Art in Our Community

There are lots of reasons why North Coast Open Studios (NCOS) is a great event. You get to visit artists’ studios and inner sanctums. You can chat up your favorite artist and get to know them as person. Many artists are offering one of a kind deals on artwork. Artists make money from art sales. Artists get to interact with their admiring fans and receive unvarnished commentary about their artwork. It’s a great event to share with visiting friends and relatives and to show off the area’s creative, as well as environmental, beauty.

The list goes on to add up to a rousing hurrah for creativity, economy and quality of life. This is the kernel of what makes Humboldt such an amazing place to live.

Over the years, many people and institutions have worked hard to bring arts and creativity to the fore. We have worked with businesses, governments, and unending economic development agencies. We have attended meetings ad infinitum to remind people that the arts are an important part of the economy here. Creative workers are embedded in every industry designing, crafting, tooling, and innovating.

Few artists can support themselves through sales of their artwork, so they represent a significant part of our creative economy working in other jobs. Some of us have grown to love and cherish those opportunities to make a living and impact our community in creative ways. Others struggle with reconciling the ways they have to earn money with their passion to make art.

No matter where your favorite artists fall on that continuum, supporting them by visiting their studios is a way of giving back to artists for the sacrifices they make in the love of art, because artists don’t make art because they like to, but because they have to.

Libby Maynard, 

Executive Director, Ink People Center for the Arts,

NCOS Steering Committee Member and Participating Artist