Visual Arts
Photography & Participation: How Photovoice Engages and Rebuilds Communities
What is the role of photography in community engagement? How can increased engagement lead to effective community rebuilding and development? Photovoice, a participatory research process, provides…
Allied Media Conference incorporates all varieties of media to incite social change
This is the first in a series of artist profiles featuring the work of artists around social justice, policing, and activism. Look for more profiles in the coming weeks. The Allied Media…
Charlotte Arts Center promotes inclusion, independence and growth for resident artists
The Charlotte Arts Center offers adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities a means of creative expression, integrating with the community, and even earning some income. "We look at what…
Little Free Library has big ambitions for literacy & public art
If your neighborhood is home to a Little Free Library, you might be lulled into thinking that it’s been there forever — or for several decades, at least. The small sidewalk libraries’ “take a book,…
Sam Rodriguez explores cultural hybridity and identity through a plurality of mediums
San Jose artist Sam Rodriguez doesn't fit neatly into any one particular category. You can't look at his body of work and say, "Oh, he's a graffiti muralist," or "Oh, he makes mixed-media pop art,"…
Belonging: A Cornerstone of Placemaking in the Region
It is precisely because artists recognize the vision that precedes the creation of a work that emerges from a place we cannot locate or name, a place of mystery, that we stand before creation in awe.…
Michael Strand affects change in social systems through pottery
Archaeologists and anthropologists alike use pottery to better understand a culture. Pottery tells us about a culture's history, from everyday domestic routines to trade practices, even rituals…
Public Art and Preparedness: Lessons from Katrina
Hurricane Katrina was one of the most deadly, destructive, and costly natural disasters in the United States. This year commemorates the 10th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, providing opportunity…
Francis Grunow leads the charge for Detroit to "blame it on the Nain"
It's an idea that was born over beers, as the greatest ideas so often are. Somewhere in the cold winter months between 2009 and 2010, Francis Grunow took a break from writing a paper…
Liz Miller creates installations that explore the beauty in devastation
Liz Miller is a Minnesota-based artist who describes herself thusly: "I'm an artist who is currently fascinated with weapons, invasive species, and pattern/ornament/decoration. My installations…
David Swirsky has such Big Love for Akron, he's even leading an Intervention
David Swirsky is the Chapter Leader of the Akron League of Creative Interventionists, a global network that creates shared experiences in public space that break down social barriers and catalyze…
Start With Art gives Pittsburgh newborns a baby step toward culture
Most adults could tell you where they acquired their first piece of art: a local shop, a tiny gallery in a seaside town in Italy, the IKEA clearance bin. Not many people began their collections as…
Lenka Clayton, An Artist in Residence in Motherhood
Since 1860, in the afterglow of the Industrial Revolution and on the eve of the Civil War, the number of working mothers has risen 800 percent. For as long as women in contemporary Western society…
Hunter Franks: Reflections on the 2014 Creative Interventions Tour
“My parents said if you have a boy he will wrestle; that is what he will do,” Lisa remarked, referring to her son Martaz. I had just met Martaz and Lisa a week before, as they participated in my…
Reach Studio reaches artists homeless and in transition, treating them as artists first
Art therapy is a well-established practice that uses the creative process to help improve a person’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being. RedLine Denver, an "urban laboratory" that fosters…
Jonathan Harwell-Dye helps the Macon Arts Alliance get a seat at the table
Jonathan Harwell-Dye's career in the arts didn't start out in the most obvious way. The Director of Communications for the Macon Arts Alliance began as a science illustration major at the University…
iMPeRFeCT Gallery celebrates artists with commitment and the collision of high and low art
The concept of "perfection" in the art world is almost impossible to attain, yet that doesn't stop artists from trying or critics from criticizing. It was the rejection of this nebulous idea of…
Pilar Agüero-Esparza is an artist, teacher, and mother who explores themes of labor and domesticity
It is natural for artists to continuously return back to recurring themes in their work throughout their career, and Pilar Agüero-Esparza is no exception. Agüero-Esparza is a visual artist based in…
HICCUP creates positive disruption to bring visibility to Hialeah
The souvenir is as much a time-honored vacation tradition as is taking photos standing awkwardly next to world-renowned historic landmarks and tuning out the kids in the backseat as they continually…
Mother and daughter Dell and Sharon Pryor are among Detroit's earliest art and cultural ambassadors
Tulani Rose and the Del Pryor Gallery occupy the large, orangish brick corner of Willis Street and Cass Avenue, an original anchor of now hip Willis Street, in Midtown. With few…
N'Namdi Center for Contemporary Art is dedicated to enlightenment through the arts
Art doesn't follow development, says George N'Namdi. Development follows art. And he should know. In addition to running his N'Namdi Center for Contemporary Art, George N'Namdi has been steadily…
Olayami Dabls is the owner of the MBAD African Bead Museum, a major repository for African artifacts
Olayami Dabls hardly needs to give visitors directions to his MBAD African Bead Museum, although its Grand River and Tireman location is tucked away off I-96, a short drive from the city's…
The Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh creates a world of immersive, interactive installation art
The Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh is a museum dedicated to installation art. But to put it that succinctly doesn't nearly do it justice. More fittingly, the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh is a…
How can public art be used to give new life to aging infrastructure and build connections?
These stories are brought to you by a partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the NEA’s Our Town program. Like so many American cities, Greensboro, North Carolina is in the midst of…
M12 Collective brings experiential art to the American High Plains
M12 is an artists' collective based in Byers, Colorado, a rural town in the American High Plains. The work of the collective inhabits rural places, and explores the aesthetics of those rural cultures…
Asian Arts Initiative shepherds community engagement and integration in Philly's Chinatown North
Gayle Isa started working at the Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia in 1993. This was in the aftermath of the infamous Rodney King verdict and the riots in Los Angeles that followed. Racial…
Charles Ladson is a painter who rediscovered his home in Macon
Like so many other artists, Charles Ladson had an interest in art and painting at an early age but didn't think it was something he could pursue as a career. Ladson's granddad and mom were both…
Erik Howard brings the corner and the community together in unlikely ways through The Alley Project
To read the abundance of news coverage coming out of Detroit over the last few years heralding the downtrodden city as a hotbed of creativity and innovation, attracting young creatives and start-up…
Welcome to Creative Exchange (again)
"I believe in the magic of storytelling, not only for teller but also the listener," says agrarian artist Nikiko Masumoto, who lives and works in California's Central Valley. "The possibility of…
Eye in the Sky: Evan Anderman captures images of the Colorado plains from above
Most local lens-folk point their cameras west to the Rockies. Evan Anderman likes to cast his gaze east -- and down. "I was born and raised in Denver and spent a lot of time out [on the plains]…
