About Smalltown Society
…A place for artists to be launched from and a community to fall back on.
Smalltown Society is an arts collective, independent music label, and emerging media network rooted in the geographical center of the East Bay.
We exist to help artists create meaningful work, build sustainable lives, and form lasting relationships with the communities around them. Through live events, artist development, collaborative projects, media, mentorship, and community-centered spaces, we are building an ecosystem where creativity is not for the chosen few to be consumed by the rest, but as an essential and sacred act for all to participate, in order for all voices to be heard, neighborhoods to flourish, and a better world to emerge.
Our work begins locally, but our vision extends far beyond any single town, venue, or artistic discipline. We believe that when artists are given space, trust, resources, and a genuine community, their work can travel farther than anyone imagined.
Our Mission
“Smalltown Society is dedicated to empowering artists, enriching culture, and anchoring community connections. We aim to foster an ecosystem where creativity thrives and communities flourish.”
Our Story
Smalltown Society began in 2016 with a simple conviction: art is already being created in our communities, but too many artists lack the spaces, relationships, resources, and opportunities needed to develop their work.
The problem was never a lack of talent.
The problem was that many emerging artists were being asked to build alone.
They needed places to perform before they had a following. They needed encouragement before they had confidence. They needed collaborators, mentors, equipment, audiences, exposure and opportunities to experiment without being expected to arrive as a finished product.
Smalltown Society began creating those spaces.
What started as a local effort to bring artists and neighbors together has grown into a broader movement for community-based cultural development. Since its founding, Smalltown has produced and supported hundreds of live events, worked alongside dozens of emerging artists, and created opportunities for musicians, poets, filmmakers, visual artists, comedians, dancers, storytellers, and other creative people to share their work.
Our events have taken place in cafés, theaters, schools, marketplaces, community spaces, and unexpected corners of the East Bay. Each gathering has reinforced the same idea: culture does not have to be imported into a community. It can be cultivated from within.
Smalltown Society is not simply an event producer or a platform for showcasing talent. We are building long-term cultural infrastructure, a network of people, spaces, programs, and resources that allows artists to grow while remaining connected to the places and people who shaped them.
Why “Smalltown”?
The name Smalltown Society reflects our belief that meaningful culture is built through proximity. As Brian Eno states:
“Like all art students, I was encouraged to believe that there were a few great figures like Picasso and Kandinsky, Rembrandt and Giotto and so on who sort-of appeared out of nowhere and produced artistic revolution,as I looked at art more and more, I discovered that that wasn’t really a true picture. What really happened was that there were sometimes very fertile scenes involving…all sorts of people who created a kind of ecology of talent. And out of that ecology arose some wonderful work…So I came up with this word ‘scenius’ – the intelligence of a whole operation or group of people. I think that’s a more useful way to think about culture. Let’s forget the idea of ‘genius’ for a little while, let’s think about the whole ecology of ideas that give rise to good new thoughts and good new work.”
It is built when people create together, in community.
It is built when artists are not separated from their audiences, when emerging voices are welcomed into the room, and when creative work becomes part of the everyday life of a community.
“Smalltown” is not a description of population or geography. It is a way of relating to one another. It represents belonging, collaboration, mutual responsibility, and the belief that everyone has something valuable to contribute.
In a culture increasingly shaped by algorithms, isolation, competition, and constant self-promotion, Smalltown offers another way: artists and communities growing together.
What We Do
Artist Development
Smalltown Society supports artists at every stage of their development, from people sharing their work publicly for the first time to established artists preparing for larger opportunities.
Our artist development work may include:
Creative mentorship and project guidance
Performance and showcase opportunities
Artist branding and identity development
Recording and production support
Collaborative projects
Booking assistance
Promotional content and media coverage
Connections with venues, producers, photographers, filmmakers, designers, and other artists
Guidance on audience development and sustainable creative careers
We do not believe artists should be forced into a single model of success. Our role is not to manufacture a product or impose an identity. Our role is to help artists recognize their strengths, deepen their craft, understand their goals, build the relationships and tools necessary to move forward, and discover who they are.
2. The LAB
The LAB is the hub of everything Smalltown does, and is an on-ramp into the community.
Each LAB begins with a featured local band or artist, followed by an open mic where musicians, poets, comedians, storytellers, dancers, and performers of all kinds can share pieces they’re currently working on.
Artists do not need to be professionals or have everything figured out. The LAB is a place to try something new, develop a craft, meet collaborators, and experience the creativity growing within the community.
The LAB removes the traditional divide between performer and audience. Someone may arrive as a guest, step onto the stage for the first time, discover a new collaborator, and return months later as a featured artist.
That movement—from observer to participant, and from participant to leader—is at the heart of Smalltown Society.
3. Other LABs and Workshops
The original LAB showed us what can happen when people are given permission to arrive unfinished: to test an idea, practice their craft, meet collaborators, and grow in public without the pressure to already be established.
As more kinds of artists entered the Smalltown community, we began creating additional LABs, workshops, and gatherings shaped around different creative disciplines. Each offers another doorway into the Smalltown ecosystem, while sharing the same foundation: accessible space, creative courage, meaningful collaboration, and community over competition.
Writing JAMs
Writing JAMs are a free, two-hour creative refuge for writers, poets, storytellers, and anyone who feels the pull toward the page.
Led by author and story doula Amy Henderson of Writing One True Thing, participants write together in short, guided bursts, take creative risks, and share their words when they choose, not to impress one another, but to practice honesty and rediscover their own voices.
Writers do not need previous experience, a finished manuscript, or even a clear idea of what they want to say. Writing JAMs create a supportive place to face the blank page together, follow unexpected ideas, and remember why our words matter.
It is less about producing something perfect and more about making space for something true.
The Uppercut
The Uppercut is Smalltown’s Comedy LAB: a monthly gathering for anyone passionate about making, performing, or developing comedy.
Rather than operating as a traditional open mic, The Uppercut gives comedians dedicated stage time to explore new material in a supportive room. Participants can perform stand-up, sketches, character work, storytelling, or more experimental forms of comedy, with opportunities to receive immediate and constructive feedback.
Led by comedian James Strawser, The Uppercut is built around the belief that humor grows through practice and community. It gives experienced comedians room to sharpen their work while welcoming new voices who may be stepping behind a microphone for the first time.
There is no pressure to arrive polished. The purpose is to take risks, discover what connects, and become better together.
Ideas LAB
Ideas LAB is an open mic for ideas.
It is a space where people can share questions, proposals, dreams, experiments, community projects, and half-formed thoughts that may not yet have another place to go.
Participants can bring an idea they are actively developing or simply something they cannot stop thinking about. The room becomes a place to brainstorm, ask questions, find collaborators, receive feedback, and explore how an idea might move from imagination into action.
Ideas LAB welcomes artists, organizers, activists, educators, entrepreneurs, neighbors, students, and anyone interested in creating positive change in their community or challenging how we see the world.
Not every idea needs to become a formal project. Sometimes the first important step is simply saying it aloud in a room of people who are willing to listen.
Creative LAB
The Creative LAB is our open house: a co-working and collaborative space all in one.
There is no formal agenda and no expectation that participants arrive with a finished project. We simply provide space, equipment, dedicated creative time, and a community of people who are also making things.
Artists can bring a song, instrument, poem, visual project, recording, unfinished idea, or simply themselves. Some participants work quietly on their own, while others exchange feedback, meet collaborators, experiment with new tools, or begin creating something together.
The Creative LAB also serves as a home for long-term community projects, including collaborative recordings, multimedia work, and the development of Smalltown albums created from the ground up within our space.
It is a place to begin, continue, experiment, and encounter what other people are creating.
Workshops and Future LABs
Smalltown also develops workshops in response to the needs, interests, and abilities already present within our community.
These may include songwriting, recording, performance, storytelling, media production, visual art, creative entrepreneurship, organizing, and other practical or exploratory subjects. Whenever possible, workshops are led by working artists and community members who can share both their skills and lived experience.
As Smalltown grows, so will the range of LABs we offer. Our goal is not to force every discipline into the same program, but to create distinct spaces where different kinds of artists can practice mediums together.
Whether someone enters through comedy, writing, music, community organizing, visual art, or an idea that does not yet have a name, each gathering offers the same invitation:
Come as you are. Bring what you are working on. Help us build what happens next.
4. Smalltown Records
Smalltown Records is a nonprofit, multi-artist music label designed around artist empowerment rather than exploitation or extraction.
The label supports artists through recording, production, release strategy, promotion, live performance, visual storytelling, audience development, and collaborative partnerships.
Traditional music industry systems often require artists to surrender ownership, control, or financial stability in exchange for access. We work toward a different model, one in which artists receive meaningful support while retaining their voice, identity, and connection to their work.
Smalltown Records will serve as both a launchpad and a long-term creative home, helping locally rooted artists reach regional, national, and international audiences.
5. Smalltown Media
Smalltown Media is our storytelling and cultural media network.
Through interviews, articles, podcasts, live sessions, photography, film, social media and our independent zine, we document the people and ideas shaping our community.
Smalltown Media helps artists communicate the meaning behind their work while giving broad audiences a deeper understanding of the communities, histories, and experiences that shape it.
We are building a living archive of local culture—one that values emerging voices as much as established names.
6. Performances, Showcases, and Community Events
Smalltown produces and supports performances in traditional and nontraditional spaces throughout the East Bay.
These events bring artists into direct relationship with their communities while introducing audiences to work they may not otherwise encounter. They also provide artists with practical experience, documentation, professional connections, and opportunities to expand their audience.
Our gatherings are designed to be welcoming, intergenerational, and accessible. They are places where young artists can perform alongside experienced musicians, where families can encounter new art together, and where community members can become active participants in the cultural life of their neighborhood.
7. Collaborative Community Projects
Some of Smalltown’s most meaningful work happens when artists from different backgrounds and disciplines create together.
We develop collaborative recordings, performances, publications, workshops, installations, community conversations, and multimedia projects that explore the stories and concerns of our region.
These projects allow artists to move beyond individual promotion and participate in something shared. They also create space for art to respond to questions of identity, justice, belonging, memory, place, and collective imagination.
Our Values
Artists Are People, Not Products
Artists deserve more than exposure. They deserve relationships, resources, fair opportunities, creative agency, and respect.
We care about the person behind the work. Success should not require an artist to sacrifice their health, identity, ownership, or connection to community.
Community Over Competition
We reject the belief that one artist’s success must come at another artist’s expense.
Smalltown encourages artists to exchange knowledge, share opportunities, collaborate across disciplines, and celebrate one another’s growth. We believe a strong creative ecosystem benefits everyone within it.
Access and Belonging
Artistic opportunity should not be limited to those who already have money, professional connections, formal training, or an established following.
We work to lower barriers to participation and create spaces where people can arrive as they are. Beginners belong here. Young people belong here. Experienced professionals belong here. People who are still discovering their artistic voice belong here.
Creative Freedom
Artists need room to experiment, fail, change direction, and make work that does not fit neatly into a market category.
We support art that is honest, curious, challenging, joyful, unconventional, and deeply human.
Local Roots, Expansive Vision
We believe artists should not have to abandon their communities in order to be taken seriously.
Smalltown helps artists build from where they are, drawing strength from local relationships while creating pathways to larger audiences and opportunities.
Collaboration Across Difference
A healthy arts community includes people of different ages, cultures, disciplines, experiences, identities, and perspectives.
We create opportunities for people to encounter one another through the act of making and sharing art. Collaboration does not erase difference; it allows difference to become a source of imagination, learning, and connection.
Culture as a Public Good
Art is not merely entertainment or content. It is how communities remember, question, celebrate, mourn, resist, imagine, and understand themselves.
Creative spaces are essential community infrastructure. Supporting artists strengthens the social and cultural health of the entire region.
Our Strategic Objectives
1. Build a Nonprofit Music Label
We are building a robust, multi-artist label that serves as a thriving home for diverse talent.
Through artist management, recording support, release strategy, live performance, media production, distribution, and strategic partnerships, Smalltown Records will help artists expand their audiences and achieve recognition at regional, national, and international levels.
Our goal is to demonstrate that a music label can be ambitious without being exploitative and professionally rigorous without losing its humanity.
2. Develop a Complete Artist Pipeline
We are establishing a comprehensive artist development pipeline that supports emerging talent through every stage of growth.
Artists will be able to enter the Smalltown ecosystem through LABs, workshops, community events, mentorship, collaborative projects, and digital submissions. As their work develops, they may move into featured performances, recording projects, media coverage, release campaigns, touring opportunities, and long-term label support.
This pipeline will provide artists with mentorship, resources, practical experience, and opportunities to strengthen both their creative work and professional foundations.
The goal is not simply to discover artists. It is to walk with them as they develop.
3. Establish a Powerful Media Network
We are creating a media network that amplifies community voices and brings their work and lives into deeper conversation with the world.
Through digital platforms, editorial storytelling, podcasts, video, photography, live sessions, publications, and partnerships with aligned media organizations, Smalltown Media will help artists reach wider audiences while preserving the context and meaning of their work.
This network will promote creative expression, encourage cultural dialogue, and connect locally rooted artists with audiences across geographic boundaries.
Our Impact
Smalltown Society measures impact not only by attendance, streams, followers, or ticket sales, but by what becomes possible after people enter the community.
Impact looks like an artist performing publicly for the first time.
It looks like two musicians meeting at an event and forming a band.
It looks like a young person being taken seriously as a creative voice.
It looks like an established artist mentoring someone who is just beginning.
It looks like a café, theater, school, or community space becoming a place where people experience culture together.
It looks like an artist receiving the support needed to finish a project they might otherwise have abandoned.
It looks like neighbors encountering one another not as strangers, but as collaborators, audiences, storytellers, and friends.
Every performance, recording, publication, workshop, and gathering is part of a larger effort to strengthen the cultural fabric of our community.
Our Vision for the Future
We envision a future in which artists can build meaningful and sustainable creative lives without becoming disconnected from their communities.
We envision Smalltown Society as a fully developed cultural ecosystem: a nonprofit record label, artist development organization, media network, collaborative workspace, performance platform, and community archive.
In this future, an emerging artist might first encounter Smalltown through a LAB, meet collaborators, receive mentorship, record their first project, perform at a showcase, be featured in the Smalltown zine, and eventually release music through Smalltown Records.
They may then return as a mentor, producer, curator, teacher, or community leader, helping create opportunities for the next generation.
This is how an ecosystem grows.
Not through a single event, program, artist, or organization, but through an ongoing cycle of participation, development, contribution, and care.
Our long-term vision is to create a model of community-rooted artist development that can inspire similar movements beyond the East Bay. We want to show what becomes possible when communities invest in their own creative people and when artists are given the freedom and support to invest in their communities in return.