A Mississippi native, Jennifer Drinkwater is an artist, an associate professor of art & visual culture and the community arts specialist for extension and outreach at Iowa State University. Jennifer explores how we bring artwork from the studio into the world, and how art-making can both build and shape community. Over the years, she’s created installations in restored prairies in Nebraska; collaborated on public art projects in vacant sites on Iowa main streets; spearheaded a community knit-bombing project; painted murals with middle school children on a juke joint in the Mississippi Delta and in Perry, Iowa; and written free digital toolkits about these projects.

Jennifer’s also the creator of The What’s Good Project, which celebrates the meaningful stories from where we live through community conversations and painting. Although she’s spent one year of her life living in tents, Jennifer currently resides with her husband and dog in an almost tiny house in Ames, Iowa.