Integral Arts Everett was a non-profit organization founded and run by Karyn Alzayer for the 4 years it was in existence, from 2019-2022.
Founded with the mission to cultivate and expand opportunities to engage with the arts for the citizens of Everett and surrounding communities, Integral Arts organized various community events, including an annual city-wide art scavenger hunt called the Everett Community Art Walk. With Alzayer at the helm, Integral Arts Everett was also instrumental in building a vibrant and connected arts community of artists, cultural workers, cross-sector creatives and community organizations.
From 2019-2022 Integral Arts Everett presented the Everett Community Art Walk, an engaging art adventure that showcased local artists and boosted traffic to local businesses. Each year, artwork was sprinkled all across the city in local businesses and community organizations, and visitors were invited to partake in a city-wide art scavenger hunt to explore the city and discover them all.
The Art Walk took place during the month of October from 2019-2022.
Website and Founding Statement
Integral Arts Closing Statement from Alzayer
I started out with this work as one in a chorus of voices saying “someone should do something for the arts in Everett.” Then, I decided that maybe I should be the someone I was hoping for. I founded Integral Arts with the goal of fostering arts experiences, and I established the Everett Community Art Walk in 2019 in support of this mission. And though I’ve been laying this groundwork in Everett for arts support for three years now, it’s time for me to tend to a different garden, time for this chapter to close.
Integral Arts will be closing at the end of this year and 2022 will be the final year for the Everett Community Art Walk.
I’m so proud to have had 4 lucky years to spend lifting up local artists and bringing this community together. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart for going on this journey with me. I had no idea what this would blossom into when I dreamed of a scavenger hunt art show back in 2018. That it would be so much more than just a single event or just an art show. That we would build an arts community together and that it would lift up artists and give community partners a vision for what more Everett could be. But Integral Arts required careful spinning of multiple plates, and passion alone can keep plates spinning only for so long. Without the capacity to hire employees to keep it all going, Integral Arts is not able to continue.
As I said in Integral Arts’ founding statement, I started all this based on the idea that arts build trust, which builds community. And I still believe that. A single wish on the Everett Wishing Wall bloomed into so much more. If you haven’t seen the Wishing Wall in a while, it’s a visual reminder of the blossoming of a community. It’s getting quite full of wishes!
I’m not sure what lies ahead for the future of arts for Everett. But I do hope that our community had a chance to see what kinds of arts things could be possible with a bit of optimism and elbow grease. I believe that our arts community is more than an organization, and that the closure of an organization cannot take away the community we have built together. And I have faith that this community will continue to thrive, even without Integral Arts.
Thank you for all your support over the years. Thank you for believing in the power of the arts. Nothing Integral Arts has accomplished would have been possible without YOU. Integral Arts might be closing, but the community endures and the mission will live on.
Onward in Love and Art,
Karyn Alzayer
President & Director
Integral Arts Everett