Artists by nature generally tend toward nonconformism. The Arts District may not on average be as bohemian and eccentric as Rosemary Hill, but it's still home to many individualistic artists who chafe at falling into lockstep with the (nonbinding) pronouncements of the neighborhood council. Many of these artists have organized, in a loose sense of the word, into artists' collectives that plan their own festivals and events, independent of those conceived by the council. While the neighborhood council does make an effort to work with these artists' collectives and try to effect some coördination and coöperation between their respective plans, there is always some friction and some differences cannot easily be reconciled.

There are numerous such artists' collectives in the District, some of them headed by single charismatic figures, others more egalitarian. Many of these artists' collectives have only a dozen or so members and have little or no influence outside of the block where they're headquartered, but there are five or six that do manage to have some impact on the neighborhood as a whole. Perhaps the most important such artists' collectives are the Medirachean School, the Red Velvet Group, the House of Keys, the Lovely Bones, the Undergrounders, and the Riverfolk, in rough descending order of influence.