Author: Frankie Felegy

Here’s your excuse to traverse the Midwest—in pursuit of cool art happenings! With your help, we compiled an array of bucket-list travel spots across the region with artsy ties. 

We asked y’all for local band recommendations, plus a few favorites from staff here at Arts Midwest. Listen up!

Paint from this Ohio company starts out as orange sludge from a polluted creek.

This old-time music and dance festival is set in the chilly woods of northeast Minnesota. The weekend is a celebration of winter triumph, collective joy, and movement.

A Minnesota-based comic book artist is sharing colorful stories about battling anxiety and other mental health gremlins.

Bad River: A Story of Defiance (2024) follows the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in northern Wisconsin.

Students and staff at a rural Indiana school grow and harvest produce, and serve it up for lunch.

Minnesota-based Nashke Native Games is breathing new life into dying languages, in the classroom and beyond.

South Dakotan Amber Zora reflects on packing up her military uniform – and bringing it back out (metaphorically) in her art practice.

In Anoka, Minnesota, Halloween is more than a day—it's a month-long celebration over 100 years in the making.