My friend Amy’s felt book, So Pretty! Felt is out, and I wanted to share the trailer a few friends made for it’s debut.
It’s extra awesome when talented, creative ladies make something magical like this. Way to go, Katie and Bethany!
A bunch of craft bloggers are doing “So Pretty! Felt” book-related posts, if you’re interested.
Filed under Arts and awesomeness, Books
If you celebrate Easter, I hope it’s a happy one! The worst thing about growing up is that no one is going to leave a chocolate bunny in my room for me to wake up to on Sunday.
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A year ago, I made peep sushi with Mia. Your Easter feast might need some, too.
Is there anything more adorable than a disabled dwarf pony named Bunny getting surgery to walk and run? Cute overload (with video!) thanks to my alma mater, Mizzou.
Can I justify these red Madewell Holepunch sandals by promising to wear them every day of summer?
This Iowa City barn featured on The Moon & The Honey is a rustic wedding venue dream come true. Obsessed.
I feel like maybe a Wiksten tank would be a good foray into sewing things for myself? Jenny is based in Iowa City now, too.
One of my personal goals is to become a strong facilitator, and Gamestorming was recommended to me as a resource by the always engaging Mike Wagner. I’m digging the book. Mike’s the kind of guy who is extremely well-read and intelligent, but always comes off as curious instead of as a know-it-all.
Filed under Arts and awesomeness
I’m not a very good party-all-night person. I think I made it to 1 a.m. a couple of weeks ago, to see my friend Andy DJ at the Mews, thanks to Shirley Temples, his power pop playlist and a good crowd, but staying up has been a struggle lately. (I’m going to attempt to blame it on the bump and night classes, but I’m pretty sure I’m just solidifying my status a lame old lady.) So it’s been awhile since I’ve seen a live show, and possibly longer since I’ve seen an artist I wasn’t already familiar with.
Enter, the concert lunch date!
Joe and I met up at the Temple for Performing Arts yesterday for “Lunch Unplugged.” We went to see Mieka Pauley.
I’d never heard of her, but was intrigued by how the series described her as a singer/songwriter whose “powerful alternative style melds together soul, blues, and rock, drawing comparisons to the likes of Ben Harper, Cat Power, Neko Case and Patty Griffin. She is the winner of the first ever Starbucks Emerging Artist Award, the Rocky Mountain Folk Festival Songwriter Showcase and the Rock Boat/BMI Song Contest. Mieka has performed over 650 shows in the past four years including bills with Eric Clapton, Jason Mraz, Citizen Cope, Wyclef Jean, Black Eyed Peas, John Legend and many others. Northeast Performer calls Mieka ‘a version of Sarah McLachlan with a switchblade in her shoe’.”
It was a fun show! I’m honestly not a huge fan of the Temple’s second floor stage as a concert venue (it feels really rigid and overly polite for some of the acts I’ve seen there), but it’s right upstairs from South Union. Of course, in the winter that means a hot sandwich and a big bowl of potato pepperjack soup, which is on my shortlist of things I miss about working downtown.
Mieka has a dark sense of humor that she kept up in her between-song-banter and the lyrics themselves. She struck me as sounding like a rebellious sister of Norah Jones who I could imagine sneaking out of a bedroom window at 2 a.m. with a guitar slung over her shoulder, headed out to play a show at an underground bar in the city. Listen Mieka’s Daytrotter session.
Check out the rest of the series, which includes piano, dance, opera, Americana and and another female singer/songwriter at desmoinesperformingarts.org/LunchUnplugged. (Tickets are $8 in advance, $10 at the door and you can BYO lunch.)
Filed under Arts and awesomeness, Des Moines Dates, I love Des Moines
My favorite childhood memories with my dad involve sawdust. He was an architect, and we had a basement workshop and tool-lined walls in the never-tidy garage. I remember spending hours sawing projects and hammering things before my mom would call us up for dinner. (I was obsessed with the idea of owning a pig after the movie “Babe” came out, and so he and my brother and I made these crude wooden “pigs” — complete with cardboard snout and googly eyes.) I also remember him making a flippy wooden toy acrobat. Although my brother, an engineer, seemed to inherit my dad’s drafting skills, I think I got his propensity to leave a project 3/4 finished and to eyeball measurements instead of using a ruler and level. Ha!
When I heard about some people in Des Moines opening a new maker space, “Area 515,” I wanted to check it out.
When I heard about some people in Des Moines opening a new maker space, “Area 515,” I wanted to check it out. Joe and I swung by the Saturday open house this past weekend. It’s in the Whittier art collective building, the crumbling old school over off E. 14th where Sensory Overload took place in May. I think I was expecting the space to be a liiiittle more finished for the open house, but it’s definitely a cool concept that I hope gains resources and momentum. Plus, I got to see a 3-D printer in action for the first time!
There was a guy there playing an acoustic guitar and singing about robots. Totally geektactular. Area 515 is working on gaining official nonprofit status, and the idea is that members will purchase either one month or one-year passes to key into the space. They’re collecting tools with the idea that they’ll do more good in a shared space than they would in the basements and garages of members. It will be especially cool for apartment-dwellers jonseing to make things.
The other added benefit of a space like this is the way that collective knowledge and mentorship can happen organically. (Sarah of Craft-a-Day once told me about the Des Moines Woodworkers Association, which she says is another awesome resource.) Maker Spaces are gaining steam all over the place, so it’s cool for a group to take the lead bringing the concept here. Rochester has one, so does Milwaukee, Dallas, etc. MAKE zine has a nice little list.
What tools/ classes do you wish were available through a local maker space?
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This is completely unrelated, but I can’t believe I hadn’t yet thought about making a gourd into a manatee before. Genius. Next Halloween.
Filed under Arts and awesomeness, I love Des Moines
It’s only mid-week, but I’m looking forward to a semi-relaxed weekend at home. Two of my fall weekends have been taken up by grad class, but I have this one free and Joe and I are taking advantage. I continue to be amazed by how FULL Des Moines’ calendar is. Sometimes it stresses me out that I can’t be at every amazing event going on.
Friday night, we’re heading to the Art Noir Pollock Ball, which a bunch of my friends worked hard to put together.
Photo via LIFE archive
I’m resisting the urge to shop for a new outfit, even though the dress I have is more impressionist than abstract. But I think it fits the vintage glam bill, no?
Perhaps I’ll just have to create a Pollock-inspired hair piece to go with it. I’m thinking of paint splattering one of those mini canvases and gluing it to a fascinator. We’ll see how much crafting time and artistic ability I can pull together before Friday night.
Then Joe and I want to swing by the Confluence Brewing Company open house on Saturday afternoon.
They poured at our Brews&Brownies event in September and their Blonde beer was super interesting — in a good way. It has an almost tropical aftertaste. Ken, one of the co-owners was also extremely generous and seems like a great guy. Joe belongs to the Iowa Brewers Union, and it’s inspiring to see people who started as home brewers open a facility like Confluence. I also love that it’s right on the bike trail and check out their cans: I think I spy local art on them. Is that Van Holmgren’s painting adorning Capital Gold? Sure is!
Nicely done, Confluence. According to this, the live music starts at 7 p.m. for the Oct. 20 Grand Opening.
Looking for something more family friendly this weekend? Check out the Salisbury House “Mysteries of the Castle” event.
Filed under Arts and awesomeness, I love Des Moines
What says 60th birthday more than female bonding and folk crafts? In honor of my mom, the Kelley women headed to Wisconsin this past weekend for a workshop at East Troy Basketry and made this:
It took the whole day. I documented the process for my Instagram followers:
The women who run the studio were super sweet and introduced us to all kinds of basketry lingo. We found the experience ripe for the pun-making. 
It’s pretty cool to see something take shape from a pile of reeds. 
Seriously going to appreciate basket arts (I got scolded for calling it a “craft”) a lot more after eight hours of working on this!
It was a rare day to have all of the women (sans my cousin Katie, who was running the San Francisco Women’s Marathon) together, being creative. It was the perfect way to spend a rainy fall Wisconsin day. 
Filed under Arts and awesomeness
Joe and I were lucky enough to snag tickets (thanks Sophia!) to Des Moines Symphony 75th Anniversary Season Debut. We got to hear the newly commissioned piece “Symphony In Sculpture,” which was inspired by the John and Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park. I thought that was particularly fun, because so often you look into a program booklet and see 19th century Russians with crazy awesome mustaches. But here was something so close, so contemporary, being brought to life on violin strings and through the crash of cymbals.
Plus, I couldn’t believe when I read in the program that the Minnesota composer Steve Heitzeg sometimes uses MANATEE BONES in his work:
At first I was shocked and appalled, but then I figure that the manatees probably perished naturally or from their #1 foe, motor boats, so it was actually rather beautiful. What manatee, in its wildest marine mammal dreams, would imagine participating in a symphony?
The music was paired with video images of the sculptures, which was a neat touch. I think my favorite movement was the one that was inspired by Juno & Ancient Forest because it utilized some interesting percussion. Michael Morain wrote up a much more knowledgeable review, if you’re interested. He also has a great blog post with snippet samples performed by Des Moines Symphony trombonist Casey Maday.
It was Joe’s first symphony and we got to sit next to Karen and Arin, plus eat celebratory 75th anniversary symphony cupcakes afterward!
Photo via the DM Symphony Facebook page
Going to see the Des Moines Symphony at least once should be on everyone’s bucket list. Adult tickets start at right around $15, and even if you’re in the back row and don’t know your Engelbert Humperdink from Franz Liszt, you can appreciate the beauty of the music. Check out the rest of the landmark season lineup at dmsymphony.org.
Filed under Arts and awesomeness, I love Des Moines, music
I need this:
Float print by Jennifer Davis, who just so happens to be from the Midwest. (woo!)
You guys know about my 20+ year manatee obsession, right? I’m not kidding. It’s borderline awkward. Proof? This is my second ever Facebook profile photo. Someone photoshopped it of me. I was originally holding a lamp I made from a ReadyMade pattern.
There’s so much more where that came from.
Life goal: Do this before I turn 30.
Filed under Arts and awesomeness
I’ll admit: That title is a bit of a tease, because I only have a photo of one other piece to show you today! I took a bunch more as promised, but they haven’t made the jump from camera to computer yet. It’s been a flurry of activity around these parts.
This piece is mega-meaningful, because Joe’s sister Molly made it for us as a wedding gift. Molly is a preschool teacher who has a serious crafty streak. It might be hard to tell from the photo, but this is a collage made of tiny pieces of paper she cut and glued in the shape of our house, down to the weather vane! The shingles are separate pieces, and the window cutouts are intricate. We have this hanging next to our front door in the entry; it’s one of my most favorite gifts I’ve ever received. And, if you haven’t seen a picture of my house yet, this snowy one should prove that the tiny paper replica is pretty darn accurate!
Molly even put the photo* that Joe and I used in our newspaper-themed wedding invitations in the doorway. *Taken by our friend Bethany.
So, not quite the house tour I promised yet, but both of these fit the wedding theme!
P.S. When my bestie Amanda got married this summer, we sent her and her husband this and this poster as a gift, because they live in and own several awesome rental properties in the Tower Grove neighborhood of St. Louis. Noah MacMillan did both of them, and he was excellent to work with!
Filed under Arts and awesomeness, At home
In atypical traditionalist fashion, I knew I wanted to take part in the custom of spousal-wedding-gift-giving when Joe and I were married two years ago. A watch seems like the typical token of sentiment for the occasion, but I wanted my gift to have a little more individual meaning. When I saw this piece by Jeff “Buffalo” Bonker, I knew investing in original art that we could share in our home would be a great way to celebrate our commitment:
It felt like a fit for a bunch of reasons, like the fact that Joe is an ardent Cubs fan, that our house was once owned by Sec Taylor, the famed Des Moines Register sports editor after whom Principal Park was originally named (it’s still Sec Taylor Field), and that the artist was a colleague when Joe and I met working at the Register. Plus, with the gold dome of the Capitol in the background, if we ever leave Des Moines we’ll be able to take a landmark with us. And I thought it was just plain cool, especially since it’s acrylic painted on wood and has some heft to it. I talked with Bonker about the piece, which I first saw on his Facebook page, and we were able to work out a deal that fit my budget. I’d purchased art on Etsy before, but this felt like a real investment in a local artist, and it was exciting! I knew Joe would love it, too.
Fast forward and it turns out I chose an award-winning painting. Bonker submitted an image of the work for inclusion in the Des Moines 2011 Performance Report, and it won People’s Choice!
Bonker was able to pop by and borrow back his painting back for a couple days to get some higher quality images, and I get to be tickled that the Iowa Cubs wanted to buy it from him, but he had to tell them it was mine! Sounds like there might be a commission in the works. When I ran into him at Americana the other day, Bonker told me that he’s recently moved into the Fitch Building, where he’ll finally have a studio, and is newly represented by Kavanaugh Gallery. It’s exciting to see passionate people gain momentum like that.
I’m already running out of space, and there are a bunch of local artists I still want to purchase. I’ll follow up this post with some stories of other art we’ve acquired (on a budget) for our home so far. It’ll be a fun little tour, because I’m a total nerd.
P.S. TEDxDesMoines speaker and local artist Rachel Buse had a thoughtful post on the art choices for the Performance Report on Art Beacon Des Moines.
Filed under Arts and awesomeness, At home
