“Child in Alien Mask,” by the Irish-born, London-based artist Sarah Lee. Photo: Courtesy FolkArtwork Collective
Outside In
So what is art? And who gets to decide? A group called the FolkArtwork Collective raises those questions with a quirky new show called “Faces in the Crowd,” which opens Nov. 9 with a reception and runs through Nov. 30 at the Fitch Building on the west edge of downtown. The collective started six years ago when Des Moines native Adam Oestreich started posting “outsider” art on Instagram (@folkartwork) and quickly attracted a following. One thing led to the next until he amassed enough work by more than a dozen self-taught artists — from Iowa, Los Angeles, New York, London — to assemble the collective’s first show in his hometown. folkartwork.art
Street Style
Spandex: out. Tweed: in! Bundle up in your warmest woolen finery and riding goggles for the annual Tweed Ride on Nov. 10. This year’s vintage bicycle ride starts, as always, at the Royal Mile and rolls a leisurely round-trip route to the state Capitol for a group portrait. So call it a sporting event if you want to, but it’s really an excuse to wear your Sunday best and enjoy a bite to eat, before and after, with your fanciest old-fashioned friends, like Jeff Bruning, pictured here. On Facebook: Des Moines Tweed Ride
Photo: Christopher Maharry
Tunes and ’Toons
When Elmer Fudd tries to “kill the wabbit” in the 1957 cartoon “What’s Opera, Doc?” it doesn’t matter if you recognize the tune from Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelung.” It’s still funny, a fresh riff on an old classic. You can see another bunch of artists re-gild the golden oldies when The Queen’s Cartoonists perform on Nov. 15 at the Temple Theater. The six top-notch musicians from Queens, New York, mix jazz and classical into a show that celebrates a century of animated cartoons and claymation, faithfully re-creating or creatively reimagining the soundtracks while the stories light up a screen. As the Wall Street Journal put it, “Who needs another string quartet, dance troupe or touring Broadway show when you can hire a jazz combo playing music from Bugs Bunny cartoons?” dmpa.org
Photo: Mark Sheldon
Real Housewife
Erma Bombeck waited until her three kids were in school to start writing a housekeeping column for a newspaper in the suburbs of Dayton, Ohio. She was 37 — in her words, “too old for a paper route, too young for Social Security and too tired for an affair.” As her columns caught on, spreading to some 600 papers over the next 30 years, she became a household name, with TV appearances, book deals and annual earnings from $500,000 to $1 million. But she always did her own cooking and cleaning. As she put it, “If I didn’t do my own housework, then I have no business writing about it. I spend 90 percent of my time living scripts and 10 percent writing them.” She died in 1996, but her quippy wisdom lives on in a new script by the sisters and former Des Moines Register reporters Allison and Margaret Engel. Their play “Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End” runs Dec. 3-21 at the Temple Theater. dmpa.org
Photo: Jesse Ewing
British Invasion
For more than 50 years, some of Britain’s best and brightest voices have sung under the banner of The King’s Singers. The original six members got together in 1968 at King’s College in Cambridge, England, and established the group’s distinctive a cappella style, which balances tonal precision with creative expression. The current sextet performs a holiday concert on Dec. 18 at Drake University’s Sheslow Auditorium as part of the Civic Music Association’s 99th season. civicmusic.org
Photo: Courtesy Civic Music Association
