Searching for ways to celebrate Grant Wood’s impact on world

Maybe you've seen a painting or two by Thomas Hart Benton. If you have, it's plain to see understatement wasn't his thing.

Same with his reaction to fellow regionalist artist Grant Wood's death in 1942. Bold brush strokes.

'When this new America looks back for landmarks to help gauge its forward footsteps, it will find a monument standing up in the midst of the wreckage ... This monument will be made out of Grant Wood's works,” he said, according to Jeff Wolff's biography of Benton.

Quite a shout out.

But to me, personally, as an Iowan who is an admirer but certainly no expert on Wood, his 'monument” speaks more softly.

It's in the reproductions of his work that hang on the walls of my home. It's in the fall drive through the countryside that conjures 'Fall Plowing” and the spring garden tiling that makes me think of 'Spring in Town.” It whispers from all sorts of corners of Cedar Rapids connected intimately to Wood where I drive or stroll daily. It's in museums, of course. It's standing at attention in the Veterans Memorial Building window. It's in Stone City and Anamosa and Ames and countless other Iowa places.

His studio at 5 Turner Alley in Cedar Rapids has to be one of the most humble, unassuming places that ever yielded world-famous art. And yet, his creativity is all over the little apartment, some of it so subtle you might miss it. So Wood is hanging out with us. He's present, but he's not demanding our attention like some modern day, Kardashian celebrity. Still, as we approach the 125th anniversary of his birth in 2016, maybe it's high time for his close up. It could be time to crank up the volume, and go looking again for that big, bold monument Benton was talking about.

Smart folks are thinking about it. I sat with some of them this past week in a circle of chairs in the former carriage house that sits a floor below Wood's apartment studio.

Francie Williamson, The Gazette's regional news editor, came up with the idea to start talking about how we should mark Wood's anniversary. She and Quinn Pettifer, our company's manager of community connections and engagement, are leading discussions among groups of people who have studied Wood's life, have written his story, or who have ties to the numerous local and statewide sites and institutions he touched and continues to influence.

The goal is not just to grab our pitchforks and overalls and celebrate a famous Iowan, but to figure out ways to make Wood, his career and his remarkable talents relevant now, and as compelling to new generations of Iowans as they were to past ones. They've called the talks 'Beyond the Gothic,” with hopes of looking beyond his most famous painting.

They've got a lot of material to work with.

Wood was an educator who influenced and inspired artists, locally and beyond. Andrew Wallace, of Davenport's Figge Art Museum, pointed out that Elizabeth Catlett, among the 20th century's most important and groundbreaking sculptors, studied under Wood at the University of Iowa. Wood taught his students to create art from what they knew, so Catlett confronted racial injustice. Locally, theatrical productions Wood hosted in his tiny studio eventually led to Theatre Cedar Rapids.

Wood's hustle to make a living from his multiple creative talents makes him more like a 2014 start up entrepreneur than some painter from the long dusty past. In so many ways he was ahead of his time, even as some of his most famous work reflected images of heartland that was slipping away. His life was lived against the backdrop of that rapidly changing America, a big, important story itself.

A couple of threads emerged from the discussion. Wood's fascinating, complicated and multilayered life remains compelling and relevant. And we're not doing enough to tell it and make it more broadly accessible.

I basically sat back and listened, learning stuff I didn't know. For instance, I didn't know Wood spent his final summer living on North Shore drive in Clear Lake, not far from my own old stomping grounds. Paul Juhl, who was in the discussion group, wrote a book about it.

But I did mention how remarkable it is that Wood's numerous hangouts and haunts in Cedar Rapids aren't more clearly marked or designated. I'd like to see a smartphone app or some other kind of self-guided tour that would allow you to walk in Wood's world, or at least what remains of it 75 years later. 'App Wood” maybe. Or maybe not.

But the main reason I bring all this up is I'm hoping some of you have ideas or thoughts about Wood and his 125th. What would you like to see emphasized or highlighted? What is his legacy? What landmarks should we look back on? What monuments remain?

Please, join the conversation by sending me an email at the address below, finding me on Twitter at @tdorman and at 24-hour Dorman on Facebook. Letters and phone calls are swell as well.

l Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@thegazette.com