Beyond the Clock Artist-in-Residence Podcast Reflection: Tim Z. Hernandez | Following our Artistic Purpose
This reflection explores how artist Tim Z Hernandez’s creative practice embraces art as an offering rooted in healing, memory, and release, inspiring readers to trust the creative process with humility and curiosity. It also includes a hands-on "Recipe: The Permission of Maybe," inviting artists to embrace uncertainty as fertile ground for new ideas and creative growth.
Beyond the Clock Podcast Episode with Tim Z. Hernandez
In this episode of Beyond the Clock, Ash and Anna are joined by Tim Z. Hernandez, an award-winning author, poet, and filmmaker whose work has spent decades recovering stories that history tried to forget.
DoPT Team Gathers for Annual Staff Retreat
In this special reflection from Sara Marshall on DoPT’s annual staff retreat, she shares how the team took time to reflect on organizational growth, strengthen relationships, and align around priorities for the year ahead.
Ten Creative Third Places Selected for the 2026-2028 Activate Rural Learning Lab
Building on its inaugural Minnesota cohort, Activate Rural is now expanding across Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Tribal Nations in the region, with continued support from the Mellon Foundation.
DoPT at the Rural Revenue Transformation Workshop
DoPT hosts a session on Creative Cross-Sector Collaborations at the Reynolds Journalism Institute's Rural Revenue Transformation Workshop in Columbia, Missouri.
Beyond the Clock Artist-in-Residence Podcast Reflection: Brigid Reedy | Gems and a Recipe
Nikiko Masumoto explores how memory, storytelling, and everyday rituals act as living practices that carry culture forward and help shape more hopeful futures.
Beyond the Clock Podcast Episode with Brigid Reedy
In this episode of Beyond the Clock, Ash and Anna are joined by Brigid Reedy, musician, poet, storyteller, and artist from southwest Montana whose work is deeply rooted in the rural American West. In this conversation, they explore what it means to be of a place in a time of mobility, polarization, and cultural fragmentation, and how place lives not just in geography, but as something carried within us.
DoPT Presents at Main Street Now in Tulsa, Oklahoma
Ash led a breakout session, “Falling in Love with Rural Places,” inviting participants to reconnect with the stories, relationships, and sense of belonging that make rural communities so vital.
The YES! House Grand Opening!
On Saturday, April 25th, 2026 DoPT celebrated a huge milestone: the official Grand Opening of The YES! House! And, what a celebration it was!
Engage Rural Team Visits Virginia!
Department of Public Transformation is collaborating with Virginia Commission for the Arts, Randolph College, and Small Town Big Arts to launch the Virginia Small Town and Rural Arts (SARA) network pilot!
Ignite Rural: Where Are They Now? w/ Rocky Casillas Aguirre
Rocky Casillas Aguirre participated in the 2022–2023 Ignite Rural Artist Residency program which supported the publication of his first comic book, Twitch and The Mystic Weenie.
Activate Rural Storytelling Project: Rusty Rock Community Guild
Activate Rural Storytelling Project: Rusty Rock Community Guild
Activate Rural Storytelling Project: Manoomin Arts Initiative
Activate Rural Storytelling Project: Manoomin Arts Initiative
Activate Rural Storytelling Project: Bauman Hall Arts
Activate Rural Storytelling Project: Bauman Hall Arts
Activate Rural Storytelling Project: Mni Sota Arts
Activate Rural Storytelling Project: Mni Sota Arts
Ignite Rural: DIY Artist Residency at The YES! House | Andrea V. Duarte-Alonso
As part of the evolving support offered through Department of Public Transformation’s Ignite Rural network, the introduction of DIY Artist Residencies at The YES! House creates new space for alumni artists to reconnect with their practice on their own terms.
Activate Rural: Montana Site Visit
Activate Rural team road tripped through mountain passes and small towns between Missoula, Helena, and Butte, connecting with leaders and artists, and visiting local creative places.
Let the Light In: A Reflection from the Road
“Let the Light In” highlights how openness and vulnerability invite clarity, connection, and transformation. Even in difficult moments, choosing to let light in can spark renewal and meaningful change.
Activate Rural Storytelling Project: Spring Grove Cinema
Activate Rural Storytelling Project: Spring Grove Cinema
Beyond the Clock Podcast Episode with Nikiko Masumoto
In this first episode of the 2026 Beyond the Clock (BTC) season, Anna and Ash are joined by Nikiko Masumoto, this year’s BTC Resident Artist, farmer, and memory keeper who invites us to explore memory as a living practice. In this episode, we reflect on the quiet rituals (personal and public) that carry culture forward and how, across rural communities, artists and cultural workers are tending something essential: memory and imagination.