Shows
A Brush With LifeHappy Holidays, Dear Listeners!Please leave me your feedback and ideas here!It has been so much fun creating these podcasts, interviewing so many fascinating folks, and sharing the conversations with you! I appreciate you, all of the guests, and the Southeast Minnesota Arts Council, who awarded me a grant to launch this podcast. Fr the next month I will be taking a little break over the holidays, putting down A Brush With Life and picking up my paintbrush and my pastry brush to do a little creating and holiday baking and celebrating with friends and family. Ple...
2025-12-0500 min
A Brush With Life#20 - The Road to Crossings at Carnegie - with Marie MarvinPlease leave me your feedback and ideas here!With plenty of guts and gusto, Marie Marvin turned an old Carnegie Library in Zumbrota, MN, into a hub of creativity. The building was bursting with art, whimsy, artists working, children learning, sometimes even people doing yoga. At night it hummed with fabulous music concerts, artist openings, and poetry readings. Marie has a way of encouraging the artist inside everyone.The road to Crossings was not an easy or obvious path. Listen in as Marie shares her story, and how after a lifetime of trying to find what...
2025-11-1335 min
A Brush With Life#19 Siren Songs - Of Trombones & Mermaids, with John SieversPlease leave me your feedback and ideas here!John Sievers is not one to toot his own horn, but he does let it slide. John is a trombonist who plays in many bands, a poet who writes a haiku a day, an English professor, and Rochester's most enthusiastic music booster. In this episode, learn how John developed his lifelong partnership with the trombone, how he juggles his busy creative life, and what makes him most proud. This episode of A Brush With Life closes with 'Trombot," a joyful tune composed by John for the band L...
2025-10-2232 min
A Brush With Life#18 Enamored by Enamel, with Amy JohnsonPlease leave me your feedback and ideas here!Amy Johnson is an enamel artist who creates copper and silver jewelry with gorgeous, colorful glass designs fused to the surface. Amy tells us how she discovered this art form, her process, and how making art helped her survive and heal from tragic life events.View Amy's work:Website: https://www.amyjohnsonenamels.comFB Page: https://www.facebook.com/amyjohnsonenamelsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/amyjohnsonenamels/
2025-10-1039 min
A Brush With Life#17 - Little Homestead in the City - with Heidi KernPlease leave me your feedback and ideas here!As a young girl, Heidi Kern was inspired by "Little House on the Prairie" and dreamed of creating a self-sufficient life where she grew all her own food and sewed her own clothing. As an adult, she wound up living in the city but she and her husband Chris have transformed their cul-de-sac lot into an urban farmstead. Growing vegetables, fruits, herbs and chickens, Heidi produces most of the food for her family and generously shares her skills with the community. She leads the group "Backyard Bounty Urban Homesteading" and...
2025-09-2339 min
A Brush With Life#16 - Well-Versed in Community - with Jean ProkottPlease leave me your feedback and ideas here!Jean Prokott is Rochester, MInesota's Poet Laureate! As the community's official artistic wordsmith, she writes poems for community events and creates an annual poetry event for the public. She is also a teacher of English and Philosophy at Century High School. Her book of published poems is titled "The Second Longest Day of the Year." American Couplets (4th Fest)Claiming Light (4th Fest)The Second Longest Day of the Year
2025-09-1033 min
A Brush With Life#15 - It's a Big World -with Oliver BooksPlease leave me your feedback and ideas here!Oliver Books is passionate about all things sound. He is a singer-songwriter who performs solo and in a 7-member band called Oliver Books and The Big, Big, World. He has worked in music production and movie production. in the past year, he and colleague Alex Ortberg produced The Rochester Mash-Up, a compilation music album of 20 diverse local musicians. Currently, Books and Oliver are launching a new recording studio. Listen to Oliver's music at: https://oliverbooksmusic.bandcamp.com/FInd more information about Oliver Books & The Big Big Worl...
2025-08-2638 min
A Brush With Life#14 - Raising Her Voice - with Leann ErikssonPlease leave me your feedback and ideas here!LeAnn Eriksson speaks softly but carries a big voice. Music has always been a huge part of her life, beginning with growing up on an Iowa farm, playing the flute in school and singing in the Lutheran church choir. Since then she has become a citizen of the world and lived, worked and sung in many countries. She discovered crystal singing bowls and learning "toning" and polyphonic singing - singing in more than one tone at the same time - and now leads meditative sounding experiences....
2025-08-1334 min
A Brush With Life#13 - Dreaming, Playing and Creating with Susan DaviesPlease leave me your feedback and ideas here!Susan M. Davies Sue Davies is a painter who approaches her work from many directions - abstract, animals, landscape, sumi-e,meditative, whimsical...but the constant is color: rich, vibrant, exuberant color. You sense that she lives her entire life with that same exuberance. Sue's other art is music; currently, she plays the tin whistle in a Celtic band called Hurkle-Durkle. You are invited to a special project Sue is bringing to Squash Blossom Farm!Into the Unknown - Exhibit/artist tal...
2025-07-2833 min
A Brush With Life#12 - The Zen of Daring to Be Darin - with Darin Podulke-SmithPlease leave me your feedback and ideas here!Darin Podulke-Smith is an artist, improv actor, stained-glass creator, banjo-player and Buddhist priest. In this episode, we talk to Darin about banjo practice and the practice of Buddhism, and what it takes to become a Zen priest. He also describes his most recent adventure, a 500-mile hike on the Camino Frances with his wife, Laurel.
2025-07-1425 min
A Brush With Life#11 - Deb D'Souza - Putting the Pieces TogetherPlease leave me your feedback and ideas here!Artist Deb D'Souza is devoted to the ancient art of mosaic and has traveled the world to study it, but she also incorporates innovative techniques. Mosaic is a patience-testing process than can take 40 hours to assemble thousands of tiny bits into 1 square foot of design. Deb magically creates landscapes and botanical images with amazing details, shadows and reflections and herlandscape mosaics sometimes incorporate materials actually found at the place she is depicting.See images of Deb's work at her website: https://debradsouza.com
2025-06-3027 min
A Brush With Life#10 - Eva Barr, the Dream Acres Dream MakerPlease leave me your feedback and ideas here!Eva Barr puts the culture in agriculture! Eva and her partner Todd started Dream Acres Farm, near Wykoff, Minnesota, as a land collective where they built all the timber-framed farm buildings, taught heritage farming techniques, farmed with horses and oxen and raised organic veggies for a 40-family CSA. With Eva's theater expertise, the farm launched Flourish, a summer Theater + Agriculture camp for youth. On Friday evenings during the summer, they serve wood-fired pizza featuring farm produce. Plus, Eva is a passionate activist for social justice issues.To le...
2025-06-1737 min
A Brush With Life#9 Drawing Us In- with Lynette YenchoPlease leave me your feedback and ideas here!Lynette Yencho has a lifetime of experience as a commercial artist, from drawing school buildings and class ring designs at age 16 and for Jostens, to designing collectible figurines, to being agraphic designer for the Minneapolis Star newspaper...to creating fantastical murals and other very fine art. https://gardenstudio.biz https://lynettestudio.com/To follow Lynette in Art 64 , an Art Tournment in Wauwatosa, WI June 6 &7, 2025, visit: https://discoverart64.com/
2025-06-0537 min
A Brush With Life#8 -Life About Face w/Kevin Ian ReidPlease leave me your feedback and ideas here!Kevin Ian Reid was the Orofacial Pain Specialist at Rochester's Mayo Clinic for 26 years. He had never studied art, but in order to cope with the strain of working with so many people suffering from pain, he began painting, especially abstract faces that often evoked pain. When Reid retired, he decided to return to school to study art at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, immersing himself in painting and metal sculpture and earning his MFA. He built a cabin and studio in the woods where he c...
2025-05-1931 min
A Brush With Life#7 BlueGrass Songs & Prairie Grass Paintings - with Becky SchlegelPlease leave me your feedback and ideas here!Becky Schlegel grew up in South Dakota singing classic country music. When she moved to Minnesota, she fell in love with bluegrass music and with her banjo-pickin' husband, Heath Loy. Now Becky is a singer with a voice as sweet as nectar writing songs that tug at your heart or lull you to peace, a painter of gestural flowers, and the grateful steward of a 100+-year-old farmstead. Learn more about Becky Schlegel's music and art, and a schedule of her upcoming performances at www.beckyschlegle.com
2025-05-0538 min
A Brush With Life#6. The Colorful Land of Judy - with Judy Onofrio!Please leave me your feedback and ideas here!Judy Onofrio's work has spanned from firing ceramics to burning huge structures in fiery performances, elaborate, quirky brooches to elegant sculptures assembled from bones, celebrations of nature to divas, acrobats and other colorful characters. She is renowned for creating monumental sculptures from the tiniest bits, baubles, beads, buttons and shells, collected over her lifetime. For the past 50 years, Judy has been a creative force in the Rochester art world.See images of Judy's work, exhibitions and studio on her website: www.judyonofrio.com
2025-04-2128 min
A Brush With Life#5 -In Focus! with Suzanne SzucsPlease leave me your feedback and ideas here!The first time I met Suzanne Szucs, she was dressed in the most sumptuous, colorful, exotic clothing you can imagine, dancing at Squash Blossom farm during our Cow Puja festival. That is just one facet of Suzanne's life - she also teaches Photography at Rochester Community & Technical College. Her own photographic art is inspired by nature and the native plants in her garden.
2025-04-0729 min
A Brush With Life#4. Carving a Joyful Life - with Kevin EwingPlease leave me your feedback and ideas here!Kevin Ewing recently retired from his career as a teacher and is now devoting himself to his favorite pastime - woodcarving. He is not just whittling away his time - he creates elaborate, elegant pieces inspired by architectural and historic masterpieces. Plus, he generously shares his craft by teaching woodcarving to aspiring carvers of all ages. For photos of his work and details on upcoming classes check out KevinKEwing on Instagram. You can also see photos of some of the pieces we talked about in this interview on o...
2025-03-2431 min
A Brush With Life#3. Fashioning a Career & Stitching Community - with Brooke BurchPlease leave me your feedback and ideas here!Brooke Burch is all about textile design. She is a fashion designer, seamstress, sewing instructor, and has a vintage clothing boutique in her Rochester studio. Her original clothing designs have been featured on the runway at Minnesota Fashion Week.
2025-03-1524 min
A Brush With Life#2. Windows of Opportunity - with Stephanie Podulke!Please leave me your feedback and ideas here!Stephanie Podulke is a woman with a huge heart and great wit, who has created scores of spectacular stained glass windows throughout Southeast Minnesota. She is one of the inspiring leaders of our Rochester community.
2025-03-1530 min
A Brush With Life#2. Windows of Opportunity - with Stephanie PodulkeA conversation with Stephanie Podulke, a woman with a huge heart and great wit, who has created scores of spectacular stained glass windows throughout Southeast Minnesota, and is one of the inspiring leaders of our Rochester community.
2025-03-1130 min
A Brush With Life#1. The Farm Dream - with Roger Nelson!Please leave me your feedback and ideas here!In this premier episode of A Brush With Life, you will learn how my husband, Roger Nelson, and I met and how 60 years of friendship and shared dreams ultimately landed us at Squash Blossom Farm where learned to be real farmers with chickens, a milk cow and everything. At Squash Blossom Farm we celebrate Local Food, Local Art and Local Music, and invite the community in to feast upon wood-fired sourdough pizza, mead and bean-to-bar chocolate.
2025-03-1131 min
In Her BootsLife Balance with Susan WaughtalWe wrap up our series as Susan shares important advice and ideas on putting all the pieces together in a diversified farm business while fostering balance between work and life. Hear about how using deadlines can help us keep those personal projects moving forward in balance with the farm, how the skills of multi-tasking as a mom can really transfer to farming, and old-school traditions like lists on paper make it all work.
Susan and her husband, Roger Nelson, run Squash Blossom Farm, a 10-acre historic 1910 farmstead where their vision is to combine local food, art, and music. Squash Blossom...
2019-01-1200 minIn Her BootsPizza Farms with Susan WaughtalWe are back and digging deeper with Susan Waughtal of Squash Blossom Farm in Oronoco, Minn., on the start-up of their pizza farm and on-farm kitchen installation. She provides the inside scoop on building a commercial kitchen and the impact of adding a pizza night to the farm business mix. Persistence sounds like the key ingredient!
Susan and her husband, Roger Nelson, run Squash Blossom Farm, a 10-acre historic 1910 farmstead where their vision is to combine local food, art, and music. Squash Blossom includes a small vegetable CSA, an on-farm bakery for wholesale and farmers markets, and a pizza night...
2019-01-0400 minIn Her BootsSusan Waughtal on Launching a Farm at 50We continue our conversation with farmer and food entrepreneur Susan Waughtal of Squash Blossom Farm in Oronoco, Minn., talking about a decision that proved to be life changing: launching the farm mid-life. Susan offers advice on how to parlay your past experiences into new farming ventures, sharing how she found the most important thing is to realize what you don’t know – and that there’s probably a YouTube video to help you out.
Susan and her husband, Roger Nelson, run Squash Blossom Farm, a 10-acre historic 1910 farmstead where their vision is to combine local food, art, and music. Squash Blosso...
2018-12-2000 minIn Her BootsSusan Waughtal: Squash Blossom Farm's StoryToday we kick off a fresh In Her Boots podcast series with Susan Waughtal of Squash Blossom Farm in Oronoco, Minn. Susan shares her inspiring story of the farm dream she had been brewing for over 25 years, which she brought to life right at her 50th birthday.
Susan and her husband, Roger Nelson, run Squash Blossom Farm, a 10-acre historic 1910 farmstead where their vision is to combine local food, art, and music. Squash Blossom includes a small vegetable CSA, an on-farm bakery for wholesale and farmers markets, and a pizza night and from their wood-fired oven and on-farm commercial kitchen.
2018-12-1300 min