Liz Crane, Director of Partnerships and Special Projects, Kimberly Driggins, Associate Director, Government of District of ColumbiaLori Lobenstine, Youth Action Lead, Max MacCarthy, Executive Director,

was formed three years ago as a collaboration of foundations, federal agencies, and banks to accelerate the creative placemaking movement. This session will explore lessons and ideas captured in that time and also provide an update on ArtPlace America and where we think the movement is headed. Lyz Crane of ArtPlace America will be joined by representatives from two grantee projects sharing their own ideas and experiences with the initiative: Kimberly Driggins from the Office of Planning of the District of Columbia discussing the Arts & Culture Temporiums project; and Lori Lobenstine from the Design Studio for Social Intervention and Max MacCarthy from the Upham's Corner Main Street discussing work in Upham's Corner, Boston.

Maria Rosario Jackson is senior adviser to the Arts and Culture Program at The Kresge Foundation and adjunct faculty at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, Calif.

In 2013, President Obama appointed Maria to the National Council on the Arts. She serves on the advisory board of the Lambent Foundation and on boards of directors of the National Performance Network and the Alliance for California Traditional Arts.

As a researcher, writer, speaker, and advocate, Anne Gadwa Nicodemus tells stories through narratives and numbers. Her favorite muse is .  She’s fascinated by all kinds of places—their form, their people, their change. A choreographer/arts administrator turned urban planner, Nicodemus is a leading voice in the intersection of arts and community development.

In episode # 5 of The Art of Placemaking Podcast, we speak with Laura Zabel, Executive Director, Springboard for the Arts, about her session,  on November 7, 2013 from 9:45 - 10:45 PM. This session will use the in St.Paul, Minnesota as a case study to share how many small, locally-grown, creative placemaking projects can contribute to a change in neighborhood narrative and lead to greater agency and equity in the community.

Placemaking in Providence

In episode # 4 of The Art of Placemaking Podcast, we speak with Lynne McCormack, Director, Department of Art, Culture + Tourism, City of Providence about two sessions that she will be participating in at The Art of Placemaking Conference on November 7 and 8, 2013. Lynne McCormack serves as the director of  for the City of Providence, Rhode Island. In her 14-year tenure as a city arts administrator she has moved through the ranks, from production coordinator to a trusted member of the mayor’s cabinet. Since assuming the director position in 2006, Ms. McCormack has successfully transitioned the department from an office of cultural affairs focused on public programming to a community and economic development agency. She forged a series of partnerships that have resulted in a destination branding campaign, a summer workforce development program for youth, citywide arts festivals and increased funding for artists and organizations through CDBG, HUD, transit and city economic development funds. Recognized as a leader in the field of creative economic development, she is regularly invited to speak about the City of Providence’s cultural infrastructure at conferences across the country, regularly participates in Americans for the Arts Local Arts Leadership gatherings, led a session at the 2013ArtPlace meeting in Miami, and has served on the Local Arts Agency panel for the National Endowment for the Arts.  She is a member of the Mayor’s Economic Development Cabinet and serves on the board of the Providence-Warwick Convention & Visitor’s Bureau. Ms. McCormack earned her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design. Lynne's sessions will be:

Panel: What can cities and state governments do to foster creative development?

Panel: 20 Years of Creative Placemaking in Providence

In this short podcast we speak with Marshall Sponder about his book, Social Media Analytics: Effective Tools for Building, Interpreting, and Using Metrics ( or ) as well as his Rutger's University online course . Sponder's session at The Art of Placemaking Conference is titled Social Media for the Arts: Measuring the Impact of Art for Community Building and will:

Discuss a variety of ways communities can be mapped and measured within social media.

Find ways to gauge the impact of Art Based Events both the local community and the world at large (extended community).

Discover the wealth of information that exists in the social web and how to leverage it to enhance and amplify Art Events

Find new and better ways to merge the “real world/presence” with the “virtual online world / presence”.

speaks with , presenter at The Art of Placemaking Conference, about what's happening in creative placemaking in the State of Connecticut.

Bergstrom is Deputy Commissioner,  in the State of Connecticut. From the DECD website:

Kip has 30 years of experience as a strategist, business executive, economic development professional and place-maker.  He is a nationally prominent advocate of place-centric economic development.  He has participated in the successful repositioning the City of Stamford, the State of Rhode Island and Connecticut’s largest bank.  His interests, writings and accomplishments span the full spectrum of economic development, including tourism, education and talent, transportation, entrepreneurship, technology commercialization, real estate development, and the interface of the human network and the natural system.

Bergstrom shares a little about Connecticut's  a pilot program which is developing replicable creative placemaking strategies in over twenty communities around the State which is an  funded initiative.

Bergstrom will be joining a panel  with  and , Director, Department of Art Culture + Tourism, City of Providence, RI.

Peter A. Mello, managing director of WaterFire Providence, organizers of The Art of Placemaking Conference interviews Anne Gadwa Nicodemus of Metris Arts Consulting about her opening keynote for the conference.