The Subtext: America’s UFC Freedom Fight

**Savannah Locke** (0:00)
Hi, Lee, welcome to our show.

**Lee C. Camp** (0:01)
Hello, Savannah, welcome to our show.

**Savannah Locke** (0:04)
Welcome back from Washington, DC.

**Lee C. Camp** (0:06)
Yes, thank you, the nation's capital.

**Savannah Locke** (0:08)
How were the vibes there?

**Lee C. Camp** (0:09)
The vibes were very interesting there.

**Savannah Locke** (0:12)
Yeah, talk to me.

**Lee C. Camp** (0:13)
Well, I couldn't see much on the national mall because there's stuff being built all over the place, apparently for America 250 I didn't get over to in front of the Executive Office Residence for also known as the White House.

**Savannah Locke** (0:28)
Okay, I was very confused first.

**Lee C. Camp** (0:32)
Because, you know, where they're building a UFC cage.
But I did, you know, I'm a kind of private pilot of sorts. And so I always want to go see the Museum of Space, Air and Space Museum.

**Savannah Locke** (0:47)
So cool.

**Lee C. Camp** (0:48)
Did that for a couple of hours. And then I went for the first time to go over to the National Art Gallery, which I had never seen before, which is an stellar, another one of the Smithsonian's, but a stellar art museum. I especially wanted to see Edward Hicks, the Quaker folk artist, who was a Quaker minister, folk arts from the early 19th century, who has this series of paintings called The Peaceable Kingdom.
And it turned out that the one painting that I have used in my teaching is on display at the National Art Gallery. And so I went over just so that I could see it in person. And so anyway, it was great. And then I had a wonderful time at the Understory Festival, put on by Comment Magazine. It was a great time.

**Savannah Locke** (1:31)
The Quaker art, I guess I've never thought much about Quaker art.
Obviously, Anabaptists and Quakers do not come from the same stream. They're kind of cousins, right?

**Lee C. Camp** (1:43)
Well, they're definitely both in the Little Bee Believers Church or in the stream descending from the Radical Reformers.

**Savannah Locke** (1:51)
Yes.

**Lee C. Camp** (1:51)
Yeah.

**Savannah Locke** (1:53)
But sometimes people think that they're synonymous and they're not. But with that, I've done some work on Anabaptist art. Because, as you know, a value for Anabaptists since their beginning is simplicity. So actually finding artistic expression through fashion or whatever is hard in Anabaptist history. But I was able to find some really interesting, this was in grad school and I was doing research on what I was going to end up being my thesis. And I did end up finding a couple of water color artists from the Anabaptist tradition that were interesting. But in general, Anabaptist art was limited to hymns, obviously through music, quilting, and furniture.
There were these streams that felt more appropriate or dominant versus painting or maybe might be perceived as excessive.

**Lee C. Camp** (2:53)
Very interesting. I've never thought about that, but all that you say resonates with just my limited exposure in that regard.

**Savannah Locke** (3:00)
And the watercolor painting was very simple as well. I'll send it to you. Yeah, it really was interesting because I was hoping that there would be some sort of like outlier, like interesting fashion designer or something. But yeah, it was just very low key vibes in that world.

**Lee C. Camp** (3:15)
Yeah, fascinating.

**Savannah Locke** (3:16)
Amazing. Well, when you were in Washington, DC, I was in Arizona.

**Lee C. Camp** (3:20)
Arizona? Where in Arizona?

**Savannah Locke** (3:22)
Getting sun, Scottsdale.

**Lee C. Camp** (3:24)
Nice.

**Savannah Locke** (3:25)
And it was lovely to be able to leave Nashville's rain, which has been eternal.

**Lee C. Camp** (3:31)
Kind of nonstop. Well, we must not forget we were in a drought. And now the last 10 days, we've been catching up on rain.

**Savannah Locke** (3:36)
Well, now I'm in an emotional drought. I am in an emotional drought and I need the sun. So I was very grateful to be in Arizona when you were in DC to get some sun.

**Lee C. Camp** (3:45)
So you just were getting sun.

**Savannah Locke** (3:46)
Literally, that is all I was doing. I sat outside for 12 hours a day.

**Lee C. Camp** (3:50)
Did you really?

**Savannah Locke** (3:50)
Yes. To just read books and let the sun hit my face. And I worked on my manuscript because my editor sent back all of the draft, like, or sent back the draft with all of the line edits. So there were like 11,000 things I need to approve.
And so I'm doing a lot of accepting, accepting, accepting, accepting, but it was all in the sun.