In this episode, the Creativity Department is joined by Susan Martin and Melissaa Friedwald of the Bower Center in Bedford, Virginia to discuss how art educators can build relationships with local arts and cultural organizations. Melissa goes into how having a local arts center gives her students the opportunity to discover a community outside of the art room and real-world experience. Melissa and Susan walk us through the process of how they collaborated on the LOVEworks project for the Bedford welcome center – including how they planned the project with students, allocated materials, how the students infused their own artistic style, and how they incorporated student participation from multiple schools. Listen in to hear more!