The Art Box

Writer, poet, nurse and mother Kindall Fredricks RN, ADN joins us for a fascinating conversation about what happens when a story refuses to travel in a straight line. Kindall uses unconventional spacing, formatting and punctuation as part of the storytelling itself, allowing the page to fracture as memory and time fracture. The result is writing with a tenuous relationship to time, where past, present and possibility can collide and a linear narrative can splinter into something much more interesting. We also explore Kindall’s poetry collection I’ll Take My Body To-Go, her “semi-feral” Texas childhood, humor as a way of approaching difficult experiences, and her belief that reading is an exercise in empathy. And we venture into some provocative territory as Kindall discusses her short-story collection she is creating around AI and technological change. You can find Kindalls work on Instagram: @poetrynhotsauce You can find I'll Take My Body To-Go at: https://blogs.uakron.edu/uapress/product/ill-take-my-body-to-go/  

On Episode 488, photographer and artist Marie Nygren joins Steve and Addie for a journey across Nevada, one photograph at a time. Marie’s love of photography began when her grandmother gave her a Kodak Brownie as a child. Decades later, a photography class reignited that spark, and a first-place award helped convince her that the camera might become much more than a hobby. Today, Marie wanders Nevada searching for changing light, forgotten places, old buildings, ghost towns, storms, landscapes, and those fleeting moments that make her stop and press the shutter. Her “17 Counties in Nevada: Phase Two” traveling exhibition features an image from every Nevada county and is being shown throughout rural Nevada. We talk about photography, adventure, technology, the importance of documenting places before they disappear and why Marie believes photographs are “a time capsule of memories.” From a little Brownie camera to a lifetime spent exploring Nevada, this is a conversation about curiosity, possibility, and learning to really see the place you call home.

For Episode 489 of The Art Box, Mesquite Fire Rescue Chief Jayson Andrus and Maryann Mainero join Steve in the Mesquite Works STEAM Center studio for a conversation about service, community, public art, and the future of Mesquite. At the center of our conversation is the new Fire Station #2 and the important difference it is already making by improving emergency response times for residents on the north side of the freeway. But this episode isn't just about a new building. It's about the people who serve inside it—and the community surrounding it. Jayson and Maryann take us back to their childhoods, sharing some of the experiences that shaped them and the journeys that eventually brought each of them to Mesquite. We talk about what it means to serve a growing community and why those precious minutes saved in an emergency matter so much. And, of course, this is The Art Box, so we talk about art. We introduce the plans for the “Next Generation” sculpture garden at Fire Station #2—a welcoming, park-like space centered around a heartfelt sculpture of a firefighter, a young girl, and, naturally, a Dalmatian. It will be a place to honor our firefighters and first responders, celebrate generations of service, and give residents a quiet place to sit, reflect, and enjoy. We also discuss how our community can become part of the project by supporting the fundraising effort needed to bring the sculpture and surrounding site to life. It's an episode about much more than a fire station. It's about response, service, art, community—and the next generation. Donations can be made: https://www.fundraisingbrick.com/online-orders/mfr/ Thanks to Nevada Arts Council for the America 250 Grant that allowed is to place meaningful wraps outside of Fire Stations 2 and 3, also to the artist Rachelle Knight and over vendor Clark County Printing.  

For Daniel Brady, creativity has never belonged to just one art form. In Episode 487 of The Art Box, Steve sits down with poet, writer, musician, teacher, and performer Daniel Brady for a conversation about a creative journey that began in elementary school and took shape during the cultural upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s. Poetry, music, dreams, the moon landing, Earth Day, Civil Rights, the Vietnam era, protest songs, and the open-mic scene of San Francisco all became part of Dan's artistic vocabulary. Dan takes us inside his unusual creative process. When inspiration arrives, he listens to what he calls his inner voice, writes until that voice has finished speaking, and then begins a process of reading, revising, performing, and sometimes revisiting a poem even years after he thought it was finished. Community has also played an important role in Dan's life. Open mics became places of connection and healing, eventually leading him to create the Global Open Mic and host a weekly poetry gathering. His advice to emerging creatives is wonderfully straightforward: read, read, read; write, write, write—and don't limit yourself to a single art form. And now Dan has found yet another creative voice. Performing under the stage name DanSing, he is bringing folk songs, protest songs, and music that has mattered throughout his life into his performances, another chapter in a creative journey that has lasted more than half a century. It's a wonderfully wide-ranging Art Box conversation about where inspiration comes from, why we create, the power of words and music, and what can happen when we keep listening for that inner voice. Find Dan at: Creative Ideas Consulting San Francisco

What happens when you finally achieve the dream you’ve spent your whole life chasing and discover that reaching the summit isn’t what you thought it would be? In Episode 486 of The Art Box, Steve sits down with Jen Guyton, National Geographic Explorer, wildlife photojournalist, ecologist, and founder of Wild Beyond. Jen’s remarkable journey began as a little girl repeatedly watching a National Geographic gorilla documentary and eventually carried her to Berkeley, Princeton, the wilds of Africa, and the March 2024 cover of National Geographic with her extraordinary infrared photographs of spotted hyenas. But this conversation is about much more than photography. Jen talks about standing in the fascinating space where science and art meet, learning to surrender to what nature actually gives you rather than the photograph you planned, and developing an affection for animals—especially hyenas—that humans have often misunderstood. She describes that intersection of disciplines as an ecotone, the rich boundary where two different habitats come together. We also venture into more personal territory: achievement, validation, burnout, fear, vulnerability, and what happens when creative work stops belonging to the person creating it. Jen shares how achieving one of her greatest professional goals ultimately led her to step away from photography and reconsider what was fueling her ambition. Today, through her Rewild Method, Jen applies lessons learned from ecology to people, helping them remove some of the expectations and constraints that have shaped their lives and rediscover what might still be waiting underneath. Along the way we explore a wonderfully Art Box kind of question: Can creativity itself be a way of turning toward the storm? Find out more about Jen: https://www.jenguyton.com/ Wildbeyond Coaching: https://www.wildbeyondcoaching.com/