Nicole Rupersburg

What would happen if the NEA were defunded, and why should we care?

It has been a little over six months since Donald Trump took office, and a lot has happened during that time. Although the budgeting process for the federal government is a long and arduous process…


ARROW Public Art welcomes one and all to Monroe...AND West Monroe

Brooke Foy is an artist and sculptor originally from West Monroe, Louisiana. She moved away from Louisiana for 10 years but came back when she got assistant professorship at the University of…


Tennessee Ukulele Lady Kelle Jolly continues the legacy of Affrilachian music

Kelle Jolly is a singer, musician, actor, TV and radio personality, and community organizer. She is also the Tennessee Ukulele Lady. "'Tennessee Ukulele Lady' is a song I made up for Ukesophere just…


Heidi Brandow documents definitions of "home" for Native peoples, refugees, and normalized residents

Santa Fe artist Heidi K. Brandow came by her creative practice somewhat naturally – on her mother's side, she comes from a long line of Native Hawaiian singers, musicians, and performers; and on her…


Ehren Kee Natay works in the rhythm of creation

Ehren Kee Natay has been a drummer for 20 years and refers to rhythm and percussion as his "principle art form." But at age 23 he began to shift his focus more towards visual and traditional arts. He…


The Arnaudville Experiment: Creative placemaking and economic development in rural Louisiana

George Marks moved back to his tiny hometown of Arnaudville in Louisiana prior to Katrina in 2005, after 15 years of living as a successful working artist in Baton Rouge. He left home in 1989, earned…


Ori Alon spreads positivity through paperwork

Ori Alon's inspiration for the Center for Supportive Bureaucracy began ten years ago when he was an art student in West Jerusalem. He started a performance project by sitting in outdoor markets with…


Spencer Merolla uses ashes and the visual language of mourning in her post-election art

Spencer Merolla says she has been interested in art for as long as she can remember, having grown up with a mother who was an artist herself. But when she attended Wesleyan University she pursued a…


Ian Trask transforms one man's trash into another's treasure

Ian Trask didn't study art in school. Instead, he studied science, with the intention of pursuing a career in research and being able to "pursue something novel and new every day for the rest of my…


The Center for Media Justice addresses inequality in our media-saturated digital world

At a time when legitimate news sources are decried as "fake news" by our country's political leadership and fear-mongering partisan websites that specialize is sensational stories with no basis in…


Free Music for Free People builds a community for youth musicians in Denver

When Mona Magno – aka "Monalicious" – first had the idea to form Free Music for Free People in Denver, it was because, as a musician with many musician friends, she wanted to be involved in the music…


Theatre artist Haley Honeman works to break the silence around suicide

Haley Honeman is a theatre artist who grew up rural Fergus Falls, Minnesota. She attended the University of Minnesota Twin Cities where she earned a degree in theatre arts with a minor in Spanish,…


Photographer Tom Kiefer documents the things that are carried across the border

In Tim O'Brien's short story "The Things They Carried," the items each of the soldiers choose to carry with them through the grueling jungles of Vietnam become an allegory for the human cost of the…


Jaclyn Roessel is Grownup Navajo

For nearly a year now, members of the Standing Rock tribe located in North Dakota along with other supporters of environmental protection have protested the construction of the Dakota Access…


The Mexican Woman's Post Apocalyptic Survival Guide in the Southwest and other stories of life on the border from M. Jenea Sánchez

Photographer M. Jenea Sánchez grew up in Douglas, Arizona, a city that shares a border with Mexico. She remembers crossing the border to and from Agua Prieta multiple times every day as a child – to…


Warren Montoya has created something that Rezonates

Santa Ana Pueblo/Santa Clara Pueblo artist Warren Montoya knows a little something about resilience. Though he has been an artist since childhood, drawn to the art of comic books and surrealism – he…


Poet Ursula Rucker uses rage to find humanity

On April 21, 2016, the world collectively mourned in purple as we learned of the death of one of pop music's most enigmatic icons, Prince Rogers Nelson. Philadelphia poet Ursula Rucker was among…


Philadelphia Poet Laureate Yolanda Wisher dreams while walking on the ground

Philadelphia might best be known as the City of Brotherly Love, but it could also be called the City of Poets for its dedication to supporting and promoting the literary form. With a citywide Poet…


Lisa Jo Epstein encourages just acts through Just Act, using applied theatre in community development

Philadelphia-based theatre director, educator, and community artist Lisa Jo Epstein has spent 27 years working in the realm of applied theatre. She calls her latest project, Just Act – which recently…


Beth Grossman encourages civic engagement through participatory art

Beth Grossman has worked as an artist full-time for the past 25 years. As a social practice artist, she creates site-specific experiential work designed to engage the public in matters of political…


Tia Richardson is an integrative community artist making an impact in Milwaukee

Tia Richardson describes herself as an "integrative community artist." She works as a muralist, teacher, and bridge builder in Milwaukee, leading visual arts projects designed to help heal the…


Dylan Yellowlees is creating an LGBT arts festival for everyone in Akron

Dylan Yellowlees moved to Akron two years ago to work at the Akron Civic Theatre. Having come from Atlanta, where there is a strong LGBT presence with a huge pride festival, an LGBT film festival,…


The Democratic Cup wants to bring people together in conversation over a cup of coffee

It has been nearly two weeks since the 2016 presidential election was called in favor of Donald Trump. In those two weeks there have been protests, riots, and a rash of hate crimes some have said is…


Ceramicist Blayze Buseth creates Legacy Vessels to memorialize loved ones

Blayze Buseth has been interested in ceramics since a very young age. The Fergus Falls-based ceramicist says while he had always been interested in drawing and art, it was ceramic materials that he…


Making political art great again: t. Rutt takes the T.RUMP bus on the road

In the more light-hearted corners of the Internet, it has been jokingly suggested that Donald Trump's entire bizarre presidential campaign has really just been an elaborate piece of performance art.…


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…


Advances in neurotech combines with classical music in filmmaker Jonathan David Kane's Corpus Callosum

Miami-based filmmaker Jonathan David Kane has had a camera in his hand for as long as he can remember, despite growing up in the 1980s at a time when video recording equipment wasn't something people…


Exploring the Art of Conversation at the Urban Consulate

What is the art of conversation? A salon is a social gathering to exchange ideas, a celebration of the art of conversation dating back to 16th century Italy, though most closely associated with the…


Whithervanes track fear in the media

History will ultimately decide how future generations look back on the 2016 election cycle and general social climate of this time, but there is little question that one of the biggest antagonists in…


Dread Scott is a revolutionary artist whose work takes an unflinching look at Black lives in America

In 1857, Dred Scott, an enslaved Black man, unsuccessfully sued for his freedom on the grounds that he, along with his wife and daughters, had lived in free territories for four years. In the…