If you’ve ever spent time in the Mississippi Delta, you likely noticed, among other things, the presence of tamales on nearly every menu and tamale stands in most towns. Sometimes literally driving down the highway.
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I don’t often like to speak in generalities, but I would venture to guess that we all have that pull to some place, and that those emotional ties give us inklings about what we value.
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In 2019, I spent a day with Yolande Van Herdeen, an expat South African whose path serendipitously led her to Greenwood, Mississippi. When I met her, Yolande was serving as the artist-in-residence at ArtPlace Mississippi, a community art center in downtown Greenwood offering classes and programs for all ages. What stayed with me from that visit wasn’t just the art itself, but the way Yolande explained the unique role ArtPlace plays in Greenwood.
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In 2019, I spent a day with Yolande Van Herdeen, an expat South African whose path serendipitously led her to Greenwood, Mississippi. When I met her, Yolande was serving as the artist-in-residence at ArtPlace Mississippi, a community art center in downtown Greenwood offering classes and programs for all ages. What stayed with me from that visit wasn’t just the art itself, but the way Yolande explained the unique role ArtPlace plays in Greenwood.
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A while back, I had the opportunity to publicly talk shop about intersections of art and conservation in Iowa with two ISU Extension and Outreach colleagues: Catherine DeLong, program manager, Water Quality, and Adam Janke, assistant professor and extension wildlife specialist. As a once avid hiker, I’m embarrassed to say that I’d never really considered the parallels between natural resource conservation and art until meeting Adam and Catherine.
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I garden because my mother gardens.
My mother gardens because her father gardened, and his people gardened, and their people gardened.
We come from a long line of east Mississippi dirt farmers.
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My awesome former intern Paige created this short video about the evolution of Deep Roots, the final painting inspired a conversation I had in 2019 with Drick Rodgers and Julia Rodgers in Rolling Fork, Mississippi.
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Painting is hard - particularly at the end of the process. Two steps forward, nine steps back. A great deal more time staring at the easel than actively painting.
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I give you my final painting of and about the Water Valley community. The large brick building houses the B.T.C. and the tiny white awning is the Violet Valley bookstore.
This piece is emblematic of how the community has continued to evolve over the decades, or at least according to the stories that I've heard.
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In 2015-16, I organized and coordinated Intertwine, a collaborative, large-scale yarn-bombing project on the two-story façade of ISU Design on Main community gallery (RIP Design on Main) in the Main Street Cultural District in Ames, Iowa.
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This past summer, I had a show at the E.E. Bass Cultural Arts Center, home of the Greenville Arts Council. As I was prepping for the exhibition, it occurred to me that I didn’t have any pieces of the Mississippi River itself.
Which is embarrassing and shameful, for the following reasons: 1) I’ve lived within 150 miles of this behemoth for 40 of my 45 years on the planet, and 2) the Mississippi River makes Greenville, Greenville.
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Last week, I shared a Fairly Comprehensive List of 2025 Community Events in the Mississippi Delta-ish. Since I'm now a pseudo-midwesterner, I upped the ante and embarked on creating one for Iowa, my current home, that included every nook and cranny of the state. I give you: Bookmark This List: 100+ (Weird, One-of-a-Kind) Community Events in 99 Iowa Counties in 2025.
To do this well, I hit up the big guns: my top-notch colleagues in the Community and Economic Development unit at Iowa State Extension and Outreach and Husband Aaron.
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As January is for plan-making, and I’m feeling a touch homesick for the Sipp, I thought I’d make a list for, well, pretty much everybody: including all you fellow Mississippians, you Mississippi-appreciators, you adventurous folk always gunnin’ for a road trip, and especially for you folks who’ve never been to Mississippi, but have a lot of preconceived notions about it. :)
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When I sent an informal survey asking people about third places, one of the responses was the Greenville Cypress Preserve, a 16-acre ecosystem right in town that has a couple miles of public walking trails.
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Let’s be super clear –the magic of third places comes from the literal space and time they provide us to talk to each other. Not talk at each other. Not text each other. Not send DMs. But the ability to have real, meandering conversations, in person.
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If you live in the Driftless region of the Midwest, you hopefully know about Inspire(d) Media, a magazine I have been a fan of for years for obvious reasons.
I was real, real excited to be included both as the cover artist for their Summer 2024 issue and in a feature article inside.
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I made a short video about the creation of Ingrained Care, a painting inspired a conversation I had in 2019 with Drick Rodgers and Julia Rodgers Clark in Rolling Fork, Mississippi. Watch the painting unfold and read the community story that inspired it.
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The Oskaloosa Public Library was built in 1903 with support from a grant from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation and leadership from the Oskaloosa Women’s Club. Beyond books, the Oskaloosa Public Library provides cultural programming, language classes, reading programs, music events, a seed library, a makerspace, a library of things, and a genealogy room.
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In 2011, Oskaloosa’s Skate and Bike Park broke ground. This urban park sits north of Penn Central Mall and downtown Oskaloosa and was funded by grants from the Tony Hawk Foundation, the MCRF, local donations, and young folks fundraising.
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Last spring, Arts Midwest invited me to host a really fun conversation with Amber Danielson, Melissa Bond, and Gabriella Torres, three really smart women who do meaningful, creative things in rural communities, for the Arts Midwest Rural Threads podcast and programming series.
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