Schedule

Times are in Central Time
Subject to change. Registered attendees will have access to more details.

12:00 pm CT

Registration Open

1:00 pm CT

National Welcome Session

Kick off your Summit experience with intention and excitement! Join us for this essential opening session where we'll ground ourselves in the spirit of Artists Thrive, setting a positive and collaborative tone for the days ahead.

We'll guide you through a brief exercise to help you write a meaningful goal for your time at the Summit, ensuring you focus on what matters most to your artistic journey.

Finally, we'll equip you with everything you need to navigate the Summit Whova app like a pro! Discover all the "bells and whistles" – from session locations and networking opportunities to recorded content and helpful resources. We'll ensure you have the inside scoop to make the absolute most of your week and leave feeling energized and empowered.

Don't miss this crucial first step in your Summit adventure!

2:00 pm CT

Performance

2:30 pm CT

Networking Game

3:00 pm CT

National Breakout Sessions

I am For A Nation…

For this session, Mark will invite all 6 sites to create a collective manifesto for our country: "I am for a nation…." The workshop starts with a discussion about social sculpture and the ways we shape the world through our words, thoughts, and actions. This will be the foundation for our time together. Participants will then complete their "I am for a nation…" statements at their tables. They would also share with each other at their tables, then from each location. By naming the kind of city we want, participants can begin to name next steps in their own creative practices that align with the collective manifesto. After the workshop, we will compile the statements together into a document to be shared with all participants across all 6 locations. Participants would also be invited to activate the project in their own contexts, at any time, without the need for permission. This form is a tool that can be used by anyone.

Lead Presenter: Mark Menjivar, TX

The Art of the Pivot (Strategic Change Management for Arts Leaders of the Global Majority)

We are living in an era marked by uncertainty and precarity in our sector and society in ways that are unprecedented in recent decades. One that requires us to be grounded in our center and equipped to pivot the ways we steward, manage and lead change. This workshop will provide insight into a step-by-step process developed by a table of arts leaders of the global majority across US and Canada. This resource exists to support arts leaders of color to dynamically navigate pivots and steward change (both externally imposed, and internally devised).

Lead Presenter: Phoenix Sun Park, Voice of Purpose

Local Breakout Session

Designing Creative Programs That Regulate the Nervous System
Artists are often working in emotionally charged spaces — with communities, students, and audiences who are carrying stress, isolation, and uncertainty — yet few are taught how to intentionally design creative experiences that support nervous system regulation without entering clinical roles. This workshop offers a practical, non-clinical framework for building arts experiences that foster emotional safety, stress reduction, and social connection through structure, rhythm, repetition, and environmental design. Drawing from the long-term, public-space, and community-based work of Dance Waterloo, participants will explore how creative structure itself shapes mental wellbeing outcomes. This session does not train artists to be therapists. Instead, it equips them to design creative environments that naturally support calm, connection, and resilience. Participants will leave with a repeatable framework they can immediately apply across disciplines including movement, music, theater, visual art, writing, and participatory installations.
Lead Presenter: Morgan Teel

4:15 pm CT

Local Breakout Sessions

Folk art and ceremony - ancient traditions, modern benefits
In this workshop participants will be learning the history and uses of 2 folk art and ceremonial traditions from Mexico and Peru and how they are used not only for decorative purposes but for the various spiritual and healing aspects they provide. Participants will take part in a group exercise called a despacho using herbs and flowers to create a design to go thru the spiritual, emotional and mental health benefits of the process. Then they will create a small smudge bundle to take home using materials provided. The eye of God craft work from Mexico will also be discussed and the spiritual uses of it. Participants will create a small piece to take with them.

Lead Presenter: Mary Jane Garza

How to tame the Chicano Soul (Processing emotion thru chicano music)
In this session, we will be using recognizable, cultural music like Chicano soul and mexican american movement songs, to address, emotional vulnerabilities, and self reflection to help process emotion and avoid generational trauma through a series of listening and question facilitation.

Lead Presenter: Joaquin “Muerte” Abrego

Building Sanctuary with Mini-Collage and Somatic Practice

Co-led by teaching artist & trauma-informed somatic coach, Joyous Windrider Jiménez, with artist educator, Raíz Infinita. This workshop blends practical nervous system information with collage-making to build a felt and visual representation of our inner sanctuary. Participants will receive an accessible overview of how the nervous system responds to stress, explore calming & self-regulation tools, then use collage and book-making to create a personal “sanctuary book.” The book becomes a portable anchor to return to a "felt sense" of safety during personal or professional overwhelm.
Lead Presenter: Joyous Windrider Jimenez

5:30 pm CT

Lay of the Land Session

6:30 pm CT

Group Dinner

Breakfast on your own

9:00 am CT

Local Breakout Sessions

Invisibly Visible

Invisibly Visible will be a presentation about a project that visualizes the experience of those with invisible disabilities. This presentation will include a short fashion show of wearable artworks, photos of the community exhibition for Invisibly Visible, and goals for the presentation moving forward.

Lead Presenter: Emily Cavender (Ominous Outlooks)

Open the Door: Veteran Pilot Program

How art can help veterans coping with the effects of PTSD

Lead Presenter: Cody Vance

Bodies of Belonging: Movement Practices for Collective Well-Being

This workshop explores how movement can regenerate a sense of belonging, grounding, and emotional resilience. Through guided improvisation, partner witnessing, and gentle group movement, participants practice attunement, empathy, and co-regulation. Drawing from somatic and emergent strategy principles, participants experience how embodied connection supports mental well-being and strengthens community ties.

Lead Presenter: Tanesha S. Payne

10:30 am CT

Local Breakout Sessions

He Gone Cry in the Car" How a poem became a mission

This session will showcase how a poem turned into a successful mental health and Arts Symposium being hosted in three different cities. There will be performances and discussion on arts and healing. "He Gone Cry in the Car" is a poem created out of a cry for help, and as a way to highlight how Black and Brown men run away from dealing with our mental health. This poem turned in to an event that showcase male artist of color, live performances and an intergenerational panel discussion.

Lead Presenter: King Shakur

Documenting Health Issues through Digital Media

This presentation focuses on the creative processes in which students from both film/media and medical humanities at UT San Antonio collaborate to produce short documentaries about health issues affecting their communities. Learning from short and feature-length documentaries that deal with global health crises, students analyze critically their stories and information while they prepare to work on their own productions. Through meaningful collaborations, participants explore the power of documentary filmmaking as they research and discover the insights behind seldom told issues.

Lead Presenter: Guillermina Zabala Suárez

How Creative Dining Builds Community

Sixth Seat is a San Antonio–founded dining and storytelling series that uses food, memory, and conversation to build community and support emotional wellbeing. This session explores how curated dinners and collaborative partnerships with local chefs create safe, intimate spaces for connection and cultural expression. Attendees will learn how creative dining experiences strengthen belonging, improve mental wellness, and foster deeper engagement within local creative ecosystems. The session offers a practical framework for designing intentional gatherings rooted in story, culture, and community care.

Lead Presenter: Jade Paris

11:30 am CT

Lunch

1:00 pm CT

National Breakout Sessions

A Rally for Cultural Placekeeping: Building Affordable, Accessible, and Creative Communities

Across the country, creative spaces are disappearing due to market pressures, displacement, and inequitable growth. As a response, artists and cultural leaders are partnering with civic and economic organizations to redefine what equitable development looks like. This panel highlights Rally Austin, a real estate nonprofit created by the City of Austin to steward public and private assets toward community benefit through initiatives like the Austin Cultural Trust and Iconic Venue Fund. This panel will explore innovative, artist-centered approaches to real estate and cultural infrastructure, strategies for growth, and replicable models of creative placekeeping. Attendees will gain practical insight into frameworks that support equitable, creative ecosystems and learn how artists and cultural workers can be active stakeholders in shaping the cities and communities where they live and work.

Panel organized by Sara Vanderbeek, TX

Money Mindfulness: Rewriting Your Financial Story with Self-Care and Vision

This workshop invites artists and creative entrepreneurs to explore the intersection of money, mindfulness, and self-worth. Through guided reflection, group dialogue, and a hands-on table activity, participants will examine personal money narratives, identify scarcity patterns, and map a values-aligned vision for financial resilience. Rooted in contemplative practices and practical tools, the session supports shifting limiting beliefs around money. By integrating mindfulness with creative financial planning, it offers a compassionate, empowering approach to building a healthier relationship with money. Participants will reflect on money stories, clarify values, and sketch a vision for financial well-being—encouraging self-care, clarity, and action to move from financial stress to intentional, values-driven decision-making.

Led by: Rhonda Schaller, NJ and Dr. Esmilda Abreu, NJ

Local Breakout Session

AnthroTech Toolkit : Using Anthropology & Futurism to Support Artist Mental Well-Being

Artists face constant uncertainty, rapid technological shifts, and emotional labor that impact their sense of identity and well-being. The AnthroTech Toolkit offers an accessible, playful set of anthropological principles and future-tech prompts that help artists make meaning, reduce anxiety, understand their own creative patterns, and build resilience in the face of change. Through guided exercises, card-based activities, and shared reflection, participants explore how culture, technology, identity, and imagination shape their mental and emotional lives as artists.

Lead Presenter: Minakshi Das

2:00 pm CT

Mindful Pause Activities

3:00 pm CT

National Breakout Sessions

We Will Not Go Silent: Building Communities of Care Through Creative Collaboration

How do artists sustain creativity and community in the face of challenge, distance, and change? In this interactive presentation, four members of Breaking Wave Theatre Company (BWTC) - a community-rooted, artist-led organization from Guåhan (Guam) – will invite participants to explore how care, culture, and collaboration can shape thriving creative ecosystems. BWTC ensemble members will share real-world strategies for building partnerships rooted in reciprocity, shared power, and belonging. Participants will reflect on their own creative practices and communities - asking how collaboration can become a form of care, and how care itself can become an act of artistic resistance.

Led by: CJ Ochoco, Breaking Wave Theatre Company, Guam

Session TBA

Local Breakout Session

Empowering Song: Heartwork for Community Well-becoming

This participatory workshop invites community members to explore storytelling and song as collective heartwork. Through guided reflection, shared music-making, and creative dialogue, participants co-create spaces of belonging, healing, and possibility, cultivating practices that nurture community well-becoming and amplify each person’s voice within a supportive, justice-centered environment fostering shared growth together.

Lead Presenter: Emilie Amrein

4:00 pm CT

National Networking

5:00 pm CT

Local Breakout Sessions

Artists, Loss, and the Making of Meaning

Loss is a universal experience and one that is central to conversations around mental health and wellbeing. Artists create work informed by loss for myriad reasons: processing trauma, personal healing, prompting public conversation, and/or grappling with our inevitable mortality. This moderated panel features artists whose work explicitly address loss and death and their journey to make meaning from those experiences.

Lead Presenter: Jennifer Chowning

Fiber, Rhythm, and Resilience: Artistic Engagement in Healthcare Spaces 

For the past six years, I have brought my looms into University Hospital as a guest artist, offering workshops and artist residencies that invite patients, visitors, and staff into the world of weaving. The presence of a loom immediately sparks curiosity—people stop, ask questions, reach out to touch the fibers, and often try weaving themselves. What begins as a moment of distraction becomes something deeper: the calming rhythm of the loom, the tactile comfort of fiber, and the simple act of making create a brief but meaningful escape from stress and uncertainty. Participants frequently describe a sense of grounding and creativity they hadn’t expected, even if they weave only a few inches. When the finished woven artworks are later installed in the hospital, many of those who contributed recognize their part within it and take pride in that shared creation. This session explores how weaving fosters connection, empowerment, and emotional respite within a medical setting—and what artists can learn from engaging communities in places of care.

Lead Presenter: Doerte Weber

Techniques and Tools for Promoting Consent-Based Culture in the Classroom and Performance

Consent-based techniques and tools will be taught to participants by Educator Advocate Dr. Grace Edgar. These techniques include a self-care cue, boundary practice, and vulnerability practice developed by the faculty of Theatrical Intimacy Education (TIE). Participants will be led through exercises to develop these applicable tools. The second portion of the workshop will move into practical applications in the audition, rehearsal, and production processes. The session will close with time for reflection and questions. Participation is open to professors, educators, directors, actors, students, and any other theatre artists interested in learning more about consent-based practices.

Lead Presenter: Dr. Grace Edgar

6:00 pm CT

Dinner on your own

Breakfast on your own

9:00 am CT

Local Breakout Sessions

Inclusive support for special needs creators!

This session aims to inform those wanting to direct creative activities in an inclusive space as to how to best accommodate those with intellectual and physical disabilities via communication strategies and scaffolding techniques that allow people of all cognitive abilities to enjoy express expressing themselves creatively.

Lead Presenter: Kristin Paredez Tuttle

Addiction and Art

This session will explore how artistic expression helps us to understand, in a way that is complementary to science, how addiction affects individuals, the body, families, and communities. We will explore addiction through sculpture, installation, and mixed-media storytelling. We will examine how creative practice complements research, transforming invisible struggles into visible narratives. The goal of this session is to demonstrate how art functions as a powerful companion to scientific inquiry. Art does not replace scientific truth; instead, it expands it, inspiring empathy by communicating what data cannot quantify. By bringing creative interpretation into conversations about addiction, we gain a more holistic understanding of its emotional, physical, and social impact on individuals, families, and entire communities. We will explore how to do this out of addiction in conversations about mental health, chronic illness, environmental crisis, or social inequality, scientific research offers the facts we need, diagnostics, statistics, and data-driven solutions.
Lead Presenter: Emma Creps

The Body Remembers: Movement, Mark, and Release

This session is an embodied, trauma-informed workshop that combines accessible martial arts inspired movement with expressive mark-making to support emotional regulation, stress reduction, and connection to self and others. Participants are guided through slow, intentional movements drawn from beginner-level martial arts forms, focused on breath, grounding, balance, and repetition. These gestures are then translated into visual marks using drawing tools on large paper surfaces. This process allows participants to externalize emotion, access embodied memory, and communicate beyond words, turning physical movement into visual language. No prior experience in martial arts or art-making is required. Modifications and options are provided for all abilities and mobility levels, including seated and low-impact variations. The workshop is designed to be inclusive, non-intimidating, and adaptable for use in community settings, classrooms, healthcare environments, and personal practice. Situated in San Antonio’s unique context as a major military and medical hub, this session offers participants practical methods for working with the nervous system and for reframing the disciplined body not as a site of control, but as a site of agency, knowledge, release, and healing. Participants will leave with both personal insight and a simple, transferable framework for integrating embodied art practices into their own wellbeing or professional contexts.

Lead Presenter: Naomi Even-Aberle

10:30 am CT

Local Breakout Sessions

Self-Driving Ensembles: Empowering Musicians, Improving Cohesiveness, and Strengthening Culture

Recent neuroscientific research on musical perception, empathy, and collaborative creativity offers powerful insight into how ensemble music-making supports emotional wellbeing and mental health. Many of these effects are linked to mirror-neuron activity and the phenomenon of “emotional contagion,” the natural inclination to mirror facial expressions, breath patterns, physical gestures, and movement, often leading to shared emotional states. Evidence from fMRI studies, biochemical markers, and high-speed video analysis shows how synchronized music-making promotes emotional regulation, stress reduction, and group cohesion. Across all ensemble types, musicians rely on far more than sound. Visual cues, subtle gestures, breath preparation, and coordinated physical movements allow musicians to predict one another’s intentions with remarkable accuracy, even in the absence of a conductor. Physical synchrony boosts not only musical precision but also confidence, belonging, and emotional alignment. In this user-friendly session, Seighman will demonstrate techniques that strengthen musical autonomy, emotional wellbeing, and a deep sense of belonging within ensembles. Understanding these mechanisms gives musicians new tools to cultivate healthier group dynamics, greater artistic freedom, and even more musical precision. We have long known that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Now science helps us understand why. The session will provide time for Q&A.

Lead Presenter: Dr. Gary Seighman

The Power of Trauma and Art

Brief review of the nature of trauma and the depth of responses by persons experiencing it, the impact this has on their perception and meaning of life and the power of art to heal and help connect the traumatized to the community in a non-judgmental way. Examples of artwork in group therapy, a community art project, writing a book, theater scenarios, an musical interventions will be discussed.

Lead Presenter: Denise Cardin Abney, Ph.D.

Maiz Making and Memories for Future, Present, and Past (Re)generations of our Millenial Relationship

This workshop invites participants to cultivate and/or nourish their relationship with maiz and to consider what maiz teaches each of us about resistance to colonial capitalist systems for our future, present, and past (re)generations. Through engaging in the art of storytelling/listening via circle dialogue, tortilla making, and eating together, participants will reflect on their relationships with maiz, grow in their understanding of Indigenous peoples’ covenant with maiz, maiz as food medicine, and what maiz teaches us about reciprocity and relationality. Participants are encouraged to engage their senses as we remember and (re)story together, our millennial knowings and relationships with maiz.

Lead Presenter: Marial Quezada

11:30 am CT

Lunch

1:00 pm CT

National Breakout Sessions

Designing Funding that Nourishes the Artist - Not Just Their Output

What if funding didn’t just fuel the next project - but actually nourished the whole artist? This session centers four community-designed funding models - the BIPOC Artist Fund, Creative West Artist Fund, Cultural Sustainability Program, and Pacific Jurisdictions Artist Fund - that are reshaping the landscape by centering artist well-being, not just productivity. Led by cultural strategist Anika Tené alongside brilliant co-designers, this session dives into what it truly looks like when wellness, pacing, and relational trust are designed into funding from the start - not treated as afterthoughts. Participants will hear how these initiatives rejected extractive grantmaking and instead embedded coaching, wellness stipends, and flexible timelines to reflect the lived realities of artists - particularly those in BIPOC, Indigenous, rural, and under-resourced communities. Participants will walk away with concrete strategies, adaptable frameworks, and inspiration to champion care-centered, equity-rooted funding practices within their own institutions and networks.

Led by: Anika Tene, VA

Changemakers in Civic Spaces – Strategic Advocacy Pathways for Creatives

Artists are catalysts for empathy, innovation, and change. How can creative voices shape civic life and public policy? Changemakers in Civic Spaces explores how artists can move from community-based action to influencing decision-making at local, state, and federal levels. Three dynamic panelists will share real-world strategies across three key pathways: Community Organizing, where creative practice mobilizes neighborhoods and builds collective voice; Advocacy for All, which maps access points for every level of engagement from small, everyday actions to sustained leadership; and Creatives in Office, guiding artists who aspire to serve in appointed or elected roles. Participants will leave with practical tools, frameworks, and inspiration to see themselves as changemakers in civic spaces. They will gain a deeper understanding of how artistic skills translate into organizing, policy influence, and governance; recognize multiple entry points for advocacy regardless of experience level; and build confidence to move from awareness to action. The session fosters connection, empowerment, and a shared vision for sustainable, artist-led advocacy that drives thriving creative communities.

Organized by: Eepi Chaad, TX

Local Breakout Session

Aging with Harmony: Building Collaborative Music and Healing Programs for Elderly Communities in San Antonio

There is an increasing body of literature outlining the beneficial effects of engagement with the arts on a variety of health outcomes, especially in aging populations. This panel will feature faculty and students from university arts and graduate health professions disciplines who have led music initiatives within elderly populations across the San Antonio metropolitan area. Faculty will discuss their experiences with training in principles of community engagement, the benefits of arts engagement for elderly communities, and how to foster conversation between arts and health professions educators on facilitating arts initiatives for health and well-being in the community. Students will discuss rewards and challenges of teaching arts to older adults, what they have learned about community engagement and the arts for wellbeing, and their future hopes for this interdisciplinary work. The panel will include examples from published research and professional development in arts and health to ground this work in the growing field of arts and health.

Lead Presenter: Tracy Cowden

2:15 pm CT

Sending Session

ON-DEMAND RECORDED SESSIONS

These are available through the app for registered attendees from March -May.

Arts Writing and Publishing as Creative Infrastructure

Led by Xiao deCuncha and Nyonu Branch-Watkins

In this panel discussion, arts writers, critics, and publishing professionals will discuss how arts writing is an essential link in the arts & culture infrastructure. Some topics to be discussed include:

How do local arts and culture-focusing publications contribute to the development of the artistic community and connect the public with the arts?
How do art writers and artists mutually benefit each other when it comes to professional development?
What is the impact of the general lack of structured training for new art writers?
What type of programs can be incorporated into public and private programming from schools, galleries, organizations, and cultural institutions to ensure a robust art criticism community, especially in the Midwest (outside of Chicago)?
Faced with worsening funding struggles, how can independent publishers, art critics, and publications find creative ways to sustainability and lasting growth?
How can art writing serve as leverage to propel local artists into larger markets? And vice versa, how can art writing bridge the gap and bring in new ideas into local art scenes?
How do art writing and art/culture publications interact with activism, policymaking, and other pressing matters in civic spaces?

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Becoming a Teaching Artist

Led by Gowri Savoor and Heather Bryce, Co-directors of Teaching Artists Connect

In this fun and engaging session, participants will be introduced to the field of Teaching Artistry, and find alignments with the Artists Thrive Rubric, Planning and Capacity. We’ll explore what teaching artists do, what settings they work in, and how to generate income. We’ll define how teaching artists are different from art teachers and/or art therapists, and explore different residency settings where teaching artists can thrive. For those new to teaching artistry, we’ll introduce participants to different pathways to entering the field of teaching artistry, and offer strategies for assessment and documentation. In our final section, we’ll discuss what success looks like, and ask participants to complete a worksheet defining their unique attributes, passions, and goals, and how they can use their creativity to activate the artistry of others.

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Creating Your Own Artists’ Collective: Why, How, Where?!

Led by Alana Ladson, Freelance Artist

This presentation is about creating your own artist collective wherever you live or virtually. Alana will be speaking on her journey into creating her artist collective, The Rooted Collective, in Connecticut, and how she was able to run three cohorts of the fellowship and foster a sense of community amongst the members during that time. Here's how she did it, and here's how you can create your own!

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Creative Futures: Understanding Arts Alumni Experiences and Trajectories Through SNAAP Pulse

Led by Lee Ann Scotto Adams and Christian Folk, SNAAP

How do arts graduates build meaningful and sustainable lives in today’s creative economy? This session introduces insights from SNAAP Pulse, a new initiative of the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project that explores how arts alumni define success, sustain creative work, and adapt to challenges such as AI and financial precarity. Drawing on national survey data from thousands of graduates, presenters will highlight trends in creative careers, equity, and artistic identity after graduation. Participants will learn how institutions and arts organizations can apply SNAAP findings to strengthen alumni engagement, reimagine curriculum, and advocate for creative labor. By centering alumni voices and data-driven insights, this session invites educators, funders, and arts leaders to re-envision how we support artists across their careers and to imagine creative futures grounded in connection, evidence, and care.

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Estate Planning and Readiness for Musicians and Its Possibilities

Led by Gene Meneray & Ashlye Keaton, Co-founders of The Ella Project and Elizabeth Meneray, Founding Partner of the New Orleans law firm, Meneray Family Law, L.L.C.

The Ella Project presents Rampart: A Legacy Planning & Readiness Guide for Musicians. This is a step by step guide for musicians and/or their heirs to protect their legacy, their intellectual property, and prepare their estate. Rampart also provides guidance to heirs whose loved ones may have died without complete estate planning.

In this Guide, you’ll learn:

How to document your work right now to develop an estate plan.
How to work with museums and institutions if you are interested in leaving them assets.
How to protect your digital afterlife.
How to protect your files from loss, theft, fire, hurricane, flood or other disaster.
What information you need to draft a will.
What to do if someone dies without a will.
What documents you need (living will, power of attorney) to prepare to take care of your needs when you no longer can.
How to open a succession for a large or small estate.

Schedule

Times are in Central Time Subject to change. Registered attendees will have access to more details.

Times are in Central Time
Subject to change. Registered attendees will have access to more details.