Welcome to Spirit/ARTS! Project
"Creativity is a sacred pathway to connection, healing, belonging, and transformation." Ouida Joi
Spirit/ARTS! Project is a sacred creative community exploring the intersection of the arts, spirituality, culture, and community as pathways to connection, healing, belonging, understanding, and transformation.
Through music, poetry and spoken word, storytelling, writing, chanting, 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 sacred 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 sacred 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 spirituality, creativity, culture, 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 sacred creative community, a place where artists, spiritual creatives, seekers, friends, and neighbors can gather through shared experiences rooted in creativity, presence, genuine connection, and belonging.
Today, Spirit/ARTS! continues to evolve, welcoming new expressions of art, spirituality, 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.
Our Creative & Spiritual Intentions
To cultivate sacred, welcoming spaces where people across generations, cultures, identities, abilities, and spiritual paths are invited to connect, create, participate, express themselves, and belong.
To create inspiring gatherings, workshops, performances, circles, and experiences that weave together creative expression, spiritual practice, timeless wisdom, and diverse cultural traditions.
To provide opportunities for artists and spiritual 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 and communities, and within our shared world.
To nurture a community where art becomes sacred practice, participation becomes connection, and creativity becomes a doorway to belonging.
Spirit.Arts1@gmail.com | 510.350.6249