Special Features

Imagining New Futures: Artists & Aging Pilot

What is the future for our artists?  What is the future for our aging communities?  What is the role of arts in aging and policy? In The American Prospect, author Jeff Chang writes, “When artists…


Let's Get To Work

Creative Exchange is the national program of Springboard for the Arts, based in Fergus Falls & Saint Paul, MN. This piece is adapted from the main Springboard website here. Springboard for the…


Street Art Making Mark on New Denver

Denver's street art is attracting national recognition. How is the city's booming mural scene helping soften the impact of rapid development and gentrification? A carbon monoxide donut once hung low…


New arts grantmaking ideas in action

Here’s the traditional path for artists to get funding: A public entity or private foundation puts out a grant application. Artists or arts organizations fill out the application with statements…


A Super PAC for participatory arts

"Super PAC" is a phrase many of us are probably sick of hearing by now, much like so many other hot-button talking points that have come to define this often preposterous and almost always…


Special Sauce & Agency: Evaluating Work of Art

"I feel like I just got a million dollars worth of guidance!" That's what one artist commented after downloading the Work of Art toolkit. Since the Work of Art toolkit launched as a free resource in…


Microloans help artists build sustainable careers

Blayze Buseth was ready to launch his career as an artist. As a ceramicist, he had received several requests for commissions, particularly for his “Legacy Vessels,” or customized cremation urns. He…


The Disconnect Between Healthcare and Health Insurance

After three years helping artists get health insurance through Springboard for the Arts’ Artists’ Access to Healthcare program, I should be overjoyed that our country’s uninsured rate is at an…


MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana Videos

When MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana was approached by Springboard for the Arts through the Creative Exchange Leading Organizations pilot to make the Spanish translation of the…


Renewable energy art helps us design a better future

The planet is getting warmer. Sea levels are rising. Climate change is being felt in disasters and shifting ecosystems around the world, in a way that’s often disturbing to individuals wondering how…


Friendly Streets: Bottom-up St. Paul project changes the way people look at their city

The following is excerpted from Jay Walljasper’s new book, “America’s Walking Renaissance,” which can be downloaded for free here. This excerpt was initially published by MinnPost. Laughter, lively…


New toolkits from the Leading Organizations!

Creative Exchange is driven by a principle that more is more - the more stories we can tell, the more resources we can share, the more connections we can make, the more we can show how important art…


Low-power FM radio shares community voices to a hyperlocal audience

Ohm Radio, Credit Adam Chandler Photography, courtesy of Vikki Matsis On July 7, 2016, radio host Philip Gracia began a live Internet broadcast of WFNU in St. Paul, Minnesota, by saying, “We’re here…


Lessons from RARE: Engaging Artists in Real Estate Development

As real estate developers increasingly look for responsive models, many are seeing the value of incorporating art into buildings and spaces. In one current case study, the Richfield Artist Resident…


FOUR SMALL THINGS TO DO TODAY TO CONNECT YOUR COMMUNITY TO HEALTHCARE

More than 10 years ago, Springboard for the Arts began working to connect our community to healthcare with an Artists’ Health Fair and a Voucher Program. These are worthwhile endeavors and we’ve…


Theo Wilson, a.k.a. Lucifury

The Artist's Way: Making Denver a Better Place for Creatives

At 11 o'clock on a Sunday morning, the Mercury Cafe is filled with the sounds of Denver in decompression mode. The steam of the espresso maker, orders called to the kitchen, clinks of champagne…


Irrigate Interns at St. Anthony Pop-Up Shop

Artists and Relationship Building

This post is part of a series in conjunction with TRG Arts on developing relationships with both new communities and existing stakeholders through artistic programming, marketing and fundraising,…


Ready Go's mobile art projects capture attention and engage the community

How likely are you to sit and have a conversation with a stranger in a park? What if you could do so while playing a board game at a table under brightly colored flags, all of which popped up in your…


There's a citywide gallery of public art along Denver's bus routes and rail lines.

Transit-Oriented Art: Expanding Access in Motion

For a toolkit on how to engage artists as leaders around major disruptions like light rail construction, get the Irrigate toolkit on artist-led creative placemaking. Routine riders of public transit…


Three human services organizations are within a few blocks of each other.

Arts with Purpose: Catalyzing Civic Engagement in Denver

Pay no mind to the woman in tattered layers with dirt caked onto the hands with which she holds a cardboard sign. Disregard the worn-out sleeping bags strewn across the sidewalks and trash-bag…


DMC Youth

San Jose's MACLA engages a multicultural community

In early 2016, San Jose’s Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana (MACLA) opened the exhibition “Custom Lives: Rasquache Renaissance.” The show exhibited colorful, cartoon-like sculptures of…


Unleashed! Artist Party, New Hazlett Theater

Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council works through art to lead social change

At the Three Rivers Arts Festival in 2014, a volunteer choir took the stage with an original piece: “The Pittsburgh Complaint Song.” As the Complaints N'at Choir, they put the grievances of their…


2 Years of Creative Exchange!

It’s hard to believe, but Creative Exchange just turned 2! The platform was launched in 2014 in response to the question, “How do we support a movement around the power of local art and artists on a…


In 2007, BuCu West Development Association organized a public art initiative that has aimed to replace graffiti with colorful artwork.

Denver's Next Great Art Districts

Just north of downtown Denver, a petite but peppy Georgia Amar owns and operates her fine art gallery and studio in Denver's Art District on Santa Fe. Her husband, Jack D. Pappalardo, is an attorney…


Macon Arts Alliance Gallery

The Macon Arts Alliance, Leading Through Transformation

This story is part of a series of features on the members of the Leading Organizations pilot program, featuring organizations across the country working with artists in new and innovative ways. Learn…


Metro Arts in Nashville - a leading organization and a learning organization

This story is part of a series of features on the members of the Leading Organizations pilot program, featuring organizations across the country working with artists in new and innovative ways. Learn…


Adrian Molina (a.k.a. Molina Speaks) is a Denver-based poet, emcee and educator.

Emerging Leaders of Color Connecting Communities with the Arts

Adrian Molina didn't get into the arts to work in politics. The Denver-based poet, emcee and educator, who raps and records prolifically as Molina Speaks, is motivated by a creative forces -- an…


Laura Zabel

Laura Zabel leads the way for Springboard's goals of system change

Saint Paul, Minnesota's Springboard for the Arts has existed in some form for over 35 years, transforming as an organization several times over before its latest incarnation as Springboard. Executive…


Tony Garcia, executive artistic director of Su Teatro.

Building Equity in the Arts in Denver

Suzi Q. Smith was excited to bring her daughter to her first opera. A prominent Denver poet and teaching artist, Smith grew up listening to classical opera; she trained as an opera singer for two…


Dawn Posey, Larry Scott & Lavon Pettis

Overheard in the StoryBooth: Chicago's Lake FX Summit + Expo

It’s Thanksgiving this week, and StoryCorps has launched a new project and app, with The Great Thanksgiving Listen Project. Earlier this year, Creative Exchange partnered with StoryCorps at the Lake…