About this episode

The episode celebrates America's 250th birthday through storytelling, music, and reflection with various creative voices.

Welcome to a very special edition of The Art Box Podcast, recorded from the Mesquite Works STEAM Center in the Mojave Desert. Two hundred and fifty years ago, an idea was set into motion, imperfect, evolving, debated, celebrated… and endlessly interpreted through the voices of generations that followed. America has always been more than dates in a textbook or words on fading parchment. It lives in stories. In songs. In poetry. In memory. In the arts. And tonight, The Art Box gathers together a remarkable group of past guests and creative voices to help us celebrate America’s 250th birthday in the way we know best—through storytelling, music, reflection, and heart. From Placerville, cowboy poet Gwen Reid joins us with a very special original poem created for this occasion—words shaped by open landscapes, American spirit, and the enduring power of story passed from one generation to the next. Musician Rachelle McMullin and Lori Dawn bring us her stirring rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner, performed on fiddle and recorded live amid the joyful energy of the spring lawnmower races in Beaver Dam, because perhaps nothing feels more uniquely American than music rising unexpectedly…

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