Daniel Kolanko, Centretown News
The walls of The Studio Café will be lined with photos from Kristina Corre’s #goodthingsottawa blog.The walls of The Studio Café, located on Somerset Street near Little Italy, will be home to a celebration of the local creative community until Nov. 2. And it’s a community, says Centretown artist Kristina Corre, that’s changing for the better.
Last fall, Corre began following art events in Ottawa, taking photos and interviewing artists at different galleries and showcases across the city and then sharing the photos on a blog entitled #goodthingsottawa.
A year later, Corre is showcasing her favourite photos and quotes from the blog, along with work from artists who were featured on it, at The Studio Café.
Corre, who studied art history and architecture at Carleton University, says her goal was to discover what was going on at a grass roots level among Ottawa’s most creative people.
“It was a hobby that came out of really wanting to find some of that creative energy that I had been missing since graduating architecture school,” says Corre. “I’ve always known Ottawa to be a creative place, so it was important for me to try to find that.”
What she found is a community that is changing. “I’ve discovered that the city is really on the brink of being something great,” says Corre.
Corre credits the recent opening of small galleries that showcase experimental work by local artists for the development of Ottawa’s art scene.
The Studio Café is one of these spaces: the café doubles as Ottawa’s only art gallery specializing in contemporary realism. Opened since May of this year, the café offers art classes and studio space, regularly showcasing work from local artists.
Fellow Centretown artist Ryan Smeeton, a painter who was featured on the blog and whose work is part of the showcase, says he senses a change in Ottawa.
“Especially with things like her project and all these different little initiatives going on, you can kind of get a sense that things are on the rise for the creative community,” says Smeeton.
Smeeton was a part of Corre’s last initiative, the Awesome Art Hunt, which invited the public to search for over 100 pieces of art hidden around the city.
“These are the kind of initiatives that the creative community here in Ottawa has been lacking in the past,” says Smeeton, whose oil paintings abstract information in a way that encourages the viewer to actively participate.
Mutual support amongst artists is another factor propelling Ottawa’s art creators to a new stage, according to Smeeton.
Smeeton says it’s easy to remain solitary as an artist, but projects such as #goodthingsottawa facilitate collaboration and create a sense of community between artists.
Alexa Mazzarello, a photographer featured in the showcase, says she struggled to find her place in the community as an artist, but the #goodthingsottawa project was a positive development.
“It made me feel proud of Ottawa and a little more at home there to see other creatives showcased,” says Mazzarello, whose work includes shots of nature and poignant moments like a mother gazing into her newborn’s eyes.
Connecting with other artists through the #goodthingsottawa project has been an inspiring experience for Corre, encouraging her in her work as a painter and a photographer.
After the showcase, the blog will continue to follow and document the change in Ottawa’s creative community, says Corre. “It will be nice to look back on.”