What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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it's a discovery — so people are kind of ready to be surprised and delighted," she says. "It's kind of evoking the same wonder and vibe that you get when you take a walk in the woods and you don't know what you're going to find." That means being ready for kids. Arbo says daisy mayhem will pull from their album and program called "Ranky Tanky," and children are invited to sing, clap, dance and interact with the band. "We wrote that album when we all had small kids, and we wrote it to be an album that wouldn't drive parents absolutely crazy," she explains. "It holds up pretty well that a lot of them aren't officially kids' songs, but there are things that we repurposed into being kids' songs or songs that kids would like." She says that kids particularly enjoy seeing her husband's "Drumship Enterprise," made of old suitcases, cardboard boxes and other nontraditional pieces set up in the same fashion as a traditional drum kit. "It harkens back to a jug band sort of a time," she laughs. "It's not because we can't afford a drum set!" The quieter quality of sound makes room for the percussive qualities of the bass, fiddle and guitar too. The enterprise is always changing she says. "You'll watch a kid watch Scott. And you can see inside that little head, this child is saying 'I could make that. I have all those things.' We have all these stories of kids or parents who called us after shows and said, 'You know Charlie went home and made an entire drumset out of cardboard boxes and cans and tape.' "You should stock up on your recyclables before you bring your child to our show." Arbo says that she's always been "an outdoors girl" despite growing up in Manhattan. While she studied sacred music and played cello, she was also doing science experiments and exploring the natural world with her father, who is a scientist. In college, she studied geology as a way "to spend time in the mountains and be a scientist," while also making music. She wound up swapping the cello for a fiddle, which was easier to lug around while exploring the Yukon, British Columbia, Montana and other places. It was during this time that she discovered her love for old-timey music and bluegrass. "I wandered for a little bit in the wilderness, trying to figure out what was going to happen next, and got a job at a magazine as an editor," she says, where she met the bassist for daisy mayhem, Andrew Kinsey, with whom she's played music for almost 30 years. They formed a band called Salamander Crossing, which toured for most of a decade. "Then that band broke up as bands just sort of do sometimes. And then we remade this one, with a new guitar player [Anand Nayak], and with my current husband, [Scott Kessel] who plays percussion." Their 20th anniversary hit at the same time as covid. Arbo says she's glad that covid restrictions are allowing the band to get out and play again. Over the last two years, they laid low only doing a couple of online shows. "I feel like our band performances are so much about the live energy and the exchange that we have with a live audience," she muses. Plus she wanted to leave space for newer bands. "I thought, you know, other people need them more than we do right now. We can just kind of sit tight for a couple of years, and come back, which is what we're doing now." PRESIDENT Brent A. Powers EDITOR Becca Martin-Brown 479-872-5054 bmartin@nwadg.com Twitter: NWAbecca REPORTERS Monica Hooper mhooper@nwadg.com April Wallace awallace@nwadg.com (479) 770-3746 DESIGNER Deb Harvell ! UP WHAT'S ON THE COVER Donna Mulhollan began creating needle-felted birds like the one shown here during the pandemic to help raise money for 7hills Homeless Shelter. "I like to call myself a craftivist. I like to use my craft for a cause," she says. (NWA DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE/MONICA HOOPER) What's Up! is a publication of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. 38 WHAT'S UP! MAY 1-7, 2022 Artosphere Continued From Page 8 FEATURE ARTOSPHERE WEEK 1 May 4 • Trout Fishing in America plays at 6:30 p.m. at the Botan- ical Garden of the Ozarks in Fayetteville. Free, but tickets required. • "Emu Runner," part of the Artosphere Film Series, 7 p.m., University of Arkansas Student Programs Theater (fourth floor), 435 N. Garland Ave. Free, but tickets required. May 5 • Rani Arbo and daisy mayhem, 7:30 p.m., Starr Theater at Walton Arts Center. Tickets $33. May 6 • Yoga in the Atrium, 2 p.m. at Walton Arts Center. Class led by Becky DeClerk with live music from cellist Christian Serrano-Torres. Free, but registration required. Add-on mimosas for $5 after class. • Railyard Live concert featur- ing Cate Brothers and Hand- shake Saints, 8 p.m., Railyard Park in Rogers. Ticketed event; free on the lawn. $20 to reserve tables. railyardlive.com May 7 • Trail Mix, 5 p.m. with concerts on and around the Walton Arts Center campus (495 W. Dick- son St.) in Fayetteville featur- ing Dandelion Heart, Papa Rap, mömandpöp, Priya Ram and her students, Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem and more. Free; no registration required. • Music on the Mountain: NWA Jazz Society and Artosphere present Los Valeros, 6:30 p.m., Mount Sequoyah Cottage Circle in Fayetteville. Tickets $12. • Opera Fayetteville presents "Second Nature," 8 p.m., Starr Theater. Tickets $25. • Railyard Live presents Funk Factory, 8 p.m., Rogers Railyard Park. Free on the lawn; $20 to reserve tables. railyardlive. com • "The Wonderful: Stories from The Space Station," part of the Artosphere Film Series, 5 p.m., Kalaloka Institute of Fine Arts, 1380 S.W. Westpark Drive, Suite 2, Bentonville. Free, but tickets required Tickets or reservations for these events are available on the app, online at artosphere festival.org or by calling the box office at 443-5600. Additional Events • "Sol" will be on display in the Joy Pratt Markham Gallery. The art exhibit is free to enjoy from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday, 60 minutes prior to performances and during intermissions at the Walton Arts Center. The exhibit explores the themes of energy, light and sustainability through an Artosphere-themed sculpture; five energy-inspired, large-format paintings created by locals; and two pieces designed and created by Walton Arts Center staff. • Arkansas Pottery Festival, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. May 6-7 and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 8 at Nadine Baum Studio, 505 W. Spring St., this exhibition and pottery sale spotlights more than 50 pottery artists from around the state. Artist Bill Jones will lead pottery demonstrations and give a lecture on Friday and Saturday with a closing lecture by Lawrence McElroy on historic pottery production in Northwest Arkansas, followed by a cookout and potluck. Rani Arbo and her band, daisy mayhem, play during a previous Trail Mix. For those seeking a more indoor experience, during this year's Artosphere, they will also perform a set in the Starr Theater at Walton Arts Center. "Indoors is always a more intimate show," Arbo says. The "slower, lyrically intricate songs," which invite the listener to lean in, are more suited for their indoor shows. One thing about the shows that remains the same whether indoors or out is that "they're both joyful," she adds. (File Photo)