The Joys, Trials, and Tribulations of Bringing Working Over Wood to the Smithsonian FolkLife Festival

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