Joshua Brown is the program coordinator at the Nebraska Arts Council, a state organization whose mission is to promote, cultivate and sustain the arts through programming, grants and opportunities to foster creative innovation statewide.

At the Arts Council, Brown manages grants related to arts education and accessibility. Outside of his work with the Arts Council, he also serves as a visual artist and musician, exhibiting paintings and sculptures at community galleries in Omaha and organizing shows that support emerging and community-oriented artists.

A University of Nebraska Omaha graduate, Brown has a degree in art history and is also working toward a Master of Arts in Education from the University of Nebraska Kearney. His studies have led him to explore the connections between power, government and the arts, focusing on how governments can foster environments that encourage community-oriented arts and culture.

In this episode Brown and Michael Griffin are talking about art as rhetoric and why it’s essential for a healthy democracy, and how Brown’s worldview was shaped by homeschooling and an early appreciation for art of all kinds.