The role of the cultural worker is to discern, nurture, cultivate, and encourage the existing culture of a place.

Mary Welcome (Palouse, Washington/Idaho) is a multidisciplinary cultural worker.  As an artist-organizer, her projects are rooted in community engagement and the development of intersectional programming to address equity, cultural advocacy, inclusivity, visibility, and imagination. She brings a nuanced perspective to the contemporary field, as an organizer working in service to small towns, as a cultural producer across American geographies, and as a facilitator of place-based arts programming.

She believes in small towns, long winters, optimists, parades, and talking about feelings. 

She is currently serves as the artist-in-residence for the Washington State Department of Transportation and a civic designer for the City of Palouse. 

Her collective and collaborative partners include Cabin-Time, Homeboat, M12 Studio, Brokeback Palouse, the Department of Public Transformation, Camp Little Hope, Art of the Rural, Common Field, Springboard for the Arts, and the United States Postal Service.

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In the meantime, here’s a

Mary Welcome Reader

→ WSDOT announces the first statewide residency program, Washington State Department of Transportation
→ Get To Know Washington State’s New Artists-in-Residence, Transportation for America
→ Mary Welcome + Nicole Lavelle, Wolfman’s New Life Quarterly
→ We Are All We Have: The Practice of Neighboring, MN Artists (with Ashley Hanson)
→The Great Middle America Motion Picture Show, Medium, Mary Welcome
→ Mary Welcome welcomes new neighbors all around the country, Artists With Impact, Creative Exchange
→ Artist Profile: Mary Welcome, Artist Trust
→ Artist Spotlight: Mary Welcome, Artist Trust