Following is a list of six handy facts to use when people make, shall we say, uninformed comments about art and the economy, plus the cited sources of said facts.
Set folks straight, kindly, and with a smile on your face.
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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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Guest post by Mrs. Velma Benson-Wilson of Jackson, Tennessee and Marks, Mississippi. Mrs. Benson-Wilson wrote this autobiographical essay in response to a 2013 visit back to her hometown of Marks, Mississippi. Author of What’s in the Water: Fannie, a Legacy of Love, Mrs. Benson-Wilson is currently the Director of the Quitman County Tourism and Economic Development, and was instrumental in the 50th Anniversary of Marks’ Mule Train and Poor People’s Campaign in 2018.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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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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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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As places for anybody and everybody, pubs, parks, piers, and public libraries epitomize third places.
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I made a short video about the early stages of Cultivation, a painting that’s based on a conversation I had in 2019 with Benjamin Saulsberry, Public Engagement and Museum Education Director of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, Mississippi.
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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.
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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.
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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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