Future Prairie Radio

Musician, labor organizer, and Oregon state legislator Rob Nosse on Portland, politics, and what we need to thrive.

Drummer Mel Brown on art, life, and legacy in Portland, Oregon.

Multidisciplinary artist Vaughn Kimmons on celebrating Blackness and the sacred through music, digital collage, video, and visual art.

Musician Stephen Nance on creating poetic piano pop inspired by birds and winning an artist grant from Regional Arts and Culture Council.

Gospel music director Derrick McDuffey on ministering and teaching in Portland, Oregon.

Photographer Ricardo Nagaoka on his process and 2022 solo show in Portland, Oregon.

Singer Alonzo Chadwick on finding peace through music, his work with the Grammy-nominated Oregon Symphony, and managing BRAVO Youth Orchestras, a nonprofit that teaches children to play classical music with free violin, string, and choral classes.

Rapper Libretto on getting his first record deal with BSI Records, his journey in hip hop, and making art after incarceration.

Curator Stephanie Chefas on bringing local, national, and international artists to Portland.

Filmmaker Miriam Gossing on making art with her BFF, showing queer work at international film festivals and exhibitions, and making a feature-length movie about mermaids.

Photographer Jennifer Timmer Trail on relationship-based art, curation, and parenting.

Writer Wendy Noonan and visual art collaborator Kirsten Driggers discuss their oracle deck, 'Monstrous, Feminine,' which explores feminine and genderqueer demons, witches, and other mythical creatures.

Author Michelle Ruiz Keil on developing her critically acclaimed young adult novels, the importance of being cared for as a creative, and her Regional Arts and Culture Council-sponsored research trip for her first novel for adults.

Jazz pianist, composer, and educator Kerry Politzer on creating a driveway jazz series to offer a COVID-safe way for the Portland jazz community to celebrate local musicians.

Layna Lewis, director of Viva La Free, explores how art and activism can come together to create change in our communities, such as at her trauma-informed approach to art for 9th-grade students at Portland's Ida B. Wells-Barnett High School.

Musician Ashleigh Flynn on creating a band of female musicians over 40 paying a musical homage to “Rosie the Riveter,” whose brand inspired a social movement putting women to work in America.

Multidisciplinary creative David Shirkhani on creating Black & Gifted, his art collective exploring mental health.

Performance artist Mami Takahashi on sculptural explorations of being Asian and a woman living outside her home country while working towards US citizenship.

Artist Alexandra Loves Lewis on storytelling from Africa and her diaspora.

Pyrographer Lisa Cox on finding her artistic voice and life as a woman in woodworking.

Rapper and poet Mic Crenshaw on creating social change through music.

Vocalist Saeeda Wright on finding the gift of song in Northeast Portland, Oregon.

Director Rusty Tennant on queer canon, building a career as an artist, and the resilience of indie theater.

Muralist Adam Brock Ciresi on community practice, public art, and working personal narrative and illness into healing art.

Producer and engineer Tyler Stone on making dance music in Portland, Oregon.

Playwright Karen Polinsky on devising multilingual theater.

Poet, performer, musician, mythologist, educator, and psychospiritual intuitive Jesse Carsten on creating joyful, eclectic song collages that embrace the experimental singer-songwriter tradition of the Pacific Northwest.

Actor Henry Noble on process, conviction, and his role in August Wilson's play “Gem of the Ocean”.

Painter Jess Ackerman on paint, process, addiction, recovery, gender, and discovery.

Choreographer Colleen Loverde on integrity, voice, and expression in movement.

Fiber artist Lehuauakea on identity, displacement, and environmental dysfunction through a contemporary Indigenous lens.

Portland drummer Elly Swope on making collaborations work, leveraging neurodivergence as a creative asset, and finding passion in music again after the onset of the COVID pandemic.

Painter, teacher, and creative mentor Annamieka Davidson on getting started with a professional art career, making botanical paintings, and finding new avenues for social support for artists.

Visual journalist and author Sarah Mirk on representing marginalized voices as a method of writing future historic records.

Collage artist Laura Weiler on visual composition, working with texture, line, color, form, and placement, image sourcing, and developing a narrative for an art piece.

Writer and doodler Kate Zipse on her two full-length illustrated children’s books: "Squishing the Squash" and "Lighting the Garden".

Artist and activist Michael Bui on self-expression, social practice as art, and living a free and creative life.

Photographer Ebenezer Galluzzo on gender identity and photography as a way to claim and redefine the lens through which he sees the world and the world sees him.

Freelance illustrator and muralist Damon Smyth on making work that makes your family proud, staying engaged with the community, and creating and facilitating difficult conversations through art. Please note this episode contains racial slurs, racialized violence, and a discussion of violent crime.

Professor Matt Schumacher on moving play into process, how to manage a tenuous artist collective during an economic crisis, the importance of creating art during crisis, and how poetry can support the community during challenging times.

Medical student, retired football player, and augmented reality artist Steven Christian on making Black stories available to children of all ages, reading skill and comprehension level, making time for everything you love, and getting big dreams to come true.

Designer, printer, and educator John Akira Harrold on responding to what interests you, finding a political home while grappling with wokeness, and developing personal politics as an artist.

Visual artist and musician Daren Todd on unearthing buried Black history, expressing through art, and letting go of expectations through the creative process.

Trans poet, curator, and artist An Duplan on accessibility in art, Afrofuturism, and driving social change through community building in the arts.

Artist and entrepreneur Marceau Michel on self-discovery, the process to liberate oneself from outmoded ways of thinking, and raising ten million dollars for Black Founders Matter, a venture fund for black entrepreneurs.

Musician Jonny Cool on spiritual music, ancestor work, and weaving family and future into all of his projects.

Composer, professor, and activist Darrell Grant on the love of jazz, love of community, and the mythology of Portland, Oregon.

Painter Arcadia Trueheart on her project "Handmade Stories Live", a multi-media theater performance that invites the audience to explore how our hands hold formative and enduring stories about who we are and our role in the world.

Perfumer Kelly Harland on founding her small-batch fragrance house, Crosby Elements, which is known for botanical, naturally-derived scents inspired by travel, nostalgia, and intuition.

Award-winning filmmaker Kanani Koster on reclaiming nostalgic tropes and aesthetics for diverse audience members who've historically been left off-screen.

DJ and speaker designer Michael Davis-Yates on “Custom Mathematics”, a series of speakers he designed and hand-built from the ground up, inspired by teachings from the Nation of Islam as well as the spirit of classic vintage boomboxes.