This month sees a radical experiment among our local champions. It’s the logical next step in a community that has been quietly on the move for years. We forgot about them for a while. I blame the advent of the mp3 player and its shuffle mode – the very same invention that’s led us to…
Tag: art
Down to the Wire
This has become my annual thing. As the year winds to a close, every project I’ve started in the past 12 months suddenly weighs ten tons on my shoulders. It’s irrational because time isn’t real. The last day of December is as arbitrary a deadline as the fourth day in January or the nineteenth of…
You Had Us At Free Stuff
It would be killer if this event turned out to be huge. Iowa’s Latino population gets overlooked a lot. This month, the Figge is bringing back its Día de Muertos or Day of the Dead celebration. Unlike most things posted here, this one is totally family-friendly and a great alternative to some of the scarier…
Good Morning Midnight, Flat Black, and Other Dark Matters
Every fall, teenagers worldwide go off to college expecting to find a career and themselves. Most of what they find is disappointing. Like, instead of a road trip with a manic pixie dream girl, there’s an exciting if ill-advised romance with a lady who sticks her finger down her throat so she can drink more….
All Senses Will Rock All. Your. Senses.
“It’s the most unique fest going on in the QCA with a very left of center, diverse line-up… not aimed to please everyone, it is meant to be a boundary-pushing showcase of art.” That’s according to Jason Parris of RIBCO and Wake Brewing and possibly the most reliable dude in the area’s music industry. Hey,…
How to Carve Pipestone
The first time I carved a turtle from pipestone, it took me three hours. From the general shape to the beeswax sealant, I carved the turtle using a small pocket knife I’d found in a drawer of odds-and-ends. I didn’t have any specialized tools – I would learn about those later – or even a…
Secrets of Pipestone National Monument
Pipestone doesn’t feel like a part of Minnesota. It should be its own district. On the surface, it seems like a place for people who take too much medication to live in South Dakota but not enough to live any closer to Edina. And I think Iowa just confuses them. They don’t know what our…
Kitchi-manitou and Finding the Future in the Past
When I was a kid at summer camp, the counselors told us the story of Kitchi-manitou. It was an old Indian story, they said, about the creation of the world. I hated it because it made no sense. The beginning, for instance, saw Kitchi-manitou floating in an ocean talking to a turtle. “Wait,” I thought,…
Meet the Woman of a Thousand Muses
Heather Kanzaki has been called “Living Art.” At least, that was the title of the spread in Downtown that covered her June exhibition, and if that’s not what they meant, then I’ll make it official now: Heather Kanzaki is living art. Heather’s not posing there. That’s how she usually looks: active and engaged. She laughs…
“Art Will Save Your Life”
That’s something Chuck Knudsen used to say, and this is what he meant: For the past few months, I’ve been laying low and making things. It turns out that when I’m in a really dark place, I can’t write. I mean, I can, but nothing that’s honest or meaningful. Even now, I can’t describe the Really Dark…
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