Creativity interrupts our patterns of understanding, startling us into a richer awareness of the world. This is essential work — and it needs to be supported and amplified in our communities. At Creative West, supporting creativity is what we do. We build equitable technology, funding, advocacy, and policy systems to generate creative capacity in the West and beyond.
Established in 1974 as a nonprofit U.S. Regional Arts Organization (USRAO), Creative West was founded on the belief that place matters to the creative process. Fifty years later, communities of place, practice, experience, and identity remain fundamental to our work, framing our understanding of how culture is creatively produced and collectively experienced. We serve a broad and diverse region that stretches from the Arctic Coast to the Desert Southwest and from the Great Plains to the Pacific Islands. This is where we focus our efforts supporting artists, arts agencies, and arts organizations to build healthy, creative communities.
Look West for Direct Support:
We offer direct, practical support to artists, culture bearers, state and jurisdictional arts agencies, and creative organizations, aiming to work distributively in support of community-defined goals.
Look West for Systemic Innovation:
We build systems that change systems to advance equity, justice, and regenerative action—seeing these values as essential as creativity itself.
Look West for Cultural Impact:
Through funding, technology, advocacy, research, leadership development, convenings and other programming, we move arts and cultural policy forward.
Global Lounge is at the forefront of thoughtful cultural preservation, education, integration and the promotion of cultural awareness by harnessing the power and beauty of diversity for individual and community development. ♥
