Hello and Welcome back to the Hometown Heritage Blog!
September is almost upon us and with it a new group of events for the Gary Ernest Smith Exhibition! I thought I would take this time to let you all know what and when September’s events are, if you have not seen them already! The first event this month is tomorrow, September 1. This is the first in a series of events we are calling “Art Tour Odd Numbered Thursdays” (or Art Tour Odd # Thursdays, ATO#T for short). This time, the tour will be introductory tours. Similar to the Opening Reception, this Art Tour Odd # Thursday will feature simple tours given every half hour of the art that we have on display. It starts at 4:30 P.M. at the Hotel Pattee, and goes until 6:30 P.M. The next event we have this month is Creative Mornings, another series of events that will continue throughout the Exhibition. This Creative morning will happen on September 6, from 10:00 to 11:30 A.M. at the Hotel Pattee. This event features both art and coffee, and will be hosted by Betsy Peterson and Carolyn Guay. The next event after this is another Art Tour Odd # Thursday on September 15, from 4:30 to 6:30 P.M. at the Hotel Pattee. This tour will be different from the first, as it will be a tour led by Bill Clark, the Hometown Heritage Board President and local businessman. It will feature looking at the art from a businessman perspective. The fourth event in September is the big event that should get everyone excited. On September 22, Gary Ernest Smith himself will be here! Starting at 7:30 at the Hotel Pattee he will be leading an Art Walk! This is a great time to learn about the art on display directly from the artist himself. Prior to the Art Walk, Pam Jenkins Phd, a Research Professor of Sociology (Emerita), at the University of New Orleans and a Permanent Trustee of Hometown Heritage will be giving a presentation entitled “Growing Up in a Small Town and the Art of Gary Ernest Smith” at 6:30 P.M. at the Hotel Pattee. We encourage you to come to both and experience a great night of Art and learning! The next day, September 23, Gary Ernest Smith will be in Ames at the Brunnier Art Museum for a reception there. For anyone who wants to go that night, we will have a bus available to take people there and back at 5:30 P.M. from the Hotel Pattee. The cost is $20 per person and seats are first come first serve. Finally, we will hold another Art Tour Odd # Thursday on September 29, from 4:30 to 6:30 P.M. at the Hotel Pattee. This tour will be led by host Rachel Schwaller, Associate Professor of Art & Design at Grandview University in Des Moines, Iowa. We encourage you all to come to as many of these events as you can, as each tour will be different. Do not forget either that the more events you come to (and get the back page of our printed schedule signed) the greater your chance of winning the Perry Area Gift Basket at the end of the Exhibition! I hope to see you all at these events in the future!
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Hello and welcome back to the Hometown Heritage Blog readers! As many of you know, Perry used to be a big place for trains. We used to have the Interurban Railroad, a roundhouse, and more. The trains would transport people and goods back and forth along the tracks; but what would happen when a train came off the tracks? Would it still be useful? Many of you may be surprised to know that the answer is yes! Recently I found a very peculiar picture that was taken around 1945 on the farm of Carl Hansen. As you can see, there is a steam engine that looks very strange. Apparently, what has happened is that Carl has converted the engine into a hay thrasher. He did this by changing the wheels of the train so that it no longer needed tracks and could drive freely. He also most likely attached something to the back of the engine that would do the thrashing. What really gets me thinking, however, is how Carl got the engine to his farm in the first place! Did he modify it at the train station, or did he find a way to drag it all the way to his farm? Perhaps the answer lies in the strange belt that is attached to the engine that goes out of frame? We may never know. Before I go, I want to mention that last night we had a great Opening Reception for the Gary Ernest Smith Exhibition! Do not fret if you missed your chance to come and get a tour, as we will have more introductory tours on September 1, from 4:30 to 6:30 P.M. at the Hotel Pattee. Also in September there is a big event happening on the 22nd here in Perry. That night starting at 6:30 P.M., Dr. Pam Jenkins will be in town giving a lecture related to the art, and Gary Ernest Smith himself will be here to give an art walk! Mark it on your calendars now! Hello and welcome back to the blog readers!
Today I want to let you all know that the Gary Ernest Smith Exhibition opens next week! Here at Hometown Heritage we have been hard at work setting up all the paintings and planning the events that we will hold during the exhibition. In fact, our first event is coming up next week, coinciding with the official opening! Next week, on August 23, we will be holding an Opening Reception for the Exhibit. The event will take place at the Hotel Pattee, starting at 4:30 P.M. It lasts until 6:30. Some of you may be worried that you will miss the event, since it starts at 4:30, but do not worry! You can come at any time and will not miss anything. The night will be an introduction to the Exhibit, with introductory tours of the art throughout the night. There will also be a second round of introductory tours on Thursday, September 1st at the same time and place. We will also be selling books about Gary Ernest Smith at this and future events for $15. These books are centered on the Gary Ernest Smith’s life and art. Limited amounts of copies are available, so get one while you can! I encourage you all to come and take in the works of Gary Ernest Smith! For more information about other events during the Exhibit, follow us on Facebook and check back, as updates will be posted regularly. For a complete schedule of events and downloadable .jpg, click here. I hope to see you all at the event on August 23! Hello readers and welcome back to the Hometown Heritage Blog! I have a question for you to ponder, readers. Do you think that you could uproot yourself and your family, move to a new town, and open a new business to try to stay alive? Would you be able to leave your old life behind? I ask because this is exactly what Jacob Heater Jr. did in the year 1887. The year was 1887, and the country was in a serious depression after the high of the Civil War. Dubbed the “Gilded Age”, the time was characterized by a materialistic excess and extreme poverty. The term "gilded" referred to the idea that although on the surface everything seemed fine, like it was made of gold, this gold was just a thin coating that covered a life that was hard and unforgiving. Jacob and his wife Martha were trying to make a living on his farm, but were not succeeding. In an attempt to try to make enough money to survive, Jacob Heater Jr. uprooted his whole family and moved to Jamaica, Iowa. Many of you may be asking why, and the answer is that he attempted to start a Hotel. Named the Heater House Hotel, it was a building directly across from the Railroad Depot on the Southwest corner of Main Street in Jamaica. As you can see in the picture, it was a two-story building with a very big porch and balcony. The reason for this is that the Hotel shared its balcony with a saloon next door. In theory, this is a very promising partnership. The two buildings, located directly across from the Depot, would be able to draw in travelers for drinks at the saloon, then send them to the hotel when they needed a place to stay. Unfortunately, since times were so bad, the Heater House Hotel went broke after a few years. Jacob’s fate after his hotel is unknown, but hopefully he found another way to live! Readers, do you think you could do what Jacob did during a depression? Tell us in the comments! As a final note, we are drawing closer to the opening of the Gary Ernest Smith Exhibition! Remember to save August 23rd to your calendar as the opening reception here in Perry at the Hotel Pattee from 4:30 to 6:30 P.M. I hope to see you there! Hello Readers and welcome back to the Hometown Heritage blog!
Today I would like to tell you about some updates to the Gary Ernest Smith Exhibition that is coming in August. We have lined up a few guest speakers for the Art Tour Odd Thursdays. For those who do not know, the Art Tour Odd Thursdays are odd Thursdays during the Exhibition and are tours of the Exhibit lead by various hosts, aside from the one. The first odd Thursday is a general tour day, with tours happening every half hour. Bill Clark, Hometown Heritage Board President and Perry businessman, however, leads the next odd Thursday. Betsy Peterson, local Perry artist, leads the third tour, and Adrienne Gennett, ISU Curator of Collections and Education, leads the fourth tour. We have many other exciting events planned during the exhibit. For instance, there will be classes for home schooled and elementary students that will allow them to discover the stories and techniques of Gary Ernest Smith’s Artwork. If you want to know more about the exhibit, as well as get updates about events and other programing during the event, you can find more here. Also, stay tuned to the blog for updates as they happen! You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter, as well as sign up for our newsletter to get information sent directly to your email. See you next week readers! Hello again Readers! Yesterday I had the chance to attend a lecture at the Hotel Pattee given by Lynette Pohlman. It was a great lecture, and I learned a lot about Visual Learning in relation to paintings. Today, I thought I would share some of that knowledge with you, so that when the Gary Ernest Smith Exhibition comes in August, you too can use Visual Learning to interpret his paintings! Last night I learned that there are three steps when it comes to Visual Learning: Describe, Interpret, and Evaluate. The first step, describe, is actually a little harder than it may appear at first glance. In this step, you have to describe what you see in the painting. However, you can only describe things that you can say for certain are fact. For instance, in “Red Barn With Workman” next to this post, you can say that there is a red barn, as that is a fact. However, ignoring the title of the work, you cannot say that the man must be a farmer, because from the painting there is nothing that indicates as a fact that the man is a farmer. That would be an interpretation, which we will get to next. So, for the first stop you must look at the work of art and describe it using only things that are facts that you can see. The next step in Visual Learning is interpretation. As you can see above, interpretation takes into consideration what you think the painting is about. Using the “Red Barn With Workman”, we can interpret that the man in front of the barn is probably the farmer. Maybe he is taking a break from his duties? Asking questions is another big part of interpretation. As we learned, being in a group helps a lot with interpretation, because you can ask each other questions. Each person will have their own ideas, and everyone can bounce ideas of each other to develop their knowledge of the work of art. The final step in Visual Learning is evaluation. In this step, you make your final evaluation of the work in front of you, and decide if you like it or not. Do not worry about liking every painting, as Lynette said last night there will always be things we like and things we don’t like. Also, don’t worry if the work gave you more questions than answers. Lynette said this was a good thing, as it would bring people back to see the painting again and again to try and learn more about it. If you want to learn more and Visual Learning, tell us! We can arrange another lecture or show the footage that Hometown Heritage recorded of the first lecture. Good Afternoon Readers,
Those of us here at Hometown Heritage are happy to inform you about the first event related to our Gary Ernest Smith Exhibition! Speaker Lynette Pohlman, Chief Curator and Director of University Museums at Iowa State University, will hold a learning and discussion session about how to connect with the artwork we see. She will be speaking at the Hotel Pattee on Tuesday, May 31st from 5 - 7 p.m. Gary Ernest Smith, Idaho artist, will have a display of his distinguished art in Perry and in Ames beginning in August and lasting through December. Programs for the Art Show will need volunteer guides here in Perry. We invite you to this May 31st event to introduce you to connecting with the artwork of Gary Ernest Smith. We hope you will be inspired to pass the connection to others in Perry through the planned programming. This will also be a great opportunity to prepare yourself for the upcoming Exhibit, so that you can have a deeper connection with the pieces of art that will be on display both here and in Ames. If you plan to attend, please let us know by sending an RSVP to info@fcctrust.org. We encourage all of you to attend! Happy Wednesday Readers,
Since Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, I thought I would share some short stories with you from our collection! The first story comes from Bill Graney. Bill is recounting stories about Mike’s Pub, back before it became Mike’s Pub, when Stub Smithson owned it. He describes the day, saying that there was not much business, and as he was looking at the ceiling he say a big water bug, three to four inches he claims. When he told Stub, Stub removed the bib overalls he was wearing and threw them up at the bug. Now, you may be thinking that this does not sound much like a Valentine’s Day story. However, what you do not know is what Stub was wearing under his overalls. According to Bill, since it was right at Valentine’s time when this happened, Mrs. Smithson had bought Stub some boxer shorts with hearts on them. Stub was wearing these boxers when he took off his overalls. Imagine, seeing the bartender standing there in heart boxers. It seems like something out of a cartoon! However, Stub was unfazed, according to Bill, and Valentine’s Day went on. The other story comes to us from tales of George Soumas. Apparently, around Valentine’s Day, George had a tradition. He, along with a few other Perry residents, would go to Suzette’s candy store in Des Moines. They would pick up at least two or three pounds of candy. George literally brought boxes with him, and the owners of the store would fall over him since he was buying so much candy. Then, he would take the candy down to the Dallas County Courthouse, and together they would hand out candy to everyone there. Even some of the people from Perry were allowed to keep some of the candy: Barry Bengtson apparently used the candy he got from George to give to his wife every year. She did not find out about this until much later, however. One wonders if she got mad at him or not for taking the candy from someone else. I hope that these stories got you thinking about Valentine’s Day, and what you could do to surprise someone. In addition, do not forget to come down to the Hotel Pattee tomorrow for Art and Seek! There will be wine, cheese, and other refreshments. The purpose of the event is to highlight the new QR Codes that have been installed, and show everyone how to use them to learn more about their favorite art pieces. I hope to see you all there! Good afternoon readers! I’m excited to inform you all of an upcoming event that Hometown Heritage and the Hotel Pattee are presenting! To celebrate the opening of the Hometown Heritage QR Code Tour at the Hotel Pattee, we are presenting Art and Seek: a Digital Art Treasure Hunt. This event will take place in the Hotel Pattee on February 11th, starting at 5 p.m. and ending at 6:30 p.m. Everyone is welcome to attend! QR Codes are small, square barcodes that when scanned, bring up a related website or article. In the Hotel, these codes are installed next to pieces of art. Scanning one of the codes will bring up the Hometown Heritage website, and give the scanner information about the art. Some of the art also has a narrated audio clip talking about the art, the artist, or both. We see it as a chance for everyone to learn about the art at the Hotel Pattee, or at least about some of your favorite pieces. Art and Seek will be a night of fun, starting with instructions of how to download and use a QR Code scanning application to your smartphone. There are many applications available, and many of them are free to use. If possible, downloading an application before coming to the event would save some time. We suggest the “i-nigma” app, as it is free and works on both Apple and Android smart phones. There will also be a question sheet to fill out, based on the information that can be obtained by scanning the QR codes. The first few people back from the hunt, with the correct answers, will win some prizes! There will also be wine, cheeses, and other refreshments available, provided by the Hotel Pattee. Again, the event is free and open to the public, so we encourage everyone to attend. I hope to see you all there! Merry Christmas readers!
This blog post is more of a heads up about things that have happened recently and an update about our hours over the holiday season. First, I would like to thank everyone that came to the Dedication for the Wall of Witnesses relief of Mike Kanealy. Although the relief was not quite finished yet, it was still a wonderful event. Plenty of people came and shared their stories of Mike, as well as ate a cake with his picture likeness in the icing. If you want to read more about it, you can read the article on theperrynews.com here: http://theperrynews.com/family-and-friends-draw-perfect-likeness-of-mike-kanealy/ Secondly, I want to remind you all about the QR Code Tour in the Hotel! There are about 25 QR codes in the Hotel Pattee, and each one will lead you to more information and fun facts about the art that you are seeing in the Hotel. If you have some time this holiday season, why not swing by with your family and learn something new? Finally, I wanted to let you all know that the Hometown Heritage office will be closed until the New Year. We will be open January 4th though, so feel free to stop by! So I hope you all have a Merry Christmas, and a happy New Year! |
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