Smiling Stone Soup is a publisher/producer of music, books, pottery, photographs and other materials on joyful awareness and good spirits. It is our hope that offering such materials will inspire "true smiles," showering us all in happiness and peace, one person at a time.

Jacqueline Comito

A native of Iowa, Dr. Jacqueline Comito is an anthropologist, recording artist, consultant, potter and writer.  She promotes social justice and mindful living through her music, work, and writings, reminding us of the inter-connectedness of our lives with each other, with our surroundings, with our spirituality and with the Divine.

Comito is a seasoned workshop organizer and leader, training community members on how to conduct their own community-based assessments and engage in social activism. She is currently the Associate Program Manager for the Iowa Learning Farm (Iowa State University), a project geared toward nurturing a stronger conservation ethics among Iowa farmers. Comito wrote and produced the video series A Culture of Conservation, that includes the award winning video Troubled Waters (with musical score by Joyful Hearts).

At the heart of Comito’s professional life is her creative spirit, expressed through her music and writing.  She is a cantor who combines her lyric achievements and superb musical gift with a deeply personal and informed understanding of liturgy, a gift she shares with others through leading cantor workshops throughout Iowa. Comito is a sought after public speaker on issues of faith, music, and the environment. In 2008, Comito gave a lecture “What Kind of Fool Am I?: Scholarship and Faith as a part of the Staley Distinguished Scholar Lecture Program at Union College in Barbourville, KY. In 2007 she was a keynote speaker at the Young Adult Ecumenical Forum on Environmental Justice, in Boston. 

In 2005 Comito formed the musical group Joyful Hearts by drawing to her a variety of local musicians, including pianist and composer Ann Staudt and percussionist Anthony Stevens.  Although at turns ecumenical and secular, Joyful Hearts is renowned for its ability to communicate the harmonious and synchronistic union with the sacred through both original pieces and musical adaptations spread across five different CDs.

 

ann k. staudt

Raised on a farm in northern Iowa, Ann Staudt actively seeks to blend scientific knowledge, creative expression and spiritual attention through her work, activism, and music performance.  Trained as a chemical and environmental engineer, Staudt understands that alterations in small-scale environments can have lasting effects on large ecosystems.  This perspective informs her current work with the Iowa Learning Farm and the promotion of conservation practices among farmers in her home state.

Staudt’s scientific and educational work is balanced and enhanced by her creative endeavors and spiritual practice.  An accomplished pianist and accompanist, Staudt has played in a number of sacred and secular venues, from serving as the pianist during Catholic mass to performing at Carnegie Hall.  Her recordings of original compositions and interpretations of sacred music appear on various CD recordings with the group Joyful Hearts. 

Most recently, her collaborations with Jacqueline Comito and musician/composer Todd Stevens on A Culture of Conservation video series have combined themes of environmental justice, musical liturgy and faith.  Staudt’s attention to the natural world through scientific observation is mirrored in her environmentally influenced award winning original compositions in which alterations in the landscape play out lyrically in her work.