About Us

Open Your Art is a public art studio located in Room 102, 732 Charlotte Street in the historic Charlotte Street Arts Centre, Fredericton, NB. 

We offer accessible art programs to youth, adults, community organizations, private schools, and public schools; we accommodate all exceptionalities. 

We provide opportunities to explore high-end media led by local artists with professional studio practice.  We currently offer classes that nurture skills in drawing and colouring, mixed media, sculpture, pottery, fiber, and graphic design. Classes are scheduled from September to June and facilitated by a mentoring artist-in-residence, and enriched by visiting professional studio artists. 

We also host workshops, custom events featuring creative projects, and art enrichment camps for youth.  

Would you like to try your hand at creating what your heart has to say?  Enroll in a class or book us for a private event.  We'd love to Open Your Art.

Meet Our Team

Angela Black (She/Her) - Owner & Director

OpenyourartFredericton@Gmail.com
(506)262-9544

Angela Black is an artist, illustrator, designer, community change-maker, and inspired arts educator for multiple organizations in Fredericton, including Open Your Art, The New Brunswick College of Craft and Design (NBCCD), UNB-CEL, The Charlotte Street Arts Centre, The Estey Art Initiative, Riverside Montessori Learning Centre, Veterans for Healing Inc. and many of the local public schools.

Angela also works for GNB in Organizational Development as an Inclusion Specialist, creating safe entry points for equity-deserving groups across the province.

Angela's primary creative focus has been expanding a permanent teaching workshop as Executive Director of Open Your Art, now located in the historic Charlotte Street Arts Centre. She currently offers an art atelier program for youth with a mentoring style of instruction that nurtures leadership skills and community action through the arts. Angela also has a personal calling to provide supportive art spaces and creative opportunities for adults who have experienced trauma. She feels a commitment to continually develop accessible art programs for exceptional adults and youth, as well as intergenerational programs that unite seniors and students through creative expression.

Ange describes her creative community work as a transformational teaching approach. She uses her position as a leader to gently inspire people of all ages to find and open their art with individual creativity. Angela's ultimate media is bookbinding, screenprinting, and watercolor/ink painting. She has been successfully producing and wholesaling one-of-a-kind artworks since 2007. Angela's handbound books, primarily, have found homes all over the world. She recently illustrated a locally published children's book and is about to illustrate another this fall.

Kay Aurora (He/Him) - Head Production Potter, Ceramics Instructor

Kshitiz Arora is the founder and potter of Hand & Clay, a ceramics studio born from a passion for wheel-thrown pottery. For him, pottery is a delicate balance between calmness and spontaneity. He finds it magical how the five elements of nature—earth, fire, water, air, and space—come together to create something divine. Kshitiz enjoys throwing pots, both functional and decorative, adorned with soothing shades of blue and turquoise, symbolizing the ocean and the sky. His artistic philosophy revolves around creating pots that build a deep connection between the maker and its owner, with each piece resonating bridging the gap between art and personal experience.

Shinaid McGillivray (She/Her) - Ceramic Instructor, Admin & Marketing

OYAceramics@gmail.com

Shinaid is a clay instructor with over 10 years of experience including instructing with NBCCD, VCAC, Claytime and Open Your Art! She is a gentle and patient person who strives to be inclusive and sensitive to all walks of life. Shinaid is the maker behind EarthSol Ceramics. Her favourite object to make is a teapot! In her personal practice, she creates clay objects for table and ritual, which embrace the earthy nature of the material itself.

Eva Palmer (She/Her) - Mixed Media Instructor & Admin

OYAorganize@gmail.com

Eva is a student at UNB’s Rennisance Collage just down the street from the CSAC, studying philosophy and leadership on the trajectory for a bachelor of education. She joined the team as an intern and after falling in love with the studio she couldn’t help but become a staff member. Eva is a visual artist specializing in mixed media, specifically collage works but she loves experimenting with new mediums. She is a strong supporter of ARTivism and often focuses her pieces on impactful social issues.

Kaitlyn Foster (She/They) - Visual Arts Instructor

Kaitlyn has worked at Open Your Art since the summer of 2020 and is the primary Visual arts Instructor of OYA programming—curriculum contributor. 

She was a previous student of Angela Black when she was a pre-teen/teenager! She works digitally and traditionally and loves to experiment with art styles. Her favorite traditional mediums are watercolor gouache, watercolor, oil, and alcohol ink markers. She mostly does character design and portraiture but loves challenging herself to do a variety of subjects and styles depending on whatever she’s currently fixated on. She admires and is inspired by many modern artists and the work they post on social media as well as well-known historic artists.

Favorite Artists: Basquiat, Francisco Goya, Mucha, John William Waterhouse, and Pieter Brueghel le Jeune.

A Beaumont (They/Them) - Art Therapy

openyourart.therapy@gmail.com

A Beaumont (they/them) in is a white settler, queer, trans, disabled, neurodivergent and fat artist, community organizer and Art Therapy Intern (DTATI Candidate).  They have been engaging in their art therapy practicum at Open Your Art for almost a year, working with more than 20 clients. A is passionate about accessibility, community care, mutual aid and resistance. They engage in community organizing with local groups like QT Fatties in NB, Demand the Stars Collective, Stir the Pot Distro and Coalition Against Sisson Mine. 

Micah Pellerin (He/They) - Mixed Media Instructor & Open Studio

Micah’s taking his art to the next level as he heads into his first year at NBCCD fall of 2024! Since having attended classes at OYA before, he started volunteering in 2023 and became a member of the staff as a result of his interest and passion for art. Having been a member of the ESAlliance club at his school, he’s invested in helping the queer Community of NB. Micah likes to capture life with drawing and painting.

Art Materials and Equipment

  • pottery wheel

  • spinning wheel

  • cone 6 stoneware clay

  • alcohol inks and mylar

  • watercolour paints & masking fluid

  • jelly plates for mono-printing

  • pro markers and pencil crayons

  • experimental acrylic medium

  • pastels and tone paper

  • pouring medium

  • wet and dry felting 

  • sewing machine

  • acrylic paints

  • canvases and wooden boards as painting surface