In this episode of Creative Guts, co-hosts Laura Harper Lake and Joe Acone sit down with Drew West, Ryleigh Schwab, and Griff Comtois, the three founders of the annual Wildflower Festival, which is happening this year on August 22nd in Keyes Memorial Field, Milford, NH.
In this episode of Creative Guts, co-hosts Laura Harper Lake and Joe Acone sit down with Drew West, Ryleigh Schwab, and Griff Comtois, the three founders of the annual Wildflower Festival, which is happening this year on August 22nd in Keyes Memorial Field, Milford, NH.
This team is building stronger communities and enhancing green spaces through art, education, and action. Our delightful conversation covers how the Wildflower Festival starts, what it’s grown into, the message of ecology, and the collaboration between Drew, Ryleigh, and Griff. We also dive into the topics of garden design, the benefits of native plants, and the mystery of a missing plant!
Learn more about the Wildflower Festival at www.instagram.com/wildflowerfest.
Listen to this episode wherever you listen to podcasts or on our website www.CreativeGutsPodcast.com. Connect with us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Discord. Subscribe to our Substack newsletter at creativegutspod.substack.com.
If you love listening, consider making a donation to Creative Guts! Our budget is tiny, so donations of any size make a big difference. Learn more about us and make a tax-deductible donation at www.CreativeGutsPodcast.com.
Thank you to Kennebunk Savings Bank for being an official sponsor of the podcast!
Thank you to our friends at Art Up Front Street Studios and Gallery in Exeter, NH and the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts in Rochester, NH for their support of the show!
Any views or opinions expressed by our hosts or guests do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Creative Guts.
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:00] LHL: I'm Laura Harper Lake.
[0:00:01] JA: And I’m Joe Acone.
[0:00:02] LHL & JA: And you're listening to Creative Guts.
[EPISODE]
[0:00:18] LHL: Hey, friends. Thanks for tuning in to Creative Guts.
[0:00:21] JA: Today, we're chatting with Drew West, Ryleigh Schwab, and Griff Comtois, the three founders of the Wildflower Festival, an annual festival in Milford, New Hampshire, which brings together music, arts, and ecology to raise money to install pollinator-friendly native gardens in public parks and improve local green spaces.
[0:00:38] LHL: This group is so amazing. Without further ado, let's jump right into this episode of Creative Guts with the founders of the Wildflower Festival.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:50] LHL: Hello. Welcome, new friends.
[0:00:51] JA: Hey there.
[0:00:53] LHL: This is to you guys, not the listeners. I'll start –
[0:00:59] DW: We're keeping all this.
[0:00:59] LHL: Sure. Yeah. The Wildflower Festival team is here, and we're so excited to dive in to learn more about this, which has been on the outer sphere of my knowledge a little bit, so I have a lot of questions. We're really pumped.
[0:01:15] JA: Same, likewise. But first of all, thank you so much for being here on this lovely day.
[0:01:20] DW: Thank you for having us. We're so excited. Right, guys?
[0:01:23] GC: I know. Sorry. I'm just like, "When do I talk?"
[0:01:25] DW: You can talk whenever you want.
[0:01:26] JA: It's okay. Talk whenever you feel like you want to.
[0:01:31] LHL: Before we dive into the Wildflower Festival, can each of you share a bit about yourself and what creative practices you have?
[0:01:38] DW: Yeah, I can go first. My name is Drew West. I am a multidisciplinary artist. I do art films, and that's actually how we met.
[0:01:47] LHL: Yeah.
[0:01:50] DW: I'm in a band. We're called Darth Brandon, and we shred.
[0:01:53] JA: Love the name.
[0:01:54] LHL: Awesome.
[0:01:54] DW: Thank you very much. Shout out, Trash Sun Records. I like to draw and paint and, yeah, that's a little bit about me. I write. I'm a citizen of the world. That's what I am.
[0:02:05] LHL: Love it.
[0:02:08] GC: I'm Griff. I also do a lot of things. But I do a lot of floral design and garden design mostly. We get into a little bit of sculpture and papier-mâché for the festival, a little bit of woodworking, a lot of graphic design. I don't know if I really call myself an artist, but I do art.
[0:02:26] LHL: You're an artist.
[0:02:26] DW: You're an artist. You're absolutely an artist.
[0:02:27] GC: I just want to die.
[0:02:32] RS: I'm Ryleigh. I kinda, again, do a little bit of everything. I draw and paint and work on gardens, and I sing and play guitar. I tend to keep all of these things to myself. I find I enjoy them more that way, but I'll try it all.
[0:02:49] LHL: I understand that. As a practicing artist, I have a studio, I have a little art business, and I love making art, but it also feels like, oh, I have to produce and I have to make. I play music, and it's just for me, too. I like that.
[0:03:03] GC: And she makes clothes.
[0:03:04] RS: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[0:03:06] DW: Ryleigh also makes clothes, and she also does gardens.
[0:03:09] RS: Yes.
[0:03:09] DW: They're both really beautiful.
[0:03:10] RS: Thank you.
[0:03:11] JA: There's a lot of creative stuff happening between the three of you, like across the board. You guys have a lot of skills over on that side of the table.
[0:03:18] DW: Thank you.
[0:03:18] GC: We don't really know what we to like do, so we kind of do it all.
[0:03:20] RS: Exactly. Yeah.
[0:03:21] JA: Love it.
[0:03:21] LHL: That's the way to be.
[0:03:22] JA: That's the energy. Yeah. Okay, so I've heard a lot about your Wildflower Festival. Walk us through. Inform folks who maybe don't know what y'all have been up to.
[0:03:33] DW: Do you want to do the honors?
[0:03:33] GC: Okay. Well, I guess we should talk about where it started, huh?
[0:03:36] RS: Yeah.
[0:03:37] GC: There's this big, beautiful granite stage in the middle of Milford, New Hampshire. I have no idea what it's doing there. We were staring at it for a long time. We thought, "What a waste. Somebody ought to do something." We're used to making our own fun a lot.
[0:03:51] JA: As you should. That's wonderful.
[0:03:52] GC: Yeah. There's not a lot to do in Milford sometimes.
[0:03:54] DW: Yeah. Griff came up with the idea. He was like, "Why don't we do something we really believe in?" We believe in art, and we believe in music, and we believe in ecology. At the end of the day, a garden gets planted right in our town in a public park, so we thought it was a great idea. We did it once. We were like, "All right, we're not going to do it again," and now we're doing it for the fourth time.
[0:04:14] GC: Yeah, pretty much every single year, I think we've said, "We're not going to do it again." Then somebody, multiple people probably, just ask when the next one is, and we cave very fast.
[0:04:26] RS: Very fast.
[0:04:27] GC: Because it is a lot of fun.
[0:04:28] RS: Every winter, we're like, "We'll take the year off," and then spring comes around and we're like, "But, what if we do it again, actually?"
[0:04:35] JA: Duty calls.
[0:04:36] LHL: Does it grow every year?
[0:04:38] RS: Yeah.
[0:04:39] LHL: That's a lot, too, to maintain and then build up on.
[0:04:41] DW: We're doing more. We're playing with the idea of maybe trying to have a multiple day festival. That's a Creative Guts exclusive right now.
[0:04:51] JA: Words are spat out into the universe. It's going to happen.
[0:04:53] DW: But not this year. Not this year. This year, we're just doing one day. We announced that we were going to do a break year, and then we caved, as usual to doing it again, so.
[0:05:03] GC: Yeah, we actually got convinced, kind of, by Jackie Hanson.
[0:05:07] RS: Love Jackie.
[0:05:07] GC: Yeah, we were not going to do it, and she was like, "Oh, well, what if I help organize it?"
[0:05:14] DW: Jackie's been very helpful, and –
[0:05:15] RS: She's so awesome.
[0:05:15] GC: - we wouldn't be doing it this year if she hadn't stepped up, so we're very grateful to her.
[0:05:19] LHL: Listener, definitely go to the Creative Guts archives and listen to our chat with Jackie, because amazing person.
[0:05:26] JA: Humble brag.
[0:05:27] RS: Shout out, Jackie.
[0:05:30] JA: We know how it started. What's the vibe? What's going on at this festival?
[0:05:36] DW: There are cars spilling out all across of all of Milford's infrastructure. All of our public roads are completely inundated with people driving in. And there's artists selling their wares, and there are ecology-related organizations. This year we have, I don't know. Am I allowed to spoil?
[0:05:54] GC: Yeah. No, go for it. Go for it.
[0:05:55] DW: Okay. This year we have the Butterfly Garden coming in to do a demo and there's live music all day through the whole thing, which we're very excited about. That's one of our main draws. I don't know, what am I missing? It's just a lot of joy. There's a lot of joy to be had.
[0:06:11] GC: Yeah. This goes into the question about how we've grown. We've grown in attendance and size, but I feel like, we've also grown in our impact on the local art scene, but also our mission to educate people on the importance of ecology and what that really means. Each year, we have more art vendors come in, more bands come in, but we've also expanded to having a plant sale, which we're going to have again this year. Then we have more education vendors, like Drew was saying. We have New Hampshire Audubon. We have the Caterpillar Lab, which I'm really excited about them. They're from Keene. They're going to bring a bunch of caterpillars.
[0:06:49] JA: That's brilliant. Oh, my God. What does that look like? They bring a truck full of caterpillars?
[0:06:53] GC: They're going to dump them everywhere and then they're going to turn into moths, or butterflies right in front of us.
[0:06:57] JA: Oh, my God.
[0:06:58] GC: Everyone's got to pick them up and put them back in the bucket, and then we spill them again. It's a good activity if you have young children.
[0:07:04] JA: It's like a Nickelodeon Double Dare episode or something.
[0:07:06] GC: Like, getting slimed. Yeah. No. No, they're going to bring – It's basically like, little, I want to call them cages.
[0:07:13] DW: They're mesh, mesh nets.
[0:07:13] GC: They're mesh nets. That's much nicer.
[0:07:15] JA: Okay. Yeah.
[0:07:16] GC: They are going to have some plants and sticks in them, and then a bunch of different types of caterpillars. These people are awesome. They're like, freaks for caterpillars. They do moth lightings, and I feel they're always just out in nature looking for little bugs and then capturing them and I don't know, watching them grow.
[0:07:35] DW: If you're curious, you should show up. You'll have plenty of time to talk to them and ask them what they’re doing.
[0:07:38] JA: Oh, I'll be there. I’ll be there. Absolutely.
[0:07:42] LHL: I don't know if we've said it quite yet, but where is this happening?
[0:07:45] DW: Keene's Field, Milford, New Hampshire. It's going to be August 22nd. Beat you to it. Say it. Go ahead. Say it into the mic.
[0:07:51] GC: August 22nd.
[0:07:52] DW: August 22nd. Ryleigh, you get it? August 22nd, everyone. Ready? On the count of three, everybody. One, two, three. August 22nd.
[0:07:57] EVERYONE: August 22nd.
[0:07:59] JA: I missed it. [Inaudible 0:08:01].
[0:08:02] DW: No, it's okay. That was good. I liked more voices. Can we get one more? Ready? One, two, three. August 22nd.
[0:08:07] EVERYONE: August 22nd.
[0:08:10] DW: Now people will know.
[0:08:11] JA: I kind of went a little dead with my voice, so it sounded like a cult. Sorry. That's my bad.
[0:08:16] DW: That's the magic right there. That's the magic.
[0:08:18] LHL: You will enjoy caterpillars.
[0:08:22] JA: The greater good, for anybody who knows.
[0:08:25] LHL: It's safe to say, it sounds like, it's a family-friendly festival.
[0:08:29] RS: Yeah.
[0:08:29] LHL: Do a lot of kids come, or all ages, or do you –
[0:08:33] DW: It's a pretty mixed bag. I'm always amazed at how – I'm from New York, and so I picture where I live now in Milford to be the sticks, but I'm always amazed at how many young, hip kids there are walking through our festival. But yeah. No, here's usually a mixed bag. I don't know. What do you think?
[0:08:51] RS: Definitely a good mix of all the ages.
[0:08:53] LHL: Perfect. Yeah.
[0:08:54] GC: I would say, there's a lot of families in Milford, and they do show up with their kids, so we've tried to add a little bit more children's activities. Last year, we partnered with the Boys & Girls Club to bring over a bunch of toys, and squirt guns and games.
[0:09:09] DW: We made a sculpture. I'm excited to talk about our sculptures. We made the head of a worm, a very –
[0:09:13] RS: No. Shh.
[0:09:14] DW: Well, no. That was last year.
[0:09:16] RS: Well, no. It turned out to be more of a naked mole rat looking creature.
[0:09:22] DW: Well, originally, my concept was it was going to be a worm, I guess. We just left a bunch of paint out, and we invited anybody to just walk up and paint on it. I don't know if we got pictures, the – We’ll send you some, actually, after this.
[0:09:35] LHL: There's community-based art projects.
[0:09:37] DW: Yeah. It was beautiful. It was so beautiful. We put a piece of cardboard and wrote "BEHOLD" in big, big black letters, and put it in the ground right in front of it. It was just very –
[0:09:48] JA: Mythical.
[0:09:48] DW: Yeah. Very silly, but I thought really cool that everybody just walking by felt compelled to add a little bit of themselves to it.
[0:09:58] LHL: What happens to the sculptures after?
[0:10:00] DW: Well, last year was marked by incredible tragedy for our sculptures.
[0:10:06] JA: Oh, no.
[0:10:07] RS: We may have left it at the field, and I think the town threw it out.
[0:10:10] DW: Yeah. Which they were totally in their right to do. But it did sit in the middle of the stage for at least a day, and enjoy the spotlight by itself for a while.
[0:10:20] LHL: It's okay. It's temporal art.
[0:10:22] RS: It's for that moment.
[0:10:23] DW: Griff, I feel like you should probably –
[0:10:24] GC: I’ll go. All of our sculptures have a tragic ending, I would say. The year before that, I made a wooden icosahedron, which I think is – I don't want to sound silly on camera, or on audio.
[0:10:36] JA: Mic.
[0:10:37] GC: Maybe it's 20 sides. It's something like that.
[0:10:39] RS: I think it was, yeah.
[0:10:41] GC: We called it the dodeca-deca-deca-deca-decagon. That fell out of the truck on the way home and shattered into a million pieces on the road.
[0:10:49] LHL: It sounds like a NAT one.
[0:10:50] JA: Yeah. Well done. Well said. I'm glad you went there.
[0:10:53] DW: We spend a considerable amount of time on our sculptures, but maybe this will be our year, right? That we'll have something that we can take home and reuse. We typically try to use as many recycled and second-hand materials as we can. That's part of our mission.
[0:11:08] GC: Do we want to leak the sculpture, or?
[0:11:11] RS: Do it.
[0:11:12] DW: Yeah, let's just do it.
[0:11:12] GC: Should we keep it a secret?
[0:11:13] DW: Let's just do it. Let's just tell them.
[0:11:14] LHL: You guys.
[0:11:15] DW: Last year, we –
[0:11:16] JA: This is the hard cutting journalism.
[0:11:17] LHL: I know. Yeah. I want the scoop.
[0:11:20] DW: Yeah. Of course, they're going to say yes. This is good business, isn't it?
[0:11:24] JA: I wasn't going to listen, but when they leaked the sculpture, thank God I came.
[0:11:28] DW: Yeah. Basically, it will be like, yeah. Last year it was just the head of the worm. This year we're going to have multiple segments. Yeah, go ahead, Griff.
[0:11:37] GC: The whole worm.
[0:11:40] DW: The whole –
[0:11:41] LHL: I was going to say, the butt of the worm.
[0:11:43] DW: No. It's going to be like coming in and out of the ground all over the –
[0:11:46] JA: Oh, cool.
[0:11:47] DW: - all over the –
[0:11:47] LHL: That's awesome.
[0:11:48] DW: - the festival ground is –
[0:11:49] LHL: It's like Tremors. Where is it coming next?
[0:11:55] DW: I haven't seen it, but that’s –
[0:11:56] JA: Oh, you're missing out.
[0:11:57] DW: I'm missing out.
[0:11:58] LHL: Are you? I don't know.
[0:11:59] GC: The harder the bands play, the more worms will come.
[0:12:01] DW: Yeah. Yeah.
[0:12:04] JA: Well, so I mean, what's the destiny for the whole worm here? Because we know that the town of Milford is not messing around. I'm surprised you only got 24 hours out of that thing. They were not messing around.
[0:12:14] DW: We can't leak what'll happen to the worm. You'll have to stay tuned for that one.
[0:12:17] JA: Cool. Okay. Okay. Stay tuned.
[0:12:20] DW: Yeah.
[0:12:20] JA: Love it.
[0:12:21] LHL: We talked broad strokes about vendors, but I guess, what kind of music? What type of bands? And then, what type of folks are representing creativity at the tables?
[0:12:32] RS: I feel like you should do music.
[0:12:33] DW: Well, big, big question.
[0:12:34] GC: Maybe we can do bands.
[0:12:34] DW: Yeah, we can start with music. Typically, we've been a more folk and jam band focused festival, just because it felt congruent. You can be outside. A lot of those projects are acoustic-driven. Not all of them. We try to draw as locally as we can from all the projects. That's the most important thing is that it represents who's making music around us. This year, we are doing a little bit more guitar, electric guitar type music, a little bit more shoegaze. We're really excited about our lineup this year, actually. We spent a lot of time thinking about – New Hampshire's scene is amazing. I'm always really impressed by what people are able to do, just like our neighbors.
Yeah, so this year we're taking a little bit of a creative risk maybe by trying something that our audience isn't really expecting, or wasn't really expecting until we dropped the flyer, I think. Yeah, I don't have it in front of me, but our flyer just came out and it has all our bands on it.
[0:13:27] GC: Can you read them?
[0:13:28] DW: I could read them. I don't know if that'd be particularly engaging for me to just read a list.
[0:13:31] LHL: Can you do them in silly voices then?
[0:13:33] DW: Yeah. We can do it in silly voices. From the bottom to the top. We did start with some folk projects, and I think that's a cool transition to mark that we're evolving in terms of our sound. We have Star Family Singers, Five Feet, Milk Street, Time Eater, Thought Sick, Cozy Throne.
[0:13:58] JA: Oh, Cozy Throne. Nice.
[0:13:59] DW: You know them?
[0:14:00] JA: Yeah.
[0:14:01] DW: Parachute Club. Capo Regime. I actually might be saying that wrong. Capo Regime.
[0:14:07] RS: It's probably Capo. Capo is the word.
[0:14:10] GC: I've heard they’re British.
[0:14:11] DW: Yeah. I think –
[0:14:11] RS: Did he say Capo? What did they say?
[0:14:14] DW: I'm actually planning this marketing scheme for my band, where we have fake Internet beef with them right now. They're really good guys, but I feel like I've heard Capo. It reads Capo. I'm sure that'll – Well, there you go. Darth Brandon. Main Era, Gollylagging, 7-Eleven Jesus. Those are our bands.
[0:14:38] GC: Horatio Sands.
[0:14:40] JA: Very SNL coded.
[0:14:43] DW: We're very excited to have all of them. I'm sure Griff and Ryleigh could talk a little bit more about the art vendors.
[0:14:48] RS: We have a good mix of painters, crocheters. There's people who just sell clothing, people who sell pottery.
[0:14:58] DW: Sort of the same ethos as the music, right? It's whatever's happening in and around New Hampshire and the New England area, and then the people who want to be engaged with our festival, and there's typically more people who ask to be part of it than we can fit, honestly. It's whatever's happening in our local area. I'm sure there's some people in here that, I guess, we've had before. I don't know.
[0:15:17] LHL: General estimate of the size of number of vendors?
[0:15:21] RS: I think 65.
[0:15:22] DW: Between 65 and 70, I think.
[0:15:23] LHL: Nice.
[0:15:23] JA: That's great.
[0:15:25] LHL: Yeah. That's very –
[0:15:26] JA: That's growing year to year, right?
[0:15:26] DW: Yeah. The last year was just about over – just around 60. The year before that it was maybe five, 10 less.
[0:15:33] GC: Yeah. I feel like, it's been growing a little, but we're – We don't want to grow too much in terms of how many vendors are there, just because we want to make sure that the vendors are having enough people come by and buy stuff, and it doesn't feel like we're just getting a bunch of vendors and there's not enough consumers to support them. I think we're probably staying around the 65, 70 area. I don't think we'll grow much.
[0:15:58] LHL: Yeah, because curating a festival experience is an art in of itself. It must be a big undertaking to advertise for vendors and then select them, the whole process, and then let them know. It sounds like, there's a very exact vibe that you want. Is that easy to determine through your process of who you're picking?
[0:16:20] DW: Well, I don't want to speak for all of us on this one. I think that we should all –
[0:16:24] RS: I feel like, it's been pretty easy for us. We have an idea of what we want it to be like.
[0:16:28] DW: Yeah. This started because we have a set of things we believe in. We believe in our community. We believe in ecology and ecocentric art, and we believe in local music, and the power of stuff like that. It's typically not very hard. We can generally look at something and be like, "Okay, this is somebody who embodies that in some way. In at least, in at least one way." I don't know.
[0:16:48] GC: We also just really like weird, little creative freaks. We are more are the more likely will, to get in.
[0:16:57] JA: I love it. It sounds so cohesive. I mean, a Wildflower Festival, like local, ecology, folk, art, and then also beyond creative freaks, as you said. I love that. Can you get into, a little bit, to the history? How did you all come to know each other?
[0:17:13] RS: Oh, good question.
[0:17:16] GC: I'm the glue. Well, me and Ryleigh have been friends since high school.
[0:17:21] RS: We knew each other in middle school. We did track together. We didn't really become friend-friends until high school.
[0:17:29] GC: Yeah.
[0:17:29] RS: Then I met Drew through him, because they –
[0:17:31] DW: Griff and I were roommates at UNH.
[0:17:33] RS: Yeah.
[0:17:33] JA: Okay.
[0:17:34] DW: Actually, we took politics and society together, and we were the only ones reading the books.
[0:17:37] GC: Shout out Tsigalakis. I love her.
[0:17:39] DW: Yeah. Professor Tsigalakis was a great professor. We wound up having discourse about how things ought to be. Then we decided we better live together.
[0:17:51] JA: Sure. There you go.
[0:17:53] DW: And here we are planning festivals together, lifelong friendship.
[0:17:57] JA: Wow. Then you all just happen to be very creative people as well.
[0:18:01] DW: Yeah. Well, luck.
[0:18:03] JA: Luck. Yeah.
[0:18:06] LHL: What's the collaboration process like between you? Is there ever times where you guys disagree on the direction of something?
[0:18:10] DW: All the time. All the time.
[0:18:12] LHL: How do you navigate that?
[0:18:13] DW: We yell and scream and fight.
[0:18:14] JA: Yeah. It can get bitter.
[0:18:16] DW: We call each other idiots and – No, we're actually – Usually, when we disagree, we like, "I don't know about that," and then we all get really quiet for a little bit.
[0:18:29] JA: That's the hard conflict going on.
[0:18:30] DW: I think we're all good at debate. I actually think we're all good at good faith debate.
[0:18:36] RS: We really just talk it out and listen to each other's points and and just come to some conclusion at the end.
[0:18:43] DW: Could you actually repeat that question?
[0:18:44] JA: Oh, it's just really about resolving conflict and how you guys collaborate, I suppose.
[0:18:49] DW: Yeah. Griff will call. In terms of collaboration, Griff will call me at 6:00 A, freaking out about something that needs to get done. We'll spend an hour on the phone, and then the rest of the day will need to take place immediately after. Just kidding, but not really.
[0:19:04] GC: I feel like, we've gotten also better at not necessarily siloing, but picking roles of what is your jurisdiction in the festival and they have final say.
[0:19:16] DW: Yeah. We have a lot of overlap, but I think we all specialize in certain areas of what needs to get done, and we trust each other to do it the right way, so. We all understand at the end of the day, if there's not something you're super morally opposed, or you think that it goes against the festival's mission, sometimes you accept that. It might not be how you do it, but it's their idea, and it's going to be beautiful. Yeah.
[0:19:38] JA: I feel like, there's a sneaky ideology living underneath, in the undercurrent of what you're doing here. I mean, you talk about ecology. It's not lost when you guys would debate, or discuss how the world ought to be, right? Creating this little microcosm opportunity for folks to engage with, so can you speak to that at all?
[0:19:58] DW: We were talking about this on the way in, actually. All we want to say is that we love everyone no matter their creed, race, ethnicity, background, and that as long as you don't have hate in your heart, you're welcome at Wildflower Festival.
[0:20:09] JA: Love that.
[0:20:10] DW: Do you guys have anything else to add to that idea?
[0:20:13] RS: Happy Pride Month.
[0:20:14] LHL: Yeah.
[0:20:15] JA: Happy Pride Month.
[0:20:16] DW: Yeah, I think that there is a way we ought to be treating the earth and each other, and I think we fall short of that frequently as a collection of people who happen to be on earth at the same time, and we're doing our very best through Wildflower Fest to offset that. Honestly, that's something that feels really special about Wildflower Festival to me. Milford can be a very close-minded place, and I think it's really cool, the amount of people and art that we're bringing into the town –
[0:20:43] GC: And have it for the one day.
[0:20:44] DW: How receptive people are to that also.
[0:20:47] RS: Yeah. Everyone's been very accepting of our festival.
[0:20:51] DW: Yeah, and supportive even. I think that that speaks to you just need to show people how beautiful things can be, and then it grows on its own, like a garden.
[0:21:01] LHL: Whoa.
[0:21:03] RS: Whoa.
[0:21:05] LHL: Art just has the power to make people think, to bring unity together, like so many elements. I think it's really wonderful that you're using your voices in such a admirable way. You're making change in your local community, where New Hampshire actually has a problem with outmigration. A lot of younger people are leaving to find the cultural hubs that they want, rather than building it. It sounds like some of you are from here, some of you have moved to New Hampshire, and you're investing in your public spaces and your communities to make it better, because who else is going to do it? That's rad.
[0:21:41] DW: It is sometimes a little bit punishing to do.
[0:21:47] JA: Punishing is such a specific word. What do you mean?
[0:21:50] RS: Someone did steal our shrub recently.
[0:21:53] LHL: What?
[0:21:53] DW: Yeah. We had a garden robbery recently, Ryleigh. Ryleigh, please.
[0:21:58] RS: I planted a pieris, and then I went to Wyoming for a week, and I came back, and it was gone.
[0:22:03] JA: Whoa.
[0:22:04] LHL: There was a pieris-shaped hole in our garden. I don't know if you guys are that familiar with. It's a little bit more of an expensive shrub, I would imagine.
[0:22:15] LHL: Someone clocked that and thought –
[0:22:16] RS: Someone, yeah.
[0:22:16] LHL: - "Dang, look at that shrub. I'm going to get it."
[0:22:19] JA: Do a shrubnapping.
[0:22:21] DW: Yeah. I think it's a little bit heartbreaking that we're trying to do something for everybody, and mebody is – We're no strangers to people being selfish. We experience people being selfish all the time. It's not discouraging, but it's still sad.
[0:22:34] RS: It's also just funny, because who steals a shrub?
[0:22:38] DW: Yeah. Also, what kind of weird freak, what a doe-eyed, mouth-drooling –
[0:22:44] RS: I feel like, this needs to be a zine, or a graphic novel. The investigation is, you know.
[0:22:50] JA: What if they really needed it, though?
[0:22:52] DW: That's fine. But even if they really need it, the price is that we're going to call them doe-eyed, mouth-breathing fools on the on the podcast.
[0:23:02] JA: Would you say that this was – I mean, is this the first big theft that you guys have experienced?
[0:23:06] RS: Oh, yeah.
[0:23:06] DW: This is the first big theft.
[0:23:07] JA: Four years, right?
[0:23:08] DW: Yeah.
[0:23:09] JA: That's not bad.
[0:23:09] GC: Yeah, it’s not posted.
[0:23:11] RS: I posted about it on Facebook, and there was 70 comments of everyone being really nice and people offering their own shrubs in their own yard, and like –
[0:23:20] JA: Wow. Oh, that's awesome.
[0:23:20] RS: - and greenhouses being like, "You can come take whatever you want for free." Although it was sad, it also just felt very nice to be supported by the town in that moment.
[0:23:30] LHL: Yeah, for every jerk, there's 10 people who want to lend a hand. That's something comforting, I guess.
[0:23:36] JA: I want to keep believing that. I love that.
[0:23:39] LHL: I keep trying to think like, "Is there another way that someone didn't steal it? Couldn't a bear have ripped it out?" I mean –
[0:23:47] DW: I'd be amazed. The Keyes field, our gardens are in the middle of – it's a grass wasteland. That's another sneaky part of our ideology is that we hate lawns.
[0:23:59] GC: Yeah. Anti-lawn club.
[0:24:00] DW: Very anti-lawn. But I guess, the kids need to play soccer for four years somewhere, right?
[0:24:06] LHL: But what about a clover? Like a clover lawn?
[0:24:08] DW: Oh, I think that's a great idea. Why not? Why not?
[0:24:13] RS: I don't think a bear took it. Unfortunately. There is a possibility that a deer could have tried to eat it or something, but I checked around the area. I didn't see it.
[0:24:23] GC: Dragged it. Yeah. Remained nothing. Nothing remained.
[0:24:26] JA: No deer sign.
[0:24:26] RS: I’m like, the root ball was gone, too, which is just evidence that someone just thought "I'm going to take this whole entire plant."
[0:24:34] GC: They were a master thief. They clocked that we planted it recently and knew that the roots had not established enough to support the tree.
[0:24:41] JA: They knew it was worth something, right?
[0:24:42] LHL: I think there needs to be an investigation.
[0:24:46] DW: Can we have some of the Creative Guts resources come and help us with this investigation? Maybe we can –
[0:24:49] JA: Creative Guts PI.
[0:24:51] DW: Yeah. You get your team on it.
[0:24:53] LHL: A short film on this, where you're like a reporter on the scene of the crime.
[0:24:57] DW: I have a week for the festival for deadlines.
[0:25:01] LHL: Do it. You can do it. I believe in –
[0:25:02] GC: Festival.
[0:25:04] DW: Oh, Creative Guts does a film festival. That's how we met these people that –
[0:25:07] LHL: The Creative Guts short film festival.
[0:25:10] DW: Yeah, I was just giving a shout-out.
[0:25:12] JA: We appreciate it.
[0:25:13] DW: The Creative Guts Film Festival. What an exciting and joy-filled event that was. I had so much fun and everybody –
[0:25:18] RS: That was a lot of fun.
[0:25:19] DW: - was so creative. Yeah.
[0:25:20] LHL: I know. It was, yeah, where we first met. Loved your work. It was so awesome.
[0:25:24] DW: Thank you.
[0:25:24] LHL: It's amazing to see so many people in different pockets of New Hampshire coming together for film and everything. It's awesome that your festival is bringing people together, too, so.
[0:25:33] DW: I don't know if this will be out before the events happen, but –
[0:25:36] LHL: The film festival is happening on Thursday, July 30th. The deadline to submit has passed since this episode will be released.
[0:25:43] DW: Oh, okay.
[0:25:43] LHL: But people can go get tickets at redrivertheatres.org.
[0:25:45] DW: Yeah. You should absolutely get tickets.
[0:25:47] LHL: And come to it.
[0:25:48] DW: And if it's too late and you're hearing this afterwards, we're going to make them do another one, so then they'll have to –
[0:25:53] LHL: Yes. Whether or not we want to, we will have to.
[0:25:57] DW: Yeah. Laura, you're going to have to do another one now.
[0:26:00] LHL: Yeah.
[0:26:01] JA: We should mention, we don’t get a lot of conversations around garden design, or anything like that. I’m particularly fascinated in this, because I’m trying to start a garden at my house. I should say, I participated in No Mow May. I didn’t mow for the month of May, so I’m fishing for kudos here.
[0:26:16] RS: Yay.
[0:26:17] DW: Thank you. Thank you. You’ve done such a great service to all the little animals that live in your front yard, or your backyard.
[0:26:23] JA: Yeah. Although, I did mow over the weekend. I’m sorry.
[0:26:26] DW: It’s okay. We ought to start somewhere.
[0:26:30] JA: I love that you mention anti-lawn. That seems very specific and I feel like I understand what you’re getting at here. But garden design in general, can you give us some insight into that world?
[0:26:40] DW: I love gardens. I would say, if you’re trying to get into garden design, I like native gardens that focus on pollinators, kind of, and like meadow design a lot. If you go to Humane’s website, they have a really good resource on how to create a pollinator garden, which I like the idea of a pollinator garden. I don’t think it really speaks to the main goal of what we’re trying to do. The garden should support more than just the bees. But by creating a garden that supports the bees, you’re doing a pretty good job.
[0:27:15] JA: What else are we supporting anyway?
[0:27:17] DW: I mean, there’s other insects as well. You need places for different caterpillars and things to over winter. They like to nest in hollow stems, or underground, or in the leaf littler and stuff. Clean up your garden at the end of the fall, or end of spring is a really good practice. Then also, birds. That means you need more berries and stuff, not just flowers. They have good resources on what native plants are available to you and what insects they support, as well as what conditions they like to grow in, and then other ways you can support pollinators, like leaving little places for puddles to form, so that they can drink.
[0:27:57] LHL: This just sounds cute.
[0:27:59] DW: Righty. Yeah. Please, tell us what your insights on garden design.
[0:28:05] LHL: I don’t really know.
[0:28:05] RS: Garden design is something I just recently started, because I’m going to design the next Wildflower Garden.
[0:28:13] JA: Congrats.
[0:28:13] RS: Thank you. I’ve never had to design one before, so I’m just dipping my toes in it right now. I have worked alongside my boss for the past four years and she is a great garden designer, so I learned a lot from her.
[0:28:28] JA: What are some of the considerations you need to keep into account when you're designing a Wildflower Garden?
[0:28:34] RS: I think the spot we've picked is right by the road, which is something that I should take into consideration. I think it will be a very dry spot. I'm worried about winter plowing and things like that. Salt, yeah.
[0:28:48] DW: Sun is another thing. How much light you're getting.
[0:28:50] RS: The sun, it will be fully direct sun all day. You just need to find plants that are going to like that.
[0:28:56] JA: I'm picturing a very grizzled plant that can handle lots of sun and salt.
[0:29:00] RS: Yes. Yeah.
[0:29:02] JA: Leathery plant.
[0:29:04] RS: Yeah. We're just planting leather. Yeah.
[0:29:07] DW: There'll just be a cow on the side of the –
[0:29:08] LHL: Oh, no.
[0:29:11] DW: Okay. I guess, I didn't do a good job. UMaine is good for resources for choosing your native plants. You definitely want to do a site study first, so figure out what your light conditions are, what your soil composition is, and how dry the spot's going to be. A lot of people watch that for a year. I'm impatient, so I don't. But then, based off of what the conditions of the site are, then you can start looking at plants that you want to choose, and it's nice to have a mix of different heights, different colors, different shapes, different textures. Something people might not think a lot about when they're getting into the garden design is bloom time and full season interest. Some plants, like Echinacea, are going to leave up seed pods and stuff and stems, and that's going to look beautiful in the winter when it's just a barren landscape of white. Yeah, there's a lot to think about, of how it's going to change over time and how each plant is going to look next to each other. Maybe some big leaves, some bright leaves, some dark leaves. There's some penstemon that's really dark.
[0:30:12] JA: It’s aesthetic considerations, but does this overlap with vegetable gardening at all? Or are we just – Because, I mean, wildflowers, right, we're thinking.
[0:30:20] DW: We talk about growing food quite a bit, and that's something we're talking about this year as well.
[0:30:23] JA: Cool.
[0:30:24] DW: We've mostly been focusing on pollinators and maximizing flowers and having things that bloom for that as much of the growing season as possible, so that way there's a consistent food source there.
[0:30:35] JA: Food source for the pollinators.
[0:30:37] DW: Yeah. Every year, the town is much easier to work with, but it's sometimes kind of hard to pitch the idea that we're going to be growing food in the middle of a park.
[0:30:45] JA: Fair.
[0:30:46] GC: They really don't like it when you grow food.
[0:30:50] JA: Isn't that one of the reasons why our pollen seasons are so bad is because we grow a lot of –
[0:30:54] DW: Is because we grow all male plants? Male. It’s male plants.
[0:30:57] JA: Right. Yeah. Aren't the cities opposed to fruiting plants just growing everywhere, because it makes a giant mess?
[0:31:02] DW: I don't know exactly why. I'm not the cities. Because it doesn't sound –
[0:31:06] JA: You don't represent the city? Damn it.
[0:31:07] DW: It doesn't sound too terrible to me. It's not the end of the world if there's some fruit on the ground, I don't think. It's just, we pay people to clean the sidewalks anyways.
[0:31:15] RS: Yeah. Apparently, it's a hazard. Someone could roll their ankle on a fruit, or something.
[0:31:20] DW: I thought this was America.
[0:31:23] JA: We didn't think about the pear liability. Yeah.
[0:31:27] LHL: This is a logistics question. When you are designing a garden, is it like an architect with a blueprint? Are you drawing this out?
[0:31:34] DW: Yeah.
[0:31:35] LHL: Do you draw them –
[0:31:37] DW: We should send them –
[0:31:38] LHL: - in a way that's like, just a quick little scribble for, "This kind of plant," or is it like, "I'm going to really make this a piece of art"?
[0:31:46] DW: They're beautiful.
[0:31:47] RS: It definitely starts with a little scribble. Then it ends up as a very detailed, beautiful little map with lots of colors.
[0:31:56] DW: By species and by color.
[0:31:58] LHL: Do you share that online?
[0:32:00] RS: I think I've posted your first one.
[0:32:02] GC: We can probably dig them up and send them to you. I think they're very worthy of being seen.
[0:32:06] LHL: I think that's really cool. That could be a zine, like the architect of a garden, or something.
[0:32:10] GC: True.
[0:32:11] GC: Yeah. I don't think we posted the second one, but we did post the first one. I usually start, when I'm choosing plants, I'll draw. I'll try and draw something that represents the plant's form first. Overall height and fine lines, or big thick lines or dark ones. Then the final design for planting is usually just big bubbles. The final design is just big swaths and big bubbles of what plants are going to go in there. Because that's actually another point. When you're designing for pollinators, they need to identify what plant they're seeing, so when it's in a big group, it's easier for them to see what they're going for and notice that plant when it's buzzing around.
[0:32:50] DW: With their bug eyes.
[0:32:51] JA: Actually, I feel like it's obvious, but just in case, for folks who don't understand, why are we caring so much about these pollinators?
[0:32:57] DW: They just have a, an inherent dignity, don't they?
[0:33:00] RS: Our survival depends on it.
[0:33:03] DW: Also, that. Also, that.
[0:33:04] GC: Their vibe is really chill.
[0:33:09] DW: Yeah. All our food systems rely on insects, period.
[0:33:13] LHL: That's a really good reason to give a shit.
[0:33:15] JA: Yeah.
[0:33:15] RS: It is.
[0:33:15] JA: 100%.
[0:33:17] DW: It just looks nice. I would argue that we have had a huge aesthetic benefit to the park.
[0:33:23] RS: Oh, yeah.
[0:33:24] DW: It just looks nice. It's fun, and it's like, I don't know, it's good for us, it's good for everybody. Everybody wins when you plant a garden.
[0:33:32] LHL: Yeah. Green spaces are third spaces, too. People can enjoy them. They feel safer. It shows the community cares.
[0:33:38] DW: There's always birthday parties happening around the garden that we planted our first year.
[0:33:42] JA: Oh, wow.
[0:33:42] DW: Which is really, really nice that people are using it. I'm not sure if they would've used it anyways. But now they're surrounded by big, beautiful flowers whenever they're doing their parties. You're welcome.
[0:33:52] JA: I'm sure it's an add to their experiences.
[0:33:54] LHL: Yeah.
[0:33:54] DW: Yeah.
[0:33:55] GC: It's actually beautiful. Working in the park when we're out there weeding, or planting something new, there's almost always somebody that comes up and compliments it and is happy to see what we're doing, which just is really rewarding and makes you feel inspired to keep doing more.
[0:34:09] LHL: That's amazing.
[0:34:09] JA: I'm just thinking about Bilbo Baggins talking about Hobbits loving things that grow. Just really charming Shire talk coming out of them. It's like, I love this.
[0:34:18] DW: Yeah, you should see my toe hair.
[0:34:23] JA: Oh, my God. Brilliant.
[0:34:26] LHL: Well, on that note –
[0:34:30] DW: Get these guys out of here.
[0:34:33] LHL: Well, we're going to do a thing called rapid fire questions in a moment. This is kind of how we wind down. Before we get to that, it will be in our episode description, but where are the big details for folks to be able to find more about this awesome event online? Where should they look?
[0:34:48] RS: We have an Instagram. The @wildflowerfest, and I think Griff just recently set up the Facebook.
[0:34:55] GC: Yes. We have a Facebook, too. It'll look just like the Instagram.
[0:34:59] LHL: Pick your poison, basically.
[0:35:02] GC: We have a website, but it's a work in progress.
[0:35:06] LHL: That's fair. Yeah.
[0:35:07] GC: If you're listening to this and you love doing free web design, please reach out to us on either of those platforms.
[0:35:13] RS: Yes, please.
[0:35:14] LHL: That's a good call. Yeah. Creative Guts can be a connector sometimes, so put it out there, and maybe someone will reach out. Time for rapid fire questions.
[0:35:24] JA: Let's go.
[0:35:25] LHL: All right. Favorite color?
[0:35:27] RS: Red.
[0:35:28] GC: Orange.
[0:35:29] DW: Green.
[0:35:30] JA: Favorite scent?
[0:35:32] RS: Mint.
[0:35:33] GC: This is really hard.
[0:35:35] DW: Griff's hairy toes.
[0:35:37] GC: Fresh cut grass.
[0:35:40] DW: Sweet fern.
[0:35:43] RS: Oh, that's a good one.
[0:35:43] LHL: Favorite sound?
[0:35:45] RS: I like the sound of birds.
[0:35:48] GC: I like really tall grass with wind.
[0:35:52] LHL: On brand.
[0:35:52] GC: It's done.
[0:35:53] DW: You can't do a different one.
[0:35:55] GC: These are hard questions.
[0:35:55] DW: Too late. That was your rapid fire. Yeah, Dawn Chorus. That's the same as Ryleigh's. I like bird song in the morning.
[0:36:00] DW: I thought it was a Dawn Chorus was a band, or something.
[0:36:04] GC: Oh, no.
[0:36:04] DW: That would be a cool band name.
[0:36:05] JA: Good name for a band name.
[0:36:06] JA: Favorite texture, or touch?
[0:36:09] RS: Oh, boy. Oh. I actually love the feeling of moss. I find it really calming.
[0:36:15] LHL: It's like nature's velvet.
[0:36:17] RS: Yeah. Yeah.
[0:36:19] GC: Can I have him go first for this one?
[0:36:21] DW: Oh, you're breaking every rule since rapid fire started. Getting home at the end of the day and taking my boots off.
[0:36:29] JA: Oh, yeah.
[0:36:29] RS: That's awesome.
[0:36:31] GC: I'm trying to think of something spiky. I like spiky.
[0:36:34] RS: You can just say spiky.
[0:36:35] DW: Yeah, just say spiky.
[0:36:37] GC: All right, I like spiky stuff.
[0:36:40] JA: Spiky stuff.
[0:36:42] GC: I like grass.
[0:36:47] LHL: Most inspiring location you've traveled to?
[0:36:51] DW: Whoa. That's a whole another podcast. I could answer for all of us right now. Keyes Memorial Field, Milford, New Hampshire on August 22nd.
[0:37:00] GC: 2026.
[0:37:02] DW: Yeah.
[0:37:02] LHL: Love it.
[0:37:02] DW: Okay.
[0:37:03] LHL: Okay.
[0:37:04] JA: Well said.
[0:37:05] GC: Wait. I know mine. Mine's Italy. I really liked Italy.
[0:37:12] JA: What other artist has influenced you the most?
[0:37:15] GC: Wait. These are not quick questions.
[0:37:17] DW: Wow. Yeah. The most. Besides my peers and my cohort and my contemporaries who are constantly inspiring me, I would say, Sam Ray of the band Teen Suicide is a huge inspiration for me. I feel like I have a couple. I don't even know if I'm going to say his name right, but Piet Oudolf is a garden designer. I really like his garden design style. Yeah, he's cool. Sorry, Ryleigh.
[0:37:40] RS: That's okay. I'm going to repeat that. I don't know if I'm saying his name right, I might butcher it, but I think it's Piet Oudolf. I also really like Karly Hartzman.
[0:37:50] LHL: Awesome. What's the last new thing you've learned?
[0:37:55] RS: We're really stomping on these.
[0:37:57] RS: Do people usually have a fast one for that? That's like –
[0:37:59] LHL: Well, sometimes it's a big life lessons, or sometimes how an electronic works, like a certain particular thing.
[0:38:06] GC: Okay, I learned something super niche. In Boothbay Harbor, Maine, there's a park called Whale Park. I just did a garden installation there. The way the park is designed, the bricks in the lawn make up a whale, and then there's a sculpture in the middle that's the eye, and then there's a sewer drain that's supposed to be the blowhole. When the water gets really high and it's like a storm, the water will come from the ocean and go up through the drain to make the whale blow.
[0:38:30] DW: Wow.
[0:38:30] LHL: That's really cool.
[0:38:31] JA: I love that.
[0:38:32] GC: That's the most recent thing I've learned also.
[0:38:36] RS: I learned that some flowers will give off a rotting, dead smell to attract bats to pollinate them.
[0:38:43] LHL: What?
[0:38:43] RS: I thought that was pretty cool.
[0:38:46] LHL: Nature's so cool.
[0:38:46] JA: That's pretty metal. Nature's metal.
[0:38:48] LHL: Yeah. That's wild. One that's not on the list, favorite plant.
[0:38:53] GC: I knew you were going to ask that. That's so hard.
[0:38:55] DW: You better have an answer then.
[0:38:57] RS: Mine is the native beebalm, native to New Hampshire. Monarda punctata.
[0:39:02] GC: That one is so gorgeous. I just saw one today, so I'm going to say, jack-in-the-pulpit is really cool.
[0:39:07] DW: Those are good ones, too. Ah, this one's tough for me.
[0:39:11] JA: The bush that was stolen.
[0:39:13] DW: Yeah, that stolen bush specifically was my favorite one. I think that dandelions are a great representation of everything that I believe in. And so, I'm going to say that.
[0:39:24] LHL: That's all beautiful.
[0:39:25] JA: Good answer.
[0:39:25] LHL: Beautiful selection.
[0:39:27] JA: If you could go back in time, what advice would you give your younger self?
[0:39:32] LHL: This is the last question, too.
[0:39:32] JA: Yeah, it's the last one.
[0:39:34] RS: Probably to just try more things and ignore the feeling of embarrassment, I think.
[0:39:41] GC: I learned a lot in college, but I'd probably say, don't go to be a mechanical engineer.
[0:39:48] DW: That's pretty good. I had one that I was thinking about. You started talking about college and I was like, "Yeah, actually going to UNH was a huge mistake." I'm just kidding.
[0:39:59] GC: Okay, I would also tell myself to just be gay sooner.
[0:40:02] JA: There you go. Happy Pride Month.
[0:40:07] LHL: Yes.
[0:40:08] GC: Happy Pride.
[0:40:11] RS: I'd also tell myself to wear sunscreen.
[0:40:13] LHL: That's a good one.
[0:40:15] JA: That's a good one, too.
[0:40:16] DW: I'd probably start investing in stocks that I know are going to go up, like Nvidia, or like GameStop.
[0:40:24] JA: GameStop.
[0:40:28] LHL: Basically, Biff from the future.
[0:40:31] DW: I would've made myself independently wealthy by now, I suppose. I wouldn't be hanging out in here. I'd be on a yacht somewhere enjoying leisure. Just kidding.
[0:40:38] JA: That's good advice.
[0:40:39] DW: I'm exactly where I want to be right now. That was a big elaborate joke. I don't think I have any regrets, or things I'd want to change about my life right now.
[0:40:47] JA: That's what we want to hear ultimately, right? That's awesome. Love that.
[0:40:50] LHL: You three are amazing humans. Thank you so much for what you're doing for the community, and thank you for being on the podcast.
[0:40:55] DW: Thank you so much for having us.
[0:40:56] GC: Thank you.
[0:40:57] RS: Thank you, guys.
[0:40:58] GC: Oh, I also want to give one shout-out to our friend John from True Slice. He does our T-shirt designs every year.
[0:41:05] JA: Cool.
[0:41:06] GC: And our other friend Zoe, she helps with a lot of graphic design and makes a zine for us.
[0:41:11] JA: Oh, wow.
[0:41:11] LHL: Awesome.
[0:41:13] JA: That's great.
[0:41:14] LHL: That's wonderful.
[0:41:14] JA: Love that.
[0:41:15] GC: Oh, and there's too many people to mention, I guess, but we have a huge community of friends who help us before the festival, during the festival, after the festival.
[0:41:23] RS: Yeah. Lots of volunteers. We really appreciate.
[0:41:27] GC: Yeah. Thank you, everyone.
[0:41:29] DW: Thank you, everybody. Thank you, guys.
[0:41:31] JA: Of course, yeah. It takes a village.
[0:41:32] DW: Yeah.
[0:41:32] RS: It does.
[0:41:35] LHL: Thank you again, Wildflower Festival team, for being on the show. With that –
[0:41:40] EVERYONE: Show us your creative guts.
[END OF EPISODE]
[0:41:46] LHL: Another huge thank you to Drew, Ryleigh, and Griff for joining us on Creative Guts.
[0:41:51] JA: So much fun.
[0:41:52] LHL: Holy moly.
[0:41:53] JA: That was awesome. It's so funny, because they were so nervous at the start, and now it's like, you guys are pros.
[0:41:58] LHL: I feel like I've known them forever, too.
[0:42:00] JA: Yeah. Oh, what a good group. We laughed so much.
[0:42:03] LHL: Yeah, I know. It is great when it turns out that way.
[0:42:05] JA: Yeah.
[0:42:06] LHL: They really care, but they're very down to earth. It's a pun, down to earth.
[0:42:12] JA: Oh, geez. I see what you did there.
[0:42:14] LHL: I didn't intentionally do it, but –
[0:42:15] JA: Sure, sure.
[0:42:16] LHL: No. They are just lovely humans. They really, really have a drive, they have a mission, and a shared passion that only seems to enhance their friendships. I love it when you can connect with people like that on something you care about.
[0:42:31] JA: This was a very joyful conversation. I really enjoyed it myself. But then, they're also doing some really, really great work. It takes a lot to just go start something like that, and just to invest the faith that it's going to work out, and push and get something that's grown year over year. Congrats to them, too, for getting their nonprofit status as well.
[0:42:53] LHL: Yeah. Yeah. We didn't really get to cover that in the podcast as much, but it was revealed to us after that they just formed as a non-profit. It's amazing, because more of this is needed. It's arts and culture and sustainability all tied together, and when you can marry things like that, it only brings more people to the table to care about those things.
[0:43:14] JA: They're putting their money where their mouth is, too. I mean, it should be known, too, that attendance of the festival, it's donation-based.
[0:43:20] LHL: It's an accessible place where anyone of any age can go and enjoy and be a part of a community.
[0:43:26] JA: It's wonderful. Yeah, I'm definitely going to be there.
[0:43:30] LHL: I'm going to do my best to be there as well. You should, too, friend. You can follow the Wildflower Festival @wildflowerfestival on Instagram and Facebook.
[0:43:43] JA: As always, you can find those links and more in the episode description and on our website, creativegutspodcast.com.
[0:43:49] LHL: You can find us, Creative Guts Podcast, on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Discord. If you're not on social media and you want to stay in the know about what we're doing, join our newsletter.
[0:43:58] JA: Big thank you and shout-out to Kennebunk Savings Bank for all of the support you give for sponsoring our show. We really appreciate you. We also appreciate all of our other friends of the pod, including the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts.
[0:44:10] LHL: We also want to give a huge thanks to Art Up Front Street Studios & Gallery for providing a space where Creative Guts can record. If you love listening and want to support Creative Guts, you can make a donation, leave us a review, interact with our content on the socials, purchase some merch. Whatever you're able to do, we appreciate you.
[0:44:27] JA: Thank you for tuning in. We'll be back next Wednesday with another episode of Creative Guts.
[END]