This exhibition features a unique cross-border portrait exchange between students at OCAD University, Michigan State University and State University New York Geneseo. To create intimacy in their portraits, MSU and OCAD U students engaged in three rounds of email correspondence to build relationships across national and state borders. SUNY Geneseo Museum Studies students produced exhibition texts and coordinated video interviews between the artists and the subjects. Following these rich conversations, the artists mailed photographs of themselves and a collection of personal or creative materials that represented their personalities and their locations. These materials became the creative inspiration for the final portrait drawings. These unique exchanges provided an artistic challenge for the artists to translate a stranger’s presence into a work of art. The resulting drawings capture the likeness of their partner and explore their relationships and friendships across the Canadian-American Border. This unique Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) experience is supported by the OCADU International Partnerships and Projects, the Faculty of Art Office at OCAD U, the Canadian Studies Centre and the Department of Art, Art History and Design at MSU and the Art History Department at SUNY Geneseo.