Making a Scene

In the January/February 2010 issue of The Iowan

Making a Scene

DES MOINES ARTISTS DEFY THE ODDS

[ Story by Jim Duncan | Photography by Paul Gates ]

Even after winning a Grammy and hitting the top of the Billboard charts, the nine-member heavy metal band Slipknot still maintains residences in Des Moines. Record-setting attendance at the Des Moines Art Center continues show after show, and the museum generates critically acclaimed traveling exhibitions when many museums have given up such endeavors. When filmmakers frequent the city, camera crews and calls for extras are commonplace. Public art features prominently in new business developments, and one of the nation’s grandest sculpture parks — the Pappajohn Sculpture Garden — turns heads between downtown’s two busiest streets. Sticks, a professional artistic design company, has expanded to a second area location, creating scores of jobs for artists. The state’s capital city has produced a sensational decade of art.

In the shadow of such ballyhooed events, Des Moines’ creative culture received perhaps its biggest boost when a group of painters gave the lie to a time-honored negative cliché — that a young artist had to choose between living off his art and living in Iowa. While the World War II and baby boomer generations produced original artists here, their art hardly ever provided a full-time profession. Richard Kelley pushed a broom at The Des Moines Register. Mary Kline Misol taught at North High School, Karl Mattern at Drake. Cornelis Ruhtenberg and Jules Kirschenbaum were rising art stars in New York but earned a living in Des Moines classrooms. Others artists left town. Larry Zox and Richard Bauer moved to New York City, Doug Shelton and Ellen Waggoner to the Southwest. That trend has changed.

Painters Pushing Boundaries
The emergence of Des Moines’ new artist community can be traced to March 2002. A dozen young painters, many Sticks employees, produced a trunk show — now legendary — that introduced central Iowa to a new generation of artists. Determined that area painters needed other painters for collaboration, critique, and support, Chris Vance brought together a group that Frank Hansen named Paintpushers. John Phillip Davis joined a year later.

Paintpushers met monthly to discuss one another’s art, rented space for an annual exhibition, and sold their art wherever they could — street fests, trunk shows, consignment galleries. Each artist contributed something different. Hansen came with a powerful motivating force. “When we started Paintpushers, we were all novices. Frank brought so much energy to the group that I felt I had finally met someone with real passion for their painting,” recalls Vance. “Frank told stories about his work, little personal histories behind each painting that brought out that passion.”

Davis brought polish to the group, taking Paintpushers to the Internet and inspiring more thoughtful nuances. “I remember the first time I looked at the sides and the back of one of John’s paintings. They were more professionally produced than the canvases of many other artists,” explains Hansen. “I was so impressed by that attention to detail that I started upgrading my materials and taking care with little things.”

Vance became the nurturer and mentor of the group. “Chris personifed Paintpushers. He did the background work of running the organization. He never missed a meeting or failed to help when asked,” recalls Hansen.

Vance still goes to every Paintpushers meeting, “Just in case I can help someone younger.”

Their talents, style, and artwork differ, but all agree on one common denominator: an Iowa work ethic. The artists said that they were all familiar with 100-hour work weeks. “It’s a cliché, but as different as we all are, we have it in common,” says Vance. “We are all workhorses.”

The Fourth Dimension
As is TJ Moberg. As a young sculptor in Des Moines at the turn of the 21st century, Moberg felt that his art was stuck in the rut of his own success. “For seven years I had worked back to back to back on commissions, mostly out-of-state. Each one took six months to a year. But I was re-creating the visions of my clients and I was tired of it,” he explains. “I hoped that owning a gallery was a means to more artistic independence.”

Vance, Hanson, and Davis were still making rotations in small galleries, trunk shows, and street fairs when Moberg and his wife, Jackie, opened Moberg Gallery in 2003. “I saw Chris’ work at Art House and I coveted it,” says Moberg, recalling the early days of a gathering critical mass. “I ran into John Phillip at various events. Jackie saw Frank’s work at Art Dive and told me I would love it.”

“And as soon as I got to know them, I knew that I wanted to be part of this gallery,” stresses Davis. “TJ and Jackie work harder than any [other] gallery owners I’ve met anywhere. And TJ really has a different way of looking at art — mostly because he’s an artist himself.”

Inside Moberg Gallery a new collaboration began. Thanks to mutual support, all four artists realized their dreams of making it in Des Moines before they turned 40. What’s more, after signing exclusive contracts with the Mobergs, the three painters did it with noncommercial, personal styles that central Iowans now recognize as brands. Bigger markets opened, too. Moberg Gallery added an annex in Beverly Hills, California, and the Internet has given its artists a wider audience.

“People in Chicago and Los Angeles look at the Moberg website and are totally impressed at all the good art and inevitably disbelieve that the gallery is in Iowa,” says Vance. The collaboration continues, with TJ now adding the voice of reason. He says that Vance and Hansen are more receptive to his advice than Davis.

“I tell John that a painting is perfect, and a week later I will go back to his studio and see that he has painted it over completely,” he says, soliciting a response from Davis.

“If someone likes one of my paintings too much, then it becomes theirs, not mine,” explains Davis. “I don’t have anything in my studio that I think is underdone.”

Vance, Hansen, and TJ say that Davis has a genius for conceptual discipline that they lack. “John knows exactly what he’s going to do two years in advance. I am working year by year,” says Vance.

“And I am minute to minute,” shares Hansen, with the others nodding in agreement.

Davis says each artist now has a distinctive brand but that they will always feed off each other.

“Chris is the one who’s seen as a local icon. People identify his work with the city. He’s the name artist. TJ is the gallery owner and the public artist. I’m the enigma, and Frank is the crazy artist,” he explains. “We’re packaged quite differently, but we are all afflicted with the same fetish — to make that which we love making and to figure a way to live off our labor.”

The Artists

Chris Vance


Chris Vance, 33, is the best-known and most collected artist in Des Moines. A hundred paintings often sell at his annual exhibitions at Moberg. He paints on all kinds of media in both narrative and abstract styles. Often his paintings are meant to be rearranged as segments of an ephemeral anthology. Known for bright, attractive colors, he calls his subjects a “diary of small things,” such as the tribulations of raising children and pets. Vance has won Best in Show or Best in Class at every major festival he’s entered. He had his first museum show last year at the South Dakota Art Museum.

Frank Hansen


Frank Hansen, 40, calls his art “Emotionalism” and combines words and subjects in ironic narratives and autobiographical reflections. He deals with modern Midwestern themes such as the transformation from rural to urban life. He paints with all kinds of media, from branding irons on buffalo hides to dynamic canvases moved by steering wheels. His work is collected by television stars and has appeared in Slipknot videos. Hansen was the subject of Mark Kneeskern’s 2009 documentary, Thank God I Sucked at Sports. He designs skiwear for Neve and now has a line of t-shirts with Raygun (formerly Smash) of Des Moines.

John Phillip Davis

John Phillip Davis, 41, paints very large, heavily layered abstractions dealing with conflict and tension — “Push and pull, chaos with a design,” in his words. The most philosophical of the group, he consciously paints to provoke ambiguous responses, both visceral and subliminal. Subjects can veer toward the holy and the demonic. Lately Davis has been working in tactile, three-dimensional paintings and sculptures. He shows biennially at Moberg Gallery.

TJ Moberg


TJ Moberg, 34, is best known for big, realistic sculptures, such as horses racing out of a wall at Prairie Meadows Racetrack & Casino, a larger-than-life race car outside the grandstand at the Iowa Speedway, and a larger-than-imagination DNA molecule at Des Moines University. He says he will never do anything like them again. His later sculptures are multifaceted abstractions with identifiable themes. They include a symbolic landscape installation at Mercy Wellness Center in Clive and The Homework Machine, a walk-through sculpture for the Marshalltown Library.

The Art
TJ Moberg


5 in One Swing	5 in One Swing (side view)	Pyramid Scheme

Regal Piece	Regal Piece (detail)

Most Popular		Most Popular (side view)

Harmony Line

Harmony Line (detail)	Voices

John P Davis


Temptation	Wisdom Fade	Passion

Cassanova	Spaceboy	Chastity

Befall

Thought	Chimera

Frank Hansen


Antelope Partybus		Rubber Ducky Nightmare



Heirloom		The Bomb

Tax Man		Home Is Where the Strangers Are

Nookyalur		Loretta’s Ouchie Surprise From Over Yonder