By Alana Horton for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration
When’s the last time you wrote a love letter—and then read it out loud to a room full of your neighbors?
That’s what happened in Granite Falls, Minnesota (population 2,600), during a recent artist residency featuring JJ Kapur, a theater performer turned psychology PhD student.
Over the course of a week, Kapur’s workshop, Letters of Love, invited participants to explore vulnerability through letter-writing and oral storytelling. Attendees spent two evenings writing heartfelt letters while sharing home-cooked Singaporean meals prepared by the artist’s father. The final night culminated in a public reading.
The love letters took many forms, including messages to partners, departed family members, and even the town itself.
“I did not expect people to open up the way that they did,” Kapur said. “There were folks who came up to me who literally didn’t know things about the people they’ve lived with in this community for years.”
A Space for Exchange
Based in Des Moines, Iowa, Kapur was invited to rural Granite Falls by Department of Public Transformation, a nonprofit arts organization that runs a unique space called The YES! House.
The YES! House is a creative, multi-use community gathering space on Main Street. Upstairs, two apartments host visiting artists. Downstairs, community members can attend events, hold meetings, cowork, or simply hang out. Each year, the space hosts up to 20 artists-in-residence—a number that continues to grow.
Kapur said that staying at The YES! House during his residency was essential to Letters of Love, allowing him and his father to connect with community members and share stories and food beyond workshop sessions.
“We made The YES! House our home. In our Indian culture, when people come to your house, you take off your shoes, you’re offered tea, and the first thing someone asks is: ‘Have you eaten?’ Not ‘How are you?’” he said. “We wanted people to feel they could write from that place—like they were sitting in their living room.”
The ability to offer that kind of care is what makes The YES! House special, says coordinator Luwaina Al-Otaibi.
“Deep work takes more than a one-off event,” she said. “It’s about the connection between artists and the community—and how we can facilitate that.”
Healing and Performance
Kapur, who is studying to become a counseling psychologist, is drawn to the intersection of therapy and theater.
“I’m interested in how groups can heal together,” he said. “How is the theater therapeutic and how is therapy kind of a form of theater?”
That resonance was felt by participants, including Al-Otaibi, who read a love letter to her cat of 23 years who was nearing the end of his life.
“I would never just have had that outlet,” she said. “There’s something healing about getting up and reading something like that in front of people.”
In a world that often asks us to guard our hearts, Letters of Love made space for Granite Falls residents to speak theirs out loud—and be heard.
Alana Horton wrote this story for Arts Midwest.
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By Jonathan Feakins for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Judith Ruiz-Branch for Illinois News Connection reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration
"It's a bit of a grandma-core hobby," Tierney Brosius admits.
But whether at her children's soccer tournaments or organizing an "Entomoloknitting Circle" at the Entomological Society of America's annual conference, Dr. Brosius has found that insect-themed needlecraft can serve not just as an artistic outlet, but as an organic, social means of science communication.
"I love insects in fashion; they're often used [for] being pretty, but also scary," she explains. "And I think that fashion designers often reach to insects because of that duality. There's tension there."
For the past decade, Dr. Brosius has hung her hat-and a growing collection of bespoke, hand-knitted vests-as a professor of biology at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. But she's also built a budding reputation as the entomological fashion maven under the moniker, "Dr. Beetle."
Her Instagram account documents sartorial projects that include a vest festooned with Salt Creek tiger beetles (the subject of Brosius's PhD), or a cocoon-style coat that commemorates 2024's double cicada brood.
Her artistic outreach, however, extends beyond the closet. Inside Augustana's Hanson Hall of Science, a 40 foot-long wall now hosts a vibrant, larger-than-life "Beetles of Illinois Identification Mural." Every species pictured-in all of their exoskeleton-ed wonder-were collected by Dr. Brosius and her undergraduates over the course of a single field season.
Wendy DesChene, an artist and professor at Auburn University in Alabama, collaborated with Dr. Brosius to create the mural. She met "Dr. Beetle" years ago while touring Augustana with PlantBot Genetics, a "satirical biotech company." As their friendship grew, including on-brand gift exchanges (Brosius once knitted her a pair of moth mittens), DesChene proposed working together to make a mural a reality.
"As an artist, it's hard to find scientists who don't belittle arts, or don't think of us as a true partnership," DesChene says. "I really wanted to work with somebody who I know as a peer, and who treats me and what I bring to the table as equal."
Dr. Brosius, meanwhile, had no such hang-ups. "I think that's why I interact with artists that deal with insects," she says. "They invite people to be curious. And that fear and hesitation can unfold into this sense of wonder: 'Oh my gosh, I never knew.' Even a drain fly, right? The silliest little thing ... but if you really get up close, they're like little teddy bears with wings."
The professor is especially fond of watching these transformations happen in real-time, in the class she teaches for non-majors. These are students who often enroll in the hopes of simply snagging a required biology credit, but who leave with a newfound love for nature's more chitinous creepy-crawlies. A few have gone so far as to become professional entomologists themselves.
"And I think that's what's so great about insects," she says, "because it's a great analogy for life: you can be a little tense and fearful, and it's probably because you don't know enough about it. Once you start to peel back the layers, that fear can fall away. And you're left with appreciation and love."
Jonathan Feakins wrote this story for Arts Midwest.
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By Frankie (Amy) Felegy for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration
Scene: It's December 2023. Reggie Holmes, 72, faces the audience at a choir concert. She's been singing since she was a baby, but things have changed.
"I turned around to apologize to the guy behind me. I said, 'I just want to sing, but it will sound really bad,'" Holmes says.
"My voice was lovely, but Parkinson's stole that from me."
In the past couple of years, she's somewhat reclaimed that voice-in large part thanks to Parkinsong Choir in rural Washburn, Wisconsin. Last year, it sprouted from a network of choral groups across the Midwest (and world) for folks with dementia and their caretakers.
Eyleen Braaten is the executive director of that parent network: Giving Voice, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In it, she sings with her dad, who has dementia.
"[It] is an opportunity to have a human-centered approach to creating programs that really bring wellbeing to people that are often told that they don't have too much to give," Braaten says of Giving Voice, which offers free toolkits for communities looking to start their own choirs.
Getting your song on is proven to boost memory and overall health, especially in cases of dementia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Polls show music (even just listening) is especially remedial with older adults. Music is social. Active. Even scientific.
It's something Stephanie Johnson knows well. In 2009, the board-certified music therapist founded Music Speaks and has worked with clients struggling with communication, memory, learning, early development, mental health ... the list goes on.
"If the brain is not operating in a way that it used to, due to a physical traumatic injury or a stroke or Parkinson's or dementia, we can incorporate music and help pull the information from a healthy part of that brain back into processing, whether it be speech or motor or cognition," Johnson says. She's helped nonverbal clients sing, even when speech remains difficult.
Think of the alphabet, she says: Would you have been able to memorize those 26 letters, in order, without that kindergarten-famous alphabet song?
Johnson's team of music therapists works across the Midwest and beyond, adjusting song tempo and dynamics to meet client needs. But folks without this care access, a local choir, or even a diagnosis can still reap musical benefits.
Anyone can queue up a beat (may we suggest our Essential Midwest playlist?) and let the brainwaves work their magic.
"Most often, the western world thinks of music as a song or a genre or an artist," Johnson says. But what about music as healing? As identity, recovery?
Singing, especially with Parkinsong Choir, is a source of joy, friendship, and belonging for Holmes: "My voice is not what it used to be . . . It's still kind of harsh and I have a vibrato you wouldn't believe," she says, laughing.
"But I can sing. And it's beautiful."
Frankie (Amy) Felegy wrote this story for Arts Midwest.
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A Pennsylvania literacy organization is commemorating the Juneteenth holiday by highlighting the history and contributions of Black people in the United States through literacy and artistic freedom.
Vanesse Lloyd-Sgambati, founder of the African American Children's Book Project, said books are vital to communities of color. She explained that before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, it was against the law in some states for enslaved people and freed Black people to be educated.
"The Emancipation Proclamation not only freed enslaved people, but it also gave Black people the opportunity to freely be able to read, write and spell," she explained.
In 2021, President Joe Biden signed a bill making Juneteenth a national holiday, which means federal and some local offices are closed, as well as banks and the U.S. Postal Service.
President Donald Trump has made rolling back diversity, equity and inclusion practices a major part of his platform. He has also expressed an interest in ending the Juneteenth holiday, but has not taken any action.
Lloyd-Sgambati said her group promotes books by and about Black authors to preserve Black history, adding that families play a key role in keeping that history alive, especially as schools cut back on cultural and DEI programs.
"If they're not teaching Black history in the schools, then it's your obligation," she continued. "Just like you nourish your children with food, the proper food, with clothing, it is important that you nourish your children with books - because if you can read, you can succeed."
Lloyd-Sgambati added that the American Library Association conference, set for later this month in Philadelphia, brings together global library leaders to share bold ideas and shape the future of libraries. She's producing two panels, one focused on children, the other for adults. More details are online on the ALA website.
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