I’m back from the Des Moines Arts Festival and it was
wonderful—it never lets me down. It isn’t
just the community of art appreciators and collectors (over three hundred
thousand people attend)—they are pretty amazing—it’s the show’s philosophy,
organizers and hundreds of volunteers. The
Festival organizers are highly thoughtful, efficient and professional. Everything runs smoothly. The art fair dovetails with events in the
adjacent parks, bringing fireworks, concerts and even outdoor yoga to the long
weekend. Grand Funk Railroad headlined
the Saturday show, bringing an American Band to our town. The volunteers are constantly on the job,
bringing by water and snacks, squeegeeing the streets after a rain, or just asking
if there were things they could do to help.
The set-up window is long enough that we can leisurely put together the booth. I arrived to my two rented 500 pound weights
in place. They lie on either side of my
booth space so I can tie my art down to big rocks with handles and keep everything
from shifting around too much.
I passed over a very nice part of our trip to talk about the
festival, and that was a night spent with Ute, David and Simon in Iowa
City. Ute is a friend of Jim from
graduate school and they put together a nice salmon dinner for us on Wednesday
night. It makes the trip so much nicer
to spread it out and see friends.
Thursday breakfast brought fruits (white currants, strawberries, and
plums), rolls, and home made black currant chutney. Yum!
The best part was that Ute sent me home with a jar. She even visited us at the fair on Saturday with
a friend so we got to chat a little bit more.
One of the most popular pieces at Des Moines was my willow
piece. There’s always enough breeze to
keep the leafed branches swaying a little.
The movement draws in a lot of people to see the drama of the
piece. Many people admired the it, and a
few even came back to show friends the piece after it sold and were
disappointed. When the dust settled,
four pieces had found new homes. For me,
selling pieces has a few stages of realizations. First there is a very happy sensation to sell
the piece, then it’s a little sad, and then: oh crap! The reality of the next show looming on the
horizon sets in. In this case its
Madison, WI (Art Fair on the Square) and I need more pieces! That’s
the mental space where I am right now—work, work, work! I do pride myself on being organized and
prepared, though. Just for such a
contingency I had several pieces in various stages of completion when I arrived
home. I’ve been up early and working
late to complete three new pieces to take to Madison.
The first piece that I finally brought together is called ‘My
Roots’ I have been pushing the piece along, continually discovering that I needed
a few more vegetables to fill in a space or round out my vision. If you haven’t been following the blog, it is
a statement piece about root vegetables that tell the story of my roots. Some of them, such as sweet potatoes, are a
very recent addition to our family food repertoire. I didn’t grow up eating them. Others I can’t remember not eating, such as
kohlrabi. Radishes, of course, were the
first root vegetable seeds that we planted with the boys. Yellow onion, especially the skin, is my
favorite natural dye to work with because my grandmother first told me about
using them to dye Easter eggs.
The next piece to be finalized is called ‘Heirloom Tomatoes’. I did the weaving of the ground months ago
and incorporated all sorts of objects that families pass down, which is part of
a family’s history. Sometimes objects
mean something to only one person. For
example, I have my grandfather’s stage make-up set as a treasured keepsake. He was a bass in the Czech opera, and the
make-up case was passed to him from his uncle.
While that’s not in my weaving, I do have objects such as fishing lures
that are an important part of my husband’s family. The weaving includes an old rusty lure with
hooks filed down that used to belong to my husband’s grandfather. The sewing bobbin in the piece reminds me of
my great grandmother the seamstress. Actually,
the origin of the composition began when I discovered a tailor’s circular knife
at the Recycle Center. I wondered what
it’s story was (the boys thought it was an old pizza cutter). I knew it belonged in my piece. Another item in the background is a hair
curler. My family went to an estate sale
in our neighborhood and discovered the tools of the trade in a hairdresser’s
estate. One of the extensive collections
for sale involved hair curlers. I told
the daughter that I planned to use them in a weaving. That got me thinking about Fonzie from Happy
Days and his famous comb, along with my childhood combs. The piece also features objects that were
essential but are now obsolete, such as film spool winders and a skeleton key. In my ‘Heirloom Tomato’ piece, the plant is
an heirloom because it springs up from its family history, not that the variety
is truly an heirloom in the eyes of a gardener.
My third piece is called 'Tired Tree'. As a kid I always dreamed of lazy summer days
as I imagined them from books. I wanted a
swing on a tree that traveled out over the water from which I could leap into a
cool lake. The best I could do now is to
create that experience for myself. I
also enjoyed the unexpected materials that surprised me as perfect for the piece. I created the tire from a small section of
core material used to create the piping on the edge of furniture. I wrapped it with black yarn and glued three
rows of shoelaces to create the tire tread.
A very thin shoelace forms the lip of the inside tire rim. If only I could be five inches tall, ever so
briefly—I’d have a great time on my swing!
The drive home from Des Moines was long, bringing us home
late Monday night. We did find a
delightful restaurant in Crawfordsville, Indiana, called the Barefoot Burger. What a fun place! We’ll be back after the next show on the
road. The sad part of weekend art fairs
is missing the Saturday farmer’s market in Bloomington. What ever could I do to get a much-deserved pie? Fortunately, in a stroke of husbandly
brilliance, Jim brought me to the Tuesday afternoon Farmer’s Market. Lo and behold they still had tart
cherries! Three boxes of late-season ripe
tart cherries and the wheels were in motion.
Jim pulled out his pitting tool (thanks Grandma!) and by morning we had
a pie. Of course there were several pie
filling units in the freezer, but I thought I might not get one in season this
year. Hooray! Now the bad news—I finished my last slice of
pie this morning. It was an amazing tart
pie, but now its just a distant memory.
I wonder what the next farmer’s market will bring? Which berries are blue and tasty in a
pie?
Until next week, or sometime soon,
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