Artists with Impact
Patrick Scully Contains Multitudes
Editor’s note: As the national platform for Springboard for the Arts, Creative Exchange has long been a platform to highlight the artists, resources, and efforts in our national network. In this…
Hello? It's Andy Sturdevant!
Editor’s note: As the national platform for Springboard for the Arts, Creative Exchange has long been a platform to highlight the artists, resources, and efforts in our national network. In this…
Alison Bergblom Johnson's career builds on fruitful partnerships
Editor’s note: As the national platform for Springboard for the Arts, Creative Exchange has long been a platform to highlight the artists, resources, and efforts in our national network. In this…
Adia Morris Swanger connects artists & nurtures family
Editor's note: As the national platform for Springboard for the Arts, Creative Exchange has long been a platform to highlight the artists, resources, and efforts in our national network. In this…
Handbook for Artists Working in Community
In this day and age of continued disparities, injustices, pandemics and systemic racism, artists are critical agents of change in our communities. More than ever, we need artists to be catalysts and…
A theatre laboratory for the New World in Akron
Jairo Cuesta and James Slowiak, co-founders and co-artistic directors of the New World Performance Laboratory (NWPL) in Akron, each developed their personal theatre traditions and practices under the…
Women of Color in the Arts organizes and mobilizes women of color cultural workers
Women of Color in the Arts (WOCA) just celebrated its 10-year anniversary this past January at the annual Association for Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) Conference in New York, where the…
What does it mean to be Black? "The 'Black Card' Project" explores ideas around Black identity and belonging
Dominic Moore-Dunson says he was one of the rare boys who started dancing when he was just three years old. "I was a little hyper. I had so much energy. My mom was like, 'Let's put some tap shoes on…
Machine artist Carl Zachmann mobilizes studio in the fight against COVID-19
Over the coming weeks, Creative Exchange will be highlighting artists responding practically to the COVID-19 pandemic with creative solutions to this unprecedented problem. If you know of an artist…
Accomplished dancer, vocalist, and yogi Vie Boheme is embracing the world's yin energy right now
The multi-disciplinary artist Vie Boheme likes to say she was born in Motown, developed in Pittsburgh, and refined in Minneapolis, where she still resides today. She is a dancer, choreographer,…
Amplifier supports artists and communities in creative social activism
Over the coming weeks, Creative Exchange will be highlighting artists responding practically to the COVID-19 pandemic with creative solutions to this unprecedented problem. If you know of an artist…
Counting Toe Tags: Hostile Terrain 94 documents the humanitarian crisis of migrant deaths
As the 2020 presidential election bears down on us and we find ourselves looking ahead at what is going to most assuredly be a very long, frustrating, emotionally exhausting campaign season, some of…
Leslie Barlow is working to build community, capacity, and equity in the arts world, 9 artists at a time
Leslie Barlow says she's always been interested in art from a young age, then laughs as she adds, "A lot of creative people probably say that, but it's true." The Minneapolis artist says she was a…
TruArtSpeaks the power of poetry for youth empowerment
Tish Jones has been a poet for as long as she can remember. The performer, organizer, and educator from St. Paul is also the founder and executive director of TruArtSpeaks, an organization that uses…
Creating space for Somali artists to thrive
As hundreds of thousands of refugees fled Somalia over the last 30 years, Minnesota, and the Twin Cities in particular, was quickly established as a welcoming place with ample work opportunities for…
The Life of an ARTrepreneur
Some people know Felicia Perry from her time as a dancer with Ananya Dance Theatre. Others know her as an economic activist who served on the inaugural executive committee and board of the…
These New Orleanians use poems and portraits to create deeper connections in their community
Jose Cotto and Christian Davenport come from very different backgrounds, and both have very different practices: Cotto is an architect, educator, and photographer raised in Worcester, Massachusetts,…
Razi Jafri documents the Muslim experience in America
Razi Jafri is pretty new to the world of filmmaking. After working as an engineer for 10 years, the Detroit resident quit his job in 2015 to pursue work that was more meaningful to him. He just…
Sioux Falls' Zach DeBoer loves to paint street lines
When Zach DeBoer graduated from the University of South Dakota with a degree in art education and an emphasis in print making, he just assumed he would be a teacher. Even when he worked at the…
Baltimore gallerist and fashion historian Joy Davis on Black spaces and Black stories
Joy Davis attributes her love of "old stuff" to her father, who worked as an antique buyer in the Baltimore area when she was growing up. "Through him I learned the value of material culture, but at…
Michael Dantzler maps the interconnectedness of Eastover, South Carolina
Michael Dantzler is a full-time photographer, creative, and budding community organizer living in his rural hometown of Eastover, South Carolina, a town of only about 800 people that is predominantly…
Rivers Run Through It: Shel Neymark's Mural Map & Community History Project in Rural New Mexico
Shel Neymark was born and raised in Chicago, near Oak Park. He remembers there were 52 Frank Lloyd Wright houses within biking distance of where he lived as a kid and he was "fascinated" by them. "I…
Holly Doll is creating a Native-based art economy in rural North Dakota
This article is part of a series highlighting artists and leaders featured at the Rural Arts and Culture Summit, a biennial, practitioner-driven gathering hosted by Springboard for the Arts that…
Delina White designs apparel and produces fashion shows celebrating and perpetuating Native cultural heritage
This article is part of a series highlighting artists and leaders featured at the Rural Arts and Culture Summit, a biennial, practitioner-driven gathering hosted by Springboard for the Arts that…
Jamie Horter is a rural artist working in community engagement—in her own words
This article is part of a series highlighting artists and leaders featured at the Rural Arts and Culture Summit, a biennial, practitioner-driven gathering hosted by Springboard for the Arts that…
From Trenton, New Jersey to rural Vermont, Will "Kasso" Condry uses art as a catalyst for activism and revitalization
Will "Kasso" Condry, Jr. is a pioneer of the street art movement in New Jersey, and made national headlines in 2014 when he painted a mural of Michael Brown, the Ferguson teenager who was shot and…
Michelle Angela Ortiz uses public art to address detention and deportation issues
Michelle Angela Ortiz is a child of immigrants, born and raised in South Philadelphia—a community she describes as one that has benefited tremendously from the immigrant communities that have…
Maria de Los Angeles tells "Migration Stories"
June is Immigrant Heritage Month as well as Refugee Awareness Month. In solidarity and support, we will run a series of artist profiles and features this month about the experiences of undocumented…
The Blue Sky Center is building a creative economy in rural California
The New Cuyama townsite in California's Santa Barbara County is relatively young. Built in the early 1950s by the Richfield Oil Company, it was a company-driven town where the company came in, built…
On the Red Road
The idea for the Red Road Project first formed when Danielle SeeWalker was visiting Carlotta Cardana in England where she now lives. SeeWalker remembers reading an article about an area of land for…