Ali Shute, left, and Callie Cabe sit on the Mary Lou Reed bench in Coeur d’Alene. Reed, a longtime supporter of local art and culture, was the first guest of the Ali and Callie Artcast.
part of a greater United Nations globalist plot. Fearful comments warning that the piece could create a desensiti- zation to foreign invasion quickly took root on social media, and on- line outrage soon bloomed beyond North Idaho. The city removed the sculpture citing that the location wasn’t appropriate for that partic- ular piece of art. This decision was disappointing to the area arts community. “There wasn’t any opportuni- ty to educate people about it -- the piece had nothing to do with com- munism,” Shute said. “It had been there for three years without any- one saying anything. We really wanted to have further discussions about this.”
al interpretation, one person may ap- preciate a certain piece while others may be baffled or even offended by it. This covers everything from the music we enjoy to what we choose to hang on our walls. It also can include local public art like various sculp- tures in parks and on streets. An installation called “Marker 11” fell into the “varying opinion” cate- gory. Artist Robert Zylstra created a tall, black monolith that was placed in Riverstone Park. He hoped to por- tray the legacy of global coal mining with symbols from main producers U.S., Great Britain and Russia. Some community members ex- pressed concern that the hammer and sickle symbol on the sculp- ture suggested a pro-Soviet agen- da, or worse, that the piece was
This incident encouraged Kilmer, a Coeur d’Alene resident, to suggest to Shute and Cabe that a commu- nity arts-focused podcast would be welcome and useful. Kilmer previously worked in Hol- lywood on various shows and films before returning to North Idaho. She offered to share her technical knowledge as a producer if Shute and Cabe would be co-hosts. “The first question we asked was, ‘What’s a podcast?’’ Cabe said. “We had no idea, but we decided to give it a try.” Although they had previously cre- ated Facebook Live videos for the Al- liance, they hoped an independent podcast could be more edgy and let them express stronger opinions. “We wanted to educate,” Kilmer
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