ART MEETS JUSTICE
Our mission is
to EXPOSE the city to local artists’ work,
to INSPIRE people to make art for social renewal, and
to SERVE others locally and globally through the means of our art, communal energy and money; using our gifts and talents to generate help for those in need.
to ENJOY the communal process of making and showing art!
WEST SIDE ARTS is a loose collective of artists, activists, appreciators of art, and dreamers who share a concern for the world we live in. We come together primarily through concerts, art shows, films and forums to raise money and awareness for local and global causes. The beauty of WSA over the years has been its diversity. Though it was birthed by a local church (renaissance) it has welcomed and included the expressions and ideas of all. The mantra from the start has been to create a venue for the peaceful exchange of ideas through the arts. Their vision was to hand it off to the community with the dna being that of respect, social responsibility, and creativity. In 2008, founder Scott Axtmann handed the WSA gallery over to Travis and Jyll Mullen as they rented the space together at 745 Westminster St. and began putting on art shows and concerts. Jyll curates the gallery and has organized most of the shows around causes and themes. The most recent one being “Less than Home” a show highlighting the struggle of homelessness in RI. This show’s sales went to benefit the Laundry Love Project, which is a collective of people serving the homeless through taking them to do loads of laundry at a laundromat.
We have a lot of dreams of where we all can take this kind of vision, and we’re excited that its only just begun.