The Banyan Collective

We harvested just the smallest yield from the bounty of writing experience that came together to talk writing before our Utah Humanities Book Festival LITerally reading.

In conjunction with The Utah Humanities Book Festival, this was a group podcast featuring many of our local and national guests. Our local readers for the evening: Kase Johnstun, Sian Griffiths, J.A. Carter Winward, Danielle Susi, Chadd VanZanten, Brad Roghar (Ogden Poet Laureate), Alison McLennon, Amanda Luzzader, and Michael McLane.Our Oregon writers who joined us: Sean Davis and Deborah Reed.

Branson Anderson plays a 4 song set on Season 4 of Van Sessions.

This episode includes an interview with James Argo of Industrial Art & Design and, Jake McEntire of Union Creative Agency. We spoke with James and Jake in what they refer to as the “Fish Bowl” room on the second level of the newly renovated Argo House.

Argo House is described as a design colony located on 25th Street in the heart of Ogden’s Nine Rails Creative District. Tenants of the Argo House are varied in expertise and pursuits united through their passion for creativity.

Philadelphia-based BalletX, a premier contemporary ballet company featuring world-class dancers toured through Ogden thanks to the Ogden Symphony Ballet Association, and we able to chat with Associate Artistic Director, Tara Keating, along with Dancer, Richard Villaverde.

A mini-Van Session as recorded at the OFOAM Ogden Music Festival in a van down by the Weber River at Fort Buenaventura. M. Horton Smith and Daniel Young, two members of The Hollering Pines joined us for 2 acoustic songs in a van backstage at OFOAM.

We got poetry. We got prose. We got a performance piece. And there is so much more in our podcast with J.A. Carter Winward. If you're easily offended, this isn't your episode. But if you're not, you will be entertained. Thanks, JA, fro joining me and Brandon for the podcast. We got LIT (eral).

Van Sessions Season 4 with Lysergic Ashes!

In Episode 5, we go on campus to talk Ink Dwell’s Monarch Butterfly Migrating Mural at Weber State University’s Kimball Visual Arts Building. We sat down with Ink Dwell studio co-founders, WSU Hurst Artist-in-Residence, Jane Kim, and adventure journalist, Thayer Walker, as well as Aubrey Eckhardt, one of three art student interns assisting with the mural.

Scott Sprenger, the dean of the Telitha E. Lindquist College of Arts & Humanities, and Matthew Choberka, the Chair & Professor of Art at the Department of Visual Art & Design, joined us for the conversation as well. Ogden’s first Migrating Mural, discussed in Episode 4, is located at The Monarch building at 455 25th Street. Community members can view banner illustrations created by Kim at the Ogden Nature Center.

Paul Rowley talks to us about his first chapbook, one that gives a picture of living always on the borders -- the borders between the expectations and realities of growing up as Native American, though this is just the catalyst for a much deeper discussion about the place of art in our time. (Adult Content Warning)

In Episode 4, we are joined by the founders of Ink Dwell studio, science illustrator & muralist Jane Kim and adventure journalist Thayer Walker, as well as painter assistants, Laura Macias, Ash Ferlito and Fiorella Ikeue, to discuss Ink Dwell’s Migrating Mural campaign and much, much more.

The first of two episodes devoted to Ogden’s citywide, collaborative monarch butterfly installations focuses on Phase One, Ogden Nature Center Entrance Banners, and Phase Two, a spectacular outdoor mural at the newly restored Monarch building.

Professional XTERRA athlete, Will Kelsay, joins us to chat about this weekend's 2018 XTERRA Pan Am Championship triathlon and XTERRA Trail Run National Championship, oh, and also touring the country in an old RV. Also, events, adventure news, Worth Reading, Outdoor Jukebox, and more! Enjoy!