Our Story

The best performances are always built on solid collaboration. This is especially true in opera, which is a special focus of our work at Foundry Arts. We don’t think of opera as old, dusty, and pretentious. Instead, we see it as the ultimate collaborative art form, and so our work is open and inclusive. We work with artists from all backgrounds and disciplines, from writers to dancers; singers to designers. These artists collaborate closely to assure that the effects of their work will be engaging and relevant to themselves and their audience.

We established Foundry Arts after working together collaboratively to create a piece from the ground up. And since that initial experience, have all become deeply committed to truly engaging with those we work with, and those who we create for.

Click here for more information on Michael Douglas Jones, whose legacy in creating, Foundry Arts continues to uphold, and to find out more about our Core Values.

Foundry Arts helps artists be their most creative through providing the space, time, tools, resources, financial and artistic support, and creative culture, in order to create in a truly inclusive, thoughtful, balanced, and sustainable process. Foundry Arts does this by promoting creative exchange: collaborative practices, creative dialogues, and artistic projects on the individual, institutional, and community levels: efforts which are essential at a time when investment in performing artists and the performing arts as a whole is sorely lacking.

Our practices in working towards this exchange are:

• Artist-Centered: The artist/participant being the source of the stories being created and told.
• Collaboration: Working through dialogue and partnership moment to moment.
• Democracy: Creative exploration as a team based on commonly held agreements and goals, allowing all to influence, and benefit from a joint exploration at the highest level.
• Inclusivity: engaging with artists of all performing disciplines and personal backgrounds.
• Curiosity: Space to question and explore further
• Vibrant, Active Culture of Mutual Respect for the Colleague and the Self as a Whole Person
• Growth-based Success