Our Friday update here at kickstART farmington highlights some great articles we’ve read this week dealing with art, creative placemaking, and building great communities. You’re sure to find some inspiration to make your life and our community even better!

1. Art as Economic Catalyst: Our job is to infuse creative thinking into how the community can rediscover its sense of self and spur new vitality. In other words, we bridge the past with an invigorated future.

2. Celebrating 4 Years of Re-imagining Streets and Building Better Blocks: The “Better Block” project is a demonstration tool that rebuilds an area using grassroots efforts to show the potential to create a great walkable, vibrant neighborhood center.

3. More on Business Support for the Arts: The arts are like the special effects. They make the impossible happen, make a moment memorable and make people happy. The arts connect us and give us cause to explore our own creativity. They provide context. That is why the arts is an essential part of our local community.

4. Let’s Make a Pop-Up Museum: Pop Up Museums focus on bringing people together in conversation through stories, art, and objects. They can happen anytime, anywhere, and with any community. (See More in the Video Below.)

5. What Makes a Good Main Street Work?: Main Streets are for walking, browsing, lingering … design features, including ample sidewalks; convenient, well-highlighted crosswalks; vehicle traffic at calm speeds; entertaining, transparent storefronts abutting or very close to the sidewalk; relatively short block lengths.