Welcome to Spirit/ARTS! Project
"Creativity is a sacred pathway to connection, healing, belonging, empowerment, and transformation." Ouida Joi
Spirit/ARTS! Project is a creative community exploring the intersection of the arts, culture, and community as pathways to connection, healing, belonging, empowerment, and transformation. Through music, poetry and spoken word, storytelling, writing, drumming, movement and dance, visual art, photography, video, and other forms of creative expression, Spirit/ARTS! invites each person to not simply to witness creativity, but to experience and participate in it.
At the heart of Spirit/ARTS! is the belief that creativity can become a life practice, one that opens the heart, lifts the spirit, gives expression to the soul, and brings us into deeper relationship with ourselves and one another.
Some Spirit/ARTS! experiences incorporate spontaneous and improvised, “in-the-moment” creations. These participatory experiences, what we call “Trans-formance” (transformative participation-art performance) dissolve the traditional boundaries between artist and audience and invite everyone into the creative experience.
Spirit/ARTS! creates opportunities for cross-cultural, intergenerational, and interspiritual collaboration among emerging and professional musicians, vocalists, poets, spoken-word artists, dancers, visual artists, spiritual creatives, seekers, friends, and neighbors.
Together, we create a tapestry of experiences where people can connect, create, heal, express themselves, and belong.
Our Story
Founded in Oakland, CA in 2012 by Ouida Joi Cooper-Rodriguez, M.A., Spirit/ARTS! Project has evolved alongside its founder’s deepening vision of bringing creativity, culture, connection, and community together.
What began as an exploration of the expressive arts as a vehicle for connection and transformation over a decade ago, has grown into a broader vision of creative community, a place where artists, creatives, seekers, friends, and neighbors can gather through shared experiences rooted in creativity, presence, genuine connection, and belonging.
Today, we are excited to announce that Spirit/ARTS! is relocating to the Las Vegas Valley in late 2026, and will continue to evolve, welcoming new expressions of art, healing, and community while remaining true to the vision that inspired its beginning:
"Creativity can bring us home to ourselves, and bring us into deeper relationship with one another. We honor the creative spirit in each person."
Our Guide Star Principles
To cultivate sacred, welcoming spaces where people across generations, cultures, identities, abilities, spiritual paths...or no spiritual path...are invited to connect, create, participate, express themselves, and belong.
To create inspiring gatherings, workshops, performances, circles, and experiences that weave together creative expression, timeless wisdom, and diverse cultural traditions.
To provide opportunities for artists, musicians, and multidisciplinary creatives to explore, collaborate, experiment, and share their gifts through innovative, experiential, and participatory forms of creative expression.
To honor creativity as a pathway to healing and transformation, within ourselves, within our relationships, our communities, and within our shared world.
To nurture a community where art becomes an expressive practice, participation becomes connection, and creativity becomes a doorway to belonging.
Spirit.Arts1@gmail.com | 702.907.2273