At first, when yarn art appeared on a few small trees in downtown Iowa City along with late autumn chills, it warmed my heart. I was familiar yarn graffiti known as "yarn bombing" and felt special for catching a glimpse of this stealth art. Then, as more and more trees became swathed in intricate and beautiful knitted and crocheted pieces, I became concerned. Clearly, a large group of organized knitters must be sending some kind of message. Are their intentions pure or nefarious? Is the threat contained? My paranoia quickly dissipated after a couple people commented, "Oh, yeah. The trees have on their winter sweaters." What? This operation is City-sanctioned?

Apparently, the Iowa City Downtown District helps organize the installation. The unique and beautiful tree "sweaters" are the most elaborate yarn bombs I've ever seen, which is saying something considering my previous residence is known for Webs, America's largest yarn store!

If you'd like to know more about Iowa City's downtown tree yarn bombing project, check out this article from The Gazette or this one from KCRG News. 

I gawked at the sight before me and then pointed to my camera, indicating that I wanted to take a picture. The three men shifted slightly as I squatted down to take the shot. When I later reviewed the photo, I was struck by the sense of ease their posture emanated.

One of the farmers came over, "You've never seen this before?" He had to shout over the sound of the tractor powering the grain chute to be heard, but even with all the noise I sensed incredulity in his tone. His family had grown corn for generations. Was it possible one could get a ways into their adult life without confronting a stream of golden corn kernels? I tried to explain that I was from Los Angeles and no, I'd never seen grain gush out of a wagon and get sucked into an enormous grain tower.

Wayne, as I would later learn was his name, invited my mother and I to harvest some corn with him in his combine, which waited for him about a mile down the road. My mom was immediately on board and I warmed to his friendly and genuine offer.

Grain towers are often the tallest features in rural Midwestern landscapes. They rise above fields of corn and soybeans and as in Riverside, Iowa, add an industrial edge to small towns.

Riding in Wayne's combine, harvesting corn grown on land he rented from his aunt was a unique and unforgettable experience. His combine harvested six rows of corn at once. The biggest combines harvest 16 rows at once. The machinery is impressive, simultaneously cutting stalks, ingesting ears, husking them, and shearing off kernels, which burst out of a spigot, filling tractor's bed. At one point during the ride, the tractor's cabin got dark, and I noticed that the back window of the cab had been completely drowned with kernels, blocking out the sunlight. After harvesting 12 rows of corn, Wayne transferred the kernels from the combine to a wagon pulled by a different tractor. The other tractor transports the load to the elevator where it is weighed and unloaded.

Thank you, Wayne, for this memorable and educational experience.

Fields begin to turn early fall, verdant green becoming a rich gold, and finally a crisping to brown. Once thoroughly dried, corn and beans are harvested. This year, harvests began mid-October and lasted through the end of the month.

I can't do a post titled "Iowa Gold" without also including some Hawkeye-related photos. College football is a deeply ingrained culture here. Tailgating for a Saturday morning game oftentimes begins early Friday. Perhaps more entertaining than the football itself (for the less sports-oriented), are the creative ways in which fans show their colors.

These donkeys were not too excited to be decked out and dragged through the Hawkeye homecoming parade.

This post is the second in the color series.

Here are my highlight reels for the 20th Anniversary Iowa Women's Music Festival. Being part of the Festival was such an amazing experience. It was a huge privilege to have the opportunity to meet women changing the world with their music. The positive vibe that was generated between the performers and audience was powerful, and I will hold that feeling with me as I move forward with new work and new projects.

The video below features a clip from each of the Festival performers:  Jillian Noah, Summer Osborne, the Iowa Power Women (Natalie Brown, Lojo Russo, Gayla Drake, Kimberli Maloy, Laurie Haag, and Kim-Char Meredith), Claudia Schmidt, God Des and She, Andrea Gibson, and the Annie Mack Band. 

The 2013 IWMF fundraiser featured Summer Osborne, Zoe Lewis and comedian Julie Goldman.  Julie Goldman had me in stitches for the entire hour plus of her jokes. I especially loved her description of the Los Angeles "affect" and of the camping-workshop-wedding she attended in the Bay Area. 

The heavy rain that started and stopped with the Iowa Women's Music Festival on Saturday dampened wool socks worn with Tevas, but not spirits as talented artists from all over the country rocked the Johnson County Fairgrounds. The performances were empowering, fun, and inspiring. It came as no surprise that as the cool blues of the last set by Annie Mack Band faded from the barn, a full double rainbow flickered into being. 

For me, one of the highlights of the festival was riding the roller coaster of Andrea Gibson's spoken word performance. Her poetry is at once deeply personal and universal, emotional and visual, striking and soothing. I found myself alternately weeping and laughing, sometimes laughing while weeping. She broke us to pieces with poems like "Ashes" and put us back together again with "A Letter to My Dog on the Human Condition."

The highlight of my week was learning that a video clip I put together was posted on a site Andrea and her tour manager, Kelsey Gibb, created called Stay Here With Me.   The website aims to generate community around how art can play a critical role in helping to live with depression. In the clip below, Andrea and Kelsey talk about why they created the site and Andrea performs "The Madness Vase." 

Stay tuned for a highlights reel of the festival! 

It would be overwhelming to attempt to comprehensively capture my first impressions of Iowa City, so instead I'm going to do a series of posts featuring a color. Since I arrived in that summer sweet spot right after the worst of the mosquitoes and before fall chills, I'm starting with green. 

I've never known a busier set of primarily freight-bearing tracks. I hear the haunting blasts, way more intense than a playtime "choo-choo," all day long. At first I was excited. Trains: a rare treat. I counted cars: 107. Over a hundred cars! Unfathomable gallons of petroleum, bushels of grain, and head of livestock moved miles upon miles. However, I have come to learn that the train is not at all rare. And it CHOOOOOOO CHOOOOOO's a lot. 

I feel more than a little silly for being surprised that there are apple orchards in Iowa. Everyone put so much emphasis on the corn. The quantity of corn astonishing, as is the abundance of soy beans, sometimes referred to as just "beans." A bike ride away, Wilson's Orchard grows dozens of varieties of apples also sold in the form of refreshing cider slushes and delicious turnovers, paired with a scoop of cinnamon ice cream at your request. When honey crisps come into season, watch out! I've heard people go nuts. 

Bunnies are everywhere! And they're unnervingly tame, too. 

Hiking encounters:

• Prairie flora like wild bergamot (above)
  
• Thumb-sized cicadas, producers of a weed-whacker-like mating call
  
• 3D archery range ,"CAUTION: Keep Out" 
  

My little van was packed to the brim when I set out from Boston, MA for Iowa City, IA. The trip was done in three installments: Boston to Cleveland, Cleveland to Chicago, and Chicago to Iowa City.  

I drove through New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, never anticipating the number of vineyards I'd encounter in each of these states. Sadly, there was no time for stopping, just onwards through Illinois to (drumroll, please) Iowa!

I love California. Almost every time I go home, it is as though my soul clicks into place. It has been a delight to spend July in "my country," as I like to refer to it. In this post, I will pay visual homage to my visit. 

Through the years, Western Massachusetts became home. I now look forward to Iowa City becoming home, too. 

During my California adventure, I visited a good friend who is working at Pie Ranch, on the San Mateo coast. The experience was deeply inspiring and provided beautiful visuals. 

During my brief visit, I had the honor of milking these goats and then drinking their milk for breakfast. Milking was MUCH harder than I expected. To milk a goat or cow, one pinches high on the teat with index finger and thumb, then uses one's remaining fingers to push out the milk. Residents showed amazing skill at this, producing robust squirts of milk that resounded triumphantly in the metal milk bucket. I, on the other hand, produced feeble and infrequent tinkles. 

The long-term residents of Pie Ranch live in yurts. This is the biggest yurt, inhabited by the family who owns the farm. 

We sampled some of the harvest and everything was delicious, as well as stunningly beautiful. 

Dulce lived up to her name, and was very sweet while I milked her. That morning, she produced a little over two gallons. The goats on the other hand, were ornery and managed to kick over the milk bucket. Repeatedly.

One of my first stops upon arriving to California was what my family calls Windsurfers' Beach. Just a few miles north of Hearst Castle, this beach once teemed with windsurfers. Now, kitesurfing appears to be more popular. The idea of being driven a considerable distance offshore by the wind with just a surfboard under one's feet sounds thrilling whether a sail or a kite is catching that kinetic energy. Less thrilling is how sand can get lodged in a camera's lens when it is being driven by that wind. Despite the risk of getting unlucky with sand, I was happy to get these shots. 

A kite surfer rides the wind. 

"Are you hitting the water soon?" I asked this surfer. She told me she had been out there, but had to "self rescue" and was now untangling her lines. As I learned, in the process of self rescue, one releases tension on half of the kites' lines, causing it to "depower." The surfer, now in the water, must wind in the kite and swim in to shore, dragging it. This surfer says luckily, she was close to shore. 

This project is a great example of how in the creative process, perseverance can lead to a more effective final product. The video is a Mount Holyoke College giving appeal to young alumnae. In the video, Mary Lyon, who is like MHC's mascot, comes back from the grave and appears all over campus. She pronounces some of the advice she is best known for, in addition to a new piece of advice: to take the 175th Challenge! For young alumnae, it was a priority to use humor because giving can be a touchy subject (many alumnae still have college debt). This piece showcases my off-beat, yet heartfelt sense of humor. 

The video had many incarnations, including the draft below.

The four-month process that eventually led to the "She's Back" video was challenging. Key to working through these challenges was listening closely to feedback and bringing to life ideas that were innovative, yet fit within the look and feel of Mount Holyoke College. The result is a piece I feel is clear, succinct, and resonant with the target audience.