Big Blend Radio: Antarctic Artist and Writers Collective

Join Nancy J. Reid and Lisa D. Smith, the mother-daughter travel team and publishers of Big Blend Magazines, for Big Blend Radio’s 1st Friday “Toast to The Arts & Parks Show” with the National Parks Arts Foundation (NPAF). This epsiode focuses on the Antarctic Artists & Writers Collective, a new organization of past participants in the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists & Writers Program. Featured guests are cofounders Glenn McClure and Michelle Schwengel-Regala. Glenn is a composer/musician who was an NPAF artist-in-residence at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and Michelle is a scientific illustrator, fiber artist, naturalist and NPAF Invitation Artist.

Since the early 1980s, over 120 artists, performers and writers have traveled to the seventh continent on a zero-dollar grant, using their creative talents to tell the story of this largely unexplored continent though art, music, writing and performance. The AAWC is a collaborative effort to bring those talents together and share their work with the public at large. Through the arts, the AAWC artists and writers convey the visceral experience of an extreme and remote environment few people get to visit in person in words, images, sound, and multimedia installations, informed by their interactions with the scientists conducting research there.