KUAR’s Arts & Letters program will host a live recording Thursday, April 26, about Kelly Mulhollan’s book “True Faith, True Light: The Devotional Art of Ed Stilley.”  

The event begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall. Polygraph Lounge, who have played with Paul Simon and Bob Dylan, will provide the music.

In his book, Mulhollan documents the life of Ed Stilley, a farmer from Hogscald Hollow, Arkansas, who created more than 200 musical instruments from found objects: a rusty door hinge, a steak bone, a stack of dimes, springs, saw blades, pot lids, metal pipes, glass bottles, aerosol cans—anything he could use to build a working guitar, fiddle, or dulcimer. On each instrument Stilley inscribed “True Faith, True Light, Have Faith in God.”

Mulhollan has collected some of Stilley’s hand-crafted instruments, which Polygraph Lounge’s Rob Schwimmer, Mark Stewart, and Melissa Fathman will play.

Tickets are $10. UA Little Rock and UA-Pulaski Tech faculty, staff and students get in free. Call 569-3294 or purchase online https://ualr.tix.com/

Friends of the Arts will host a reception with light hors d’oeuvres and beverages from 6:30–7:30 p.m.

This event, which is part of the Chancellor’s Concert Series, is sponsored by Arts & Letters Radio, KUAR, UA Little Rock Department of Music, The Friends of the Arts, The College of Arts, Letters and Sciences, and the College of Social Sciences and Communication.