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Culture is the intersection of people and place

By Becky McCray

A downtown sidewalk with people shopping at a table full of baked goods

  Lots of small towns have a good handle on the importance of the arts. Some have arts councils and arts festivals, and most are starting to better value rural artists. What about the larger concept of culture? Culture is usually only mentioned around urban areas. Rural is almost thought of as the opposite of […]

August 19, 2019 Filed Under: community, rural Tagged With: arts, culture, rural cultural elements

Where’s your town’s future mural?

By Becky McCray

Every town needs a future mural, or a series of them. Seems like every small town has a history-themed mural, but very few have a future-themed or even modern-style mural. Many towns use old photos as displays, including in empty buildings. They do get people talking about what you used to have. But how are you […]

April 22, 2019 Filed Under: community, rural Tagged With: arts, future, trends

Ideas to fill empty display windows

By Becky McCray

Every small town has some empty windows downtown. Some are empty buildings, some are buildings being used for storage, and some are service businesses that just don’t have a lot to put in their windows. Here are three ideas I saw on my trip through Cowlitz County, Washington. Make a mini-museum. Work with the local […]

April 2, 2019 Filed Under: entrepreneurship, marketing, rural Tagged With: arts, beautification, empty buildings, empty windows, historic, history, museums, service businesses, window decorations, window ideas

Empty building ideas: Art gallery in the windows

By Becky McCray

  Many small towns have a challenge of too many empty buildings or too many buildings used only for storage. In one small town, the problem was an existing store that was using a neighboring building for storage, but had nothing in the windows. In another town, it was a building used for storage by […]

December 24, 2018 Filed Under: community, rural Tagged With: arts, empty buildings, empty windows, window decorations, window ideas

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