Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ephemeral Collective. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Ephemeral, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

Early summer 2024, we—the founders of the Ephemeral collective—were sitting outside of Más cafe in Moab, Utah, dreaming. We had the inklings of an idea: what if we publish a magazine full of stories and art? What if it’s rooted in this place that we love? What if there’s a theme to it, a spark? What if we need workshops around it, provided creative space? We sipped our drinks and riled each other up; dreaming, dreaming, dreaming. We could start small in getting the word out, by taping posters around town and tabling at a local market. We looked at the market schedule: there was a market in a week and a half, but then the markets took a break for two months to avoid the blistering summer heat.

Could we really pull this together in that short of a time? We wavered. Would it be better to wait?

We can’t recall who initially broke the spell: who said it first, that we should take the leap. Even if our booth was just a banner and a newsletter sign-up, let’s just do it. Let’s make it happen.

It paid off. We were swamped with encouragement from our community; we collected donation money and emails and words of advice. That’s the energy we still carry through ephemeral today: that’s it’s always worth taking the leap. If not now, when?

Ephemeral, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Ephemeral is an arts collective and research hub dedicated to building resilient, place-based creative communities across the Colorado Plateau. We do this through our biannual print magazine, monthly newsletter, workshops, gatherings, financial opportunities, resource dissemination, and pop-up projects.

In our first full year of existence, we’ve focused a lot on our print magazine. Each issue has a theme, and submissions are invited to celebrate and reflect on life on the Colorado Plateau while responding to each theme. Contributors come from across the Colorado Plateau, and are encouraged to pursue a new creative medium, take risks towards imaginative perspectives and formats, and work collaboratively with each other and with editors to build their pieces. Our first issue, “What are the Odds?” sold out in its first print run and issue two, “Vessel,” will go to print in May.

This year, we hope to expand our focus to include more providing resources for artists and gathering people to develop their crafts. We value uplifting and connecting artists across all levels of experience; imaginative, bottom-up storytelling; a media landscape that is honest, playful, and locally-driven; equitable access to creative resources and opportunity; and holding things in our hands (print media!). We’re excited to grow even more into these values this year and support rural artists across the Colorado Plateau.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

When we’ve asked this question to our contributors and collective community, overwhelmingly the answer lies in economic support: in things like physical space to create, resource pooling, and stable housing. It would be ignorant to assume that any of those can happen without a bit of money behind them. But money for the arts is—famously!—hard to come by, and so where society can fill in the gaps, if not by literally writing checks, is through contributing to thriving art communities. Offer your space for writing groups! Host knitting nights! Buy local art! Promote your favorite artists!

And most of all, make time to prioritize art. Make time to create something and you’ll inevitably find yourself paying more attention to your landscapes and your community.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Ephemeral is deeply rooted in the landscape of the Colorado Plateau, and in the small communities that bring it to life. Our work is a celebration of the creativity, agency, and hand-in-handedness of rural storytellers, and we aim to foster the connection and space necessary for those storytellers and artists to own their own narratives.

The future we envision is one in which ‘artist’ is not a gatekept word; where our community members express ourselves in ways that we decide, not national media companies and political strategists; a future where we are encouraged to make art and inspired by our community, where we are supported collectively through the resources, encouragement, and hope required to create things.

Our collective is for, and by, creators who call the Colorado Plateau home, from full-timers to ephemeral travelers.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ephemeralcollective.com
• Instagram: ephemeral.moab
• Other: https://ephemeralcollective.substack.com

Image Credits

All image credits can go to ephemeral collective!