Jo Myers-Walker's Blog

Booth in the Cultural Center at the 2012 Iowa State Fair

We had a wonderful booth at the Iowa State Fair this year—we had an area about 35′ long and 6′ deep. You can get an idea of the space from the photo at right.

The Fair is totally different than a gallery show. You get to talk to everyone from all over the world, many of them attending because of the agricultural theme, which we incorporated into some of our artwork. I kept hearing that people hadn’t seen anything like this much cultural content in other state fairs they’d attended. (Of course, we were located in the Cultural Center!)

Karen Young, Pam McKenna, and Jo Myers-Walker demonstrate painting at the 2012 Iowa State Fair

We did demonstrations at regular times throughout the day. This encourages people to come into the booth, and we give them a little instruction. This photo shows the “day shift” doing a painting demonstration—Karen is painting sunflowers, Pam is painting a pig, and I’m painting a cow. Part of the time I demo’d slumping acrylic—I put mittens on audience members and let them try it.

A couple of young boys stopped by who had just won first place with their pigs, so I helped them “slump” an acrylic pig! They were excited from the win and I interviewed them for KHOI’s youth radio show, and learned about what it’s like to grow up on a farm. Their big brothers and sisters taught them how to clean and guide the animals to show them in a professional manner.

Greetings from Radijojo

The KHOI Youth Radio Project has established partnerships with Ames Public Library, and with Radijojo World Children’s Radio Network based in Berlin (link is to Google-translated page). The picture at right includes some drawings the children in Berlin sent to welcome the Iowa children (U.S. fans of Shaun the Sheep will note that he is a truly international star!).

On July 14 KHOI and Ames Public Library teamed up to offer a workshop for kids to “Tell Your Story on the Radio.” Some participants drew pictures sequencing the events in a story (storyboarding, pictured below), and some did the writing. For those interested in working with the computer or microphone, we showed them how to record and edit the stories.

Storyboarding is used to outline stories not only for talking on the radio, but also for book writing, movies, and video. We’re using the same technique with KHOI’s Porch Stories – it helps people organize their thoughts.

Since we don’t speak German, we’re returning the favor to the children in Germany by sending them our storyboard drawings.

Drawing storyboards

Completed storyboards