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Full Expression

Dan Imhoff

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.

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S3 · E53
Wednesday · 59 min
Alice Waters: We Are What We Eat
Few people have had a greater influence on the way the world thinks about food than Alice Waters. A chef, author, activist, and founder of the legendary Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse, Alice has spent more than five decades advocating for local, seasonal, organically grown food and a closer relationship between farmers, cooks, and the people they feed. In this episode, Host Dan Imhoff speaks with Alice about the experiences that shaped her philosophy—from growing up with her family’s Victory Garden and discovering seasonality in France, to opening Chez Panisse in 1971 and helping build a community that would influence generations of chefs, farmers, and food thinkers. We talk about the early days of the organic food movement, the farmers who transformed the way Alice cooked, and the Montessori education that influenced her approach to food and learning. Alice also reflects on 30 years of the Edible Schoolyard Project, her vision for school-supported agriculture, why meaningful work matters, and her enduring belief that beauty—and eating together—can be a language of care. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S3 · E52
September 10 · 1 hr 2 min
Remembering Wendell Berry: An Extraordinary Life of Letters, Land and Community
Wendell Berry spent more than half a century challenging Americans to reconsider our relationship with the land, our food, our communities, and one another. The celebrated author, poet, farmer, and activist died on August 31, 2026, leaving behind more than 50 books of poetry, fiction, and essays, including The Unsettling of America, Jayber Crow, and his beloved Mad Farmer poems. In this special episode of Full Expression, we open the archives to revisit Dan Imhoff’s 2009 conversation with Wendell, recorded in San Francisco with radio pioneer Davia Nelson of The Kitchen Sisters. Dan reflects on first meeting Wendell in 1993, visiting his Kentucky farm, and the influence Wendell had on his own life and work. They talk about the transformation of American agriculture after World War II, the loss of farming knowledge and rural communities, the dangers of applying simple solutions to complex ecological problems, and why Wendell believed the health of agriculture could never be separated from the health of human culture. They also explore Amish farming, local food economies, the wisdom of fitting farming to the land, and Wendell’s advice to a new generation hoping to become farmers: start small, learn from your neighbors, and understand that caring for the land requires not just productivity, but attention, patience, and love. We extend our deepest condolences to the Berry family and recommend everyone please visit the Berry Center to learn about and support their essential work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S3 · E51
September 2 · 59 min
Rebecca Tickell: Regenerative Storytelling
Rebecca Tickell has spent more than two decades using filmmaking to tell stories about the environment, agriculture, and our relationship with the natural world. A filmmaker, producer, author, farmer, and environmental advocate, Rebecca began her career as a child actor opposite Sam Elliott in Prancer before leaving Hollywood acting behind and finding a new purpose behind the camera. She went on to produce more than 20 environmental films, including Fuel, The Big Fix, Kiss the Ground, Common Ground, and most recently, Groundswell. In this episode, Host Dan Imhoff speaks with Rebecca on how acting taught her the power of storytelling, why she sees filmmaking as a form of advocacy, and how her work led her from Hollywood to regenerative agriculture and her own five-acre farm in Ojai. We talk about the line between journalism and activism, the challenge of communicating across deep divides, what farmers have taught her about listening, the craft of making complicated ideas compelling on screen, and her ambitious goal of helping move one billion acres of land toward regeneration. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S3 · E50
August 19 · 59 min
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.
S3 · E49
August 5 · 59 min
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.
S3 · E48
July 22 · 59 min
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.
S3 · E47
July 8 · 59 min
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.
S3 · E46
June 16 · 59 min
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.
S3 · E45
June 3 · 59 min
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.
S3 · E44
May 20 · 59 min
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.
S3 · E43
May 6 · 59 min
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.
S3 · E42
April 22 · 58 min
Charles Loi & Hannah Lee: Reimagining How We Tell The Climate Story
In this episode of Full Expression, host Dan Imhoff sits down with filmmakers Charles Loi and Hannah Lee to explore storytelling, the climate climate, and the creative process. Both trace their paths from early experiments with film to collaborating on Climate California, a documentary series that reimagines how we tell stories about the climate crisis from NorCal Public Media. The series shifts away from the doom and gloom approach to climate change reporting, and toward beauty, connection, and lived experience. They discuss the challenges of making ambitious work with limited resources, the tension between message and aesthetics, and the responsibility of telling delicate stories with care. They explore what it means to create something that resonates beyond the moment, and how art can bring people together around shared uncertainty, rather than division. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S3 · E41
April 1 · 59 min
Narsiso Martinez: Making Hidden Labor Visible Through Art
In this episode of Full Expression, host Dan Imhoff sits down with artist Narsiso Martinez for a conversation about labor, migration, and the creative process. Narsiso traces his journey from a rural town in Oaxaca, Mexico—where he worked in the fields as a child—to immigrating to Los Angeles in search of opportunity and education. What began as a pursuit of stability gradually evolved into a deep artistic practice, shaped by his lived experience and the communities he came from. Working on discarded produce boxes, Narsiso creates portraits of farmworkers that merge subject and material in a powerful way. His work brings visibility to a labor force that is essential yet often unseen, while exploring themes of class, dignity, and belonging. The conversation moves between worlds: from agricultural labor to art school, from the challenges of navigating life as an immigrant to the evolution of a distinct visual language. Narsiso reflects on the role of education, the influence of artists like Van Gogh, and how art became a way to express what could not be said in the fields. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S3 · E40
March 18 · 59 min
Angelo Garro: Life of a Master Craftsman
Craft lives in the hands. And in a world increasingly shaped by speed, automation, and abstraction, what does it mean to dedicate your life to making things slowly, by hand? In this episode of Full Expression, host Dan Imhoff sits down with Angelo Garro, Sicilian-born blacksmith, sculptor, forager, and founder of Omnivore Salt, for a conversation about craft, culture, food, and the creative life. Angelo traces his journey from a small village in Sicily to apprenticing with a master metalworker in the Swiss Alps, before building a life in North America as an architectural blacksmith and artist. He developed a deep connection to the natural world—through foraging, hunting, cooking, and community—that would eventually place him at the center of California's early slow food movement. The conversation moves between worlds: from the history of ironwork in Europe to the philosophy of creating, from the realities of running a small food business to the challenges facing organic producers today. Angelo reflects on immigration, identity, and the role of culture—food, art, and craft—in shaping both personal meaning and collective freedom. We also explore what may be lost—and what could be rediscovered—in an age of artificial intelligence, as Angelo makes a case for the return of traditional skills and the enduring value of working with your hands. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S3 · E39
March 4 · 59 min
Thomas Lauderdale on Pink Martini & Building a 'United Nations of Sound'
Behind Pink Martini's unmistakable sound is a simple idea: music can bring people together across cultures. In this episode of Full Expression, host Dan Imhoff sits down with Thomas Lauderdale—pianist, bandleader, and artistic director of Pink Martini, the "little orchestra" that blends classical, jazz, pop, and world music into a style that feels both timeless and global. Thomas traces the unlikely path that led him to the band. Raised on a plant nursery in rural Indiana, he began piano lessons at six and later studied history and literature at Harvard, originally planning a career in politics. But in 1994, while working on a political campaign in Portland, he started a small band to play fundraisers for progressive causes. What began as a festive antidote to dreary political events slowly grew into Pink Martini—a genre-defying ensemble that now performs around the world with songs in more than 25 languages. Thomas shares the philosophy behind the band: treating music as hospitality, learning songs in the languages of the countries they visit, and creating what he describes as a kind of "United Nations of sound." The conversation also explores the creative process behind Pink Martini's recordings—from recording live on tape and chasing the "magical accident" in the studio to building a musical family that has stayed vibrant for more than three decades. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S3 · E38
February 25 · 59 min
Mindy Marin: The Unsung Art of Casting Direction
Behind every unforgettable performance is great casting. Today, we explore this often invisible process that's part intuition, part logistics, and part relentless creative problem-solving. In this episode of Full Expression, host Dan Imhoff talks with legendary casting director Mindy Marin, whose career spans four decades and more than a hundred films, including Juno, Drive, Nightcrawler, the upcoming Matchbox, and multiple Mission: Impossible projects—along with a long history in television that helped shape the industry from the inside. Mindy walks us through what casting actually is: breaking down scripts, searching for talent, building trust with directors and producers, and running chemistry tests that determine whether a story truly works on screen. She reflects on how the job has evolved from a fully analog world of in-person auditions and endless binders of headshots to today's Zoom-driven, global casting landscape—and why the core skill is still the same: taste, discernment, deep belief in people and a love of actors and film. She shares stories from her early days hustling into Hollywood, the art of turning "no" into "yes," and why casting directors and actors are fundamentally on the same side. With casting now becoming eligible for Oscar recognition for the first time, it's a timely look at one of filmmaking's most essential—and least understood—creative roles. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S3 · E37
February 4 · 1 hr 4 min
Arnaud Weyrich: The Art and Science of Sparkling Wine
Sparkling wine is one of humanity's most enduring creative rituals. In this episode of Full Expression, host Dan Imhoff travels to California's Anderson Valley to sit down with Arnaud Weyrich, the French-born winemaker behind the méthode champenoise wines at Roederer Estate. Arnaud brings a rare, ground-up perspective: trained in agronomy, viticulture, and enology in France, and shaped by three decades of harvests on both sides of the Atlantic. He walks us through the great complexity of sparkling wine—early picking for acidity, blending with intention rather than recipes, second fermentation in bottle, disgorgement, dosage—and why every decision is part science and part intuition. The conversation opens into bigger questions about creativity and adaptation: how climate change is reshaping vineyards and harvest timing, why note-taking and institutional memory matter as much as lab data, and how emerging tools like automation and AI can assist decision-making without replacing the winemaker's palate. We also explore wine as a cultural artifact—rooted in place, tradition, and shared pleasure—and why sparkling wine, with all its labor and precision, has become the sound and symbol of celebration itself. It's a conversation about what it means to keep creating something joyful in a rapidly shifting world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S3 · E36
January 21 · 59 min
Ramesh Srinivasan: The True Cost of Artificial Intelligence
#36: Artificial intelligence is here, whether we're ready or not. In this episode of Full Expression, host Dan Imhoff sits down with UCLA professor and Utopias podcast host Ramesh Srinivasan to ask what that reality means for creativity, culture, and everyday life. Ramesh brings a rare perspective: he's lived inside the tech world as an engineer and AI developer (including time at the MIT Media Lab), and he's spent decades studying the social, political, and environmental impacts of technology. The conversation expands into the big questions shaping our moment: AI as pattern recognition and surveillance, the power of tech oligarchs, the rise of disinformation, and the hidden environmental costs of data processing. We also dig into what it means to stay creatively dignified in an AI-saturated world: when (and if) these tools can be useful, and why practices like writing longhand, movement, and meditation matter now more than ever It's a conversation about power and possibility, fear and literacy, and the urgent case for a "new Bauhaus," a way of designing technology that supports connection, care, and a future that's actually worth living Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S3 · E35
January 7 · 58 min
Adam Weymouth: Walking Across Europe, Writing About Wolves
#35: An epic wolf journey becomes a lens on everything from ecology to migration, borders, and what it means to coexist with the wild in modern Europe. In this episode, writer and adventurer Adam Weymouth joins us to talk about his book Lone Wolf: Walking the Line Between Civilization and Wilderness. Weymouth retraces the thousand-mile path of an iconic wolf named Slavc, tracked by GPS as he traveled from Slovenia across Austria and the Alps to northern Italy—moving through deep wilderness, but also skirting suburbs, airports, and working farmland. Along the way, we explore the long, complicated history between humans and wildlife, the politics shaping species repopulation and rewilding across Europe, and the cultural stories that still cast the wolf as the villain. We dig into Weymouth's reporting and creative process: walking the route in stages, translating conversations across languages, balancing science with storytelling, and resisting the urge to turn the wolf into a mythic hero or monster. It's a conversation about nature and culture, fear and fascination, and the hope embedded in a species finding its way back. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dec 31, 2025 · 59 min
Roman Cho: Photography, Biking Through Patagonia, and the Vision Quest
REDUX: Photographer Roman Cho shares his journey from percussion student to portrait photographer, documenting musicians, the Good Food Movement, and a 1700-mile bicycle adventure along Chilean Patagonia's Route of the Parks. Check out some of his stunning photos on his Instagram: @romanchophoto Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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