Tiny Histories Pillow Fort Studios

This episode starts with the teeniest tiny object that Tiny Histories has ever covered: particles of dust. Art museum dust, to be exact. Back in the day, Sean Miller had a job cleaning dust from the art at the Seattle Art Museum. In true artist form, he worked with the medium he had at his disposal and followed it to see where it took him—in this case, into the strange but true history of a woman named Ann Hodges, up into space, and back down to Earth again, deeper into his own family history.

Don't forget to sign the petition to have November 30th declared International Meteorite Awareness Day for Ann Hodges! And to learn more, check out this panel discussion about the Hodges Effect that took place in October of 2021. 

When composer Jeff Beal (House of Cards, Carnivale, Pollock) originally found the diary of his great grandmother Della, he and his wife Joan were bowled over by the story it told: a first-hand account of a woman who was widowed and raising six kids on a farm in the early 1900's. Something about the matter of fact way she wrote of what seemed like incredible suffering and the efficiency of her words stood out to Jeff and Joan. They thought they should do something with it musically. But they were busy raising kids and the diary was placed back in its box. Twenty years later, Jeff was commissioned to write a piece and remembered the diary. This is the story of how a young widow's life story came to be sung by a Grammy-winning soprano over 100 years later.

When their family Gulf Coast vacation home was blown away by Hurricane Carla in 1961, Jennifer Vacca's grandpa had a great solution: He would move one of the buildings from the family business onto the now empty lot and they'd turn it into the new vacation house. And so, the Bayhouse was born. Six decades, multiple generations, and untold numbers of hurricanes later, it's still standing. And it's played a central role in the life of Jenny's family, and in her life in particular. Hear a story about the only funeral home we know of that's in the business of life. 

It's time that I revealed my true identity: I am an agent for the Greater Seattle Bureau of Fearless Ideas. Oh--you're not familiar with the Bureau? Well that's okay, because you're about to learn all about them and the amazing work that they do in this BFI mega episode! It features seven stories, some of them from a Tiny Histories workshop with BFI students, and some of them from BFI's grownup leaders. You'll travel from Seattle to Thailand and Ethiopia and back again. You'll learn about religions and cultures, and encounter Robert Frost and a significant penguin. There are fireworks, road trips with a dog named Blue, and a mysterious locket washed up on the shore by the sea. And best of all, you'll meet this community of creative, kind, and fearless people.
Storytellers include BFI students, Judah, Rahma, and Eka and BFI staffers, Faith Eakin, Chris Robinson, and Bryan Wilson.

During  the 1960s, just after the Apollo 11 mission had taken Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the surface of the moon, a rogue group of artists, including Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol, were hatching a plan. If they were successful, they'd smuggle an entire museum of contemporary art onto the moon.

In this episode, Jade Dellinger,  Director of the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery at  Florida SouthWestern State College talks about how the idea for the Moon Museum started at Max's Kansas City, and how, with the help of an organization called Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), it turned into a master plan that ultimately worked. Dellinger also tells his own story, and how Rauschenberg and the Moon Museum changed the course of his life. 

Moments of self discovery--those big "a-ha!" moments where we finally wrap our heads around some truth we've been bread-crumbing down the trail--often happen during challenging times, or when some new perspective is suddenly and unavoidably shoved in our face. But sometimes, we gain a new understanding of who we are because we see ourselves in someone else. And if we're really lucky, we get to experience these moments with friends and community. And if we're really, really lucky, we get to discover who we are with pizza. Such was the case for a young Jess Clark. In this episode, hear the story of how a restaurant  called Back Road Pizza was integral to his coming out trans as a young person, and how the place still plays a role in his life as a grown up and a parent.