Full Expression

Dan Imhoff
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The Full Expression Podcast: What is Creativity?With host Dan ImhoffFull Expression is a series of one-hour conversations about the creative process with host, Dan Imhoff. Each month, Imhoff brings his lifetime of experience as an author, musician, and small-scale farmer to these enlightening dialogs. What is creativity? Is it problem solving, disciplined practice, unexpected good fortune? Tune in to the Full Expression podcast for explorations into these fundamentally human pursuits. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. 1 day ago

    Dan Imhoff: A Life in Full Expression

    For the first time on Full Expression, we turn the microphone around. Dan Imhoff has spent his life moving between creative forms—as a writer, musician, songwriter, visual artist, journalist, and, most recently, the host of this podcast. In this episode, Full Expression producer Megan Botel sits down with Dan to explore the creative life behind the conversations he's been having with artists, musicians, writers, craftspeople, and makers on the show. Dan shares how growing up in a creative family in Pennsylvania shaped his earliest ambitions, why his father's advice to live an interesting life sent him west with a backpack and $500, and how a desire to become a novelist eventually led to decades of nonfiction writing, environmental work, music, painting, and an increasingly multidisciplinary creative practice. We talk about the discipline of showing up, why Dan believes it can take a decade to become good at something, the importance of making sloppy first drafts and learning to finish, and why working with people who are better than you can transform the work. Dan also takes us inside his songwriting process, his life between California and Spain, and the origins of Full Expression itself. At the heart of the conversation is a question Dan has spent much of his life exploring: How do we stay creative? His answer is both simple and demanding: keep laying down the bricks, over and over and over again. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  2. 5 Aug

    Mike Crutcher: Fixing Every Broken Thing

    Mike Crutcher has spent a lifetime fixing things. A mechanic, handyman, sculptor, and longtime hardware store counselor in California's Anderson Valley, Mike has become the person generations of neighbors call when a pump fails, an engine won't start, or a machine everyone else has given up on deserves one more chance. In this episode, Mike shares how a childhood fascination with taking apart toys led to a lifelong career solving mechanical problems, why the best repair often starts by checking the simplest thing first, and what decades of living and working in a rural community have taught him about ingenuity, self-reliance, and the satisfaction of making something work again. We talk about off-grid living, solar power, old machines, the disappearing art of shop class, why YouTube has become the modern repair manual, and what creativity has in common with fixing a broken engine Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  3. 22 Jul

    Jon Lee Anderson: Che Guevara, Cuba and the Craft of Conflict Journalism

    In this episode of Full Expression, journalist and biographer Jon Lee Anderson reflects on the experiences that shaped one of the most extraordinary reporting careers of our time. Raised across Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe, Anderson developed an early fascination with people living at the center of political upheaval and cultural transformation—a curiosity that would eventually take him to the front lines of revolutions, wars, and some of the defining events of the past half century. A staff writer for The New Yorker for more than 25 years, Anderson has written landmark biographies of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro and reported from dozens of countries, always seeking to understand the human stories beneath history's biggest headlines. In this conversation, we explore the adventurous childhood that shaped his worldview, the craft of immersive long-form journalism, the challenge of inhabiting another person's life as a biographer, and why empathy remains one of the most essential tools of a great writer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  4. 8 Jul

    Pond Farm Pottery: How the Bauhaus Found a Home in California

    From the revolutionary ideals of the Bauhaus to a remote mountaintop pottery studio in Northern California, the legacy of Marguerite Wildenhain continues to shape artists generations later. In this episode of Full Expression, host Dan Imhoff travels to Pond Farm Pottery—a National Historic Landmark tucked into the redwood-covered hills of Sonoma County—to explore one of the most remarkable artistic lineages of the 20th century. Historian Leah Halper traces Wildenhain's extraordinary journey from the Bauhaus in Germany through Nazi persecution, exile, and ultimately to California, where she helped establish the visionary Pond Farm artists' colony before dedicating her life to teaching generations of ceramic artists. Dan speaks with master potter James Dahl, one of Wildenhain's former students, who shares firsthand memories of her legendary summer workshops. Through stories of silent studios, relentless discipline, discarded pots, and lessons that extended far beyond ceramics, Dahl reveals why Wildenhain's teachings transformed not only artists, but lives. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  5. 16 Jun

    John Muir Laws: Journaling Will Transform Your Life

    In this episode of Full Expression, host Dan Imhoff sits down with naturalist, artist, educator, and lifelong journaler John Muir Laws for a conversation about attention, creativity, and the transformative power of keeping a journal. They explore journaling as more than a record of experience, but as an essential tool for observation, reflection, and deeper engagement with the world. Drawing from decades of nature journaling, John Muir Laws explains how sketching, writing, mapping, and asking questions on paper can expand our capacity to notice, learn, and connect. The conversation ranges from Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks and Steinbeck's journals to the neuroscience of learning, creativity, and distributed cognition.  This is an invitation to slow down, cultivate curiosity, and discover how creativity grows through practice, observation, and sustained attention to the world around us. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  6. 3 Jun

    Ava Mingo and Royer Bockus: The Magic of Repertory Theater

    In this episode of Full Expression, host Dan Imhoff sits down with actresses Ava Mingo and Royer Bockus from the renowned Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon, one of the largest and longest-running repertory theater companies in the United States. Eva and Royer take us behind the scenes of life at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, from building characters and mastering Shakespeare's language to understudying major roles, sustaining creativity over months-long runs, and finding balance between the characters they play, and their everyday lives. This is a conversation about artistic collaboration, adaptation, and the unique challenges and rewards of repertory theater. Ava and Royer also reflect on the power of performance to build empathy, spark conversation, and create moments of genuine human connection. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  7. 20 May

    Cathy Bailey and Robin Petravic: Heath Ceramics and the Art of Everyday Objects

    In this episode of Full Expression, host Dan Imhoff sits down with Cathy Bailey and Robin Petravic, the owners of Heath Ceramics, for a conversation about craft, California design, and the art of making things built to last. They reflect on discovering the struggling Sausalito factory in the early 2000s, rebuilding an iconic American ceramics company, and balancing creativity with the realities of manufacturing. The conversation explores Edith Heath's legacy, the philosophy behind Heath's glazes and forms, and why imperfection, materiality, and human touch remain central to the work. They discuss sustainability, Japanese and Scandinavian design influences, and the deeper question of how thoughtful objects shape everyday life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  8. 6 May

    Amy Bowers Cordalis: The Century Long Fight to Save the Klamath and its People

    In this episode of Full Expression, host Dan Imhoff sits down with Amy Bowers Cordalis—Yurok attorney, activist, and author of The Water Remembers—for a conversation about storytelling, sovereignty, and the long fight to restore a river. Amy traces her journey from growing up between Ashland and the Klamath River to becoming a leading legal voice in one of the largest dam removal and salmon restoration efforts in history. At the center of the conversation is an intergenerational story: a family, a tribe, and a river bound together through culture, survival, and resistance. They explore Amy's creative process, how she translated oral storytelling traditions into a "circular" narrative form, and the challenge of writing a book that carries both personal memory and collective history. The conversation also dives into the deeper stakes behind the story: the history of dispossession, the criminalization of Indigenous lifeways, and the decades-long legal and grassroots battle that ultimately led to the removal of four dams on the Klamath River. It's not just a story of environmental restoration, but of cultural survival and hard-won victory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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About

The Full Expression Podcast: What is Creativity?With host Dan ImhoffFull Expression is a series of one-hour conversations about the creative process with host, Dan Imhoff. Each month, Imhoff brings his lifetime of experience as an author, musician, and small-scale farmer to these enlightening dialogs. What is creativity? Is it problem solving, disciplined practice, unexpected good fortune? Tune in to the Full Expression podcast for explorations into these fundamentally human pursuits. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Information

  • Creator
    Dan Imhoff
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    52
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Llama Shed
  • Show Website
    Full Expression

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