St. Paul
David Unowsky, Literary Rolodex
What’s the last good book David Unowsky read? Well, this veteran bookseller is in a bit of a slump, but he wholeheartedly endorses Why We Revolt: A Patient Revolution for Careful and Kind Care,…
Aaron Fiskradatz Brings Zoom Expertise to In-Person Creativity
Aaron Fiskradatz is a theater artist, an educator, and, most recently, a “Zoom consultant” – a technical consultant for livestreamed productions, which we all need these days. A longtime advocate of…
Candida Gonzalez; Experimenter, Traveler, Adventurer
Candida Gonzalez is unafraid. They are not only a lifelong adventurer but a jewelry maker, an arts administrator, a teacher, and a visual artist. Committed to racial justice, Candida collaborates…
Dana Sikkila Flies Her Flag for Creativity
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…
Getting Closer
In 2014, Springboard for the Arts was faced with a question – How do we grow our work and support more artists across the country while staying grounded in our work as an artist-led organization…
Community Development with Amanda Cortés
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…
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…
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…
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,…
Emergency Relief Funds Toolkit
The Personal Emergency Relief Fund is a long-standing program of Springboard for the Arts. The purpose of the Fund is to provide short-term, immediate relief to artists who are facing lost income or…
Creative Exchange Survey
At Springboard for the Arts, we’ve learned a lot as we've published Creative Exchange. As we've published the site, we've centered artists and their work, stories about communities coming together to…
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…
Find Creative People Power on Creative Exchange
"I honestly feel so inspired by the work that these artists have created that represents a life, challenges the status quo, or brings in communities. I feel so incredibly lucky to have the…
Reflections on Springboard's intensive trainings
For over a decade, Springboard for the Arts has been offering business skills workshops to artists to help them build a living and a life. Since 2017, we have offered an annual series of intensive…
How Grand Rapids, Minnesota Thrives Through Creative People Power
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…
Creative Community Development Trainings
Do you believe that artists generate creative people power, and that communities thrive when they are connected to their artists? Have you downloaded the Irrigate: Artist-led Creative Placemaking…
Rachel Breen sews in support of garment industry workers
Minneapolis-based artist Rachel Breen is probably best known for her work with textiles, which she finds funny, since her connection to her sewing machine was purely accidental. "Three days before…
Dana Sikkila takes Project Bike all over the state of Minnesota
Visual artist Dana Sikkila grew up in Litchfield, a farm town in West Central Minnesota with a population of a little over 6,000 people. She describes her family and the area she grew up as being…
Photographer Xavier Tavera documents the Latinx community from one border to the other
Xavier Tavera remembers picking up a camera when he was 11 or 12 years old and fell in love with photography immediately. To this day, he says, that “magical feeling” he gets from photography still…
Leila Awadallah dances stories of Palestine
Leila Awadallah, a 2018-2019 Springboard for the Arts 20/20 Artist Fellow, moved to Minneapolis from Sioux Falls, South Dakota to study dance before she had a sense of the kind of artist she is. “I…
Jose Alvillar is preserving ancient dance traditions in paint
Jose Alvillar is a Minneapolis-based dancer and painter, but rarely have those two parts of his life his met. Now, as a 2018-2019 Springboard for the Arts 20/20 Fellow, he plans to make those…
Ready Go Toolkit
Ready Go is a resource from Springboard for the Arts that connects neighborhoods, non-profits, businesses and individuals to artist-created, mobile tools that are purpose-built to pique curiosity and…
Lightning Rod is performance for the present moment
Imagine a group of artists gathering: writers, directors, and performers; many of whom have never met before; some who don’t even call themselves “artists.” They’re handed news headlines from the…
Of art and baseball: Rachel Wacker brings art to the community by working with some unlikely partners
Rachel Wacker hasn't had what might be called a "traditional" experience working in the art world. Based in Saint Paul's Lowertown neighborhood, Wacker has eschewed more "traditional" arts…
Saying “Yes” to 4th Street
In a downtown core experiencing change, the 4th Street Market District partnership leads creative experiments & looks to the future It was a summer Sunday afternoon in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and…
Toolkit Cohort Announced!
New toolkits are coming! We're excited to announce a new round of artists and organizations selected from our open call for toolkits, and we'll be working with these artists over the summer to create…