How Can Community Arts Help People Feel Like They Belong in Your Town?

Community Mural in Creston, Iowa. Learn more about the Creston Mural Project here.

Recently, I co-facilitated How Can Community Arts Help People Feel Like They Belong in Your Town?, a Small City Workshop for the Iowa League of Cities.

This workshop is part of the Rural Shrink Smart initiative, a interdisciplinary team funded by the National Science Foundation that's exploring how to increase the quality of life in rural communities with shrinking populations.

And lemme tell you, I was bewildered to be an artist invited to be part of this team. Their hunch was that art really can play a role in creating belonging in rural communities, which is an essential component of quality of life pretty much everywhere.

Anyway, feel free to share or watch the workshop. It's about 90 minutes long, but that includes some breakout sessions that you can speed through.