First up this week, we continue our series of profiles on the Strecker family of artists with a look at Chris Strecker. The matriarch of the family, Chris creates deep connections to nature through clay.

Next, you’re invited to a behind-the-scenes tour of the Frazier Historical Arms Museum in Louisville, which will open to the public in May 2004. In collaboration with Britain’s oldest museum, the Royal Armouries, the Frazier holds in trust one of the greatest collections of arms, armor, and related historical artifacts in the world, dating back more than 1,000 years. Many of the pieces once belonged to famous politicians, celebrities, frontiersmen, or soldiers. They include the family Bible of Daniel Boone and a “big stick” that belonged to President Theodore Roosevelt.

Throughout the program, musical guest the Rock Garden String Band performs a distinctive mix of Delta blues, mountain music, bluegrass, and folk. The Louisville band won first place in the Kentuckiana Blues Society’s 2003 Best Unsigned Blues Band contest. At the time of their Mixed Media appearance, the band members—singer Karen Ephyria, guitarist Brian Badgett, and dobro player Dave Emery—were looking forward to representing the region in the annual International Blues Contest on Beale Street in Memphis.