Arlie Sommer
Producer, Expressive IdahoIt was love at first listen when I first heard Ira Glass on This American Life. The program inspired me to study environmental journalism at the University of Idaho so I could tell stories that would also change lives. I officially started my radio career as a KUOI college DJ there and went on to work for the local public radio station, Northwest Public Radio, archiving reel to reel, writing for web and hosting.
In Portland, OR I worked for Oregon Public Broadcasting. With a passion for context and collaboration, I also collected oral histories through the Boise Voices Oral History project and Elliot Oral Histories.
In 2012, I returned to my home state and community radio beginnings, volunteering for Radio Boise. I DJed a show that featured electronic, ambient and minimal music, called Sleepwalker. You can listen to the archives here.
I’m the recipient of City of Boise Arts & History grants for my audio-photo-poetic documentary projects Making Mortzilla and The Boise Food History Project.
What a privilege and delight it is to produce Expressive Idaho for Boise State Public Radio – a show about traditionally rooted Idaho Artists. The series, now in its fourth season, has taken me all over the state, into niches and places I might not otherwise have explored.
-
Poet CMarie Fuhrman is Idaho's current Writer in Residence. She uses nature soundscapes to inspire her writing that often focuses on issues affecting native people in the West. -
Rosemaling is a decorative painting that adds colorful embellishments to wooden platters, containers and furniture of Norwegian homes. Immigrants came to the U.S. with their most precious possessions stored in hand-painted trunks. In Boise, Idaho artist Joanne Hultstrand is carrying on the tradition of rosemaling.
-
The art of hunting demands close attention to wildlife. In the fall, waterfowl hunters lure their pretty through mimicking calls and setting out decoy birds.
-
Boise author Malia Collins recently collaborated on a new book featuring story quilts made by artisan refugees who have resettled in Boise. In 2020, Collins was named the Idaho Writer in Residence by the Idaho Commission on the Arts. She recently spent time helping new community members tell their stories through quilting.
-
Stephanie Laishy brings Flamenco to Idahoans through her organization Flamencos United, which she founded to spread awareness about the dance through performances, teaching, and bringing world famous flamenco dancers to Idaho. She hosts workshops and shares a message embedded within the dance: art is healing.
-
Nancy Martiny ranches and builds saddles at her home in the high mountain desert of the Pahsimeroi Valley, near May, Idaho. She's known for her flowing, intricate flower leather carvings.
-
Hot August days on a ranch are the quieter times when Ryan Carpenter and his wife are able to halter break new colts in between bailing hay and other chores. Their ranch is on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation, which sits on the border of Idaho and Nevada. It’s the same time of year they met their neighbor, Monte Cummins, more than 10 years ago.
-
From music to food, to Boise’s Basque Block and the Jaialdi Festival, to the Trailing of the Sheep in Ketchum, Basque culture plays a big role in southern Idaho and Dan Ansotegui has played an important role in promoting that.
-
Shouting, rhythmic banging and laughter fill the hallways of Jewett Auditorium in Caldwell. People beat large wooden dowel-shaped sticks on makeshift drums: large plastic trash cans, bottoms removed and covered with a thick layer of packing tape. Until March and the stay-a-t-home order, the local drumming group Kawa Taiko practiced together weekly.
-
The art of gun engraving is alive and well in eastern Idaho, thanks to a few dedicated cowboys who are willing to put in the hours of drawing and practice required.
