The Art Box

In this episode of The Art Box, we sit down with Summer Wilson, Mesquite author, playwright, and founder of the Virgin Valley Writers Group, to explore the power of storytelling and the courage it takes to give voice to quiet truths. Summer shares her creative journey across Screen writing, poetry and short stories, and how her passion for community has shaped a welcoming home for local writers to grow, share, and belong.

We also d...

For this special Harvest of Thought installment, we invited writers from across the country to share original flash fiction, tiny worlds built with precision, emotion, and imagination.

The challenge? Each story had to come in at 500 words or fewer.

Flash fiction is a unique art form, a place where pacing tightens, language sharpens, and every sentence must carry its full weight. These stories don't wander; they ignite, twist, shimm...

Our nationwide call for short-form personal essays brought voices from many walks of life, each answering the invitation to share a story or insight that could be recited in under six minutes.

In this second installment of our Harvest of Thought: Essays series, we continue to explore the richness of human thought and lived experience. These writers look back with humility, forward with imagination, and inward with courage.

Some sto...

Three months ago, we invited insightful voices from across the nation to share original essays for a special Harvest of Thought edition — short reflections filled with heart, perspective, memory, and meaning.

The only request: each essay had to be able to be spoken aloud in six minutes or less — a challenge that pushed writers toward clarity, honesty, and lyrical brevity.

In Part I, we present the first gathering of those thoughtfu...

Three months ago, we set an invitation loose across the country: Send us your words. Send us your heart. Let us hear what you carry inside.

The response was extraordinary. Artists from coast to coast shared poems filled with vulnerability, wisdom, humor, and grace. In Part II of our Harvest of Thought poetry edition, we continue celebrating those voices.

Some poems arrive soft as dawn. Others shout with joy or ache with truth. Toge...

Three months ago, we reached out across the nation, inviting talented friends, poets, writers, and creative souls to lend their voices to a special project. What followed was a generous outpouring of words, emotion, and imagination.

Today, in Part I of our Harvest of Thought poetry edition, we share some of those remarkable submissions. These poems explore love, grief, wonder, identity, humor, memory, and the quiet places our heart...

In this episode of The Art Box, host MJ Stiles sits down with friend, mystery and thriller author Lana M. Fox, whose gripping stories unfold in the dramatic landscape of Hood River, Oregon.

Lana is the author of The Truth Will Set You Free, a Colorado Gold Fiction finalist, and the creator of the Hood River Mystery Series featuring Detective Liz Ellisen, with titles My Sister’s Keeper, Through Frozen Eyes, and Her Last Breath. Her ...

If you listen to one podcast all year, this is the one. In this powerful episode of The Art Box, host MJ speaks with Dr. Lena Cavusoglu, professor at Pacific University, about her remarkable art-based research project, Faces Seen, Voices Heard. Blending academic inquiry with visual storytelling, Dr. Cavusoglu’s work explores how society responds to people with visible facial differences—those living with birthmarks, scars, burns, o...

In this special three-part series of The Art Box, host MJ takes us home to Oregon for an intimate look at the stories, friendships, and creative spark that drive Petty Fever, the award-winning Tom Petty tribute band beloved across the Northwest and beyond. Through personal connections with the band and their families, MJ explores the music that shaped their lives, the heart behind their performances, and the shared passion that kee...

In this special three-part series of The Art Box, host MJ takes us home to Oregon for an intimate look at the stories, friendships, and creative spark that drive Petty Fever, the award-winning Tom Petty tribute band beloved across the Northwest and beyond. Through personal connections with the band and their families, MJ explores the music that shaped their lives, the heart behind their performances, and the shared passion that kee...

In this special three-part series of The Art Box, host MJ takes us home to Oregon for an intimate look at the stories, friendships, and creative spark that drive Petty Fever, the award-winning Tom Petty tribute band beloved across the Northwest and beyond. Through personal connections with the band and their families, MJ explores the music that shaped their lives, the heart behind their performances, and the shared passion that kee...

In this special episode, co-founder Steve Dudrow takes a thoughtful pause to share what’s been happening behind the scenes at The Art Box Podcast. After a brief lull between episodes, Steve catches listeners up on the many creative directions the team has been pursuing, from public art projects and poetry collections to new podcast adventures and community outreach.

Hear updates on Mesquite Works STEAM Center’s “STEAM into 2026” ca...

The Art Box travels to Las Vegas to explore one of the valley’s most dynamic creative spaces — the Winchester Dondero Cultural Center. Our guest is Irma Varela, the visionary Cultural Program Supervisor who has spent decades shaping a place where artists, performers, and neighbors gather to imagine and create.

Irma shares the story behind the Center’s mission to nurture community through the arts, from neighborhood murals and cross...

In this inspiring conversation, we sit down with Cory Clemetson, founder along with his brother Chad of the Kids for Sports Foundation, a nonprofit committed to helping children in Mesquite and the Virgin Valley experience the joy and life lessons of organized athletics. Cory shares the story behind starting the foundation, the moment he realized cost was keeping too many kids on the sidelines, and how his team works to remove barr...

In Episode 359 of The Art Box, MJ and Steve welcome Kirsten Pope to the STEAM Center recording studio for a lively conversation about IKA Greens, the innovative business she runs with her husband, Alex.

We dig into what “IKA” really stands for, how their operation is changing the way our community thinks about fresh, locally grown produce, and why sustainable food systems matter now more than ever. Kirsten shares the story behind t...

In this calming, reflective and short episode of The Art Box, Steve invites listeners to slow down and discover the practice of forest bathing, the Japanese art of shinrin-yoku, or “bathing” in the forest atmosphere.

Steve explores what forest bathing is, the science behind its benefits, from lowered stress and blood pressure to boosted immunity, and why it has become such a powerful wellness movement around the world. He shares hi...

In this inspiring episode of The Art Box, MJ sits down with her friend Oregon golfer Chris Oviatt, the 2024 NAGA Women’s Overall National Champion and Western Region representative for the 2025 USGA Adaptive Open Championship.

Chris shares her 32-year journey as a competitive golfer, living with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, and how braces, a cane, and a positive outlook help her keep playing the sport she loves. She talks about her...

In this inspiring episode of The Art Box, we sit down with Mesquite actor Bill Wright Jr. to explore how a soldier became a storyteller. Bill shares how his time in the U.S. Army taught him to speak confidently in front of crowds and cameras, and how reciting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech became a defining moment in his life.

That experience opened the door to his first performances in church plays and, event...