curiosity and commitment.

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ABOUT EM & NAT

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Emily Pittman is a visual artist and writer based in St. John's, NL. She earned an BA, majoring in Studio Art and English, from the University of Guelph. She grew up in Clarenville, NL, and moved to St. John’s, NL in May 2016. She works at the College of the North Atlantic teaching Art & Design Essentials and is represented by Christina Parker Gallery

 

Pittman's focus in her painting and collage work is colour and the abstraction of architectural forms, exploring ideas of home, community, and our place within them.

 

Lives in: dresses, leggings, and comfortable shoes

Works on: writing, making charts, designing the graphics & website

Loves to: play ukulele, pet dogs, draw buildings, and knit badly

Dreams of: earning enough airmiles to never pay for a flight again

EMILY PITTMAN

st. john's, nl

Natalie Field lives and works in Toronto, ON and grew up in Belleville ON. She graduated from the University of Guelph in 2016 with a BA in Studio Art. 

Field's practice is focused on blurring the lines between sculpture, drawing, and printmaking, and explores the effect light and shadow have on transforming the two-dimensional into the three-dimensional.

Lives in: jeans and t-shirt

Works on: curating, filling in the charts Em creates, planning long-term

Loves to: wander greenhouses, sip a chai tea, and explore different neighbourhoods in Toronto

Dreams of: owning a cabin on the ocean in Newfoundland

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NATALIE FIELD

toronto, on

“They’re really engaged and curious people, and have a really great resource of artists and their practices; I’m very flattered to be a part of it”
 
- Amanda Rataj (artist)
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