Mary Kline-Misol's oil-painted triptych "The Ghost of John Muir" anchors an exhibition that opens Monday at Grand View University's Rasmussen Center. (Image courtesy of the artist) |
At Grand View, art and science meet on planet Earth |
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By Michael Morain
Editor NASA launched the space probe Voyager 1 almost 50 years ago and it’s still going. It passed Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1980, left the solar system and is now more than 15 billion miles from Earth — going, going, almost gone. It sends occasional postcards, including photos of the “pale blue dot” we call home.
Now that planet, which the ancient Greeks called “Gaia,” is the subject of an exhibition that opens Monday and runs through Nov. 21 at Grand View University’s Rasmussen Center. “Gaia II: The Pale Blue Dot” draws connections between art, science and spirituality, with oil paintings by local artist Mary Kline-Misol and a multimedia display by conservationist Christine Curry. They’ll discuss their work at 7 p.m. next Friday, Oct. 24, during a gallery reception from 5 to 8 p.m.
Kline-Misol calls the show “a gentle plea for a kinder attitude toward our planet.” “This is a time when artists can make an impact,” she said. “I really do think we have a responsibility to do that.”
She started the “Gaia” project three years ago at a gallery in Valley Junction, where she displayed a portrait of Chief Seattle flanked by a pair of owls. This time around, she’s turned her attention to three environmentalists from three very different walks of life: Hildegard of Bingen, the 12th century German nun, writer and herbalist; John Muir, the naturalist and so-called Father of the National Parks; and Aldo Leopold, the ecologist from Burlington who wrote “A Sand County Almanac.”
For each portrait, “I do a lot of research,” Kline-Misol said. “I really try to channel these individuals.” The rest of her paintings in the show are her “woodsy pieces,” inspired by plants and animals she’s spotted in her backyard in Clive and along the greenbelt trail. |
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Curry’s part of the exhibition touts a fictitious sparkling-water company called “Pure Iowa.” She designed a sculpture to look like a giant aluminum can, plus a series of posters that feature six different Iowa streams and “farmer champions” who are working to clean them up.
She’d been promoting water quality for years and had tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade craft breweries to help spread the word. Inspiration struck when she saw a “CBS News Sunday Morning” segment about Andy Warhol and his soup cans. |
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“It’s sort of a tongue-in-cheek joke about ‘pure’ Iowa,” she said. “So many people drive around and see the rolling green hills and white puffy clouds, and they think, ‘How could there be anything wrong with it?’ But it’s deceiving.” So what would Warhol think? It’s hard to say, but he could probably get behind it. He once noted, after all, that “having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want.” |
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WEEKEND SECTION PRESENTED BY CATCH DES MOINES |
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The Jordan House in West Des Moines was one of dozens of Iowa stops on the Underground Railroad (Photo: West Des Moines Historical Society) |
Follow the Underground Railroad in West Des Moines |
The West Des Moines Historical Society and Better Way Forward invite you to follow the footsteps of history.
On Saturday morning, guests are invited to follow the Footsteps to Freedom, a 4.5-mile walk that traces the historical paths of freedom seekers who escaped enslavement in the mid-1800s and the courageous allies who helped them.
The route starts and finishes at the historic Jordan House, a stop on the Underground Railroad and a key site along John Brown’s Freedom Trail. During the loop around Blue Heron Lake at Raccoon River Park, guides will share true stories about the dangers that freedom seekers faced, and a local foraging expert will point out edible plants and medicinal herbs that helped them along the way. Participants will have a chance to consider the practical realities of escape and what choices they might have made had they lived during that era.
Register online, or on site starting at 8:30 a.m. The program starts at 9 a.m. and is expected to finish with a tour of the Jordan House around noon. |
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Artist Lecture: Ben Millett, 6 p.m. Thursday, Des Moines Art Center. Get to know Ben Millett as he discusses how and why he made the quilts in the current Iowa Artists 2025 exhibition that remains through Nov. 2. Night Eyes, 5:30-9 p.m. Thursday through Sunday, Blank Park Zoo. Take the family to explore a prehistoric world filled with more than a dozen life-sized animatronic dinosaurs and other fun surprises.
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” 10 p.m. Friday, Varsity Cinema. The 50-year-old cult classic musical is back with a live shadow cast to perform alongside the film for a campy, horror-filled experience.
Turn It On! Mural Festival, 1-3 p.m. Saturday, 901 Grand Ave. The Dutch artist Leon Keer plans to unveil downtown's latest big mural at a public event led by the Greater Des Moines Public Art Foundation, which commissioned the project in collaboration with Principal Financial Group. Viewers can watch the mural "come to life" with an augmented-reality app the foundation developed.
Des Moines Symphony, 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Des Moines Civic Center. The orchestra plays Dvorak’s Sixth Symphony, Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto with guest soloist Lukas Vondracek and a short rhythmic piece called “Chokfi.”
IMT Des Moines Marathon, 8 a.m. Sunday, downtown. Runners take to the streets bright and early for the annual race that starts on Court Avenue and ends with a street party at Cowles Commons. |
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Dee-scount: The New Orleans jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater and pianist Bill Charlap plan to perform next Thursday, Oct. 23, at Hoyt Sherman Place in a concert that was postponed from June. And you, loyal reader, can get a discount: Just use the code BPCDSM when you buy your tickets. Read more about Bridgewater in our interview from June.
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Hope and renewal: Change Course invites the community to its annual Night of Hope, an evening celebrating stories of redemption and transformation from participants going through Change Course programming. The free event on Nov. 4 is designed to promote the organization’s mission to break the cycle of poverty. |
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Art in motion: Ballet Des Moines and the Greater Des Moines Public Art Foundation has named Olivia Valentine as an artist-in-residence for the ballet’s 2025-2026 season. The artist, who teaches at Iowa State University, will work alongside dancers in the company's downtown studios and next spring at Findley Elementary School to engage students in visual arts programming.
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Planning success: Bondurant is gaining statewide recognition for its city planning efforts. The Iowa Chapter of the American Planning Association honored the city with four awards this year, including the prestigious Daniel Burnham Award for its Building Bondurant Comprehensive Plan. Other wins included the Implementation Award for the City Park Master Plan; Best Practice for the Bondurant Art, Culture and Wayfinding Plan; and the Urban Design Award for the Silo Commons Concept Plan.
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Play therapy: ChildServe has unveiled a new adaptive therapy playground at its Johnston campus, designed to make therapy more fun and engaging for children with special health care needs. The vibrant space will be used during treatment sessions for more than 1,900 weekly outpatient therapy appointments, as well as by children in daily and residential programs. “Play is an essential part of building a child’s physical, cognitive and social skills. Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning,” ChildServe President and CEO Teri Wahlig said in a press release.
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Before the World Food Prize Foundation moved into the former public library (left), plans were proposed for a 30-story tower (center) and even an 85-story skyscraper (right). (Photos: RDG Planning & Design, left; Dave Elbert, center and right) |
Two storylines, one World Food Prize |
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By Dave Elbert
Next week the World Food Prize will honor its 2025 laureate, Mariangela Hungria of Brazil, for her work in soil sustainability. The ceremony is set for Oct. 23 at the State Capitol during a full week of related events.
Four decades after the prize was created, it’s worth recalling the two storylines that intersected in Iowa to create the World Food Prize and its Des Moines headquarters in the former public library, now spectacularly recast as the Norman E. Borlaug World Food Prize Hall of Laureates. |
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Over the years, World Food Prize winners have worked in a broad range of fields, including agriculture, food distribution, biodiversity, climate issues and soil health. Winners include women and men from several branches of science, as well as politicians such as Bob Dole and George McGovern who have supported school nutrition programs and other government efforts to alleviate hunger and poverty. The history of the prize is uniquely Iowan. |
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One storyline began in 1970, when Iowa-born Norman Borlaug (top) won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the development of high-yield, disease-resistant wheat that dramatically improved the food security of people in developing countries. A second storyline originated more than a decade later in 1983, when Des Moines businessman and philanthropist John Ruan (bottom) launched an effort to have Des Moines recognized as the Food Capital of the World.
At the center of Ruan’s plan was a $75 million, 30-story world trade center that would focus on agriculture (rendered in black and white, below). As part of the effort, he proposed creating a “Nobel-like World Food Prize.”
The overall plan required a $30 million commitment from the state government. Ruan had the backing of Iowa’s then-new Gov. Terry Branstad. But Iowa was in the middle of a full-blown farm crisis, and lawmakers voted it down two years in a row. After the second vote in 1985, Ruan pulled back.
However, his efforts had caught the eye of Borlaug, who separately had been lobbying the Nobel Foundation to create a Nobel Prize for Food. In 1986, Borlaug gave up on the foundation and found a private backer, the breakfast cereal maker General Foods. |
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Unfortunately, the sponsorship was short-lived, ending after General Foods was acquired by Kraft Foods in 1989.
By then, Ruan had a new vision for a much larger World Trade Center. His new building would be 85 stories tall, capped by a rotating globe (rendered in color). There was never a public estimate on what it would cost, but Ruan wanted serious federal funding in addition to state support. He wanted the U.S. Department of Agriculture to move from Washington, D.C., to Des Moines.
And it wasn’t a pipe dream. Ruan was the single largest donor to Iowa Republicans, and he pitched the idea to President George H.W. Bush during a 1989 fundraising event in Des Moines. Ruan believed Bush was on board before the president lost his bid for re-election in 1992.
Even after the Bush defeat, Ruan believed he could bring the USDA to Des Moines with support from U.S. Rep. Neal Smith, a Democrat from Altoona, who was the No. 2 member on the U.S. House Appropriations Committee. But when Smith lost his seat in Congress in 1994’s nationwide Republican landslide, Ruan shelved his plans for the trade center. By then, Ruan had replaced General Foods as sponsor of the World Food Prize. In 2002, at the urging of his son, John Ruan III, the Ruan family pledged $5 million to a $30 million effort to convert Des Moines’ original downtown library into the World Food Prize Hall of Laureates.
A stunning makeover of that iconic building on the downtown riverfront was spearheaded by World Food Prize President Kenneth Quinn in 2011. By then both Borlaug and the elder Ruan were gone; Borlaug died in 2009 and Ruan in 2010.
Dave Elbert has covered local history and business news for more than 40 years, first for the Des Moines Register and then the Business Record. Find more of Elbert's Backstories at dsmmagazine.com.
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| Mark your calendar for dsm events in the weeks ahead
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- Nov. 5: dsm unveiling. Celebrate our final print issue of the year with snacks, drinks and live entertainment at Wesley on Grand.
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Nov. 11: Sages Over 70. We’ll honor Greg Edwards, Christine Hensley, Terry Rich, Bob Stewart, Rick Tollakson, and Marcia Wanamaker at the FFA Enrichment Center in Ankeny.
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Nov. 18: Lifting the Veil virtual panel. The next installment of our ongoing series about mental health explores challenges at every stage of life, with special guests to discuss new motherhood, sensory spaces, coping with anxiety and more.
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