In March 2020, COVID shut everything down. Studio spaces closed, shows got cancelled, and suddenly all the informal ways artists connected—studio visits, openings, critique groups—were gone.

I'd been running Shoebox Arts from the Brewery Arts Complex, connecting artists to opportunities and building community. When the pandemic hit, I watched artists lose not just income but creative connection. The ones who were already working outside the gallery system—no institutional affiliation, no teaching position—suddenly had nothing.

I kept thinking about collaboration. How the art world treats it as something that requires permission, curation, institutional blessing. How artists needed each other but all the structures for connection had disappeared.

On April 11, 2020, I sent an email to my network asking if anyone wanted to try something: get randomly paired with another artist and make work together for two weeks. No fees, no applications, just see what happens.