I have been preparing for my first Little Cities tour to the Midwest/West North Central region, thinking about where to go, who to speak to, what to ask and what to tell. The tour began as a return to my roots—visiting the towns I lived in growing up, looking back on the art and artists that inspired me. But Little Cities is bigger than just me. This project was born from the idea that philanthropy is changing, the economy is changing, and something must be done to help artists who live outside major metro areas gain a foothold in the workforce and earn a living wage while telling the stories of an America that the major media (including arts publications) often overlooks.

A recent study of the National Endowment for the Arts divides the arts workforce into four geographical regions: Northeast, Southeast, South and West. From September 24 to October 7 I will be visiting the West North Central sub-region of the Midwest (sounds technical, doesn’t it?). My tour will include Wichita, Kansas City, Des Moines, Rochester and Good Thunder (MN), St. Croix Falls (WI), Sioux Falls, and Omaha.

Here is what I am working toward: collected stories, told through visual art, literature and music, that make you think about the world around you. Housing, transportation, economy, sexuality look different in Laramie than they do in Los Angeles.

Here is what I don’t want: A roundup. No “Best Artists of [Insert Region Here],” no State by State . There is a place for these, but that place mostly involves curators and arts insiders. Nobody walks away from the Whitney Biennial with a deeper cultural awareness of life in little cities. They walk away with a few names of artists to watch.

Here’s the double-edged sword: I haven’t been able to find anything like this out there. This means looking through a LOT of roundups. MNArtists.org, the Emerging Iowa Artists Program. Writers often don’t have a web presence, or if they do they don’t list where they live, or they say they live and work in Omaha AND New York. There is a stigma attached to living outside a major metro area.

Little Cities is not about the Rise of the Creative Class . It’s not about art in empty storefronts, or economic development. Little Cities is about cultural preservation, leveraging the collective power of artists off the beaten path, and providing an opportunity for their work to be seen, read and heard.

And, as I am only beginning to realize, it is going to take a lot of hard work.