Mode of Program Participation
Performances and Arts
Participation Type
Performance
Session Title
Create Your State
Session Abstract or Summary
The Create Your State Tour is a multimedia educational presentation and workshop that inspires and empowers creative community revitalization and development. It provides a full program of immersive experiential learning for leaders, entrepreneurs, artists, students and other involved citizens.
The presentation tells the inspiring story of arts-driven community transformation in Princeton, West Virginia through the eyes of artists and cultural entrepreneurs Lori McKinney and Robert Blankenship. The workshop features the original music of Option 22, visual projections and a compelling exchange about how the arts, creativity and an out-of-the-box approach can establish a creative scene that redefines and reinvigorates a community.
Participants will leave with skills, tools and on-the-ground contacts to ignite positive change in their communities. They will have access to a web portal with step-by-step instructional toolkits, video shorts, webinars and more. And they will receive ongoing guidance from the Create Your State (CYS) founders to execute community projects and plant new creative capital in their communities.
This year, infused with funding from The Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, ten West Virginia towns were given the opportunity to host the tour, explore forward-thinking possibilities, and plan meaningful creative projects that will become the catalyst for social and economic change.
Find out more at createyourstate.org.
Presentation #1 Title
Create Your State
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
The Create Your State Tour is a multimedia educational presentation and workshop that inspires and empowers creative community revitalization and development. It provides a full program of immersive experiential learning for leaders, entrepreneurs, artists, students and other involved citizens. The presentation tells the inspiring story of arts-driven community transformation in Princeton, West Virginia through the eyes of artists and cultural entrepreneurs Lori McKinney and Robert Blankenship. The workshop features the original music of Option 22, visual projections and a compelling exchange about how the arts, creativity and an out-of-the-box approach can establish a creative scene that redefines and reinvigorates a community. Participants will leave with skills, tools and on-the-ground contacts to ignite positive change in their communities. They will have access to a web portal with step-by-step instructional toolkits, video shorts, webinars and more. And they will receive ongoing guidance from the Create Your State (CYS) founders to execute community projects and plant new creative capital in their communities. This year, infused with funding from The Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, ten West Virginia towns were given the opportunity to host the tour, explore forward-thinking possibilities, and plan meaningful creative projects that will become the catalyst for social and economic change. Find out more at createyourstate.org.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Lori McKinney - Blankenship, co-founder and administrator of the RiffRaff Arts Collective, is primarily a performing and recording artist (vocals, drums, dance, spoken word). She has been writing and recording music since the year 2000. Her years previous were spent gaining a B.A. in Music Theatre from James Madison University, performing in scores of productions there, and performing professionally over the summers as a featured singer / dancer at Paramount’s Carowinds in Charlotte, NC and Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, TN. She spent a semester her senior year in London, UK, where she discovered her alternative sensibilities and emerged as an independent, veering from a life of auditions into a world of her own creation. She established LLyniuM entertainment and dreamed of producing multimedia shows which would bring people together and inspire change. Lori searched for musical collaborators and hit the jackpot when she found her soul mate, Robert. The two merged in a profound way and have not stopped writing and recording since. Choosing to plant roots in McKinney's home town of Princeton, WV, together they founded Culturefest World Music & Arts Festival and Option 22 in 2004, formed the RiffRaff Arts Collective in 2006 and All Together Arts Week in 2009. In 2012 she and Robert teamed with members of the community to create Princeton Renaissance Project, a multi-faceted downtown development effort. She feels blessed to have merged with rest of the members of the collective; they have found a mutual space in which to create, encourage and inspire one another and the community. Robert and Lori, joined by Option 22, now tour the region inspiring and empowering other communities to transform their environment with their original multi-media production, Create Your State. Lori lives and works at the RiffRaff, doing what it takes to make the wheels of the business turn as she and the other artists conceive productions for the future.
Create Your State
The Create Your State Tour is a multimedia educational presentation and workshop that inspires and empowers creative community revitalization and development. It provides a full program of immersive experiential learning for leaders, entrepreneurs, artists, students and other involved citizens. The presentation tells the inspiring story of arts-driven community transformation in Princeton, West Virginia through the eyes of artists and cultural entrepreneurs Lori McKinney and Robert Blankenship. The workshop features the original music of Option 22, visual projections and a compelling exchange about how the arts, creativity and an out-of-the-box approach can establish a creative scene that redefines and reinvigorates a community. Participants will leave with skills, tools and on-the-ground contacts to ignite positive change in their communities. They will have access to a web portal with step-by-step instructional toolkits, video shorts, webinars and more. And they will receive ongoing guidance from the Create Your State (CYS) founders to execute community projects and plant new creative capital in their communities. This year, infused with funding from The Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, ten West Virginia towns were given the opportunity to host the tour, explore forward-thinking possibilities, and plan meaningful creative projects that will become the catalyst for social and economic change. Find out more at createyourstate.org.
