The pencil drawing was of a boat. It was framed in a chipped blue frame, likely from a school art class, and set beside a $5,000 painting by a professional artist at a Pemberton art show in 2015. The child who submitted the sketch priced it at $25—because, as he reportedly said, “Why would anybody buy this?”
Someone did.
And for Nick Miragliotta, the organizer behind the Artist Collective, it meant everything.
“That encapsulates everything that I’m doing,” Miragliotta says. “I remember that still to this day. [That kid and his boat] changed my life. When I sold that, I was like, “This is gonna work; people want to be here.’”
Nearly a decade later, the Artist Collective is back. Miragliotta is organizing an event that’s equal parts art show and expression of mental-health solidarity. As such, the Collective focuses on humanity and belonging, rather than gallery gloss or market value.
“Art is life. Let’s celebrate it together,” Miragliotta wrote in one of many heartfelt posts promoting the return of the show.
“These shows are about community, confidence, and passion. I just want people to feel proud, to reconnect with their creativity, and to inspire each other to get back into something they once loved.”
His mission is rooted in a shared human truth: that many of us, once children who freely created all kinds of art, grow up to be adults who hesitate.
“I constantly ask people, ‘Do you do art, or are you an artist?’ Most of the time they say, ‘No, I’m not an artist.’ And when they do say yes, they qualify it with, ‘It’s not good enough,’ or, ‘I’m not ready yet,’" Miragliotta says. "And to me, it’s heartbreaking. And I think it’s baloney.”
Miragliotta says that, as we grow up, people start to worry their self-expression won’t measure up.
“To me, the question is more about the human condition than art,” he explains.
“Everyone’s fearful, everyone has self-doubt, and we live in a world where all we do is consume perfection and isolate ourselves, feeding our own biases through media. If all we celebrate is perfection, that becomes the standard we compare ourselves to.”
That search for perfection, he said, is killing our creativity. And worse, it's isolating us.
So what’s the antidote?
“Community is so important and hard to find, especially in a transient area,” Miragliotta says. “Community literally has been documented to help people live longer, healthier lives and we’re losing it in our lives.”
He views the Artist Collective, then, as less of an exhibit than a space—a space to unlearn shame, to show up and be seen. It’s a room where crochet blankets sit beside acrylic portraits, where childhood drawings might hang next to gallery-ready photography, and where nobody’s asking whether it’s “art” or not.
“When someone celebrates what you're doing and gets excited with you, it makes the task of facing that inner battle easier,” Miragliotta says. “You’ll meet people who help foster your creativity as you foster theirs. You’ll learn from each other. You’ll get better. You’ll feel more comfortable expressing yourself because that’s what art is (in my opinion). Showing people who you are is scary.”
If this sounds like therapy, that’s because it nearly is.
Mental health underpins much of Miragliotta’s vision. His own experience navigating the cracks in the health-care system has led him to see community as a literal life-saving force.
“I just want to make people feel OK, to make people be aware of the issues and aware of how to find solutions to them,” he says. “I don’t even know if this is going to make money, and it’s not the goal.”
Miragliotta isn’t taking commission from artists who end up selling their pieces; instead, he’s focused on building community, fuelling self-expression and raising awareness of mental-health struggles.
“If you want to get back into something, uplift someone else. Support them. Get excited about what they’re doing. It’ll come back around,” says Miragliotta. “The fear, self-doubt, worry [and] embarrassment will get lighter when you’re supported and not carrying the load alone.”
The Artist Collective’s first show of the year is set for Oct. 25 at the Sunstone Golf Club. The show is open to submissions from artists in the Sea to Sky region. Miragliotta is also hoping to find the now-grown artist who drew that little boat that reinforced his vision 10 years back.
Prospective artists can contact Miragliotta on Facebook or reach out to Pique reporter Luke Faulks at [email protected] for contact information.
