Latest / Pop of Culture / S03 E21 - We Come from the Ground Up

Transcript

S03 E21 - We Come from the Ground Up · Pop of Culture

0:00
[Announcer] Support for Pop of Culture
0:01
comes from Stallings Wealth Management.
0:02
Daniel Stallings Financial Advisor.
0:04
Securities and Advisory Services
0:05
offered through Cetera Advisors, LLC.
0:07
Member FINRA/SIPC,
0:09
a broker/dealer and registered investment advisor.
0:11
Cetera is under separate ownership
0:13
from any other named entity.
0:15
[Jen Blackmer] This week on Pop of Culture,
0:17
the pools are open.
0:19
So we're diving into our archives.
0:21
[Luke Jones] We'll visit a museum exhibition that speaks to
0:24
our present moment from 80 years in the past.
0:27
[Jen] We'll spin up some pottery...
0:30
[Luke] And spin live performances from local musicians,
0:33
along with a trip to the Farmers' Market.
0:36
[Jen] That's all in this encore edition of Pop of Culture.
0:40
[Luke] Support for Pop of Culture comes from
0:42
Stallings Wealth Management and from you.
0:46
You may have heard about large gifts to NPR.
0:49
Those donations are important,
0:51
but they don't bring back the funding to IPR.
0:54
Your support pays for the programs you rely on,
0:57
especially local programs like this one,
1:00
and the people like me who create them.
1:03
Top of culture exists for you and because of you.
1:07
Give today at indianapublicradio.org.
1:12
♪♪ [Jen] From Indiana Public Radio,
1:16
this is Pop of Culture.
1:18
I'm Jen Blackmer. [Luke] And I'm Luke Jones.
1:20
Most of our team is enjoying
1:22
the unofficial start to Summer,
1:23
so we're walking, not running
1:25
to dive into the deep end of our archives.
1:28
[Jen] Although I wonder why we're not
1:30
enjoying the unofficial start of summer.
1:32
I want to enjoy the unofficial.
1:34
[Luke] Someone has to work, Jen.
1:36
[Jen] Oh, okay.
1:39
[Luke] Let's start with a piece from earlier this year when
1:42
Michelle and I went down the street and across the globe.
1:46
[Michelle] We are sitting at a large wooden table in one of
1:50
the galleries at the David Owsley Museum of Art
1:53
on the Ball State University campus,
1:55
and sitting next to me is Robert LaFrance,
1:58
and he is the museum director here.
2:01
And we are here at this table,
2:03
surrounded by books that Bob's gonna tell us more about.
2:08
Bob, tell us about this exhibit
2:11
that we are now sitting in the middle of.
2:13
[Robert Bob LaFrance] Great. I'm happy to. The show
2:16
is called Nora Krug Belonging,
2:18
and it runs from February 19 until June 13, 2026.
2:23
What you're seeing here on the table
2:25
are many of Nora Krug's publications.
2:28
Now, Nora is a
2:29
contemporary German American artist and illustrator,
2:33
lives and works in New York,
2:34
is teaching in New York right now,
2:36
and we're very fortunate to
2:38
have this exhibition of her work here on campus.
2:41
[Michelle] And this is I mean,
2:42
and correct me if I'm wrong,
2:44
but I know that it's been a little while at
2:47
least since I've seen an exhibit like this one,
2:51
an exhibition like this one at DOMA.
2:53
[Bob] Well, actually, it's a fairly new thing for us.
2:56
One of the main points I want people to take away from
2:58
this is it's the real celebration of illustration,
3:01
the art of illustration.
3:03
[Michelle] So talk a little bit about Noah Krug and why she is
3:08
a little different when it comes to
3:11
most people would call some of these things belonging,
3:13
her most popular one graphic novels,
3:17
but it's another level, isn't it?
3:19
And you referred to it as
3:21
a graphic memoir. [Bob] A graphic memoir.
3:23
This is a book in which Nora explores
3:26
her family and her heritage. It's called belonging.
3:29
Actually, the German title is heimat.
3:31
And heimat's one of those wonderful German words.
3:34
It doesn't exactly translate into English.
3:36
But many people translate it simply as "homeland."
3:40
But as Nora does,
3:42
she calls it belonging because heimat
3:44
is really that sense of where you come from,
3:47
maybe culturally, not just
3:49
physically or where you feel that you belong.
3:52
And so that's where she got the title from.
3:54
[Michelle] Okay. Well, we've got a lot to see,
3:57
so let's get started. [Bob] Okay.
4:00
So we began on this level
4:03
with an explanation of belonging,
4:04
the book and what it's about,
4:06
the main themes that go out through the book.
4:08
The beginning of the book starts with interaction
4:12
between Nora and an older woman
4:14
she finds on a rooftop in New York City.
4:16
And she finds out that this older woman was
4:19
a concentration camp survivor
4:20
and had spotted Nora as a German.
4:22
Yeah. And this is
4:24
a kind of guilt that Nora carries with her,
4:26
even though she had nothing to do with the war.
4:28
She was born decades after the war was over.
4:31
She still carries that with her,
4:32
and she decides to explore that part of
4:35
her German heritage throughout the book Belonging.
4:37
[Michelle] It's a life changing moment,
4:40
on a rooftop with a stranger.
4:41
[Bob] Yeah. Yeah, that's There's some other images here,
4:44
another case where Nora,
4:46
as a young woman, traveled to Japan.
4:48
She meets some people there, some Japanese people.
4:51
They say, Where are you from? When she says,
4:53
Germany, look how they respond. [Michelle] Oh, my.
4:55
[Bob] They immediately say, heil Hitler,
4:58
and they connect her with World War II.
5:00
Again, she was born in the 1970s.
5:02
She has nothing to do with the war,
5:04
yet she carries this with her.
5:06
[Michelle] Oh. It literally says whenever I traveled abroad,
5:11
her guilt traveled with her.
5:14
[Bob] Yeah. Powerful. But one of the most powerful things
5:19
is this set of photographs in which
5:22
Nora placed photographs that
5:24
she had taken as a young lady,
5:26
touring in a Nazi concentration camp
5:29
with her schoolmates, as a teenager.
5:31
And she has these photographs here
5:33
of some of her schoolmates after the tour,
5:35
and you can just see the anguish on
5:37
their faces after learning what happened
5:38
[Michelle] Yeah. Just devastated.
5:40
[Bob] And yet she juxtaposed those or compared them with
5:43
photographs that Nora bought at
5:45
flea markets of Nazi soldiers,
5:48
many of whom could have worked in
5:49
those concentration camps here
5:51
playing with their pets as if they had normal lives.
5:53
Yes. And those atrocities are just swept under the rug.
5:57
Yeah. So it's a strange juxtaposition between
6:00
the atrocities of the war and then the way
6:02
that these soldiers are acting in these photographs.
6:05
[Michelle] Yeah. There are photos of them petting dogs,
6:09
holding looks to be lambs.
6:12
I mean, just these very joyful photos
6:16
in their uniforms might I add.
6:18
But it's just... Oh, the contrast. Yeah.
6:24
[Bob] The other half of the room over here,
6:26
including one of these cases,
6:28
includes illustrations by Nora Krug
6:30
for a number of different things.
6:32
I like to say she used
6:33
a conventional comic book format
6:36
to tell very unconventional stories.
6:39
[Michelle] Yes. Like you said, these are tackling
6:41
very difficult topics in
6:44
a format that we normally think of as light.
6:47
[Bob] It's comic books. Right? Yeah.
6:50
[Michelle] Love that. Well, we have more to see.
6:51
[Bob] Shall we go upstairs? Absolutely. Let's do that.
6:57
So this part of the show is based on
7:01
Nora's adaptation and illustrations
7:05
for Timothy Snyder's book On Tyrrany.
7:07
And you can see here at
7:09
the beginning of the exhibition in a case,
7:13
a copy, Nora's copy of
7:16
Timothy Snyder's original small book, which is text only.
7:20
[Michelle] Yep. [Bob] And you can see her
7:21
beginning to sketch out ideas and
7:24
motifs that she uses and expands
7:26
into all the artwork that you
7:28
see on the walls in these upper floors.
7:30
[Michelle] I love this.
7:31
I love all the page markings.
7:33
I love how she did little sketches on
7:36
other pieces of paper and stapled it to the book itself.
7:39
[Bob] You can see her starting with
7:41
words and then creating visual ideas out of the words.
7:45
And putting them down on the page.
7:47
[Michelle] Wow. So, so beyond just your two dimensional
7:51
[Bob] Yeah. So what I suggest that people do when they come to
7:54
the upper level of this show on
7:56
top floor is they grab a copy of On Tyranny.
7:59
We have several around the room.
8:01
And if you look at the labels on the wall,
8:03
it will tell you what page number the drawing is for.
8:07
Wow. Yeah. And it goes through all the lessons.
8:10
There's 20 lessons in
8:11
total, and it goes through each one,
8:13
and you can see the different phases
8:15
of the development of ideas. For example,
8:20
in this one, you can see her
8:23
original Nora's original line drawing and
8:25
pencil of this pig
8:28
with a Russian writing on the chest there.
8:31
And this goes back to the idea
8:32
that Stalin started classifying
8:35
wealthy farmers as pigs
8:37
and kept repeating that they were pigs. They were pigs.
8:40
Well, if you dehumanize
8:42
someone enough and turn them into a pig,
8:44
it makes it easier to slaughter them.
8:46
Yep. Later. So this particular lesson
8:49
is lessons for take
8:51
responsibility for the face of the world.
8:53
It's about taking on symbols and words and language.
8:57
That are problematic like this that dehumanize people.
9:01
Wow. And the final lesson is a really interesting one.
9:06
Lesson 20, it's part of the epilogue.
9:09
Be as courageous as you can.
9:11
Wow. So even in the face of
9:14
difficulties you should still
9:16
be as courageous as you can to fight against them.
9:18
[Michelle] That leads me to the question, Bob,
9:21
why was this so important for DOMA to have this exhibit?
9:25
Now, what prompted you to say,
9:27
This is we need to do this now.
9:28
[Bob] Well, really, I did want to bring in
9:30
something with illustration and animation.
9:31
That's such a growing field
9:33
and so important to our students.
9:35
And then, again, there are various tyrranies
9:38
occurring across the planet right now.
9:40
And these are great lessons to learn.
9:43
One of the really important lessons
9:44
to go back a little bit.
9:47
Is Lesson 11. Investigate. I want
9:51
to encourage people to investigate everything.
9:53
There's an image that recurs as
9:56
a motif in Nora's illustrations of the man with no eyes.
10:01
It's when you lose your ability to look and to
10:05
investigate that tyrants are
10:07
able to do whatever they like to do essentially.
10:10
So investigative reporting, investigating for yourself.
10:15
Trying to sort
10:16
the difference between fact and fiction?
10:18
[Michelle] Absolutely. I don't think I have used the word
10:20
vetting more than I have in the last few years.
10:24
I mean, everything I say is,
10:26
well, let me vet that. I'll get back to you.
10:28
I need to vet it first. And I think we all need to
10:30
be doing that a little
10:32
more than we have maybe in the past.
10:35
So I love the Lesson 11 Investigate. That's a great one.
10:40
Well, thank you so much. Bob, for
10:42
showing us around the exhibit,
10:44
remind us again how long this will be on display.
10:47
[Bob] The show opened on February 19,
10:49
and it closes on June 13, 2026.
10:52
And for more information, what's
10:54
the website for DOMA? You can always go to
10:55
bsu.edu/DOMA.
10:59
[Michelle] Perfect. Thank you so much once again.
11:02
This is a wonderful exhibit. Thank you.
11:05
[Luke] We recorded that piece in February of this year.
11:08
The exhibition Noah Krug Belonging
11:11
will be up at DOMA through June 13.
11:14
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪
11:37
[Jen] We're
11:38
listening back to some of our favorites this week,
11:40
like when our co host Kara DuQuette spoke
11:42
with local pottery legend John Peterson.
11:46
[Kara] Can you tell us how you got into making pottery?
11:51
[John Peterson] I was a lucky enough to have
11:54
a high school art teacher in Skokie,
11:56
Illinois, who had been a Ball State graduate and,
12:01
you know, a ceramic enthusiast.
12:03
So I was like,
12:06
a junior in high school when
12:08
myself and some of my friends started taking art classes,
12:12
and there was a potter's wheel and lots of clay.
12:16
So that was my introduction.
12:19
I bought a potter's wheel
12:21
when I was a senior in high school.
12:23
And it was kind of my summer activity
12:26
with Bob Stein, my good friend.
12:28
We both were making pots,
12:30
and I had a garage in a little neighborhood.
12:33
We turned into a studio and, you know,
12:36
spent the summer, you know,
12:38
making pots and, you know, being artistic.
12:43
[Kara] So you really liked it since you bought a wheel.
12:46
Did you then build a kiln?
12:48
[John] No, we never had a kiln.
12:50
We didn't think that far ahead.
12:51
We were happy just making things.
12:54
I remember we took some of the pots over
12:56
to the high school next door, Nutrier High School.
13:00
There was a sympathetic art teacher there that
13:02
fired some of our work during the summer.
13:05
And, you know, at that age,
13:07
you know, things just kind of transpire,
13:09
and I don't know what happened
13:11
to all those things or not,
13:12
but they, you know, we were full of enthusiasm.
13:15
[Kara] John had so much more to tell us
13:17
about how he met his business partner,
13:19
Alan Patrick and how they started
13:21
the renowned Bethel Pike Pottery Studios.
13:24
He also talked about his mentor at Ball State,
13:27
Marvin Reichel, and how he's still impacting John's life.
13:31
That's where our conversation picks up.
13:33
Now, what inspires you to continue potting over time is
13:38
part you talked about the importance of
13:40
[John] Marvin Reichel in your life and his teaching teachers.
13:44
Is that why you became a teacher? I think so.
13:49
[John] You know, everything that I did kind of I can go back
13:52
and find a connection to Marvin. Marvin was a
13:55
you know, he taught lifestyle as much as he taught art.
13:59
You know, he did a lot of work on his house,
14:01
had beautiful gardens, you know,
14:03
had every element of his life,
14:06
you know, had an aesthetic that he pursued.
14:10
So I think that was
14:12
the that's the kind of thing I like to teach.
14:15
To have an artistic life.
14:18
And then everything kind of falls into place after that.
14:22
[Kara] I can see that from your.
14:23
I've had the pleasure of going
14:25
out and seeing the space that you're talking about,
14:29
and it's very inspiring.
14:31
Can you tell us a little bit
14:34
about your upcoming spring sale?
14:37
[John] Well, we have probably the 50th,
14:40
you know, Spring Open House.
14:42
And backtrack a little bit because Alan and
14:45
I started the Bethel Pottery, and then, you know,
14:48
about four or five years into it,
14:50
we split it up because
14:52
he had a certain direction he wanted to go,
14:54
and I had a little different direction.
14:56
Alan was more interested in wholeselling.
14:59
So, you know, that was a bigger part of his business.
15:02
And I was going to art fairs and selling retail.
15:06
So, you know, we'd always had a spring show.
15:09
And after we split up,
15:12
I think we kind of missed a few years,
15:14
but then I started having a spring show again.
15:17
And, about 20 years ago,
15:20
we had some friends that wanted to take classes,
15:22
and I was giving some classes to
15:24
some people in my studio. And, uh,
15:29
and so we kind of expanded that.
15:32
So now we have about 15 people.
15:34
Some of them have been coming for 20 years.
15:37
And the school is loosely a school.
15:41
It's like a more like a Clay Club, you know,
15:45
and some wonderful people and some very good potters,
15:48
and some of these people have their
15:49
own studios, too, and this.
15:50
So we started having the students sell
15:54
their work at the spring show in the school,
15:58
and then I have my work in my studio.
16:00
So and Alan, is he still on the property?
16:04
That's still on the property, yeah. Mm hmm.
16:06
So the commune became {John] Alan
16:10
quit making pots about about 15 years ago.
16:13
And he's a pain. He was always a painter in
16:14
school. So he just continued.
16:16
Now he's a he's a painter.
16:18
[Kara] Wonderful. So, this June 7th and 8th,
16:22
we have our Open House.
16:25
We have the students' work.
16:27
There's 15 students, and we have my work.
16:30
We have some music. We have some,
16:34
kind of a clay Olympics,
16:36
if you'd like, where you can...
16:38
You can challenge other people.
16:42
The kids can make a pot or two, if they want.
16:45
And there's some food out there, probably.
16:48
And it's a nice event.
16:50
You know, it's a great event.
16:52
I saw Ron Richcreek showing some children how to pot.
16:58
Yeah. But now, what's the Olympics?
17:00
What do you mean you can challenge?
17:02
We had, you know, who can throw the tallest cylinder?
17:06
Oh. You know, who can pull
17:07
the longest handle and that kind of stuff.
17:11
You know. Nice. Hm.
17:13
[Kara] Well, I would like to know how do you how do you
17:18
balance your form and functionality when you create pots?
17:25
[John] You know, I started out doing,
17:28
you know, functional wear, utilitarian wear.
17:30
Mm hm. And still do.
17:33
I think that's just my nature.
17:36
You know, that's more satisfying to
17:37
me is to make something that people can use.
17:40
And, because I use my pots, you know,
17:44
so I have an everyday experience
17:46
testing everything I make. And,
17:50
you know, hopefully, people will have
17:53
to get the same feeling out of these pieces that I get.
17:55
And I think a lot of people do.
17:57
[Kara] Yeah, I ask you that because
17:58
you make such beautiful things,
18:00
but it's very clear that you can utilize them.
18:03
[John] Yeah. And Yeah.
18:05
And there's, you know, there's
18:07
a great tradition of functional pottery,
18:09
you know, and I like all, you know,
18:11
you know, all avenues of ceramics.
18:14
I appreciate it and enjoy it.
18:16
But, you know, this is kind of my thing, so.
18:19
[Kara] Well, is there anything else you'd like to tell us
18:21
about your pottery or your art?
18:26
[John] Uh you know, I'm 80-years-old this year.
18:30
And. So, you know,
18:33
we're starting to think about winding
18:36
down a little bit, maybe.
18:38
You know, I used to do I used to do, you know,
18:40
12, 15 art fairs all around the country every year.
18:43
And so the teaching classes kind
18:47
of augmented that part of my income.
18:51
You know, I'm kind of a little bit of a dinosaur,
18:54
and, you know, starting probably, you know,
18:56
15 years ago, with the Internet online exposure.
19:02
And if I was a potter starting today,
19:05
that would probably be where I would start, you know,
19:08
a lot of there's a lot of people that sell work online
19:11
all over the world and to be connect,
19:15
you know, there's different connections that
19:16
you have to make now than when I started.
19:19
[Kara] Well, and you made them by going places.
19:21
[John] You know, we
19:24
started having shows out at the well, we were students.
19:27
So we had a community of
19:29
friends, you know, from Ball State.
19:31
And I've got a mailing list of around 800 people.
19:36
And if you look through it, a lot of them are,
19:38
you know, older, you know.
19:40
So actually, Renee Petri,
19:43
my daughter, lives in California.
19:45
And probably, you know, seven or eight years ago,
19:48
she started helping me get on
19:50
Facebook and kind of updating my
19:53
way of exposure. And we did,
19:56
you know, made a big difference for the shows.
19:58
We started drawing younger people,
20:00
you know, and, you know,
20:02
people that are, you know,
20:04
building a household are
20:06
the people that buy pots, you know?
20:08
Mm hmm. Uh, there's the conversation of,
20:11
you know, all the old friends
20:12
that say, you know, we love your pots.
20:14
We have lots of them. You know?
20:15
[laughter] So you need to,
20:18
you know, you need to keep getting new people.
20:21
[Kara] Well, I'm glad that you're doing that and
20:24
adapting and that you brought the movement here,
20:27
and it continues. Yeah, it continues.
20:29
[John] Okay, it continues, yeah.
20:31
Thank you so much, John.
20:33
I've got a you know,
20:35
we all kind of after
20:37
years and years and years of doing something,
20:39
it's hard to, uh,
20:42
see how people see you.
20:44
And it's hard to kind of accept that people see you as,
20:50
you know, as the, uh, you know,
20:52
the master or the senior person, you know.
20:56
[Kara] Oh, yeah, 'cause you're as old as you feel, right?
21:00
[John] Right. And you never you never expect that.
21:03
Well, but, you know,
21:04
I'm glad I've been able to inspire some people.
21:07
[Kara] That's that. Oh, yeah.
21:10
[Jen] That interview first aired in Season 2 Episode 22.
21:14
This year's John Peterson Pottery Spring Sale
21:18
and show is June 6th and 7th
21:20
♪♪ ♪♪
21:32
[Jen] This is Pop of Culture.
21:34
I'm Jen Blackmer. [Luke] And I'm Luke Jones.
21:36
We're doing some leisurely laps
21:39
through our archives today.
21:41
Jess Jones is a singer and
21:43
songwriter from Pendleton, Indiana.
21:45
He joined Michelle Kinsey in the Pop studios.
21:48
[Michelle] When did all of this start for you?
21:50
When did you start playing guitar?
21:53
When did you start writing songs?
21:54
Give us a little backstory.
21:56
[Jess Jones] Been writing, I guess,
21:58
stories and poems since,
22:00
you know, like grade school era,
22:01
and, you know, it never stopped.
22:04
I did a bunch of short stories and stuff in
22:09
high school and started
22:11
to learn guitar when I was, I think, 25.
22:13
So I was a little later than most to come
22:16
to an instrument that started out as just therapy.
22:19
Like, after work, I would
22:21
just come home and it'd just be me and
22:23
the guitar and I'd kind of chill
22:25
out for a while and learn some chords and practice.
22:28
And eventually,
22:29
I got comfortable enough to try and learn songs.
22:32
[Michelle] Yeah. So self taught? [Jess] Yep. Self taught guitar.
22:35
[Michelle] So really interesting that you've been a writer,
22:39
you kind of get your creativity
22:41
out through poetry and essay,
22:45
you know, narrative prose, those kind of things.
22:48
What was it like taking it to
22:50
the next level of song describing that process? Awkward.
22:55
[Jess] I guess awkward's the best word.
22:58
I wanted to challenge myself.
23:01
Like, I playing a bunch of other people's songs,
23:04
and before I guess you're a songwriter and musician,
23:07
you're a lover of music first.
23:08
Right. So you're playing a bunch
23:10
of other people's songs
23:11
and learning them as best you can.
23:12
And I guess I just got bored,
23:15
wanted to see if I could put anything
23:17
I'd written to music,
23:19
if it would be possible, if I could, just do it.
23:22
Yeah. And I'm gonna play one of those for you.
23:24
It started out as a poem in high school.
23:26
It's on my first album.
23:28
And I went back to it when I was probably 27 or 28,
23:32
finished it, and put music to it.
23:34
♪♪ Older than a kid will admit.
23:37
♪♪ Empty handed, just waiting on the rain.
23:46
♪♪ I never had a part to fill.
23:50
♪♪ So learned to love best inside of my brain.
23:55
♪♪ The strangers pass by.
24:00
♪♪ Hometown had never felt so strange.
24:06
♪♪ It's easy to ignore all the same.
24:12
Knowing that some d they'll fly away.
24:20
♪♪ I should have sat down once or twice
24:23
and tell myself it's easier to go nowhere.
24:31
♪♪ Tell myself it's easier to go nowhere. ♪♪ ♪♪
24:38
♪♪
25:01
No,
25:02
that Brain fusing in.
25:05
Never get out. You just learn to drift away.
25:09
♪♪ Spend your time how you can.
25:16
♪♪ Do your best too.
25:19
He's all of life's pain.
25:22
♪♪ Should have sat down once or
25:27
twice and tell myself it's easier to go no
25:33
♪♪ Tell myself it's easier to go nowhere.
25:41
♪♪ If I'd seen the south start.
25:48
Would have ran until I grew up poings
25:52
♪♪ Would have made a new name. ♪♪
26:00
To fly past from wherever I came.
26:05
[Michelle] So what musicians,
26:07
what other musicians, writers who
26:09
have inspired you along the way on this journey?
26:12
[Jess] Well, as a kid,
26:14
riding in my mom's car, it was always Motown stuff.
26:17
Nice. And with dad on Saturday mornings,
26:20
he would whip out his old records,
26:22
and it would be like classic country. Mm hmm.
26:24
So I got appreciation for both sides of, like,
26:27
the dark storytellers and songwriters and, like,
26:31
the more popular and,
26:33
I don't want to say lyrically driven, but, melody.
26:39
Know, that's kind of where it started,
26:42
but as far as wanting to create,
26:44
I guess Bruce Springsteen.
26:45
When I first started to hear Springsteen
26:47
songs when I was probably ten.
26:49
Yeah. I stole my mom's Springsteen CD
26:51
and went and listened to it and like,
26:53
halfway through Thunder Road, I was drawn in.
26:56
I was in love. Uh huh. It was that moment.
26:59
[Michelle] Absolutely. So all of those things kind of coalesce.
27:02
They came together to form kind of your own sound.
27:05
We were talking about this a little bit before.
27:07
We started recording, and I know it's difficult,
27:10
but for those who haven't heard,
27:12
how would you describe
27:14
sound. Because I'm sure you weren't into that a lot.
27:16
say, Yeah, what do you do?
27:18
Well, I'm a musician. Well, what kind of stuff do you do?
27:20
[Jess] Right. The most broad question is, what do you play?
27:23
Well, I play guitar and I try to sing.
27:25
And I play a little harmonica. There you go.
27:28
But, you know, folky. Think Neil Young.
27:32
Think acoustic Springsteen,
27:34
in the veins of classic Dylan, that kind of stuff.
27:37
[Michelle] Yeah. Why is it
27:39
that particular style that
27:42
works or meshes with kind of your lyrics?
27:45
How did those two styles, like the words,
27:48
the things you're writing, and
27:49
that sound how did that come
27:52
[Jess] Probably because it's what I listen to the most.
27:54
And it had the biggest effect on me,
27:57
and that's, you know,
27:58
you write and you play what you know.
28:00
And that's the biggest inspiration
28:03
to me musically. Was that sound.
28:06
So. That's where I'm at right now,
28:07
but, you know, it could change.
28:09
Five years from now, two years from now, who knows?
28:12
[Michelle] Yeah, yeah, inspiration comes from everywhere.
28:13
Right. What inspires you
28:15
these days when it comes to sitting down and writing your
28:18
[Jess] Oh, Lord. Mostly, it's just putting in the time,
28:23
like just planting yourself in
28:25
the chair and just writing whatever comes to your head.
28:27
Eventually, if you do it long enough or often enough,
28:31
I found that something will come. I'll get an idea.
28:35
But once in a while, I'll be driving and just get, like,
28:37
a line or a phrase,
28:38
and I'll just write it down.
28:39
Or a title, and later,
28:41
I'll come back to it, work on it.
28:43
Lot of time passes by.
28:45
♪♪ Days to go dark and bright.
28:50
♪♪ Otherwhile feeling my time.
28:54
♪♪ Slip slowly for me.
28:58
♪♪
28:58
♪♪
29:08
See
29:09
them all come and go.
29:11
♪♪ Pass by in the blink of an eye.
29:15
♪♪ No second chances this way.
29:19
♪♪ Wind blows hard in my face.
29:24
'Cause slowly, the days go by.
29:29
♪♪ Years are quicker than they seem.
29:34
♪♪ The white lines on the freeway drive
29:37
♪♪ slowly away from me.
29:41
♪♪
29:41
♪♪
29:41
♪♪ ♪♪
30:04
Lady
30:05
gives me all that I need,
30:07
♪♪ gives it, then she takes it away.
30:12
Dumb struck as she walks.
30:16
♪♪ Slowly away from me.
30:21
♪♪ Slowly, the days go by.
30:25
♪♪ Yes are quicker than they seem.
30:30
♪♪ White lines on the freeway drive.
30:34
♪♪ Slowly away from me.
30:38
♪♪ ♪♪
30:50
♪♪ ♪♪
30:57
♪♪
31:12
lot
31:13
of time passes by.
31:15
♪♪ Days the go dark Brad.
31:19
[Michelle] Do you try to be pretty intentional about it?
31:24
Do you try to write something every day or no pressure.
31:28
Just wait till it comes to you.
31:29
[Jess] Generally, wait till it comes.
31:31
Unless it's wintertime, things are slow, and it's like,
31:34
I need to do something because
31:35
I'm gonna go crazy.
31:37
So sometimes I'll force myself to be creative,
31:39
and that's where I
31:40
guess the album I'm working on right now.
31:42
I think it was late November, early December.
31:45
I was going out of my mind with,
31:46
you know, winter boredom. Yeah. You know? Yeah.
31:49
And I decided to just sit down.
31:51
Let's try to come up with something,
31:53
and one song turned into three and then turn into eight,
31:56
like, Okay, I'm proud that I've done this.
31:59
Over the course of a couple weeks that happened.
32:02
And they kind of fit together thematically.
32:06
So I felt accomplished.
32:08
Like, okay, maybe I have something
32:10
here for spring or summertime.
32:12
I'll just work on it steadily from here.
32:15
[Michelle] Yeah. Do you find that that's
32:16
usually the case once you kind
32:18
of get in a groove and things are
32:20
going that you start to kind of crank out more?
32:22
Is that what has happened in your past albums?
32:24
I should say, you've got three. Right, that
32:27
are out and available right now.
32:28
[Jess] Yeah, everything's digital. All on my website,
32:31
jessjonesmusic.com. Mm hm.
32:34
But yeah, starting out,
32:36
I guess I had such a backlog of songs that
32:39
I didn't have any trouble coming up with new ones.
32:42
It was just more of like picking out
32:43
which ones were the best for, I guess,
32:45
the first couple albums,
32:47
for the most part and deciding what to do,
32:50
what to flesh out, and what to record.
32:52
Now it's a little more digging.
32:54
A little more intentional.
32:56
Yeah. Trying to be creative.
32:58
[Michelle] Yeah. So what have you learned along the way?
33:02
I mean, it's not as if you
33:03
necessarily had a roadmap of how to do this.
33:06
Like, singer songwriter, I'm
33:08
going to get my stuff out there, 101.
33:09
Right, that you can just pick up and follow.
33:12
So how did you kind of,
33:14
like, learn the business?
33:16
What have you learned along the way,
33:18
and what are the next steps for you?
33:19
[Jess] Oh, baby steps.
33:21
Starting out getting advice from
33:23
any other musician you know who's willing to share.
33:27
Yeah. That's been key meeting some other folks who
33:32
can do recording or tell you what to look
33:35
for as far as recommendations like microphones,
33:38
even or other venues to just reach out to,
33:41
like, you know, they might
33:43
like your sound here, reach out to them.
33:45
So a lot of it's word of mouth.
33:47
A lot of it's talking and networking with
33:51
other musicians and just being
33:53
brave enough to ask venues.
33:55
Hey, do you want music? Are you looking for more?
33:58
[Michelle] Yeah, right, see? And I just think you hit on it
34:01
right there is putting yourself out there.
34:04
And not being afraid to do that and
34:06
hitting up anybody and everybody to,
34:09
like, Hey, you know, I've got
34:10
a set full of you know, original tunes.
34:13
Do you want to hear them or covers
34:14
or Do you find that you mix it up?
34:16
Do you do mostly covers?
34:18
[Jess] Mostly, I do originals. Oh, fantastic.
34:21
I'm not I couldn't do just covers,
34:24
but, you know, I'll sprinkle some in there.
34:26
Whatever's inspiring me for the week or for the month,
34:29
I'll have two or three
34:30
that'll make it in there once in a while. Absolutely.
34:33
[Michelle] Wonderful. So what is next for you?
34:37
You mentioned you you're almost done with another album.
34:41
[Jess] Right. Number four. Number four.
34:43
[Michelle] Do you have a title for that one yet? Not yet.
34:45
[Jess] I have a few ideas for the title,
34:48
but I haven't landed on one yet.
34:50
Yeah. So we'll see what goes from there,
34:53
and I think it'll have you know, it'll be full.
34:55
It'll be 12 or 13 tracks probably by the time I'm done.
34:59
I saved some from last time,
35:01
just to include different
35:03
on a different project or, you know.
35:06
[Michelle] You know, and I've heard it said
35:08
that if you are a singer songwriter,
35:10
a musician, you've got to
35:12
and it's not narcissistic in any way,
35:14
but you've got to please yourself first,
35:16
or else you're gonna have a really difficult time.
35:18
Right. Getting out there and playing the stuff
35:20
if it's not something you feel
35:22
really good about and if it is not
35:24
hitting something inside you first and foremost.
35:26
[Jess] Right, if you're not writing something
35:28
directly from whatever it is,
35:30
wherever it comes from inside,
35:32
then I couldn't see anyone else,
35:34
you know, bonding with it, either. Mm.
35:37
[Michelle] Absolutely. Yeah. What do you want people to
35:40
get out of what you do?
35:44
And then tell me a little bit
35:45
about what you get out of it.
35:47
Why is it so important for you to do what you do?
35:49
And what do you want other people
35:51
to feel when they listen to your music?
35:53
[Jess] That's a tough question right there.
35:55
I guess it's therapeutic to just play it.
35:58
Yeah. Like, to have anyone want to hear it is, um,
36:03
I don't know, beautiful, in a way.
36:06
It's the most rewarding spiritually, I guess.
36:10
But to get out of it, I hope they enjoy it.
36:14
I hope it makes them think, maybe a little bit.
36:17
I hope they realize that songwriting is an art,
36:21
and it's hard fought art, I think,
36:23
especially in this day and age, just,
36:26
you know, to find people happy to sit and
36:29
listen for those things. Yeah.
36:32
[Michelle] And to appreciate when people are
36:34
doing when they're putting themselves out there,
36:36
really, you know, 'cause I mean,
36:38
any musician that plays out, I mean,
36:41
that's not an easy thing to
36:43
do to put yourself out there like that.
36:45
But then to do that with original music,
36:48
that's another level. [Jess] It is.
36:50
Jess, thank you so much for coming in and
36:52
sharing your music with us.
36:53
[Jess] Thank you for having me.
36:54
Thanks for putting up with me. It's a pleasure.
36:57
It's just a sigh from the corner of your eye,
37:00
♪♪ it was just a phrase whispered in the night.
37:08
By you. Well, I remember a time.
37:12
It wasn't easy. ♪♪ To get a hand the flota sound,
37:21
♪♪ Seeing
37:32
something new from here?
37:34
♪♪ It was like a feeling but being lost.
37:41
♪♪ Like a pun prick of light on the horizon.
37:48
♪♪ You see it fading away from you now?
37:55
♪♪ Here we are five leaves later. Headed somewhere.
38:04
I can't see. ♪♪ Maybe South.
38:09
Maybe Oklahoma.
38:12
Can you come? Can you save me?
38:16
♪♪ You
38:24
twist my arm to make a point.
38:27
♪♪ Perspective seems to confuse me.
38:34
♪♪ You gaining ground in your age.
38:41
♪♪ You two steps back you're like a win.
38:52
♪♪ ♪♪ Spin me around, make me feel.
39:03
♪♪ Don't make me regret what I see.
39:07
♪♪ Watch the daybreak.
39:13
Across the sky.
39:15
♪♪ When was the last time you saw it through?
39:22
♪♪ Here we are five leaves later. Had it somewhere.
39:31
I can't see. Maybe South.
39:36
Maybe Oklahoma. Can you come?
39:41
Can you save me? Can you save me?
39:47
♪♪ [Jen] Luke,
39:54
it's one of my favorite times of
39:56
year - Farmers' Market season.
39:58
And we thought we'd revisit
40:00
our chat with this young farmer.
40:02
[Riley] My name is Riley McDermott,
40:04
and I'm from Monroe County in Illinois,
40:07
which is just about 40 minutes away from St. Louis.
40:11
And it's pretty much a very rural community
40:14
that also has that urban side
40:16
since we are so close to the city.
40:18
[Kara] Hello, Riley. Thanks for talking with us today.
40:22
I met Riley McDermott at a Farmer's Market this summer,
40:26
and we enjoyed talking with each other.
40:29
Yeah, it was so much fun.
40:31
[Riley] Yeah. You know, Kara came up to me at the Farmers Market,
40:36
and she was looking at my products.
40:38
And then when she introduced herself in this opportunity,
40:41
I was a little surprised.
40:44
But, you know, it's really shown me, like,
40:46
how far my business has taken
40:48
me and how far of a reach I've had.
40:50
So it's a pretty cool opportunity that I have here.
40:53
[Kara] Yes, and I'm so happy that you're here to speak with us.
40:57
Can you tell us specifically what you do?
41:00
Yeah, so being from Monroe County,
41:02
I've been connected to agriculture my entire life.
41:06
You know, I've grown up on a farm,
41:08
and I've always been excited to be an FFA.
41:12
And it's just really my personality
41:15
really is FFA and agriculture,
41:17
and it's kind of funny to say that.
41:19
Um, but yeah, really, in 2021,
41:24
I started my business Tilled to Table,
41:27
where I was just selling
41:29
produce off a road for about 5 hours.
41:32
I would reach maybe ten customers.
41:35
And then in 2022,
41:37
I actually expanded to become
41:39
a part of the Monroe County Farmers Market,
41:42
which reaches almost 100 customers a day,
41:45
and it really has helped me expand my business into
41:48
something much further than I
41:50
ever thought I would even reach. So
41:53
I really just am excited to see how much further
41:56
I can take this and how many doors
41:58
it has opened for me already.
41:59
[Kara] Well, how old were you when you started this business?
42:03
[Riley] I was 15 when I started selling stuff, but, you know,
42:08
I've been in the garden and
42:10
helping my grandma with canning ever since I could walk.
42:13
So it really has been in my family for a very long time.
42:16
[Kara] Wow. So how many family recipes
42:22
do you utilize when you can?
42:25
[Riley] I would say there's
42:27
about six or seven recipes that
42:29
have been passed down throughout my entire family.
42:32
And the thing is,
42:34
whenever you are selling processed goods,
42:37
you do have to apply to
42:39
the food handler certification
42:43
and the Cottage Food Act license.
42:46
And you have to follow those regulations
42:48
to make sure that what you are producing
42:50
falls within those food safety guidelines
42:53
and is safe for you to sell to customers. So
42:57
I actually got kind of lucky.
42:59
I guess my, you know, great,
43:01
great grandparents kind of knew what they were doing
43:03
because my recipes actually
43:05
did fall underneath those guidelines.
43:07
And I was extremely excited to be
43:10
able to share those recipes that so
43:12
many of my friends and family have loved for
43:15
years to even more people within my community.
43:18
But there are definitely some recipes
43:21
like carrot cake jam that I just,
43:23
you know, found on Pinterest
43:25
one day and thought I would try
43:26
it and has turned out to be a big hit for my business.
43:30
[Kara] Wonderful. And you told
43:32
us there are some things that you have
43:34
to abide by in terms of quality of your product.
43:38
And so what are some
43:40
of those things in the cultivation of
43:42
your vegetables and in the processing that you must do?
43:45
You said some of the recipes followed those guidelines.
43:49
So can you walk us through maybe one of them?
43:52
[Riley] Yea sure. So I would say the
43:54
biggest guidelines that you have to follow
43:57
apply to whenever you are making
44:00
tomato based products like tomato soup or salsa.
44:04
And that is because tomatoes are a very acidic vegetable.
44:08
And so they have to follow the pH guidelines.
44:11
So if your recipe falls under 4.6 pH,
44:16
then you are good to go because it
44:19
is acidic enough that bacteria won't grow.
44:23
And so there's definitely a lot of science behind this.
44:26
You know, it's not just baking and cooking.
44:29
You know, that's what cooking and
44:31
baking is, is science. And so
44:33
I think it's also really cool,
44:35
and that's why I do plan on going into crop sciences
44:39
when I go up to the
44:41
University of Urbana Champagne in the fall.
44:44
I'm pretty excited to major in that.
44:46
But there's so many
44:48
different aspects that come alongside of
44:50
it that definitely start in the soil, you know?
44:54
I start my production around January or February,
44:57
planting the seeds inside and helping them grow,
45:00
transferring them into the garden around April and May.
45:03
Harvesting them around July and
45:05
August and then processing
45:07
those vegetables as they come in, as well.
45:09
And so really just making sure my production stays local,
45:13
follow those guidelines and stays legal
45:16
and safe for my customers is my top priority.
45:19
[Riley] Well, you do a wonderful job.
45:21
I just opened some pickled green tomatoes.
45:25
Oh, yeah. Yesterday that you made,
45:28
and they were fabulous.
45:30
[Riley] That's awesome. Yeah, I've actually sold out of those, so
45:34
[Kara] And I want to know what you've learned
45:37
or how you've changed through this whole process.
45:40
[Riley] Yeah, well, definitely.
45:42
I used to be extremely shy.
45:44
And as a freshman,
45:46
I participated in the FFA Creed,
45:49
which is basically you memorize the Creed in FFA.
45:53
It's five paragraphs long.
45:55
And it basically talks about
45:57
the morals and values that come with FFA.
45:59
You memorize it, answer some questions about it,
46:02
and it really helps freshmen get into
46:06
a career or pathway of
46:07
public speaking and building their confidence.
46:10
And I definitely think that's
46:11
where my level of confidence started.
46:13
And starting this business,
46:15
having to talk to hundreds of people
46:17
every week has really helped me break out of my shell,
46:20
become who I am today,
46:22
and really opened so many doors for me in the future.
46:26
I've met so many people. I'm really close
46:29
with the national FFA president, Thaddeus Bergschneider.
46:33
He and I are really good friends, as well.
46:36
And so, really, this business
46:38
has brought so much more than just a little bit of money.
46:41
It's brought me opportunities of a lifetime.
46:44
[Kara] Oh, that's wonderful.
46:45
Connections, and it feels like you've really
46:48
you did a lot more than memorize the creed.
46:51
[Riley] Yeah. I definitely did.
46:53
[Kara] What do you what will you do with
46:55
the business once you go off to college?
46:58
[Riley] Well, a big part of
47:00
the business does happen during the summertime,
47:02
so I will be home for that.
47:04
But during the preparation months of the winter,
47:08
my family will kind of have to step it up a little bit.
47:12
I'm hoping that they will be able to help me with that.
47:15
And hopefully I can continue
47:17
my business throughout my college days.
47:20
But I definitely do want to see Tilled to Table continue,
47:23
as it is something I built from
47:25
scratch and is something I am extremely proud of.
47:28
[Kara] Wonderful. Can you tell everybody where they could see
47:32
what Tilled to Table homegrown veggies is doing online?
47:36
[Riley] Awesome. Okay. So, I post everything that I'm
47:40
doing on Facebook under Riley's Tilled to Table,
47:44
and I post any new products
47:46
that I come out with just really what I've been
47:48
doing in the garden and that I make
47:50
an announcement of when I'll be
47:52
at the Monroe County Farmers Market.
47:54
[Kara] Riley, thank you so much for sharing your story with us,
47:58
and you have done some amazing things, and it continues.
48:03
[Riley] Awesome. Well, thank you so much for having me.
48:06
[Kara] Of course. [Riley] Yeah, I mean, this is what I do.
48:09
You know, I love to talk about my business,
48:12
how I'm connected to agriculture.
48:15
And it is also something that I'm looking
48:17
for in my future career is being able
48:19
to advocate for agriculture
48:21
and those who put in the work throughout the industry.
48:24
[Kara] That's wonderful. That's needed.
48:27
So we're glad you're out there advocating.
48:29
[Jen] Our arts calendar will be back next week.
48:32
Right now, we're gonna hear a
48:34
little extra from our segment
48:35
Behind the Song recorded live at the Songwriter Sessions.
48:39
This is Foxy featuring Carrie Cambridge with Drownin'.
48:44
♪♪ I'm standing here in the river.
48:50
Boon ♪♪ Hizb.
48:57
♪♪ It reminds me of
49:01
the net when you help me find my way to go.
49:11
♪♪ 'cause you fully wanted
49:15
♪♪ one more day crave.
49:24
♪♪ You flow ♪♪
49:33
My to swim before row Okay. ♪♪
49:45
Your smile is like
49:48
the bright days shimmering on your face.
49:54
♪♪ Any glow but you get for,
50:03
Granny people try to stop you from flowing.
50:09
Not know ♪♪ 'cause you saw
50:16
rushing through my face ♪♪ on Mt on the grave.
50:26
You pushing me to
50:33
♪♪ my love for you is my moments.
50:38
I drew ♪♪ ♪♪
50:51
Oh.
51:07
♪♪ ♪♪ When
51:08
plotrona you put a smile on my face ♪♪
51:15
Ohab ♪♪ But you
51:22
flowing down the wall and I'm trying to follow you, then.
51:28
Mm ♪♪
51:35
♪♪ him day gray
51:49
♪♪ ♪♪ mean swim for ♪♪ ♪♪
51:57
♪♪
52:16
Okay
52:37
♪♪
52:38
♪♪ ♪♪ craze ♪♪
52:42
♪♪ Lace
52:51
♪♪ my veins.
52:54
I'm dry ♪♪ ♪♪ Thank you.
53:03
[applause] ♪♪
53:03
[applause]
53:03
[applause]
53:03
♪♪
53:12
[Luke] Support
53:13
for Pop of Culture comes from
53:15
Stallings Wealth Management and from you.
53:18
You may have heard about large gifts to NPR.
53:21
Those donations are important,
53:23
but they don't bring back the funding to IPR.
53:26
Your support pays for the programs you rely on,
53:29
especially local programs like this one,
53:32
and the people like me who create them.
53:35
Pop of Culture exists for you and because of you.
53:39
Give today at indianapublicradio.org.
53:43
{Jen] And that's our show.
53:45
Our Digital Content God is August Wilde.
53:48
And our regular human producer is Luke Jones,
53:51
who'd like to use this holiday week as a reminder to be
53:54
kind to service industry workers. Here, here.
53:58
We had production assistant from Andrew Montavon.
54:02
[Luke] Our show was hosted this week by me, Luke Jones.
54:05
[Jen] And me, Jen Blackmer.
54:07
Pop of Culture is a production from
54:09
IPR on the campus of Ball State University.
54:14
This is Pop of Culture.
54:16
I'm Jen Blackmer. [Luke] And I'm Luke Jones.
54:19
We're doing some leisurely laps
54:21
through our archives today.
54:23
[Jen] Oh, the swimming metaphors.
54:25
[Luke] Yeah, my dad wishes I was a swimmer.
54:27
[laughter] My version of
54:30
a full body workout is brunch, no.
54:32
[laughter] [Jen]Sorry.