The Root Experience

You’ve waited long enough…*drum roll*🥁

Please welcome the FIRST EVER Fashion Designers in The Root Experience Festival 2026!!

It is our first year of The Root Experience Fashion Show, an interactive bi-annual event, now offered during the festival as of 2026. The fashion show is a platform to showcase the diverse & innovative blend of BIPOC designers in our city, region, and PNW (defined by The Root Exprience). It is an honor to showcase these amazing creators, and hold space with y’all unapologetically, as you sew your stories, culture, and vision into your beautiful wears. Thank you for joining the party, we cannot do this without any of you — and nor would we want to!! ❤️🌺

🧵Featured Fashion Designers:
👉🏽 Jaiz Boyd // Birds in the Coast // Birds In The Coast
👉🏽 Patricia McClain Osborne // Patty MO’s Designs // Patricia McClain Osborne
👉🏽 Della BigHair-Stump // Designs by Della // Designs by Della
👉🏽 Lulu Henry // ‘Nchi.wana by Lulu Henry // Lulu Henry

📍Location of Fashion Show:
- Spokane Tribe Resort & Casino (in the Spokane LIVE space)

✨ Check out their work, and keep an eye out for their personal spotlights to learn more!! 🪡

We cannot wait to see y’all there! 🙌🏽

Call for volunteers November 12, 13, and 14. Interested? Fill out the form below.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfukpbCK966viRyltk7pGGYNLtRt8aoIdk0c6AlCEymutGZTg/viewform?usp=header

MEET OUR BOARD at The Root Experience (since July 2025)✨🪷

Please help us officially welcome our current board members at The Root Experience!

They are all professional multidisciplinary artists, mentors, innovators, parents, and dedicated community organizers. Their creative minds drive remarkable events, gatherings, conversations, art, and community impact. With hearts of gold, they hold space in our community for storytelling, connection, and freedom of expression.

Thank you for everything you do, your unwavering support, and for riding into the sunset with us—we appreciate y’all! 🥳🪩

☀️ Rachae Thomas:
☀️ Frances Grace Mortel: Frances Grace Mortel
☀️ Twahan Wells: Twahan Simultaneous

📌 Learn more about our board members by following their handles!

📌 Learn more about The Root Experience: therootexperience.org

📌 Want to become a sponsor, partner, or volunteer? We’d love to collaborate: [email protected]

Before we ramp up with more festival info and goodies in store, we’d like to take a beat and reflect on how far our small collective has come.

On July 28, 2025, our artist collective became an official 501(c)(3) arts non-profit—a chapter in our journey that feels right, nurturing, and grounding. It inspires us tenfold as we help open doors for emerging and professional creatives, innovators, small businesses, and dreamers.

Led by 4 creatives: Olivia Evans, T.S Pearson, Jaiz Boyd, and James Pakootas. Hand in hand, we journey together to carve out safe, creative sanctuary spaces across the city and beyond. As a small team of artists, teachers, business owners, and parents, we lay the groundwork so others don’t have to fight as hard to be heard.

👉🏽 Mission & Purpose
The Root Experience is a BIPOC-led non-profit organization that amplifies BIPOC & underrepresented voices by showcasing diverse lived experiences. Through art, gathering, and mentorship, we champion racial & social justice, healing, and empowering the next generation.
Our mission is to amplify BIPOC voices across all disciplines. We aim to show Spokane & the PNW the common threads of cultural knowledge, creativity, and storytelling, aiding in collective synchronicity. We instill the truth that there is always a way to come back home, guided by our core principle: We Rise Together. 🌱

👉🏽 Core Values of The Root Experience
- Cultural Enrichment
- Community Empowerment
- Personal Growth & Creativity
- Guided by Authentic Storytelling
- Holistic Engagement & Resources
- Sustainability & Accountability

🪩 Are you eager to support creatives & small businesses? We are looking for passionate sponsors, partners & volunteers to bring this festival and these endeavors to life for years to come!

👉🏽 Learn More: www.therootexperience.org

✨ Special shout-out to our sponsors & partners past and present—especially our current venue sponsors who rock with our crazy ideas!

✨ Another special shout-out to our Board Members for joining us on this journey! We will be revealing who they are next week!

We cannot do this without your heart, spirit, and camaraderie! 🪷

IT’S OFFICIAL — The Root Experience Festival 2026 Official Selections are here!! ✨🥁

The Root Experience is excited to announce this year’s acceptees from our call for submissions. We are beyond overwhelmed by the love, support, authentic spirit, and good energy engrained in this festival.

This festival is more than a 3-day event—it is a confirmation that BIPOC artists, storytellers, innovators, and creators belong, thrive, and lead. No matter your culture or lived experience, there should be safe spaces to be who you are, find healing, have fun, and grow professionally. This is that sanctuary. Thank you for submitting, participating, and being a part of an ecosystem that nurtures camaraderie!!

We can’t wait to share space, build community, and celebrate the phenomenal talent taking the stage, gallery, and all aspects of this year in Airway Heights & Spokane! Congrats to everyone! 🌿✨

📍 FESTIVAL DETAILS
Dates: November 12–14, 2026
Main Venue:
Gallery Venue:

💫 WHAT’S NEXT?
👉🏽 Check Your Email: Official acceptance letters and onboarding details have been sent out to all participants!

👉🏽 Participants: Save the 1st Slide & the one you’re mentioned, and share the good news!

👉🏽 Share the excitement about the artists you see represented and drop some love in the comments! Personal spotlights will be starting soon!👇🏽

👾 Learn More:
linktr.ee/therootexperiencefestival | therootexperience.org
https://spokanetribecasino.com/uniquely-spokane/

🎨 Graphic Design:

As members of our Root Experience team have been impacted by the fires, we know the strength, humility, & optimism it takes to get up & repeat the next day.

Reminding ourselves — to give grace, we are still here & our PNW communities still need safe, healing spaces among vital necessities for their spirits, families, and livelihood.

Acknowledging the fires have been going, not just in Spokane, but on the lands of our Relatives on & off reservations — across the state, nation, & world.

Spokane Community & Beyond — We see you, we hear you & we love you. Please stay safe and check in on your people. 💗🪶🥺

Root Experience Festival 2026 — Update 💫

Our team has been busy bees going through submissions, and we have to say: each year gets harder as so many folks are creating phenomenal & truly impactful work through various mediums.

We are blessed to be able to read your applications and learn more about your journeys and your endeavors—individually and in your communities. Let’s just say we have some surprises that’ll knock you off your feet, but it’s all good relatives — we got you! 🫶🏽

Reach out if you have any questions! As always, we do our best to get through email, social, and personal messages promptly. If you’ve reached out and haven’t heard back yet, be a fly in our ear — it’s okay! 🪰

📍 Festival Locations:
👉🏽 Main Venue - Spokane Tribe Resort & Casino
👉🏽 Gallery Venue - CLTREGALLERY

💫 Sponsor the Festival:
Do you nurture creativity and advocate to sustain the lives of artists in the PNW? We’d love to have you as a sponsor and build this future together!

Reach out directly to Olivia at: [email protected]

ℹ️ Learn more:
🔗 therootexperience.org
🔗 linktr.ee/therootexperiencefestival
🔗 spokanetribecasino.com

Stay tuned! Our announcement on socials is right around the corner on August 13th, and participants (including volunteers!) will be notified on August 12th. 🛸

👉🏽 Graphic Design: Olivia Evans
👉🏽 Background Image: R.E.F. 2025 Official Selection // Son Dulce Live Salsa Orchestra // Spokane Public Library

It’s Official — The R.E.F. 2026 Call for Submissions are Closed!! 💫

“Our team here at The Root Experience are humbled by the love, support, and energy that circulates the Festival and its message. We see the festival as an equal platform and sanctuary for BIPOC Peoples to present their art and ideas, as well as make meaningful longterm connections.

Creativity & storytelling are already imbedded within you, created or envisioned, it is taking the courageous steps to find what mediums you vibe with and carve space in this world to share them with others. Art is a process always. Like anything, it takes time, patience, open mindedness, technique, and your authentic spirit (all unique to you and learned) — as artists we know this. We are here to say we appreciate you. 🫶🏽 This is our largest pool of applicants by far, and we are excited to review them all!!

📍Locations:
👉🏽 Main Venue Partner - Spokane Tribe Resort & Casino
👉🏽 Gallery Venue Partner - CLTREGALLERY

🫡 Want to volunteer and didn’t submit an application, reach out here:
[email protected]

💫 Want to sponsor the festival?! Help shape & sustain the lives of creatives in the PNW. Reach out directly to Olivia at:
[email protected]

ℹ️ Learn more:
https://www.therootexperience.org/
linktr.ee/therootexperiencefestival

👉🏽 Graphic Design: Olivia Evans
👉🏽 Background image: “One Way or Another” film; Official R.E.F. 2025 Selection // Benny

The time has arrived — Today marks the last day to apply to this year’s Root Experience Festival!! 💫

If you are still looking to apply, get your app in — we’d love to see what you’ve been cookin’ up and what makes your heart soar!! 🎤🪩🎨

🎬 Films - Read the full criteria & apply on Film Freeway:
https://filmfreeway.com/TheRootExperience

🎶 All other categories - Performer, Gallery Artist, Model, Volunteers:
https://bit.ly/REF-APPLY

ℹ️ Learn more:
https://www.therootexperience.org/
linktr.ee/therootexperiencefestival

📍Locations:
👉🏽 Main Venue Partner - Spokane Tribe Resort & Casino
👉🏽 Gallery Venue Partner - CLTREGALLERY

💫 Want to sponsor the festival?! Your donations fuel not only the festival logistics — primarily in bulk they pay participant honorariums. Help shape & sustain the lives of creatives in the PNW. Reach out directly to Olivia at:
[email protected]

Let’s gather around meaningful conversations, art, food, and present in beautiful, healing spaces that raise us up with good intentions, and see how we can shape our city & PNW so underrepresented creatives & innovators have space to be who they are! 🌱🪷

👉🏽 Graphic Design: Olivia Evans
👉🏽 “Unexception(al)” film; Official R.E.F. 2025 Selection // Michelle Bossy // Molly Powers Gallagher //

Root Experience 2026 Partner Spotlight — CLTRE Gallery 🎨✨

🌹Message from The Root Experience Collective:
“When artists create spaces for change, resilience, healing, creativity, culture, and community, it’s more than vital it’s a blessing and should be treated as sacred. Sonny & Lisa Moeckel have been avid supporters of The Root Experience’s endeavors for years — from being a vendor in REF 2023, gallery artists in REF 2025, and now our gallery exhibit host for 2026, we are honored to bring the festival to their doorstep.

We are excited to collaborate with Sonny, Lisa, and the other amazing creatives at CLTRE Gallery, and the monumental steps to secure & nurture the arts in Spokane, as well as accurately represent and create opportunities for underrepresented communities. The Root Experience resonates with this heavily, and is building an ecosystem where all walks of life can share their voices in any format.

Help us support this phenomenal gallery, and spread the word on their endeavors!!”

👉🏽More about CLTRE Gallery:
At CLTRE Gallery, community is the canvas. A place to gather, connect and celebrate the voices, cultures, and creativity that bring us together. Founded by award-winning married artist duo Sonny and Lisa Moeckel of Moeckel Studio, Denny Carman of Chrysalis Gallery, and musician Bambii.

💫Follow their work:
👉🏽https://www.cltregallery.com/
👉🏽IG: CLTREGALLERY

⏳Festival Dates: November 12-14, 2026
📍Main Venue: Spokane Tribe Resort & Casino // Spokane Tribe Resort & Casino
📍Gallery Exhibit: CLTRE Gallery// CLTREGALLERY

👩🏾‍💻Apply at the link in our bio — or go to:
https://linktr.ee/therootexperiencefestival

🖖🏽Direct link to Apply:
https://bit.ly/REF-APPLY

👉🏽 Graphic Design: Olivia Evans

Stay tuned for more highlights, and thank you to our partners and sponsors for joining us on this year’s journey!! 🚀