Matthew Israel, art historian, author and director of The Art Genome Project, will be giving the closing talk for the first-ever Mission Creek Tech + Innovation…
Russell Jaffe
Posted inCommunity/News
Fossilmania runs wild in Iowa City this weekend
In the midst the hubbub of the seemingly omnipresent Mission Creek events this week, you might miss out on “the largest show in the world that exhibits fossils exclusively.” Fossil Expo XXXVI is fun, free and just on the outskirts of town at Sharpless Auctions (5049 Herbert Hoover Hwy. NE). The event’s hosts, the Mid-America […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Art City: Unwitting animals offer a new canvas for outsider art
“Mom, can I be in a Coca-Cola commercial?” begs the caption beneath her photo. She wears a red and white bow, the iconic colors of the can she poses next to…
Posted inAstrology, Community/News
Fond Farewells: Dr. Star talks about his final column and what lies ahead
“This is the interview I never expected to give,” Dr. Star says at a table in a busy cafe. He is bundled for the cold in earth tones drinking coffee. Dr. Star is a Little Village…
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Art City: Finding the art of Sharpless auctions
Update: Columnist Russell Jaffe is holding an art sale of his own! Details available here. There are two things to know about Sharpless Auctions when you enter, and they both have to do with art: The first is that you have to be prepared to know how unprepared you are, and the second is that […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Art City: Fair Grounds owner has big art dreams
Photos by Rachel Jessen Steve Pernetti is my friend. We met in 2010 when he bought Fair Grounds, the Iowa City vegan/vegetarian bakery and café whose food I loved but manager I couldn’t stand. Since then, Fair Grounds has changed. They serve meat; the dystopian note-scape of passive aggressive Post-Its judgmentally fluttering on everything vanished […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Art City: The Iowa State Fair as tribute to the boundless hunger of the individual
If you’re going to lose yourself in Iowa like I have for the last four years, you need to obey the gravity of our place and time and go to the Iowa State Fair. This year’s…
Posted inFood & Drink
Cornography: Land of the golden phallus
If we are what we eat, we have almost no choice but to be corn. It’s an ingredient in so much of what we consume, knowingly or not, but here in Iowa City, it’s a constant summer reminder of who we are and what we can do with what the oft-generous earth gives us. CORN […]
Posted inCommunity/News
PICs: Yotopia founder Veronica Tessler on thinking locally and Iowa City’s sudden influx of frozen treats
One might say Veronica Tessler is a woman possessed by sweet dreams. The founder and Iowa City business owner, a young woman with bright eyes and…
Posted inCommunity/News
PICs: Interview with an anonymous homeless man living on a bench in the Ped Mall
The homeless community in Iowa City, if it can truly be called a community, is one that isn’t new to cities or towns with larger populations. And yet for many of us…
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Art City: Holy places
Art, like people, often fragments mysteriously, like light into a prism. And that prism can be a little trickier to observe in a place like Iowa City, with its rich art scene that at times can feel equally rich in its inaccessibility to the general public. Where can definite lines of meaning be drawn, if […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Art City: The story behind Jeff McNutt
If you really think about it, it takes generations of strong people to recognize, cultivate and promote that thing we call art. What have been cave drawings, daring derivatives, assorted doodles, Dadaist deconstructions and everything thereafter have been pushed forward by the powerful passions of true art bosses answering the calls of the mysterious heart’s […]
