Our vision is to transform the lives of artists with disabilities for the glory of God. 

Our Mission is to leverage art and place; empowering artists with disabilities who become creative catalysts for changing systems of day habilitation; long-term care, peer support, and affordable housing.


Imagine Art is a Christian ministry, a 501c3 nonprofit, established in 1996. The Imagine Art community positions artists with disabilities to be creative placemakers and leaders. We operate creative spaces where artists are engaged as makers, leaders and catalysts for change. We are a diverse community of artists with and without disabilities with a growing number of non-artists who are joining our community. Our core services are anchored in the arts. We are serving the needs of artists with disabilities by offering high caliber art services, which attract non-disabled artists. The result is an inclusive, creative community that demonstrates the power of creative place for transformation and change. We creatively leverage disability related resources (such as Individualized Skills and Socialization (historically known as Day Habilitation), Medicaid long term care and pre-vocational dollars) to demonstrate a new model of service delivery that empowers people with disabilities.

Our artists are being transformed with vision and purpose. We are positioning the artists in our community to be deployed as catalyst for systems change. We recognize the power of arts for cross sector impact - including, long-term care, day habilitation and vocational programming, affordable and supported housing, peer support and food security.

Our story has been a journey of grace and restoration and we believe that we are called and positioned to minister to a specific people group; artists, namely those living with disabilities.

 Our work is driven by a field of practice that we call, Creative Placemaking—we leverage art and place to serve a community’s interest, and create social change in systems that serve people with disabilities in Texas. 

Operating since 1996, Imagine Art has established a new approach to the delivery of services for people with intellectual developmental disabilities (IDD) labels and is impacting statewide systems. People with IDD labels are often served in day habilitation settings that are segregated or modified for special programming. People without disabilities rarely access these same spaces or services, except as paid staff or volunteers. Services, such as day habilitation, are not designed to include non-disabled peers. 

Our model of Creative Placemaking demonstrates a new way to deliver traditional services. Imagine Art offers high-caliber art and micro-business development classes, studio space, and community support for artists. Excellence in service and creative space attracts non-disabled artists to access the same services that are tailored to support developing artists with disabilities.

We also offer many specialized services to artists with disabilities to ensure their success as they navigate services alongside non-disabled peers. We are positioning artists with disabilities as “place-makers” and “leaders”. This is their place and they have opened their doors and invited the artists of Austin to engage in the work, alongside them. The combination of services that we offer attracts both artists with and without disabilities to create a space where all artists engage as equals and receive the same access to space, supplies, and artistic support.

Supplemental programming includes peer support, day habilitation, affordable housing, long-term care, and vocational services.

We find that as artists are given the resources to create and the services that they need, this creates space for transformation to happen in their lives and positions them to become leaders and creative placemakers in their communities.