Posted 1/11/2023
We're continuing our journey Around the Ground! Read on to discover how CreativeGround is used as a resource for discovering arts in education, arts in healthcare, and traditional arts in New Hampshire.
Did you know? Of the 2,524 New Hampshire profiles listed in CreativeGround, nearly 100 are available for Weddings, Parties, and Private Gatherings!
Ginnie Lupi, Director of the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, told the virtual crowd assembled at our at our Kickoff Event that she is “thrilled” to be participating in the launch of CreativeGround 2.0. “Whenever we get a request from a school, health care facility, local arts commission, community organization, library, or business for an artist or arts organization,” Ginnie explained, “we refer them to CreativeGround. We do this because we find CreativeGround to be the number one resource for finding artists and organizations who will fit the needs of the entity making the ask.”
The New Hampshire State Council on the Arts uses CreativeGround to host their juried artist rosters. The Search function may be used to access the rosters. From the home page, a user can click Search, then Special Designations, then State Arts Agency Roster Artist and the state rosters will open. New Hampshire has three: an Arts in Healthcare Roster, an Arts in Education Teaching Artists Roster, and a Traditional Arts Roster.
While 83 profiles popped up during this demo, there are a total of 84 in these three categories today. The addition is a dance artist in Kittery who joined CreativeGround in November 2022 and works in New Hampshire. This points to continuing organic growth and the overall sustainability of this resource.
The following New Hampshire artist profiles stand out for being “particularly robust and strong,” according to Ginnie.
Native American Storyteller Anne Jennison is on the New Hampshire Traditional Arts Roster. She draws upon a wealth of knowledge and over three decades of experience as historian, educator, and craftsperson with both European and Abenaki heritage retelling timeless Northeast Woodlands lesson stories.
Image: Sharing the drum at the Haverhill Historical Society. Photo credit: Amanda Jennison
Theo Martey is on the New Hampshire Arts in Education Teaching Artists Roster. He hails from Ghana, and currently holds the position of New Hampshire Artist Laureate. His specialty is traditional West African drumming and dance.
In 2019, as his profile states, Theo “led a one week long Artist in Residency program at the Amherst Street Elementary School in Nashua New Hampshire. Students learned about African Culture rhythms, dances and songs which they got to perform in a culminating event for the whole school and their parents for the finale.” That same year, he was awarded a Governor’s Arts Award for Arts Education. See photos from the ceremony.
Pontine Theatre is on the New Hampshire Arts in Healthcare Roster. This two-person group from Portsmouth does a lot of work with senior centers, nursing homes. They write and perform works mainly about New Hampshire history, often incorporating puppets and other unusual props. Their profile states, “The word pontine is derived from the Latin pontus - a bridge. In psychology, pontine is a process, a connection activated in sleep; a bridge over which dream images travel. We fulfill our artistic vision by creating and performing intimately scaled original productions that celebrate the culture, history and literature of New England.”
What these diverse artist profiles have in common is their attention to detail and an evident care for the viewer’s informational needs, which comes across as both reassuring and inviting. Each profile section is complete and visually rich. As Ginnie put it, “Whoever is looking for an artist will be able to get a clear, full picture of who they are, what they have to offer, and what their experience has been.”
This is what we love to see, because the information is so helpful, not only to the searcher but to New England’s creative economy network as a whole. You see, NEFA relies on the data in CreativeGround to gain insight into its trends and concerns. The Creative Economy team also supports national agencies like Americans for the Arts by giving them a regional head start on their data-gathering projects.
In our next blogpost in the Around the Ground series we visit Vermont. Meanwhile, we’ll leave you - and New Hampshire - with Ginnie Lupi’s wise, parting words. “Tell everyone you know about CreativeGround and invite them to create a profile if they haven’t already.” Here's our Promotional Toolkit to help!