Richard Saxton is the founder and director of M12. The M12 Collective is known for groundbreaking and award-winning creative projects that explore the aesthetics of rural cultures and landscapes M12 is an interdisciplinary group based in Colorado on the American High Plains that create context-based art works, research projects, and education programs. Working in the fields of art and design, we favor projects that are centered in rural areas and which can be developed through dialogical and collaborative approaches. Our projects explore community identity and the value of often under-represented rural communities and their surrounding landscapes. We strive to be stewards of effective local and global creative problem solving, and a community resource for evolutionary thinking and innovative communication. We have a holistic organizational philosophy that fuses creative practice, cultural institutionality, and education.