ROUND[the]TABLE: CREATIVE PLACEMAKING COMPANION

A booklet by N.H. comic artist Marek Bennett

The 2022 Round[the]Table gatherings engaged nearly 200 people in conversations about creative placemaking in N.H. This fun and approachable booklet is an artistic interpretation of those events. It includes resources you can link to for how-to information and examples of creative placemaking projects happening in N.H. It is a booklet, a fold-out “mural”, and a coloring book meant to stimulate your imagination and help you get creative!

PAST EVENTS

Mural detail by Positive Street Art, Nashua NH. Project partners: Southern New Hampshire Health and Rotary Club of Nashua West. ©Chris Boncoddo/Positive Street Art

Round[the]Table

Third Course: Cooks in the Kitchen

Tuesday, October 4, 2022 

1:00 – 2:30pm

The New Hampshire Creative Communities Network (NHCCN) invites you to join us at Round[the]Table for our continuing exploration of creative placemaking and how it can affect deep change in New Hampshire’s cities, towns, and rural communities.  

“Cooks in the Kitchen” welcomes three extraordinary speakers to join an interactive conversation led by facilitator and New Hampshire artist Catherine Stewart. Guided by our speakers’ deep experience, we will explore the qualities that infuse effective partnerships and ultimately lead to cross-sector impact. Through listening and conversation, this session invites each of us to consider how these qualities are already embedded in our work, and how they can help us identify and build partnerships that generate transformative outcomes.

Meet Our Guests

Wendy Benscoter | Executive Director, Shreveport Common, Inc.

Matthew Fluharty | Founder/Executive Director, Art of the Rural

Alyssa Murphy, AIA | Founder/Principal, Placework

Catherine Stewart, Creative Facilitator

Who should attend?

Creative community building is the work of many hands across a range of disciplines. This is a conversation for anyone working across sectors who is practicing, planning, and leveraging the arts to advance the social, health, and economic wellbeing of New Hampshire communities. No prior creative placemaking experience is required, only a willingness to join us at the table in a feast of ideas and vision. 

We gratefully recognize and thank the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts for their support of this series and the work of the New Hampshire Creative Communities Network.

ROUND[THE]TABLE

SECOND COURSE: TAKING INVENTORY OF YOUR CREATIVE PLACEMAKING PANTRY

TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 2022

10:30AM–12:00PM

The New Hampshire Creative Communities Network invites you to join us Round[the]Table—our continuing exploration of creatively placemaking and how it can affect deep change in New Hampshire’s cities, towns, and rural communities.

Creative placemaking is inherently unique in every community. Models, templates, and toolkits are helpful but are not always effective for this work. This is especially true in rural communities, where creative placemaking is less understood and frequently under-resourced. 

Establishing effective and sustainable creative placemaking strategies therefore requires us to ask challenging, critical questions and to listen intently to the experience of those around us.  

We are all experts at this table! 

New Hampshire artist Catherine Stewart will lead this facilitated exploration that invites you to share your questions and insights. Our goal is not to seek precise answers; rather, we are deepening our understanding of what is essential to do this work and beginning to identify connections and clarify resources that already exist—and those that are needed.

We gratefully recognize and thank the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts for their support of this series and the work of the New Hampshire Creative Communities Network.

Round[the]Table

First Course: Exploring the Flavors of Creative Placemaking

Wednesday, March 30

2:00–3:30pm

View the Recording: Exploring the Flavors of Creative Placemaking

Click here to tell us about you experience!

The NH Creative Communities Network presents Round[the]Table—the first in a three-course collective conversation exploring Creative Placemaking in New Hampshire.

For this first conversation, we are excited to welcome five uniquely experienced guests to our table, individuals who contribute deep expertise in placemaking and/or community building, and the courage to probe outside-of-the-box. With New Hampshire artist Catherine Stewart as our fearless facilitator, we will begin to explore what distinguishes creative placemaking from other community arts practices, how it is uniquely positioned to invite deep participation, and how it can affect deep change in our cities, towns, and—especially—our rural communities. 

Meet Our Guests

Tom Borrup | Founder of Creative Community Builders

Jody Fried | Executive Director, Catamount Arts

Ruby Lopez Harper | Vice President of Equity and Local Arts Engagement, Americans for the Arts

Jay Minkarah | Executive Director, Nashua Regional Planning Commission

Keisha Sheedy | Founder and Principal Consultant, smART SOULutions, LLC

We gratefully recognize and thank the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts for their support of this series and the work of the New Hampshire Creative Communities Network.

NH Creative Community Network presents a conversation on Creative Workforce. This event will feature:

• Sara Colson, Director of the 65x25 workforce initiative, which is working to ensure that 65% of New Hampshire adults have a high-value credential or postsecondary degree by 2025

• Kent Devereaux, President of NH Institute of Art, who will speak about the essential values artistically trained workers can bring to a business

• Kate Schwerin, COO of W.S. Badger Company, who will speak about the value of hiring creative employees and how to develop and negotiate employment situations that support employees with artistic passions.

After these speakers share their stories and experiences there will be an open Q&A then an open networking opportunity.

NH Creative Communities Network will be hosting Sarah Stewart, the state's new Commissioner of Natural and Cultural Resources to hear the stories of your creative communities.

With the support of Arlene Goldbard, NH CCN will facilitate a "Story Circle" exercise. This has two great outcomes:

1. Participants will learn a great new model to collect feedback and develop vision with your community.

2. Participants get to share stories and reflections on those stories with the Commissioner to enhance her ability to represent our sector and understand our challenges and successes.

When the group has finished sharing stories, Commissioner Stewart will share her impressions, ideas and vision for her new role.