Conversations from the Barn

Ondara offers a unique take of the American dream on Tales of America, his debut album. By Eric Danton   Ondara grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, listening to American alt-rock and making up his own songs for as long as he can remember. After moving to Minneapolis in 2013, he began making his way in the local music scene, continually writing songs about what he saw, felt and experienced in a place far different from home. From a stockpile he says is hundreds of songs deep, Ondara chose 11 for Tales of America. They're captivating tunes built around acoustic guitars and adorned with subtle full-band accompaniment for an openhearted folk-rock feel. He sings in a strong, tuneful voice well-suited to the gorgeous melancholy he expresses on the wistfully lovelorn “Torch Song,” or his steadfast infatuation on “Television Girl.” Ondara sings rueful lyrics in an anguished tone on “Saying Goodbye,” and leaves plenty of room for interpretation on “American Dream,” the first single.“ I knew I wanted a song called ‘American Dream' on the record, but I didn't have that song,” Ondara says with a laugh. “I couldn't find it. I wrote like twenty songs called ‘American Dream' before I found the one that ended up being the record.” His persistence is evident throughout Tales of America, which is indeed a classic American tale. It's the story, told in song, of an immigrant seeking a new life, who dedicates himself to achieving his vision through hard work and determination. See his website.

Ben Noble is a Minneapolis-based artist and producer. Noble's serene, innocent melodies drift lithely along sonic textures that range from sleepy-time folk to intrusive, experimental hyper-synth scapes. Through any aural difference, the heart is the same: Noble wants to embody his truth and experiences in his music. bennoblemusic.com Chris Bartels is a producer, musician, husband, and father from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has spent hours upon hours of his life crafting textures, melodies, emotions, soundscapes, and stories through music. Bartels' musical obsessions are varied, plentiful, and often. anthemfallsmusic.com

Allison Vincent is a performer, director, writer, and teacher known for devised work, physical theatre, and gender-bending performances. She has been honored to collaborate with companies and theaters across the Twin Cities, including The History Theater, Jon Ferguson Theater, WLDRNSS, Theater Forever, The Four Humors, Mainly Me, The Illusion, The Guthrie, Frank Theatre, Sod House, Strike Theatre, Transatlantic Love Affair, the University of Minnesota, and Walking Shadow. Allison has received two Ivey Awards for her work creating performance in ensembles and three Golden Lanyard Awards from the MN Fringe as a director.  In addition to performing, Allison is a co-artistic director and founding member of Transatlantic Love Affair, a teaching artist at the Guthrie Theater and Loft Literary Center, and has collaborated as a writer on over twenty produced scripts. In 2022 Allison wrote and performed a solo storytelling show about caretaking for her father succumbing to dementia as a Pillsbury House + Theatre's Naked Stages Fellow. Recently she's had her scripts published in The Empty Room, Rejection Letters, Dirty Girls Come Clean, and Roi Fainéant Press. She teaches at the University of Minnesota in the Writing Studies Department's First Year Writing Program. LinkedIn   Taja Will (they/them) is a non-binary, chronically ill, queer, Latinx (Chilean) adoptee. They are a performer, choreographer, somatic therapist, consultant and Healing Justice practitioner based in Mni Sota Makoce, on the ancestral lands of the Dakota and Anishinaabe. Taja's approach integrates improvisation, somatic modalities, text and vocals in contemporary performance. Their aesthetic is one of spontaneity, bold choice making, sonic and kinetic partnership and the ability to move in relationship to risk and intimacy. Will's artistic work explores visceral connections to current socio-cultural realities through a blend of ritual, dense multi-layered worldbuilding and everyday magic. Taja initiates solo projects and teaching ventures and is a recent recipient of the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, in the dance field, awarded in 2021. Their work has been presented throughout the Twin Cities and across the United States. Including local performances at the Walker Art Center Choreographer's Evening, the Red Eye Theater's New Works 4 Weeks, the Radical Recess series, Right Here Showcase and the Candy Box Dance Festival. They were the recipient of a 2018-'19 McKnight Choreography Fellowship, administered by the Cowles Center and funded by The McKnight Foundation. Will has recently received support from the National Association of Latinx Arts & Culture, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. Website Link

Rachel Moritz is the author of two poetry books, Sweet Velocity (Lost Roads Press, 2017), and Borrowed Wave (Kore Press, 2015), as well as five chapbooks. She's also the co-editor of a collection of personal essays, My Caesarean: Twenty-One Mothers on the C-Section Experience and After (The Experiment, 2019), which won the Foreword INDIES Award in Silver. Rachel's work has appeared in American Letters and Commentary, Aufgabe, Colorado Review, DIAGRAM, Iowa Review, Tupelo Quarterly, VOLT, Water-Stone Review, and other journals. Her poems and critical writing have been featured in Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Verse Daily, and in the anthologies Queer Nature, Rocked by the Waters: Poems of Motherhood, Uncoverage: Asking After Recent Poetry, and Jean Valentine: This World Company. She's received a 2019 Best American Essay Notable mention as well as awards, grants, and residencies. Rachel teaches creative writing with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, Unrestricted Interest, and CommonBond Communities. She lives in Minneapolis with her partner and son. www.rachelmoritz.com   M. Ahd grew up moving frequently. They have resided in New Jersey, Iowa, Texas, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the Czech Republic. M has worked as a software company recruiter, sports camera operator, reader to the blind, and arts magazine writer, among other jobs. After teaching high school English and coaching Quiz Bowl for a decade, they now write from home full time. M has been the recipient of the 2016 Barnes and Nobel Regional My Favorite Teacher Contest, named the 2018 National High School Quiz Bowl Coach of the Year, and a finalist for the 2019 Loft Literary Center Mentor Series. M lives in Minneapolis with their spouse, two dogs named Zero and Eleven, and a rotating cast of teens and young adults in need of a spare room.

John Noltner is a freelance photographer based in Minneapolis. For 25 years, he has created images at home and around the world for national magazines, Fortune 500 companies and nonprofit organizations. His images have appeared in National Geographic Traveler, Smithsonian, Forbes, Health, Midwest Living, New York Daily News and more.  He is the author of two award-winning books from his series A Peace of My Mind. His work exhibits regularly across the country and he leads lectures and workshops around the idea that art and storytelling has the ability to transform hearts and communities. www.noltner.com   Darren Garvey is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer best known for his extensive touring and session work as a drummer and percussionist. He has written and released records under his own name (Under A Common Ceiling, Heart Attack Sleeves, Social Distance), co-written with the likes of Daniel Rodriguez (Elephant Revival) and Jimmie Linville (Daniel and the Lion), and appears on 200+ albums as a session musician and sideman in his 25+ year career.  Garvey's latest single No Love Is Wrong is a song of acceptance and possibility inspired by and dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community. Followed up by the release of his cover version of Friday I'm In Love, Garvey is currently putting the finishing touches on his third full-length studio album. A member of Colorado transcendental folk sextet Elephant Revival since 2016, Darren is widely regarded for his creative and collaborative work in the folk and indie music communities as a cross-pollinator. As a drummer Darren has worked with Daniel Rodriguez, Cameron McGill & What Army, Shook Twins, Courtney Hartman, Steve Poltz, John Craigie, Bonnie Paine, Andreas Kapsalis Trio, Danny Barnes, Lindsay Lou, Chicago Farmer, Daniel and the Lion, Miles Nielsen & The Rusted Hearts, Sandra Bernhard, Danny Burns & The Defectors, Ernie Hendrickson, and Cory Chisel and The Wandering Sons. www.darrengarvey.com

Debra J. Stone's poetry, essays and fiction can be found in Brooklyn Review, Under the Gum Tree, Random Sample Review, Green Mountains Review (GMR), About Place Journal, Saint Paul Almanac, Wild Age Press, Gyroscope, Tidal Basin, and forthcoming in other literary journals. She's received residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Callaloo, The Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, New York Mills Arts Residency and is a Kimbilio Fellow. Sundress Publishers nominated her essay, Grandma Essie's Vanilla Poundcake, Best of the Net, judged by Hanif Abdurraquib in 2019 and in 2021 her poem, year-of- staying–in place, was nominated Best of Net and Pushcart nominated. www.debrajeannestone.com Anna Farro Henderson is a scientist and artist. She served as an environmental policy advisor to Minnesota Senator Al Franken and Governor Mark Dayton. Her publications have appeared in Kenyon Review, River Teeth, The Rumpus, The Common, The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, Seneca Review, Water-Stone Review, Cleaver Magazine, Punctuate, The Normal School, Bellingham Review, and Identity Theory. She is a recipient of a Minnesota State Art Board grant, a Nan Snow Emerging Artist Award, an Excellence in Teaching Fellowship at the Madeline Island School of the Arts, and a Loft Literary Center Mentor Award. She founded The Nature Library art installation that was up in the Landmark Center in Saint Paul for several months in 2019. She teaches creative process at the Loft Literary Center. www.eafarro.com

Sam Kalda is an illustrator and artist based in Saint Paul. His commissioned works include editorial, book, advertising and pattern illustration. In 2017, he received a gold medal in book illustration from the Society of Illustrators in New York. His first book, Of Cats and Men: History's Great Cat-loving Artists, Writers, Thinkers and Statesmen, was published by Ten Speed Press in 2017. He recently illustrated his first picture book, When We Walked on the Moon, written by David Long and published by Wide Eyed Press in 2019, as well as the follow-up, When Darwin Sailed the Sea. www.samkalda.com Matthew Ricketts is a Canadian composer based in New York City. His music moves from extremes of presence and absence, from clamor to quietude, at once reticent and flamboyant. Matthew's music has been called “lyrical, contrapuntal, rhythmically complex and highly nuanced” (The American Academy of Arts and Letters) and is noted for his “effervescent and at times prickly sounds,” “hypnotically churning exploration of melody” (ICareIfYouListen) as well as its “tart harmonies and perky sputterings” (The New York Times). He is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow. www.matthewricketts.com

KRISTI COLE kristicole.com Kristi Cole (she/her) is a Queer, Queens-based performer and choreographer with a Bachelors of Arts in Dance and Political Science from The George Washington University where she received the Elizabeth Burtner Theatre & Dance Award for her excellence as a performer, as well as a Luther Rice Research Fellowship. In 2019, she founded Kristi Cole & Guests with the mission of bringing together artists to create powerful and thought- provoking interdisciplinary work. Her stage and film work has been presented in the tri-state area and Atlanta, Georgia as well as in Toronto, Canada. MAX COKER Max Coker is a digital audio/visual performer and installation artist based in Brooklyn with a background in radio, sculpture, and software engineering. Education includes media studies, new media art, engineering and computer science from Stony Brook University and Brooklyn College. As an artist's assistant to collaborative duo LoVid based on Long Island, Max gained skills and knowledge of video technology and paradigms of video art performance. Performances fill spaces with improvised sound mixing and real time video composite projections using an amalgamation of custom software and a collection of found sound and video.

In this podcast, we sit down with artists Kim Gordon and Melanie Johnson to hear about their week at the Everwood Artist Retreat. KIM GORDON www.kimgordonfineart.com “Art has been at the core of my life since early childhood. Making art is as inherent and important to me as speaking, allowing exploration of the exterior/natural world and of my place in it. I work with landscape because it encourages my connection to the world around me.” MELANIE JOHNSON melanielynnjohnson.com “My drawings recall the sensory and emotional connections inherent in my bonds with animals and the natural landscape, and the ways in which animals provide some of my earliest empathetic relationships and routine caregiving experiences.”

David Huckfelt has shared stages with a staggering diversity of artists: from Mavis Staples, Emmylou Harris & Greg Brown, to Bon Iver, Arcade Fire & Gregory Alan Isakov, and more recently an impressive array of Native American musicians including John Trudell, Quiltman, Keith Secola, and Annie Humphrey. In thousands of shows across the United States, Canada & overseas, Huckfelt's grassroots following has grown from small-town opera houses, Midwestern barn concerts, and progressive benefit events to national tours and festival stages like Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Edmonton and Calgary Folk Fests, and the legendary First Avenue club in his beloved Minneapolis home. Jeremy Ylvisaker is a multi-instrumentalist from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is a member of the indie rock bands Alpha Consumer along with Michael Lewis and JT Bates, and The Cloak Ox with Andrew Broder of Fog, Mark Erickson and Dosh. He plays guitar in Andrew Bird's touring band alongside Martin Dosh on drums and Michael Lewis on bass.

Bart Buch is a puppet artist, poet and arts educator who focuses on interpreting poetry from written text into puppet performances and looks for the poetic qualities of any story to highlight. He calls his work “puppet poems.” In 2016-2018, he conducted a community residency with youth, artists and community members, co-creating several performances about the “helpers” of the Phillips neighborhood. The neighborhood project ended in a main stage production called Make-Believe Neighborhood at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre (HOBT), featuring puppets, projections, live music by Martin Dosh with mixed-in covers of Fred Rogers' songs by Sylvan Esso, Andrew Bird, Bonnie Prince Billy, Karen Peris of The Innocence Mission, Jayanthi Kyle, Leslie Ball, and MPLS imPulse Chorus. Make Believe Neighborhood was received warmly by theatre reviewers and audiences and was rated the 3rd best Twin Cities theatre performance in 2018. 

Minnesota-based artist, Kristin Dieng, has been developing her skills as a glass artist for the last decade. When a chronic illness forced her to leave her career in international affairs, Kristin sought a new way of interacting with and interpreting the world. She found mosaic art. Kristin's art explores the way in which colorful light-filled art can serve as a source of healing, both for herself and for those interacting with her art. While Kristin specializes in brightly colored nature-themed work, as well as complex geometric patterns, she takes particular joy in creating artwork that interacts with both its viewer and its environment.

Kerry Alexander is a songwriter and musician, and the front-person of indie rock band, Bad Bad Hats. She was born in the Twin Cities, but grew up in Birmingham, AL. Alexander returned to Minnesota to attend Macalester College, which is where she first started to perform live the songs. She performed at open mic nights at the Dunn Bros on Grand Ave and posted her music to MySpace, eventually meeting Chris Hoge, with whom she started a band in her senior year. A performance at the Macalester Battle of the Bands (they lost) led to a record contract and the start of a now decade-long Bad Had Hats journey. As part of Bad Bad Hats, Alexander has written and released three full-length albums, two EPs, and traveled the country (and Canada!). A lover of radio and making playlists, she has also been a guest DJ on 89.3 The Current.

Feeling detached from her previously released work as years lapsed, Duluth, Minnesota's Sarah Krueger set out to Hive, a small studio nestled near the river in her hometown of Eau Claire, WI. In the course of two separate sessions, (the first on the cusp of a long winter, and the second on the fringe of summer's swell), Krueger assembled a cast of collaborators to help flesh out a collection of songs that would later become the catalyst for Lanue. Culled from the title of a poem that found its way to Krueger from a thrift store shelf, Lanue comes to us as a project that stands firmly in front of a fresh creative backdrop and boasts a more developed taste and sincerity than Krueger's previous releases — both a welcome departure and anticipated return.

Julie Landsman's first love has always been poetry. Over the past thirty years her poems have appeared in magazines and anthologies. She is presently a poet and teacher for the Alzheimers Poetry Project. In 2019 she won the Bechtel Essay contest for “Music and Story: How We Enter.”  Her three published memoirs , Basic Needs, A Year With Street Kids in a City School (Milkweed Press) A White Teacher Talks About Race and Growing Up White (Rowman & Littlefield) center around education and her connections to the stories of her students. She spent 28 years teaching in Minneapolis Public schools and the Minnesota Center for Arts Education High School

"Performer is the word that sums up what I do. You can find me on a stage doing theatre, sharing my own music, or in front of the camera. I prefer my name as my pronoun, but they/them is good is well. I started acting in my elementary school and church. I also would write songs with my brother to perform to our family. My first community theater performance was in 7th grade, which was also the time that I started writing music seriously. I focused on my rap career off and on, mainly doing music with a Christian theme. I decided to fully pursue acting and music, so I left my small town in Wisconsin, and moved to Minneapolis.  So far, this city has been a dream. It's helped me to continue to grow into the person I am daily."

Michael Hanna is an actor and musician based in Minneapolis, MN. He has performed at The Guthrie, Mixed Blood, and Jungle Theater, as well as stages across the country. He's the front man and manager of Ready Freddie, a Queen Tribute band. (IG @readyfreddiempls) As an eponymous singer-songwriter, he's performed at The Warming House, Bryant Lake Bowl, and Moto-I. 

Rachel is a Minneapolis-based musician, songwriter, Kith + Kin Chorus director, sideman, auntie, artist and tiny home inhabiter. She has released four albums and four EPs, including the country ep, a split 45 of countryish duets with longtime friend and collaborator, Anaïs Mitchell. In 2016, with the release of To Gentlemen, Rachel parted ways from performing as "Rachel Ries" and now writes for and tours with her new project, HER CROOKED HEART. HCH carries Rachel's wry and powerfully tender writing farther down the path of instrumental expansion and distillation. HCH's debut album,To Love To Leave To Live, was released May 2019.

Shannon TL Kearns is a transgender man who believes in the transformative power of story. As an ordained priest, a playwright, a theologian, and a writer all of his work revolves around making meaning through story. He is the founder and Artistic Director of Uprising Theatre Company in Minneapolis, the co-founder of QueerTheology.com, and will soon publish with Eerdmaan's books. Shannon is a recipient of the Playwrights' Center Jerome Fellowship in 20/21 and he was a Lambda Literary Fellow for 2019 and a Finnovation Fellow for 2019/2020. He is a sought after speaker on transgender issues and religion as well as a skilled facilitator of a variety of workshops. His work with Brian G. Murphy at QueerTheology.com has reached more than a million people all over the world through videos, articles, and online courses and community. Shannon's plays include Body+Blood, in a stand of dying trees, Line of Sight, Twisted Deaths, The Resistance of My Skin, and Who Has Eyes To See. He's currently working on a television pilot.

Cleo Person is a dancer, emerging choreographer, and writer. Her work explores the soulful qualities of the human being and the mysteries of the natural world. Working with the languages of classical ballet, modern dance, and poetry, she aims to connect audiences with the beauty and intelligence of our inward and external environments. She is a graduate in dance of The Juilliard School, and currently resides in Southern California, where she works as a collaborative multi-disciplinary artist. She has worked with groups such as the Arts Fusion Initiative of NYC (http://www.arts-fi.com), has been commissioned to choreograph by Perry Mansfield Performing Arts in Steamboat Springs, CO, and has had poetry published in Border Voices Anthology.

Carrie Elkin is one of those rare artists with a tidal wave singing voice, and a stage whisper writing voice that brings you to the edge of your seat, emotionally. Like Patty Griffin or Brandi Carlile, she straddles the Americana, Folk, and Indie Rock worlds, where meaningful songs meet the fierce-yet- fragile voices of powerful women. Like these other seminal artists, Elkin has the gift of projecting very personal intimate moments into transcendent universal experiences that move us all.

Con Davison is a songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist living in St Paul, MN, and is a member of the band Bad Bad Hats. Originally from Austin, Texas, Davison moved to Minnesota hoping to get away from an orchestral music degree and put the drums away for a while, an escape that only lasted as long as the 17 hour drive up I-35. Surrounded and supported by an amazing community of artists and musicians, Con has found a place for himself in the Twin Cities music scene as a jack of all trades with a sound that is all his own. He loves tacos, sleeping outside and playing with his two dogs.

Allegra was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, raised in Lexington, KY, and currently lives and works in Minneapolis, MN as a freelance illustrator, designer, and muralist. She received her BFA from MCAD in Fine Arts Studio in 2010, and since then has worked with both commercial and nonprofit clients. Recent clients include: Starbucks, Mondelez International, Google, Target, Penguin Random House, Buzzfeed, Eater, The Verge, The Globe and Mail Canada, AARP, and The Walker Art Center. Outside of her client-focused practice she maintains a fine arts painting practice.

Kate creates visual artwork that is grounded in the processing of experiences. Nature, wilderness, and organic materials are sources of inspiration as well as mediums for creation. Her work results in three-dimensional, complex, layered, and visceral forms. Her work often draws upon the totality of experiences found in the connection of mind, body, and spirit.

Ann grew up surrounded by flowers in a home beside a lake. She spent her summers in the garden and her winters buried in seed catalogs and old botanical books. Ann's work still tells the story of a tryst between garden and wild. Relying on materials that are often local and foraged, her colors, textures, and shapes reflect the beauty of the changing seasons. She has created designs for private dinners, lookbook shoots, restaurants, and weddings. And her Instagram account (@dearhyssop) is a must-follow.  

Vie Boheme is a Motown native, blossomed creatively in Pittsburgh and refined in Minneapolis. She is a multimodal artist; a choreographer, a dancer, singer, actress, poet, writer and producer of her own works. She brings athletic agility to her vocal performance by singing and dancing in unison, eliminating the boundary between the visual and audio experience. She weaves sentiment and storytelling through poetry and monologues in marriage to her choreography. Her choreography is designed to give a glimpse into the sometimes dark and complex emotional spaces people experience that seem elusive and ever present. The intentionality of her work produces a passage for viewers to connect to their own visceral experience.

Kendra is a painter who has shown nationally and internationally, with shows at the Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, Var Gallery, Milwaukee, WI and at Beijing Normal University, China. Currently, she is director and owner of James May Gallery and enjoys curating and maintaining an active studio practice. We got to have a conversation with her at the end of her artist retreat at Everwood. "My oil paintings examine the longing for identity and the subsequent expectations associated with identity and memory. I question how identity is constructed through images, place, memory, decoy, and the miniature."

Inspired by the women who used to live on the land at Everwood Farmstead and the rich history that has followed them, a story has taken the form of an audio play which was fully created at the farm called: “The House At Echo's End.” Enjoy! Book by: David Darrow Music/Lyrics: Cat Brindisi-Darrow Conceived By: Cat, David and Derek Prestly Safely Featuring: Serena Brook & Michelle Brindisi

Jess Arnold has played in the Twin Cities three-part harmony folk band Eustace the Dragon for six years and is pursuing her first solo project. She enjoys harmony, musical chaos, group sings, and the evening hour when everyone is singing drunkenly all over the place. Jess is enamored with relationship and story, and sings songs that are rich in both. Her melodies stir up a forgotten past as her voice effortlessly weaves through the often untouched parts of the heart. Lilting, piercing, in love with the earth and its inhabitants, Jess's performance speaks of the quiet, mesmerizing intensity of a midnight campfire. She is convinced that we are all diamonds.

"Mayer's is a subtle but moving magic." - mnartists.org Megan is an artist working with choreography, dance, experimental video and photography. She obsesses over minimalism, mimicry, tenderness, wry humor, loneliness, fake bad timing and exacting musicality. Her work offers glimpses of internal terrain and unexpected expressive delicacies. By exposing tiny emotional undercurrents concerning the body, she constructs a unique perspective of what dance can be: virtuosity in vulnerability and a victory in a gesture.

James Kennedy is a multi-disciplinary theatre artist based in New York City. As a playwright, composer, and director, his work has been produced and presented by Actors Theatre of Louisville/The Humana Festival of New American Plays, The Washington National Opera/The Kennedy Center, The Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and Superhero Clubhouse, among others. In addition to his freelance work, he is currently the composer-in-residence with Playing for Others in Charlotte, NC and has spent six summers as the Artistic Associate for Education and Outreach at The Orchard Project.

Jeremiah is a playwright, librettist, songwriter, singer/actor, storyteller and producer who has worked professionally in the Twin Cities for 25 years. He runs two theater companies with his wife, Vanessa – Theater for the Thirsty and Bucket Brigade. Jeremiah is a published children’s author, former adjunct professor in playwriting, voice over and on-camera talent, member of the Dramatist Guild, participant in Nautilus Music-Theater’s Composer Librettist Studio, and proud father of three.

Raki is a queer, Jewish fiction and poetry writer. She's the author of The Things You Left, The Memory House (a 2020 MN Book Award finalist), and The Other Body. Her work has appeared in numerous publications and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for fiction among others. She lives in Minneapolis. Miriam was born in Ireland and raised in the Southern United States. She is the author of two queer historical novels, An Impossible Distance to Fall and The Unbinding of Mary Reade. She lives in Minneapolis, but also calls Asheville, North Carolina home.

Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay is a Lao American writer. She was born in a refugee camp in Nongkhai, Thailand and immigrated to Minnesota in 1985. Because of her unique background, her work is focused on creating tools and spaces for the amplification of refugee voices through poetry, theater, and experimental cultural production. Recorded at the end of her 2020 Artist Retreat, listen in on our conversation about her new play, zombies and cannibals, and spirits of the land.

Our first 2020 recipient of the Aspiring Artists Fund is Olivia Willett. Olivia is the Choir Director at Osceola Middle and High School and her application sought to expand the depth of her choral library with sheet music from composers diverse in race, gender and age. She explained, "because music is the expression of the human experience through sound, everyone who is touched by music should be able to see a representation of themselves in the music and find ways to connect to it."

Kate is a Creative Director and Designer specializing in environmental, exhibit, and stage design for both live events and permanent installations. At the time of this conversation, she is finishing a week in the Artist Retreat with long-time collaborator and director Peter Rothstein. We talk about what it feels like to create in the barn, as well as her connection to nature and beauty. 

Peter works extensively as a director of theater, musical theater, opera and new work development. He is the Founding Artistic Director of Theater Latté Da, a Twin Cities-based company dedicated to adventurous music-theater. We've had the good fortune of producing two Latté Da shows at Everwood, "All Is Calm - The Christmas Truce of 1914" and "Underneath the Lintel" with the amazing Sally Wingert. Recorded at the end of his time on the farm, listen in on our conversation about the new work he and collaborator Kate Sutton-Johnson have been working on, the good and hard challenges of these days, and the power of nature.

In 2019, we met Christopher Thomson when he performed with S. Carey during Everwood's summer Artist Series. We were delighted that he applied for an Artist Retreat in 2020. For seven days, all of us on the farm have enjoyed the beautiful saxophones floating from the barn. He's been combining digital music with his acoustic instruments to beautiful effect. S. Carey even popped in from Eau Claire to create with him for a day.  Recorded at the end of his time on the farm, listen in our our conversation about his journey back to woodwind instruments after a bicycle accident, and the realities of social-distancing as an artist in these challenging times.