Creative Placemaking is an exciting, inspiring and uplifting process used to engage communities in the transformation of their public spaces through their own original goals and project ideas. An organic bottom-up approach, it results in places where people truly want to be and has proven to lead to greater community buy-in, reduction in crime, and economic benefits for residents, businesses, and stakeholders.

The first step in the process is an engaging two-hour workshop that results in a vision plan for projects that capture the community's unique vision, creative ideas, values, character, history, and culture. The second step is to have fun implementing it!

Visual artist and Creative Placemaking Consultant, Deborah Patterson, came to creative placemaking as organically as the process itself. Her many years living and working in Italy gave her firsthand knowledge of vibrant places created over time. Combined with her placemaking training from NYC’s Project for Public Spaces (‘How to Turn a Place Around’ in 2008 and ‘Streets as Places’ in 2009) and work as a community artist, she has engaged numerous communities in Baltimore city and beyond in the transformation of their public spaces through their own unique ideas and goals.

As the owner of an art studio/gallery on the Avenue in the vibrant neighborhood of Hampden in Baltimore City, she also brings firsthand knowledge of Main Street’s core principals, which are inseparable from those of creative placemaking. In 2025, she and her musician partner completed the renovation of a gutted building—that faces the historic train station in the East End neighborhood and Arts & Entertainment District of Easton, Maryland—where they both have studios and live. In 2024, Deborah was hired by Easton’s EDC to facilitate a Creative Placemaking Workshop with the goal of making Dover Road a visually exciting gateway into Easton. The workshop will be held at Dover Station, 500 Dover Road on Saturday, October 18, 9:30-11:30AM and is free and open to all!