WORK IT!! TALKING ABOUT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

Come share your ‘hustle’ and foster potential new connections for your practice moving forward! This interactive session will consider models for sharing your work, including how we can find new ways to define and form creative practice in our contemporary context. Topics such as models of entrepreneurship, affordable live/work, community engagement, and professional promotion will be used to direct conversation and create opportunities for dynamic exchange.

 

The discussion will be shaped to support emerging and established practices, with the aim to generate a wealth of information, related to the exact questions the group is seeking answers for.

 

ABOUT JENNIE SUDDICK

Jennie Suddick is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Toronto, Canada who has exhibited in Canada, the U.S., Europe and Asia.  Influenced by the ethos of per printmaking background, her work explores the of seeking a personal bond to places, images or objects that are shared, repeated, and accessible, despite often being artificially manufactured or reproduced.

 

Her role as an educator has also branched out into both her personal and collaborative practices, and the line between all these two are constantly blurring, with community engagement and interactivity being prevalent considerations. This includes the collaboration Crazy Dames (crazydames.com) with urban planner Sara Udow, creating a dialogue that embraces the role of the artist in interdisciplinary projects.

 

Suddick earned her Masters of Fine Arts from York University and holds both a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Advanced Visual Studies Certificate from OCAD University. Her solo projects have recently been featured at The Varley Art Gallery, Harbourfront Centre and as part of Land|Slide: Possible Futures at The Markham Museum and The Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture.  

She is currently an Assistant Professor at OCAD University, where she was the recipient of the 2017 Non-Tenured Teaching Award.  She served as the Associate Chair of Contemporary Painting and Print Media from 2014-2017. She has also recently joined the Ryerson University Creative Industries team as a Lecturer.

 

ABOUT CHRISSY POITRAS

Chrissy Poitras is a painter and printmaker, as well as co-owner of Spark Box Studio- an artist residency, print studio and educational facility in Prince Edward County. She graduated from the Queen’s University Bachelor of Fine Art Studio program.

Over past nine years she has been collecting various accidental marks found in her surroundings. Worn tables, subway walls, studio floors are a few of surfaces which inspire her work. These marks– left behind by artists, travelers, friends and family– create a mess of interesting shapes and compositions. She uses these found marks as the subjects of her paintings, drawings and prints. 

She enjoys the action of layering and developing a new abstracted world through the interaction of the marks. Additionally, Poitras has been developing a collection of botanical pieces that integrate her passion for mark-making with her interest in floral design. 



Through Spark Box Studio, and as a former professor in the Art and Design Foundations Program at Loyalist College, Poitras has also organized, developed and run courses on a variety of studio arts and arts management topics. She is highly involved in her artistic community and has built a career that is rooted in creation, community and public outreach.