Third Places: Be a Regular

Being a regular, and being around other regulars - the fifth quality of third places – can change folks’ lives.

Regulars transform from strangers into trusted friends, and can change your perspective.

community, third places, tips, ABCDJennifer DrinkwaterSeptember 4, 2024blogComment

Third Places: Easy Streets

For all our talk of mental health these days, third places, and the short walk or bike ride they require to visit, can be an antidote.

community, third places, tipsJennifer DrinkwaterAugust 19, 2024blogComment

Third Places: The Gift of Gab

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.

community, creativity, third places, tipsJennifer DrinkwaterJuly 2, 2024blogComment

Third Places: An Ode to Pubs, Parks, Piers, and Public Libraries

As places for anybody and everybody, pubs, parks, piers, and public libraries epitomize third places.

ABCD, community, third places, tipsJennifer DrinkwaterApril 23, 2024blog Comment

A Quick 48 Hours: Oskaloosa, Iowa

During 2022, I interviewed a dozen Oskaloosa residents in a variety of places: Smokey Row coffee shop, private homes, downtown offices, golf carts, and Penn Central Mall. Among the myriad things I learned about the community is that’s a whole lot going on in Oskaloosa. Like a LOT.

As you travel through Iowa, I wholeheartedly encourage you to visit. Here are a few recommendations for your trip.

A Quick 48, community, ABCD, Iowa, tipsJennifer DrinkwaterApril 11, 2024blogComment

Third Places: On Neutral Ground

So let’s get back to third places.

For the next few months, I’ll introduce each of the six essential qualities that effective third places share, why they matter, and wisdom we can glean for other parts of our lives.

ABCD, community, third places, tipsJennifer DrinkwaterApril 1, 2024blogComment

Creative Placemaking & Cross-Sector Partnerships

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.

ABCD, artist insight, community, creativity, interview, For the Common Good, tips, IowaJennifer DrinkwaterFebruary 11, 2024Comment

Murals, Murals Everywhere: A Community Mural Toolkit

I’m happy to report that I am contacted monthly, and increasingly weekly, by someone in Iowa who wants to begin a community mural project. The smallest community to date was a call from McIntire, Iowa (pop 122). The fact that more and more communities are finding value in community art projects fills me with joy.

ABCD, artist insight, community, creativity, tips, toolkitJennifer DrinkwaterJanuary 29, 2024blogComment

Bookmark This List: 100+ (Weird, One-of-a-Kind) Community Events in 99 Iowa Counties.

Last week, I shared a Fairly Comprehensive List of 2024 Community Events in the Mississippi Delta-ish. Not to be outdone by my own self (idk), I upped the ante and embarked on creating one for Iowa, my current home.

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.

community, creativity, tips, IowaJennifer DrinkwaterJanuary 8, 2024blog Comments

A Fairly Comprehensive List of 2024 Community Events in the Mississippi Delta(ish)

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. :)

ABCD, community, A Quick 48, Mississippi, creativity, tips, toolkitJennifer DrinkwaterJanuary 2, 2024blogComment

Questions about Creative Placemaking? You're Not Alone.

It’s a tricky word, placemaking.

Places don’t need to be made. They exist already.

ABCD, artist insight, community, creativity, tips, toolkitJennifer DrinkwaterNovember 19, 2023blog

For the Common Good: A Community Arts Leader Interview with Andy McGuire

This week’s interview continues to capture the creative and community-centered genius that Andy and Allison McGuire discover and harness in the Mahaska County communities through their work at George Daily Community Auditorium.

artist insight, community, For the Common Good, creativity, tips, interviewJennifer DrinkwaterJuly 5, 2023blogComment

For the Common Good: A Community Arts Leader Interview with Allison McGuire

Back in 2017, I had the very good fortune of meeting Allison and Andy McGuire, two talented and community-centered theatre-makers from the George Daily Community Auditorium in Oskaloosa, Iowa (population 11,463). The Auditorium had just been awarded an Arts Build Communities grant from the Iowa Arts Council to create Home Again, a multimedia variety show to explore and share the many stories of the Oskaloosa and Mahaska County communities.

artist insight, ABCD, community, creativity, For the Common Good, tips, interviewJennifer DrinkwaterJune 26, 2023blogComment

Introducing Pop-Up! A Toolkit for [fun, invigorating, life-affirming] Temporary Experiences

I can't wait to share the fourth Community Arts Toolkit with y'all.

Pop-Up! offers an introduction to the nuts and bolts of planning for and pulling off a pop-up experience, be that an exhibition, a one-night event, an out-of-the-box community experience, or anything in between. Ideally, this toolkit will aid you in being thoughtful about every decision you make so you can squeeze the most mileage out of your event.

artist insight, ABCD, creativity, community, toolkit, tipsJennifer DrinkwaterJune 12, 2023blogComment

A Quick 48 Hours: Tallahatchie County, Mississippi

Located right on the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta, Tallahatchie (meaning “rock river” in Choctaw) County was originally inhabited by the Choctaw Nation before they were forcibly removed by the US federal government to Oklahoma. In late 2019, I interviewed Benjamin Saulsberry, Public Engagement and Museum Education Director of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center (ETIC) in Sumner (pop. 310). I wholeheartedly encourage you to visit their website if you can’t make it to Sumner anytime soon, and support this work anyway you can. And when you do make it to Tallahatchie County, here are a few recommendations for your trip.

A Quick 48, civil rights, community, Mississippi, tipsJennifer DrinkwaterMarch 16, 2023blogComment

For the Common Good: A Community Artist Interview with Akwi Nji

I’m so delighted to feature my friend (and one of my favorite artists, period) Akwi Nji in the community artist interview series, For the Common Good, as she truly encapsulates the essence of what this series celebrates. Each participating artist responds to a series of questions about how their personal and community creative practices align. It’s my hope that these interviews provide insights into how and why artists work with communities, both to artists aspiring to do this work, as well as to communities who strive to engage more creatively with their residents.

Evolution of a Painting, Vol. 1

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.

artist insight, creativity, personal, tips, processJennifer DrinkwaterFebruary 26, 2023blog Comments

A Quick 48 Hours: Greenville, Mississippi

I asked William Coppage, my old friend and forner director of the Washington County Economic Alliance, to help flesh out a fun weekend in and around Greenville. Here are some of his suggestions, along with my comments.

A Quick 48, art collection, community, Mississippi, tipsJennifer DrinkwaterFebruary 19, 2023blog Comment

POW! A Plan of Work Template for Community Art Projects

We often don’t know what we don’t know, which can be paralyzing when starting something new. This POW will prompt you to have necessary conversations with yourself, your collaborators, and your community, such as: “What are we really trying to do here? Why does it matter? What is our timeline/budget/materials? Who’s doing what by when? How do we know if this has been a successful effort?”

community, artist insight, creativity, toolkit, tipsJennifer DrinkwaterFebruary 13, 2023blogComment

How To Speak Ioweigan

Last week, I invited folks to share how to speak Iowegian.

To be completely transparent, I was pleasantly surprised with the level of response, even the arguments between was what authentically Iowan versus Minnesotan. Enjoy.

community, Iowa, tipsJennifer DrinkwaterFebruary 6, 2023blog Comment

THOUGHTS