Terrain, a nonprofit arts organization that began as a one-off event nearly two decades ago, is entering a new era of growth as it expands its staff, programs, and economic impact on Spokane’s creative community.

Over 18 years, Terrain Programs has expanded beyond hosting annual events to offering creatives year-round opportunities to showcase their work and develop their businesses.

Its River Park Square storefront, dubbed From Here, sells locally made art and goods, while Terrain Gallery, at 628 N. Monroe, provides free exhibition space. 

“It’s all been a natural progression of trying to create infrastructure so that we give artists and arts-based businesses the resources and the tools they need to choose Spokane as their home,” Executive Director and co-founder Ginger Ewing says.

Terrain operated with an all-volunteer group for its first 10 years. Today, the organization has 14 staff members, including six full-time employees, five part-time employees, and two longtime contractors. Four of six full-time employees were hired in the last year, she adds.

In 2025, Terrain’s programs and events generated $1.3 million in art sales and payments to artists, an increase from $980,000 in 2024 and $960,000 in 2023, Ewing says. 

“You don’t have to blow up to this big startup company to be successful,” Ewing says. “A singular person who’s able to make a living based off of their art or be able to have a handful of employees is also a version of success.”  

The Journal last caught up with Ewing three years ago when she was nominated as a 2023 Person of Influence. At the time, the organization had recently emerged from a two-year pandemic-induced hiatus and relaunched Bazaar, its artist and local makers market held annually in June; its winter counterpart, BrrrZAAR, held in December; and its annual flagship event, Terrain, a conglomeration of mixed-media, fine arts, and performing arts held the first Friday of October.

This year, Terrain is scheduled Friday, Oct. 2, featuring over 1,000 works from 523 artists, poets, photographers, filmmakers, musicians, and performers from the Inland Northwest. The event this year has grown from 483 artists and creators who were involved in 2025.

The free community showcase will be held at 314 W. Riverside in downtown Spokane where it's expected to draw over 10,000 attendees.

Terrain's first event has evolved from an old warehouse space that drew 30 artists and 1,500 attendees in 2008, Ewing says. At the time, Ewing was the curator for cultural literacy at the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, and neither she nor the other co-founders intended for Terrain to become an annual event; it was meant to be a one-time-only affair.

However, halfway into that first showcase, the feedback from artists and attendees made it clear the organizers had met a significant demand, she says.

Terrain's initial goal was to bring together a fragmented cohort of artists across several disciplines and celebrate the region’s creative community while simultaneously proving that Spokane is a place where artists can live and create, she says.

Growing up in Spokane, there was a belief that to have fun in your 20s or be “successful,” it was not going to happen in Spokane, says the Cheney native. That belief created a “brain drain” of the region’s youth and creative people, she adds. 

“We were like, ‘No, despite this brain drain, there are still these really amazing pockets of creativity,’” Ewing says.

After a handful of years hosting the Terrain event, the organization launched Creative Enterprise in 2013. In 13 years, 111 businesses have completed the organization's Creative Enterprise program, 91% of which remain in business, she adds.

The 14-week business development incubator program for artists and arts-based businesses is held once a year and accepts up to 15 businesses per cohort, Ewing explains. The program has helped several artists and makers turn their creative pursuits into established businesses. 

For instance, the Spokane-based makeup and skin care small business Bee You Organics LLC got its start through Creative Enterprise, says Ewing. Owner Larissa Warren entered the program considering herself a hobbyist. But, within a few years, she was generating six figures and opened a brick-and-mortar store at 915 S. Perry, in Spokane's South Perry District.

Another example is Spokane-based Chompi Club LLC, developed by Chelsea and Tobias Hendrickson. Chompi is an electronic instrument that can capture sounds within a person’s environment and turn the sounds into music. Other examples include skincare company H is for Love LLC, cabinet maker Old Hat Workshop LLC, KJ Pottery LLC, and the independent film production company Fat Gratitude Productions LLC, all of which are based in Spokane.

Creative Enterprise typically receives between 40 and 50 applications per cycle, prompting the organization to consider creating a second cohort, which would increase annual capacity from 15 to 30 participants. 

To help meet demand from artists who don't join the Creative Enterprise program, Terrain launched Terrain Talks three years ago. These free 90-minute discussions connect artists and makers with industry professionals to talk about topics related to running a business. The bimonthly workshops average between 20 and 26 businesses per session, adds Ewing.  

Terrain aims to position itself as a model for what happens when a city and an arts organization invest in community artists. 

“We want to continue to build the infrastructure to support the growing needs of our artists," Ewing says.