Conversations from the Barn

Everwood Farmstead Foundation is an arts non-profit located on a century-old farm in the bucolic Driftless Zone of Western Wisconsin. We host inspiring spaces for artists to perform (Artist Series), teach (Artist Workshops) and work (Artist Retreat) in a natural environment. We focus on the artists' experience because we know when they are happy, healthy and nurtured, it is good for everyone. Every day, their job is to find fresh language for the human experience. As a result, healing and restoration is possible for our communities. In this podcast, we host brief and informal conversations with artists that visit our farm. They'll share about their experiences at Everwood, the projects that are exciting them, and the insights they're gaining along the way.

A conversation with Denise Santomauro and Karissa Murrell Myers 09/13/2026

A conversation with Kaleena Miller and Kate Beahen 09/02/2026

A conversation with visual artist Keighley Sadler and writer Katrina Vandenberg 08/23/2026

A Conversation with writer/actor/artist Senyah Haynes and songwriter/musician Molly Brandt 08/16/2026

A conversation with singer/songwriter Maygen Lacey and writer Sarah Auna 08/11/2026

A conversation with actor/floral designer Ann E. Mekala, and actor/filmmaker Ariel Donahue 07/26/2026

A conversation with illustrators Jennifer A. Bell and Kayla Harren 07/19/2026

A conversation with dancer Tyler Schnese and writer/poet Jason Robert Weidemann 07/12/2026

A conversation with audio producer Julie Censullo and writer/musician Suzanne Ohlmann 06/21/2026

A conversation with theater-maker James Kennedy and musician Ross Thorn. 06/18/2026

A conversation with musician Geoffrey Lamar Wilson and artist Torey Erin 03/22/2026

A conversation with musician Geoffrey Lamar Wilson and artist Torey Erin Geoffrey Lamar Wilson, also known by his stage name LAAMAR, is a Minneapolis based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. After spending his 20's studying and performing music in New York, and working the craft coffee cafe circuit in Brooklyn, he returned to his hometown in 2016 to "settle down". He emerged on the local music scene in 2023 with his song Home to My Baby, a song which resonated deeply across the state in the wake of the Philando Castile and George Floyd murders. In this and subsequent tracks on his debut EP Flowers, he explored the challenges of being black in America and Minnesota, at a time when many folks were seeking understanding and connection across social and cultural lines. He carried this momentum into several very busy years of performances supporting notable local and national touring artists, appearing at music festivals and shows across the state, and as a guest on various radio, podcast, and television broadcasts(and one billboard). In 2025 he released a full-length record In the Light, to critical acclaim. An album which expands his creative palate, turning the lens inward towards fatherhood/partnership, and further outward toward stories rooted in humanism, empathy, nature, and poetry. Torey Erin is a Minneapolis based interdisciplinary artist primarily working in moving image, sculpture, installation, ecology, and land art. Torey received her Bachelor’s of Fine Art and Master’s of Landscape Architecture from the University of Minnesota. Torey’s work amplifies environmental phenomena to create places where people may share their stories and co-create new art works. She has created a living participatory land artwork for the 4Ground Land Art Biennial titled Love Letters to the Earth, where she invited the community to discuss ecological grief and write devotions to earth on handmade seed paper to plant into a perennial garden. She proposes ways of re-imagining material approaches to art and landscape that serve human and non-human life, focusing on environmental change, empathy and relationality. During her most recent residency at Franconia Sculpture Park, she transformed one acre of turf grass into native prairie, inviting participants to seed the landscape by hand and dance the seeds into the ground. This intention is to connect people to landscape through ritual and body movement that will benefit non human species and soil quality for years to come. Torey has exhibited at Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Mirrorlab, Soo Visual Art Center, Company Projects, Public Functionary, Q2 Gallery, Rosalux Gallery, Yeah Maybe Project Space, FilmNorth, Gamut Gallery, and has an outdoor installation at Silverwood Park in Minnesota and Rabanus Park World Garden in Fargo, North Dakota; she has created costume and set/interior design at First Avenue, the Palace Theater, and the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis. Torey’s films have been featured in the Franconia Environmental Film screening, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Regis Center for Art, Duluth Film Festival, Trylon Cinema, Saltless Sea Cinema, Headwaters Film Festival, and Franconia Sculpture Park’s 5 Minute Film Festival. She is a recipient of the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Grant, Everwood Farmstead Artist Retreat, 4Ground Midwest Land Art Biennial (with support from Plains Art Museum and Franconia Sculpture Park), Joan MaCloed student Leadership Award (landscape architecture), 2020 Minnesota Artist Initiative Grant, Springboard for the Arts Hinge Artist Residency, Jo Tushie Fellowship, the Blacklock Sanctuary Fellowship, and is a Landscape Architecture Foundation Olmsted Scholar. She is the current Franconia Sculpture Park inaugural Prairie Artist in Residence of 2024. She is a Research Fellow at the Minnesota Design Center working on the Empowering Small Minnesota Communities project and Design Assist, which include asset based community co-design, climate resilience, and systems thinking for long term development strategies. She is also an adjunct professor in architecture/landscape architecture at the University of Minnesota College of Design. /episode/index/show/everwoodfarmstead/id/40575415

A conversation with writer Chris Stedman 12/10/2025

A conversation with writer Chris Stedman Chris Stedman is a writer, podcaster, and professor who teaches in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, MN. He is the author of the books , , and the forthcoming , as well as the writer and host of , named one of the best podcasts of 2021 by the Guardian, Vulture, HuffPost, Mashable, the CBC, and others, and honored by the 2022 Webby Awards under Podcasts – Best Writing. Chris is the founder of , a new podcast studio based in Minneapolis committed to telling stories that, in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, take the “view from below,” or “the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed and reviled, in short from the perspective of the suffering.” The studio’s first series, for which Chris was awarded a 2025 Minnesota State Arts Board Cultural Expression Grant and 2025 Arts Impact for Individuals Award from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, is currently in production and will be distributed by iHeartPodcasts. In addition to his books and podcast work, Chris has written popular for outlets including the Atlantic, Pitchfork, BuzzFeed, VICE, the Washington Post, and others. At Augsburg, Chris teaches on the search for meaning. He has also held fellowships in Augsburg’s Center for Democracy and Citizenship and Interfaith Institute, and in 2023 the university appointed him as the Institute’s inaugural Research Fellow in support of his ongoing work studying the religiously unaffiliated. He was also awarded a Director’s Residency at the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, named 2025 Visiting Scholar at Northwestern University and 2025 Scholar-in-Residence at Susquehanna University, and invited to be in residence at Write On, Door County and at the New York Mills Cultural Center for this research and writing. Previously the founding director of the Yale Humanist Community and a fellow at Yale University, he also served as a humanist chaplain at Harvard University and as a Trainer and Content Developer at Interfaith America. In 2018, Augsburg selected Chris for their annual First Decade Award, which recognizes alumni “who have made significant progress in their professional achievements and contributions to the community” ten years after graduating. /episode/index/show/everwoodfarmstead/id/39362070

A conversation with playwrights Kurt Robert Engh and Dave Osmundsen 11/06/2025

A conversation with playwrights Kurt Robert Engh and Dave Osmundsen Kurt Robert Engh is a theater-maker with the goal to expand the framework of what “theater” is in order to adapt the art form to a twenty-first century audience. He transposes experimental practices to narrative stories, addressing how contemporary audiences consume live performance. He is specifically interested in exploring Midwestern identity, creating characters as complicated as real people, and taking advantage of the metaphysical space of the stage. He likes testing the endurance of audiences and uncovering ways to contextualize a physical space in a digital culture. He borrows more from concerts, obscure YouTube videos, contemporary film, restaurants, clubs, and social media than he does classical theater. Kurt wrote and self-produced an anti-romcom “Only Ugly Guys” in June 2024 at Open Eye Theatre, which reviewer Cherry and Spoon called “funny, clever, inventive, and very modern.” He produced, adapted and directed “Naïve. Super” at Norway House in September 2023, with a new actor at each performance, experiencing the play for the first time. He hosts “Running Errands,” a short-play incubator for writers/directors/actors to experiment with new ideas at Bryant Lake Bowl (March/May/July/September 2023 and beginning again quarterly October 2024). Dave Osmundsen is a queer and Autistic playwright whose work has been seen and developed at BLUEBARN Theatre, the Kennedy Center/NNPN MFA Playwrights Workshop, Purple Crayon Players, Great Plains Theatre Conference, the William Inge Theatre Festival, Clamour Theatre Company, Premiere Stages, the Valdez Theatre Conference, and more. His play Light Switch was a Distinguished Achievement recipient of the Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award. A recipient of the Blank Theatre/Ucross Foundation’s inaugural Future of Playwriting Prize, his plays have been published by The Dionysian, Canyon Voices, Exposition Review, Concord Theatricals, Broadway Play Publishing, and more. MFA: Arizona State University. /episode/index/show/everwoodfarmstead/id/38940055

A conversation with Everwood Retreat Administrator Em Haas 10/12/2025

A conversation with Playwright, writer, poet and actor Nissa Nordland Morgan 08/28/2025

A conversation with musician Sarah Elstran and painter Amanda Hanlon 07/27/2025

A conversation with Ceramic Artist Cym Warkov and Choreographer Genevieve Waterbury 12/08/2024

A conversation with Ceramic Artist Cym Warkov and Choreographer Genevieve Waterbury Originally from Colorado, Genevieve Waterbury grew up in the mountains and in the ballet studio at Boulder Ballet and eventually studied dance at Colorado State University. She then joined Nevada Ballet Theatre in Las Vegas where she collaborated annually with Cirque du Soleil. One of her favorite moments from NBT was working intimately with Cynthia Gregory on character portrayal for the company’s performance of Giselle; It deepened her interest in acting and dance theater, ultimately prompting the move to New York City. In New York, Genevieve had opportunities to work across many genres including a Butoh Residency at Kaatsbaan with Joan Laage (Kogut Butoh), a lead dancing role in the original cast of RED, a New Musical by Lawrence Dandridge (“Ain’t Too Proud” National Tour), dancing in New York Fashion Week for JAHNKOYxPUMA, and several seasons as a company member with nathantrice/RITUALS. Genevieve moved to Minnesota in February of 2020 and made her local choreographic debut at Sher Demeter’s River’s Edge series that fall. Highlights since then include setting On the Bank of Snake River for Christopher Watson Dance Company, collaborating with Melody Gilbert as dancer/choreographer for her documentary Judy’s Thoughts, and creating commissioned ballets Emily Dickinson: The Untold Verse, Lunar Lullaby, and Dirty Dancing, for Ballet Co.Laboratory. Genevieve also directs Ballet Co.Laboratory’s second company, and the non-professional Performance Ensemble. She creates original choreography for these groups each season. Her short stories, Tortoise and the Hare and Danse Macabre were performed alongside the company at Orchestra Hall and the Cowles Center. Cym Warkov creates ceramic pieces that explore the tension between imagination and construction. That invites conversation between herself and the medium she’s working with. Cym grew up In Northern CA & Minneapolis. Her parents (both artists) thrived in the Minnneapolis art scene. Her mother, Lynne Lockie, founded the Women's Art registry of Minnesota in the 70's. Her father, Saul Warkov, taught photography at the UofM. Both parents were founding members of the Minnesota Zen Center. She’s mostly self-taught through a lifetime of various experiences and vocations all leading up to my current endeavors. She lived in Los Angeles for 30 years, raising 2 children there. She worked as a hair colorist, creative team member for Aveda and as a hair & make-up artist in the entertainment industry before earning a degree in landscape architecture from UCLA. Cym's always had a personal creative / artistic practice and decided to return to Minneapolis to explore this seriously in 2018. As of today, she has a thriving business as a ceramic artist. /episode/index/show/everwoodfarmstead/id/34336185

A conversation with artist Nichole Gronvold Roller and pianist Brianna Matzke 11/20/2024

A conversation with multi-disciplinary artists Cori Nakamura Lin and Tori Hong 09/02/2024

A conversation with multi-disciplinary artists Cori Nakamura Lin and Tori Hong Cori Nakamura Lin (she/her) is a Japanese, Taiwanese, Okinawan-American multimedia visual artist based in Chicago. By painting, documenting, and weaving, Cori is finding her way to a world that prioritizes ecological and community care. Descended from East Asian island peoples and born and raised in the midwest, Cori’s art practice is an ongoing self-archive where she examines her own multiple identities as a story of self. Cori’s work asks: How do we dream beyond our fears in the face of climate collapse? How do we carry multiple legacies, multiple ancestors, through the generations? How do we honorably re-root as unmoored people on occupied lands? Primarily using gouache, watercolor, and paper-cutting when making images, Cori layers fluid washes with sharp paper edges to create dreamy, textured paintings that investigate liminal spaces in the natural world and her cultural identities. She is inspired by Japanese records of yōkai, kawaii visual culture, and Okinawan textile practices, and she is currently learning basket making practices to help her process her relationship to the lands that she lives on. Learning from the work of Black and Indigenous feminist abolitionists — like Mariame Kaba, Kelly Hayes, and Ruth Wilson Gilmore — and Afro-diasporan and Indigenous futurists —like Octavia Butler, NK Jemisin, and Grace Dillon—Cori Nakamura Lin aims to create art that will outlive her into the next seven generations. Tori Hong (she/they) pursues an interdisciplinary art practice expressed through illustration, textiles, printmaking, and installation. Positioned within queer theory and praxis, her work explores the concepts of ritual, pleasure, self-determination, and political resistance. Hong endeavors to bring the past into the present — and the present into the future — by incorporating Hmong and Korean aesthetics into their practice. Expressed through repetition, saturated colors, and confident lines, Hong’s art embodies and expresses their authentic self, encouraging her audience to do the same. Born in 1992 in Minneapolis, MN, Hong is currently based in Providence, RI working toward her MFA in Illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design. Hong has been awarded the Everwood Artist Retreat (2024), Springboard for the Arts Hinge Arts Residency (2021), MRAC Next Step Fund (2020), Forecast Public Art Early Career Research and Development Grant (2020), and more. Ntxoo Art reclaims the name Hong shares with her mother and sister: Ntxoo [“un-Zong”] meaning “shade” or “shadow”. /episode/index/show/everwoodfarmstead/id/32869067

A conversation with singer/songwriter Leslie Vincent 08/16/2024

A conversation with authors Molly Beth Griffin and Juliet Patterson 08/02/2024

A conversation with authors Molly Beth Griffin and Juliet Patterson Molly Beth Griffin is the author of four picture books: Ten Beautiful Things, The Big Leaf Leap, Rhoda’s Rock Hunt, and Loon Baby. She has also published a young adult novel, Silhouette of a Sparrow, two chapbooks of poetry, and a series of beginning readers. Two more picture books are forthcoming in 2024: Rings of Heartwood: Poems on Growing and Just Us. Silhouette of a Sparrow (winner of the Milkweed Prize for Children’s Literature) was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and ForeWord’s Book of the Year, and was featured on ALA’s Rainbow List and on the Amelia Bloomer List of Feminist Literature. Ten Beautiful Things received four starred reviews and was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. Rhoda’s Rock Hunt won a Northeast Minnesota Book Award and a Jeanette Fair Book Award, and was a Star of the North nominee. Molly was the recipient of the 2014 McKnight Artist Fellowship in Children’s Literature as well as two MSAB Artist Initiative Grants. Molly is represented by Jennifer Flannery of Flannery Literary. Juliet Patterson is the author of Sinkhole: A Legacy of Suicide (Milkweed Editions, September 2022), finalist for the 2023 Minnesota Book Awards and named one of the best memoirs of 2022 by Library Journal. She has also published two full-length poetry collections, (Nightboat Books 2016), a finalist for the 2017 Audre Lorde Poetry Award, and (Nightboat Books, 2006), winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize and a finalist for the 2006 Lambda Literary Award. A recipient of the Arts & Letters Susan Atefat Prize in non-fiction, and a Lynda Hull Memorial Poetry Prize, she has also been awarded fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Minneapolis-based Creative Community Leadership Institute (formerly the Institute for Community and Creative Development). She teaches creative writing and literature at St. Olaf College and is also a faculty member and director of the college’s Environmental Conversations program. She lives in Minneapolis on the west bank of the Mississippi near the Great River Road with her partner, the writer Rachel Moritz, and their son. /episode/index/show/everwoodfarmstead/id/32408627

A conversation with composer Carlisle Evans Peck and playwright Elle Thoni 07/19/2024

A conversation with Vincenzio Donatelle 07/01/2024

A conversation with singer/songwriter Ondara 06/20/2024

A conversation with singer/songwriters Ben Noble and Chris Bartels 12/08/2023

A conversation with Allison Vincent and Taja Will 10/16/2023

A conversation with Allison Vincent and Taja Will Allison Vincent is a performer, director, writer, and teacher known for devised work, physical theatre, and gender-bending performances. She has been honored to collaborate with companies and theaters across the Twin Cities, including The History Theater, Jon Ferguson Theater, WLDRNSS, Theater Forever, The Four Humors, Mainly Me, The Illusion, The Guthrie, Frank Theatre, Sod House, Strike Theatre, Transatlantic Love Affair, the University of Minnesota, and Walking Shadow. Allison has received two Ivey Awards for her work creating performance in ensembles and three Golden Lanyard Awards from the MN Fringe as a director. In addition to performing, Allison is a co-artistic director and founding member of Transatlantic Love Affair, a teaching artist at the Guthrie Theater and Loft Literary Center, and has collaborated as a writer on over twenty produced scripts. In 2022 Allison wrote and performed a solo storytelling show about caretaking for her father succumbing to dementia as a Pillsbury House + Theatre’s Naked Stages Fellow. Recently she’s had her scripts published in The Empty Room, Rejection Letters, Dirty Girls Come Clean, and Roi Fainéant Press. She teaches at the University of Minnesota in the Writing Studies Department’s First Year Writing Program. Taja Will (they/them) is a non-binary, chronically ill, queer, Latinx (Chilean) adoptee. They are a performer, choreographer, somatic therapist, consultant and Healing Justice practitioner based in Mni Sota Makoce, on the ancestral lands of the Dakota and Anishinaabe. Taja’s approach integrates improvisation, somatic modalities, text and vocals in contemporary performance. Their aesthetic is one of spontaneity, bold choice making, sonic and kinetic partnership and the ability to move in relationship to risk and intimacy. Will’s artistic work explores visceral connections to current socio-cultural realities through a blend of ritual, dense multi-layered worldbuilding and everyday magic. Taja initiates solo projects and teaching ventures and is a recent recipient of the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, in the dance field, awarded in 2021. Their work has been presented throughout the Twin Cities and across the United States. Including local performances at the Walker Art Center Choreographer’s Evening, the Red Eye Theater’s New Works 4 Weeks, the Radical Recess series, Right Here Showcase and the Candy Box Dance Festival. They were the recipient of a 2018-’19 McKnight Choreography Fellowship, administered by the Cowles Center and funded by The McKnight Foundation. Will has recently received support from the National Association of Latinx Arts & Culture, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. /episode/index/show/everwoodfarmstead/id/28335533

A conversation with authors Rachel Moritz and M. Ahd. 08/01/2023

A conversation with photographer John Noltner and musician Darren Garvey 06/21/2023

A conversation with photographer John Noltner and musician Darren Garvey John Noltner is a freelance photographer based in Minneapolis. For 25 years, he has created images at home and around the world for national magazines, Fortune 500 companies and nonprofit organizations. His images have appeared in National Geographic Traveler, Smithsonian, Forbes, Health, Midwest Living, New York Daily News and more. He is the author of two award-winning books from his series . His work exhibits regularly across the country and he leads lectures and workshops around the idea that art and storytelling has the ability to transform hearts and communities. Darren Garvey is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer best known for his extensive touring and session work as a drummer and percussionist. He has written and released records under his own name (Under A Common Ceiling, Heart Attack Sleeves, Social Distance), co-written with the likes of Daniel Rodriguez (Elephant Revival) and Jimmie Linville (Daniel and the Lion), and appears on 200+ albums as a session musician and sideman in his 25+ year career. Garvey’s latest single No Love Is Wrong is a song of acceptance and possibility inspired by and dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community. Followed up by the release of his cover version of Friday I’m In Love, Garvey is currently putting the finishing touches on his third full-length studio album. A member of Colorado transcendental folk sextet Elephant Revival since 2016, Darren is widely regarded for his creative and collaborative work in the folk and indie music communities as a cross-pollinator. As a drummer Darren has worked with Daniel Rodriguez, Cameron McGill & What Army, Shook Twins, Courtney Hartman, Steve Poltz, John Craigie, Bonnie Paine, Andreas Kapsalis Trio, Danny Barnes, Lindsay Lou, Chicago Farmer, Daniel and the Lion, Miles Nielsen & The Rusted Hearts, Sandra Bernhard, Danny Burns & The Defectors, Ernie Hendrickson, and Cory Chisel and The Wandering Sons. /episode/index/show/everwoodfarmstead/id/27229971

A conversation with writers Debra J. Stone and Anna Farro Henderson 04/22/2023

A conversation with illustrator Sam Kalda and composer Matthew Ricketts 01/28/2023

Conversations from the Barn

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