Oregon Rural Arts was formed through a rural arts sub-committee of Oregon’s statewide Arts Education Group and is comprised of teaching artists and arts advocacy organizations. The rural arts sub-committee is focused on increasing the presence and accessibility of arts in Oregon’s rural places.

For the purpose of this work, our definition of ‘arts’ is expansive and includes trade and craft work often practiced in rural communities.

Our current project is the Arts Mapping Project (AMP), through which we are working to gain feedback about the needs around arts communities in rural Oregon communities. We intend to use this information to help inform ourselves and statewide arts funders about the specific resources and needs in rural communities around the states.

Ultimately and as a result of the AMP, we hope to form a digital destination for future programming or collaborations with a wide variety of arts offerings in rural places. We are working to create connections between artists and to identify the current needs in rural Oregon communities.

We hope you will contribute to this valuable research, as we would benefit greatly from a better understanding about what goes on artistically in your community, while considering your hopes and dreams for future arts programming.

Additionally, if you feel there is someone better suited to provide us feedback, or if you are aware of other people in your community who might like to have their voice represented and heard in our research, we’d appreciate you sharing this website with them so that their thoughts and ideas might be included in our data.