Sunrise photographer. Festival co-founder. Business owner, web designer, holiday inventor. Above all, a Yooper. That’s someone who lives in the Upper Peninsula—“U.P.”—of Michigan.

“We really latch onto the word ‘sisu,’ a Finnish word meaning ‘resilient,’” says Sailor. Physically separate from the rest of the state, the U.P. “is its own little subculture” of resilience, resourcefulness, and the great outdoors. 

Sailor makes it his life’s work to expand and celebrate that subculture. No idea is too small…or big.

“A big driving force of a lot of my work,” he says, is “using the quirky to bring people together.”

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Bugsy Sailor

Like Plaidurday, a “worldwide” celebration—founded by Sailor—of the U.P.’s (unofficial) pattern with suggested activities like wearing plaid, making plaid cookies, and donating plaid clothing to shelters.

Or 906 Day, another Bugsy Sailor original, which encourages Yoopers to celebrate their area code by sharing photos with the hashtag #906Day annually on September 6.

Or the dating site Yooper Singles.

Or about a dozen others.

“I don’t like sitting on ideas,” he says. “We all have little ideas that surface. Hopefully, people see my work and think, ‘Oh, I should start that little quirky idea I had.”

 

Shining Bright for the U.P.

As his friend group’s “token Yooper” at Michigan State University, Sailor discovered a passion for sharing all things U.P.: the lakes, the plaid, the people. He earned degrees in advertising and sociology and started working in web design. “It was always this enjoyment of the worldwide web, which I’ve latched onto for the core of most of my projects,” he says.

Sailor’s best-known project is Year of the Sunrise. 

He wakes before dawn to photograph sunrises in blizzards, downpours, and clear skies on the shores of Lake Superior. He’s amassed a following on social media and was featured on CBS Sunday Morning. “I don’t think I ever imagined this whole sunrise endeavor to strike a chord with as many people as it has. I feel incredibly blessed.”

Sailor publishes his photos online and one day, hopefully, in a book. He’s in his 8th year of documenting sunrises.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Bugsy Sailor

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Bugsy Sailor

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Bugsy Sailor

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Bugsy Sailor

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Bugsy Sailor

He sells prints at his business in downtown Marquette, the Upper Peninsula Supply Co., which carries a trove of Yooper merch including original designs by Sailor. One example is his Marquette Salamanders gear, a “semi-fictional sports team” Sailor invented to celebrate the blue-spotted salamanders that migrate through the area. 

Then, there’s Fresh Coast Film Festival, a first-of-its-kind documentary fest co-founded by Sailor. Film buffs and outdoors enthusiasts unite to explore Marquette’s natural beauty by day and enjoy cinema honoring the “outdoor lifestyle, water-rich environment and resilient spirit of the Great Lakes” by night.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Bugsy Sailor

“What I think we’re blessed with here in the U.P. [are] communities that are willing to say yes,” he says. “That ‘yes’ mentality is really important.”

Sailor’s creative endeavors in service of the U.P. have earned him a title: Official Unofficial Ambassador. “I’m still waiting for a nod from the governor,” he chuckles. 

But until then, he’ll keep “repping the U.P. in a fresh and unique perspective,” he says, and “putting a little more fun and joy into the world.”

The post Yoop and Behold: The Creative Energy and Endeavors of Bugsy Sailor appeared first on Arts Midwest.

“She removed the wax and revealed these stunning colors on the egg,” Rogocki recalls. “It was just an amazing process to see.”

Photo Credit: Petra Daher / Arts Midwest

This was a pysanky egg, intricately decorated in an Eastern European folk tradition that is at least a thousand years old. For Rogocki, a 2025 Midwest Culture Bearer awardee based in Lansing, Michigan, it is a direct link to her Polish heritage.

Photo Credit: Petra Daher / Arts Midwest

“Pysanky eggs always caught my imagination with their mystery and magic,” she says. “When I’m at art fairs and children see the eggs, you see that wonder. I love seeing my work through their eyes.”

Rogocki grew up in England. Her father immigrated from Poland before she was born, and Rogocki saw pysanky on the Easter postcards sent from their family there.

She attended art college and received her Master’s, specializing in installation work, mixed media, and site-specific pieces. (Some of this work even incorporated eggshells.) But it was her own immigration journey that led her back to pysanky.

“It wasn’t until I came to the U.S., where the Ukrainian and Polish immigrants had established their cultures and communities here, that made it accessible,” she says. “[Growing up,] we didn’t really celebrate that heritage. I wanted to raise my children with those connections.”

 

Mastering an Artform

Inspired by masters like Detroit-based Roman Seniuk, Rogocki started applying her art skills to eggs, moving through “clumsy beginnings” to learn precise techniques generations in the making.

A landmark in her career was the chance to learn from Helen Badulak, author of Pysanky in the 21st Century and one of the country’s foremost pysanky masters. Badulak invited Rogocki and her family to stay at her Pennsylvania home.

“As my mentor, she gave me tools, materials, and photos of eggs in her museum collection for me to continue to practice and to be inspired by,” says Rogocki. One lesson she learned from Badulak: don’t be afraid to push traditional art into new terrain.

Photo Credit: Petra Daher / Arts Midwest

Photo Credit: Petra Daher / Arts Midwest

Photo Credit: Petra Daher / Arts Midwest

Photo Credit: Petra Daher / Arts Midwest

Photo Credit: Petra Daher / Arts Midwest

Photo Credit: Petra Daher / Arts Midwest

Now 25 years into her pysanky practice, Rogocki is a recognized expert. She displays breathtaking pysanky at art fairs and cultural festivals and offers workshops for delighted newcomers, with or without Polish heritage.

Like her mentor, Rogocki creates original designs alongside traditional ones, drawing on imagery from Poland’s pre-Christian roots. Finding a balance between innovation and tradition comes down to intention: “My intent is to make an object that does have some talismanic power to it, that does have layers of meaning and isn’t purely a decorative object,” she says.

Eggs can be a challenging and beautiful medium. “The egg is already carrying a meaning in itself—a rebirth, the cycle of life—before you even start putting your own meanings and interpretations onto it,” says Rogocki. “I think it’s the tension of the fragility and the power of that symbol that makes it so interesting to me.”

The post Meet Jozefa Rogocki, Expanding the Artistry and Legacy of Pysanky Eggs appeared first on Arts Midwest.

“If you have an ounce of creativity in you,” he says, “if you come to this country and go to the sandhills, where good horses and cattle are raised and the families have been for generations, there’s poetry all around.”

Cook is a 2025 Midwest Culture Bearer awardee. His work is “the poetry of the working cowboy,” flowing from years of hard work on horseback, chasing cattle and building a life. 

Photo Credit: Rebecca DeWitt / Arts Midwest

Cowboy poetry—a name that Cook says some appreciate and others find limiting—stretches back to the 19th century. Cowboys put their stories of trailing cattle and braving fearsome weather into rhyme so they could remember, he says. “Stories turned into songs and poems. And it continues to this day.”

Cook was a full-time rancher for decades, but he started as an actor. He studied Theatre Arts at Southern Utah State College, performed at the renowned Utah Shakespeare Festival, and was considering grad school. But his father’s passing brought Cook to a crossroads. 

Photo Credit: Rebecca DeWitt / Arts Midwest

He decided to move to the upper Great Plains, where he’d spent summers ranching with his mother’s family in Nebraska and South Dakota.

“I loved it as much as I loved acting,” says Cook. “I came back and rebuilt a life here, and it’s been a wonderful life. But boy, you can’t get rid of that other itch.”

As a rancher, Cook found himself jotting down his experiences on the job. (“Having a major in Theatre Arts and a minor in English Lit, you’re bound to pick up a pencil whether you’re a cowboy or not,” he says.) In 1987, when he received Waddie Mitchell’s Christmas Poems with a note saying, “Read this aloud,” and heard the legendary Baxter Black recite cowboy poetry to a packed gymnasium in Martin, Cook realized how to scratch that itch.

“From there on,” he says, “I was writing poetry.”

 

Photo Credit: Rebecca DeWitt / Arts Midwest

Photo Credit: Rebecca DeWitt / Arts Midwest

Photo Credit: Rebecca DeWitt / Arts Midwest

Photo Credit: Rebecca DeWitt / Arts Midwest

Now, Cook is a veteran of the genre. He was the 2010 Academy of Western Artists Poet of the Year and a founding member of CowboyPoetry.com. While a core feature of his work is live performance, his poems have been featured in The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering Anthology and on several poetry CDs. He partners with singer-songwriter Paul Larson for Cowboy Culture South Dakota Style, bringing cowhands and city-folks to tears—of both laughter and poignancy—with stories of this ever-vibrant way of life.

“There are gatherings clear across the West, thousands of people, to come and listen to cowboy music and poetry about the working cowboy,” says Cook. “Who wants to listen? A lot of people.”

The enthusiasm is especially meaningful in an artform that stems from deeply personal stories of triumph, heartbreak, humor, and love.

“All four of my kids were ranch-raised,” Cook says. “Hayfields, building fence, moving cattle, we all did it together. The most wonderful times of my life was spent with family doing this. The role family played [in my poetry] . . . it’s not everything, but it’s everything.”

Receiving the Midwest Culture Bearer Award has “spurred me on,” he says. “Keep telling your stories. People are listening.”

Bloodlines

An excerpt from Ken Cook’s ‘Bloodlines’


Now over the years our horses improved because me and my crew did the same.

Gosh I enjoy horseback in the sand with cowboys who share my last name.

No matter the job or which neighbor we help, very seldom we’ll be poorly mounted.

As their Dad I’m amazed by the kids that we’ve raised, our blessings are gratefully counted.

Still our horses aren’t the kind whose bloodlines run real deep,

but the cowboys who are riding them, their bloodline is mine to keep.

Photo Credit: Rebecca DeWitt / Arts Midwest

The post Meet Ken Cook, Sharing Cowboy Culture Through Poetry appeared first on Arts Midwest.

That’s been the case at Maryhill Manor, an elder care facility in Enderlin, North Dakota, and a partner in the North Dakota Council on the Arts’ Art for Life program. 

What began as an art and wellness project with decoy artists Rick and Connie Whittier turned into a lively conversation among the residents about the joys of fishing. That conversation inspired a multi-year collaboration with city and county officials, and the Army Corps of Engineers, to construct a wheelchair-accessible fishing dock. 

Now all community members—Maryhill residents and non-residents alike—can enjoy a day of fishing, fresh air, and fun.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Troyd Geist, North Dakota Council on the Arts

“It’s phenomenal,” says Troyd Geist, North Dakota’s State Folklorist, arts council staff member, and developer of Art for Life. And it is just one of many stories from the program’s 25 years of existence.

Reconnection and Respite

Art for Life connects elder care facilities with local artists who bring painting, poetry, music, theater, and a host of other artforms directly to residents. These activities combat helplessness, loneliness, and boredom, which can be major obstacles for elders. 

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Troyd Geist, North Dakota Council on the Arts

A formal review assessing the program’s impact at Maryhill Manor reported improved mood, reduced anxiety, and increased eye contact and verbal communication among regular participants—even, for one individual, an improved PHQ-9 depression score.

“We’re probably at 14 to 16 different communities,” says Geist. “We focus on [using art] as a tool for wellness, which includes reintegrating the community back into the care facility and people in the care facility back into the community.”

Being creative together has measurably increased residents’ confidence and sociability. It also creates memories for families, who see new sides of their loved ones through an original poem, a colorful collage, or a fish decoy.

“These become legacy items for the family,” says Geist. “There’s these ripple effects beyond just the individual.”

Another signature element of Art for Life is its emphasis on building relationships between elders and young people, with the help of artists. “It has turned out to be a favorite component,” says Geist. “The kids love it, the elders love it. Some schools will meet with the elders once a month.”

 

One example came from the city of Ellendale, where students interviewed elders, then wrote and performed a play based on their lives.

“There was a sense of calm throughout the facility the entire day. There was no sundowning,” says Geist. “The children and our elders, they’re collaborating together; they’re also collaborating with the artist. It works so well in a lot of ways.”

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Troyd Geist, North Dakota Council on the Arts

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Troyd Geist, North Dakota Council on the Arts

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Troyd Geist, North Dakota Council on the Arts

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Troyd Geist, North Dakota Council on the Arts

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Troyd Geist, North Dakota Council on the Arts

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Troyd Geist, North Dakota Council on the Arts

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Troyd Geist, North Dakota Council on the Arts

The relationships built through Art for Life continue beyond the program itself. Geist recalls one resident, a veteran with no children of his own, who formed a bond with some of the teenagers he met through the program. When he died, the boys took off school to attend his funeral.

“We’re really talking about impacting not just the wellness of that individual but the wellness of the community at large,” he says. “They’re just fantastic stories.”

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Troyd Geist, North Dakota Council on the Arts

The post This North Dakota Program Makes Aging a Work of Art and Heart appeared first on Arts Midwest.

“Lebanon is primarily a blue-collar town,” says Joe LePage, Lebanon, Indiana’s Communication and Community Development Director. In this city of 17,000, residents like LePage wanted to find more opportunities for fun, alongside function. 

He noticed nearby towns with dedicated arts districts offering entertainment, belonging, and community pride. LePage imagined something similar in Lebanon, he says, “to create something fun in our community and provide a space where—no matter your age or persuasion—there would be a place.”

Photo Credit: Joe Lepage

After meeting with the Indiana Arts Commission (IAC), LePage saw that a full arts district was still a few years away. But the IAC asked Lebanon to host Creative Convergence, a two-day workshop with the Indiana Communities Institute at Ball State, designed to integrate arts and culture into more Indiana cities.

As one of the 10 cities selected to participate in the workshop, LePage and teammates Corey Kutz, Missy Krulik, and Anita Gordon brainstormed ideas to inspire a more creative, unified community.

“Missy mentioned seeing an .mp3 recorder in an old rotary phone at a wedding, for folks to share stories for the couple,” LePage recalls. “That was the jumping-off point. How could this be presented within our community?”

Backed by a grant from the IAC, they tracked down an old-fashioned phone booth and fitted it with a recorder. They dubbed it the Lebanon Story Booth and unveiled it at public events—farmers markets, a community holiday party, a LEGO event at the library—with different prompts: What brought you to Lebanon? What’s your favorite thing to do here?

“The whole goal is to have folks know they have more in common than they think,” says LePage.

 

Unity and connection are top of mind for many in Lebanon. The story booth aims to “let people know they matter, no matter where they’re at,” says LePage. “It’s trying to soften that [division], and add injections of arts and culture all across town.”

Despite some initial trepidation, a little encouragement (and free merch) persuaded residents to pick up the phone and experience what LePage calls “a time-machine effect.”

“They have that wall up, and then that melts away,” he says. “You see the softness in their eyes. No one’s trying to get anything from them, [we’re] just trying to share a story.”

Photo Credit: Joe Lepage

Photo Credit: Joe Lepage

Photo Credit: Joe Lepage

Photo Credit: Joe Lepage

Photo Credit: Joe Lepage

Photo Credit: Joe Lepage

Photo Credit: Joe Lepage

One longtime resident told LePage that her story wasn’t worth telling, but in the booth, she revealed extensive knowledge about her family’s history in the area, tracing back generations. “The smile on her face after she shared . . . it was like, ‘They seem to care,’” he recalls.

Research shows that the act of telling our story—and listening to others tell theirs—is good for our brains and strengthens our bonds with others.

With more than 200 recordings from 2025, LePage and his team created videos for social media, pairing the footage with pictures. A recurring theme among responses was, “That’s my story, too!”

“That’s a win from this project,” says LePage. “[People] really drew that connective tissue with someone: ‘You’ve got other brothers and sisters here that have a similar story.’”

The post An Old Phone Booth Is Helping an Indiana City Share Stories appeared first on Arts Midwest.

Growing up in Morelos, Mexico, Marván saw spectacular paper figures constructed by master artisans called cartoneros, especially at festivities like Día de Muertos. Cartonería was more than an artform; it was a bedrock of culture and collective memory. But it was also at risk.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Gabriela Jiménez Marván

“Cartonería was disappearing because not all of the generations wanted to continue,” says the 2025 Midwest Culture Bearer awardee based in Viroqua, Wisconsin.

In 2016, she began apprenticing with a third-generation cartonera. She learned not just the trade, but the stories and names behind it. She studied at the folk art museum in Morelos (Museo Morelense de Arte Popular), and later with Leonardo Linares, whose family are perhaps the most well-known and influential cartoneros in the world.

To pass on this knowledge, Marván founded a collective of women cartoneras in her hometown in south-central Mexico. They taught workshops for children and seniors, sometimes in partnership with environmental biologists. “Cartonería is about reusing paper, so we wanted to connect that with environmental education,” she says.

Collective Art Making

With recycled paper and homemade glue—cut, layered, pasted, dried, and painted—cartoneros create figures of people, animals, or fantastical creatures called alebrijes (invented by Pedro Linares in the 1930s).

Large-scale cartonería pieces require a skeleton of wood or metal. Most times, it is not a solo activity.

“Community building is the heart of cartonería, the heart of my life,” Marván says. “In Mexico, cartonería has always been a collective practice. Big figures are created by teams of artists and families. They are meant to be on the streets in the hands of the community. Working this way teaches you to collaborate and honor many voices.”

So, after moving to rural Wisconsin, Marván set to work.

There were “very few spaces of cultural diversity” when she first relocated. “Instead of seeing this as an absence, I saw it as an invitation,” she says.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Gabriela Jiménez Marván

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Gabriela Jiménez Marván

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Gabriela Jiménez Marván

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Gabriela Jiménez Marván

Photo Credit: Peter Cozad / Courtesy of Gabriela Jiménez Marván

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Gabriela Jiménez Marván

Marván founded the Mexican Folk Art Collective and launched the region’s first Día de Muertos celebration. Now an annual event, she organizes with local non-profit Driftless Curiosity and area farmers, who provide a venue, Mexican corn, and thousands of marigolds for people of all backgrounds to gather and build ofrendas or altars. Marván creates breathtaking cartonería displays.

“Community building means creating spaces where people feel invited to connect to something larger than ourselves,” she says. “Cartonería is the simple language I use to make that connection.”

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Gabriela Jiménez Marván

With the Mexican Folk Art Collective, Marván collaborates with other artists to host workshops at schools and libraries. She’s created large-scale alebrijes for venues like Sauk County’s Farm/Art DTour and Centro Hispano in Madison.

She has also curated exhibitions at galleries and museums, and presented workshops at the Mexican consulate in Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Art Museum, Latino Arts, and the Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington, D.C.

“Being a culture bearer is a responsibility of the heart,” she says. “To show up with humility, keep learning from traditional masters, and create spaces [to] pass traditions on. To allow them to grow and to adapt and belong to the people who experience them.”

 

The post Meet Gabriela Jiménez Marván, Building Bridges Through Mexican Paper Art appeared first on Arts Midwest.

Chances are, they’re experiencing HOMING: An Audio/Movement Journey. Artists Katherine G. Moore and Kathryn Nusa Logan, in partnership with Appalachian Understories, have created a site-specific audio tour using sound and movement to invoke curiosity, calm, and connection.

The tour is part of Arts in the Parks, a collaborative program by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the Ohio Arts Council.

Photo Credit: Mario Hensley

Listening to the Land

“Bottom line, we’re hoping people come away with a different way of thinking about moving through the world,” says Moore. “What happens if you stand still, or lie down? Look backwards, or look upside down? Touch the earth? Touch a tree?”

Photo Credit: Mario Hensley

HOMING asks an urgent question, Logan says: “If folks can be guided to attend to themselves and the natural world around them…might we treat the natural world differently?”

Moore and Logan created the first iteration of HOMING in 2024 at Scioto Audubon Metro Park in Columbus, Ohio. Through improvised dance exercises, poetry writings, and conversations with park staff, Moore and Logan developed a script that invited listeners into close attention to the land, their bodies, and the intersections between.

After its success, the two state agencies worked together to bring Moore and Logan’s project to more Ohioans through Arts in the Parks.

“It is our greatest mission to get folks out into nature, into one of our many state parks across Ohio, but to do it in a really cool way,” says Cynthia Amoah, who served as Arts in the Parks Coordinator during HOMING’s launch at Strouds Run.

To that end, she says, HOMING was a home run.

Attention and Intention

Moore and Logan met with geologists, historians, and park management to learn the landscape and history of Strouds Run. They selected locations that visitors could reach by foot and by car. They adapted to low cell reception by recording HOMING as podcast episodes to download in advance.

“Accessibility is of particular interest and importance to us, in addition to thinking about the history of the site,” says Logan. 

Participants can experience HOMING on their own or in groups. At each location, audio cues nudge their attention and inspire safe, self-directed movement. Listeners learn about the land and are prompted to envision what lies beneath, both physically and spiritually. 

Photo Credit: Mario Hensley

Photo Credit: Mario Hensley

Photo Credit: Mario Hensley

Photo Credit: Mario Hensley

By integrating the power of art and the power of nature, HOMING allows Arts in the Parks to broaden their reach. “It’s encouraging artists to let them know there’s a possibility to create in the greater outdoors,” says Amoah. “It’s also letting [nature-focused] folks know that there’s more than just a hike you can do on our trails or visiting our lodges. You can also be creative.”

“Folks feel so calm afterwards,” says Moore. “There’s just something a little bit meditative about this. That shift in attention does put you into a different sense of time and place.”

One of Moore’s favorite responses to HOMING came from a lifelong walk-taker in her seventies. “She told me, ‘This changes how I’m going to walk,’” Moore remembers. “I think that’s the goal. We’re interested in changing how folks react.”

The post Homing In: Sound and Movement Encourage Connection at a State Park appeared first on Arts Midwest.

“It started as a little bit of a joke, because if there’s a conversation in which I don’t drop the word ‘noise’ or ‘cosmology,’ you know something’s wrong,” laughs Hiranmayena, who is a 2025 Midwest Culture Bearer awardee. “But it encapsulates the kind of things I’m interested in: how people believe and what people believe, and how the presence of noise exists in belief.”

While “noise” can be a broad term, Hiranmayena uses an Indonesian word to pinpoint his definition: ramé.

Photo Credit: Chhayachhay Chhom / Courtesy of Putu Hiranmayena

“[For many Indonesians] It’s a kind of noise that is desired…a centrality of human life,” he says. Think of a tailgate, a birthday party, or even a protest: “Loud and noisy, but full of love, life, and people in collective motion.”

Hiranmayena’s multi-layered career blends tradition and experimentation. He grew up performing Balinese music with his family, who emigrated to the U.S. when he was an infant. At the center of this tradition was gamelan, an ensemble of drums, gongs, flutes, and xylophones that is played by, for, and in community.

In Indonesia, gamelan are passed down from generation to generation. They are specific to each village, using locally sourced materials, designs, and tunings that are not usually standardized (attempts at standardizing is a huge critique of Hiranmayena). They feature in many ceremonies, often with multiple musical events happening simultaneously.

“Traditional Balinese music should not be conceptualized as mere entertainment (a contentious topic even amongst Indonesians); it’s an activity you do with people in your community,” says Hiranmayena. “When you have all these different musical practices in the same place, it becomes ramé.”

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Putu Hiranmayena

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Putu Hiranmayena

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Putu Hiranmayena

Today, Hiranmayena composes and collaborates regularly with gamelan ensembles across the country. He also performs in the noise/metal improvisational trio Turtles All the Way Down, the Balinese experimental duo ghOstMiSt with dancer/poet/anthropologist Dewa Ayu Eka Putri, and most recently under his solo moniker, aQarawaQ. His compositions use noise as a conduit to critique systems and point to cultural problems, from challenging patriarchy to addressing Bali’s waste crisis.

As a professor at Grinnell College in Iowa, he draws on his traditional music background to teach classes like instrument-making, in which students use local materials to create new instruments with an emphasis on sustainability and community building. He also draws on this background for another class: heavy metal.

“Heavy metal tends to be really about the layperson, about getting with your buddies and negotiating creativity on your own without an authority,” he says. “It took me a really long time to realize this, but gamelan traditionally works that way too.” 

Community. Connection. Freedom from standardization. The tenets of both metal and traditional music, he says, revolve around these. And thus noisemaking advances justice.

Hiranmayena’s next project is the ParasWani Kvlektif, bringing together a collective of multi-modal Indonesian artists to create exactly what—and how—they want. The goal? To get noisy, he says, “making sure that the voices that exist today have no holds barred on what they want to get out.”

This is the heart of what a culture bearer is, he says. “It’s not forgetting where our communities come from, but also not being afraid to change and push for social justice, even within our own culture.” 

The post Meet Putu Tangkas Adi Hiranmayena, Infusing Experimentation into Balinese Music and Beyond appeared first on Arts Midwest.

For over four decades, the 2025 Midwest Culture Bearer awardee has done his part to keep the art and craft of metalwork thriving. From public installations to corporate commissions, restoration work to education, Medwedeff’s hammer has made an impact across the U.S. 

His blend of metalsmithing and sculpture has led to remarkable commissions including intricate custom railings, two-story sculptures, even championship trophies for professional golf tournaments.

Photo Credit: Megan Robin-Abott / Courtesy of John Medwedeff

From a Spark to a Career

Though he grew up in Tennessee, it was a trip at age 10 to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, that originally sparked his interest in metalsmithing. Watching blacksmiths at work in the living history side of the museum, he says, “just fired my imagination.”

As a teenager, Medwedeff got a $20 anvil from a flea market and taught himself some basics. “I would hammer on flattened-out pieces of copper pipe, make weird-looking belt buckles,” he remembers.

At 19, he began a three-year apprenticeship with James “Wally” Wallace, the founding director of the Metal Museum in Memphis. That experience became the foundation of Medwedeff’s career.

“I followed his example and owe my career to him. Few people leave a legacy so large as Jim Wallace. I am one of many whose lives are shaped by working with him,” he says of his lifelong mentor and friend.

Since then, he’s received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in metalsmithing from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, opened his studio in Murphysboro, Illinois, and mentored dozens of young smiths. He’s lectured at colleges, conferences, and craft schools and spent 17 years on the board of the Metal Museum. But it is in public art—about 60-70 percent of his work—that Medwedeff sees his creations make the biggest difference.

Art That Draws You In

“[Public art] lifts people up. It does something for the community,” he says. “My job is to communicate to people what can be beautiful, interesting, educational, spiritual even, and reach people through that.”

He recalls how his sculptural fountain for downtown Murphysboro became a regular backdrop for newscasts and wedding photos. Another sculpture, “Whirl” installed on the Bluff in Memphis, was voted “best place for a free date”. And while installing “Centripetal” at the Sarasota County Courthouse in Florida, he noticed everyone—from the judges to the defendants—pause to marvel on their way to court. 

Photo Credit: Courtesy of John Medwedeff

Photo Credit: Courtesy of John Medwedeff

Photo Credit: Courtesy of John Medwedeff

Photo Credit: Courtesy of John Medwedeff

Photo Credit: Courtesy of John Medwedeff

“Public art becomes part of the fabric of people’s lives,” he says, stressing its importance.

Medwedeff’s medium of choice is part of what draws people in.

“Humans love metal,” he says. “On a biological level, our blood has iron in it. It is of the earth, just as stone is. Metal is a fundamental thing.”

The art and craft of metalsmithing take this profound connection even further. “Taking metal, shaping it, hammering it, extends the work of generations of smiths before you, which is thousands of years of work,” says Medwedeff. “You’re a part of that tradition and that mindset of making.”

This rich tradition makes his recent recognition as a culture bearer personally meaningful, he says. “It’s an affirmation that I’ve been doing worthwhile things.”

The post Meet John Medwedeff, Bringing the Art of Metal to Everyday Life appeared first on Arts Midwest.

It’s called Chainz 2 Changed, the brainchild of Antonio Stridiron and Zach Schmidkunz. Both men are incarcerated at the North Dakota State Penitentiary (NDSP). They record the show in a refurbished cell, on donated equipment. And since its launch in August 2023, Chainz 2 Changed has been downloaded nearly 20,000 times in all 50 states, almost 40 countries, and other correctional facilities in North Dakota.

“The reason why we wanted to start a podcast is to get the world to know about the one thing that many of us try so hard to do, but never get recognized doing,” says Stridiron. “Changing, changing, changing.”

Photo Credit: Poppy Mills, NDDOT

The idea sprang out of a visit several years ago from North Dakota legislators, touring NDSP before voting on an upcoming sentencing bill. They were deeply impacted by the residents, Stridiron remembers, who challenged their expectations of what incarcerated people were really like. But the legislators were unsure they could convince their constituents on the outside. 

Stridiron saw this lack of understanding as a problem for everybody.

“Society, TV, the news, movies, they have a way that they portray people in prison, and people need to know that that’s not always true,” he says. “Who’s best to tell the truth [apart] from the people who’s actually doing it?”

Another resident suggested that Stridiron start a podcast. But without equipment or internet access, the idea stalled. Until he brought it up to Schmidkunz.

By then, both men were living in NDSP’s U.N.I.T.Y. Village, where mentors serving long sentences provide guidance to younger residents. There was more space, and more trust. So Schmidkunz wrote to the North Dakota Council on the Arts and Prairie Public Broadcasting for advice. Almost immediately, both organizations—plus the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation—offered equipment, support, and training. 

“Let’s work on getting rid of the stereotype that we are only what we did,” said Schmidkunz in their first episode. “Because most of us in prison are going to be out soon. And we’re going to be everybody’s neighbors.”

Photo Credit: Poppy Mills, NDDOT

Photo Credit: Poppy Mills, NDDOT

Photo Credit: Poppy Mills, NDDOT

Photo Credit: Poppy Mills, NDDOT

Today, Chainz 2 Changed releases two to four episodes a month. The topics vary, along with the guests. They’ve talked recidivism and changemaking with fellow residents, hip-hop and healing with former police officers, even legislation on reentry and recovery . . . with the North Dakota Governor himself. 

“That was one of the main goals, because he’s one of the main ones who can actually make changes,” says Stridiron. “So to get him and get his point of view, and where his mind is on making second chances and changes in the system, it’s very mind-blowing.”

Photo Credit: Poppy Mills, NDDOT

Above all, Chainz 2 Changed aims to spread a key truth: that incarcerated people can—and do—change their lives and communities.

“People just have this perception, this negative ideology of what prison is,” says Stridiron. “To hear that we are making a type of impact on the outside community, when we’re the ones locked up, makes a big difference.”

Start Listening Here

Here are a handful of episodes suggested by podcast co-producer and co-host Antonio “Dread” Stridiron. “I’ll say they’re not for everyone . . . Honestly, though, every episode is impactful,” he says. “When you hear what these guys have been through—what they’ve survived, what they’ve held inside, and how they’re still pushing forward—it’s amazing. The resilience is incredible.”

Hello World, we are the Chainz 2 Changed Podcast!

Start here if you’re curious about learning more about the Chainz 2 Changed podcast from co-hosts and co-producers Antonio Stridiron and Zach Schmidkunz. Aired on August 14, 2023.

Photo Credit: Poppy Mills, NDDOT

Enough is enough for Ninja Lee! (Part 1)

David Lee was put in adult prison at the age of 15. Dave shares with Zach his journey of going to adult prison as a juvenile, to picking up a life sentence while in prison and spending more than twenty years in administrative segregation, to wanting to help people change their own lives. This episode brings about the question of: how much time is considered enough time for a person to be considered rehabilitated? Aired on October 2, 2023

The Legend of Pickle Rick

In this episode, mentor Rick Whitman hops into the booth with his sidekick “G” to share his journey. This is a special episode to many, and as you will learn about Rick, he is a very special guy. Take notice world, we can all learn a little something about perseverance from Rick. Aired on March 10, 2025

“There are actually two episodes with him . . . the second episode, Pickle Rick Never Quit, was recorded about a week after he got news from his doctor that he only had about a month left to live,” shares Stridiron. “In that episode, he wanted to thank everyone who helped him. Even while dealing with everything he was going through—the adversity, the reality of his diagnosis—all he focused on was helping others.” Whitman passed away two days after this episode aired, but not without listening to it and mentees having an opportunity to thank him.

Shining Light Pt. 3 Ms. Naomi Spreads HOPE In N.D.S.P.!!!

Ms. Naomi stops in the booth to share her story of being incarcerated for 37 years, getting her sentence commuted, and now spreading HOPE to everyone she comes in contact with!! Aired on February 12, 2024

“She’s someone who gave me hope when I was struggling,” says Stridiron of his guest, who was hired by the state to help others with commutations.

Dr. Bruce Perry Examines The Hosts!!!

Dr. Perry visits with the Hosts over Zoom to talk about childhood trauma and how it’s connected to folks that are Incarcerated! Also why U.N.I.T.Y. Village is a GREAT way to help the young adults HEAL from Trauma! Aired on August 19, 2024

“That episode really helps the guys in the unit, because it explains a lot of what they’ve experienced—things that happened to them that they weren’t aware were still affecting them, or things they’ve bottled up and carried with them into their daily lives,” shares the podcast co-host. “It helps them understand that they’re not monsters, but people shaped by trauma.”

The post This Podcast Broadcasts Change from a North Dakota Prison appeared first on Arts Midwest.