We see little glimpses of artists’ lives through their work. But what’s in the neutral zone: the space between being at centre stage – having everyone pay attention to your work – and your regular life? We ask Edmontonian Susan Sneath, who moved away from a life in theatre, radio and TV. And we speak to renowned artist Joseph Sanchez, one of the Professional Native Indian Artists Inc (aka the “Native Group of Seven”), about how their fight to get Indigenous art embraced by the mainstream changed the way he saw himself. MacKenzie Art Gallery curator Michelle LaVallee talks about creating an exhibit of the group’s work touring across Canada.

This week: Half Off. Why is attendance at the Art Gallery of Alberta only half of what it was when the new building opened, and what can they do about it? We speak with Edmonton City Councillor Andrew Knack why he voted against funding an experiment with free admission at the gallery. And we’ll talk to Latitude 53’s Todd Janes and Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History’s Nina Simon about what other galleries are trying to get crowds in the door.

This week: A 360 degree look at what it means to “make it.” We talk to The Wet Secrets’ Lyle Bell about all the puddles and hard work along the way from accidentally starting a band to playing the Grey Cup. And we’ll talk to Edmontonian Sharon Bellion about working her way up from a life without literacy.

This week: What do Stuart McLean and his CBC Radio show The Vinyl Cafe mean to Canadians?

You might have heard the rough news this winter that Stuart McLean has been diagnosed with cancer. While he battles it out, we thought we’d take a moment to reflect on what he and the show mean to us. We’ll hear from Zankhna Mody, a listener in Peterborough, Ontario. And our own Josh Turpin shares a letter to Stuart.

This week: How do we deal with pioneers when their successors find their outlook passé?

Edmonton’s had fabulous drag kings and queens over the years. But as the cultural conversation around gender and queer rights has changed, so has drag. In this episode, we speak to well-known drag performer and writer Darrin Hagen, author of memoir The Edmonton Queen. And we get a glimpse into the closet of Pony Meyer, a drag king performing these days with the Queer Royale troupe.

This week: how do artists influence medicine – how do they play into how we heal each other? We have two stories, both looking at performance artists in the healthcare system. But they come from different sides of a divide: Demmi Dupri takes the stage in art therapy as a clown, and actor Andrew Ritchie works behind the scenes as a standardized patient for doctors to practice on.

This week: What would you say… you do here? Inquiring minds want to know. So this week, we’ve devoted an entire episode to answering your questions about some of those arts jobs you’ve always wondered about. What does a projectionist do now, anyway? What’s a dolly grip? What’s a best boy? What the heck does a music producer do?

We speak to Hip-Hop Practitioner/Music Producer KazMega, Dolly Grip Clint Silzer, Best Boy Dean Davey, Projectionist Brad Syme, and Props Master Toni Quinn.

This week: who decides what good behaviour looks like, and what happens when the government tries to tell us what good behaviour is? We’ll take a look at the Advisory Board on Objectionable Publications. From 1954-1973, it encouraged parents and distributors from letting kids read comic books, over fears the graphic stories would corrupt their young minds. And we’ll talk to writer and illustrator Meags Fitzgerald about her new graphic memoir Long Red Hair, and her struggles to be true to herself growing up.

This week, the second of two FunDrive episodes recorded live at CJSR: what can art tell us about the future? We tiptoe out at night for Nuit Blanche, try to figure out why we love spoilers so much with researcher Brent Bellamy, and chat with U of A Students Union President Navneet Khinda about the future of the arts on campus. Also saltines. There are more saltines.

This week, the first of two FunDrive episodes recorded live at CJSR: what art can tell us about the past? Author, rapper and broadcaster Wab Kinew will be speaking about his new memoir The Reason You Walk. And University of Saskatchewan Professor Yin Liu will join us to talk about the surprising origins of the blank spaces between our words.

This week: Gatekeepers. We talk to Weird Canada Executive Director Marie Leblanc Flanagan and Edmonton author Leif Gregerson about the tradeoffs for artists who want to go around labels and publishers.

This week we’re out of reach, off the map. What drives us off the grid? We talk to Marc Clarabut, who’s just embarking on a life in the wild near Ontario’s immense Algonquin Park. And we head to the West Coast to talk to Judith Wright, who’s lived off the grid for decades on a BC island but still manages to make it to her monthly book club (by boat).

This week’s episode is one of those old questions: what’s the point of suffering? We speak to Canadian author Marina Endicott about her pun-tastic novel Close to Hugh, and her characters’ struggle to figure out how we live in the knowledge of death and suffering and not collapse from sadness.

Then we talk to dancer and Pique Dance Centre instructor María Valencia Alvarez about yearning for a baby brother, being shipped off to boarding school, and growing up fast.

This week: What’s authentic? Emmanuel Jal was born in South Sudan and became a child solider at the age of 7. He’s now become a global citizen through his work as an activist, hip-hop artist and storyteller. We talked to Emmanuel about how he tries to stay true to himself and where he comes from.

And we dive deep into the debate about cultural appropriation of Indigenous art and culture. Cold Lake First Nation artist Dawn Marie Marchand joins us to talk about the lengths she goes to make her art respectfully, and whether Edmontonians really should #boycottyegarts, as Metis writer and academic Zoe Todd has advocated on her blog.

This week: do you know your neighbours? We take a look at a long-standing Edmonton institution whose business is all about full exposure: the Chez Pierre strip club. And we ask how the Edmonton Folk Festival keeps its neighbours happy right in the middle of the city. Festival Producer Terry Wickham and a neighbour named Marilyn weigh in.

This week: what do you do when you get to the end… and it’s not the end? We talk to Callahan Connor (aka rapper C-Command) about the frustrating charms of Super Mario Brothers. Then former Rent star Christian Mena tells us how he ended up back in Edmonton running three snappy restaurants. And LJ Tresidder of Enchanted Fables tell us what it’s like to put kids in the middle of their own princess story.

This week: Boot Camp Poets. How could rap or poetry help inmates at the Edmonton Remand Centre find a different life, and what roadblocks might be in their way? This is the second half of a two-part documentary speaking to inmates in the Edmonton Remand Centre’s Boot Camp unit.

In this episode, John Howard Society’s Howie Hoggins speaks to us about what’s ahead for men in the Boot Camp unit transitioning out of prison. Métis writer and researcher Patti Laboucane-Benson tell us what her graphic novel The Outside Circle has to say about why so many Aboriginal people end up behind bars. And we hear more poetry from Boot Camp unit inmates Joshua Charles Thom, Michael Nelson, and Nathan Laboucan.

This week: Boot Camp Poets. How do folks end up behind bars at the Edmonton Remand Centre – and how could rap or poetry help them find a different life? On this week’s show, we speak to inmates in the Edmonton Remand Centre’s Boot Camp unit for the first half of a special two-part documentary.

The men we interviewed for this episode include Robert Deschamps, Donnie Kleppe, Dillon McKenzie and Chris Pruden.

This week: what is art worth? We headed to Edmonton’s Found Festival to ask you to compare some famous and not-so-famous artwork we dragged along. And we speak to former street artist Jamie Law about a 2012 police raid of his art show – a raid that still asks questions about how we decide what’s art, and what’s a crime.

This week: what are Edmonton’s gems – the art that makes us uniquely us? We talk to sculptor Robin Bell about his much-loved whale sculpture at West Edmonton Mall, Remedy Cafe owner Zee about how Edmontonians have helped craft his menu and the famous bathroom graffiti, and find out the backstory to Norman Yates’ mural on the side of the U of A’s Education Building.

This week: how do artists influence medicine – how do they play into how we heal each other? We have two stories, both looking at performance artists in the healthcare system. But they come from different sides of a divide: Demmi Dupri takes the stage in art therapy as a clown, and actor Andrew Ritchie works behind the scenes as a standardized patient for doctors to practice on.

This week: if art is for everyone, how do we make sure everyone can access it? We wander over to the Talking Book Club at an Edmonton library, and hear the story behind CRIPSiE and the Mindhive Collective’s new show The Wedding Reception: Love in the Margins.

This week: how do we shift from being consumers of culture to becoming creators? We speak to writer Lizzie Derksen about the long road to calling herself, well, a writer. And we poke around a 3D printed sculpture at the Stanley Milner Library’s Makerspace in Edmonton to investigate whether 3D printing will transform us into makers of things.

This week: let’s art about sex, baby. We’re asking how art can help us understand sex and sexuality on today’s show. Native Youth Sexual Health Network’s Erin Konsmo tells us why she’s been teaching Indigenous youth how to bead condoms. And we ask local model Andrea and artist Harry Abink what it means to pose in the nude.

This week: how do we go beyond preaching to the choir? How do we open up a conversation beyond the inner circle? We’ve got two stories today – one about a cross-country project called Train of Thought aiming to get First Nations and settler people talking about the struggles we have in common. In the other, we speak to actor Connor Yuzwenko-Martin about his role in the play Tribes at the U of A’s Studio Theatre. It’s an attempt to get deaf and hearing communities to understand each other better.

We invented the Artisan Partisan Party for our Alberta Election 2015 episode. Its triumphant slogan: Creating a Culturally Rich Alberta.

This week: what would Alberta look like if we had a government that was totally oriented around making the arts thrive? With the May 5 provincial election looming, we ask Edmonton artists Theodore Fox, Ahmed Knowmadic Ali, and Gerry Morita for their take. And we come up with a snazzy ad for our fake political party.

This week: how does stuff come to look the way it does? Our reporter Jonathan Dyck shares the agony and ecstasy every graphic designer goes through before they march out into the working world. We head down to Churchill Square to ask how residents feel the design works for them. And young federal NDP hopeful Reakash Walters talks about the careful crafting behind a politician’s public image.

This week: what can we learn from imagining the futures that might have been, but never came to pass? We speak to Art Gallery of Alberta curator Kristy Trinier and artist Alma Visccher about the shadow of Edmonton’s Future Station downtown. Then Labtop’s Colin Prothero dishes on the seductive deceptions of architectural renderings, and Dr. Russell Cobb tells us about the Omniplex that almost was.