Purpose and Values
Our Purpose
Ox-Bow as an artist-built community is dedicated to the preservation of time and space for arts education, research, practice, and community building for artists at all stages of their artistic journey.
Our Values
Our values reflect our commitment to evolving how we meet our purpose through ongoing reflection and realignment. We consider our values the assets we collectively steward for future generations. We strive to make our decisions, both programmatically and administratively, guided by the following:
Artists: Our passion for art is a passion for artists. We strive to provide a supportive environment regardless of experience level, for creative journeys, network-building, and growth in respected mediums. We feel deeply honored to nurture, serve, and participate in an artistic community that celebrates the potential of connection and collectivity amongst all creatives.
Education: We are generous in our definition of art and education. Our program is built by eschewing hierarchies to favor a multi-disciplinary program that views art, craft, design, writing, and culinary practices with equal respect. We cherish alternative methods to learning and root our current educational offerings in the following:
Curiosity Sparks Experimentation
Play as Process
Creative Praxis as Research
Collective Stewardship: Recognizing that we are part of something larger than ourselves, we are committed stewards of our history, natural, and built environments of Ox-Bow. And thus, we are committed to their care and preservation to ensure Ox-Bow will be around for future generations.
We acknowledge the Potawatomi land and community on which Ox-Bow resides. Read our Land acknowledgment here.
Hospitality: At Ox-Bow we strive to provide an environment where we meet and welcome the whole person and where diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility are at the heart of our practice. We approach our work with continued openness in order to critique, revise, and adjust when, where, and as needed. As an organization we approach generosity through collaboration, brave conversations, and a good neighbor philosophy.
Creative Operations: As an artist-founded and run organization we believe in approaching our labor through a creative lens that values experimentation when programming, problem solving, and providing hospitality. While we approach all of our work with care in mind, our creativity guides us in discovering new solutions, building a joyful community for our participants and each other, and valuing the labor of artists at the operational level.
Relationships: We nurture bonds through authentic connection. We are grateful for the care and enthusiasm we receive from all of those who are connected to Ox-Bow and contribute to our future.
Strategic Plan 2025-2030
Nurturing artists & building community since 1910
Ox-Bow is a creative community that values education, environment, community and history through programs that emphasize care all the way through from conception to execution, inclusive to all participants: staff, faculty, students, residents and board. We believe in caring for our campus, our environment, our field, our community and our history through practices that keep sustainability at the forefront, whether that is staff capacity or environmental footprint.
Making in community is at the foundation of the Ox-Bow philosophy, an experience that goes beyond art to skill-building in interrelatedness. Brave conversations, compassion and intergenerational exchange are part of the practice: skills that impact civic life beyond the studio.
My vision for Ox-Bow is to commit to our values of community building and care with a belief that these values, when practiced intentionally on a small scale, can reverberate out to our larger world and support positive change.
– Shannon R. Stratton, Executive Director