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 46 Photography Credit: Oddo Luque