Coming up on this episode of Iowa Life, explore a public art display in Mason City.

Oh, gee.

Oh, cool.

How cool is that?

Meet a world renowned woodcarver from Storm Lake.

All I'm thinking about is one feather at a time.

Then join some young kids as they participate in a summer camp based around rock and roll.

It's all coming up next on Iowa Life.

Funding for Iowa Life is provided by the Gilchrist Foundation, founded by Jocelyn Gilchrist, furthering the philanthropic interests of the Gilchrist Family in Wildlife and Conservation, the Arts and Public Broadcasting and Disaster Relief.

Mark and Kay De Cook Charitable Foundation.

Proud to support programs that highlight the stories about the people and places of Iowa.

The Strickler family in loving memory of Lois Strickler to support programs that highlight the importance of Iowa's natural resources on Iowa PBS and by the Lainie Grimm Fund for Inclusive Programing at the Iowa PBS Foundation.

On an early weekday morning in downtown Mason City, the community is buzzing with activity.

It's installation day for River City sculptures on Parade, a 1.7 mile loop that encourages visitors and residents to take a self-guided tour to appreciate public art.

Oh, gee.

Oh, cool.

How cool.

Is that?

It's cool.

The benefit of public art is not a new concept.

Multiple studies have shown that it drives economic development, strengthens engagement and can bring a sense of pride to residents.

Public art displays have exploded in popularity in a number of Iowa communities, including Mason City.

I think the fact that Condé Nast Traveler has twice named Mason City, one of the world's best cities for architecture, that put Mason City alongside Dubai and Miami and Paris and Istanbul.

And, you know, really the big boys.

And I think it started a sense of pride in our community that, hey, we've got something here.

River City Sculptures on Parade was founded in 2012.

They're a member of a program called Sculpture One Partner Network, a group of communities that include Mankato, Minnesota, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

We really wanted more public art in our downtown.

We have a growing reputation as an arts and culture community, so it seemed to make sense.

70 sculptures are installed along the route ranging in materials.

These were old pipe caps on.

A stainless steel handrail.

Sizes.

So what that does is it intensifies the reflective quality to it.

That's why it's so brilliant.

And subject matter.

It's a dancer, dancer pointing and inviting people to come and be part of whatever she's pointing at in this case, it's Mason City.

Artists from all over the country submit their work to be a part of the tour.

Once the artwork is selected, it will go on display for up to four years, rotating annually among the partner communities.

So for the artists, they don't have those shipping costs.

They don't have transportation costs.

Hopefully in that span of time, their piece will sell.

Be nice to have it here for a year.

Once we select the sculptures, then we have to decide where they're going to go and if they will fit.

Can we move it to here?

You want it back that way?

But it's really like a huge puzzle.

You know, it requires heavy equipment.

I mean, we've had to use cranes, we've had to use forklifts, especially the bronze pieces are really, really heavy.

And without the cooperation of the city of Mason City, we simply couldn't do it.

Now they take so much pride of ownership.

And we love that, you know, because this is really everybody's program.

The majority of residents in Mason City appreciate what the Artwalk brings to the community.

It encourages people to be more physically active.

It financially supports artists and it strengthens the town's artistic identity.

I think it's contributed to the cultural fabric of our community.

It's also helped artists to sell their work and become more well known.

So it's really nice to have my artwork showing in the cities.

It's fantastic.

It's a nice consistency and it's a lot of sculpture for us.

No, not a big city.

I mean, this it's hard work to get sculpture in.

Mason City is such a fantastic art town that it's really a thrill, really a compliment to me to be in the art walk here.

There's such a wonderful future here in Mason City, and I'm tickled to be part of it.

There's a huge disparity between what cis men and cis women and nonbinary folks and trans folks are getting paid in the music industry.

CIS men are making 88% more than cis women in Des Moines.

Less than 5% of the people and the folks that produce the media that we engage with.

5% representation of cis women, nonbinary and trans folks.

That's a pretty astounding lack of voices.

You ready to rock out this summer?

Awesome.

We serve cis girls nonbinary and trans youth ages 8 to 18, and we're cusping on seven year olds too.

We are a year round program.

We have a flagship program that occurs during the summer and that's Rock camp.

It's a two week immersive experience where young people learn how to play an instrument.

They form bands, write original songs, record those original songs.

We're going to take a moment to find our voice.

And this is an opportunity for you to just say your name as loud as humanly possible and then say, I rock!

Come on, DJ, I know you've got this.

What is your name?

Oh, yeah.

We're going back inside.

They'll come in on day one.

We assign them an instrument.

We're going.

To play a little clip from your your song that you're going to be performing at the Showcase on Sunday in two weeks at.

Woolys.

We've got Levi on bass for the second year in a row on keys and voice.

We've got Megan.

Yeah, we're stretching, We're trying new things.

We're getting courageous.

This is the one.

Time you get to make all the noise you.

Want.

We have campers that have never played an instrument ever.

Your drummer.

You've won.

Thank you.

Every single day they get a 20 minute instrument lesson with our band coaches.

If you're brand new to guitar, maybe that is going to be hard to play.

So maybe you might start by just doing something like this.

They have two band rehearsals a day.

And then there's a variety of workshops and classes that we offer.

We're very chaotic at moments.

We can be very we can get off topic.

I really like it.

It's really different from school because everyone's so like accepting of everything Oh, you give me goose bumps, I'm gonna.

Be in a band.

Coach.

You get to help pull the things out of them and it really is a pulling.

There's no talking to you.

There's no talk.

Do you believe in life after love?

That's awesome.

I love that.

We'll see kids not really feeling confident.

You can see it.

Others are just like, I have all of this energy and all these ideas.

I just got to get it out there because it's the first time I feel as though someone is listening to me.

People talk about empowerment as though it's this arrival point, but it's it's a journey.

It's a constant journey.

And so what we're trying to do is maybe point out like, Hey, you just experienced a moment there.

Why don't you, like, I want to encourage you to take just a pause to recognize I did the thing.

I fully understand why, Ive definitely become more confident.

In just as a musician and as a person, I feel like out of all the days of the year.

I'm definitely more comfortable and confident in who I am.

During Girls Rock.

Tiny tweaks make big change, but there's so much focus on the big change that we forget.

To mark these little moments along the trail.

You've taken the time you're doing the work.

Trust that it's there.

It's like as simple as just being like, okay, grab the stand, grab the mic.

Get your mic out of that stand.

Who takes the time to just break it down in those sort of small ways?

One, two, three, four.

Can you hear the chord changes?

Like, Yeah.

So.

Good morning.

Good morning.

One parent emailed me after day one and was like, My kiddo is totally exhausted.

And the reason they told me they're totally exhausted is because they don't feel as though there's anywhere they don't belong.

And so they just have this.

I want to be everywhere all at once.

In 8 hours, we're able to make that impact.

We talk a.

A lot about more trans youth issues.

And, you know, I'm trans myself, so I feel like it's a really.

Big deal to talk.

About that and people in normalize it.

People are like too scared.

To talk about that kind of stuff.

All the hard work that we have done the past two weeks, three out of the four of you have never played your instruments before, which is really impressive.

You learned a cover songs, which wasn't an easy song, by the way, and you wrote a song in pretty much like 4 to 6 days, which is very impressive.

And so we're at this point where we are nearing our show.

And so whatever we play today is what is perfectly acceptable and awesome at the show.

So yeah.

I think for Girls Rock, it not only changes the lives of the campers, but it changes the lives of everyone involved.

And what I think that does is it takes that change back out into our greater community.

When cis women feel empowered in spaces, when trans people feel seen and safe.

That reverberates across the community.

No pun intended.

I love rock and roll.

I was really, really nervous because usually I get judged a lot.

But nobody did judge me and I made a lot of great friends.

The only thing I know that is real is the sound of a screaming girl.

It's all around.

It's a great experience to increase confidence and also just to learn.

One of like the greatest form of expression, musical expression.

At first I was afraid, I was petrified.

Were asking young people to be seen and heard and that their stories are important and we need to hear them.

We just want to keep pulling that out and keep encouraging them to take those steps, to take that microphone and really make it theirs.

My husband and I had a dream of building a cabin and having some timber, and I knew that I wanted an owl on the newel post going upstairs to the sleeping quarters.

So I borrowed Dad's old foredom and I created a screech owl.

And when I got done with that, I loved it.

And so I thought, Oh, I got to do another one.

And I ridiculously picked a great horned owl because there could not be a more complicated project to pick for your second bird.

And I did that.

And when I finished it, I thought, Well, what does an artist mean?

Like what?

What path am I on here?

What do I need to do with this?

I don't just want to put it on the mantel and forget about it.

So I got online, found the word world carving competition, and Ocean City, Maryland, bought myself a ticket, flew out there myself, entered it, and I won.

And I knew at that moment that I wanted to be a master carver.

And that was what I wanted to spend my time doing.

And it took me 13 years.

But I got there this past spring.

The heart of what I do and the root of what I do is birds of prey.

I guess.

As I grew up and matured, I realized what else was in nature other than me just having fun right out there with all the things that are in that just in a split second you could miss or you could see an eagle might fly over and I might miss it.

But if I'm paying attention and for 3 seconds I might get the most awesome view of the day.

And those things are overlooked by a lot of people.

And for me, they make it all worthwhile.

Welcome to the studio.

Come on in.

This is my wall of inspiration and all my reference photos.

The process of creating a bird really starts with a lot of study, a lot of understanding, the loft of the feathers, the feather groups, knowing the bird, what I would start with.

It would be a profile and an aerial template, the square block of wood.

I would have put one on the top, one on the side, make sure they were lined and cut it out.

And the band saw it.

Depends on how big the bird is, but I might take a four inch grinder out on the patio and rough in the rest of the shape and my goal is to get to something round where I can start to imagine where the feather groups are going to be placed and then start to block those in.

I'm just going to come in underneath each feather and.

I'll just go back and forth until I get that the way that.

I like it.

So it's just a constant refining at that point to get everything the right shape and the right the right dimension.

Then I would take the wood burner and I would go back in and do each quill and then each barb on every single feather.

All I'm.

Thinking about is one feather.

At a time.

Then I would come in and do layers and layers and layers of paint.

It's the ultimate challenge for me.

You're taking something hard that is square and boring and basic and bland and turning it into something beautiful, lofty and completely different from where you started.

And it looks real.

It's it's believable.

It's not just close.

It's there.

One of the greatest compliments someone can give me is I just wanted to blow on it because I thought the feathers would move.

The very first question that people ask me when they see pieces, usually they're silent for a while and I'm explaining the piece and then they say, How long did that take you?

And I think what's important about not only the number of hours when I give them a response, depending on the piece, is that they understand the determination that it takes, because the next thing they ask is how many hours can you sit there at a time to work on the piece?

And I find that in my carving community and I've seen it in other artists as well.

But I think that that's what makes us unique to a degree, is that ability to really sit for hours and do each barb on every feather, knowing that in the end it's going to make it or break it.

I'll frequently come back out after dinner at night and be here till ten.

I just love it so much.

When I got out of college, I decided to come to Dubuque and work for John Deere Construction Equipment Division.

Then it comes that time that it's time to time to leave.

And after 42 years, I retired and worked a couple of years on honey do list and got that done and found I didn't have anything to do and I didn't feel good about myself because I wasn't contributing anymore.

So I thought, Gee, there's this big preserve right across the street from where I live, and maybe there's something over there I could do.

So I, I walked over and went in and Kaytlan the naturalist, it was on in the office that day, and I asked what she could do, and I said, Hey, I'd like to volunteer if you if you take volunteers before you know, at six years is went by.

And it's been a great experience.

In Iowa, there are 99 counties, 99 conservation boards.

While each has its own unique story and landscape.

Most manage thousands of acres of parks and preserves with a staff that would struggle to fill a school bus.

So we're the Dubuque County Conservation Board.

We have over 20 parks preserves, so we have about 50 miles of trails and 2600 acres of opportunities for people to explore the outdoors.

I believe it's 15 permanent staff members that are employed.

And then the other thing is volunteers.

From monitoring butterflies to woodchipping trails to leading nature courses.

More than 150 volunteers have enriched the Conservation Board's offerings for years.

But Herb and his crew take it one step further.

Before Herb, we didn't have volunteers ever assist with construction related tasks.

Now, when we have a project, the first person we think of is Herb.

Since 2017.

Herb and his crew have built or updated countless bridges, signs, shelters, overlooks, interactive displays, cabins, and the project list continues to grow.

Dubuque countys most southern campground and harbor is at Massey Station and just put in a big new concrete patio.

That patio runs right over to the edge of the river.

Beyond donating their labor, the skills and knowledge Herbs crew provide have saved the county immeasurable amounts of money.

A perfect example is the new bridge in Finlay's landing, replacing a bridge destroyed in a flood.

The new bridge was conceived, designed and besides the steel beam entirely built by Herb's crew.

Nine man Days after that steel structure was set in place.

We had that bridge done, and it's a great asset out there now.

We had to have done that at ten or 15% of the cost that it would have been.

So that's just all dollars that the county gets to save.

I think recently Ive seen that the average volunteer hour for in the state of Iowa is $29.95 an hour.

So when you equivocate that to dollars, I mean, Herb alone has saved tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars for the county Conservation Board system.

I mean, it would look drastically different without volunteers here.

We wouldn't have near the level of infrastructure or the amount of restoration and conservation work happening on the ground.

After thousands of hours and building dozens of projects, Kaytlan secretly submitted Herb for possible inclusion in the 2022 Iowa Governor's Volunteer Hall of Fame.

And one morning, Herb received an unexpected call of his selection.

I was so stunned by it, I wasn't talking.

It was such a humbling experience and an honor that it was something very special.

It is not common to have a Herb in an organization.

There is definitely other counties or other organizations in the area that are envious and some nature because of having somebody so dedicated.

Once you start contributing in a way that it really makes a difference, you just can't beat that feeling.

I'm contributing again.

I'm giving back.

I hope I can do this just as long as I can.

Funding for Iowa Life is provided by the Gilchrist Foundation, founded by Jocelyn Gilchrist, furthering the philanthropic interests of the Gilchrist Family in Wildlife and Conservation, the Arts and Public Broadcasting and Disaster Relief.

Mark and Kay De Cook Charitable Foundation.

Proud to support programs that highlight the stories about the people and places of Iowa.

The Strickler family in loving memory of Lois Strickler to support programs that highlight the importance of Iowa's natural resources on Iowa PBS and by the Lainie Grimm Fund for Inclusive Programing at the Iowa PBS Foundation.