Going Deeper in Decorah - Part II

Go to Part ! to begin our journey 

The following morning, we set out for Effigy Mounds, near the Mississippi. We learned of several hiking routes from the ranger and opted for a two-mile circuit, the first portion a rather steep upward climb. The route was shaded, and a cedar path wound around hills and through forest. Sunlight dappled the ground and fallen limbs created sculptural forms. Small rises in the ground suggested bear-like forms. The mounds in this area are of bears and birds and were created between 850-1400 years ago. Their meaning is a mystery, but the Indians ceased to create new mounds when they moved from hunting and gathering to agriculture. The route reached overlooks at the Mississippi where we watched a train chug through the landscape as boats cut through the water nearby. With perfect weather, we were invigorated by starting our day in this place of beauty.

We had a short lunch stop in the town of McGregor, yet another small town with traces of a colorful history still found in the buildings of its downtown. In the 1870s it was the largest shipping port west of Chicago as rail cars were ferried across the Mississippi. Those boom years came to an end when a bridge was constructed to connect Iowa and Wisconsin and the business of ferrying train cars became obsolete.

Our final stop for the day was Spillville, Iowa, a town settled by Czechs.  A few missed turns and we found ourselves traveling in clouds of dust on country roads, arriving at the museum just 45 minutes before its closing time.

 There we visited the Bily’s Clock Museum where intricate clocks were carved from wood, often figures moved across the front and disappeared into the casing as music played. Our guide told us that they set them for different times, so they don’t all chime at the same time as the cacophony would be deafening. With white gloves and hands gesturing she displayed each clock and its moving mechanism with enthusiasm. Two bachelor farmers, the Bily brothers, created the clocks, one designing them and the other doing most of the carving. At one time Henry Ford sought to purchase one for $1 million and was declined. At that point their entrepreneurial sister began to charge ten cents for visitors who wanted to see that million dollar clock. They had as many as 1000 visitors each day. 

As our 45 minutes ticked by, we moved upstairs to the music of Dvorak where we found an exhibit on his visit during the summer of 1893. It was in this space that he finished composing the New World Symphony finding comfort in this very Czech town where he wrote of his delight in birds singing and the sound of the Czech language. Our visit concluded with a brief stop at St Wenceslaus Church, the oldest Czech Catholic Church in the US dating back to 1860. Dvorak composed several of his pieces at their organ. As we entered the church I too could hear the birds singing.

Our last day! Time to begin our drive back to the Twin Cities, but we had a few last things to do. We parted ways to explore shops and regrouped at the Porter House. Remember the house with the unusual rock fence? We were greeted by a guide who we learned was the director. She served as our guide and storyteller as we explored the house and learned its story, both a love story and an adventure story. Adelbert (Bert) Porter lived across the street from Grace Young. When they married, they lived with Grace’s parents in what became known as the Porter House. From there he could look from the porch over the stone wall to his childhood home. Bert and Grace didn’t have children and were financially independent allowing them to pursue a life of artistic interests and adventure. Bert was a naturalist, a photographer and a collector and that extended to butterflies, stamps and objects from his extensive travels in South America and Asia. Grace, a suffragette, painted china and accompanied Bert on portions of his trips. Pictures illustrated that she shared his adventurous spirit. Bert did more than collect butterflies, he created stunning artwork from their iridescent wings which is found throughout the home. He also had curiosity cabinets of his many collected objects. I felt as if I would have enjoyed knowing this adventurous and creative couple. 

As our trip came to a close, I considered what we had discovered. Traveling with others requires a myriad of decisions and some negotiation, where to go, what to do, who will drive, where to stay? Most of us are accustom to such decisions with a partner where we have well established roles, less so with others. There were also elements of travel that were less familiar. I am a city girl and spend most of my travels in big cities and art museums. This called for an openness to a different kind of travel, going deeper in a more circumscribed area rather than skimming the surface of a large city. My hope was for surprise and delight and this trip cleared that bar easily. Both of my travel companions confessed to being pleasantly surprised by small-town Iowa, coming away charmed with our encounters and the places we visited. 

One of the most delightful parts of our trip were the people that we encountered as they performed the duties of their daily life, Waitresses and museum guides added an unexpected richness to our travels as we engaged them in conversation.  Museum guides projected a very real enthusiasm for their subject and we often peppered our waitresses with questions about the town and what it was like to live in that area. Everyone was friendly and helpful and added to the fondness we felt for the areas we visited.

Going Deeper in Decorah - Part I

One of my annual traditions is a road trip with two friends from the Artists’ Lab. We settle on two to three days and pick a location to explore. It is a small-town trip, quite different than a big-city trip where you can skim the surface of a broad expanse. A small town is narrower in scope and you must go deeper to find the gems. That requires an open mind and a spirit of exploration.


Our more memorable trips have taken us to Jeffers Petroglyphs, then on to the Pipestone National Monument, a pipestone quarry that is a sacred site for Native Americans. On another trip we traveled across Wisconsin viewing outsider (and outside) art, often grottoes and sculptures created by early German immigrants. This time we pointed south towards Iowa.

We began by considering a number of interesting stops, then narrowed them to a smaller circuit. I always want to do more than is realistic and suggest complex trips. Those invariably get trimmed as they are, I admit, overly ambitious. I had visions of singing one of my favorite hobo songs (The Hobo’s Lullaby) on the way to the Hobo Museum in Britt, Iowa or traveling the Grant Wood scenic byway from Cedar Rapids onward. Alas, they fell on the cutting room floor when weighed against the driving.


Still what was left was intriguing. Our plan was to go to Decorah, a charming town in Northeast Iowa and then on to Effigy Mounds Monument, an area of 200 raised mounds of animal forms created by Indian tribes in the first millennium. The best trips include some outdoor component to balance the driving. There are a number of small towns along the Mississippi that we planned to visit along the way. Nearby was Spillville, a Czech town that was the site of a three-month visit from composer Antonin Dvorak in the late 1800s. There he completed his work on the New World Symphony, one of my favorite pieces of classical music. In the building that housed him, there is a small exhibit about his visit and a rather renowned clock museum.


Decorah is a two-and-a-half-hour drive and we began on a day with perfect weather, sunny, warm, but not uncomfortably so. Harmony, Minnesota is in route. It is a small Amish community and horse drawn buggies are likely to pass you on the road. We stopped at Estelle’s Eatery for what turned into a leisurely and pleasant lunch. Time runs slowly in Amish country, especially at a popular restaurant. 

When we arrived in Decorah we pulled up in front of the Vesterheim, the National Norwegian-American Museum, housed in an attractive old building. It has the most extensive collection of Norwegian-American artifacts in the world. Who knew!

 

by Fred Cogelow, one of my favorite pieces

Now I don't have a Norwegian bone in my body, but one of the rules of road trips is you explore what the area offers, the more unlike your typical explorations the better. When we entered we were greeted with the National Norwegian-American Folk Art exhibit with rosemaling, weaving and woodworking. As I enjoyed the contemporary response to Norwegian traditional arts, it began to arouse a curiosity in me about the genesis of those arts. That was soon to be satisfied by rooms that represented the typical living space decorated by Norwegian home crafts. The museum presented many of the original artifacts that represented the Norwegian artistic tradition. One of my favorite parts was a 

The model on right, carving on left

photography exhibit of Knud Knudsen, one of Norway’s most famous early photographers. He lived from 1832-1915 and began his photography business in the 1860s. While his landscapes are lovely, it was the photographs of people in their daily life that bridged both time and geography.

As we left the building we noticed a number of historic buildings located behind the museum
representing the life of Norwegian immigrants. We found ourselves imagining what life was like for a couple who lived with six children in one room. 


We then went in search of our Airbnb, a home within walking distance of the Main Street and near the historic district. A welcoming front porch greeted us, something we observed throughout the neighborhood. We found the location convenient as we walked to La Rana, a small and satisfying restaurant. On the walk back, we passed an imposing home, but what caught our attention was the intriguing rock wall that surrounded it, set with glittering geodes and colorful forms. We learned that it was known as the Porter House and was now a museum, yet another gem, quite literally, for exploration.

Read Part 2 

Road Trip

Several years ago I traveled with two friends to a Madison retreat for the Jewish Artists Lab. We had such a good time on our drive there, that a road trip became an annual tradition. Our next one took us to see the Jeffers petroglyphs and then on to Pipestone, Mn where we learned of the significance of pipestone in Indian history and visited the Pipestone National Monument where it was mined. That was a hard one to top, but each has its own flavor and has been satisfying in content as well as company. This year's took us into Wisconsin to look at outsider road art in route to Baraboo. The backdrop of this year's trip was the upcoming theme for the artist's lab: Outside, Inside: Exploring Boundaries and Otherness. Outsider art seemed to fall nicely within this topic and we contemplated it as we drove through rolling hills of greenery interspersed with sculptural rock cliffs.

We stopped for lunch near Fountain City in what once was the Fountain hotel and chuckled at the photos of the past where the "working girls" perched in the windows, hands jauntily placed on hips, while locals gathered on the balcony and in front of the building. It too seemed to speak to that outside, inside theme, both literally and figuratively.


Our first outsider art visit was at Prairie Moon, an area with over forty sculptures created by Herman Rusch. When Herman retired he purchased a dance hall and turned it into a museum. The barren land surrounding it called out for something and he began his concrete structures in 1958. He believed that " beauty creates a will to live" and that certainly proved true for him as he made it to age 100. I stood back to get many of the sculptures in my camera lens when I suddenly looked around, feeling that I was being observed. I was startled when I saw a gentleman behind me on the right and laughed when I realized it was a sculpture standing behind a podium. I later learned that it was Rusch himself who decided he wanted to continue to survey his creations far into the future. He made use of concrete with a reddish tone accented by seashells and studded with stones. An elegant arched fence surrounded the property. Within it was a small church structure, tall spires, bird houses and dinosaurs.


One of the art sites we sought was built by German immigrants after they retired and created a new chapter in their lives. They drew from their life as they created their artwork. Paul and Matilda Wegner created Wegner Grotto composed of concrete sculptures and a small church building, all studded with shattered china, glass and seashells as well as a few unexpected surprises such as gunpowder casings and arrowheads.
Like Rusch, neither Paul nor Matilda Wegner received any formal training in art. They were inspired by the Dickeyville Grotto and in 1929 began their creation. Within the Wegner grotto is a 12 foot re-creation of the Bremen ship on which they emigrated in 1885. Their fiftieth anniversary cake is permanently frozen in stone and glass over 80 years later. A small church studded in glass has a Star of David over the door and structures of different churches embedded into the walls representing their rather ecumenical view of religion.

We settled in at a roadside motel which seemed to sync with our road trip theme. In the morning I went to the central building for breakfast and was charmed to discover Diane, my fellow traveler and a poet, reading one of her poems to Renee and Ethel, a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law librarian duo who were also on a road trip. I learned that Renee has written in a journal every day since her son was born, now in his forties. Ethel talked of how she tried to do something new every year since she retired. They spoke of how each time they came to a crossroads in their drive they decided which road to take. "Definitely kindred spirits,” I thought. Ethel put her arm around Renee and said, "I couldn't do it without her."


Our last stop on this leg of our trip was Baraboo, home to the International Crane Foundation and the circus museum, but first we had a stop to make outside of town at Dr Evermor's Forevertron to see the largest scrap metal sculpture in the world. Much to our dismay, we had learned it was closed on that day but we were hopeful we might be able to see it from the road. We scouted the area only to be confronted with a fence with an ominous no trespassing sign beyond which we could see a number of sculptures rising into the sky. The fiction surrounding this unusual site is that Dr Evermor was a Victorian inventor who designed the Forevertron to launch himself into the heavens. The park is the creation of Tom Every from Brooklyn, Wi and includes Thomas Edison dynamos from the 1880s and power plant parts from the 1920s. Foiled in our search for outsider art, we stood glumly outside the fence looking longingly at those enticing sculptures inside.

Back in Baraboo we found our way to the International Crane Foundation where 15 species of these elegant creatures live. In the 1940s there were only 15 whooping cranes remaining. Through efforts of places like the Foundation they now number over 300. Much as it takes a passion and commitment to create outsider art, it takes a similar drive to create an organization focused on cranes. Two ornithology students undertook that mission in 1973. In this world the people are the outsiders and staff dress up in crane costumes to interact with the young birds so they won't imprint on people rather than their own species.

Lastly we headed on to the Circus World museum as we considered the fact that circus people are the ultimate outsiders, bringing glamour and excitement to towns and then moving on, always in transit or encamped on the outside of towns. The idea of running off with the circus
was an enticing idea to young people living in small towns, an escape fantasy that has become part of our folklore.

Before we returned to the Twin Cities we did one last stop in Menomonie where we wandered the stunning Mabel Tainter theater and explored antique and thrift shops. Diane was inspired to perform on the theater stage.

When we arrived home Diane gave us each a memento of a tole painted bowl from her thrift shop explorations and Susan shared some of the bounty from her garden. I, in turn, provide this meager offering as my thanks for my wonderful travel companions on our road trip journey.


Some interesting links we discovered in planning this trip:
Roadside America (sites by state)
Midwest Weekends
Dementia Concretia - don't care for the name, but the article is interesting as it seems to reflect a common theme