Umpqua Valley Arts is dedicated to the belief that the arts are an indispensable element of a thriving and meaningful community, and that ideas & art in its many forms should be available to all.
Our arts exhibition programming is inspired by our energetic community, the geography in which our organization is situated, and the unique history of our region and our institution. When we learn to appreciate art together, we are learning to acknowledge and respect the histories that bind us together, and the changing world that surrounds us.
Introducing Growing Creative Community: An initiative of the Southern Oregon Guild
HERE’S WHAT WE SEE
Our communities are bursting with folks we call Creatives – people doing unique things, thinking unusual ways, and doing things that generate beauty, ideas, and other kinds of contributions to the local worlds we live in. Many of these folks don’t think of themselves as “artists” or “craftspeople”. They just do what they love.
A woman who is tatting, having learned that almost lost fine thread craft from her grandmother… A man who is saving the seeds of his great grandparents’ cabbages or wheat…
A person who learned the oldest fine points of working with metals from an older family member or neighbor and now recovers old cars or machines, or one who learned the finer points and risks of beekeeping, or… All are Creatives, people who honor mastery of a way to make something or to make something happen.
There are also those who use words or music or their bodies to point to what we need to care about or just to help us live in a moment of deep reflection or joy. These are also Creatives, but sometimes living their creative lives off on a quiet street or in some kind of doldrum, rather than sharing that special part of who they are with the rest of us, with community.
How can we come together? How can we come out of our small private worlds into a larger world where we can learn and grow and where we can become part of a gossamer web of connections that both support our personal world and offer strength and cohesion to the larger world around us?
At the Southern Oregon Guild, this is the picture of our everyday reality that we see, as well as the questions that we have been asking about how best to live in our local worlds. All kinds of Creatives are caring and reflective people who could be a potent positive force for cohesion, health, and strength for our communities. It is with this belief that we at the Southern Oregon Guild offer our GROWING CREATIVE COMMUNITY INITIATIVE
Got an idea? Learn more and fill out the simple proposal form found here: Creative Community Proposal Form, and submit it as soon as possible.
