Arvada Center for the Arts & Humanities: Nurturing Creativity

The Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities is an extraordinary asset that’s enriched the lives of Coloradans for more than 40 years. Just 10 miles from downtown Denver, it is one of the few multidisciplinary art centers in the country, offering theater, music, dance, visual arts and creative classes to a burgeoning community.

Unique to the center are the educational opportunities offered through the lens of both the arts and humanities. A speaker series with Jewish Holocaust survivors and events commemorating World War I are examples of the variety the Arvada Center brings to the community.

“By combining the arts and humanities we provide a richer experience – one that reaches both the heart and mind,” said Philip Sneed, executive director. “The arts help people in every aspect of their lives,” he explains. “Creativity can be learned. Understanding and using the creative process helps people become more creative thinkers. And it’s creative thinking that helps people solve problems and generate new ideas.” 

The Arvada Center invites people to develop their creativity with classes like Youth Hip Hop, Digital Movie Making and Drawing to Enhance Creative Abilities. A category called Ageless Adults promotes the idea that exploration and self-expression know no age.

Scholarships from an endowment held by Community First Foundation help make the arts at the Arvada Center accessible to kids in need because, according to Sneed, “the arts are for everyone.”