Art Access

Art Access provides inclusive and accessible workshops in the visual, performing and literary arts that are open to all members of our community. We allow everyone to participate, regardless of ability to pay. To make this possible we have a workshop scholarship.

Can you help us make sure that our workshop scholarship fund is able to provide access to the arts for our entire community?

We have a $2,000 challenge donor. If we raise $2,000 they will give us an additional $1,000! Donate today to help us meet our goal!

THE ART ACCESS MISSION
Art Access builds an inclusive and diverse arts community in Utah through creative opportunities for people with disabilities and other marginalized communities, and through public engagement in the arts.

ARTISTIC ACCESS FOR ALL
ART ACCESS has a strong commitment to inclusion. We serve a diverse population of adults and children with and without disabilities, as well as the elderly, youth-at-risk, refugees, people experiencing homelessness, and other disenfranchised peoples. We offer services in the most integrated manner possible, appealing to our community’s broad demographic make-up. We strive to foster empathy and social intelligence for everyone by becoming engaged through the sharing of personal stories and experiences that are designed to increase individual self-awareness and community understanding. Ultimately, ART ACCESS urges people to reconsider those stories they think they already know, and replace them with authentic identity stories created by the very people they may have dismissed. 

QUALITY OF LIFE MATTERS
ART ACCESS is focused on sharing stories of diverse identities within our community. Our objectives include expanding social knowledge, intelligence, awareness, sensitivity, competence and civility. In utilizing creative processes that focus on self-reflection and self-exploration, we encourage careful consideration of assumptions, beliefs, and biases that are embedded in every individual’s subconscious. ART ACCESS creates a safe space in which individuals can design, compose, and share their stories and self-identity, focusing on the universal human longing for belonging and what it means to feel understood. 

DIVERSE & INCLUSIVE PROGRAMMING FOR ALL AGES
ART ACCESS programming focuses on K-12 students and adults who are interested in expanding their life experiences through art. We offer high-quality visual arts workshops to children, teens, adults, and veterans, as well as a professional artist-mentoring program. Our literary arts programming includes creative writing workshops for adults, a book group, a literary magazine, as well as writing workshops for teens living in or served by disability and at-risk intervention services. Additionally, we offer art therapy alternatives such as Studio E (for children and adults living with epilepsy), and sessions for female survivors of sexual assault. Finally, we facilitate site-specific, structured artist residencies for special education students and adults who live with a wide variety of cognitive and age-related disabilities. Our workshop programming does not have art proficiency requirements and all program instructors are experienced professionals in their fields.