Des Moines in July 2021

The Des Moines Opera, our reason for going to Iowa, is located south of Des Moines in Indianola. Looking at the map, we discovered that Winterset, Iowa is west of Indianola. We had just seen the play Leaving Iowa at Theatre Lawrence; it is set in Winterset, and Winterset is the county seat of Madison County, known for its Bridges, so we wandered over there. We skipped the John Wayne museum, but did visit three of the six famous bridges. Here's the Holliwell Covered Bridge, built in 1880 to replace an earlier bridge. It is the longest covered bridge, and the longest timber bridge in Iowa. 

H. P. Jones and G. K. Foster, Holliwell Covered Bridge, 1880

All the bridges are accompanied by very helpful historic bronze labels. 

Downtown we noticed the Iowa Quilt Museum and stopped there, where the exhibition was 40x40@40: Celebrating 40 Years of the Manhattan Quilters Guild, You know you've been in Kansas a long time when you ask if the quilts are from Kansas and are told, "No, they're from New York." Each 40 by 40 inches, they were stunning works of art. Here are three:

Daphne Taylor, Quilt Drawing #21, 2017

Diana Goulston Robinson, Eye Catcher, 2019

Beth Carney, Movement 3, 2019

We continued to the Des Moines Art Center, known for its three iconic architects: Eliel Saarinen (1948 building), I.M.Pei (1968 expansion), and Richard Meier (1985 expansion), and for its sometimes daring and creative contemporary collecting. The exhibition there was Central America, work by Justin Favela, who refers both to his Central American heritage and to Iowa's Central American location. In the paper material used for pinatas he created an huge installation depicting works in the Art Center collection and images from Central America. The central object is a gigantic paper pizza. In the background of the photograph below you can see Favela's copy with a mirror image, of the Grant Wood painting in the Center's collection. The installation, obviously labor-intensive, was also exceptionally joyful, showing harvests, landscapes, palm trees, and scenes from life in the two Central Americas.

Grant Wood, The Birthplace of Herbert Hoover, 1931

The Des Moines collection challenges me to think about a wide range of mostly recent art, some familiar, some not. A few objects that caught my eye, beyond my favorite Anselm Kiefer, Fred Wilson, and Graciela Iturbide were this gorgeous Henry Ossawa Tanner of Christ Learning to Read, ca. 1911,

Nick Cave, Rescue, 2013, celebrating a ceramic dog surrounded by glass, metal and porcelain birds, flowers and beads.

In an overwhelming installation by Jamaican artist Ebony G. Patterson, AMONG THE BLADES BETWEEN THE FLOWERS...WHILE THE HORSE WATCHES...FOR THOSE WHO BEAR/BARE WITNESS, 2018, exuberant materials commemorate Jamaicans lost to slavery and racism.

As always, the opera production of Queen of Spades was well done. Joyce Castle was a triumph, looking appropriately frail and and singing absolutely beautifully.