The Art Room

The Art Room: Healing Through Creativity in Denton

A safe, inspiring space where art changes lives.

Located in Denton, Texas, The Art Room is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit art studio that provides people who have mental health issues with a safe, creative, and educational space in which to create art. The Art Room offers open studio time, materials, support, and guidance from volunteer mental health professionals and artists at no cost for those individuals who are members of the program. It is a place where people can engage in the creative process, learn about, and produce art, for the purpose of providing adjunctive, indirect mental health therapy. We consider that the therapy provided is in doing the art, following research that shows when people engage in everyday art there is a beneficial effect on psychological measures of stress, improvement in neurotransmitters implicated in depression, and improvement in overall psychological resiliency. In addition, the communal aspect of The Art Room provides a sense of social inclusion, community, and an opportunity to practice learned mental health skills. Our goal is to impact the mental health of the community while promoting art education and the role of creativity in healing.

Overview of Our Needs and Goals

As many of you know, we moved in August, 2022, and our new home has provided more room for creativity and our growing membership. Because of our expansion, our financial needs have increased and our fundraising goals this year are higher. We are particularly targeting recurring donations this NTGD, 2025, for greater financial stability.

In addition to our financial goals, we have the goal of growing our programs to include evening open studio hours once a week, including a new program for Veterans that started January 2024, called Arts for Veterans, meeting weekly. 

The Art Room became more integrated in the Denton community in 2024 by supporting other organizations with public art projects, as well as our annual Community Art Project, where we give back to the Denton community by creating large-scale artworks that we donate to local nonprofits: 1000 Cranes for Peace, 2020; Roots and Branches, 2021; A New Day, 2022; Welcome Home, 2023; Wonderful World; and our current project, From These Roots, where we are beautifying the American Legion Hall Senior Center in Southeast Denton with three different artworks, a 5'x10' community painting, a 4.5'x6.5' quilt, and a mosaic bench and planters for their patio. 

Continued needs included funding for the monthly costs of staff, rent, bills, and nonprofit corporate expenses, as well as to purchase a variety of art supplies, and promotional materials. We are also in need of storage shelving for supplies, and the means to create digital art, such as ipads.