Dear Friends, It is with great sadness that I (Arielle) am announcing the closure of Retrograde Collective for the foreseeable future. I have loved helping organize events and working with the very talented artists in our communities. I am grateful for all of the help we've had (from every artist who participated in a show, Laura Marie Anthony, Andrew Kehoe, our Board of Directors, the crew at the Red Museum, Burly Beverages, Menagerie., Trisha Rhomberg, Maya Wallace, Heri Palacios, and Andru Defeye, the various press we received, and more). We saw over 2,000 of you attend our various events. I am most sad that we won't yet achieve our goal to provide accessible healthcare to artists. We have the business plan, so if anyone wants advisory help, let me know. Why are we closing? I am running the organization alone at this point. As many of you know and for those who do not know, I am suffering from a disorder that severely limits my abilities. I feel at this point that rather than provide less than our standard of excellence, it is best to end on a good note. Our relationship to our community is of utmost importance to us. We and I made this organization to benefit artists and the community at large, and now that I am sick, I do not want to fail at our core mission. I will finish by saying I am certain I will be around and involved in the community in this capacity at some point in the future. I simply do not know how soon that will be. For now, I will remain an admirer and a helper. I love you all. Thank you for welcoming me to our wonderful community. It has been a dream of mine for a long time, and I am grateful for the time we had together as Retrograde. Here's to hoping to be back sooner rather than late, lovelovelove - arielle http://ift.tt/2E0ZHku