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Elissa Auther is the Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). Previously, she was Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Colorado and a visiting associate professor at Bard Graduate Center. A feminist public intellectual, Auther founded and co-directed for the past ten years the progr...

“I feel that the earth is like a classroom for soul growth and we’re put here to overcome challenges, and we may be working on something like humility or compassion or love of humanity. The challenges might be something like war or cancer. Everybody gets a challenge to work on in their lives, but they also get a great gift to help them through those challenges. You just have to know how to use tho...

Dr. Carolyn Waters Broe has spent years r esearching and writing about the classical composers . She is published in many music journals and wrote her dissertation on the music of Arizona composer Louise Lincoln Kerr. Broe is the Principal Violist of the Scottsdale Philharmonic and the Founding Conductor of the Four Seasons Orchestra in Arizona. Having taught music in colleges and public K-12 scho...

“Dance is for everyone. That’s the mission. We see people that might not be able to encounter dance in so many ways because it’s not something that their school offers. I had a family that subscribed to the New York City Ballet, most families don’t do that, so for us to be able to offer that level of exposure…and I think traditionally ballet has felt like it can be an elitist art form. Only certai...

Artistic Director of Pacific Northwest Ballet and director of PNB’s Ballet School, Peter Boal was raised in Bedford, New York.  He began studying at the School of American Ballet at the age of 9 and became a principal dancer in the New York City Ballet in 1989. Serving the company for 22 years, Mr. Boal was featured in many ballets, including George Balanchine’s Apollo and A Midsummer Night’s...

“This museum, this institution has a long history and actually, the idea of a museum goes back to maybe 100 years ago when Civil War veterans wanted a monument recognizing the service and the sacrifice of African Americans during the war effort. It wasn't until the mid-late 80s when congressman John Lewis with some other colleagues started to bring forth the idea that the Smithsonian needed to hav...

Dr. Dwandalyn Reece is a storyteller, ethnomusicologist, and museum professional. Reece studied American Studies and Music at Scripps College, American Culture and Museum Practice at the University of Michigan, and Musical Performance at New York University. Her research and projects include exhibitions at the Louis Armstrong House and Archives, the Brooklyn Historical Society, the New Jersey Stat...

“Songwriters create the meaning in people’s lives. When you’re married, you have a song. When you fall in love, you have a song. At a funeral, they play a song. When people go off to war, they’re singing a war ballad. Songs create the meaningful moments in people’s lives. People bookmark the moment they met and kissed for the first time with a song. Songs are the bookmarks of your life. Your life...

Rick Carnes is the President of the Songwriters Guild of America and a songwriter himself, with credits on 40 platinum albums. His songs have been recorded by artists such as Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, Alabama, and Dean Martin. Since 1931 the SGA has fought to legally protect songwriters, the music they create, and their ability to earn a living from it. Rick has served as president of the SGA s...

“I started writing out of a desire to counter stereotypes of the roles that women traditionally played in crime fiction, in which case they were wicked. They used their bodies to do good boys to do bad things. Or they were virgins who couldn’t tie their shoes couldn’t tie their shoes without adult supervisions. Or they were victims, most often. And so I wanted a detective who was like the women th...

Sara Paretsky is the author of nineteen books, including sixteen V.I. Warshawski novels. She was named 2011 Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America and is the winner of many awards, including the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement from the British Crime Writers' Association and the CWA Gold Dagger for BLACKLIST.  · www.saraparetsky.com · www.creativeprocess.info

"They’re not human traits. They’re all shared traits because, of course, we all love. We all love our families, or not. We all grieve if somebody we love disappears or dies. A family dog, perhaps. A grandfather. We all feel loneliness, we all feel joy. We all really value our freedom. And so I think, if anything, looking into the eyes of the animal, even online, you see a person in there. There’s...

Ingrid Newkirk is the founder and president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)—the largest animal rights organization in the world, with more than 6.5 million members and supporters worldwide.  She is the author of more than a dozen books that have been translated into several languages, including her latest, Animalkind: Remarkable Discoveries About Animals and Revolutionar...

Mike Davis has been the CEO of Global Witness since 2020, having previously served as Director of Campaigns, Planning and Evaluation for three years. During this time Mike has overseen the development of a new Global Witness strategy with a strong emphasis on abuses of power driving climate crisis. Mike first joined Global Witness in 2003, holding numerous roles, including exposing corruption in t...

Mike Davis has been the CEO of Global Witness since 2020, having previously served as Director of Campaigns, Planning and Evaluation for three years. During this time Mike has overseen the development of a new Global Witness strategy with a strong emphasis on abuses of power driving climate crisis. Mike first joined Global Witness in 2003, holding numerous roles, including exposing corruption in t...

Vlad Sokhin is a Russia-born documentary photographer, videographer, and multimedia producer covering sociocultural, environmental, and human rights issues worldwide. His projects are supported by various UN agencies and international NGOs. Vlad’s work has been featured in over 40 publications, including National Geographic, NPR, Newsweek Japan, BBC, and The Guardian. In 2014, he was named Best Ph...

Vlad Sokhin is a Russia-born documentary photographer, videographer, and multimedia producer covering sociocultural, environmental, and human rights issues worldwide. His projects are supported by various UN agencies and international NGOs. Vlad’s work has been featured in over 40 publications, including National Geographic, NPR, Newsweek Japan, BBC, and The Guardian. In 2014, he was named Best Ph...

“Cybernetics is the Greek word for governor, that’s where it came from. It was introduced into the contemporary discussion with a book by Norbert Wiener in 1948 called Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. These were the very early days of computers and they were looking for a theory to guide the creation of computers.” Stuart Umpleby is Professor Emeritus of Man...

Stuart Umpleby is Professor Emeritus of Management at George Washington University School of Business. He has served as President of the American Society of Cybernetics and is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Cybernetics and Systems. His studies in cybernetics, systems and management has led him to consult with the World Bank, US and Canadian government agencies as well as numerous...

Welcome to The Creative Process’s Poetry and Prose series. In this episode, we’ll be hearing powerful readings of poems and prose from Neil Gaiman, Marge Piercy, Alice Fulton, EJ Koh, Alice Notley, Gerald Fleming, Margo Berdeshevsky, Jess Wilber & Yu Young Lee. · www.neilgaiman.com · www.margepiercy.com · www.alicefulton.com · www.thisisejkoh.com · margoberdeshevsky.com · www.swimtheuniverse.com ·...

David Rubin began his career in New York on the production staff of Saturday Night Live, before working on the casting of Ragtime, Silkwood, and Amadeus. His career as a casting director includes more than 80 motion pictures, including The English Patient, Men in Black, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Lars and the Real Girl. He has also assembled the casts of TV productions such as Big Little Lies, A...

David Rubin began his career in New York on the production staff of Saturday Night Live, before working on the casting of Ragtime, Silkwood, and Amadeus. His career as a casting director includes more than 80 motion pictures, including The English Patient, Men in Black, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Lars and the Real Girl. He has also assembled the casts of TV productions such as Big Little Lies, A...

“I have this idea art should be in the world in as many forms and ways as possible, and I love communicating with skate decks… It partially started out in Brazil because what I was doing in Brazil is x-raying animals in the Amazon and I thought there was this idea in the old days that you’d go to the Amazon, you’d kill an animal, stuff it, bag it, and then you’d have this trophy of your kill. The...

Steve Miller is a multimedia artist born and raised in Buffalo, New York. Being an early pioneer for the ‘science-art’ movement, his most recognized works are those of paintings and sculptures of the natural world. One of his latest projects, entitled, “Health of the Planet”, works with Brazilian scientists to showcase the diversity and necessity of the lungs of our planet, the Amazon rainforest....

“For a writer of non-fiction or essayist that’s very difficult to work with because we aren’t, or at least some of us don’t consider ourselves journalists. The tools that we are working with aren’t– What your favorite color is. Where you grew up. Or what your favorite number is. If we’re writing a profile of something, the tools that we’re working with are long conversations in which people are sh...