Our Valley Speaks: A Sanpete Experience / Fellow David Lindsay
Bird’s Eye Chisel / The Family Trade: Ashley Hanson + Brian Laidlaw
Friday May 28, 2021 / 11am-12pm
David Lindsay will be presenting on Our Valley Speaks: A Sanpete Experience. The project includes oral histories from Sanpete Valley residents, and perspectives from historians and other experts along with works of art. Ashley Hanson and Brian Laidlaw of The Family Trade will play a selection from their album, Bird’s Eye Chisel, following David’s presentation.
The Heritage Conference will take place on Snow College campus, in the auditorium of the Karen H. Huntsman Library, 150 E. College Ave.
The Scandinavian Festival Heritage Conference gives participants an opportunity to learn about Scandinavian, pioneer, and historical influences in Ephraim and the Sanpete Valley.
About the Fellow
David Lindsay was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and received his MFA from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Lindsay’s work has been exhibited extensively and internationally, including at Arte Laguna, Arsenale, Venice; Georges Enescu Museum, Romania; Contemporary Art Fair, New York City; Monchskirche Gallery, Salzwedel, Germany; and Alphonse Berber Gallery in Berkeley. He was Associate Director of the School of Art at Texas Tech University 2017-2019 and is currently the director of Sites Set for Knowledge—a nonprofit arts organization that oversees Popwalk, a phone app for viewing site specific digital works of art.
About the Musicians
Ashley Hanson is a social practice and theater artist, community organizer, entrepreneur and advocate for arts in rural areas. She is the Founder and Director of the Department of Public Transformation, an artist-led organization that collaborates with local artists and civic leaders in rural areas to develop creative strategies for community connection and civic participation. She is also the Founder and Director of PlaceBase Productions, a theater company that creates original, site-specific musicals celebrating small town life. She was recently named a 2018 Obama Foundation Fellow and a 2019 Bush Foundation Fellow for her work with rural communities. She is also a musician who plays with the folk-ensemble The Family Trade, and her recent solo album, The Kirkbride Sessions - recorded during a Springboard for the Arts Hinge Arts Residency, explores the hidden narratives of ruralness. She holds a BA in Performance and Social Change from the University of Minnesota and an MA in Applied Theater from the University of Manchester (UK) with an emphasis on the role of arts in rural community development. She is a firm believer in the power of people, places, play and exclamation points! www.publictransformation.org www.ashhanson.com
Brian Laidlaw is an author and songwriter who, after many years as a full-time touring folksinger and a stint on the songwriting faculty at McNally Smith College of Music, has just completed a Ph.D. in English and Literary Arts at the University of Denver. His books include The Stuntman (Milkweed Editions, 2015) and The Mirrormaker (Milkweed Editions, 2018), each of which was released with a companion album of original music, as well as the forthcoming Summer Err: A John Muir Erasure (Mount Vision Press, 2020). He has had lyrics in American Songwriter Magazine and Songwriting Consultant credits on multiple Grammy-Award- winning and -nominated albums, most recently Winterland by the Okee Dokee Brothers. A lifelong student of folk music, Brian’s collaborative songwriting practice uses the timeless simplicity of traditional forms to talk -- and sing -- about our decidedly complex experience of community and landscape in the modern American West. www.brianlaidlaw.com
Event is free and open to the public.