Literary
Where to get your rural news
In the current media climate, there is a lot of conversation about urban-rural divide, and plenty of thinkpieces published and pundits willing to go on air and talk about what it means. We're…
Public Transformation hits the road
Two months ago, I had no idea that I was going to buy a school bus and travel across the country interviewing rural-based artists - I had no idea that I would need to learn how to insure a converted…
Imagining New Futures: Artists & Aging Pilot
What is the future for our artists? What is the future for our aging communities? What is the role of arts in aging and policy? In The American Prospect, author Jeff Chang writes, “When artists…
Let's Get To Work
Creative Exchange is the national program of Springboard for the Arts, based in Fergus Falls & Saint Paul, MN. This piece is adapted from the main Springboard website here. Springboard for the…
Fran Ilich believes another world is possible
Fran Ilich grew up in Tijuana next to the San Diego border. As a "border kid" in Mexico, Ilich has spent his life existing in a space somewhere in between – not quite Latin enough for Mexico,…
The Yarrow Mamout Archaeology Project unearths the history of a prominent 1800s African Muslim
Yarrow Mamout was an African Muslim born in Guinea, West Africa in 1736, where he was thought to have been a member of the nomadic Fulani tribe. He was sold into slavery at the age of 16 and was…
Stephanie Pruitt puts poems in vending machines and makes her art her business
Stephanie Pruitt loves finding ways to get poems in unexpected places. That's why she puts poems in vending machines and places those vending machines at various locations around Nashville. Pruitt is…
Deepening Literary Lives: Homeless Writers Share Their Stories
Every Monday morning around 9 a.m., Denver VOICE vendors visit the nonprofit's Capitol Hill office to collect some of the 8,000 copies of the street paper that move across the city each month. From…
Macon Roving Listeners shares voice through listening
There is an art to listening, and that is the art practiced by the Macon Roving Listeners. A common struggle experienced by neighborhoods in the midst of change – "gentrification," if you want to use…
ArtsWave Cincinnati is the oldest and largest united arts fund in the country
Funding sources for many arts organizations tends to be a hodgepodge of foundation, government, corporate, and patron support, which makes ArtsWave Cincinnati remarkably unique – it is the Greater…
City of Asylum/Pittsburgh offers writers in exile sanctuary alongside expansive creative placemaking
"Asylum" – A place offering protection and safety; a shelter. “Silence is death. If you are silent you are dead, And if you speak you are dead, So speak and die.” –…
YEPAW encourages youth to pursue lifestyles of excellence through the arts
Youth Excellence Performing Arts Workshop (YEPAW) got its first start when founder and artistic director Leslie Barnes had a conversation with a friend who claimed that the youth…
Arab American National Museum is the first and only museum of its kind
The metro Detroit area is an area rich with cultural institutions that celebrate the heritage, history, legacy, and continued contributions of artistic, cultural, and intellectual…
Field Note Stenographers want you to watch less TV and more live music
When Chris Nylund and Jared Wright started Field Note Stenographers in Macon, they didn't do it with the intention of making big-time blog money or becoming Internet famous (anyone…
When the Place Is Already Made: Lessons from a Folklife Project
This is the fourth story about work coming from the PLACE (People, Land, Arts, Culture and Engagement) Initiative of the Tucson Pima Arts Council. Read Executive Director Roberto Bedoya’s…
Reading between the Thin Blue Lines with poetry
This is the fourth in a series of artist profiles featuring the work of artists around social justice, policing, and activism. Click on the links to read previous stories…
Arts for Learning teaches valuable life skills through paid arts internships
Miami's Arts for Learning (A4L), a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing teaching and learning through the arts, launched nearly 15 years ago with a vision of connecting…
Finding Voice: How Art Empowers Civic Engagement in Refugee & Immigrant Youth
This is the first story about work coming from the PLACE (People, Land, Arts, Culture and Engagement) Initiative of the Tucson Pima Arts Council. Read Executive Director Roberto Bedoya’s introduction…
No One Can Do It Alone: How Working with "Disability" Enabled a New Artistic Ability and Approach
This is the first story about work coming from the PLACE (People, Land, Arts, Culture and Engagement) Initiative of the Tucson Pima Arts Council. Read Executive Director Roberto Bedoya’s introduction…
Little Free Library has big ambitions for literacy & public art
If your neighborhood is home to a Little Free Library, you might be lulled into thinking that it’s been there forever — or for several decades, at least. The small sidewalk libraries’ “take a book,…
A gaffer finds her light in Pittsburgh
the gaffer lamplighter chief lighting technician the DP’s go-to guy dispenser of gaffer’s tape brute arc myths day for night & the anti-auteur theory transposer of sun/shadow nuancer of mood…
Recovering the Story: How Arts Contribute to Emergency Recovery and Resilience
How does storytelling help individuals and communities overcome disaster? East Coast Hurricane Sandy survivors became storytellers through Sandy Storyline, a participatory documentary that collects…
Marsha Music is a writer, community organizer, and lifelong Detroiter
An interesting counter-story has emerged to the national cliché of Detroit-as-post-industrial-wasteland recently – one of a "new Detroit" rife with young, educated, well-off techies…
How storytelling heals and strengthens communities
In April of 2014, Damian Woetzel and the Aspen Institute Arts Program convened a Strategy Group in Detroit. This convening brought together local and national experts: artists and leaders in arts,…
Nikiko Masumoto cultivates connections between the art of food and farming and stories of place
Nikiko Masumoto is a farmer, and also an artist. Contrary what people might assume about these two different aspects of her life, they are not at odds with each other. In fact, each one informs the…
Satori Shakoor and the power of telling true stories
Stories heal. They provoke. They reassure. When told in the intimate setting of The Secret Society of Twisted Storytellers at the Charles H. Wright Museum of…
Anna Clark sees the future of a Literary Detroit
Last year, Anna Clark received an email from Anne Trubek, an author from Cleveland whom she had interviewed in 2010 for a blog feature. Since then, Trubek had gone on to…
Artists U teaches artists how to make a life
The hardest thing about making a life as an artist is actually making a life as an artist. That's where Artists U comes in. Andrew Simonet is a choreographer and a writer who directed the Headlong…
Terry Blackhawk teaches Detroit kids the power of poetry through the InsideOut Literary Arts Project
InsideOut Literary Arts Project started out as so many other well-intended projects do: as an idea that didn't quite seem realistic enough to become reality. Until it did. It is worth quoting…
The media is the message: Guante uses hip hop culture to educate and engage the community
Canadian philosopher and communication theorist Marshall McLuhan coined the expression "The medium is the message" in 1964 (long before the creation of the Internet), implying that it's not so much…