a wealth of creativity

Ginger Ewing was born and raised in Spokane, but she’s still not convinced she needs to leave here in order to do great things.

Instead, she’s trying to create her own vision for Spokane.

And it starts with community.

Ewing and a few like-minded friends spearheaded a creative collective that has emerged as the Wonderground – the group that is presenting Terrain, an alternative arts, music and multimedia extravaganza happening on Oct. 3 at 120 N. Wall.

“I know there are fabulously talented people here and I wanted to connect with them. There are many ways to do that. With Terrain we’re making the conversation through art. And through that we’re making other bridges, such as the bridge between the younger generation and the older generation,” said Ewing, 29, who sought the guidance of Spokane Arts Commission director Karen Mobley and MAC curator Ben Mitchell for Terrain’s juried art show. “There is this notion that if you’re ever going to be successful you have to leave Spokane. We’re creating the opposite.”

Terrain features the best Spokane has to offer in live music fused with visual art in a free, non-profit one-off that takes place in an old bank building.

There will be more than 60 pieces of art on display by more than 15 artists, a deejay lounge in a bank vault, and much, much more (see sidebar for details).

The goal is that others will jump on board with Wonderground and use it as a network for building more culture and general excitement in Spokane.

“The whole process is to show that everybody is involved,” said Wonderground’s Patrick Kendrick (also of Platform Booking), who booked the music lineup for Terrain. “There’s a girl who is hanging fliers and helping set up. She is Wonderground, also. Anyone that is down to help out – anyone who shows up – is Wonderground collective. Even a competitor would be fantastic. It’s basically just to start the snowball.”

Wonderground co-founder Mariah McKay pointed to Wonderground’s mission statement to describe the group’s intent.

A resource development associate for Community-Minded Enterprises, McKay was instrumental in developing Wonderground’s concept, gathering sponsors, and other contributions. She also arranged fiscal sponsorship through Saranac Art Projects to attain non-profit status.

“This first year we wanted to be as inclusive as possible and encourage everyone to attend the event without hesitation. That meant offering this unique entertainment experience for free so students and other low income people could feel good about coming downtown to check it out,” McKay said.

Also a member of the Wonderground core, The Inlander’s music editor, Luke Baumgarten, hopes “(Wonderground and Terrain) can show the art establishment what young people in Spokane are doing as well as make young people in the arts community aware of itself.”

“For my personal life I had a hard time finding people I connect with on an artistic and intellectual level. It took me a while to find that here,” Baumgarten said. “We’re looking to each other to create a critical mass of that and get as many creative people as possible together in one room.”