St. Paul
Duaba Unenra: Black People Exist In The Past, Present AND Future
Duaba Unenra comes from a family of creators. He can trace his own career path back to teachers, architects, musicians and entrepreneurs. He attributes many of his creative impulses to his mother,…
Za’Nia Coleman’s Tangible Collective, tangible impact
A community baby turned community organizer, Za’Nia Coleman is creating space for cultural expression in a way unlike what is typically reflected at the center of the Twin Cities arts scene. The…
DejaJoelle brings forth prayers for healing
Webbed in DejaJoelle’s full-bodied silhouette is the ancestral story of a Black woman’s ability to transmute pain into purpose through healing, love and resilience. Just as all colors of the rainbow…
María Isa – Music, Movement, and Soul
Looking out the window at El Cubano on St. Paul’s West Side, María Isa can point out nearly each house and tell you the story of who lived there. Isa is an international recording artist, cultural…
Bringing artists and local government together for lasting change
How can artists, local government, and civic organizations collaborate effectively? Art-Train brings them together and offers ongoing support for proven models of artist-led change. Artists use their…
Imagine futures with heather c. lou
Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay tried — and failed — to buy art from heather c. lou. She was strolling through Appleby Hall at the University of Minnesota, where both women worked at the time,…
Chitra Vairavan is Committed to Seeking
Chitra Vairavan started dancing when she was two years old, watching her older sister learn and practice South Indian Classical dance. Vairavan was born and raised on the north side of Milwaukee (on…
Zaraawar Mistry is in Dreamland
Zaraawar Mistry gets the job done. In India, he says, his last name translates to “worker” or “laborer.” “Sometimes it's used for a carpenter,” he explains, “but if the electrician comes, you might…
Maia Maiden's Golden Brain, Dedication to Dance
Maia Maiden has a golden brain. People with golden brains are said to be equally adept at right hemisphere (creative thinking) and left hemisphere (logical thinking) functioning. As proof of her…
Contradiction and Creation Thrive in Ifrah Mansour
Ifrah Mansour is everything but a painter and a singer. As a Muslim person and a Somali refugee, she has a quite particular point-of-view, which she channels into her quite particular artistic…
Ka Oskar Ly Creates Connections and Understanding
As a kid growing up in France, Ka Oskar Ly wasn’t sure how to define “being Hmong.” Their parents were refugees, having fled Laos after the Secret War. “My parents didn't talk about who we were,” Ly…
Financial Planning with Aziz Kamara
Many of our Artist Career Consultants work with paintbrushes, scripts, or chord progressions. Aziz Kamara did have a “guitar bro” phase, he says. But these days, he works as a financial advisor,…
Felix Foster has Stories to Tell
In an arts world of critics and gatekeepers, Felix Foster invites artists into his life and sends them off with a knapsack of knowledge. He entered the publishing world as a high schooler, helping…
Jessica Lopez Lyman Knows la Cultura Cura
Jessica Lopez Lyman names her influences: Chicana feminist scholar Aida Hurtado. Writer/theatrical jazz artist Sharon Bridgforth. Artist/scholar Omi Jones. Performance artist/scholar Stephanie…
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
According to Dana Sikkila, she graduated high school “by the skin of [her] teeth.” Months later, she earned a 4.0 in her first semester of college. She attributes the drastic change to the…
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…