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In the January/February 2010 issue of The Iowan
SPECIAL SECTION
Arts Abound
Plentiful offerings span the state.
To download a PDF of this section CLICK HERE
arts eastern
Riverside Theatre
Iowa City’s resident professional theatre brings theater lovers a regular season in-house of mostly contemporary works (September–April) and an outdoor summer Shakespeare Festival in Lower City Park, Iowa City.
319-338-7672
www.riversidetheatre.org
UNI Museums
Discover. Learn. Be inspired. Explore exhibits of nature and culture at the University Museum, 3219 Hudson Road, Cedar Falls. Visit our authentic one-room schoolhouse on UNI’s campus.
319-273-2188
www.uni.edu/museum
Expressions of Nature Photography
Expressions of Nature Photography is an online gallery featuring the work of Rob Haman. Based in Solon, Iowa, Haman travels North America in pursuit of dramatic natural subjects.
319-848-2164
www.robhamanphotography.com
There’s Something about Fairfield
Discover a dynamic mix of art and entertainment in Fairfield. See a show at the Sondheim, visit the galleries at 1st Fridays Art Walk. Find yourself in Fairfield.
TravelFairfieldIowa.com
The University of Iowa Press
Established in 1969, the University of Iowa Press celebrates 40 years of publishing books of poetry and short fiction, and creative nonfiction. As the only university press in the state, U of I Press is dedicated to preserving the literature, history, culture, wildlife, and natural areas of the Midwest.
800-621-2736
www.uiowapress.org
13th Annual Northeast Iowa Artists’ Studio Tour, Oct 1–3, 2010
Scenic, free, drive-yourself tour during fall color — all within 35 miles of Decorah. Iowa’s largest, oldest studio tour, a behind-the-scenes view of the creative process and workspaces.
1-800-463-4692
www.IowaArtTour.com
Quad Cities Convention and Visitors Bureau
Experience the art and culture of the Quad Cities by choosing the “Artfully Fun and Musically Inspiring” travel itinerary from our website.
800-747-7800.
www.visitquadcities.com
Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center
at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. Featuring renowned artists such as Itzhak Perlman and Broadway hits like Mamma Mia and Avenue Q.
877-549-SHOW (7469)
www.gbpac.org
Putnam Museum/IMAX Theatre
Explore history and science in one of the region’s most-loved venues! Combining learning and fun, it’s a unique, multi-sensory experience. “Entertainment for your mind.”
1717 W. 12th St., Davenport
563-324-1933
www.putnam.org
 Iron and Lace Shop
Find unique, handmade, original works of art featuring Queen Anne’s Lace
pottery, Governor’s Pitchers, weavings, and ironwork. Workshops and classes are also available. Located at Walnut Street and Hawk Drive in Bentonsport, Van Buren County, Iowa. Open seven days April–November, by appointment December–April.
319-592-3222
www.ironandlace.com
Villages Folk School
Classes include hands-on learning in arts and crafts, fine arts, nature study, and traditional time-honored skills relating to the home in scenic Van Buren County. 319-592-3400
www.villagesfolkschool.com
National Czech & Slovak Museum
New location in historic Czech Village opens in March 2010. New exhibition, Rising Above: The Story of a People and the Flood, museum store, and more! Learn more at www.NCSML.org
arts central
Des Moines Metro Opera
With subscriptions starting at $99 and performances of The Marriage of Figaro, Macbeth, and Susannah, the time is always right for grand opera!
515-961-6221
www.desmoinesmetroopera.org
John Wayne Birthplace
Home to world-famous movie star John Wayne, born Marion Robert Morrison in 1907. The restored 4-bedroom home displays an impressive collection of John Wayne memorabilia. Guided tours are given daily, 10:00 a.m.–4:30p.m. Admissions $6.00 Adults and $5.00 for Seniors (60 plus) $2.00 for Kids (12 and under)
216 South 2nd Street, Winterset
515-462-1044 or 1-877-462-1044
www.johnwaynebirthplace.org
Des Moines Playhouse@91
Our 91st and best season yet. Buy your tickets today for 2010 performances
831 42nd St., Des Moines
515-277-6261
dmplayhouse.com
Central Iowa Blues Society
Enjoy great live blues! The Botanical Blues Series runs Sundays in January and February at the Des Moines Botanical Center. The 2010 Winter Blues Fest is January 30 in Des Moines.
www.cibs.org
Des Moines Social Club
You are a member! This is a space for all Iowans to participate in their hometown arts scene. Congregate, drink, take a class, have a conversation.
515.288.1461
www.desmoinessocialclub.org
arts western
Glenn Miller Festival
Reconnect with the Big Band sound in Clarinda. Hear great bands and meet Glenn Miller fans from around the world. Make it a weekend to remember!
712-542-2461
www.glennmiller.org
Arts on Grand
A multidisciplinary art center with exhibit gallery, studios, and gallery shop featuring Midwestern artists, informal performance, classes, and workshops. Special events throughout the year. Located in the heart of Spencer’s Historic District and Cultural District.
408 N. Grand Ave., Spencer
712-262-4307
email: info@artsongrand.org
www.artsongrand.org
 Iowa Arts Council
“Live the Arts in Iowa” is a campaign to connect and promote the arts across our state! There are wonderfully rich programs, projects, performances, exhibits, and school programs happening every day, and “Live the Arts in Iowa” can be a spotlight to shine on them. Download the logo from our website and use it to show that what you do is part of the big arts picture in Iowa.
www.iowaartscouncil.org
The Museum of Religious Arts
The Museum offers a variety of religious exhibits, some on a rotating basis and others that are permanent. Located in Logan.
712-644-3888
www.mrarts.org
 explore
Fort Dodge’s first fine art exhibit in 1923 consisted of borrowed paintings hung temporarily in the local YWCA gymnasium. Today’s Blanden Art Museum — opened in 1933 as Iowa’s first facility built to showcase the arts — boasts an impressive permanent collection, with works ranging from the painted canvas of Miró to the photographic essay of W. Eugene Smith to the sculpted glass of Dale Chihuly. “We have a world-class visual arts collection,” says the museum’s Executive Director Margaret Skove. “Small but world class.”
As curator, Skove strives to offer visitors a diverse mix of artistic styles and mediums and also a wide range of minds behind the art. Exhibits strike a balance between nationally known artists and accomplished Iowa artists. Programs include hands-on youth and adult art classes (always a waiting list), master classes for art teachers, visiting artists, and musical performances. “Rarely do you find a museum that spends [more than 50 percent] of its budget on exhibitions and education. Usually more is devoted to development, marketing, and operations,” explains Skove, highlighting a small museum staff that must wear many hats. “We do so because we can’t provide learning opportunities — our main mission — without having more than a sign saying “This is what you’re looking at” with a date. We try to put things in context for visitors.”
Visitors like the 869 4th graders from five counties who after studying artists and artwork in the classroom visited the Blanden for the real deal, experiencing Andy Warhol’s, Rembrandt’s, or Grant Wood’s mind. “The art may be about a different culture or a different part of the world, but we connect it to this time and place.”
Blanden Art Museum
920 Third Avenue South
Fort Dodge
515-573-2316
www.blanden.org
experience
Sioux City’s historic Orpheum Theatre, built in 1927, was once a stop on the Orpheum Circuit — a chain of associated venues across the country that attracted regional and national performance tours — and presented a wide range of entertainment, from vaudeville acts to symphony concerts to Fred Astaire. It was transformed into a movie house in the ‘70s and ‘80s before finally shutting
its doors in 1992.
A grassroots preservation and renovation movement restored the Orpheum to its former glory, and beginning in 2001 its stage again welcomed a diverse repertoire: the Sioux City Symphony, Broadway hit shows, ROCKESTRA, Bob Dylan, David Copperfield, Willie Nelson, Jerry Seinfeld. Even Godsmack.
Performances arrive on the Orpheum stage through a multifaceted decision-making process that considers market demographics, ticket sales history, name recognition, performer preference, and audience experience, explains Erika Newton, who books shows for the Orpheum as well as Sioux City’s Tyson Events Center and Convention Center. Still, it isn’t an exact science. “You can’t say with certainty what’s going to work and what’s not,” says Newton, who points to the phenomenal and somewhat unexpected success of hard rock concerts — some complete with mosh pit — in the refined theater. “There really isn’t anything that hasn’t worked at the Orpheum.”
That the Orpheum can accommodate such diverse audiences speaks to the role of the theater in the community, explains Newton. “People feel some kind of ownership, and they really do respect it. Locally there’s a lot of pride in that venue,” she says. “The Orpheum is our jewel.”
And its value can be measured by related economic impact; the stage draws an audience from not only Sioux City but the surrounding regions, including South Dakota and Nebraska, to visit restaurants, hotels, shops, even gas stations. The impact on quality of life may be more difficult to measure but vitally important. “A venue like the Orpheum can assist the community in drawing people to live here, to work here,” stresses Newton, pointing out one of the top priorities for young professionals choosing a community — the level and variety of culture and entertainment. “It’s a huge advantage. People look at Iowa in a different way.”
The Sioux City Orpheum
528 S. Pierce Street, Sioux City
www.orpheumlive.com
 learn
Complex times and busy lives have disconnected most of us from both our past and our creative side, says Betty Printy, co-proprietor of Iron and Lace in Bentonsport. “We all have these artistic talents, but the fast pace stifles it.”
At the Villages Folk School, where Printy teaches classes in pottery and weaving, and her husband, Bill, shares blacksmithing techniques, students can reconnect with traditional arts and skills through hands-on learning with Iowa artisans. “We’re teaching the old-time crafts that were a way of life when people moved slower, when times were more peaceful,” says Printy.
The school has not one location but many; students learn to paint, quilt, forge, sculpt, spin, cane, draw, weave, and more at various historic locations throughout the Villages of Van Buren. “The whole county is the campus,” explains Printy. “When you come here, you slow down.”
Villages Folk School
Bonaparte
319-592-3400
www.villagesfolkschool.com
 discover
A dozen half-body torso mannequins, each garbed in unique style, greeted visitors to downtown Fairfield this past summer. The Fairfield Art Association and the Fairfield CVB invited organizations and individual artists to produce art installations — each a manifestation of “My Fair(field) Lady” — and exhibited the creative works in new downtown flower nodes along city streets during monthly First Friday Art Walks and the summer Garden Walk. Each finished mannequin, incorporating a variety of recycled materials, had to be secured in position and able to withstand outdoor elements.
Fairfield artists Debbie Pogel, Kasie Clemmons, Julie Blum, and Stacey Hurlin melded their creative minds and skills, stirring in broken dishes and tiles, to create Flower Thoughts. “It was a wonderful collaborative experience of putting four artists’ vision and talents together. The result became more, somehow, than any of us might have individually created,” says Hurlin, owner of Emerald Gallery. “We thought we had an idea of where were going, but the mosaic mannequin certainly had a destiny of her own.”
A Peoples Choice Award, Name the Ladies contest, and silent auction — with proceeds benefiting FAA and participating nonprofits — invited the public to participate in and celebrate the arts in their community. The competition was fierce, with the Peoples Choice ending in a three-way tie honoring the artistry behind Spiky Party Dress, a work of aluminum, poultry netting, and duct tape; Athena, Goddess of Wisdom & War, using more aluminum plus Stryrofoam and bedsheets; and Flower Thoughts.
Fairfield Art Association
Fairfield Arts & Convention Center
200 North Main Street
Fairfield
www.fairfieldacc.com/artgallery.html
 work
With a degree in education, Janie Westendorf was sure she was supposed to be a teacher. And for a while she was. But as her basement filled with the costumes she created for her kids, and then for their friends, a different career path emerged.
“I should have named the business True Serendipity — because it was,” says the creative mind behind Westendorf Costume Emporium in Keota.
For two decades Westendorf has imagined, then cut and stitched the wardrobe elements that have heightened time, place, and storytelling for high schools, colleges, community theater, and opera. After being hired for a production, Westendorf starts inventing. “I don’t do a lot of designing on paper,” she explains. “I do it when I have fabric in front of me.”
Over the next several months she’ll research period and setting, pour over color swatches, and find inspiration in a crowded workspace filled with shelves of books, bolts of fabric, tubs of patterns, spools of lace, carts of leather, and cupboards packed with scissors, buttons, and trims. “You never know where you’ll get your creative needs met,” says Westendorf, whose imagination may be stirred by a children’s book or a YouTube video.
Whether the graceful kimonos of Madama Butterfly for the Cedar Rapids Opera or the dust-laden work shirts of Grapes of Wrath for West Des Moines Valley High, it all begins with dreaming, she insists. “Artists — we’re different. I don’t think our concerns are the concerns of the rest of the world,” adds Westendorf. “You have to be a dreamer.”
Westendorf Costume Emporium
Keota
641-636-2099
 enrich
How do you live the arts in Iowa?
The question, stresses the Iowa Arts Council, asks Iowans to recognize how the arts impact their quality of life. Even, or perhaps especially, during challenging economic times, the arts fuel the state’s creative economy, complement and leverage main-street business, and enhance and improve education and health care. With that understanding, a new Live the Arts in Iowa campaign aims to both promote and connect the breadth of arts and cultural offerings throughout the state.
“Everyone is always trying to combat the notion that there’s nothing going on in Iowa,” says the Council’s Sarah Ekstrand, describing consistent feedback from arts organizations and artists themselves. “This campaign helps raise awareness and tie [local arts activity] to the big picture.” The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
The campaign is being grown virally through social media like Facebook, where an ad contest is underway, and through message-stamped materials (notepads, magnets, pens) available through the Iowa Arts Council. Ekstrand stresses that Live the Arts is less about a coordinated effort led by the Council and much more about generating an ongoing statewide conversation that underscores the myriad ways that the arts permeate our lives. While crafting a recognizable Iowa brand is a goal, that recognition — whether by the symphony conductor in Waterloo or the firefighter in Clarinda or the tourist in Illinois — can happen at a very personal level.
“I am living the arts in Iowa,” says Ekstrand, echoing the discovery she hopes all Iowans will make. “And all these experiences are important to me.”
Through technical assistance, financial support, and statewide promotion, the Iowa Arts Council helps individual artists recognize opportunities, and helps communities assess cultural needs, develop public arts, bring artists into school classrooms, and preserve folk and traditional arts. www.iowaartscouncil.org.
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