Welcome to the Made Collaborative Virtual Studio!
So where to start? Virtual Studio you ask? Yes, that’s right. The Made Collaborative Virtual Studio. Just a little something we created to help facilitate the further collaboration with youth in the development of our comic, The Back of the Yards, which itself was created as a product of early in-person collaborations with participating youth in the West Side of Chicago.
Now, as you may or may not know, this project didn’t even start out as a comic project, much less a “virtual studio.” No, in fact, this project started in 2013 as a modest community project intended to connect artists with youth to collaborate to promote creative thought. That simple premise then evolved into a comic project based on the interests and initial creative ideas of those first participating youth in the West Side of Chicago.
It was great that we were able to ultimately develop a comic based on these initial collaborative youth sessions and ideas, but on the flip side, these initial in-person collaborations took time. A lot of time. And a high degree of coordination between after school programs, youth and our own day jobs. With that in mind, we wanted to try to figure out how to scale this modest grass roots project up even further so that we could more effectively enable collaborations with other after school programs and youth, and continue to develop comics.
Our solution? … To try to bring some of these basic collaborative concepts into the virtual realm.
That backdrop of this virtual studio framework is our first comic series, Back of the Yards, which was created as a result of our first in-person collaborations with participating youth in the West Side of Chicago. As you will see further below, what we have tried to create is a virtual collaborative experience of those early in-person collaborations. And the aim of this virtual studio experience is not only to provide youth and others what is hopefully a cool and unique creative experience, but also to ultimately help us to create content and build this Back of the Yards comic series.
So with that in mind, we thought we’d provide you a look at the Back of the Yards comic series here, and in doing so, also give you a glimpse of the “Studio Card” framework we will discuss further below.
Action Card #1
Action Card#1 Collaboration Form
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A Special Call to Artists
Virtual Studio or no virtual studio, nothing is more important to this project than the artists that bring any of our collaborations to life. Facilitating collaborations among many participants is at the heart of Made Collaborative’s mission, and that includes artists especially. We want to incorporate as many different styles and perspectives as we can over time, to compliment the varied contributions from participating youth and other collaborators. So if you are an illustrator or writer, and are interested in perhaps participating on future collaborations (and earn a little supplemental income for your services), just give us a shout at info@madecollaborative.com and we will get that conversation started!
