An open letter to all creative people

[Local Artist]

An open letter to creative souls,

   Are you artistically inclined? Do you see not imperfection in the world, but potential? Have you always wanted to tap into the creative frequency of the city but didn’t feel like you had an “in”? If there is a creator, an artist inside of you just exploding with anticipation and creative energy, we invite you to join our collective, Local Artists Coming Together.

   Local Artists Coming Together, or LACT, is the notion of a world where artists stand beside one another on their journey to becoming self-sustaining fine artists. LACT first came to life in the form of a Facebook fan page in mid-2012. Before you could blink the page had 20 members, then 35, and then before anyone knew it there were 50 members. Soon it felt like we were all dressed for the party, now it was time to dance.

   The group’s flagship project was a trading card initiative; a juried art competition where the winning pieces were transformed into a series of collectible trading cards, much like Garbage Pail Kids, or baseball cards We went forward with the contest and printed our first series of ten thousand cards, and then a second series of 25k cards, and now a third series of 50k cards which the Jacksonville Mayor’s Office was gracious enough to jury for us.

   The trading card initiative gave us some street cred and more people wanted to be a part of the group. We secured a permanent home for Jacksonville’s “First Wednesday Art Walk” where there is an artist showing with us publicly for their first time almost every month. We have started holding monthly pop-up galleries in Riverside, with a second monthly series of shows in the works over in Orange Park. We have held pumpkin carving parties, events where we made our own paper, and held print exchanges where we conducted our holiday shopping by trading art, crafts and prints with fellow artists. We have recently taken to painting live out at Jax Beach, a great experience for new painters, and a wonderful way to expand your network.

   If you are like many artists, you are either in school, or work a full time job and can’t afford to subscribe to a club where there are membership dues, or submit to any contest where it costs anything more than time and passion to enter. Our collective aims to be a FREE resource tool for publicly displaying your art, a reference center where you can find local events, workshops and calls to artists.  A place to commune with other creative people to tap into their creative vibration for inspiration, answers to questions you may have, and technique tutelage. With the combined experienced of all creators in the area, we can remove the word impossible from our vocabulary.

   There are some amazing artists in this town, some are household names, and some are undiscovered gems, like you, waiting to be drawn out of their shell. So here’s your personalized invitation: we want YOU to join us in creating the most art-friendly, cultured city in the US. We invite you to bring us your opinion(s) on how to be a better collective of artists. We welcome your ideas for new events and creative endeavors. Join us on our march to be the best we can be, creatively speaking, so that Jacksonville isn’t merely put “on” the map, but “becomes the map”, whose impression the rest of the world will follow.
Sincerely,




Kyle R. Willis
Founder, Local Artists Coming Together
904-383-5650
info@artistscomingtogether.com
www.artistscomingtogether.com
Facebook Fan Page - http://www.facebook.com/groups/265750333516084/
Group page - http://www.facebook.com/groups/265750333516084/
Google+ - https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/106353180527459939637/106353180527459939637/posts