Rancho Deluxe Junkyard Art Mason City Iowa

Dear Art Lover,      

     Mason City, Iowa, is known as the town for homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and his students, as well as The Music Man, Meredith Willson. [Perhaps you recall the (musical) film with the famous tune “76 Trombones” or the lyrics spoken by Robert Preston, “Trouble, right here in River City” as I do].  Check it out:

Video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI_Oe-jtgdI   

Lyrics:  http://lyrics.wikia.com/Robert_Preston:Ya_Got_Trouble

     The great fringe benefit to Mason City for being River City is that they have never stopped teaching music at all levels in their schools! 

     However, Mason City is also home to "Rancho Deluxe Z Garden" aka con affetto “The Junkyard.”  I was there visiting family and thus, my aunt thought this was a “must see.”  Perhaps you will agree.

     What I like about these sorts of places is that there is usually a person with a vision.  He has an overall concept, but the details are rather open, as are the choice of materials for his 3-d collage of “outsider art.”  Sometimes they are the work of one man, as with Solomon’s Castle in central Florida.  I was told that “The Junkyard” is led by the property owner, but that he invites kids and others to contribute their own voices to the overall composition.  Whether or not the neighbors appreciate this look, there is a lot of community expressed here in the shared effort.  I may not want to live in a place such as it, but I am very glad these spaces exist.

hmm? Really the voice of the people?  Glad it does not say, "SLOW Children / [image] / At Play."

Ah HA!  There appear to be plans for expanding the maze of cubes into the back section of the property.

This is the Vietnam Memorial.  Sadly, there was a helmet and rifle that have since been stolen.  My aunt remembered those more clearly than what is left there now.

Happy Birthday, Skye in Oz!

My apologies from the long vacation from my blog.  I have been visiting family, friends, my recent Kickstarter project supporters, and galleries around the southeast and Midwest US.  The amount of driving I had to do really cut into quality time with so many people, and caused me to miss too many others.  I am now getting a bit settled in Austin, Texas, and working here until early September. 

Peace,
Kelly

~ Kelly Borsheim, sculptor, painter, writer, teacher

http://BorsheimArts.com

P.S.  Here is a Frank Lloyd Wright designed home (I did not have time to note whether it was his or a student's actual design.)

     This is the Mason City home for Meredith Willson, the original Music Man in Iowa, USA. 

Festival dei Popoli – Documentary Film Festival Florence Italy

Last Tuesday night, I was invited for a quick dinner after I finished my drawing for the day. Then my friend Simone took me to the Festival dei Popoli – a documentary film festival – at Cinema Gambrinus, a movie theatre near the Edison (English language) bookstore and Piazza della Repubblica. I was really tired, but rarely turn down an invitation to see the interior of some space in Florence, especially by a local.

Allora, the first film was a depressing view of an Israeli soldier’s term of active duty in the reserves. It had Italian subtitles, which helped me to learn more of this language, and see how common phrases are interpreted, even some naughty ones. Hey, these are soldiers in a war after all. The second film was titled, “King Corn” and chronicled the adventures of two men who found a plot of land in Iowa, USA, to plant corn for a year. It was a comment on how much corn (usually by way of corn syrup) Americans eat.

I do not often see a lot of documentaries; however, I assume this was better done than others. And the message was “preaching to the choir” for me. And in all fairness, I slept through a lot of it, off and on. The snoozing was more about me than about the film though. And what I do remember was that there were many quite beautiful and artistically composed images of the farmland and skies in Iowa. Simone loved the film’s poster, but it was too much yellow for my taste.

The Cinema Gambrinus is not nearly as beautiful as the Odeon Theatre in Florence, but charming in its way. There was a sculpture of three women (Graces?) above the screen and you can see one pink chandelier in the photo above.

I was really charmed by the live classical musicians playing outside of the cinema when we exited about mezzanotte. But the Italians do seem to love the night, even during the week.