Our story

Founded during the chaotic summer of 2020 by Portland-based writer and editor Amelia Rina, Variable West is the first platform to provide a comprehensive calendar of art events on the West Coast of the United States.

We believe that art should be accessible to everyone. By aggregating information about gallery and museum exhibitions, performances, screenings, lectures, and more, Variable West provides a dynamic resource for anyone interested in art—from artists, art writers, and veteran museum-goers to people looking to engage with art for the first time. Meet our team.

Photographs on this page and throughout the site are by our Consulting Product Manager Jaime Salazar.

Budget

No one should be excluded from a community for lack of funds. That’s why we’ll never hide content behind paywalls or require membership fees for exhibition and event listings. Instead, we hope our community will see the value in this resource by engaging with the platform and, if economically viable, show support by becoming monthly subscribers or giving one-time donations.

Our budget comes from 5 sources: grants, monthly subscriptions, advertisements, sponsor content, and donations.

Want to know how we use that money? Check out our Budget page for full transparency.

Want to help us build a consistent income? Subscribe or donate!

Diversity and Accessibility

The art world has a long history of systemic racism, exploitation, and exclusion of marginalized groups. Variable West hopes to enable measurable change in that trend by requiring all event listings to include information about their event’s and organization’s diversity and accessibility features. For more information on the requirements and terms, see our Diversity and Accessibility page. 

Though Variable West covers all of California, Oregon, and Washington, we are physically located in Portland, Oregon, on the unceded territories of the Clackamas and Cowlitz nations. Learn more and find out what native land(s) you live on.