Who We Are

Art Not Shame is a community-engaged arts organization that is located in Guelph, Ontario.  We believe in every person’s deeply rooted capacity for creativity.  Founded in 2017, our mission is to amplify the power of the arts to build community, deepen access to creativity, increase well-being, and create the conditions for inner and outer change. 

Art. Community. Well-being. Social Justice.

Our Principles

At Art Not Shame, our work and our intentions for this work are guided by the understanding that: 

• We are all creative.
• We are all exactly who we need to be; we don’t all have access to what we need.
• We need to unlearn that we are not enough.
• We can learn to hold ourselves, our stories, and each other.
• Together we can transform systemic injustice into the worlds we envision.

What We Do

We offer free, facilitated, art-making workshops and creative facilitation training to youth and adults across Ontario. We collaborate with service agencies and other community organizations, ensuring that access to mental health supports and/or connections to community supports are present and accessible to participants.  

To-date, we've reached 5,650 participants through our workshops and events, collaborated with 30 community organizations and employed 20 professional artists.

Reimagining Possibility Matching Campaign

We are delighted to share that a longtime donor has once again agreed to match all donations made between November 30 and December 31, 2021, up to $25,000.

The central theme of this year's campaign is Reimagining Possibility. This idea that, over the past two years, we've had to reimagine so much of what we do at Art Not Shame - including how we connect, create and facilitate the building of community through our work, but also that so much opportunity has come from this reimagining process.

Your generous contribution will help us meet the varying and ever-increasing needs of the communities that we service.

Thank you so much for going above and beyond to make the work of Art Not Shame possible.