Creative People Power: Lots of Little

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…


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…


Define American is supporting undocumented artists through a first-of-its-kind fellowship

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…


Realize Bradenton realizes it takes a village to raise a city

The City of Bradenton is a riverfront community of 53,000 people in the urban core of Manatee County, Florida. In 2007, Bradenton created a citizen-driven visioning plan called “Downtown by Design,”…


Al-Bustan plants the seeds of Arab culture and community in Philadelphia

Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture started in Philadelphia in 2002 when founder and executive director Hazami Sayed wanted a place for her two young sons to go where they would learn and apply the Arabic…


Jer Thorp creates data-based public art to engage and empower communities

Jer Thorp is an accomplished public speaker—check out some of his selected talks here—and an artist based in New York who has participated in highly visible public art projects, like designing the…


Lolita Hernandez writes about the Detroit that she knows

Lolita Hernandez’s writing career started in earnest in a Detroit factory. Before that, she had dabbled in poetry here and there, mainly writing about people from Trinidad and Tobago because that was…


Five Years of Creative Exchange!

Give your feedback and take our survey here! February 20, 2014 was the day that we launched Creative Exchange. I had just become a father, and here was another baby about to go out into the world. We…


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…


Write Denver Toolkit

"Write Denver ushered in a deeper level of community engagement for Lighthouse Writers Workshop. We wish the same for you! Whether you're an individual or part of a larger organization, we hope the…


New toolkits from the 2018 Toolkit Cohort

Creative Exchange is based on the idea that artists are everywhere, that artists are shaping their communities in all sorts of ways, and by sharing stories and tools from those artists, we can build…


Creative People Power

Springboard for the Arts and Helicon Collaborative are excited to launch Creative People Power, a new report and framework for combining creativity-centered and people-centered development to build…


Collective Magpie explores the concepts of race and identity in cultural borderlands

“Collective Magpie = Tae Hwang & MR Barnadas + Participants” So says the equation at the top of the Collective Magpie website, and it is meant to underscore the fact that they function as a…


The Boston Ujima Project is working to create economic equity for artists

The work of Springboard for the Arts is rooted in arts-based economic and community development. We believe artists are critical assets in that work, and support them by offering a variety of…


ComiqueCon celebrates women in comics

The #MeToo movement may have become a cultural phenomenon in 2017, but the seeds of it were already very much planted prior to the election of Donald Trump. And just as Trump's election brought…


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…


Handbarrow harnesses and shares the power of stories

People have always told stories—to share lessons and wisdom, to try to explain life’s mysteries, to entertain one another around a fire. And stories are the foundation for how cultures see themselves…


YES! Magazine is new media for a new economy

The work of Springboard for the Arts is rooted in arts-based economic and community development. We believe artists are critical assets in that work, and support them by offering a variety of…


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…


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…


The Chinatown Art Brigade fights for housing rights in one of the most gentrified cities in America

Ten years ago, when urban activists spoke of "gentrification" they might as well have been speaking of the Bogeyman. Often dismissed as so much liberal hand-wringing, gentrification was an urban…


Write Denver publishes the stories of a city’s people

What if, when you walked through your city, you saw words other than “No Parking” and billboard slogans? What if you could look around your neighborhood and read the words of your fellow citizens?…


Springfield Regional Arts Council helps youth grow up in the arts

For eight weeks each summer, the Creamery Arts Center in Springfield, Missouri is home to a whirlwind tour through the arts. Students from kindergarten through eighth grade try ballet one week, opera…


From Derry to Detroit, Éist works to address trauma and healing through art, culture, and media

Éist – pronounced "aysht" – is an Irish Gaelic word that means "to listen." It is also the name of a Detroit-based organization sponsored by Allied Media Projects that works to cultivate and promote…


Mary Welcome welcomes new neighbors all around the country

Mary Welcome, née Mary Rothlisberger, is a citizen artist based in Palouse, Washington, a tiny rural town with a population of 998. While Welcome's numerous and diverse artistic involvements take her…


Meet Loriann Hernandez, Riverside's "Art Hustling Roller Skating Ninja"

Loriann Hernandez – also known as "Elle Seven" – describes herself as an "Art Hustling Roller Skating Ninja." While the overlap between street art and skating culture is nothing new, the way…


Graffiti Camp for Girls is breaking up the boys' club of street art

"I was a disgruntled teenager. My mom moved us out to the country while I was still in high school and there was nothing to do. I basically just wanted to get into trouble," says Nina Wright, aka…