"I live on a farm... in Lee County, Iowa... and this song is about dirt."
Showing posts with label Iowa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iowa. Show all posts
Friday, February 5, 2010
Friday, March 20, 2009
the collection arrives...
unless your head has been in the sand for a year, you know the horrible flooding that most of Iowa dealt with last summer has lead to a lot of the University of Iowa's Art Museum collection being packed up and shipped from temporary storage in Chicago to a short-term (few years) loan to Davenport's very own Figge Art Museum. i'm stoked to see some of these pieces hang on walls just 5 minutes from my front door.
here's the article:
U of I art on display now
everyone is drooling at the idea of seeing the Pollock. i saw it several years ago and yes, it's historically important, but.. i dunno... i'm more jazzed about the Joan Mitchell and the Yayoi Kusama. there's an amazing Motherwell on display too (saw it several years ago - very nice).
here's the list they've made public:
“Elegy to the Spanish Republic, No. 126,” Robert Motherwell
“Une Chapeau Nori sur une chaise jaune (Black Hat on a Yellow Chair),” Fernand Leger
“Edge,” Adolph Gottlieb
“Golden Enstrata,” Richard Pousette-Dart
“A Drop of Dew Falling from the Wing of a Bird Awakens Rosalie Asleep in the Shade of a Cobweb,” Joan Miro
“In a Village Near Paris (Street in Paris, Pink Sky),” Lyonel Feininger
“Spanierin (Spanish Woman or Spanish Woman with Mantilla),” Alexej von Jawlensky
“Karneval,” Max Beckmann
“The Blue Horse,” Marc Chagall
“Blue Interior with Two Girls,” Henri Matisse
“Flower Vase on a Table,” Pablo Picasso
“Red Painting No. 2,” Joan Mitchell
“Ramp,” Philip Guston
“Ocean Park, No. 17, 1968,” Richard Diebenkorn
“Abstract Painting,” Ad Reinhardt
“Red April,” Sam Gilliam
“Center Columns, Blue Red,” Leon Polk Smith
“Red No. 28,” Yayoi Kusama
“New York to Paris, No. 1, 1931,” Stuart Davis
“E,” Marsden Hartley
“Mural,” Jackson Pollock
“Portrait of H.M.,” Jackson Pollock
here are some images i've nabbed from google, in case you're unfamiliar with any of these:
Yayoi Kusama:
Robert Motherwell:
Joan Mitchell:
here's the article:
U of I art on display now
everyone is drooling at the idea of seeing the Pollock. i saw it several years ago and yes, it's historically important, but.. i dunno... i'm more jazzed about the Joan Mitchell and the Yayoi Kusama. there's an amazing Motherwell on display too (saw it several years ago - very nice).
here's the list they've made public:
“Elegy to the Spanish Republic, No. 126,” Robert Motherwell
“Une Chapeau Nori sur une chaise jaune (Black Hat on a Yellow Chair),” Fernand Leger
“Edge,” Adolph Gottlieb
“Golden Enstrata,” Richard Pousette-Dart
“A Drop of Dew Falling from the Wing of a Bird Awakens Rosalie Asleep in the Shade of a Cobweb,” Joan Miro
“In a Village Near Paris (Street in Paris, Pink Sky),” Lyonel Feininger
“Spanierin (Spanish Woman or Spanish Woman with Mantilla),” Alexej von Jawlensky
“Karneval,” Max Beckmann
“The Blue Horse,” Marc Chagall
“Blue Interior with Two Girls,” Henri Matisse
“Flower Vase on a Table,” Pablo Picasso
“Red Painting No. 2,” Joan Mitchell
“Ramp,” Philip Guston
“Ocean Park, No. 17, 1968,” Richard Diebenkorn
“Abstract Painting,” Ad Reinhardt
“Red April,” Sam Gilliam
“Center Columns, Blue Red,” Leon Polk Smith
“Red No. 28,” Yayoi Kusama
“New York to Paris, No. 1, 1931,” Stuart Davis
“E,” Marsden Hartley
“Mural,” Jackson Pollock
“Portrait of H.M.,” Jackson Pollock
here are some images i've nabbed from google, in case you're unfamiliar with any of these:
Yayoi Kusama:
Robert Motherwell:
Joan Mitchell:
Monday, January 28, 2008
William Elliott Whitmore, Iowan.
I first heard about Will some time ago when he was opening up & roadie-ing for Ten Grand, an Iowa City band fronted by someone I knew named Matt Davis. The story goes that after a while of being Ten Grand's roadie, Will was asked to open for their shows with a short set of his songs. I had heard that Will grew up listening to punk rock like Minor Threat and rap like Public Enemy, but was actually a horse farmer somewhere south of my brother's and sister's farms in Iowa. Due to those sort-of similarities between us and a quite probable crossing of other interests, I definitely wanted to learn more and even meet the guy to talk about the land's influence on his music/my art. But back then, which was around 7 or 8 years ago, I never got to see him perform.
Fast forward to about 2004, in Chicago, when I went to see a benefit show for Matt Davis' family (Matt passed away - another post, some other time). A variety of bands were playing to help raise money for funeral costs, and William opened up. Holy fuck was I blown away. There are quite a few videos of Will posted online nowadays, so if you are interested in seeing live footage, look on youtube. I simply wanted to post this 30 second clip of Will singing on top of a roof:
William Elliott Whitmore
dry
There you have it. William Elliott Whitemore. Punk rock Iowan with an otherworldly voice and soul for bluesey folk. Damn straight.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Iowa
(The italicized verses thrown in amongst my words below are excerpts from the poem "Prairie" by Carl Sandburg, taken from his 1918 collection "Cornhuskers.")
I was born on the prairie and the milk of its wheat, the red of its clover, the eyes of its women, gave me a song and a slogan.
yours truly. sister's farm, summer of 2004
i have a great affinity for the midwest. i've traveled all over the lower 48 — the pacific northwest, the desert of the southwest, the badlands of the dakotas, the heart of texas, our nation's capital, and so on — but it's the prairie lands of illinois and iowa that hold my heart. there's a Romantic tie that i have to the land. see, my brother and sister are iowa farmers, and i spent a lot of time on their land when i was younger. there's something very comforting about being out in the middle of a field, alone with the sound of the grass in the wind. as funny as it sounds, it's almost womb-like. there's a serenity here that i haven't found anywhere else on my travels outside of the midwest.
and i'm not alone.
despite the "brain drain" still happening (the exodus of recent graduates from Iowa higher educational institutes), it seems that the tide is turning in many areas around here. we've seen many iowa cities go through downtown revitalizations for the larger part of the last decade. world-class museums have popped up. downtown parks have been beautified. here in our stretch of mississippi river towns, an immense amount of cleanup has happened, and long bike paths with public art abound. the quality of life has risen, and all over iowa, there are 20- and 30-somethings who have decided to either never leave their home state, or to move back home after college or a hiatus of some sort. (i have gone through this myself - from the quad cities, to college, to chicago, and back home again, and i have seen this route personally in my circles of friends, and second-handedly on blog sites & news articles).
so, what is it about this that shocks people? why do people on the coasts seem to have such negative opinions about the midwestern lifestyle? what exactly do they picture going on here?
Here the water went down, the icebergs slid with gravel, the gaps and the valleys hissed, and the black loam came, and the yellow sandy loam.
Here between the sheds of the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians, here now a morning star fixes a fire sign over the timber claims and cow pastures, the corn belt, the cotton belt, the cattle ranches.
Here the gray geese go five hundred miles and back with a wind under their wings honking the cry for a new home.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water.
The prairie sings to me in the forenoon and I know in the night I rest easy in the prairie arms, on the prairie heart.
two from the essentials series. lambda print mounted to plexi. 2004. artist: me.
so, here we are. a place that some people fly over on their way to NYC or LA, look out the window, and perhaps give an inward laugh, thinking "what a vast amount of... nothing."
perhaps.
i've had close friends leave the quad cities permanently. they now reside in rapid city (south dakota), seattle, and tempe, and another plans to leave for minneapolis in a few months. some didn't want to go, but followed great schooling; some had an urge to leave that was more strong than any other yearning they had ever felt. and i certainly understand how each of them came to their decisions to leave. as much as i abhorred my 5+ years in chicago, i know the positives of big city life. but i can't understand the slight, nuanced statements i hear from them sometimes. these jabs are always innocuous, as they're coming from the closest friends in my life. but there's always some sort of a misunderstanding on their part — a buying into some stereotypes about the political climate here (it's not staunchly bible-thumping conservative), the "nightlife" (our downtowns have some pretty damn good food and drink establishments, as well as other entertainment), and the overall sense of the people back in their hometown area. even though we all got a kick out of the once-in-a-very-blue moon headline that read Two pigs on the Loose Captured in Downtown Davenport, i hope they understand things are pretty damn nice here.
Omaha and Kansas City, Minneapolis and St. Paul, sisters in a house together, throwing slang, growing up.
Towns in the Ozarks, Dakota wheat towns, Wichita, Peoria, Buffalo, sisters throwing slang, growing up.
a photo of the Quad City Swing baseball team, playing at John O'Donnell Stadium in downtown Davenport, Iowa. credit: Corey Lenger, taken from www.city-data.com
a before & after shot of the Crescent Macaroni Building in downtown Davenport, Iowa. The building now features some very nice rentals (some possibly condos) in that exposed-ceiling loft feel. credit: Chris "QCI" at Quad City images. for more compairson photos like this, go here.
a somewhat recent image of downtown Davenport, Iowa at night. credit to an unknown photographer, taken from the Absolute DSM forums
but enough about my friends' stories; they hold no true ill will. as i stated, i understand matters of personal taste in choosing one's living environment/locale. but there is a more acute, deliberate mocking of the midwest out there, and like anything of that nature, it's pretty sophomoric.
why do people think we don't have a liberal/progressive bone in our collective body? why are our cities pictured as dead, boring, and decrepit? why do farmers get portrayed as such backwards people in popular culture? i'm not trying to answer the question "is this heaven?" with the response "no... this is iowa" because there are some backwards folks, some shitty sections of town, and some nights where i wish there were more "culture" here. but you know what? you'll find a bit of those things anywhere.
in my iowa, there are atheist gatherings spawned by local meetup.com groups. there are $5 punk rock shows put on by 16 year old kids. there's a mortgage that doesn't kill me. there's a work commute is now 10 minutes instead of 2 hours (yes... that was one-way, people). there's a professional-class outdoor skate and bmx park. there are professional artists who have lived all over the country, yet settled here. you can drive for 10 minutes and suddenly be in the middle of the beautiful, midwestern prairie.
the list goes on and on.
so... to hell with the naysayers. let them poke fun. the joke's on them.
O prairie mother, I am one of your boys.
I have loved the prairie as a man with a heart shot full of pain over love.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water.
. . .
I speak of new cities and new people.
I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.
I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down,
a sun dropped in the west.
I tell you there is nothing in the world
only an ocean of to-morrows,
a sky of to-morrows.
I am a brother of the cornhuskers who say
at sundown:
To-morrow is a day.
an arial view of downtown Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa. credit to an unknown photographer, taken from the Absolute DSM forums
the best front yard in the world - i help my nephew build a swingset, circa 1999.
downtown Dubuque, Iowa. credit to an unknown photographer, taken from the Absolute DSM forums
not a bad way to grow up. my niece and nephew collect walking sticks, praying manti, and other bugs to give me a biology show.
I was born on the prairie and the milk of its wheat, the red of its clover, the eyes of its women, gave me a song and a slogan.
yours truly. sister's farm, summer of 2004
i have a great affinity for the midwest. i've traveled all over the lower 48 — the pacific northwest, the desert of the southwest, the badlands of the dakotas, the heart of texas, our nation's capital, and so on — but it's the prairie lands of illinois and iowa that hold my heart. there's a Romantic tie that i have to the land. see, my brother and sister are iowa farmers, and i spent a lot of time on their land when i was younger. there's something very comforting about being out in the middle of a field, alone with the sound of the grass in the wind. as funny as it sounds, it's almost womb-like. there's a serenity here that i haven't found anywhere else on my travels outside of the midwest.
and i'm not alone.
despite the "brain drain" still happening (the exodus of recent graduates from Iowa higher educational institutes), it seems that the tide is turning in many areas around here. we've seen many iowa cities go through downtown revitalizations for the larger part of the last decade. world-class museums have popped up. downtown parks have been beautified. here in our stretch of mississippi river towns, an immense amount of cleanup has happened, and long bike paths with public art abound. the quality of life has risen, and all over iowa, there are 20- and 30-somethings who have decided to either never leave their home state, or to move back home after college or a hiatus of some sort. (i have gone through this myself - from the quad cities, to college, to chicago, and back home again, and i have seen this route personally in my circles of friends, and second-handedly on blog sites & news articles).
so, what is it about this that shocks people? why do people on the coasts seem to have such negative opinions about the midwestern lifestyle? what exactly do they picture going on here?
Here the water went down, the icebergs slid with gravel, the gaps and the valleys hissed, and the black loam came, and the yellow sandy loam.
Here between the sheds of the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians, here now a morning star fixes a fire sign over the timber claims and cow pastures, the corn belt, the cotton belt, the cattle ranches.
Here the gray geese go five hundred miles and back with a wind under their wings honking the cry for a new home.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water.
The prairie sings to me in the forenoon and I know in the night I rest easy in the prairie arms, on the prairie heart.
two from the essentials series. lambda print mounted to plexi. 2004. artist: me.
so, here we are. a place that some people fly over on their way to NYC or LA, look out the window, and perhaps give an inward laugh, thinking "what a vast amount of... nothing."
perhaps.
i've had close friends leave the quad cities permanently. they now reside in rapid city (south dakota), seattle, and tempe, and another plans to leave for minneapolis in a few months. some didn't want to go, but followed great schooling; some had an urge to leave that was more strong than any other yearning they had ever felt. and i certainly understand how each of them came to their decisions to leave. as much as i abhorred my 5+ years in chicago, i know the positives of big city life. but i can't understand the slight, nuanced statements i hear from them sometimes. these jabs are always innocuous, as they're coming from the closest friends in my life. but there's always some sort of a misunderstanding on their part — a buying into some stereotypes about the political climate here (it's not staunchly bible-thumping conservative), the "nightlife" (our downtowns have some pretty damn good food and drink establishments, as well as other entertainment), and the overall sense of the people back in their hometown area. even though we all got a kick out of the once-in-a-very-blue moon headline that read Two pigs on the Loose Captured in Downtown Davenport, i hope they understand things are pretty damn nice here.
Omaha and Kansas City, Minneapolis and St. Paul, sisters in a house together, throwing slang, growing up.
Towns in the Ozarks, Dakota wheat towns, Wichita, Peoria, Buffalo, sisters throwing slang, growing up.
a photo of the Quad City Swing baseball team, playing at John O'Donnell Stadium in downtown Davenport, Iowa. credit: Corey Lenger, taken from www.city-data.com
a before & after shot of the Crescent Macaroni Building in downtown Davenport, Iowa. The building now features some very nice rentals (some possibly condos) in that exposed-ceiling loft feel. credit: Chris "QCI" at Quad City images. for more compairson photos like this, go here.
a somewhat recent image of downtown Davenport, Iowa at night. credit to an unknown photographer, taken from the Absolute DSM forums
but enough about my friends' stories; they hold no true ill will. as i stated, i understand matters of personal taste in choosing one's living environment/locale. but there is a more acute, deliberate mocking of the midwest out there, and like anything of that nature, it's pretty sophomoric.
why do people think we don't have a liberal/progressive bone in our collective body? why are our cities pictured as dead, boring, and decrepit? why do farmers get portrayed as such backwards people in popular culture? i'm not trying to answer the question "is this heaven?" with the response "no... this is iowa" because there are some backwards folks, some shitty sections of town, and some nights where i wish there were more "culture" here. but you know what? you'll find a bit of those things anywhere.
in my iowa, there are atheist gatherings spawned by local meetup.com groups. there are $5 punk rock shows put on by 16 year old kids. there's a mortgage that doesn't kill me. there's a work commute is now 10 minutes instead of 2 hours (yes... that was one-way, people). there's a professional-class outdoor skate and bmx park. there are professional artists who have lived all over the country, yet settled here. you can drive for 10 minutes and suddenly be in the middle of the beautiful, midwestern prairie.
the list goes on and on.
so... to hell with the naysayers. let them poke fun. the joke's on them.
O prairie mother, I am one of your boys.
I have loved the prairie as a man with a heart shot full of pain over love.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water.
. . .
I speak of new cities and new people.
I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.
I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down,
a sun dropped in the west.
I tell you there is nothing in the world
only an ocean of to-morrows,
a sky of to-morrows.
I am a brother of the cornhuskers who say
at sundown:
To-morrow is a day.
an arial view of downtown Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa. credit to an unknown photographer, taken from the Absolute DSM forums
the best front yard in the world - i help my nephew build a swingset, circa 1999.
downtown Dubuque, Iowa. credit to an unknown photographer, taken from the Absolute DSM forums
not a bad way to grow up. my niece and nephew collect walking sticks, praying manti, and other bugs to give me a biology show.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Coexistence
The world-traveling public art exhibition Coexistence opened up in Davenport this past Thursday night. Many people I've spoke with are considering it a special honor - we're the smallest metro area the show has gone to since its inception 6 years ago. Think about it - Jerusalem... Sarajevo... Cape Town... Quad Cities. Pretty cool. I was particularly looking forward to seeing it because I have a huge interest in peoples' shyness towards modern and contemporary art. If you didn't know, there is a bit of local apprehension about the show. Try as we might, the "cultural barometer" of this area means some aren't always ready for stuff like this. Even if the exhibit is not dangerously graphic or provocative, it still seems to have intimidated some people and caused a bit of fear or anger due to differing opinions or a lack of understanding. Or... well, hell, I suppose I'll go off here... or some people are just being moronic about it. Some local commentators in our online newspapers wrote acerbic rants about "liberal, elitist so-called 'art'" this-and-that. I can understand opinionated commentary on the artwork, or even talking about an over-the-top idealism, but frankly, I think some of these comments come from chicken shit knee-jerk reactions from close minded naysayers. If you have a problem with the "politics" of this show, come on... you've gotta write more eloquently about your stance.
So, enough about that. My wife and I checked the panels out this morning. I actually had a small part in setting up the signs, so I had seen all of them before the official unveiling, but wanted to really take my time looking at things while together, with her, on a non-work day. We both came away with the same thoughts... some panels' artwork was quite poor, some was quite strong. Same thing with the text panels beneath the art - some strong, some poor, and some seemingly placed without any contextual tie to the artwork. So, sometimes things paired up nicely, sometimes poorly. Regardless, we both had a strong emotional reaction to the show as a whole. The people with power around the world have to start understanding we all come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences, and not everyone worships your god, likes your economic model, agrees with your stance on abortion, etcetera.
Here's some pictures and a few of the quotes from the text panels below the art. Enjoy. Click on images for a larger view. And I have a feeling not many local bloggers read this, but if you come across this via a comment of mine on QCI or Cruiser or somewhere else, please feel free to drop your $.02.
"You know what the trouble with peace is? No organization. And when do you get organization? In a war. Peace is one big waste of equipment. Anything goes, no one gives a damn … I've been in places where they haven't had a war for seventy years and you know what? The people haven't even been given names. They don't know who they are! It takes a war to fix that. In a war, everyone registers."
- Bertold Brecht
"If the heart could think, it would stand still."
-Fernando Pessoa
"The time will come when the sun will shine only upon a world of free men who recognize no master except their reason; when tyrants and slaves, priests, and their stupid or hypocritical tools, will no longer exist except in works of history or on the stage"
- Condorcet
So, enough about that. My wife and I checked the panels out this morning. I actually had a small part in setting up the signs, so I had seen all of them before the official unveiling, but wanted to really take my time looking at things while together, with her, on a non-work day. We both came away with the same thoughts... some panels' artwork was quite poor, some was quite strong. Same thing with the text panels beneath the art - some strong, some poor, and some seemingly placed without any contextual tie to the artwork. So, sometimes things paired up nicely, sometimes poorly. Regardless, we both had a strong emotional reaction to the show as a whole. The people with power around the world have to start understanding we all come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences, and not everyone worships your god, likes your economic model, agrees with your stance on abortion, etcetera.
Here's some pictures and a few of the quotes from the text panels below the art. Enjoy. Click on images for a larger view. And I have a feeling not many local bloggers read this, but if you come across this via a comment of mine on QCI or Cruiser or somewhere else, please feel free to drop your $.02.
"You know what the trouble with peace is? No organization. And when do you get organization? In a war. Peace is one big waste of equipment. Anything goes, no one gives a damn … I've been in places where they haven't had a war for seventy years and you know what? The people haven't even been given names. They don't know who they are! It takes a war to fix that. In a war, everyone registers."
- Bertold Brecht
"If the heart could think, it would stand still."
-Fernando Pessoa
"The time will come when the sun will shine only upon a world of free men who recognize no master except their reason; when tyrants and slaves, priests, and their stupid or hypocritical tools, will no longer exist except in works of history or on the stage"
- Condorcet
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Really quickly, two photos...
I am actually planning on writing a long post today about my 4th of July holiday, but first, I wanted to quickly throw on 2 photos from the Quad City Times...
number one:
.
Steve Martens/QUAD-CITY TIMES Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee speaks with John Franzen, accountant at Genesis Medical Center-DeWitt, during a campaign visit Tuesday.
and number two:
.
(Larry Fisher/Quad-City Times) Former President Clintonl and U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., address the crowd during the Ready for Change Event in Davenport at the corner of 2nd and Main Streets
In a way, this has to do with what I want to write about today. Stay tuned.
number one:
.
Steve Martens/QUAD-CITY TIMES Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee speaks with John Franzen, accountant at Genesis Medical Center-DeWitt, during a campaign visit Tuesday.
and number two:
.
(Larry Fisher/Quad-City Times) Former President Clintonl and U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., address the crowd during the Ready for Change Event in Davenport at the corner of 2nd and Main Streets
In a way, this has to do with what I want to write about today. Stay tuned.
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