My Day Job
I am an artist/teacher turned artist/teacher/community art investigator who grew up in Mississippi and has found herself in Iowa for the last 12 years. (I thought I’d be in Iowa for a year. So it goes.)
My background is a jumble of painting, art history, and cultural anthropology, which, among other things, left me a very confused college and graduate student. I took to the woods to sort this out (another story). What has evolved is a minor obsession with the intersections of community and art.
Community + Art
My current official title is a Community Arts Specialist for Iowa State Extension and Outreach, which is a mouthful. I’m not really a fan of “specialist,” particularly since the only qualifications I have for my job is the fact that I do my job. Truly, large part of what I do entails thinking about and talking shop about the following questions:
What makes a good place to live? Who says? Who benefits?
How can creativity lead to creative solutions to the civic issues that we face?
What does creativity even mean?
So much of what I do is travel around, meet interesting people where they’re at, hear their stories about their communities, get my mind blown, and then share their stories with other interesting people I meet in other communities. I’m like a middleman for creative community problem-solving. Lately, a lightbulb moment: why not figure out a platform and a process to highlight and better share what I’m already learning?
Hence this project and this blog, which hopefully will address many of these topics, but will likely ask more questions than it answers. A focus will be spotlighting communities that are employing creative strategies for community and economic development. Ideally, this site will act as an archive and a resource for artists, makers, and communities looking to merge creativity and engagement where they live.
Do you have something we should know about? Comment below!
While you’re here, check out some of the communities I’ve visited in Iowa and Mississippi.
Art Farm, Marquette, Nebraska