Where ART Lives Magazine Volume 4 Number 1 | Page 46
And people aren’t just supporting by showing up. They’re getting out
their pocketbooks. We noticed a of couple years ago that the lines to
see art were longer than the lines to buy beer. This year, art sales
finally beat out alcohol sales. Selling more art than booze might seem
like a funny little detail, but for Terrain it is a huge milestone — and
maybe the most important success of this year’s event. There was a
perception in the early days that Terrain was somehow tricking people
into viewing art by throwing a cool party (which is not entirely
untrue).
What’s clear now is that people still enjoy the party, but they’re way
more interested in supporting our community of artists. Terrain had a
couple fly in from Hawaii to support their son, who had art in the show.
Spokane showed up huge for them by buying all of his work.
Other gallery owners around town also say that they had great nights
too, meaning this isn’t just a Terrain thing. Either the overall
audience for the Visual Arts Tour is bigger than it used to be, people
are more actively hitting lots of events, or both things are true.
Regardless: our region’s support for art and artists is a huge deal, and
a big change from 2008 when Terrain began.
Another massive shift is the level of institutional support for the arts
in Spokane. Last March, Spokane City Council tripled its arts funding
after a long period of decline. Terrain could’t imagine that happening
even as recently as 2012, when Boise decided to make a huge arts funding
investment. Spokane is still catching up to other cities our size.
Terrain didn’t get its first corporate sponsor until 2013. This year,
they got support from STCU, Coordinated Care, WSU and the City of
Spokane. Earlier in the year, they also got help from Global
Credit Union to help produce their other event Bazaar art market and
from Downtown Spokane Partnership and Spokane Arts to grow Window
Dressing, Terrain’s storefront art and entrepreneurialism program.
Looking back on how far Terrain has come as a community - the Terrain
team - and the whole rest of our region, it seems, is now thinking, how
much further can we go?
Terrain on Facebook:
facebook.com/terrainspokane
Terrain on Instagram:
instagram.com/terrainspokane
Terrain on Twitter:
twitter.com/terrainspokane
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Photography Credit:
Oddo Luque