The Joys, Trials, and Tribulations of
Bringing Working Over Wood to the
Smithsonian FolkLife Festival - Nine
Reasons to Take Your Art on the Road
1. Testing the durability of your art against
a tornado. Four days into the
festival, a tornado hit the National Mall at 2 am, flattening tents, destroying
university exhibitions, and endangering the lives of innocent goats (Grand
Valley State U from GA brought 2 goats).
Happily, thanks to the vision of ISU Industrial Design Professor, David
Ringholz, with his boatload of steel, our tent was A OK.
2. You think you’re
speaking with a normal “festival-goer” about Iowa State and your work, only to
find out that said person is a physicist for the Department of Defense. When probed, your guest smiles politely,
and says that everything he does is completely classified.
3. During your lunch
break, after eating either fried
catfish and collard greens from the Southern Comfort Food Tent or stuffed grape
leaves from the Azerbijani Food Tent, you can catch a performance of West
Virginia University’s Steel Drum Band. Who knew?
Fifty fresh-faced West Virginia kids playing recognizable classics on
their steel drums. One of our professors
(who will remain nameless) was moved to tears.
4. You get a sense of
just how many very proud, very nice Iowa State alums there are in this
country. And just how happy they are
to see their alma mater represented as one of the seventeen land grant
universities represented on the National Mall as part of the Smithsonian
FolkLife Festival. Hell, we even had an
informal gathering of recent Grinnell alums gather under our tent for an
hour. They were so thrilled to see
anything Iowan, they didn’t want to leave.
5. Magnets,
Maker-bots, painting, and cool architecture projects trump baby
alligators. The only two other universities to show up
early were the University of Hawaii and the University of Florida. Hawaii was busily building their own
thatched-roof hut and planting a yucca garden.
Florida, our (ahem) competition, brought in their own eco-system,
water-treatment facility, orange trees, live clams, and baby alligators. After several incognito trips to their
installation, we concluded that ours was, in fact, cooler.
6. Never
underestimate the power of the zip tie (aka there is something to be said for
simple technology). By the end of
the Festival, we unanimously concluded that, despite our steel structure with
its endless joints and components, our IPads, and our generators, the MVP award
went to the measly little zip tie. That, and our beloved water cooler.
7. The opportunity to
meet former governor and current Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, as well
as Senator Tom Harkin. NBD.
8. You can test just how many smoothies and
bottles of water you can consume in a six-hour period. Due to the record-breaking heat (multiple
100+ degree days), we spent most of our Euro bucks (free lunch tickets) on
smoothies, ice cream, and bottles of water.
It was a little obscene. If there
is still any debate folks, let me verify, global warming ain’t no joke. This
year’s festival was a full 11 degrees warmer than any other on record.
9. The free museums,
galleries, and memorials. And the fireworks on the National Mall on the Fourth
of July. Washington DC is chock FULL
of free, fabulous stuff to do. It’s
spectacular, really. As soon as we got
of work in the evening, we would venture to the National Gallery, one of the
many Smithsonian Institutions, any of the memorials, the Holocaust Museum, etc,
etc, etc.
- Jennifer Drinkwater