Des Moines - June 22, 2016

Craft

Featuring Appearances by

Deborah Mae Broad

Deborah Mae Broad

Deborah Mae Broad is a full-time artist and retired professor who travels the country showing her work at art fairs. She has a studio on her farm in Minnesota where she lives with her husband, Byron; BarFly, the mule; Hog, the quarter horse; and a band of rescued dogs and cats. She taught printmaking, drawing and bronze casting at Minnesota State University in Moorhead, Minnesota, for 26 years, retiring in 2003. She has a bachelor's degree in art from Hollins University and a master's degree in printmaking from the University of Tennessee.

Madison Ray

Madison Ray

Madison Ray is the anti-pop Pop Superstar, and he has been crafting a sound he lovingly calls "Stanque Pop," an eclectic blend of rock 'n' roll, soul, jazz and funk. He was trained by Johnny Contardo of Sha Na Na and has performed with the likes of: Aaron Carter, Mya, Belinda Carlisle, Latin Grammy award winner Nestor Torres, Christopher the Conquered, the River Monks, prettygirlhatemachine, Freakabout!, Planet Booty, Ellis Hall of Tower of Power, Martha Wash and Victor Wooten. He sometimes sings with the Des Moines Metro Opera and even starred in "Rent" as Tom Collins.

Audrey Heller

Audrey Heller

Audrey Heller is excited by the power of art to spark conversation and build bridges between people who might not otherwise connect. The delight of facilitating those connections is what has kept her doing art festivals since 2000, even when the weather really stinks. Her photography has appeared in exhibitions and publications around the world as well as in locales like hair salons and shoe shops around her native San Francisco. She serves on the board of ArtSpan San Francisco, which works to support the creative ecosystem of that city. Her book, “Overlooked Undertakings,” makes any coffee table proud.

Rae Fehring

Rae Fehring

Rae Fehring is a grammar nerd, Type A, Virgo-cum-progressive feminist, creative musician who hails from Iowa’s most famous river city, Davenport. For the last 16 years, she has been paid to work as a nonprofit executive — currently as communications director for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland — but someday hopes to become a hundredthousand-aire as a full-time musician. Besides making music with her multiple bands, the Honeybees, Cover Grrls, The Tighten Up and as a solo artist, Rae spends her free time mothering her children and her dog, Dexter (yes, he's named after a fictional sociopath), doing jigsaw puzzles, writing music and running Girls Rock! Des Moines.

Aaron Hequembourg

Aaron Hequembourg

Aaron Hequembourg was formally trained in engraving and printmaking at the University of Iowa. Upon graduating, without a press, he started to produce abstracted figurative paintings engraved into wood panels. In 1997, he and his wife, Hope, married in the front yard of a farm that has been in her family since 1815. They proceeded to move into the farmhouse and have four children. When a family member suggested burning down the sharecropper houses that dotted the farm, he began to salvage the materials for his work.

Agenda

June 22, 2016

Craft: Deborah Mae Broad - 'Live with passion, haters be damned'

Deborah Mae Broad has had two loves in life: art and horses. And when her foundation in art was shaken, it would take two horses to set her straight.

June 22, 2016

Craft: Madison Ray - 'Learning to make a moment'

Madison Ray has been a performer since he was a baby, but he was always waiting for that elusive "moment." Then a trip to Japan, a stint at a Buddhist Temple and an "American Idol" audition got him thinking...why wait?

June 22, 2016

Craft: Audrey Heller - 'Discovery lies in simply looking hard enough.'

California-based artist Audrey Heller discusses a special game she played with her godson, how its simple rules pushed her and, eventually, changed her life.

June 22, 2016

Craft: Rae Fehring - 'Mentors make believing in yourself possible'

When does acknowledgment of a good effort move from just a nice thing to do to a life-changing event? Rae knows the exact moment it did for her -- and she's determined to make sure it happens for other girls.

June 22, 2016

Craft: Aaron Hequembourg - 'The story doesn’t live within the frame'

Sometimes artists can make it seem like art happens in a bell jar. For Aaron, the story begins long before a brush touches canvas and it continues for generations after it is hung. Here's why he knows that.