This year, as the Arizona Commission on the Arts celebrates its 50th anniversary, we are proud to launch NextAZ, a visionary planning initiative designed to unleash the power of the arts in realizing Arizona’s brightest future. NextAZ begins with you – your voice, your values, your creative spark.

You live and learn and work here. You make things happen. You build, explore, and innovate. In so many ways, you are a creative Arizonan.

So we want to know: what, or where, is your creative spark?

Click on an image above to view submissions from your fellow Arizonans, or click here to view the full gallery.

Maybe you write music, paint, teach, or perform. You sing with your church choir and jam with your neighbors. You make beautiful, challenging, and useful things.

Or maybe your creative spark is a place, where people gather to dance, learn, or reflect. Maybe it is a place your ancestors or community built, or maybe you find inspiration in our wondrous desert, northern pines, or the calm following a monsoon storm. Inspiration lives in all of these places.

Show us where creativity thrives in your community, and share your creative spark.

Click the button below to share an original photo, short video, or audio recording, a poem, or a brief message, or take a few minutes to peruse a gallery of submissions from your fellow Arizonans!

We can’t wait to discover what inspires you! 

Banner image: Creative Spark submission from Jenae of Douglas.Â