All Fired Up

Hello Spencer List readers! I am a new blogger for Spencer list, having recently returned to town from an extended trip abroad. Even though I miss the sun and surf of my "adopted" country of New Zealand, I'm excited to be in Spencer, where there is almost always something going on.

Unfortunately, Grand Meander was cancelled last Monday due to weather. This would have been my first, and I was disappointed to not be able to see what it was all about. However, this last Thursday was a reception for the current exhibit at Arts on Grand, called All Fired Up. It consists of various clay pieces by a number of local artists who work in the medium. There are a range of pieces in style and design. Some of my personal favorites where some pieces with photo transferred images by Anita Gilbert and Anthony Vadroska. But no matter your taste, I'm sure you would be able to find something there to enjoy, so go check it out. The exhibit is open until January 10. (And while you're there, don't forget to check out the gift shop! There are even more works by many more local artists, including photography by yours truly. But local, and support local art!)

In addition to the reception for the exhibit was the lighting for the new fixture, delayed from Monday. Designed by local artist Holly Kellogg, and put together with the assitance of Cycle Country and Bogenreif Studios, the light will be the centerpiece of the new front entrance to Arts on Grand when it has been redesigned. The new light was part of a grant, and design of the new light was a contest open to all local artists. There were three entries, and Holly's was the winning design. Until the new front is done, the light is now hanging in the corner just inside the gallery, on the right of the entrance. It's worth checking that out, as well!

Clouds

We are in a tornado warning right now, yes, but did you see the clouds this morning? It was beautiful! This photo was taken at about 5:40 a.m. and I could hardly believe it wasn't much later, it was so bright.

Getting ready for the Memorial Day parade.



Oneota Park.

The Grotto of the Redemption, West Bend

Did you know the Grotto is only an hour away? This place combines several of my favorite things, including installation, rocks, and religious art--all in one place! It's free, too.

See the Grotto's website.

Briefs

-A Piece of Work, Inc. Emporium of Original Art opens this month (today) in Spirit Lake! I stopped by to peek in the window a few days ago and it looks very impressive inside. At this point, only a few spaces are filled and there is plenty more room for more artists to display and sell their things. I look forward to what this gallery will add to our area.

-Rocking M Pottery I recently met Beth Cathcart at an Artist Gathering and purchased one of her pieces. She is a potter from Linn Grove and she creates beautiful organic bowls and wall hangings and other things. Her "rocking M" signature is derived from her family's brand. I find her work inspiring.

-Little Sioux River





-The Market Natural Foods & Global Deli, Hill Ave, Spirit Lake. I found three things I have been wanting but have been without: frozen vegetable egg rolls, alfalfa sprouts, and organic (and no high fructose corn syrup) Blue Sky soda pop! You win, the Market!!

-Adirondacks! Look for (21 of) them in Buena Vista, Clay, Dickinson, and Emmet Counties. A project of the Iowa Lakes Corridor Development Corporation and ArtsLIVE, these chairs are sponsored by businesses and recreated by local artists. Some can be found outdoors, some indoors through September 28th. An auction will occur in conjunction with Artoberfest. Look out for brochures soon to list the locations, sponsors, and artists. Try to check 'em all out. I have seen a couple already and it's amazing the different, imaginative things people have come up with.

Movie Gallery: Selection Highlights

A few DVDs available for rent at Movie Gallery:

Paris, je t'aime Eighteen five minute films about (different kinds of) love in the city of love. Each film takes place in a different neighborhood of Paris. Among the many directors are Gurinder Chada (Bend it Like Beckham), the Coen brothers, Alfonso Cuarón (Y tu mamá también, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Wes Craven, and so on. The cast is absolutely star-studded, with Gerard Depardieu, Natalie Portman, Miranda Richardson, Juliette Binoche, Elijah Wood, and many international stars. I love this film because it's very French and I love French cinema, it's about Paris, my favorite city, and you get to see so many parts of it. One of the films that stands out to me is "Père-Lachaise" (the cemetary). This one stars Emily Mortimer and Rufus Sewell playing a British couple vacationing in Paris, looking for famous peoples' graves. The reason I like this one so much is that what happens is something I have always wished would happen whenever I visit the grave of Oscar Wilde--he appears. Only in the film, he gives romantic advice and disappears, whereas in my fantasy, we become BFFs.

Like the woman felt sitting in the park bench in the "14ème Arrondissement," this film leaves you feeling both joy and sadness--but more joy than sadness.



Deadwood Season 3 I wouldn't recommend watching this HBO drama without first watching seasons 1 and 2. Set in the gold mining camp Deadwood in the 1870s. Features a large cast including Timothy Olyphant, Ian McShane, and Powers Boothe, with many of the characters being actual historical figures. The third season is very intense, as gold tyrant George Hearst (Gerald McRaney) has got the whole camp, pardon the expression, by the balls. It seems that at any moment, someone is going to get killed. Be warned--this show is full of cussing, nudity, violence, etc., etc. Especially cussing.

30 Rock Season 1 Hilaaaaaarious sitcom created by Tina Fey (you know, the first female head writer for Saturday Night Live), staring Fey, Tracy Morgan, Alec Baldwin, etc. Fey plays Liz Lemon, head writer of NBC's The Girlie Show, a weekly live sketch comedy show, when she gets a new boss (Baldwin), who changes her show to TGS with Tracy Jordan, giving her a new star, the semi-lunatic Jordan (played by Morgan). The best episode: Tracy Does Conan.

House Concert: Chad Elliott

Before I moved to Spencer some nine months ago, I knew very little of it. I'd been before, but those experiences existed only as vague memories of the odd Labor Day gathering from my youth, or the RAGBRAI visit that I can't really distingish from all the other RAGBRAI towns (sorry). So when I moved here, one the the first people that I met was Chad Elliott--at a reception at Arts on Grand. And then he was everywhere! (I was at the library the other day and there on the bulletin board were fliers for two different events in town and he's playing at both of them.) Chad Elliott has been a fixture of this town in my experience of it. He's there at the Tree (if not there in person, he's there through his art), he's there are Arts on Grand, he's there in Buddy Holly, he's there where everybody's talking about him. And it's good because Chad is extremely talented and an extremely warm person.

And now he's leaving. He's got a great job at Sticks in Des Moines. When I first heard, I was very disappointed. What is the town going to be without Chad? What's going to happen to me? I'll never get to work with him at the AOG ceramic studio again. I'll never see his friendly, musical face.

I went to the house concert at Martin Arthur's last night. Despite having seen him play before, I'd never actually been to a proper Chad Elliott concert before. He's funny, did you know that? Top quality musician, too. So many songs about wandering and changing weather. I realized--I don't have to be sad that he's gone. As he says, it's just part of the changing weather.

The concert last night was a wonderful experience. There were maybe 125 people in attendance. There was such a buzz. Just top, top quality like you wouldn't expect to find in a town this size but there it is. It's really a blessing that we've got this going on. And it's not going to stop just because Chad's going away--check out Spencer Concert Association for the upcoming schedule.

Chad--thanks for everything, and we'll be seeing you again.

SPL - Jane Austen

Last summer I read Jane Austen for the first time after watching Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice (you know, the one with Keira Knightly). Starting with Pride, I devoured every single Austen book the library had. They didn't have Northanger Abbey. Shame. The past couple of months, PBS has been showing a series of Jane Austen films--pretty much every Jane Austen film made, it seems like. Two versions of Emma--the one with Gwyneth Paltrow and the one with Kate Beckinsale (unrelated, she plays a meddling character in Cold Comfort Farm as well--I highly recommend it). Early on in the series, they showed Northanger Abbey--truly a delight. A story about a girl who reads too many gothic novels. Usually I try to read the book before seeing a movie, so having seen it (and having bought the DVD, actually), I'm required to read the book, ASAP. So today I went to the library to interlibrary loan it (not realizing until writing this that the text is actually available for free online: Project Gutenberg, and other places easily found by a quick Google search). I did a quick check of the catalogue just to make sure it really wasn't there, and guess what. They do have it. In the large print section. Hurrah. It's the size of a small textbook. Thank you, Spencer Public Library!

Comments

I'm an avid blog reader. I follow several blogs, among them the very popular Boing Boing ("A Directory of Wonderful Things") and The Sartorialist (the inspiration of this blog's title). One of my favorite things about blogs is the discussions in the comments. It can be a lot more fun and a lot more interesting when readers share their input. I want to encourage you, readers (are there any of you?), to comment. You don't have to register--you can always leave your comments "anonymously" and just sign them at the end. No need to create an account. Blogger is with Google, so if you have a Google account (such as gmail) you are already in. Or, use your Livejournal, Wordpress, Typepad, or AIM ID by selecting the Open ID option.

Spencer Antique Shops

I come from a family of collectors. Not collectors of valuable things (besides my dad's antique fishing lures, some of which I suppose really are quite valuable), just things that we find interesting. Such as my dad's spread of interesting rocks, and shed antlers and skulls from various animals. My mom picks up junk off the street she finds while running and saves it for art projects. I'm the absolute worst one. I've got more stuff than I've got space. Besides my cheap plastic souvenir snowglobe collection (mostly from Paris) and postcards, I collect anything that I find interesting from bowls to books to found photographs to unidentifiable objects, especially things painted gold (gold praying hands salt and pepper shakers, horse head bookends with painted gold manes..). I don't care if it's valuable, as long as it looks interesting, and I generally keep it aaaaall on display, so my space is quite cluttered.

So naturally I love going to antique stores. I've most often frequented MainStreet Mall Antiques, 303 Grand Ave. They have wonderful ceramics from gorgeous art pottery vases to highly collectible press molded mixing bowls. They also have very nice cabinets and display cases, postcards, jewelry, salt and pepper shakers, and a whole section of scotty dog stuff. I love walking by and looking at everything in the window. A few things I have purchases there recently:



Autograph book from the 1940's, filled with rhyming messages of friendship. Was a gift for my friend Sarah, who really connects with that sort of thing, and it really relates to the kind of art she is planning to do for her thesis show in college next year. I also got a beautiful, small warm red cornucopia-shaped Shawnee pottery vase for my other friend Sarah, but I forgot to take a photo.



In accordance with my love of things painted gold--a small icon made in Italy. I'm guessing it's a cheap souvenir item. I have also bought vintage valetines, a "Hawaii" belt buckle from 1976 as a gift for a friend but somehow got lost in the mail, and probably many other things I've forgotten about from this store. It's great.

Anna's Antiques, just south a block or two from MainStreet Mall Antiques also has a nice collection. I've found (but didn't buy) a bright floral laquered coaster set from Japan, a pristine pillbox handbag, picture frames, jewelry, and a variety of other things I think are quite nice. The window display seems to usually be themed. I remember in February, it was maxed out pink and romantic. In the back room is a maze of furniture and odds and ends piled on each other--certainly some quirky items are to be found, including a large display of glass fairies. My first purchase there was this picture, a small print in a black wooden frame:



I know nothing about it but I find the scene intriguing. On my way out the door I spotted the following item:



A wooden hemisphere with a metal coil attached--I'm not sure if it's called a bookend because it is one piece. My mother has one that belonged to one of her grandparents, but hers is smooth black where this one is carved. I'd never seen any others anywhere. It was only $4, if you can believe that. I went right back in and bought it at once.

I used to think that it was Grantiques as in "granny", but finally realized it had more to do with being located on Grand Avenue (307 Grand Ave, to be precise). This is the one with ivy in the window that serves coffee and scrumptious looking sweets. With a high, tin tiled ceiling, this shop has got shelves upon shelves of beautiful things from spurs to light fixtures to fishing lures to books to shoes and so on. In the basement, you'll find rows of chairs and boxes of shoe trees among other things. I find that most things are out of my price range for the time being, but I did find this for $10:



A single owl bookend. Did I mention I collect owls and bookends?

While Goodwill is not an antique store, I'm just going to mention it for a moment because I always see horse toys in antique stores but I can never afford them because they go for $20 or $30. But a couple weeks ago I was in Goodwill and spotted a whole bunch of horse toys for 75 and 50 cents each! So I got two:



Dear readers, I would like to know what you collect, and where are your favorite places to find things?