Highlighting Spokane's Favorite Art Event
Spokane arts nonprofit 'Terrain' showcases local art every year to kick off Arts Month in October.
The Spokane arts nonprofit Terrain started as a one-off party in a vacant building, highlighting local artists and their work.
In the decade-plus since, Terrain cemented itself as a permanent fixture in Spokane’s art world. The organization expanded from vacant warehouses to its own gallery space, a retail storefront in River Park Square, and year-round programming tailored to the local art community.
Terrain’s flagship event takes place on the first of October of every year under the leadership of Ginger Ewing and Jackie Caro, the organization’s executive director and operations director, respectively.
“I think that the flagship event has become a sort of annual checkpoint for where we’re at as a creative community,” Ewing says.
The organization’s work behind the scenes showcases its dedication to artists around the Northwest. For example, Ewing and Caro searched for ways to put money into the pockets of artists by hosting pop-up vaccination clinics and hiring BIPOC artists to do art tutorials in The Black Lens newspaper during the COVID-19 pandemic. After receiving grants and completing other fundraising efforts, Terrain brought in about $800,000 for local artists despite its own hardships.
“As an organization, we were losing thousands and thousands of dollars a week during that time,” Ewing says. “We need Terrain to sustain our organization and to fulfill our mission of bringing people together and showcasing amazing art.”
Terrain features art that can be sold directly to patrons at the flagship event. There’s also a major fundraising focus to secure donations from attendees during its one-night run.
The event is known for bringing together the entire creative community — whether you’re a poet, a musician or a potter, you can find a sense of belonging at Terrain.
“It’s the bread and butter of what we do at Terrain,” Caro says. “It’s the one time we get to celebrate every art form that we support all at once.”
The venue will transform from an empty building into a bustling hub of all things local art. Terrain usually features a couple hundred art pieces that occupy all of the nooks and crannies of whatever space it’s popping up in. Caro says that this year, they encouraged more digital art submissions and more site-specific installations.
“In this new normal that we’re living in it’s more important than ever to the soul of the city to support local artists,” Caro says. “We need to invest in and support our creative community in a significant and meaningful way. Terrain accomplishes that.”
That support doesn’t stop after Terrain is over. Its leaders are always looking for new ways to advocate for local artists. In addition to the flagship event and two seasonal arts markets — BrrrZAAR and Bazaar — Ewing and Caro have plenty of side projects in the works they say will come to life in the next six months to a year.
“We have a lot up our sleeves,” Ewing says. “We’re just really excited about the future of our organization and the future of the city. It feels really, really good to be back.”
Terrain 13 • Fri, Oct. 7 from 5 pm-midnight • Free • All ages • 314
W. Riverside Ave. •
terrainspokane.com