Karli IngersollMy life motto for the past 10 years has been, “The best way to complain is to make things” (James Murphy). Growing up in Spokane there was always a lot to complain about. But once I became an adult I realized I had a lot of power to change things I didn’t like. I saw things in bigger cities that I liked and instead of wishing they existed here, I just made them happen.
I’m a designer by trade and 6ish years ago I had a growing frustration for how few local designers and illustrators were putting their work online. Spokane has always had this secretly vibrant advertising industry but so many of the talented designers working in that industry full time weren’t putting themselves out there online or sharing their work. Many of them didn’t even have portfolio websites. This was absurd to me. So I thought, how do we uncover all this cool talent and inspiring work? Not only so that Spokane could see it, but maybe through this lens of good design we could start to reshape the greater northwest’s view of our city.
And that’s where Collect began.
As a musician I quickly realized that this could also be an awesome platform to share about local music. And what if we did live videos of local musicians!? And what if we did reviews of albums?! And Secret Shows!? What started for me as a way to catalogue and collect inspiring local design became a full on music and arts culture blog.
What started for me as a way to catalogue and collect inspiring local design became a full on music and arts culture blog.
As most of you reading probably know, I opened a venue with my husband Caleb in the middle of all of this. The Bartlett is a whole story in itself but after a few years of trying to keep Collect up while running a venue and working a full time job AND playing music…I just couldn’t hack it.
Now we are in the summer of 2019. Since I started Collect, Spokane has changed SO MUCH. Covering design and music at times felt like a scrappy effort but more and more I can’t not write about all the great things happening. There is so much collaboration. So many creatives moving to town and still nothing that does what Collect does. Focus on great design and great music.
My hope is that you look and listen and recognize that Spokane is an arts city.
My hope is that you look and listen and recognize that Spokane is an arts city. No one makes it that but us, not the city government, not the inlander, not our history. However much all those things help along the way, the power is that Spokane holds our attention as active seekers of exceptional creativity. And it has been holding our attention for a while now.
Welcome to Collect 3.0