Arts & Culture

Boise musician Danny Kerr is pretty much always on the hunt.

Recently, Kerr was hunting for the right cable to hook up to a bass guitar. After scavenging for about 10 minutes, he found what he was looking for. Then, he started searching for the perfect sound to come out of that bass.

The 25-year-old musician rents studio space in a warehouse in Garden City, wedged behind a junkyard filled with old road signs for chain restaurants and cheap motels. He shares the space with a bunch of other musicians, and the place is filled with drums, guitars -- even a disfigured piano.

Like a lot of people, Anne McDonald’s basement is a bit cluttered. But it’s safe to say the things strewn about are a little more interesting than your average basement clutter.

“This is Prudence, the rhinestoned and feathered rubber chicken who has a removable head," says McDonald. "And it’s kind of bloody because she’s been used a couple of times on stage.”

Boise playwright Heidi Kraay has a lot to celebrate these days.

This weekend marks the end of the two-week run of “DIRT,” her most recent production. Without giving too much away, it’s the story of a flashy new medical company that makes a product promising health and longevity for its Boise clients.

The avant-garde show is smart, funny and dark -- and is the culmination of an idea Kraay’s been working on for years.

In June 1944, Robert Haga was on board the USS Chickadee in the waters off of Normandy. Now, a Boise resident, Haga is one of the D-Day veterans featured in a new NOVA special on PBS, "D-Day’s Sunken Secrets."

In the program, a team of experts explores the sea beds along the coastline of Normandy from above and below the water, inviting veterans like Haga along for the journey.

Cody Rutty knows all about peace and quiet.

A couple of years ago, the Boise-based painter retreated to the tiny town of New Meadows. He rented a studio out of an old brick bank building, and started cranking out painting after painting. At age 26, Rutty made art his fulltime job.

“Really all I had to do was paint. I had a studio and just a lot of materials and there weren’t a lot of people," Rutty says. "I had all the windows curtained off. Yeah, it was quite the adventure.”

On Friday, KBSX will begin a series of stories on five emerging Boise artists. We’re calling the series “Artist Statement.” I won a grant from the Boise City Arts and History Department to produce these stories.

To learn more about the series, I sat down with Scott Graf to explain why we're telling these stories, and what you can expect over the next five weeks.

Q: Where did you get the idea for this series?

When we spoke to Idaho author Anthony Doerr in 2010 about his award winning book "Memory Wall," we asked him what his next novel would be about. 

“It’s about radio of all things,” Doerr answered. “It’s about the power of radio. I’m just trying to bring a reader back to that time when it was still kind of a miracle to hear the voice of a stranger in your home.”

In Cambodia, a group of women have started a movement to save their homes from destruction. For the past two years, Boise State University Theater Arts Professor Phil Atlakson and his son Garret have been filming their story.

Atlakson is the producer of the short film “Eviction.” His son is the director. It features the ongoing fight in Cambodia between homeowners and government-backed corporations who are demolishing villager’s homes to create new developments.

Do you sometimes feel like you have too much stuff cluttering up your life?  Can 20 pairs of shoes really make you happy? Two Northwest authors say maybe not. 

Joshua Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus are childhood best friends who had normal, 20-something lives.  They had good jobs, homes, cars, clothes, and gadgets. But one day they figured out all that stuff wasn’t making them happy. So they got rid of it. Now they live simply in Montana, and travel the country spreading the word of Minimalism.

It’s hard not to be struck by how happy and normal the Frank family seems in the photos taken before they went into hiding in 1942 during World War II. There’s a black and white photo of Anne with her older sister Margot on the beach, another with all four of her family members dressed up and smiling in a courtyard.  

A new original play opens Saturday at Boise Contemporary Theater (BCT), and there’s a chance the actors might be handed new lines between now and then. I’ve been following the creation of The Uncanny Valley for nearly a year, ever since I had a chance run in with BCT’s Dwayne Blackaller last April. He told me about the new play he was writing with BCT artistic director Matthew Cameron Clark.