A Line Around Your Thoughts

We explore multiple disciplines with this week's guest, Darrien Mack.

Darrien is a DJ, a hip-hop artist, a videographer, a writer, a graphic designer and much, much more.

One night you might see him curating a DJ set as Rosethrow, whereas the next night he'll performing with his group Truehoods. And the night after that he'll be capturing video for an event with Terrain or Pivot.

And with such a broad creative portfolio to his name, this episode's conversation naturally runs the gamut. We talk about obscure words, obscure music, connecting with other human beings and treating design almost as a way of life.

Thanks once again to this episode's sponsor, the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.

This week our guest is the Spokane photographer Dean Davis.

Dean's work is the subject of a new retrospective exhibition at Spokane Falls Community College. It features select photos from his more than 30-year career in both commercial and fine-art photography.

In this interview, Dean recaps that long career to give some context to those featured photos. Along the way, we end up talking about his early adoption of techniques like HDR and tilt shift as well as processes like giclée printing.

We also get into his ongoing projects like Pictures of Poets and his more recent foray into ceramics.

Many thanks to the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture for sponsoring this episode.

The writer Susie Leonard Weller is our guest this week. She recently published 52 Global Reflections: A Pilgrim’s Travel Memoir — a book that's part memoir, part travel diary and part discussion starter.

Susie gives some background on why she wrote the book as well as some of the places and experiences that left the most lasting impressions on her.

As part of that conversation, we also talk about travel as an act that connects us to humankind.

You can find out more about Susie's book at the 52 Global Reflections website.

And a big thanks to our sponsor for this episode, the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.

If you purchase art supplies in the Spokane area, then you've almost certainly stopped into Art Salvage.

Art Salvage is a resale outlet for the materials used in the making of all kinds of visual and tactile art. That could be paints and textiles, or it could be found objects that end up being creatively repurposed.

My guest this week is the founder, owner and executive director of Art Salvage, Katie Patterson Larson.

She talks us through their intake processes, the nexus of the circular and the creative economies, as well as Spokane's apparent fascination with rubber stamps.

Thanks to our episode sponsor, the ⁠Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture⁠.

The singer, songwriter and musician Olivia Brownlee is our guest on A Line Around Your Thoughts this week.

Recently, Olivia's been musing on a project that combines oral history and music. And if you're familiar with her work, that's a logical next step after her album This Is Where You Live, which commemorated the people and places of Spokane in song.

We do indeed talk about that oral history project as well as This Is Where You Live, her long tenure with Zonky Jazz Band and her single-per-month club.

But we can't help meandering a little to reflect on, among other things, music as shared experience.

Thanks to our episode sponsor, the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.

This week we're covering both music and film with guests Charlie Pepiton and Michael Kropf.

They are two Gonzaga University professors who've pooled their talents for a new short film titled Love, Eleanor. Charlie is the film's director, and Michael composed the score.

A preview screening of Love, Eleanor is coming up on October 18, 2025 with live accompaniment and a debut concert from the new chamber string orchestra Luminia.

In anticipation of that, we sat down to talk about how Michael's music helped inspire Charlie's film, which in turn helped inspire the string ensemble that Michael co-founded with Jason Moody of the Spokane Symphony.

Visit the Square Top Theatre website for a Love, Eleanor film trailer and more details on the preview screening.

And thanks once again to the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture for sponsoring this episode!

This episode is going out on on Thursday, October 2, 2025, which means Terrain's big annual arts showcase takes place tomorrow night (Oct. 3) in downtown Spokane. The VIP preview night is tonight.

For its (Sweet) 16th year, Terrain is featuring 850 works of art by 483 regional artists. There are also literature readings, short films, choreography, site specific installations and live performances by a number of bands across multiple genres.

This week's guests preview as much as of that as they can. They are Terrain's co-founder and executive director Ginger Ewing and the organization's operations director Jackie Caro.

Along with some behind-the-scenes insights into jurying and planning the show, Ginger and Jackie talk about what's new this year as well as what's returning. We also delve into ghost encounters!

Thanks to the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture for sponsoring this episode.

This week we're sitting down and chatting with Aimee Brooks and Morganne Elkins of Banana Slug Books.

Banana Slug recently published its first book, a short-story anthology titled Spokane Campfire Stories.

It features work by 23 writers, including Sam Ligon, Kate Lebo, Kris Dinnison, Katy Shedlock, Gregory Spatz and Aimee herself.

Spokane Campfire Stories had its official launch at a reading in Manito Park in late August. Not long after that Aimee and Morganne came into the Rogue Heart Media studio to talk about the anthology in more detail.

Through the course of that conversation, we ended up discussing how Banana Slug Books got its start, the fusion of oral and literary traditions as well as Spokane's soft spot for seeing itself reflected in fiction.

If you're thinking of purchasing a copy of Spokane Campfire Stories, be sure to support your local bookstore! It's available locally at Auntie’s, Atticus, Jupiter’s Eye and Wishing Tree Books.

We departed the Rogue Heart Media studio and went on location for this week's episode to sit down with glass artist Preston Singletary and independent curator Miranda Belarde-Lewis.

Preston's exhibition Raven and the Box of Daylight is currently showing at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture until January 4, 2026.

This episode was recorded onsite during the installation of that exhibition, which depicts the story of the mischievous Raven bringing light to the world as recounted in Tlingit lore.

The three of us talked about Raven as a figure in tribal mythology, the universality of a good story, and the idea of art—and particularly Indigenous art—as a vehicle for information.

Naturally, too, we get into the specifics of Preston's work and the exhibition itself, including its use of sound and lighting to create a multisensory experience.

This week's episode features a conversation with the bookbinder and book artist Mel Antuna Hewitt, who goes by Mel the Maker.

Mel came in to talk about her own work with the printed page and the act of creating something unique in a medium that's usually about reproducibility.

She also prompts some reflection on what makes a book a book, which is a thought she'll continue in her forthcoming exhibition, titled "Communications." That opens on October 3, 2025 at the Terrain Gallery.

Thanks to our episode sponsor, the ⁠Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture⁠. The MAC is currently showing the nationally touring exhibition Preston Singletary: Raven & The Box of Daylight.

Preston and his exhibition curator Miranda Belarde-Lewis will be the guests on next week's episode of ALAYT.