More often than not, impactful organizations, movements and events are started with a singular idea or sparked from a serendipitous moment that is capitalized on, planned out, and executed with a detailed strategy.
It seems to be a formula that works, but it isn’t the path everyone chooses to take. The crew behind Aimless Creators are taking a different approach to their movement– one that asks, ‘What if we just do it and see what happens along the way?’
For Martin Vazquez III, Naylon Thompson Jr., Isaac Sparks and Jamarion Woods (Jay Tree) the inception of Aimless Creators was not a large-scale production or a long-planned launch. Prior to their first event, there was little to no event planning experience between the four of them, but they felt the city’s creative scene was missing a place for newer artists to connect and grow. They took it upon themselves to do something about it.
Vazquez is a painter, writer and fashion enthusiast. Thompson is a painter, designer and fashion enthusiast as well. Sparks is a vintage clothing retailer and Woods, known as Jay Tree, is a poet.
Aimless Creators started with the idea of coming together as a group of local artists to hang out and make connections. Eventually, the idea of an event was thrown around Thompson explains. Originally, the group only had plans to host a singular event, but once they realized their membership at
The Local Archive would allow them to do more, their singular event snowballed into many events.
“It kind of just organically became this thing where we bring in people and host local art shows,” Thompson says.
Aimless Creators’ first event was in February of 2024 and since then they’ve hosted over 10 events. These include paint and sip style events, art exhibits, “Yart” sales (a yard art sale), poetry shows and more.
Their biggest event was in April and titled, “Till Death Do We Art”. The collaboration with Tyler Toole, known as That Painter Skater Guy, drew in a crowd of almost 500 people.
“That was like an accidental crazy one,” Vazquez says. “We had three events under our belt, but we were like, we should just do something big just to see if we could do it. So we did an art show and we were kind of terrified because we presold online tickets and we sold like 30 of them. We were like, okay, this might be cool. Afterward, we reached almost 500 people who walked in, which was amazing, and all of our artists sold a piece that night except for two of us.”
Vazquez and Thompson say it's hard to put into words what they’re hoping to accomplish with Aimless Creators, but their main focus is creating an environment where local creatives can meet and share their work.
“We've all kind of went over that hump together to where we're not scared to be ourselves,” Vazquez says. “But also with us doing everything that we do, we talk to a bunch of people and we realize that there are a lot of people that are scared to get over that hump to see where they belong, so we kind of want to be that group, that voice or that platform.”
Now, as a group, they’re working to build and share their platform with their fellow up-and-coming artists, something they felt was needed based on shared experiences.
“I feel like the problem that I see at least personally is everyone tries to start like top-down and we're the embodiment of ground up,” Thompson says. “Like let's start foundational and build from there and as we grow then we'll get the connections that we need and we'll talk to the people and get in the rooms and just make it happen.”
Vazquez says they pride themselves on creating spaces where conversations and connections are a top priority. He hopes people find a safe place to be themselves at events hosted by Aimless Creators.
“We're just getting people out there and just making them feel comfortable– making them feel able to be around us and around strangers and be comfortable and be uncomfortable in rooms that they've never been in before,” he explains.
Both Vazquez and Thompson’s journey over the past year with Aimless Creators has pushed them out of their comfort zone and allowed them to be more authentic versions of themselves.
“I feel like that's a big thing that Aimless has done for us is just opened up the door for us to be in other situations and make more connections with people to then, in turn, give them a platform through our events,” Thompson says.
Part of that has been a concentrated effort on being present in the local art scene and supporting fellow creatives.
“Like over summertime when it was hot with events, we were probably at like four or five events a day, especially on like weekends,” says Vazquez. “We would hop around and try to make it to as many places as we could just to meet people. I definitely feel like we've gotten over the hump of being scared to talk to people. We'll walk up to everybody.”
Vazquez now finds himself seeking out new experiences in the creative community too, like when he decided to visit
Ruth Moomler’s art gallery on Broadway on a whim.
“I had just accidentally stumbled in there and then we ended up talking for 45 minutes and she's like my art grandma now,” he says. “And then she was like I have an event coming up, you should be the host. So my job was literally to talk to every single person who walked into the door.”
Those conversations have made a difference when it comes to putting their own names out there and creating a bigger platform for Aimless Creators.
“It's also easy to get connected too,” Thompson says of Fort Wayne’s creative scene. “One connection with one artist leads you into an art show with ten other artists. It just takes that first initial intentional conversation.”
While they’ve found it easy to make connections, they know it can be hard to figure out where to start. Vazquez says that when it comes to the creative scene, it takes connections to find out about Fort Wayne’s ever-growing grassroots efforts and events. Thompson explains that for self-taught artists like himself, some of the city’s larger arts organizations can feel unapproachable and impossible to get into as a newcomer.
“There's kind of a disconnect between an artist and those spaces– like to get to those spaces I feel like it's borderline impossible,” Thompson says.
Vazquez adds that there’s a gap between the city’s creative grassroots efforts and the more formal institutions. Less established or self-taught creatives can find places like Artlink or the Fort Wayne Museum of Art to be unapproachable, he says, but it’s not going unaddressed. The Aimless Creators crew took the step to become members at
Artlink, a nonprofit art space in downtown Fort Wayne, and shortly after Veqeza says he was approached and asked to join their
artist panel.
“There's a line, but they know it too,” he says. “I'm on the Artlink board and they brought me in because they see what we do. It's what they've been trying to do but they can't and they need to figure out why it's not working for them. They emailed me and were like, ‘Hey we see what you do. It would be awesome if you were part of this.’”
Thompson says adding Vazquez to the board shows an effort to make the art scene more approachable to regular local artists like himself, but in the meantime, they’ll continue to host Aimless Creator events and create the spaces they desire to see in Fort Wayne.
“Our goal for this year is to have at least one meet-up space a month where anybody's welcome to come,” Vazquez says. “Most of our like following I feel is creative, so hopefully they all come together because a lot happens when you throw a lot of creatives in a room.”
Connect with Aimless Creators at
Creator Space's January event on January 23 at 6 p.m. at Davey’s Delicious Bagels.
Follow
Aimless Creators on Instagram for updates and announcements about upcoming events.
Follow
Martin Vazquez,
Naylon Thompson,
Isaac Sparks and
Jamarion Woods on Instagram.