Lisa Hess moved to New York at the age of 16 and a year later was asked to join the company of the New York City Ballet. That began an adventure with some of the great choreographers and dancers of the century, in a golden age of dance in America. Hess worked with the legendary George Balanchine in his final decade of life, frequently with Jerome Robbins, and others. In this extended oral history episode, Lisa Hess Jones captures a vivid era--a girl from Amarillo, Texas who finds herself with superstars Nureyev, Baryshnikov, Farrell, and a host of luminaries as she charts her course as a female, LDS artist, before embarking on a second career as a teacher, choreographer, and mother of two boys.

Music: "Please Only Tell Me Good News” by Stephen Anderson; used with permission.

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After an emerging-artist blitz of 26 New York exhibitions in just 7 years, the award-winning visual artist Valerie Atkisson de Moura hit a wall. Adrift and depressed in a new home, she received a medical diagnosis of an incurable disease and discovered that her mother had the same disease but had kept it secret from the family. Then, in a horrible year, her mother died, Valerie was hit by a car and suffered head trauma that changed the way she lives and works. Throughout everything, the artist's focus of creating art based on family history sustains her and propels her forward.

Music: "Please Only Tell Me Good News” by Stephen Anderson; used with permission.

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Potter Ben Behunin has created a body of work that includes message-driven ceramics exhibited in museums and galleries. He is also an author, and the subject of this interview is his field guide, “How to Seduce a Sasquatch,” which includes tips to jumpstart creativity and related theories. 

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Dancer, choreographer, and teacher Kate Monson describes her work at Brigham Young University, where approximately 5,000 students each semester take dance classes. She describes the dance-friendly LDS culture, how all of us are dancers, and how, as a dancer's career progresses, it is impacted by ageism. Finally, Monson draws connections between her spirituality and physical movement.

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This interview with visual artist Jackie Leishman and poet Steven L. Peck unwinds the process of creative minds meeting, finding common passions, and then making inter-disciplinary art together. The podcast celebrates the artists' latest published work, a chine-collé print, Sound of a broken wing.

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In this episode, Mia Meredith describes her work as a graphic designer for the very popular, monthly pull-out section of The New York Times created exclusively for kids. The graduate of Brigham Young University's design program talks about her career path in New York that landed her in her dream job, its challenges, rewards, and purpose, which is to help kids understand the world.

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The exhibition The Delicate Ties That Bind explores the precariousness of post-pandemic existence and assesses the complex and often fragile relationships that shape our lives now. Curated by Megan Knobloch Geilman, these threads make up the nature of our reality and serve as metaphors for both a tattered society and the essential connections between us. In this interview, the curator describes the process of putting together this exhibition on the campus of Claremont Graduate University with participating artists: Andrew Ballsteaedt, Richard Gate, Megan Knobloch Geilman, Kyla Hansen, Jackie Leishman, Alice Marie Perreault, and Samantha Zauscher. 

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A landmark exhibition spanning the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints marks a milestone in the culture's artistic output and appreciation. The 121-work exhibition, Work and Wonder: 200 Years of Latter-day Saint Art, is curated by Heather Belnap, Ashlee Whitaker Evans, and Brontë Hebdon. They join in this wide-ranging conversation about the show's five years of development and the four themes that emerged from their extensive, global research: Memory and Archive, Individual and Church, Sacred Spaces, and Identity. The curators provide fascinating stories about the works in the show, which is at the Church History Museum from the end of September 2024 through the beginning March 2025, organized by the museum and the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts.

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The publication of Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader is a landmark event, the first comprehensive critical examination of Mormon Art. In this interview, co-editors Mason Kamana Allred and Amanda Beardsley introduce the chapters with insights into the reasons why each is indispensable. Then, the authors of this 664-page book from Oxford University Press submitted questions for the podcast about the making of the book and what lies ahead in art and objects by LDS people. Part 1 of 2 historic interviews.

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The publication of Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader is a landmark event, the first comprehensive critical examination of Mormon Art. In this interview, co-editors Mason Kamana Allred and Amanda Beardsley introduce the chapters with insights into the reasons why each is indispensable. Then, the authors of this 664-page book from Oxford University Press submitted questions for the podcast about the making of the book and what lies ahead in art and objects by LDS people. Part 2 of 2 historic interviews.

Send us a text about the podcast.