Monthly Digest (March 2026)
Check out updates from Art of the Rural and upcoming opportunities from the field.
Happy spring from Art of the Rural! 🌾
We’re excited to share new opportunities with you from our programs — and new stories from across the field! Learn more below.
Barrett advocates for “A Second Chance to Get Rural America Right”
In a new article published by The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Art of the Rural Exchange Director Savannah Barrett urges philanthropy to reconsider how it is showing up for rural communities.
In a time when rural funding still accounts for less than 7 percent of all foundation giving, philanthropy often funds & applies solutions developed elsewhere, eliding local needs and contexts of rural communities across the country and creating greater division.
“People are ready for a better invitation, one that offers the chance to not only be heard, but also to be part of the solution,” writes Savannah. “Philanthropy is uniquely positioned to offer that invitation, but it must start with the acknowledgement that funders didn’t keep their promises to rural people.”
Spillway
Through support for artists, culture bearers, artisans, and storytellers – alongside the local organizations that support them – Spillway works to create the conditions for engaged projects that honor diverse lived experience, deepen regional relationships, and build rural-urban networks of knowledge-sharing and exchange that will create opportunities for artists, culture bearers, and artisans to thrive, connect with new colleagues and audiences.
Order by tonight: T-shirt fundraiser supporting Mni Sota community action
We’re honored to partner with our friends at the Honoring Dakota Project to create this fundraiser to support the Hispanic Outreach of Goodhue County and La Regia Market in Red Wing, in addition to supporting the efforts of community members giving in a time of need. Featuring the generous art donation of Spillway Fellow Cole Redhorse Taylor, t-shirts will directly benefit and be divided among the organizations, businesses, and individual community champions & families who are organizing and are impacted at this time.
Apply by March 31: 2026-27 Spillway Fellowships
The Spillway Fellowship Program seeks applicants cultivating a range of work across visual art disciplines and socially-engaged practice. Through support for early career artists and culture bearers from Minnesota and the Native Nations in this geography, fellowships will be offered to artists and culture bearers whose practice is committed to considering the multilayered intersections of culture, land, and history.
To advance this work and deepen these connections, fellows will build relationships with individuals and organizations across multiple local visits that culminate — through time and trust — in a public presentation, event, or exhibition in Winona, Minnesota, a town located along the Mississippi River in Dakota homelands, in collaboration with our community partners: Honoring Dakota Project, Engage Winona, Winona County Historical Society, and The Cedar Tree Project.
Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange
A nationally-celebrated leadership network using place-based cultural exchange programming to develop the skills, networks, and capacity of rural and urban leaders to bridge divides and make change.
Call for Regional Coordinators: Lead RUX!
Are you passionate about a connected Commonwealth? Love getting people involved? Want to share RUX in your community? RUX is looking for 1 Regional Coordinator in each region: Central KY, Eastern KY, Louisville, Northern KY, Southern KY, Western KY.
You’ll help grow RUX in your region by inviting and coordinating events created by and for the RUX network. Regional Coordinators will receive a $50/month stipend for up to 6 months ($300 total). Each region receives a $250 event planning budget every 6 months.
Coordinators should be members of the RUX network. This includes cohort alumni, membership program members, and current & former partners. Learn more about the role and apply at kyrux.org/rhizomes
Tune in! Season 2 is here.
Art of the Rural’s podcast returns for a second season! We’re excited to share our first two episodes of 2026 with you. We are deeply grateful to Joe Williams and 5 Plain Questions for co-producing, and to the Ford Foundation, Good Chaos, and individual donors for supporting our media programs.
Tending Our Circles: The Long Conversation with Fire in the Village's Annie Humphrey & Shanai Matteson
In this episode, meet Annie Humphrey and Shanai Matteson of Fire in the Village, a collective of artists and cultural organizers that build and sustain spiritual fires of connection where they live in Anishinaabe territory, or rural northern Minnesota, and with arts and music communities around the region.
Championing Native Rights with Suzan Shown Harjo, Part 1 (5 Plain Questions)
This two-part episode was produced in partnership with 5 Plain Questions and Eleven Warrior Arts. Hosted by Joe Williams, 5 Plain Questions is a podcast that proposes 5 general questions to Native American and Indigenous artists, creators, musicians, writers, movers and shakers, and culture…
Save the dates! Join us on the road all year long.
New Civic Future: The Meetup & Getdown
Wednesday, April 15 - Thursday, April 16
Denver, CO
Join Art of the Rural at this big party for our new civic future. This isn’t a conference — it’s a real-life party where we’ll experience how the principles in the “An Invitation to a New Civic Future” letter we shared last month are practiced in our communities. Registration $50, scholarships available
“Interstates”: Sioux City Art Center Biennial Exhibition Opening Reception
Thursday, April 16, 5:00 - 7:00pm CT
Sioux City Art Center, Sioux City, IA
Guest-curated by our Executive Director Matthew Fluharty, Interstates invites regional artists to create new work that reflects on movement, connection, and distance as they shape life in Iowa & the region. Free to attend. Exhibition view through August 9, 2026
AFTACON 2026: Empowering Rural Arts & Culture Pathway
Tuesday, June 2 - Friday, June 5
Albuquerque, NM
Join our Programs Associate Hannah Almon Matangos — and Spillway Fellow Joseph J. Allen (Manoomin Arts Initiative), Krysta Aina (Arts Council for Wyoming County), and Dr. Astrid Kaemmerling (The Educational Foundation of America) — as they facilitate the Empowering Rural Arts & Culture Pathway at Americans for the Arts’ convention, including an Incubator Day at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. Registration $100, stipends available
Radically Rural 2026 Summit: Reckoning & Reorienting
Tuesday, October 6 - Thursday, October 8
Keene, NH
Hannah AM is also excited to co-facilitate the Arts Track at this year’s Radically Rural, along with Geoffrey Kershner (Small Town/Big Arts) and Ash Hanson (Department of Public Transformation). This annual gathering welcomes cross-sector rural leaders from across the country. Registration $20-250
Othering & Belonging 2026 Conference
Friday, October 9 - Saturday, October 10
Louisville, KY
Our Exchange Director Savannah is excited to serve on the Local Host Committee for the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley’s annual conference, which brings together leaders from grassroots movements, research and academia, arts and culture, policymaking and government, philanthropy and business to foster civic health through hands-on workshops & sessions. Registration $250+, scholarships available
Opportunities from the Field
Building Common Ground: Fieldwork is a new program offering free design and planning support, alongside small project grants, for community-centered projects that amplify local history, culture, and identity. Apply by March 27
Springboard for the Arts’ Falls Community Arts Exchange seeks artists to collaborate on community projects rooted in creativity, connection, and possibility with Fergus Falls, MN. Apply by March 30
A Blade of Grass’ Field Funds for Artist-Led Gatherings offers $500 to for practitioners to bring groups of three or more people together. Apply by March 31
Do you have opportunities you’d like to share? Send them to us at info@artoftherural.org, comment, or hop into the Substack Subscriber Chat below!
About Art of the Rural
Art of the Rural is a collaborative nonprofit organization that resources artists and culture bearers to build the field, change narratives, and bridge divides. Our initiatives are long-term, trust-based efforts that co-create spaces for exchange and impact across the traditional dividing lines of place, practice, and lived experience.
Consider a paid subscription to our Broadsheet Substack today to sustain our media work, including articles, podcasts, virtual events, and more.