Owensboro Portrait Project
Maria Clark Photography & Greater Owensboro Leadership Institute
Building and Strengthening Community Connections Through Art
Owensboro, Ky., is a small but lively community of about 60,000 people. For the past year, the Greater Owensboro Leadership Institute has partnered with the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation to gain tools and insight for building civic capacity in the Owensboro–Daviess County area. This initiative brings together community members from a wide range of sectors, demographics, and socioeconomic backgrounds to collaboratively build toward a shared vision for Greater Owensboro. The work centers on four key areas of opportunity—Homelessness and Housing, Youth, Health and Wellbeing, and the Arts. Within each area, small groups hold community conversations to gain Public Knowledge: an understanding of people’s aspirations and the barriers they see standing in the way of achieving them.
Across these conversations, participants expressed a desire for more intentional public gathering spaces, particularly for artists. People in Owensboro also want stronger connections across differences, which they believe will lead to a more inclusive, safer, and more vibrant community.
As the Arts Team, it is our task to find creative ways to help drive the community toward its aspirations. We have been doing this through two projects: one which began as an arts mixer and has evolved into a community art workshop, and a community portrait project. The RUX microgrant helped us to host a fall arts mixer to connect local artists, and subsequently a Community Art Workshop. We have also been able to print our Portrait Project and install it for public display so that our community members can learn about, and feel more connected to, others in Owensboro.
Arts Mixer & Community Art Workshop
While Owensboro has quite a few artists—both professionals and hobbyists—the vast majority feel that they tend to work in silos and do not know each other well enough to collaborate nearly as much as they would like. As a way to facilitate these connections and to build bridges across differences, the Owensboro-Harwood Arts Team hosted several artist mixers to bring local artists together and explore how to move toward this vision. Our first mixer happened in May 2025 (pre-grant) at the Western Kentucky Botanical Gardens. All Owensboroans who enjoy and thrive in creative spaces were invited to share in local food, the beauty of the gardens, and the opportunities to build connections. The event was deemed very successful—many guests asked when the next one would be. To answer that call, we held a second artist mixer in late September, supported by RUX. This mixer had a similarly positive response, and it opened the door for a large group conversation about arts and connection in Owensboro.
Kentucky Sound Stage, a new television and film studio in Owensboro, provided the space for this event. This allowed guests an opportunity to learn about Kentucky Sound Stage, meet its leadership, and tour the studio, further connecting artists and organizations with a local resource for creative projects and collaboration, which has already generated new relationships.
This mixer also gave guests a peek at the start of the Owensboro Portrait Project.
In November 2025, the group decided to create a series of public Art Workshops centered on the theme of Community. In response to concerns raised about housing and accessibility, the group chose to host the first workshop in a space welcoming to unhoused residents of Owensboro.
On December 30, we held our first Arts Workshop at the Daniel Pitino Shelter, which provides emergency and transitional housing for unhoused members of the Owensboro-Daviess County community. A microgrant from RUX in partnership with the Kentucky Foundation for Women was used to purchase supplies of good quality paper, canvasses, paints and brushes, clay ornaments and cards. We were also able to pay artists for their work leading the workshops.
Artists featured included Sarah Higdon, a member of the Owensboro Art Guild; Lila Meador, an Evansville native who notably leads similar workshops at the Boulware Center and other places in Owensboro; and Emma Peercy, an emerging young artist whose work is inspired by anime. They were each asked to conceive of a project around the theme of “What Kind of Community Do You Want to Live In?” and then co-create an art piece with guests of the shelter.
Sarah led the creation of a painting, depicting hands holding a colorful bouquet of flowers and words contributed by several community members, such as “Friendship,” “Unity,” and “Trust.”
Emma walked guests through creating a paper doll of themselves, which could then be assembled into a chain of friends holding hands. A mother and daughter worked together on their pieces, both stating that they love to draw but haven’t gotten to do so for a while.
Lila brought clay ornaments and cards where participants could talk about joy; one guest shared that “It makes me joyful to see my kids happy with big smiles on their face.”
Guests also brought their own artistic inspiration; three of the young people in attendance described football as their place for community and worked with Haley, a Harwood group member, to craft tributes to their favorite teams.
Two other guests made paintings celebrating their children by lettering their names and adding illustrations of hearts and flowers (not pictured).
With about 20 participants, this was a beautiful opportunity for intergenerational connection. Adults in the room were reluctant at first – how many of us think of “arts and crafts” as a kids-only activity? – but eventually they were drawn in, commenting on the children’s work and then adding their own. While the art projects themselves were really special, they were most valuable as a vehicle for people to connect with one another. This Art Workshop is a great first step at building a concrete vision for a more connected, supportive Owensboro-Daviess County, and ultimately a more connected Kentucky.
Owensboro Portrait Project
The Owensboro Portrait Project is an ongoing initiative to build and strengthen connections within Owensboro’s community. It works to foster such connections by showcasing Owensboro community members and their unique stories, with the hope that those who engage with them find a common humanity and a bond with fellow Owensboroans. A few members of the Arts Team paired off as interviewers and photographers, capturing images of community members against a backdrop that make Owensboro feel like home, and interviewing participants to understand what connects their hearts to Owensboro.
Working through personal connections and the suggestions of others, the team is focused on community members whose stories are not as well known, who do not otherwise have a platform to share their stories, or who have been marginalized by the community, the goal being to bring hidden stories to the forefront.
Once collected, each photograph and associated story was pulled together into a single print design. These designs were printed at 24” square and installed in the lobby of Daviess County Public Library, where a large volume of people from all walks of life have opportunities to see and engage with them. The project drew in viewers from the moment it was installed.
The Owensboro Portrait Project is deeply meaningful to participants and viewers alike. People appreciate being asked to tell their stories. They feel seen, heard, honored, and respected for who they are and their life experiences. Many of the stories participants choose to share are of redemption or positive growth from hardship.
Publicly sharing these stories and images conveys a vulnerability that viewers can feel and connect with, giving weight and value to the viewers’ own stories and encouraging them to share about themselves. What we are learning is that everyone we talk with loves being a Kentuckian and being part of the Owensboro community.
Our hope is that this project develops into an easily replicable process and brings in more locals who are interested in conducting interviews and creating portraits, building more connections that way as well. As we continue to collect portraits and stories, we plan to rotate in new images at the library, as well as add new project installations at other locations throughout Owensboro. We are also currently in the process of establishing an Instagram account for the Portrait Project, which will create a mechanism for people to contact us and suggest new participants or let us know if they would like to share their own stories. Community connections are already growing in Owensboro.
—Maria Clark Photography & Greater Owensboro Leadership Institute
The Kentucky Intercultural Microgrant Program is a seed grant to support two or more individuals or organizations collaborating across distance, difference, or sector on projects that celebrate and connect Kentucky's people and places. Our 2025 funding partners included Kentucky Arts Council, Fund for the Arts, Kentucky Foundation for Women, Kentucky Waterways Alliance, EarthTools, and individual donors. Learn more at kyrux.org/microgrants