Amber Fields © Laurayne Robinette | All Rights Reserved
a whole community
Circular Sequence
© 1998-2000
Priscilla Kepner Sage
All Rights Reserved
listen (69 sec./440KB)
I did Artists in the Schools for years, so I traveled all over the state, and I always asked to live with a family, because I'm not from here, and I needed to have a sense of place of where I was. And that was the most valuable experience for me to understand that. And I have always experienced Iowa as a whole community, the connectedness of Iowa as a community. I have had wonderful support from all over the country, but Iowans have been so loyal and so generous with their support. So it has been for us a wonderful place to live.
It is a fairly natural environment, and like it or not, if you're using your eyes and seeing things, ...the design is there. We watch those rows change as we go down the highway. There's a lot of geometry in terms of what we see. Specifically, do I go out and say, "this is influencing me"? No. But I've lived here for most of my life now, so it certainly has.
I want more color
Talking with Death
©1995 Joan F. Vitale
All Rights Reserved
listen (44 sec./270KB)
I was born and raised in Brooklyn in New York, and I love the city. Even though I'm an Iowa artist because I've been here almost twenty years, I'm not an Iowan. I don't know what's difficult about Iowa, except the stimulation isn't the same. I think I want more color. Go ahead and say what you really want to say. Tell me the truth! Just don't tell me the nice thing to say.
Iowa's been very good to me. I have great friends. I got to go back to school. I've served on many committees. I've done a lot of things here in Iowa. It's really where I've, I would say, birthed or blossomed as an artist. But I don't know that I can say it influences my art.
very lush, very green
The River: Seen & Unseen
© 1995 Naomi Kark Schedl
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listen (50 sec./307KB)
The flora in South Africa is very beautiful. Iowa is very different from the world I grew up in and it's very lush, very green. I'm working now on some scenes looking out of my window at all the oak trees and other plants around my garden. The other aspect is the spaciousness of the sky on a clear day, which doesn't happen very often, but usually after a rain. And the contours of the land. I must say, I can't stand the greenness of summer in Iowa. It's too green. When all the corn is ripe, I don't like looking at it, but I like it in the spring and fall.