World Creativity and Innovation Day is this Friday, April 21. It’s a day that is close to our heart, as our venue exists to inspire exactly that.

All this week, we’re posting thought-provoking quotes on our social media that relate to creativity. How do you foster the creativity of yourself and those around you?

Share with us in the comments how you regard your own creativity, and the big and small ways it affects your life and how you innovate.

For us, we thrive on providing a space where anyone can come to be inspired to make something new. New ideas, new relationships, new habits. From the minds of business professionals, entrepreneurs, artists, and everyone in between and beyond.

Catalyst Ranch and Urban Sketchers

Our purpose is never so keenly realized as when the artists of Urban Sketchers (USK) inhabit the place. They literally use the décor and objects and walls to fuel a flurry of art.

Art of the Jitterbug Room by Kathi Wilson fromUSK Racine-Kenosha

Urban Sketchers is a global community of sketchers sharing our love for the places where we live and travel.

Our mission is to raise the artistic, storytelling, and educational value of on-location drawing, promoting its practice and connecting people worldwide who draw on location where they live and travel.

This World Creativity and Innovation Day, we applaud artists like the Urban Sketchers members, who eagerly share their creative output with one another and the world, inspiring others with capturing their vantage point of the world around them.

In fact, just last month, Urban Sketchers from far and wide met at Catalyst Ranch for their monthly sketch meetup.

Art by Rachel Grossman from USK Chicago (left) and Bob Bosgraaf from USK West Michigan

We’d hosted the Chicago chapter before, but we were surprised to learn that for this date, sketchers from far beyond the city limits intended to join! As it turns out, members were so floored by their experience here in previous years that word had spread throughout the network, and when this location was announced for March, it was more than the Chicago cohort to save the date.

Folks from the Racine/Kenosha, West Michigan and Ann Arbor chapters made the journey just for this date, many of whom traveled together via Amtrak and planned an entire day of art in Chicago, with us as the anchor.

We saw photos of sketchers in action and of members happy to be reunited. The numerous sketches that members shared with us truly fill us with joy — joy to see ourselves captured beautifully in varied media and styles, and joy to know we were a destination for creativity and community. All our staff were beside themselves, witnessing all the art and fellowship shared that afternoon.

The energy of Catalyst Ranch is activated and electric when folks are engaged in creating. It’s wonderful to experience.

Enjoy a sampling of the sketches made from this gathering:

*And if you are interested in joining the Urban Sketchers Chicago, they have another sketch meetup at the Chicago Cultural Center on April 29. Click here for more info.

Click here to see all our scheduled public events at Catalyst Ranch, often including other artful meetups.


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