Conversations from the Barn

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...

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...

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 meetin...

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 so...

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 Teache...

"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 tim...

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 a...

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 recip...

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 curren...

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 projec...

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 a...

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, B...

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 din...

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...

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 pai...

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 vo...

"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 b...

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 addi...

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, p...

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 t...

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 co...

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...