ArtPrize

Well, we’ve all descended on Grand Rapids, Michigan for ArtPrize. More than 800 artists from 15 countries and 30 states are here for one of the biggest art festivals in the country. Maybe the world? I just rolled in from another exhibit and programming in Colorado, so I am feeling the 20 hours of windshield time, but I’m excited for what’s next. I’m not exactly … Continue reading ArtPrize

Strength

We’ve been working in North Minneapolis the past few weeks. A partnership with Northside Culture and the Center for Leadership and Neighborhood Engagement. We installed our American Stories exhibit to set the stage for storytelling, then we held several community studios and invited people to respond to the question, “When have you found strength in the midst of struggle?” People shared stories of losing loved … Continue reading Strength

Everwood

I pulled into the drive for Everwood Farmstead on a warm afternoon, feeling the luxury of time at the start of a week-long artist’s retreat and the self-imposed pressure of wanting to use it well. In my  backpack was a partially finished manuscript. The first two hundred pages were pretty well crafted, the last hundred trailed off into notes and incomplete thoughts. The bones of … Continue reading Everwood

Forty Days

Forty days is a long time. And it goes by quickly. On Easter morning I set out to walk through the sunrise every morning for forty days in an effort to get reconnected to this place. To get used to life off the road. And to get a good start on our next book and exhibit. Mission accomplished on all fronts. I finished those forty … Continue reading Forty Days

Jan Selby

Jan Selby is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has been screened internationally in settings ranging from film festivals and art museums to university classrooms and on Public Television. BEYOND THE DIVIDE premiered at Montana’s Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and won Best Feature Documentary at the Peace on Earth Film Festival. After a year of traveling to festivals world-wide, BEYOND THE DIVIDE was broadcast on Twin Cities … Continue reading Jan Selby

Duncan Gray

Duncan Gray is a retired Episcopal Priest and was the 9th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi. I met him at St. Peter’s Episcopal church in Oxford, Mississippi, where he was rector, like his father before him. His father served from 1957 to 1965 during the turbulent era when James Meredith was the first Black man who was allowed admission into the University of … Continue reading Duncan Gray

Chief Shirell Parfait-Dardar

Chief Shirell Parfait-Dardar is chief of the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. She has spent decades helping her community fight for federal recognition of their tribe and finding resilient solutions to the political and environmental challenges that have seen their traditional lands literally wash away into the Gulf of Mexico. We did this interview on the front porch, on a windy … Continue reading Chief Shirell Parfait-Dardar

April Grayson

April Grayson was born and raised in Mississippi. She left the state after college and returned again 10 years later to tell stories about her home state and, in particular, about the Civil Rights Movement and the history of race in Mississippi through oral history and documentary films. April is the director of Community & Capacity Building at the Alluvial Collective, formerly the William Winter … Continue reading April Grayson